Ecclesiasticus is a religious work, written in Hebrew in the second century BCE by the Jewish scribe Jesus ben Sirach. Although it was not accepted into the Hebrew Bible and the original version is lost, its Greek translation is found in the Septuagint. The focus of this study by Cambridge scholar J. H. A. Hart (1876 1952) is on the Greek text of Ecclesiasticus from a fourteenth-century codex, written in a miniscule cursive hand. First published in 1909, the book contains the text in transcription, based on the work of Charles Taylor, who had previously published a study of the text. Hart...

Although much about this apocryphal book of the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) is unknown, it remains an influential and much-studied work. J. A. F. Gregg (1873 1961), who was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and later became Church of Ireland archbishop of Dublin and then of Armagh, gives an extensive introduction to his edition of the English version, published in the 'Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges' series in 1909. He examines the complicated problem of dating the text, as well as the question of its original language and possible author, concluding this was most likely...

Constantin von Tischendorf (1815 74) was a pioneering textual scholar of the New Testament, who discovered and transcribed early manuscripts, notably the Codex Sinaiticus, his acquisition of which provoked long-lasting controversies. The original German edition of this book appeared in 1865, and sold 2,000 copies in three weeks; this English translation (1868) was based on the improved and expanded fourth German edition (1866). In it, Tischendorf applies his enormous knowledge of early Christian literature and the oldest Latin, Greek and Syriac gospel manuscripts to the question of the date...

George Robert Stow Mead (1863 1933) was for twenty-five years a prominent member of the Theosophical Society and worked closely with its founder, Helena Blavatsky. He was fascinated both by eastern religions and by western esotericism, including gnosticism, and published widely in these areas. Pistis Sophia, an important, probably second-century, text preserved in a Coptic manuscript, presents complex gnostic teachings in 'gospel' format, as having been addressed by Jesus Christ to his disciples after the resurrection. This translation, based on a Latin version published in 1851, appeared in...

This book first appeared in 1849, during the renaissance of English Catholicism that followed the 1829 Relief Act. It contains three anonymous translations of early modern biographies. The first, published in Latin in Cologne in 1617 by Sebastiano Berettari (1543 1622), and translated here from an Italian manuscript version of 1670, focuses on the Jesuit missionary to Brazil Joseph Anchieta (1534 97), praising his 'talent and diligence in human affairs' and his 'heroic virtues'. The second, based on Caspar Peter Lull's account published in both Latin and German in 1682, briefly describes the...

In 1829 the Church Missionary Society began operations in the African kingdom of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). The Anglican clergyman Charles Isenberg (1806 64) joined the mission there in 1835, followed by Johann Ludwig Krapf (1810 81) in 1837. Soon afterwards, opposition to the Society's presence in Abyssinia caused them to leave. However, they were determined to establish a base in the central Ethiopian kingdom of Shoa (Shewa), and did so in 1839, entering from the Yemeni port of Mocha. Isenberg stayed in the capital, Ankobar, from 7 June until 6 November 1839, while Krapf remained until 1842 and...

The sisters Agnes Lewis (1843 1926) and Margaret Gibson (1843 1920) were pioneering biblical scholars who became experts in a number of ancient languages. Travelling widely in the Middle East, they made several significant discoveries, including one of the earliest manuscripts of the Four Gospels in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language probably spoken by Jesus himself. Their chief discoveries were made in the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai. This fascicule, a useful resource for scholars of Syriac, and originally published as part of the Studia Sinaitica series, is the text of...

The twin sisters Agnes Lewis (1843 1926) and Margaret Gibson (1843 1920) were pioneering biblical scholars who became experts in a number of ancient languages. Travelling widely in the Middle East, they made several significant discoveries, including one of the earliest manuscripts of the Four Gospels in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language probably spoken by Jesus himself. Their chief discoveries were made in the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai. This fascicule is the translation of a Syriac manuscript from the monastic library of St Catherine. Translated by Lewis and first...

The twin sisters Agnes Lewis (1843 1926) and Margaret Gibson (1843 1920) were pioneering biblical scholars who became experts in a number of ancient languages. Travelling widely in the Middle East, they made several significant discoveries, including one of the earliest manuscripts of the Four Gospels in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language probably spoken by Jesus himself. First published in 1902 as part of the Studia Sinaitica, this text is transcribed and translated by Lewis from a Syriac manuscript she acquired in Suez in 1895. As well as featuring pages of the Septaguint and the...

The twin sisters Agnes Lewis (1843 1926) and Margaret Gibson (1843 1920) were pioneering biblical scholars who became experts in a number of ancient languages. Travelling widely in the Middle East, they made several significant discoveries, including one of the earliest manuscripts of the Four Gospels in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language probably spoken by Jesus himself. This text, first published in 1897 as part of the Studia Sinaitica, contains a collection of Syriac scriptural lessons from a manuscript acquired in Cairo by Lewis in 1895. She believed the manuscript might have been...