they understood.  But he met with the more opposition from the priests.  The whole jealousy of the Romish church seems to have been awakened by Methodius’ proceedings.  He found however a protector in the pope himself; who feared perhaps an entire alienation of the Slavic population, and their transition to the Oriental church; but was at the same time desirous to preserve the whole authority of the Latin language.  In a letter to the Moravian prince Svatopluk, he enjoins expressly, “that in all the Moravian churches the gospel, for the sake of the greater dignity, should be read first in Latin, and afterwards translated into Slavic for the people ignorant of the Latin.”

The question, what part of the Scriptures was translated by Cyril himself, what by his brother, and what supplements were made by their immediate successors, can now hardly be answered in a satisfactory manner.  The honour of the invention of the alphabet appears to belong exclusively to Cyril; but in the sacred work of translation, Methodius was not less active; and his merits in respect to the conversion and instruction of the Slavi, were more favoured by a longer life.  According to John, exarch of Bulgaria, Cyril translated only selections from the Gospels and the Apostle, as the book of Acts and the apostolic epistles are together called in Slavic; i.e. a Lectionarium, or extracts from those parts of the Scriptures, arranged in such a way as to serve as a lesson for every sacred day through the whole year.  The Russians call such a collection Aprakoss, the Greeks [Greek:  evangelia, eklogadia].  A work of this description is the above mentioned Evangelium of Ostromir, of the year 1056, written out expressly for the domestic use of Ostromir. posadnik[13] of Novogorod, a near relation of the grand-duke of Izjaslav.  It is however held to be more probable, that Cyril translated at first the whole of the Gospels, as still contained in a Codes of A.D. 1144, in the library of the Synod of Moscow.  The Presbyter of Dioclea, who wrote about A.D. 1161, ascribes to Cyril not only the translation of the Gospels, but also of the Psalter;[14] and at a later period that of the whole Old and New Testaments, as well as of the Massa, i.e. the Greek liturgy of Basilius and Chrysostom.  This opinion has since been generally received.  In respect to the Old Testament, however, it is much to be doubted; since no ancient Codex of it exists, or has ever been proved to have existed.  As to the New Testament, the Apocalypse must at any rate be excepted.

What part of the translation was performed by Methodius does not appear.  John, exarch of Bulgaria, who lived in the same century, translated the books of Johannes Damascenus into Slavic.  In the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Russian and Servian princes called into their empires many learned Greeks, versed in the Slavic language, that they might continue the holy work of translation.  From the