version, but one of these revisions, apparently made in Italy, and as some think, under ecclesiastical auspices.  This, Augustine recommends as more faithful and perspicuous than the rest.

3.  The canon of the Old Latin version seems to have wanted, in the New Testament, Hebrews, James, and 2 Peter.  In the Old Testament it followed the Septuagint.  It contained, therefore, the apocryphal books of that version, to which was also added the second of Esdras.  Appendix to Pt. 2, No. 6.  The text of this version is known to us from two sources, quotations and manuscripts.  For our knowledge of the Old Testament we are dependent mainly on the quotations of the early Latin fathers, since only a few fragments remain in the shape of manuscripts.  The same is true of some parts of the New Testament, particularly the Apocalypse.  But of the gospels as well as other parts of the New Testament, we have some very ancient manuscripts which are of high value in textual criticism.  The agreement of this version in many characteristic readings with the oldest known Greek manuscripts has already been noticed.  Chap. 3, No. 3.  Such agreement is the strongest possible testimony for the genuineness of the readings in question.  Chap. 26, No. 2.

The Codex Vercellensis, belonging to the fourth century, and said to have been written by Eusebius, bishop of Vercellae (now Vercelli) in Northern Italy where the manuscript is preserved, is one of the oldest manuscripts of the sacred text in existence.  The Codex Veronensis at Verona, the Graeco-Latin Codex Claromontanus in the Imperial Library at Paris, the Codex Vindobonensis at Vienna, the Codex Bobbiensis at Turin, and others that might be named, are also very ancient.  Among the codices that contain what is called the Italic version, is the Brixianus of the sixth century.

4.  About A.D. 388, Jerome at the solicitation of Damasus, bishop of Rome, undertook the arduous task of revising the Old Latin version by a comparison with the original Greek text.  In this work he proceeded very cautiously, being well aware of the prejudices which he must encounter on the part of multitudes who could not discriminate between the authority of the original Greek text and that of the Latin version made from it.  He began with the four gospels.  According to his own testimony, he selected ancient Greek manuscripts, but such as did not differ much from the Latin usage; and in the use of these he so restrained his pen that, when he had corrected those things only which seemed to change the sense, he suffered the rest to remain as they were.  (Preface to the four gospels addressed to Damasus.) His work of revision was afterwards extended to the remaining books of the New Testament; a revision which Tregelles describes as “less complete and uniform than that of the gospels, and in which many parts seem to have received hardly any alterations from