To the British & Foreign Bible Society This MS. Is Humbly Presented by Its

To The British & Foreign Bible Society This MS. is humbly presented by its devoted Servant E. Henderson. Edinb. Augst. 14. 1818. 1r Denmark. During the long and dreary reign of papal darkness, the inhabitants of northern Europe were immersed in the same ignorance and superstition which beclouded the horizon of the more southerly regions. Not only was the education of the lower classes of society entirely neglected; but scarcely any attention was paid to the mental improvement and cultivation of those who filled more exalted ranks. Their religion consists of a number of puerile, unmeaning and ridiculous ceremonies, and the repetition of prayers & masses in a dead language with which not one of a thousand among the worshippers possessed any acquaintance. It might with propriety have been said to them, what Jesus Christ said to the Woman of Samaria: “ye know not what ye worship”,1 and the Athenian inscription: “To an unknown God”2 might equally have befitted the christian altars. Indeed it cannot be expected that the people in general should have been in a better intellectual condition as since those who professed to be their teachers were sunk into a state of the most terrible ignorance and neglect. Few of the clergy knew, or set any value, on the sacred oracles; the original languages in which they were written were completely disregarded; it has even been doubted whether any so much as understood the Greek Testament in the thirteenth century in Denmark;3 and there were 1v MS. in the Royal Library, Copen. many who had no opportunities of forming any acquaintance with the Vulgate. What little teological knowledge they had, was merely of the scholastic and metaphysical kind, and consisted in questions that were productive of logomachies rather than godly edifying. Yet as God hath not left himself without a witness even in the darkest periods there is reason to hope that individuals were here and there led by his Spirit to the source of sacred truth that they might quench their spiritual thirst with its life-giving waters. Copies of the Vulgate were deposited in most of the monasteries and cathedral churches; and at times certain of the monks were engaged in transcribing it either with a view to their own improvement, to the attainment of caligraphical celebrity, or the acquisition of pecuniary emolument. Nor were there awanting, even in the dark ages, those who attempted to translate the Holy Scriptures from the church-version into their vernacular language. Although not so generally known, an attempt of the same kind was made in Denmark, of which we have a specimen in a Manuscript containing part of the Old Testament in Danish, formerly in the possession of Count Thott, and now the property of the Royal Library at Copenhagen where it is to be found No 8 of the MSS in Fol. of the Thottian Catalogue. It forms an ordinary Folio, and has been strongly bound in wooden boards covered with skin. It has already suffered considerable damage by its exposure in a humid place, and is fast mouldering away at the ends. It is written on paper in two parallel columns. Towards the beginning the lines marking the space to be filled by the text have been drawn with ink the colour of which is considerably paler than that with 2r MS. in the Royal Library Copenhagen. which the text itself is written: but the rest has been ruled with a leaden pen. The text forms one whole, no blank space being left either between the chapters or the books. The number of the chapter is begun on the same line with the conclusion of the preceding, and is either longer or shorter, according to the space that was to be filled up. The title of the book is written at the top of the page as far as the middle of the XII Chap. of Exodus from which to the end it is omitted. The initial letter of every chapter is roughly ornamented and is written with a kind of red paint which has something of a glossy surface resembling wax. The same material is used in correcting what was improperly written, and in writing the titles of the books and chapters. It is also employed in punctuation, which consists of a stroke drawn transversely through the line, answering to the more common steps; and where any remarkable word or sentence begins, a red stroke is drawn through the first letter of the word. At the foot of the page are a number of prayers and pious effusions through a considerable part of Genesis – but they are the work of a later hand. The first two leaves, and part of the third have been devoured by the tooth of time; and the text now begins, Gen. II. 10. ****** OK Liffsens trææ mith ******* ok godheetz ok ondheetz kwnnelses trææ &c. It is also defective from Gen. XXX 36. to XXXI. 29. – and ends with the words 2. Kings XXIII. 14. ok hans been skulæ blive wrördhe mz prophetens ben. Existing now therefore only in this imperfect state it is impossible to say by whom it was written or to determine its exact age. Yet Dr Wöldike, by whom a full account of it is given in the Second Vol. of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Copenhagen, supposes from the properties 2v MS. in the Royal Library Copenhagen of the language, the orthography, and the shape of the letters, that it was written in the thirteenth, or at all events in the beginning of the forteenth century. From several corrected passages produced by Dr W. one would almost be tempted to conclude that this MS. is the original itself: but from others it seems certain that it is only a copy, for the repetitions ought always to stand two lines before or two lines after the position they at present occupy; which the Dr satisfactorily accounts for on the supposition that the autograph was not divided into columns as this is – but was written in one whole line across the page. Dr W. concludes from the size of the volume that there may have originally been two more comprising the whole Bible; but the abrupt manner in which this fragment ends at the beginning of the first column on the last page, without regard to any division in the Bible, shows that its present size is merely accidental, and that either the original has not extended farther or the transcriber has been prevented by death or some other unavoidable cause from prosecuting his labour. From the difference of the hand as well as of the orthography, it is evident that this MS. has been made by three transcribers. The first has written to Deut. V. 6; the second to 1 Sam. VIII. 1; and the third from thence to the end. There is also a blank of a page or half a page where they have relieved each other. The version itself is done exactly according to the Vulgate, and faithfully adopts all its faults. From the examples produced by Dr W. it would appear that the translator has in numerous instances mistaken the meaning of his original, and also that the copy of the Vulgate from which he has taken his translation has not been free from faults. The servility with which he has adhered to the Latin is observable even 3r MS. in the Royal Library Copenhagen in the formation of the Danish words. For instance: indurabo is rendered: inhærde eller inentilhartgöre; irrigat jnnænwædhær. The gerunds and participles are formed in the same way; thus: bibendum – drykkeskullende; vulnerandos – saargöreskullendes. The translator has at times attempted to express the derivation of the Latin words in his version which could not fail in many instances to render it ridiculous. Thus the Almighty is introduced Gen XXVI as commending Abraham for making use of wax- candles in the observance of his religious rites: The Vul. has ceremonias, which our translator renders: Forthty Abraham lyddhe min röst, ok gömde mine budh ok bydelse, ok han gömde höktide giordhe mz wox som ær voxlyws, ok lowæ. “Because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge and commandments, and kept feastdays with wax, that in wax-candles, and laws.” The same rendering is given Lev. V. 15. Num. XV. 22. and 2. Kings XXII. 37. In Exod. XXVIII. 4. the Latin terms used to describe the garments of the priests are explained by the sacerdotal apparel of the Roman church. Great use is made of synonymes by way of explication, especially in such those passages in which latin words are introduced. No less than three or four occur in the translation of a single verse. Translations of the prefaces of Jerome are introduced at their proper places; and sometimes, though rarely, a passage is introduced from Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica. Thus the story respecting the grave of Joseph is related after Exod. XIII. 19., a long account is given of the infancy and youth of Moses at the end of the XII chap. of Numbers; and at the end of 1 Sam. XXV a comparison is drawn between Saul and the Devil, and one between David and a spiritual man which concludes: O Sce David bedt for oss. “O St David pray for us.” Though this codex posesses but little critical worth as a version of the Scriptures it is of considerable importance as a relic of antiquity, and throws great light on the state of the Danish language at the period when it was made. Pontoppidan4 mentions his having found in a MS.

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