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Paley, William, 1743-1805

"Evidence of Christianity"

Accordingly, a Syriac translation is now extant, all
along, so far as it appears, used by the inhabitants of Syria, bearing
many internal marks of high antiquity, supported in its pretensions by
the uniform tradition of the East, and confirmed by the discovery of
many very ancient manuscripts in the libraries of Europe, It is about
200 years since a bishop of Antioch sent a copy of this translation into
Europe to be printed; and this seems to be the first time that the
translation became generally known to these parts of the world. The
bishop of Antioch's Testament was found to contain all our books, except
the second epistle of Peter, the second and third of John, and the
Revelation; which books, however, have since been discovered in that
language in some ancient manuscripts of Europe. But in this collection,
no other book, besides what is in ours, appears ever to have had a
place. And, which is very worthy of observation, the text, though
preserved in a remote country, and without communication with ours,
differs from ours very little, and in nothing that is important (Jones
on the Canon, vol.


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