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to build convents in all parts of the Empire."* But they went into Persia, as into other countries, not with the design of instructing men in the holy Scriptures, but of teaching them the tenets and ceremonies of Rome. To this day, they have not published, under all the advantages of toleration which they enjoyed, a translation of the Bible, or even of the New Testament, into the Persian Language.

It is a reproach to Christians, that the only endeavor to produce a translation of the Scriptures into the language of that extensive kingdom should have been made by the Persians themselves. The representatives of the Christian Churches in Europe, of every denomination, may well blush, when they read the following authentic relation of an attempt made by a Persian King to procure a knowledge of our religion.

"Towards the close of the year 1740, Nadir Shah caused a translation of the four Evangelists to be made into Persian. The affair was put under the direction of Mirza Mehdee, a man of some learning, who, being vested with proper authority for the purpose, summoned several Armenian Bishops, and Priests, together with divers Missionaries of the Romish Church, and Persian Mullahs† to meet him at Isfahan. As to the latter, the Mahomedan Priests, they could not be gainers, since the change of religion, if any, was to be in prejudice of Mahomedanism. Besides, Nadir's

conduct towards them had been severe, to an extreme and unprecedented degree; many of them therefore gave Mirza Mehdee large bribes to excuse their absence. Among the Christians summoned on this occasion, only one Romish Priest, a native of Persia, was a sufficient master of the language to enter upon

* Fabricii Lux Evang, p. 639.

Mahomedan Priests.

a work of so critical a nature. As to the Armenian Christians, although they are born subjects to Persia, and intermixed with the inhabitants, yet are there very few of them who understand the language fundamentally. It was natural to expect that Mirza Mehdee, and the Persian Mullahs, would be more solicitous to please Nadir, and to support the credit of Mahomedanism, than to divest themselves of prejudices, and become masters of so important a subject. This translation was dressed up with all the glosses which the fables of the Koran could warrant. Their chief guide was an ancient Arabic and Persian translation. Father de Vignes, a Romish Priest, was also employed in this work, in which he made use of the Vulgate edition. They were but six months in completing this translation, and transcribing several fair copies of it.

"In May following, Mirza Mehdee with the Persian Mullahs and some of the Christian Priests set out from Isfahan for the Persian Court, which was then held in encampment near Tcheran. Nadir received them with some marks of civility, and had a cursory view of the performance. Some part of it was read to him; on which occasion he made several ludicrous remarks on the mysterious parts of the Christian Religion; at the same time he laughed at the Jews, and turned Mahomed and Ali equally into ridicule." And after some expressions of levity, intimating that he could himself make a better religion than any that had yet been produced, "he dismissed these churchmen and translators with some small presents, not equal in value to the expense of the journey."*

This version of the Gospels, prepared by command of Nadir Shah, is probably the same with that which Hanway's Travels.

is sometimes found in the hands of the Armenian Priests in India. A copy was lately shewn to an Oriental scholar in Bengal,* who observed, "that if this was the same, he did not wonder at Nadir's contempt of it."

The number of natives already professing Christianity in Persia, and who are prepared to receive a translation of the Scriptures, is very considerable. They consist of four or five classes, viz. the Georgian, the Armenian, the Nestorian, the Jacobite, and the Romish Christians. The Georgians have the Bible in the Georgian Language, which was printed at Moscow in 1743; but the language is not so generally cultivated among the higher ranks as the Persian. It probably bears the same relation to the Persian, which the Welsh does to the English. The Armenians have a version of the Bible in their own proper tongue, but the copies are few in number. The Nestorian and Jacobite Christians use the Syriac Bible: but it is yet more rare than the Armenian. There are, besides, multitudes of Jews in Persia, who, as well as these different classes of Christians, commonly speak the vernacular language of the country.

The Persian Language is known far beyond the limits of Persia proper. It is spoken at all the Mussulman Courts in India, and is the usual language of judicial proceedings under the British Government in Hindostan. It is next in importance to the Arabic and Chinese, in regard to the extent of territory through which it is spoken, being generally understood from Calcutta to Damascus.

Here then is a language, spoken over nearly one quarter of the globe, the proper tongue of a great

*Rev. H. Martyn.

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kingdom, in which an attempt has already been made by royal authority to obtain a translation of the Christian Scriptures; and where there are, at a low computation, two hundred thousand Christians ready to receive them. Many of the Persians themselves would read the Bible with avidity, if presented to them in an inviting form. The cause of the little jealousy of Christianity in Persia, compared with that which is found in other Mahomedan States, is to be ascribed to these two circumstances; first, That Christianity has always existed in Persia: the Christian natives forming a considerable part of the population; and secondly, That the Persians themselves profess so lax a system of Islamism that they have been accounted by some Mussulmans a kind of heretics.

It will form an epoch in the history of Persia, when a version of the Old and New Testaments shall begin to be known generally in that country. But the narrative of Nadir Shah's attempt sufficiently proves that no ordinary scholar is qualified to undertake it. The author of such a translation must be a perfect master of the Arabic Language, the mother of the Persic, and familiar with the popular and classical Persian. He must, moreover, have access to the Scriptures in their original tongues. Such a person, we think, has been found in SABAT of Arabia, who is accounted by competent judges, "to be the first Arabic scholar of the age."* He has been employed for nearly four years past in translating the Scriptures into the Persian and Arabic Languages, in conjunction with Mirza Filrut of Lucknow, and other learned natives. Mirza is himself a Persian by descent, and a man of liberal learning among his countrymen. He visited England

See Report of Translations by Rev. Henry Martyn, hereafter quoted.

some years ago, and was afterwards appointed a Persian teacher, and a translator of the Scriptures in the College of Fort-William. These versions by Sabat and Mirza, are conducted under the superintendance of the Rev. Henry Martyn, who is himself an Arabic and Persian scholar, and skilled in the original tongues of the Sacred Scriptures. He is a chaplain to the Honorable the East India Company, and is now stationed at Cawnpore in Bengal, where his learned coadjutors also reside. The Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, translated by Sabat into the Persian Language, have already been printed; and 800 copies are stated in the last Report, dated May 1810, to have been deposited in the BIBLIOTHECA BIBLICA, at Calcutta, for sale.

THE ARABIANS.

ARABIA was the country in which St. Paul first opened his heavenly ministry. "When it pleased God," saith that Apostle, "who called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither went I up to Jerusalem, but I went into ARABIA," Gal. i, 17. Christianity flourished very extensively in Arabia, during the first centuries. History informs us, that "the disciples of Christ had filled its provinces with the Churches of God;"* and frequent mention is made, in the early monuments, of the Bishops of Arabia.† This early influence of the Gospel in that region might be expected; for Arabia adjoins

Θεου γαρ Εκκλησιων οι Χριστου μαθηται τας χώρας ταυτας Eλngwav. Procopius Gaz. Es. XI. 14.

See them enumerated in Beveridge's Canones Conciliorum. The Bishop of Busorah was present at the Council of Antioch in a. D. 269.

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