Pergamos usurper of the site of a magnificent Greek temple. The town consists of small and mean wooden houses, among which appear the remains of early Christian churches, showing like vast fortresses amidst barracks of wood.' The fanes of Jupiter and Diana, of Esculapius and Venus, were prostrate in the dust; and where they had not been carried away by the Turks to cut up into tombstones, or to pound into mortar, the Corinthian columns and the Ionic, the splendid capitals, the cornices, and pediments, all in the highest ornament, were thrown in unsightly heaps." This account of the present state of Pergamos is confirmed by Mr. Arundell in his Visit to the Seven Asiatic Churches. PERIZZITES, D Perizi; Gr. Pepelaios; a people of Canaan, who were Divinely ordered to be destroyed by the Hebrews. (Deut. 20. 17.) They are mentioned with the other Canaanitish people, without any certain indication of their habitation, (Gen. 13. 7; 15. 20; Exod. 3. 8,17; 23. 23;) but according to Joshua 11. 3; 17. 15,16, their situation was in the mountains in the north of the Promised Land. In several places of Scripture, the Canaanites and Perizzites are mentioned as the chief people of the country. Thus we read that in the time of Abraham and Lot, "the Canaanite and Perizzite were in the land." Solomon subdued the remains of the Canaanites and Perizzites, which the children of Israel had not rooted out, and made them tributary, (1Kings 9. 20,21; 2Chron. 8. 7;) yet they apparently existed as a people, and retained their idolatrous rites, as late as the time of Ezra, as mention is made by him of several Israelites who had married wives of that nation. (Ezra 9. 1.) PERJURY is the wilful taking of an oath in order to tell or to confirm anything known to be false. This is evidently a very heinous crime, as it is treating the Almighty with irreverence; denying, or at least disregarding his omniscience; profaning his name, and violating truth. By the Mosaic law, perjury was most strictly prohibited as a most heinous sin against God; to whom the punishment of it is left, and who in Exodus 20. 7, expressly promises that He will inflict it, without ordaining the infliction of any punishment by the temporal magistrate; except only in the case of a man falsely charging another with a crime, in which case the false witness was liable to the same punishment which would have been inflicted on the accused party if he had been found guilty; but this, not indeed as the punishment of perjury against God, but of false witness. PERSECUTION. This term, which may properly denote any pain or affliction which one person designedly inflicts upon another, is used in Church history in a more restricted sense, to signify the sufferings of Christians on account of their religion. The unlawfulness of persecution for conscience' sake must appear plain to every person of sober judgment: "To banish, imprison, plunder, starve, hang, and burn men for religion," says Jortin, "is not the Gospel of Christ. Where persecution begins, Christianity ends. Christ never used anything that looked like force or violence except once, and that was to drive bad men out of the Temple, and not to drive them in." "Persecution for conscience' sake," says Dr. Doddridge, "is every way inconsistent, because: (1.) It is founded on an absurd supposition, that one man has a right to judge for another in matters of religion. (2.) It is evidently opposed to that fundamental principle of morality, that we should do to others as we could reason(3.) It is by no means ably desire they should do to us. calculated to answer the end which its patrons profess to intend by it. (4.) It evidently tends to produce a great deal of mischief and confusion in the world. (5.) The Christian religion must, humanly speaking, be not only obstructed but destroyed, should persecuting principles universally prevail. (6.) Persecution is so far from being required or encouraged by the Gospel, that it is most directly contrary to many of its precepts, and indeed to the whole of it." The alleged moderation of pagan governments, and their liberality in granting unlimited indulgence to the different modes of worship that obtained among the heathens, have been magnified by the opposers of Christianity, and eulogised as if universal liberty had been allowed, without any restraint, upon the open or secret practices of men in the exercise of religion. But this representation is quite opposed to the truth; and nothing can be more erroneous than the notion that persecution for religion had its first rise in the Christian system; the very reverse being the real truth. For example, the Athenians allowed no alteration whatever in the religion of their ancestors; and therefore Socrates suffered death | dogs, or fastened to crosses and wrapped up in comas a setter-forth of strange gods, in the same city of bustible garments, that when the daylight failed, they Athens in which, four hundred and fifty years after- might, like torches, serve to dispel the darkness of the wards, Paul of Tarsus was charged with the same night. For this tragical spectacle Nero lent his own offence, by certain philosophers of the Epicureans and gardens; and exhibited at the same time the public Stoics, because he preached unto them Jesus and the diversions of the Circus; sometimes driving a chariot in resurrection. (Acts 17. 18.) But were a similar severity person, and sometimes standing as a spectator, while the to be employed by any Christian state, it would be im- shrieks of the women burning to ashes supplied music puted not merely to the policy of governors, but to the to his ears. (2.) The second general persecution was temper of priests. The odious bigotry of Antiochus under Domitian, in the year 95, when forty thousand Epiphanes (1Macc. 1. 41,) will not easily escape the were supposed to have suffered martyrdom. (3.) The recollection of any, but of those who will impute no third began in the third year of Trajan, in the year fault, nor arraign any crime, except it be found to involve A.D. 100, and was carried on with great violence for in its consequences the friends of revealed religion. several years. (4.) The fourth was under Antoninus, and Had an edict similar to the law of the twelve tables at began in 136, when the Christians were banished from Rome, which prohibited the worship of new or foreign their homes, forbidden to show their heads, reproached, gods, been issued by a Christian prince, the loudest com- beaten, hurried from place to place, plundered, impriplaints would have been uttered against the spirit of soned, and stoned. (5.) The fifth began in the year 199 bigotry by which it was dictated; and if the demolition under Severus, when great cruelties were committed. of the temple of Serapis and Isis had been effected by (6.) The sixth began with the reign of Maximinus in the order of an ecclesiastical synod, instead of a heathen 235. (7.) The seventh, which was the most dreadful senate, it would doubtless have been styled an atrocious then known, began in 249, under the emperor Decius, outrage upon the inalienable rights of private judgment, when the Christians were in all places driven from their instead of being represented as proceeding from the use habitations, stripped of their estates, tormented with of a "common privilege," and ascribed to the cold and racks, &c. (8.) The eighth began in 257 under Valefeeble efforts of policy. Tiberius prohibited the Egyp- rian. Both men and women suffered death; some by tian and Jewish worship, banished the Jews from Rome, scourging, some by the sword, and some by fire. (9.) and restrained the worship of the Druids in Gaul; The ninth was under Aurelian in 273; but this was while Claudius employed penal laws to abolish their reli- inconsiderable, compared with the others before-mengion. Domitian and Vespasian banished the philoso- tioned. (10.) The tenth began in the nineteenth year phers from Rome, and the former confined some of them of Diocletian, 302. In this dreadful persecution, which in the islands, and whipped or put others to death. lasted ten years, houses filled with Christians were set on Nothing, therefore, can be more unfounded than the fire, and numbers of them were tied together with ropes, assertion that intolerance and persecution owe their and thrown into the sea. It is related that seventeen introduction to Christianity; since the violent means thousand were slain in the space of one month, and that which for three hundred years after its origin were during the continuance of this persecution, in the proadopted for the purpose of crushing this very religion, vince of Egypt alone, no less than one hundred and at the time when its professors are universally acknow- forty-four thousand Christians died by the violence of ledged to have been both inoffensive and unambitious, their persecutors; besides seven hundred thousand that are facts too well known to be controverted. died through the fatigues of banishment, or the public works to which they were condemned. The time fixed for the exterminating edicts, as they are called, was the Feast of Terminalia in the year 302, which historians remark was to put an end to Christianity. So complete was supposed to be the extirpation of the sect, that coins were struck and inscriptions set up recording the fact, that the Christian superstition was now utterly exterminated, and the worship of the gods restored by Diocletian, who assumed the name of Jupiter; and Maximian, who took that of Hercules. Beside the tribulations to which the first preachers and converts were exposed from the general hostility of the Jews and the pagans, in almost every country, histoians usually reckon ten general persecutions of the Christians by the heathen:-(1,) Under Nero, A.D. 64-68. (2.) Under Domitian, A.D. 95,96. (3,) Under Trajan, A.D. 100-116. (4,) Under Antoninus Pius, A.D. 136-156. (5,) Under Severus, A.D. 199-211. (6,) Under Maximinus, A.D. 235. (7,) Under Decius, A.D. 249-251. (8,) Under Valerian, A.D. 257-260. (9.) Under Aurelian, A.D. 273-275. (10,) Under Diocletian, 302-312. Others reckon them somewhat differently; and in the above arrangement there are some omissions, for the Christians were persecuted under Adrian, from A.D. 118 to 126, and again in 129; under Marcus Aurelius, from A.D. 161 to 174, and in short, for 260 years from the death of Christ, they had but brief intervals of rest from persecution; for when the emperors themselves were not sanguinary, there were always inferior magistrates who under some pretence or other harassed the Christians. (1.) The first persecution was under the emperor Nero, thirty-one years after Our Lord's ascension, when that emperor having, it is supposed, himself set fire to the city of Rome, endeavoured to throw the odium of that execrable act on the Christians. Those were apprehended who openly avowed themselves to be of that sect, and an immense multitude of others were afterwards convicted. Their death and tortures were aggravated by cruel derision and sport; for they were either covered with the skins of wild beasts, and torn in pieces by devouring In the annexed coin, from the collection of the King of the French, the obverse represents the head of the Emperor Diocletian crowned with laurel, and his shoulders covered with a robe, with the legend DIOCLETIANUS PERPETUUS FELIX AUGUSTUS, "Diocletian, perpetual, happy, august." On the reverse is Jupiter holding in his raised hand a thunderbolt, and trampling a kneeling figure, with serpent-like feet, having this legend, Jovi FULGERATORI, "To Jupiter the thunderer." The prostrate figure designates Christianity, and the figure of Jupiter brandishing his thunderbolt is taken probably from Ovid's description, "Quo centimanum dejecerat igne Typhœa;" he is dashing down the Christians with the same fire as he hurled down the Titans, who had equally but vainly tried to dispossess him of heaven. The figure of this coin is very remarkable, and has a resemblance so strong as to identify it with the Abrasax on the Gnostic gems, with serpent-like feet, supposed to be the god of the Christians. We see him here disarmed of his weapons, the very being which the Christians were supposed to adore, and this single sect and its impure Coin struck to commemarate the extirpation of Christianity. A coin similar to that of Diocletian was struck by his colleague, Maximian, to commemorate an event in which he also had acted a distinguished part. In the annexed coin the obverse represents the naked bust of the emperor, crowned with a laurel, having the legend, MAXIMIANUS PERPETUUS AUGUSTUS, "Maximian, perpetual, august." On the reverse is the figure of Jupiter Tonans, in nearly the same attitude, and with the same legend as the former, but having his head covered. In the prostrate figure the serpentine part of the legs is not distinct, and it has on the whole more of a human form. It may be conjectured that Diocletian wished to represent only the depraved and corrupt sectarians of which his figure is the emblem; and that his more atrocious colleague, careless of distinction, exhibited the genius of Christianity under any form as equally the object of his persecution. Coin of Maximian to commemorate the extirpation of This, the most dreadful of all the heathen persecutions, was happily also the last; and the time shortly arrived when Christianity became the public religion of the Roman empire. Constantine was converted A.D. 312, and according to ecclesiastical writers his conversion was effected like that of St. Paul by a sensible miracle, while he was performing a journey on a public road. He immediately afterwards adopted the cross as his ensign, and formed on the spot the celebrated Labarum or Christian standard, which was ever afterwards substituted for the Roman eagle. This, as Eusebius describes it, was a spear, crossed by an arrow, on which was suspended a velum having inscribed on it the monogram formed by the Greek letters X and P, the initials of the name of Christ. The coin annexed represents on the obverse the naked bust of the emperor, crowned with a laurel wreath, and surrounded with the legend, FLAVIUS VALERIUS CONSTANTINUS PERPETUUS FELIX AUGUSTUS, "Flavius Valerius Constantine, perpetual, happy, august." On the reverse is the whole-length figure of the emperor in armour, covered with a helmet, standing on the prow of a galley; in his right hand he holds a globe, surmounted by a rayed phoenix, the adopted emblem of his family, * A ship was the common emblem of the state among the Romans. See the ode of Horace, "O Navis." Coin of Constantine the Great commemorating the first recognition of Christianity. It would be foreign to the nature and objects of the present work to enter upon a detail of the numerous persecutions of Christians by those of the same name. It is painful to admit that men calling themselves Christians, have persecuted others with unrelenting cruelty, and have shed rivers of innocent blood; but the Gospel does not authorize such conduct, and therefore is not chargeable with it. Such persecutions prove, that those who inflicted them were not animated by the spirit of real Christianity, but were the enemies of the Gospel. PERSIA, an ancient kingdom in Middle Asia, bounded on the west by Media and Susiana; on the south by the Great Desert, and on the east by Carmania. Until the time of Cyrus, and his succession to the Median empire, it was an inconsiderable country, always subject to the Assyrians, Babylonians, or Medes. Its capital city was Persepolis, now Chelminar, in the neighbourhood of which, to the south-east, was Passagardæ, where was the tomb of Cyrus. The prophecy of Isaiah, which calls Cyrus expressly by name, an honour peculiar to him and to Josiah, king of Judah, indicates the importance attached to his actions in the scheme and economy which was carried on by the overruling providence of the Almighty: "that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid." (Isai. 44. 28.) It is obvious that rumours of the sacred prophecies concerning Cyrus had got abroad among the Gentile nations, for all the heathen historians who have written his life, make mention of oracles and predictions having been the forerunners of his nativity. According to Xenophon, he was brought up among the Persians, then remarkable for the virtues of simplicity, temperance, and rectitude; and when nearly arrived at manhood was taken to Media, to be presented to his grandfather Astyages, who died immediately afterwards, leaving the kingdom of Media to his son Cyaxares. See CYRUS. Cyrus died at the age of seventy years, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Cambyses, (B.C. 529,) one of the most cruel princes recorded in history. As soon as he was seated on the throne, he invaded and conquered Egypt, and reigned there three years. At the same time he detached part of his army against the Ethiopians, and commanded his generals to pillage the temple of Jupiter Ammon. Both these expeditions were unfortunate. The army which had been sent against the latter perished in the sands of the deserts; and that which he led against the former, for want of provisions, was compelled to return with great loss. Mortified at his disappointments, Cambyses now gave full vent to the cruelty PERSIA. of his disposition. He killed his sister Meroe, who was also his wife; he commanded his brother Smerdis to be put to death, and killed many of his principal officers; he hated the gods of the Egyptians, and committed every possible outrage against them. The enemies of the Jews had made an application to Cambyses, on his coming to the throne, to hinder the building of the Temple; and though he had sufficient respect for the memory of his father not openly to revoke the edict, he threw such discouragement in their way, that the work went on slowly during his reign. Smerdis the Magian, an impostor, pretending to be the murdered brother of Cambyses, raised a rebellion against him; and in preparing to repel it, the king received a wound from his own sword which caused his death. During the seven months which Smerdis reigned, he issued an order prohibiting the Jews from rebuilding the Temple. His imposture being discovered, his life was the forfeit of it; and after much consultation between the seven noblemen who executed justice upon him, as to the mode of governing they should adopt, it fell to the lot of Darius Hystaspes, one of them, to be proclaimed king. This is the first time in the Persian history in which seven persons are mentioned as consulting together on matters of state, and is, perhaps, the origin of that council referred to in sacred history, where the edicts of the Persian government are said to have been issued by the king and his seven counsellors. (Esth. 1. 14; Ezra 7. 14.) Before the reign of Darius, no specific duties were paid to the Persian kings, who received their revenues in presents from their subjects. He divided the empire into twenty satrapies, and fixed the tribute each was to pay: some of them furnished horses, others corn, and others slaves. The Indians paid their tribute in ingots of gold; the satrapies of Babylon and Egypt were the most heavily taxed. Palestine was included in the same satrapy with Syria, Phoenicia, and the island of Cyprus; Persia proper was not compelled to pay any specific tribute, but presented a regular gratuity. The Persian monarchy being composed of many and various nations, several of them retaining, though in different degrees, their own form of government; each also having its own coinage, language, manners, and religion, and unconnected with the others by any bond of union except the despotic rule of their general monarch; this mode of government by satraps was the only one by which they could be kept together, for no code of laws could be framed by which such a heterogeneous mass could be governed. As there was nothing to restrain the satraps but the arbitrary will of the sovereign, a system of despotism was carried on throughout the empire, which was felt in proportion to the disposition of the person in whom the arbitrary power was vested. As a whole, however, the government of Persia does not appear to have been conducted with severity. The tributary nations flourished under its sway, enjoyed the fruits of agriculture, or rose to opulence by commerce; and, with a generosity peculiar in that age to the Persians, they treated their vanquished kings honourably, and their descendants were frequently allowed to retain the chief command in their country with but little diminution of their former grandeur. In the reign of Darius Hystaspes appeared Zoroaster, the reviver of the Magian sect, whose principal rite was the worship of fire, or of the sun, an idolatry with which the Israelites had polluted themselves, as the prophet Ezekiel says, “Behold at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about fiveand-twenty men, with their backs towards the Temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they 1029 worshipped the sun towards the east." (Ezek. 8. 16.) See MAGI. In the seventh year of Darius Hystaspes, the Temple of Jerusalem was finished. The decree by which it was completed, was granted by Darius in his palace at Shushan (or Susa, as the Greeks called it); and in remembrance of this, the eastern gate of the outer wall of the Temple was from that time called the gate of Shushan, and a representation of the city in sculpture pourtrayed over it, which continued until the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. This Darius is by some considered to be the Ahasuerus who married Esther, and granted various privileges to the Jews. Some Xerxes succeeded Darius on the Persian throne (B.C. 485), and was the fourth in succession from Cyrus, and is the fourth king of Persia spoken of by the prophet Daniel, who by his strength through his riches should stir up all against the realm of Grecia. (Dan. 11. 2.) This prophecy was fulfilled in the most striking manner. It had been the custom of the Persians to make their conquered nations swell the number of their host; but in proportion as their victories enlarged the empire, this custom became difficult, and was seldom resorted to. It was now revived by Xerxes, who collected a vast fleet and army out of every country where they could be gathered, for the invasion of Greece; hiring mercenary troops from those nations which were not subject to Persia, and making alliances with them. Xerxes was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes Longimanus, a person remarkable for his beauty, although his hands and arms are said to have been of an unusual length. authorities are of opinion that this is the Ahasuerus of Scripture, which is supported by Josephus. In the seventh year of his reign he made a decree that all the people of Israel who chose of their own free will to return to Jerusalem, should go with Ezra, who was "sent of the king, and of his seven counsellors," (Ezra 7. 13,14;) and the king, in his letter to Ezra, added, "Whatever is commanded by the God of Heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of Heaven; for why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons?" (Ezra 7. 23.) But although the kings of Persia at various times acknowledged the true God, worshipped and feared Him, the nation continued in the open profession of idolatry, an idolatry that would seem incredible amidst all the great and manifold advantages they possessed, did not history attest the melancholy fact. The founder of the Persian empire had been predicted by name, and in his address to him, the Lord had vouchsafed to assert his right to undivided worship; the Persians had constant intercourse with the people of God; they had witnessed miracles in the preservation of His servants, and in the destruction of His enemies; and yet, with strange infatuation, they preferred the darkness of superstition to the light of truth. Nehemiah succeeded Ezra in the government of Judæa, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, (B.C. 445,) to whom he was cup-bearer, a place of great honour at the court of Persia; but neither the favour of his sovereign, nor the splendour of a court, could make him forget his service to his God, nor induce him to forego the honour of building up the walls of Jerusalem. From this time forward the Jews were ruled by their highpriests, with little interference from the Persian monarchs, and the history of Persia, therefore, would be foreign to our purpose. It is sufficient here to state that one hundred years after the time of Nehemiah, the prophecy of Daniel was fulfilled, the Persian empire was broken up by Alexander, and its numerous provinces shared among his generals. From one of these, the Parthians revolted, and established an empire, which, first called Parthian and then Persian, subsisted for more than eight | They have an archbishop and three bishops. The hundred years, and proved a formidable rival to the Romans. At length it gave way, early in the seventh century, to the fiery progress of the Saracens, and Persia has ever since been a Mohammedan country. After suffering repeated reverses from the inroads of various barbarous tribes from Tartary, and being torn by civil wars, in the seventeenth century under the rule of Abbas the Great it was a powerful kingdom: but since that time it has again declined, and it is now reduced to very limited territorial dimensions, and is overrun in many parts by fierce shepherd or robber tribes, whose obedience to the government is merely nominal. The mighty Persian empire is now frittered down into two insignificant monarchies, one of which exists but in name, and the other is silently yet rapidly disappearing before the gigantic power of Russia. The country now known as Persia is usually divided into Eastern and Western; the former being specially denominated Afghanistan, whilst the latter still retains its wonted appellation. The range of country comprehended within the limits of these now separate states, forms an extensive and lofty upland, sloping on all sides: on the south, to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean; on the west to the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates; on the north to the basin of the Lower Araxes, the Caspian Sea, and the basin of the Oxus; and on the east to that of the Indus. Thus considered, Persia is quite distinct in its physical features from all the countries in its vicinity; and though it comprehends several distinct basins in its vast surface, yet the points in which these resemble one another are so many and so peculiar, as to entitle them to the denomination of one whole. This great upland extends upwards of twenty degrees, or nearly twelve hundred British miles, containing a surface of about eight hundred thousand British square miles. The boundary between Western and Eastern Persia is very indistinctly marked. Western Persia is at present bounded by Armenia and the Caspian Sea, both in possession of Russia, on the north, by Asiatic Turkey on the west, by the Persian Gulf on the south, and by Afghanistan on the east. Its greatest extent, from the vicinity of Mount Ararat on the north-west to that of Herat on the south-east, is nearly one thousand British miles. Eastern Persia, under the title of the Afghan monarchy, formerly comprehended, beside the country properly so called, the tract from the crest of the Afghanistan and Beloochistan Mountains to the Indus, the province of Sinde, the Punjaub, and the provinces of Mooltan and Cashmere. The Afghan monarchy is now dismembered, and it is rather considered as consisting of the following large divisions:-Herat and Seistaun on the west; the possessions of the Eimauks and Hazaurehs on the north; and Afghanistan and Beloochistan on the south and east. The whole tract thus divided has the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean on the south, the Indus and its delta on the east, the lofty range of the Hindoo Kho and the Khanate of Baulkh on the north, Persian Khorassan on the north-west, and the desert of Kerman on the west; whilst on the shores of the Persian Gulf its western limit is Cape Jask, on the frontier of Louristan. It is supposed to contain a total of four hundred and forty thousand square miles. Christianity was early propagated in Persia, being traditionally said to have been planted there by one of the Apostles. Under all the changes the country has since undergone, it has subsisted, and, beside members of the Romish, Armenian, orthodox and schismatic Greek churches, there now exists a sect of native Christians, who are estimated to amount to about ten thousand. former resides at Mosul; one of the bishops at Chosrabad; another at Meredeen; and the third at Diarbekir. By the Mohammedans they are called Nazarenes, but among themselves Ebrians, or Beni Israel, which name denotes their relation to the ancient Jewish church. They have no connexion whatever with either the Greek or the Romish churches. They hold the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, and declare Jesus Christ to be "the way, the truth, and the life," and that through Him they are delivered from the wrath to come, and are made heirs of eternal life. They acknowledge only two sacraments, and in the same sense as the Protestant church. They have at Chosrabad a large church. Through fear of the Mohammedans, who insult and oppress them, they assemble for Divine worship between the hours of five and seven on Sunday mornings; and in the evenings betwixt six and eight; there are also daily services at the same hours. The women and men sit on opposite sides of the building. PERSIC VERSION. We are informed by Chry sostom and Theodoret that the Scriptures were very anciently translated into the Persian language. It does not appear that any fragments of this ancient version are extant; but in more modern times versions of detached portions of the Scriptures have been produced. A Persic translation of the Pentateuch was executed by Jacob Ben Joseph, surnamed Tawosi or Tusi, from Tus, a city of Persia, which anciently possessed a celebrated Jewish academy. The precise time when he lived is not known; but it is evident that he could not have lived earlier than the commencement of the ninth century, because in Genesis 10. 10, for Babel he has substituted Bagdad, which city was not founded until A.D. 762, by the caliph Almansor. The Persian version of the Pentateuch, which is for the most part faithfully rendered, was first printed by the Jews at Constantinople in 1546, in Hebrew characters, together with the Hebrew text, the Targum of Onkelos, and the Arabic version of Saadias Gaon. From this Constantinopolitan edition, the Persian version of the Pentateuch was transcribed into the Persian characters by the eminent Orientalist Dr. Hyde, who added a very close Latin translation, and supplied, between brackets, the words necessary to fill up the chasms which had been caused by the negligence either of the original copyist, or of the printer at Constantinople. Beside the Pentateuch, Bishop Walton mentions two Persic versions of the Psalms: one by a Portuguese monk at Ispahan in the year 1618, and another by some Jesuits from the Vulgate Latin version. These are yet in manuscript. There are extant two Persian versions of the Four Gospels, the most ancient and valuable of which was first printed in the London Polyglot by Bishop Walton, from a manuscript in the possession of Dr. Pococke, dated A.D. 1314; it was made from the Syriac, having sometimes retained Syriac words, to which a Persian translation is subjoined. The other Persian translation was edited by Wheloc, and after his decease, by Pierson at London in 1652-57, after a collation of three manuscripts. It is supposed to have been made from the Greek. Horne. In the middle of the last century a version of the Gospels was made by order of Nadir Shah, who, when it was read to him, treated it with contempt and ridicule; but soon after the commencement of the present century, Henry Martyn, the missionary, translated the whole of the New Testament. It was completed in the year in which he died (1812), and being presented to |