Ethiopic Didascalia

Platt 1834 historical front matter, source page 17

PREFACE. ix same, both in matter and order, with the Canons of the Didascalia as given by Ludolf from Wansleb. The work purported also to have been drawn up by the Apostles ; to whom, as we have seen above, the Didascalia is attributed by the Abyssinians. There could be no doubt, therefore, that this MS. contained the very document of which Ludolf had spoken. Having already some knowledge of the Ethiopic language, I immediately set about the Translation of the MS. into Enghsh : and when the Oriental Trans- lation Committee was established, I laid my Translation before them, together with the original Ethiopic MS. ; the use of which the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society very liberally granted to the Oriental Committee, with permission to publish it, if they should think fit to do so. The Committee determined to publish it ; and the work accordingly now appears. The types from which the Ethiopic Text is printed are the property of the British and Foreign Bible Society ; and were cut under the direction of the Editor of this work, for an impression of the Entire Bible in the Amharic Lan- guage, the Modem Vernacular Dialect of the greater part of Abyssinia. The pubhcation of the work has been much delayed by the researches that have been made for a more perfect copy of the Didascaha ; for the MS. above mentioned, the only one that we possess, is seriously mutilated at the close. The first fifteen Canons are found in it at length, precisely according to Ludolf 's Table of their Titles. Seven others follow ; which do not exactly correspond with his Table, either in the words of their Titles or the order of their arrangement. They seem to comprehend the same subjects as Canons 16 — 18, and 31 — 35, in Ludolf 's hst. In the middle of the 35th Canon, or Section, the MS. ends, and our endeavours to procure a more perfect copy have been without success. Whiston appears to have understood that the Ethiopic Didascaha might be probably found at Rome ; and he says (Remarks, p. 8), " I sent to Rome long since among other things to enquire about it, but without effect." The Oriental Translation Committee have done the same thing, with precisely the same result. What the Didascaha contains has been already stated, both on the Title-page and in the course of this Preface. It is in fact a very loose and inaccurate Translation of the Apostohcal Constitutions, the work which has been so often mentioned above. The subjects occur in the same order as in the Original, and the translation of clauses and even of particular words of the Greek Text may be perpetually traced throughout ; but many additions are made to it, and the omissions are yet more numerous ; and they are often omissions of a kind that entirely obscure or destroy the sense. The latter part of an argiunent, for )