ot be placed later than 200 A.D.
[Endnote 320:1] On this point I shall quote authorities that will
hardly be questioned. And first that of a writer who is accustomed to
weigh, with the accuracy of true science, every word that he puts
down, and who upon this subject is giving the result of a most minute
and careful investigation. Speaking of the Latin translation of the
New Testament as found in Tertullian he says: 'Although single
portions of this, especially passages which are translated in several
different ways, may be due to Tertullian himself, still it cannot be
doubted that in by far the majority of cases he has followed the text
of a version received in his time by the Africans and specially the
Carthaginian Christians, and made perhaps long before his time, and
that consequently his quotations represent the form of the earliest
Latinized Scriptures accepted in those regions' [Endnote 320:2].
Again: 'In the first place we may conclude from the writings of
Tertullian, that remarkable Carthaginian presbyter at the close of
the second century, that in his time there existed several, perhaps
many, Latin translations of the Bible ... Tertullian himself
frequently quotes in his writings one and the same passage of
Scripture in entirely different forms, which indeed in many cases
may be explained by his quoting freely from memory, but certainly
not seldom has its ground in the diversity of the translations used
at the time' [Endnote 321:1]. On this last point, the unity of the
Old Latin version, there is a difference of opinion among scholars,
but none as to its date. Thus Dr. Tregelles writes: 'The expressions
of Tertullian have been rightly rested on as showing that he knew
and recognised _one translation_, and that this version was in several
places (in his opinion) opposed to what was found "in Graeco authentico."
This version must have been made a sufficiently long time before the
age when Tertullian wrote, and before the Latin translator of Irenaeus,
for it to have got into general circulation. This leads us back _towards_
the middle of the second century at the latest: how much _earlier_
the version may have been we have no proof; for we are already led
back into the time when no records tell us anything respecting the
North African Church' [Endnote 321:2]. Dr. Tregelles, it should be
remembered, is speaking as a text critic, of which branch of science
his works are one of the noblest monuments, and not directly