native Egyptian
ventured to teach that nothing but the soul would rise from the dead,
and that we must look forward to only a spiritual resurrection. Hieracas
was a man of some learning, and, much to the vexation of those who
opposed his arguments, he could repeat nearly the whole Bible by heart.

The Bishop Hesychius, the martyr in the late persecution, was one of
the learned men of the time. He had published a new edition of the
Septuagint Old Testament, and also of the New Testament. This edition
was valued and chiefly used in Egypt, while that by Lucianus,
who suffered in the same persecution, was read in Asia Minor from
Constantinople to Antioch, and the older edition by Origen remained in
use in Palestine. But such was the credit of Alexandria, as the chief
seat of Christian learning, that distant churches sent there for
copies of the Scriptures, foreign translations were mostly made from
Alexandrian copies, and the greater number of Christians even now read
the Bible according to the edition by Hesychius. We must, however, fear
that these editors were by no means judicious in their labours.

[Illustration: 184.jpg DOME PALM OF UPPER EGYPT]

From the text itself we can learn that the early copiers of the Bible
thought those manuscripts most valuable which were most full. Many a
gloss and marginal note got written into the text. Their devotional
feelings blinded their critical judgment; and they never ventured to put
aside a modern addition as spurious. This mistaken view of their
duty had of old guided the Hebrew copiers in Jerusalem; and though in
Alexandria a juster criticism had been applied to the copies of Homer,
it was not thought proper to use the same good sense when making copies
of the Bible. So strong was the habit of grafting the additions into
the text that the Greek translation became more copious than the Hebrew
original, as the Latin soon afterwards became more copious than the
Greek.

It was about this time, at least after Theodotion's translation of
Daniel had received the sanction of the Alexandrian church, and when the
teachers of Christianity found willing hearers in every city of Egypt,
that the Bible was translated into the language of the country. We have
now parts of several Koptic versions. They are translated closely, and
nearly word by word from the Greek; and, being meant for a people among
whom that language had been spoken for centuries, about one word in five
is Greek. The Theb