e
second century, and some assign it to the middle of the second
century, at which time the Syrian churches were in a very
flourishing condition, and cannot well be supposed to have been
without a version of the Holy Scriptures. The Peshito contains
all the books of the New Testament, except the Second Epistle of
Peter, the Second and Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of
Jude, and the Apocalypse. It testifies to the existence of our
four gospels, not only when it was made, but at an earlier date;
since we must, in all probability, assume that some considerable
time elapsed after the composition, one by one, of the books of
the New Testament, before they were collected into a volume, as
in this Syriac version.

Respecting the _Old Latin_ version, (in distinction from
Jerome's revision, commonly called the _Vulgate_, which belongs
to the fourth century,) various opinions have been maintained.
Some have assumed the existence of several independent Latin
versions of the New Testament, or of some of its books; but the
preferable opinion is that there were various recensions, all
having for their foundation a single version, namely, the Old
Latin; which, says Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, ch. 3,
"can be traced back as far as the earliest records of Latin
Christianity. Every circumstance connected with it indicates the
most remote antiquity." It was current in north Africa, at least
soon after the middle of the second century. Though it has not
come down to us in a perfect form, it contains, along with most
of the other books of the New Testament, our four canonical
gospels; and its testimony is of the greatest weight.

The _Muratorian_ Fragment on the _Canon_ is the name given to a
Latin fragment discovered by the Italian scholar, Muratori, in
the Ambrosian Library at Milan, in a manuscript bearing the
marks of great antiquity. Its date is determined by its
reference to the shepherd of Hermas, which, says the Fragment,
Hermas "wrote very recently in our times, while the bishop Pius,
his brother, occupied the chair of the church at Rome." The
later of the two dates given for the death of Pius is A.D. 157.
The composition of the Fragment must have followed soon
afterwards. Though mutilated at the beginning, as well as the
end, its testimony to the existence of the _