Armenian and Georgian BIBLE. The Armenians have an old translation of the Scriptures in their language, taken from the Greek of the Septuagint. Three learned Armenians were employed about it, in the time of the emperor Arcadius, viz. Moses firnamed the Grammarians, David the Philosopher, and Mampræus. The Armenians, in 1666, procured an edition of the Bible in their language to be made at Amsterdam, under the direction of an Armenian bishop. Another was printed at Antwerp in 1670, by the procurement of Theodorus Patæus, and the New Testament separately in 1668.
The Georgians have likewise a translation of the Bible in the old Georgian language: but as this language is known only to a very few persons, and the people of the country are extremely ignorant, there is scarce any one who either reads or understands this version.
Whilst the Roman empire subsisted in Europe, the reading of the Scriptures in the Latin tongue, which was the universal language of that empire, prevailed every where. But since the face of affairs in Europe has been changed, and so many different monarchies erected upon the ruins of the Roman empire, the Latin tongue has by degrees grown into disuse: whence has arisen a necessity of translating the Bible into the respective languages of each people; and this has produced as many different versions of the Scriptures in the modern languages, as there are different nations professing the Christian religion. Hence we meet with French, Italian, Spanish, German, Flemish, Danish, Sclavonian, Polish, Bohemian, and Russian or Muscovite Bibles; besides the Anglo-Saxon, and modern English and Irish Bibles.