Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi). The "Sepher Mugah" was probably at least as old. At least one of these two MSS. was in existence in Muhammad's time. From Jewish comments on them we know that they contained the same books as the present Hebrew Bible. Of later Hebrew MSS., which are copies of more ancient ones, we have not a few.

If it be asked what has happened to the older MSS., the answer which the Jews themselves give is that, when worn out with being read in the Synagogue, it was customary to place them in the Genizah ("treasury" or "storehouse"). After a time, when some distinguished Rabbi died, a worn-out MS. used often to be buried with him. On other occasions, after most carefully copying these ancient MSS., it was customary to burn them with all reverence, lest they should be put to some unsuitable use.

If we now turn to the Septuagint Greek version of the Old Testament, the very existence of which bears witness to that of the Hebrew text from which it was translated, we actually possess several MSS., which were written many years before the Hijrah, and which therefore existed in Muhammad's day as they still exist. We proceed to mention the principal of these:

I. Codex Sinaiticus (السّفر الْسّينايُ), written in the fourth or at the beginning of the fifth century.
2. Codex Vaticanus (الواطيقاني), written in the fourth century, perhaps early in that century.
3. Codex Alexandrinus (الإْسكندري), written in the middle or end of the fifth century.
4. Codex Cottonianus (القُطّوني) of Genesis, written in the fifth or sixth century.
5. Codex Ambrosianus (الاّمبروسياني), written about the first half of the fifth century.

All these MSS. of the Greek Old Testament were actually in existence in Muhammad's time. If any scholar therefore wishes to know what the Torah,

the Zabur, and the Books of the Prophets were to which the Qur'an refers, all he has to do is to pay a visit to the Libraries in which these MSS. are treasured up. Our Greek copies of the Old Testament, which are in the hands of all Christian scholars, are printed in accordance with the text found in these ancient MSS. When we compare the Hebrew MSS. already mentioned with these ancient Greek MSS., we find that they agree in every single doctrine. A few slight differences of reading are found, and in some places the Greek translators have wrongly translated a difficult word. The Septuagint Version also differs from our present Hebrew text with respect to the ages of some of the Patriarchs mentioned in Gen. v. and xi. But these differences of reading do not in the slightest degree affect religion in either faith or practice.

Of the Greek New Testament we also possess very ancient MSS. These are on parchment, not on paper, so that Shaikh Rahmatu'llah's remark, "The¹ preservation of the paper and the letters for 1,400 years or longer is extraordinary," is out of place. But in Egypt we have found writings even on papyrus which are more than 1,800 years old, as scholars well know. Many MSS. which contain the Old Testament in the Greek translation also contain the original Greek of the New Testament. I. One of these is the Codex Sinaiticus, mentioned above. It is preserved in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. 2. A second is the Codex Vaticanus, preserved in the Vatican Library at Rome. 3. A third is the Codex Alexandrinus, which is in the British Museum in London. The dates of these have been already given. 4. In 1907 four portions of a Greek MS., probably belonging to the fourth century, but certainly not later than the sixth, were discovered in a monastery near Sohag in Egypt, opposite Akhmim. One portion contains the Books of Deuteronomy and Joshua; the second contains the