When, however, the surviving codices of the version or versions previous to Jerome’s revision came to be studied and published by Sabatier(56) and Bianchini(57), it was obvious that though there were many points of difference, there were still traces of a source common to many, if not to all of them; and on a question of this kind, occasional divergency, however extensive, cannot weaken the impression produced by resemblance, if it be too close and constant to be attributable to chance, as we have just seen. The result of a careful and thorough examination and comparison of the existing Old Latin texts, is a conviction that they are all but off-shoots from one, or at most two, parent stocks. Now when, this fact fairly established, we look back at the language employed by Jerome and Augustine, we can easily see that, with some allowance for his habit of rhetorical exaggeration, the former may mean no more by the term “exemplaria” than that the scattered copies of the Latin translation in his own day varied widely from each other; and though the assertions of Augustine are too positive to be thus disposed of, yet he is here speaking, not from his own personal knowledge so much as from vague conjecture; and of what had been done, not in his own time, but “in the first ages of the faith.” On one point, however, Augustine must be received as a competent and most sufficient witness. We cannot hesitate to believe that one of the several recensions current towards the end of the fourth century was distinguished from the rest by the name of _Itala_(58), and in his judgement deserved praise for its clearness and fidelity. It was long regarded as certain that here we should find the Old Latin version in its purest form, and that in Italy it had been thus used from the very beginning of the Church, “cum Ecclesia Latina sine versione Latina esse non potuerit” (Walton, Proleg. x. 1). Mill indeed reminds us that the early Church at Rome was composed to so great an extent of Jewish and other foreigners, whose vernacular tongue was Greek, that the need of a Latin translation of Scripture would not at first be felt; yet even he would not place its date later than Pius I (142-157), the first Bishop of Rome after Clement who bears a Latin name (Mill, Proleg. § 377). It was not until attention had been specially drawn to the style of the Old Latin version, that scholars began to suggest AFRICA as the place, and the second half of the second century as the time, of its origin. This opinion, which had obtained favour with Eichhorn and some others before him, may be considered as demonstrated by Cardinal Wiseman, in his “Two letters on some parts of the controversy concerning 1 John v. 7(59).” So far as his argument rests on the Greek character of the _Roman_ Church, it may not bring conviction to the reflecting reader. Even though the early Bishops of Rome were of foreign origin, though Clement towards the end of the first, Gaius the