In the West, Greek was mostly spoken and understood, even in Rome. Paul consequently, and others as well as he, wrote to Rome in Greek. At the same time, the need must have existed, even in the second century, of having the Gospel in the Latin language in parts of Africa, in the north of Italy, and in the South of Gaul. Quite as early, perhaps, the new faith spread to Egypt, which at that time was a kind of centre of religious culture, and so we find in Egypt not one but several versions in various dialects. The Gothic version of Ulfilas deserves special mention as being the oldest monument of Christianity among the Germanic people, and valuable too in the criticism of the text. L. J. M. Bebb, _Evidence of the Early Versions and Patristic Quotations_, etc., in _Studia Biblica_, ii., Oxford, 1890. Lagarde, _De Novo Testamento ad Versionum Orientalium fidem edendo_. Berlin (1857); with slight alterations in his _Ges. Abhandlungen_, 1886, pp. 84-119. Reprinted 1896. _Urtext_ (see p. 7). Copinger (see p. 6). An earlier bibliographical work is the _Bibliotheca Sacra post ... Jacobi Le Long et C. F. Boerneri iteratas curas ordine disposita, emendata, suppleta, continuata ab A. G. Masch_. Halle, 1778-90, 4to. _Pars I., De editionibus textus originalis. Pars II., De versionibus librorum sacrorum_ (3 Vols.). R. Simon, _Histoire critique des versions du N. T._, 1690. _Nouvelles observations sur le texte et les versions du N. T._, 1695. (_a._) SYRIAC VERSIONS. [Sidenote: Peshitto.] The Bible used in the Syrian Church has long and deservedly borne the honourable appellation of “the Queen of the Versions.” It was first published in 1555 at the expense of the Emperor Ferdinand I. by J. Albert Widmanstadt with the assistance of a Syrian Jacobite called Moses, who came from Mardin as legate to Pope Julius III. The type for this edition was beautifully cut by Caspar Kraft of Ellwangen. All the branches into which the Syrian church was divided in the fifth century have used the same translation of the Scriptures. To this day the Syriac New Testament wants the five so-called Antilegomena—viz. 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse—a sufficient proof that it goes back to a time and a region in which these books were not yet reckoned in the Canon of the New Testament. In place of these it contained in early times an alleged Third Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, and an Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul (_cf._ below, p. 142). To distinguish it from other Syriac translations, this Version has been called by Syriac scholars, since the tenth century, the Peshiṭto—_i.e._ the “Simple” or perhaps the “Common,” which is sometimes pronounced Peshiṭtå (פְשִׁיטתָא) and spelt simply =Peshitto=.