§ 2. Language of the Sorabians in Lower Lusatia. Lower Lusatia, or the north-eastern part of the Lusatian territory, together with the adjacent circle of Cotbus in Brandenburg, has about the same number of Vendish inhabitants as the upper province. The dialect they speak has a strong affinity with the Polish, but is, like that of their brethren in Upper Lusatia, corrupted by German interpolations, and even in a still greater degree. It is obviously on the decline, and we can only expect, that after the lapse of a hundred years or less, no other vestige of it will be left than written or printed documents. The first book known to have been printed in this dialect, which is written according to a peculiar combination of the German letters, is Möller's Hymns, Catechism, and Liturgy, Bautzen 1574. Their present literature, like that of Upper Lusatia, is confined to works for religious instruction, grammars, and dictionaries. Of the former they possess no small number. They have also a complete version of the Bible. The N. Testament was translated for them as early as 1709, by Fabricius, and printed together with the German text. It has been repeatedly reprinted; and in the year 1798 a translation of the Old Testament by Fritze was added.111 APPENDIX. According to recent intelligence, received since the preceding pages were written, Prof. Schaffarik, to whose History of the Slavic languages we have so frequently had occasion to refer, is at present engaged in a larger work upon the same subject. In order to live entirely for these studies, he has retired from his professorship at the school of Neusatz, and has removed to Prague. The completion of his great work can hardly be expected at a very early date; since, according to his own statement in a letter to Prof. Maciejowski, he is at the same time Swotlik Vocabularium Latino-Serbicum, Bautzen 1721. There are several others in manuscript; see Schaffarik's Gesch. der Sl. Spr. p. 483. 111 Philological works on this dialect are: Hauptmann's Wendische Sprachlehre, Lübben 1761. Kurze Anleitung zur wend. Sprache, 1746. Megiseri Thesaurus polyglottus, Frankfort 1603, including the Lower Lusatian. Several vocabularies of this dialect are extant in manuscript; see Schaffarik's Geschichte der Sl. Spr. p. 486. engaged in no less than eleven other literary works. We give here a translation of another of his letters, communicated in the Polish papers; from which the reader will perceive what rich additions we may anticipate from his work, to our knowledge of some of the branches of Slavic literature. "I am at present particularly engaged in collecting materials, for my work on the history and literature of the southern Slavic tribes. After five years of fruitless endeavours, I have at length succeeded in opening the way to many monuments of this literature, which have been hitherto either unknown or inaccessible. Indeed, by order of the superior catholic clergy, search is now making throughout Croatia, Slavonia, etc. and all that is found is to be copied for me. It is astonishing, how many books have been written and published since the fifteenth century in the Servian-Illyrian and Croatian dialects, of which even the most distinguished of our literary men, as Dobrovski, Kopitar, and others, seem not to have had the remotest idea! But the Illyrians and Croatians themselves do not know what they possess-like the Bohemians, who know one half of their ancient literature only from catalogues, i. e. only the titles of the books. I have also succeeded in bringing to light some documents of the Servian literature. Almost every time that I travel through Slavonia, the Banat, etc. I meet in the old churches and convents with books hitherto unknown. Would that I could visit Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Bulgaria! A manuscript hitherto unknown, of a statute of Tzar Dushan, I have copied and translated for Prof. Maciejowski at Warsaw, and have commented upon it so far as was possible. Of all this my History of the Slavic Literature will in due time. give a full account. Up to the present time, I have only completed the history of the Slavic-Illyrian literature, or that of the catholic and Greek Servians, that of the Croatians, and of the Slovaks. As to new works by authors in this region, there is not much to be said. Not a few Servian works appear indeed, but they are mostly unripe productions of youthful students. Vuk Stephanovitch writes no longer; formerly chief judge at Belgrade, he now resides at Semlin without any appointment. This is much to be deplored; for he has deserved a better lot." ART. II. THE EARLY BRITISH CHURCH. By F. Münter, Bishop of Zealand. Translated from the German by E. C. Tracy, A. M. INTRODUCTORY Note. The following article was first published after the death of the author, in the Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1833, 1tes Heft, p. 54 sq. Bishop Münter, the writer, was universally regarded as one of the most learned scholars of the age, especially in the department of Ecclesiastical History and Antiquities. He was born at Gotha, A. D. 1761. His father was afterwards invited to Copenhagen as one of the pastors of the principal German church in that city, where he became distinguished for his eloquence as a preacher, and his influence as a clergyman. He is known to the Christians of other countries, by the narrative which he published of his intercourse with the famous count Struensee, after his condemnation. The son was educated at the university of Copenhagen, where he finished his course at an early age, and with great applause. In 1781 he proceeded to Göttingen, to pursue further the studies connected with the profession of theology. In the spring of 1784, he made a journey to Italy under the royal patronage, where he resided something more than three years, chiefly at Rome, but visiting also Naples and Sicily. Of this latter country he afterwards published an account. On his return in 1788, he became professor extraordinary of theology in the university of Copenhagen; and after three years, was advanced to an ordinary professorship, in April 1790. This important station he continued to hold with honour to himself and usefulness to the church and world, until A. D. 1808, when he was advanced to the dignity of bishop of Zealand, the diocese which includes the principal island and the capital of the Danish kingdom. In this high office, besides the activity which he manifested in the performance of all the duties connected with his station, and the many reforms and improvements which he adopted and urged upon his clergy, he still found time to prosecute the studies to which his previous life had been devoted; and many of his most important works were published during this period. The writer of these lines had the pleasure of several interviews with him at Copenhagen in the year 1827, and received a deep impression of his learning, as well as of the dignity and affability of his demeanour. The testimony of evangelical Christians was favourable to his personal piety and to the general tenor of his public exertions; although they regarded him as not being sufficiently decided in some particulars. Münter died April 9, 1830, in the 69th year of his age. A full and interesting sketch of his life and character by his son-in-law, Mynster, is contained in the same number of the Theol. Studien und Kritiken from which the present article is taken.-EDITOR. PART I. Planting of Christianity in England, Scotland, and Ireland. 1. The date of the first preaching of Christianity in the British islands was long a subject of interesting inquiry with English literati, who were fond of ascribing to their church the highest possible antiquity, and even claimed for it an apostolic origin. A favourite testimony in favour of this last opinion, was a passage in the 5th chapter of the first epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, in which it is said that he [Paul] 'preached the gospel to the utmost limit of the west,' ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύ Oεws. This was regarded as explicit testimony in proof of the apostle's visit to Britain, inasmuch as the British sea was denominated by ancient writers the western ocean, the Britons were by the poets called ultimi Britanni, the Morini, on the opposite coast of Gaul, extremi, ultimi hominum Morini; and other expressions of the like kind were used, which Stillingfleet has carefully collected. We have also explicit testimonies from ecclesiastical writers.. The apostles, says Eusebius,' were no deceivers. Such men might, it is true, have deceived their neighbours and countrymen with an improbable story; but what folly were it for individuals so unlearned, who were acquainted only with their mother tongue, to plan a scheme to deceive the world by preaching this doctrine in the most distant cities and countries. He then names the Romans, Persians, Armenians, Parthians, and Scythians, and proceeds to say that some crossed the ocean to the so-called British islands' ènì tác xa 1 Demonst. Evang. III. c. 7. λουμένας βρεττανικὰς νήσους. Theodoret also names the Britons among the nations converted by the apostles ; and, besides, says explicitly, after mentioning Paul's journey into Spain, that he also carried salvation to the islands that lie in the ocean,meaning probably the same as in another place,3 where he says that the apostle, after his release from imprisonment at Rome, went into Spain, and thence spread the light of the gospel to other nations. Jerome also says that Paul, after his residence in Spain, went from the one sea to the other, and that his industry in preaching extended as far as the earth itself: and again (de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis,) that after his imprisonment he preached the gospel in the western countries. Finally, Venantius Fortunatus also, in speaking of the apostle's labours, asserts the same fact : Transit et oceanum, vel qui facit Insula Portum, Quasque Britannus habet terras, quasque ultima Thule. The possibility of all this cannot be disputed. Between his imprisonment at Rome and his death, Paul had ample time both for the journey into Spain, so often mentioned by ancient writers and which we know from Rom. 15: 24, that he intended to make, and for a visit to Britian. There were on that island, from the reign of the emperor Claudius, Roman colonies, civil as well as military, among which London was probably already reckoned.5 An intercourse was therefore undoubtedly kept up between Rome and Britain; and Stillingfleet, by a very sagacious comparision of circumstances, has pointed out a particular inducement that Paul might have had for the supposed visit. It is this:-Pomponia Græcina, wife of A. Plautius, the Roman governor under Claudius, appears to have been a Christian; for, as Tacitus informs us, she was accused of attachment to a foreign superstition-by which Christianity is supposed to be meant-but acquitted, on domestic trial, by her husband. She may therefore have been converted by Paul, who was then already in Rome; and just as the intercourse between Paul and Seneca, so often mentioned, may have been a motive for the apostle's journey into Spain, the native country of the Roman philosopher, so it is possisble that Pomponia 1 Sermon 9. 5 Stillingfleet, p. 43. 6 2 In y. 116. 4 On Amos, c. 9. 6 Annal. XIII. 32. |