GERMAN VERSIONS. There is no certain trace of any attempt to translate the Scriptures into the vernacular dialects of thc German people previous to the latter half of the ninth century. Though Charlemagne enjoined upon his clergy the study of the Bible and the delivering of expositions of it to the people in the vulgar tongue, there is no evidence for the assertion hazarded by Ussher (De Script. Vernae., p. Tog) and others that German versions of the Bible were made by his order ; nor is the statement that a Saxon poet had, by order of his son Lewis, versified the whole Bible (Flacius III. Catal. Test., p. 93) better supported. It is to the poetical narratives of the life of our Saviour which appeared after the middle of the 9th cen tury, that the beginnings of Biblical translation among the Germans are to be traced. The Krist of Otfried of Weissenburg (ab. 86o) ; the Heliand, by an unknown author, and perhaps about the same time, are the earliest documents of which any thing certain can be said. Of both of these edi tions have been printed ; the best are, of the Krist, that by E. G. Graff, Kon. 1831 ; and of the Hcliand, those of J. A. Schmeller, with a glossary, Miinch. 184o, and J. R. Kone, with a translation, Miinst. 1855. Some fra,gments of a very ancient translation of Matthew have been published by St. Endlicher and H. Hoffinann, 1834, and by J. F. Massmann, 184.1, from a codex in the library at Vienna ; the dialect in this version is very rude, and, if not provincial, would seem to point to an earlier date than the ninth century. Versions of the Psalter seem to have been executed in consi derable numbers in the tenth century ; one of these by Notker Labeo, abbot of St. Gall, is given by Schilter (Thes. vol. i.), and others anonymous are to be found in Graff's Deutsche Interlinear ver sionen der Psalmen, Quad. 183g. A paraphrase of the Song of Songs in Latin verse and German prose, by William of Ebersberg in Bavaria (ab. toSo), has been edited in Schilter's Thes. i., and separately by Merula, Leyd. 159S, Freher, Worms 1631, and recently, with additional fragments of other parts of Scripture, by Hoffmann, Ber. 1827. This scholar has also edited, in the 2d vol. of his Fundgmben, a metrical translation of Genesis and part of Exodus, belonging to the same period or a little later. To the 13th century belongs
the chronicle of Rudolf von Hohenems, which is a sort of poetical version of the historical parts of the O. T. ; of this many MSS. exist, and an edition has been published, but from a bad text, by Schiitze, Hamb. 1779. Several works of a similar kind, in which the Biblical narratives are set forth, sometimes with apocryphal additions, were pro duced about this time ; of these one, which exists in various dialects and in numerous codices, is a version of the historical parts of Scripture in prose, composed partly from the poetical versions already extant, partly translated from the Vulgate (Mass mann, Die Kaiserchronik, iii. 54). Formal trans lations from the Vulgate began now to be multi plied ; of these MSS. exist, though the names of the authors have for the most part perished (Reiske, .De Verss. Germ. ante Lutherum, 1697 ; Schceber, Berle/a von alten Deutsche,: geschriehenen 1763; Rosenmiiller, Interpr. v. 174, etc.) Out of these, though by what process we are unable to describe, came the complete version of the Bible in German, which was in the possession of the people before the invention of printing, and of which copies were multiplied to a great extent as soon as that art came into operation. Before 1477 five undated editions, the four earlier at Mayence and Strasburg, as is believed, the fifth at Augsburg, as the book itself attests, had been printed ; and between 1477 and 1522 nine editions, seven at Augsburg, one at .Niiremberg, and one at Strasburg, were issued. Several editions of the I'salter also appeared, and one of the Gospels, with the Pericopx from the Epistles. Collectors tell also of a translation of Ruth by Baschenstayn, 1525 ; of Malachi by Hetzer, 1526 ; of Hosea by Capito, 15272 and other similar attempts (Riederer, Nachrichten II.,So, ff.) An important place must be also assigned to the translation of the N. T. into Danish by Hans Mikkelsen, Leips. 1524 ; which, though avowedly ret effter latinen vdsat the,' bears numerous traces of independence of the Vulgate, and of being made directly from the Greek (Henderson, Dissertation on Hans Alikhelsen's T., Copenh. 1813). Of translations into low Ger man one was printed at Cologne 148o, another at Liibeck 1498, and a third at Ilalberstadt 1522.