SEPTUAGINT
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SEPTUAGINT
gint; adopting from the variants of the Greek Version
the texts which were closest to the Hebrew; and,
finally, transposing the text where the order of the
Septuagint did not correspond with the Hebrew
order. His recension, copied b)^ Pamphilus and
Eusebius, is called the hexaplar, to distinguish it
from the version previously employed and which is
called the common, vulgate, koivt^, or ante-hexaplar.
It was adopted in Palestine. B. St. Lucien, priest of
Antioch and martyr, in the beginning of the fourth
century, pubhshed an edition corrected in accordance
with the Hebrew; this retained the name of koiv-^,
vulgate edition, and is sometimes called AovKiavis,
after its author. In the time of St. Jerome it was in
use at Constantinople and Antioch. C. Finally,
Hesychius, an Egyptian bishop, published about the
same time, a new recension, employed chiefly in
Egypt.
Mayiuscripls. — "The three most celebrated MSS. of the Septuagint known are the Vatican, "Codex Vaticanus" (fom-th century) ; the Alexandrian, "Codex Alexandrinus " (fifth century), now in the British Museum, London; and that of Sinai, "Codex Sinaiti- cus" (fourth century), found by Tischendorf in the convent of Saint Catherine, on IMount Sinai, in 1844 and 1849, now in part at Leipzig and in part at St. Petersburg; they are all TATitten in uncials. The "Codex Vaticanus" is the purest of the three; it generally gives the more ancient text, while the "Codex Alexamh-inus" borrows much from the hexaplar te.xt and is changed according to the Mas- soretic text (The "Codex Vaticanus" is referred to by the letter B; the "Codex Alexandrinus" by the letter A, and the "Codex Sinaiticus" by the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet N or bj^ S). The Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris possesses also an important pa- limpsest MS. of the Septuagint, the "Codex Ephraemi rescriptus" (designated by the letter C), and two RLSS. of less value (64 and 118), in cursives, one be- longing to the tenth or eleventh century and the other to the thirteenth (Bacuez and Vigouroux, 12th ed., n. 109).
Printed Editions. — All the printed editions of the Septuagint are derived from the three recensions men- tioned above. A. The editio princeps is the Com- plutensian or that of Alcald. It was from Origen's hexaplar text; printed in 1.514-18, it was not pub- h.shed till it appeared in the Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes in 1520. B. The Aldine edition (begun by Aldus Manucius) appeared at Venice in 1518. The text is purer than that of the Complutensian edition, and is closer to Codex B. The editor says he collated ancient MSS. but does not specify them. It has been reprinted several times. C. The mosl important edi- tion is the Roman or Sixtine, which reproduces the "Codex Vaticanus" almost exclusively. It was pub- lisliC'd under the direction of Cardinal Caraffa, with the help of various savants, in 1586, by the authority of Sixtus V, to assist the revisers who were preparing the Latin Vulgate edition ordered by the Council of Trent. It has become the textus receptus of the Greek Old Testament and has had many new editions, such as that of Holmes and Pearsons (Oxford, 1798-1827), the seven editions of Tischendorf, which appeared at Leipzig between 1850 and 1887, the last two published after the death of the author and revised by Nestle, the four editions of Swete (Cambridge, 1887-95, 1901, 1909j, etc. D. Grabe's edition was published at Oxford, from 1707 to 1720, and reproduced, but imperfectly, the "Codex Alexandrinus" of London. For partial editions, see Vigouroux, "Diet, de la Bible", 1643 sqq.
IV. Critical Value.— The Septuagint Version, while giving exactly as to the form and substance the true sense of the Sacred Books, differs neverthe- less considerably from our present Hebrew text. These discrepancies, however, are not of great im-
portance and are only matters of interpretation.
They may be thus classified: Some result from the
translators having had at their disposal Hebrew
recensions difl'ering from those which were known to
the Massoretes; sometimes the texts varied, at others
the texts were ideut ical, hut they were read in different
order. Other discrepancies are due to tlie translators
personally; not to speak of the iniluence exerted on
their work by their methods of interpretation, the
inherent difficulties of the work, then- greater or less
knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, they now and then
translated differently from the Massoretes, because
they read the texts differently; that was natural, for,
Hebrew being wTitten in square characters, and certain
consonants being very similar in form, it was easy to
confound them occasionally and so give an erroneous
translation; moreover, their Hebrew text b(nng
written without any spacing between the ^•al•iou3
words, they could easily make a mistake in the
separation of the words; finally, as the Hebrew text
at their disposal contained no v(jw(4s, they might
supply different vowels from those used later by the
Massoretes. Again, we must not think that we have
at present the Greek text exactly as it was written
by the translators; the frequent transcriptions during
the early centuries, as well as the corrections and edi-
tions of Origen, Lucian, and Hesychius impaired the
purity of the text: voluntarily or involuntarily the
copyists allowed many textual corruptions, transposi-
tions, additions, and omissions to creep into the prim-
itive text of the Sei)tuagint. In particular we may
note the addition of jjarallcl passages, explanatory
notes, or double translations caused by marginal
notes. On this consult Diet, de la Bible, art. cit., and
Swete, "An Introduction to the Old Testament in
Greek".
Language. — Everyone admits that the Septuagint Version was made in popular Greek, the KOLvij SidXeKTos. But is the Greek of the Old Testament a special idiom? Many authorities assert that it is, though they disagree as to its real character. The "Diet, de la Bible", s. v. Grcc bibliquc, asserts that it was " the hebraicizing Greek spoken by the Jewish community at Alexandria", the popular Greek of Alexandria "with a very large admixture of Hebra- icisms". The same dictionary, s. v. Septante, men- tions the more recent opinion of Deissmann that the Greek of the Septuagint is merely the ordinary vernacular Greek, the pure Koi.vr} of the time. Deiss- mann bases his theory on the perfect resemblance of the language of the Septuagint and that of the
Eapyri and the inscriptions of the same age; he elieves that the syntactical i)eculiarities of the Sep- tuagint, which at first sight sei^n to favour the theory of a special language, a hebrai('izing Greek, are sufficiently explained by the fact that the Septuagint is a Greek translation of Hebrew books.
HoDY, De bibliorum lextihus originalihus, versionibrm nrcpcia el lalina vulgata (Oxford, 1705); Chubton, On the influence of the Septuagint upon the Progress of Christianity (Cambridge, 1801); CoKNELY, Hist, et crit. introductio in V. T. libros sacros, I (Paris, 1885); Idem, Ifist. et crit. introd. in V. T. lib. sacros compendium (Paris, 1900); Thochon, La Sainte Bible; introd. giniralr (ruris, 1886); Lamy, Introd. in sacram scripturam (Mechlin, 1880-1887); Robertson Smith, Old Testament in the Jewish Church (2nd ed., 1892) ; LoiBY, I/isl. crit. du texte et des versions de la Bible in Enseignement biblique (Paris, 1893); Klostermann, Analecta zur Septuaginla (Leipzig, 1895); Deissmann, Neue BibeUtudien. Sprachgeschichtliche BeitrUge zumeist aus den Papyri und Inach- riftemur Erkldrung des neuen Testaments (Marburg, 1897); Idem, H ellenislisches Griechisch in Realencyclopddie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirche (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1899); Schuher, Gesch. des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1898); Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge, 1900); Vigouroux, Manuel biblique (12th ed., Paris, 1906).
For the letter of Pscudo-Aristeas, see Thackeray, The letter of Aristeas, an Appendix to an Introduction to the Old Testament (Cambridge, 1900); We.ndland, Ariste(c ad Philocratem epistola cum ca-leris de origine versionis Septuaginla interpretum leslimoniia (Leipzig, 1900).
For the complete edition of the Septuagint, see Vercellonb, Vetua el Novum TealamerUum ex antiquiaaimo codice Valicano
