Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

The reader must be on his guard against the error of supposing that these more than a thousand variations from the Hebrew text are of such a nature as to affect seriously the system of doctrines and duties taught in the Pentateuch. They are rather of a critical and grammatical character, changes which leave the substance of revelation untouched. See on this point Ch. 3. There is one striking agreement between the Samaritan text and that of the Septuagint in which many biblical scholars think that the true ancient reading has been preserved. It is that of Gen. 4:8: "And Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go out into the field. And it came to pass when they were in the field." etc.

II. OTHER GREEK VERSIONS.

8. In the beginning of Christianity the Septuagint enjoyed, as we have seen, a high reputation among the Jews; and as a natural consequence, among the Jewish converts also, as well as the Gentile Christians. To the great body of Gentile believers it was for the Old Testament the only source of knowledge, as they were ignorant of the Hebrew original. They studied it diligently, and used it efficiently against the unbelieving Jews. Hence there naturally arose in the minds of the latter a feeling of opposition to this version which became very bitter. They began to disparage its authority, and to accuse it of misrepresenting the Hebrew. The next step was to oppose to it another version made by Aquila, which was soon followed by two others, those of Theodotion and Symmachus.

9. Aquila is represented to have been a Jewish proselyte of Pontus, and to have lived in the second century. His version was slavishly literal, following the Hebrew idiom even where it is contrary to that of the Greek. For this very reason, not withstanding all the barbarisms thus introduced, the Jews highly valued it, calling it the Hebrew verity. All that remains of it to us is contained in the fragments of Origen's Hexapla. See below, No. 12. Had we the whole work, its extremely literal character would give it great value in a critical point of view, as it would shed much light on the state of the Hebrew text when it was executed.

10. Theodotion was, according to Irenæus, an Ephesian. Jerome calls him and Symmachus Ebionites, Judaizing heretics, and semi-Christians. He is supposed to have made his version in the last half of the second century. According to the testimony of the ancients, it had a close resemblance in character to the Septuagint. He seems to have had this version before him, and to have made a free use of it. Of the three later versions, that of Theodotion was most esteemed by the Christians, and they substituted his translation of the book of Daniel for that of the Seventy.

11. Symmachus, called by the church fathers an Ebionite, but by some a Samaritan, seems to have flourished not far from the close of the second century. His version was free, aiming to give the sense rather than the words. His idiom was Hellenistic, and in this respect resembled the Septuagint, from the author's familiarity with which, indeed, it probably took its complexion.

Of other ancient Greek versions discovered by Origen in his Eastern travels and made by unknown authors it is not necessary to speak.

12. The text of the Septuagint was never preserved so carefully as that of the Hebrew, and in the days of Origen it had fallen into great confusion. To meet the objections of the Jews, as well as to help believers in their study of the Old Testament, Origen undertook first the work called the Tetrapla (Greek, fourfold), which was followed by the Hexapla (Greek, sixfold). To prepare himself he spent twenty-eight years, travelling extensively and collecting materials. In the Tetrapla, the text of the Septuagint (corrected by manuscripts of itself), and those of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus were arranged side by side in four parallel columns. In the Hexapla there were six columns—(1) the Hebrew in Hebrew characters; (2) the Hebrew expressed in Greek letters; (3) Aquila; (4) Symmachus; (5) the Septuagint; (6) Theodotion. See Davidson's Bib. Crit., 1, p. 203; Smith's Bib. Diet., 2, p. 1202. In some books he used two other Greek versions, and occasionally even a third, giving in the first case eight, in the second, nine columns.

"The great work," says Davidson, "consisting of nearly fifty volumes; on which he had spent the best years of his life, does not seem to have been transcribed—probably in consequence of its magnitude and the great expense necessarily attending a transcript. It lay unused as a whole fifty years after it was finished, till Eusebius and Pamphilus drew it forth from its concealment in Tyre, and placed it in the library of the latter in Cæsarea. It is thought to have perished there when Cæsarea was taken and plundered by the Saracens, A.D. 653." Bib. Criticism, 1, p. 206. Well did Origen merit by his vast researches and labors the epithet Adamantinus [Adamantine] bestowed on him by the ancients. Fragments of the Hexapla, consisting of extracts made from it by the ancients, have been collected and published in two folio volumes by Montfauçon, Paris, 1713, and reprinted by Bahrdt in two volumes octavo, Leipzig and Lubeck, 1769, 1770. It is the hope of biblical scholars that these may be enriched from the Nitrian manuscripts. See further, Chap. 28, No. 8.