Arabic, Iberian, Slavic, Old Latin (or Italic) versions of the Old Testament. There was only one exception to this general ' adherence to the Septuagint, and that was in the Churches of 'Mesopotamia and the neighbouring regions, where Syriac was 'commonly spoken. Here they had a Syriac translation made from the Hebrew, certainly not long after the age of the Apostles, and perhaps more ancient. These Syrians or Chal'deans had two versions, one from the Hebrew, and the other 'from the Septuagint.' (Churton, p. 77.) III. THE CURRENT TEXT OF THE SEPTUAGINT.-This may be said to be the text of the edition put forth at Rome by the authority of Pope Sixtus V., A.D. MDLXXXVI. Previously to that edition had appeared the celebrated Complutensian Polyglott Bible, in six folio volumes. It was printed between the years 1514-1517, but was not published till 1522. In the meanwhile had appeared the Venetian or Aldine edition (1518), in three volumes, containing the Old and New Testaments. The texts of both these editions were derived from later MSS., and are decidedly inferior to the text of the Roman edition, but of the two the Aldine text is considered the best.1 The Sixtine text, which is the one adopted in the Oxford edition, professes to be formed mainly on the celebrated Vatican MS. at Rome. The following are the words of the illustrious Cardinal Antonius Carafa, Librarian of the Holy Apostolical See, in his dedication of the Roman edition to Pope Sixtus V. :-'Intelleximus cùm ex ipsa collatione, tum è sacrorum veterum Scriptorum consensione, Vaticanum codicem non solum vetustate, verum etiam bonitate 'cæteris anteire; quodque caput est, ad ipsam, quam quærebamus, Septuaginta interpretationem, si non toto libro, majori certè ex parte, quam proximè accedere. Quod mihi cum 'multis aliis argumentis constaret, vel ipso etiam libri titulo, • qui est κατὰ τοὺς ἑβδομήκοντα, curavi de consilio et sententia eorum, quos supra nominavi, hujus libri editionem ad Vaticanum exemplar emendandam; vel potius exemplar ipsum, 'quòd ejus valde probaretur auctoritas, de verbo ad verbum repræsentandum acuratè prius, sicubi opus fuit, recognitum, et notationibus etiam auctum.' Yet when we come to compare the Vatican text of Cardinal Carafa, in 1586, with the Vatican text of his illustrious successor Cardinal Mai, in 1857, we find a very considerable discrepancy between the two, as will be seen from the collation of the first six chapters in the Book of Joshua 6 6 1 Subsequent editions of the Complutensian text were published at Antwerp. 1572; Hamburgh, 1596; Paris, 1645. The Aldine text was republished at Strasburg, 1526; Basle, 1545; Frankfort, 1597; and again at Venice, 1687. subjoined in the note below.' The letter A denotes when the Alexandrine text (taken from Baber) agrees with the Maian. The bracketed readings show where the Alexandrine differs from both. From the instances quoted in the note below, it is at once evident that the Sixtine text does by no means represent with accuracy the text of the Vatican MS. Nor does it appear at all clearly on what precise authority the variations of the Sixtine text from the Vatican MS. (its professed basis) rest. In the preface to the Sixtine edition (attributed to Petrus Morinus), it is stated that besides the Vatican MS. two others have been employed; one, the Codex Venetus, from the library of Cardinal Bessarion; the other, a MS. belonging to Cardinal Carafa. The Codex Venetus contains the Book of Job from ch. xxx., Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song, Wisdom, Siracides, all the Prophets, Tobit, Judith, three Books of Maccabees. It is written in uncial characters, and its date is thought to be of the eighth or ninth century. The MS. which belonged to Cardinal Carafa agrees closely with the text of the Vatican, and from it might possibly have been supplemented those parts of Genesis and the Psalms which are wanting in the Vatican MS. Bessarion's MS. might have been used for supplementing the Books of the Maccabees, which the Vatican MS. has not. Other books, it is further stated in the preface, from the Medicean library at Florence were used. But the Vatican MS. was the main authority. How far the assertion in the preface to the Sixtine edition is true, that the edition does not differ a hair's breadth from the MS. (cum. . . ne latum quidem unguem, ut aiunt, ab hujus libri auctoritate discessum sit'), our readers will be able to judge for themselves by referring to our collation. (Note, pp. 299, 300.) But whether matters are at present ripe for framing a new recension of the Septuagintal text is a very grave question indeed. From this great labour even the indefatigable and not timorous Professor Tischendorf has hitherto shrunk; nor does he in his recently published editions of the Septuagint do more than exhibit the text of the Sixtine edition, with some few alterations, and the additions of various readings from the Alexandrine, Frederico-Augustan, and Ephraem Rescript MSS.1 IV. MATERIALS FOR A FUTURE RECENSION OF THE SEPTUAGINTAL TEXT.-The number of MSS. containing either the whole or a part of the New Testament in Greek amounts to about one thousand. The MSS. of the Septuagint (at present known) do not amount to much more than four hundred. They 1 The variations of the Tischendorfian from the Sixtine text may be classified under the heads of-Punctuation, Greater use of capital initial letters. Numbering of verses, Notation where chapters are differently arranged (as in Jeremiah, Siracides), Accents, Division of such words as ávaμéσov, diataνTós, &c. Breathings (including aspirate consonants), subscript. v peλKUOTIKÓV. A list of the corrections, majoris momenti, is given in Prof. Tischendorf's Prolegomena, xvi. pp. xxxiv-xliii. Then follows a list of emendations from other MSS. principally the Alexandrine. Prol. xvii. pp. xliii-xlvii. are dispersed in different localities throughout Europe and the East, but the principal depositaries are Rome, Paris, Florence, Vienna, London, Oxford, and Venice. Rather more than three hundred are cited in Holmes' edition of the Septuagint, and about one hundred more have since been added. Of these four hundred MSS., the greater part are in cursive characters, and date from the tenth century downwards. Fifteen in uncial characters are mentioned by Holmes, dating from the fourth to the ninth or tenth century. There are, however, very few MSS. indeed which contain the whole of the Old Testament in Greek. They do not amount to ten. More than eighty contain the Pentateuch, either the whole or in part. The Psalms appear in the greatest number of MSS., about one hundred and fifty in all. Isaiah and Daniel appear in about forty MSS.; Job in about thirty; Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song, Baruch, in about twenty; a smaller number contain Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Siracides, the Books of the Maccabees. 1 Of the uncial MSS. mentioned by Holmes, the two oldest and most famous are the Alexandrine and the Vatican MSS. As we have in a previous number given some account of these documents in connexion with their bearing on the text of the New Testament, we may be permitted to refer to what was there said for a general description of their age and character. It will be enough on the present occasion if we say a few words about each in connexion with the text of the Septuagint. Of all known extant MSS. the Alexandrine gives most completely the text of the Septuagint, for it contains the whole. Various readings gathered from it by Alexander Huissius were inserted by Walton in his celebrated Polyglott Bible (London, 1657-1660). The text itself was published by Ernest Grabe and two others, in four volumes, folio (Oxford, 1707-1720). In this edition Grabe professes to have given the readings of the Alexandrine MS. either in the text or at the margin, except what appear to be manifest blunders of the scribe, or may be put down to variations in orthography, &c. The editor has also used certain marks and variations in the Greek type to denote the supposed additions made to the original text by Theodotion and others, and the passages which occur 1 See Christian Remembrancer, No. cxii. p. 367. 2 Except from 1 Kings (=1 Sam.) xii. 17, Baσiv ed eauтois. Here one leaf (168) has been lost. Also from Ps. xlix. (1.) 19, doλioτηтa, to Ps. lxxix. (lxxx.) 11, where the MS. recommences with the words Tas Kedpovs Tov dεov. Here several leaves have been lost. A few verses and words have also perished elsewhere. 3 Vol. I. by Grabe, 1707, Octateuch. Vol. II. by Lee, 1719, Historical Books. Books. Vol. IV. by Grabe, 1709, Psalms, &c. |
