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The first translation of the HebrewOld Testament, made into popular Greek before theChristian era. This article will treat of:
I. Its Importance;
II. Its Origin:
- A. According to tradition;
- B. According to the commonly accepted view;
III. Its subsequent history, recensions,manuscripts, and editions;
IV. Its critical value; Language.
The importance of the Septuagint Version is shown by the following considerations:
(1) The Septuagint is the most ancient translation of theOld Testament and consequently is invaluable to critics for understanding and correcting the Hebrew text(Massorah), the latter, such as it has come down to us, being the text established by theMassoretes in the sixth century A.D. Many textual corruptions, additions, omissions, or transpositions must have crept into the Hebrew text between the third and second centuries B.C. and the sixth and seventh centuries of our era; themanuscripts therefore which the Seventy had at their disposal, may in places have been better than theMassoreticmanuscripts.
(2) The Septuagint Version accepted first by the AlexandrianJews, and afterwards by all the Greek-speaking countries, helped to spread among theGentiles theidea and the expectation of theMessias, and to introduce into Greek thetheological terminology that made it a most suitable instrument for the propagation of the Gospel of Christ.
(3) TheJews made use of it long before theChristian Era, and in the time of Christ it was recognised as a legitimate text, and was employed in Palestine even by the rabbis. The Apostles andEvangelists utilised it also and borrowedOld Testament citations from it, especially in regard to the prophecies. The Fathers and the otherecclesiastical writers of the early Church drew upon it, either directly, as in the case of theGreekFathers, or indirectly, like theLatinFathers and writers and others who employed Latin, Syriac,Ethiopian, Arabic and Gothic versions. It was held in high esteem by all, some even believed it inspired. Consequently, aknowledge of the Septuagint helps to a perfect understanding of these literatures.
(4) At the present time, the Septuagint is the official text in theGreek Church, and the ancient Latin Versions used in the western church were made from it; the earliest translation adopted in theLatin Church, the Vetus Itala, was directly from the Septuagint: the meanings adopted in it, the Greek names and words employed (such as: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers [Arithmoi], Deuteronomy), and finally, the pronunciation given to the Hebrew text, passed very frequently into the Itala, and from it, at times, into theVulgate, which not rarely gives signs of the influence of the Vetus Itala; this is especially so in the Psalms, theVulgate translation being merely the Vetus Itala corrected bySt. Jerome according to the hexaplar text of the Septuagint.
The Septuagint Version is first mentioned in a letter ofAristeas to his brother Philocrates. Here, in substance, is what we read of the origin of the version. Ptolemy II Philadelphus, King ofEgypt (287-47 BC) had recently established a valuablelibrary at Alexandria. He was persuaded by Demetrius of Phalarus, chief librarian, to enrich it with a copy of the sacred books of theJews. To win the goodgraces of this people, Ptolemy, by the advice ofAristeas, an officer of the royal guard, anEgyptian by birth and apagan by religion, emancipated 100,000 slaves in different parts of his kingdom. He then sent delegates, among whom wasAristeas, to Jerusalem, to ask Eleazar, theJewish high-priest, to provide him with a copy of the Law, andJews capable of translating it into Greek. The embassy was successful: a richly ornamented copy of the Law was sent to him and seventy-twoIsraelites, six from each tribe, were deputed to go toEgypt and carry out the wish of the king. They were received with great honor and during seven days astonished everyone by the wisdom they displayed in answering seventy-two questions which they were asked; then they were led into the solitary island of Pharos, where they began their work, translating the Law, helping one another and comparing translations in proportion as they finished them. At the end of seventy-two days, their work was completed, The translation was read in presence of the Jewishpriests, princes, and people assembled at Alexandria, who all recognized and praised its perfect conformity with the Hebrew original. The king was greatly pleased with the work and had it placed in thelibrary.
Despite its legendary character,Aristeas' account gained credence; Aristobulus (170-50 B.C.), in a passage preserved byEusebius, says that "through the efforts of Demetrius of Phalerus a complete translation of the Jewish legislation was executed in the days of Ptolemy";Aristeas's story is repeated almost verbatim byFlavius Josephus (Ant. Jud., XII, ii) and substantially, with the omission ofAristeas' name, byPhilo of Alexandria (De vita Moysis, II, vi). the letter and the story were accepted as genuine by many Fathers andecclesiastical writers till the beginning of the sixteenth century; other details serving to emphasize the extraordinary origin of the version were added toAristeas's account" The seventy-two interpreters were inspired byGod (Tertullian,St. Augustine, the author of the "Cohortatio ad Graecos" [Justin?], and others); in translating they did not consult with one another, they had even been shut up in separate cells, either singly, or in pairs, and their translations when compared were found to agree entirely both as to the sense and the expressions employed with the original text and with each other (Cohortatio ad Graecos,St. Irenæus,St. Clement of Alexandria).St. Jerome rejected the story of the cells as fabulous anduntrue ("Praef. in Pentateuchum"; "Adv. Rufinum", II, xxv). likewise the alleged inspiration of the Septuagint. Finally the seventy two interpreters translated, not only the five books of thePentateuch, but the entire HebrewOld Testament. The authenticity of the letter, called in question first by Louis Vivès (1492-1540), professor atLouvain (Ad S. August. Civ. Dei, XVIII, xlii), then by Jos. Scaliger (d. 1609), and especially by H. Hody (d. 1705) and Dupin (d. 1719) is now universally denied.
(1) The letter ofAristeas is certainlyapocryphal. The writer, who calls himself Aristeas and says he is a Greek and apagan, shows by his whole work that he is apious,zealousJew: he recognizes theGod of theJews as theone true God; he declares thatGod is the author of the Mosaic law; he is an enthusiastic admirer of theTemple of Jerusalem, the Jewish land and people, and its holylaws and learned men.
(2) The account as given in the letter must be regarded as fabulous and legendary, at least in several parts. Some of the details, such as the official intervention of the king and thehigh priest, the number of the seventy-two translators, the seventy-two questions they had to answer, the seventy-two days they took for their work, are clearly arbitrary assertions; it is difficult, moreover, to admit that the AlexandrianJews adopted for their public worship a translation of the Law, made at the request of apagan king; lastly, the very language of the Septuagint Version betrays in places a rather imperfectknowledge both of Hebrew and of the topography of Palestine, and corresponds more closely with the vulgar idiom of Alexandria. Yet it is notcertain that everything contained in the letter is legendary, and scholars ask if there is not a historic foundation underneath the legendary details. Indeed it is likely — as appears from the peculiar character of the language, as well as from what we know of the origin and history of the version — that thePentateuch was translated at Alexandria. It seemstrue also that it dates from the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and therefore from the middle of the third century B.C. For if, as is commonly believed,Aristeas's letter was written about 200 B.C., fifty years after the death of Philadelphus, and with a view to increase the authority of the Greek version of the Law, would it have been accepted so easily and spread broadcast, if it had been fictitious, and if the time of the composition did not correspond with the reality? Moreover, it is possible that Ptolemy had something to do with the preparation or publishing of the translation, though how and why cannot be determined now. Was it for the purpose of enriching hislibrary as Pseudo-Aristeas states? This is possible, but is not proven, while, as will be shown below, we can very well account for the origin of the version independently of the king.
(3) The few details which during the course of ages have been added toAristeas's account cannot be accepted; such are the story of the cells (St. Jerome explicitly rejects this); the inspiration of the translators, an opinion certainly based on the legend of the cells; the number of the translators, seventy-two (see below); the assertion that all the Hebrew books were translated at the same time.Aristeas speaks of the translation of thelaw (nomos), of the legislation (nomothesia), of the books of the legislator; now these expressions especially the last two, certainly mean thePentateuch, exclusive of the otherOld Testament books: andSt. Jerome (Comment. in Mich.) says: "Josephus writes, and the Hebrews inform us, that only the five books of Moses were translated by them (seventy-two), and given to King Ptolemy." Besides, the versions of the various books of theOld Testament differ so much in vocabulary, style, form, and character, sometimes free and sometimes extremely literal, that they could not be the work of the same translators. Nevertheless, in spite of these divergencies the name of the Septuagint Version is universally given to the entire collection of theOld Testament books in the Greek Bible adopted by theEastern Church.
As to thePentateuch the following view seems plausible, and is now commonly accepted in its broad lines: TheJews in the last two centuries B.C. were so numerous inEgypt, especially at Alexandria, that at a certain time they formed two-fifths of the entire population. Little by little most of them ceased to use and even forgot the Hebrew language in great part, and there was a danger of their forgetting the Law. Consequently it became customary to interpret in Greek the Law which was read in thesynagogues, and it was quite natural that, after a time, some menzealous for the Law should have undertaken to compile a Greek Translation of thePentateuch. This happened about the middle of the third century B.C. As to the other Hebrew books — the prophetical and historical — it was natural that the AlexandrianJews, making use of the translatedPentateuch in theirliturgical reunions, should desire to read the remaining books also and hence should gradually have translated all of them into Greek, which had become their maternal language; this would be so much the more likely as theirknowledge of Hebrew was diminishing daily. It is not possible to determine accurately the precise time or the occasions on which these different translations were made; but it iscertain that the Law, the Prophets, and at least part of the other books, that is, the hagiographies, existed in Greek before the year 130 B.C., as appears from the prologue of Ecclesiasticus, which does not date later than that year. It is difficult also to say where the various translations were made, the data being so scanty. Judging by theEgyptian words and expressions occurring in the version, most of the books must have been translated inEgypt and most likely in Alexandria; Esther however was translated inJerusalem (XI, i).
Who were the translators and how many? Is there any foundation for their number, seventy or seventy-two, as given in the legendary account (Brassac-Vigouroux, n. 105)? It seems impossible to decide definitely; the Talmudists tell us that thePentateuch was translated by five interpreters (Sopherim, c.i.). History gives us no details; but an examination of the text shows that in general that the authors were not PalestinianJews called toEgypt; and differences of terminology, method, etc. prove clearly that the translators were not the same for the different books. It is impossible also to say whether the work was carried out officially or was merely a private undertaking, as seems to have been the case with Ecclesiasticus; but the different books when translated were soon put together — the author of Ecclesiasticusknew the collection — and were received as official by the Greek-speakingJews.
The Greek version, known as the Septuagint, welcomed by the AlexandrianJews, spread quickly throughout the countries in which Greek was spoken; it was utilized by different writers, and supplanted the original text inliturgical services. Philo of Alexandria used it in his writings and looked on the translators as inspired Prophets; it was finally received even by theJews of Palestine, and was employed notably byJosephus, the Palestinian Jewish historian. Weknow also that the writers of theNew Testament made use of it, borrowing from it most of their citations; it became theOld Testament of theChurch and was so highly esteemed by the earlyChristians that several writers and Fathers declared it to be inspired. TheChristians had recourse to it constantly in their controversies with theJews, who soon recognized its imperfections, and finally rejected it in favour of the Hebrew text or of more literal translations (Aquila, Theodotion).
On account of its diffusion alone the hellenizingJews and earlyChristians, copies of the Septuagint were multiplied; and as might be expected, many changes, deliberate as well as involuntary, crept in. The necessity of restoring the text as far as possible to its pristine purity was felt. The following is a brief account of the attempted corrections:
A.Origen reproduced the Septuagint text in the fifth column of hisHexapla; marking with obeli the texts that occurred in the Septuagint without being in the original; adding according to Theodotion's version, and distinguishing with asterisks and metobeli the texts of the original which were not in the Septuagint; 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 byPamphilus andEusebius, is called the hexaplar, to distinguish it from the version previously employed and which is called the common, vulgate,koine, or ante-hexaplar. It was adopted in Palestine.
B. St. Lucien,priest of Antioch andmartyr, in the beginning of the fourth century, published an edition corrected in accordance with the hebrew; this retained the name ofkoine, vulgate edition, and is sometimes calledLoukianos, after its author. In the time ofSt. Jerome it was in use at Constantinople and Antioch. C. Finally, Hesychius, anEgyptianbishop, published about the same time, a new recension, employed chiefly inEgypt.
The three most celebratedmanuscripts of the Septuagint known are the Vatican,"Codex Vaticanus" (fourth century); the Alexandrian,"Codex Alexandrinus" (fifth century), now in the British Museum, London; and that of Sinai,"Codex Sinaiticus" (fourth century), found by Tischendorf in theconvent of St. Catherine, onMount Sinai, in 1844 and 1849, now part at Leipzig and in part in St. Petersburg; they are all written in uncials.
The"Codex Vaticanus" is the purest of the three; it generally gives the more ancient text, while the"Codex Alexandrinus" borrows much from the hexaplar text and is changed according to theMassoretic 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 alphabetAleph or by S). The Bibliotheque Nationale inParis possesses also an important palimpsestmanuscript of the Septuagint, the"Codex Ephraemi rescriptus" (designated by the letter C), and twomanuscripts of less value (64 and 114), in cursives, one belonging to the tenth or eleventh century and the other to the thirteenth (Bacuez and Vigouroux, 12th ed., n. 109).
All the printed editions of the Septuagint are derived from the three recensions mentioned above.
The Septuagint Version, while giving exactly as to the form and substance thetrue sense of the Sacred Books, differs nevertheless considerably from our present Hebrew text. These discrepancies, however, are not of great importance and are only matters of interpretation. They may be thus classified: Some result from the translators having had at their disposal Hebrew recensions differing from those which wereknow to theMassoretes; sometimes the texts varied, at others the texts were identical, but they were read in different order. Other discrepancies are due to the translators personally; not to speak of the influence exerted on their work by their methods of interpretation, the inherent difficulties of the work, their greater or lessknowledge of Greek and Hebrew, they now and then translated differently from theMassoretes, because they read the texts differently; that was natural, for, Hebrew being written in square characters, and certain consonants being very similar in form, it was easy to confound them occasionally and so give anerroneous translation; moreover, their Hebrew text being written without any spacing between the various words, they could easily make a mistake in the separation of the words; finally, as the Hebrew text at their disposal contained no vowels, they might supply different vowels from those used later by theMassoretes. 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 editions ofOrigen, Lucian, and Hesychius impaired the purity of the text:voluntarily or involuntarily the copyists allowed many textual corruptions, transpositions, additions, and omissions to creep into the primitive text of the Septuagint. In particular we may note the addition of parallel passages, explanatory notes, or double translations caused by marginal notes. On this consult Dict. de la Bible,art. cit., and Swete, "An Introduction to theOld Testament in Greek".
Everyone admits that the Septuagint Version was made in popular Greek, thekoine dialektos. But is the Greek of theOld Testament a special idiom? Many authorities assert that it is, though they disagree as to its real character. The "Dict. de la Bible", s.v.Grec biblique, 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 Hebraicisms". The same dictionary, s.v.Septante, mentions the more recent opinion of Deissmann that the Greek of the Septuagint is merely the ordinary vernacular Greek, the purekoine of the time. Deissmann bases his theory on the perfect resemblance of the language of the Septuagint and that of the papyri and the inscriptions of the same age; he believes that the syntactical peculiarities of the Septuagint, which at first sight seem to favour the theory of a special language, a hebraicizing Greek, are sufficiently explained by the fact that the Septuagint is a Greek translation of Hebrew books.
APA citation.Vander Heeren, A.(1912).Septuagint Version. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13722a.htm
MLA citation.Vander Heeren, Achille."Septuagint Version."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 13.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1912.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13722a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Nick Austriaco.Dedicated with gratitude to God to the Catholic Fellowship of M.I.T.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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