his time went about for common use among the Hellenistical Jews and Christians, and were then read by both in their public assemblies, as well as in private at home, where then very much corrupted, through the mistakes and negligence of transcribers, whose hands, by often transcription, it had now long gone through: and therefore to remedy this evil, he applied himself, with great care, by examining and collating of many copies, to correct all the errors that had this way crept into this version, and restore it again to its primitive perfection. And that copy which he had thus restored he placed in his Hexapla, in the fifth column; which being generally reputed to be the true and perfect copy of the Septuagint, the other that went about in common use was, in contradistinction to it, called the common or vulgar edition. And his labour rested not here: for he not only endeavoured, by comparing many different copies and editions of it, to clear it from the errors of transcribers, but also, by comparing it with the Hebrew original, to clear it from the mistakes of the first composers also; for many such he found in it, not only by omissions and additions, but also by wrong interpretations made in it by the first authors of this version. The law, which was the most exactly translated of all, had many of these, but the other parts a great many more. All which he endeavoured to correct in such manner, as to leave the original text of the Septuagint still entire, as it came out of the hands of the first translators, without any alterations, additions, or defalcations in it; in order whereto he made use of four marks, called obelisks, asterisks, lemnisks, and hypo-lemnisks, which were then in use among the grammarians of those times, and put them into that edition of his corrected version of the Septuagint which he placed in his Hexapla. The obelisk was a straight stroke of the pen, resembling the form of a small spit, or the blade of a rapier, as thus (-); and thence it had the name of xs, in Greek, which signifieth, in that language, a small spit, and also the blade of a sword: the asterisk was a small star as thus (*), and was so called, because in Greek that word thus signifieth; the Lemnisk was a straight line drawn between two points, as thus (-); and the hypolemnisk, a straight line with one point under it, as thus (). By the obelisk he pointed out what was in the text of the Septuagint to be expunged, as that which was redundant over and above what was in the text of the Hebrew original. By the asterisk he showed what was to be added to it, to supply those places where he found it deficient of what was in the original. And these supplements he made to it mostly according to the version of Theodotion, and only where that could not serve to this purpose did he make use of the other versions. The lemnisks and hypolemnisks he seemeth to have used to mark out unto us where the original interpreters were mistaken in the sense and meaning of the words. But how these marks served to this end, the accounts which we have of them are not sufficient to give us a clear notion. To show how far the redundancies went that were marked with obelisks, and how far the additions that were marked with tho asterisks, another mark was made use of by him in this edition, which in some copies were two points, as thus (:), or else in others the head of a dart inverted, as thus (◊); and by these marks was pointed out where the said redundancies and additions ended, in the same manner as by the obelisks and asterisks was where they begun, as ** Ts, or thus-UTOS. But all this he did without making any alteration in the original version of the Septuagint; for taking out all these marks, with those supplements which were added under the asterisks, there remained the true and perfect edition of the Septuagint, as published by the first translators; and this was that which was called Origen's edition, as being corrected and reformed by him in the manner as I have said. This was a work

*

1 Hieronymus in Epistola ad Suniam et Fretelam.

4

2 Epiphanius de Ponderibus et Mensuris. Hieronymus in Prologo ad Genesin, et in Præfatione ad librum Psalmorum, et in Præfatione ad libros Paralipom, et in Præfatione ad libros Solomonis, et in libro secundo adversus Ruffinum.

3 Hieronymus in Prologo ad Genesin, et in Præfatione ad librum Job, et in libro secundo adversus Ruffinum, et in Epistola 74, ad Augustinum. 4 Hieronymus in Præfatione ad librum Psalmorum.

5 Vide Græcam versionem libri Joshuæ a Masio editam. 6 Hieronymus in Epistola 74 ad Augustinum.

of infinite labour, which gained him the name of Adamantius,' and was also of as great benefit to the church. It is not certainly said when he finished it; but it seems to have been in the year of our Lord 250, which was four years before his death. The original copy, when completed, was laid up in the library of the church of Cesarea in Palestine, where Jerome, many years after consulted it, and wrote out a transcript from it. But the troubles and persecutions which the church fell under in those times, seem to have been the cause that, after it was placed in that library, it lay there in obscurity about fifty years without being taken notice of; till at length, being found there by Pamphilus and Eusebius, they wrote out copies of it: and from that time, the use and excellency of it being made known, it became dispersed to other churches, and was received every where with great applause and approbation by them." But the voluminousness of the work, and the trouble and charges it would have cost to have it entirely transcribed, became the cause that it was not long-lived: for it being very troublesome and expensive to have so bulky a book wrote out, which consisted of several volumes, and also very difficult to find scribes among Christians in those times sufficiently skilled to write out the Hebrew text, many contented themselves with copying out the fifth column only, that is, the Septuagint, with those marks of asterisks, obelisks, lemnisks, and Hypolemnisks, with which Origen placed it in that column, that part thus marked seeming to comprehend an abridgement of the whole, whereby it came to pass, that few transcripts of this great work were made, but many of the other. In the transcribing of which, the asterisks being often left out, through want of due care in the writers, this occasioned that, in many copies of the Septuagint which were afterward made, several particulars were taken into the text of the Septuagint, as original parts of it, which had only, under this mark, been inserted there by way of supplement out of other translations. However, several copies of the whole work, both of the Tetrapla and Hexapla, still remained in libraries, and were consulted there on all occasions, till, at length, about the middle of the seventh century, the inundation of the Saracens upon the eastern parts having destroyed all libraries wherever they came, it was after this no more heard of; for there hath never since been any more remaining of it, than some fragments that have been gathered together by Flaminius, Nobilius, Drusias, and Bernard de Montfaucon. The latter, in a book lately published, almost as bulky as the Hexapla, and a very pompous edition of it, hath made us expect concerning this matter much more than is performed.

Pamphilus and Eusebius having, about the conclusion of the third century, found the Hexapla of Origen in the library of Cesarea (or, according as some relate, brought it from Tyre, and placed it there,) corrected out of it the Septuagint version then in common use; and having caused to be written out several copies of it thus corrected according to the fifth column in Origen's Hexapla, communicated them to the neighbouring churches; and from hence this edition became of general use in them, from Antioch to the borders of Egypt, and was called the Palestine edition, because it was there first published and used; and sometimes it is also called the edition of Origen, because it was made according to his corrections.

About the same time two other editions of the same Septuagint Bible were made: the first by Lucian, a presbyter of the church of Antioch; which being found after his death at Nicomedia in Bithynia," where he suffered martyrdom in the tenth persecution, it became afterward used through all the churches

1 Hieronymus in Epistola ad Marcellam. For Adamantius, as applied to him, signified the indefatigable, who was not to be overcome with labour; and it was not without indefatigable labour that he completed this and the other works which he published.

2 Hieronymus in Psalmum secundum, et in Comment. in Epistolam ad Titum, c. 3.

3 Hieronymus in Præmio ad Comment. in Danielem, et in Epistola 74 ad Augustinum.

4 Hieronymus in Præfatione ad Paralipomena.

5 Hieronymus in Præfatione ad Paralipom. et in Catalogo Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum. et in Epistola að Suniam et Fretelam. Suidas ex Simone Metaphrasta in voce Acuxiavos, et in voce N

6 Auctor Synopsis Sacræ Scripturæ.

from Constantinople to Antioch. The other was made by Hesychius, a bishop of Egypt; which being received by the church of Alexandria,' was from that time brought into use in that and all the other churches of Egypt. Both these two latter correctors understood the Hebrew text, and in many places corrected their editions from it.

All the authors of these three editions suffered martyrdom in the tenth persecution, which gave their editions that reputation, that the whole Greek church used either the one or the other of them. The churches of Antioch and Constantinople, and of all the intermediate countries lying between them, made use of the edition of Lucian: all from Antioch to Egypt, that of Pamphilus: and all the churches of Egypt, that of Hesychius. So that Jerome saith, the whole world' was divided between them in a threefold variety; because, in his time, no Greek church through the whole world made use of any other edition of those scriptures, than one of these three; but every one of them received either the one or the other of them for the authentic copy which they went by. But, if we may judge by the manuscript copies which still remain, these three different editions, bating the errors of scribes, did not, by variations that were of any great moment, differ the one from the other.

As thus the ancients had three principal editions of the Septuagint, from whence all the rest were copied, so hath it happened also among the moderns: for, since the inventing of printing, there have been also three principal editions of this Septuagint version, from which all the rest have been printed that are now extant among us; the first, that of Cardinal Ximenes, printed at Complutum, or Alcala, in Spain; the second, that of Aldus, at Venice; and the third, that of Pope Sixtus V. at Rome.

That of Cardinal Ximenes was printed A. D. 1515,3 in his Polyglot Bible of Complutum; which contained, 1st, The Hebrew text; 2dly, The Chaldee paraphrase of Onkelos on the Pentateuch; 3dly, The Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament, and the Greek original of the New; and 4thly, The Latin version of both. It was prepared for the press by the study and care of the divines of the university of Alcala, and others called thither to assist in this work. But the whole being carried on under the direction, and at the costs and charges of Cardinal Ximenes, it hath the name of his edition. The method proposed herein, as to the Septuagint, having been, out of all the copies they could meet with, to choose out that reading which was nearest the original, they seem rather thereby to have given us a new Greek translation of their own composure, than that ancient Greek version, which, under the name of the Septuagint, was in so great use among the primitive fathers of the Christian church. From this edition hath been printed the Septuagint which we have in both the Polyglots of Antwerp and Paris; the former of which was published A. D. 1572, and the other A. D. 1645; and also the Septuagint of Commelin, printed at Heidelberg, with Vatablus's Commentary, A. D. 1599.

2dly, Aldus's edition was published at Venice, A. D. 1518. It was by the collation of many ancient manuscripts, prepared for the press by Andreas Asulanus, father-in-law of the printer. And from this copy have been printed all the German editions, excepting that of Heidelberg by Commelin, already mentioned.

3dly, But the Roman edition hath obtained the preference above the other two in the opinion of most learned men, though Isaac Vossius condemns it as the worst of all. The printing of this edition was first set on foot by Cardinal

1 Hieronymus in Apologia ad versus Ruffinum, lib. 2. et in Præfatione ad Paralipomena.

2 In Præfatione ad Paralipomena sic scribit. Alexandria et Ægyptus in Lxx suis Hesychium. Laudat Authorem. Constantinopolis usque ad Antiochiam Luciani Martyris exemplaria probat. Media inter has provinciæ Palestinos, codices legunt, quos ab Origene elaboratos Eusebius et Pamphilus vulgaverunt. Totusque orbis hac inter se trifaria varietate compugnat.

3 Waltoni Prolegomena ad Biblia Polyglotta, c. 9. s. 28. Hodius de Bibliorum Textibus Originalibus, lib. 4. c. 3. Usserii Syntagma de Græca LXX Interpretum Versione, c. 8. Grabii Prolegomena ad Octateuchum, c. 3. 4 Alcala is the Spanish name of the same town which in Latin is called Complutum.

5 Usserii Syntagma de Græca Lxx Interpretum Versione, c. 8. Waltoni Prolegomena ad Biblia Polyglotta Anglicana, c. 9. s. 29. Hodius, ibid. Grabius, ibid.

Montalto; and he having been afterward pope, by the name of Sextus Quintus, at the time when it was published, A. D. 1587, it therefore came out under his name. He first recommended the work to Pope Gregory XIII. as being that which had been directed to be done by a decree of the council of Trent; and, by his advice, the work was committed to the care of Antony Caraffa, a learned man of a noble family in Italy, who was afterward made a cardinal and librarykeeper to the pope. He by the assistance of several other learned men employed under him, in eight years' time, finished this edition. It was, for the most part, according to an old manuscript in the Vatican library, which was written all in capital letters, without the marks of accents or points, and also without any distinction either of chapters or verses, and is supposed to be as ancient as the time of Jerome; only where this was defective (for some leaves of it are lost,) they supplied the chasm out of other manuscripts; the principal of which were one that they had from Venice, out of the library of Cardinal Bessarion, and another that was brought them out of Magna Græcia, now called Calabria; which last so agreed with the Vatican manuscript, that they supposed them either to have been written the one from the other, or else both from the same copy. The next year after was published at Rome a Latin version of this edition, with the annotations of Flaminius Nobilius. Morinus reprinted both together at Paris, A. D. 1628; and according to that edition have been published all those Septuagints that have been printed in England, that is, that of London, in 8vo. A. D. 1653, that in Walton's Polyglot, published 1657, and that of Cambridge, A. D. 1695; which last hath the learned preface of Bishop Pearson before it, and doth much more exactly give us the Roman edition than that of 1653, though both, in some particulars, differ from it."

But the ancientest and the best manuscript of the Septuagint version now extant, according to the judgement of those who have thoroughly examined it, is the Alexandrian copy, which is in the king's library at St. James's. It is written all in capital letters, without the distinction of chapters, verses, or words. It was sent for a present to King Charles I. by Cyrillus Lucaris, then patriarch of Constantinople. He had been before patriarch of Alexandria, and, being translated from thence to the patriarchate of Constantinople, he brought thither this manuscript with him, and from thence sent it thither by Sir Thomas Roe, then ambassador from England to the Grand Seignior; and with it he sent this following account of the book, in a schedule annexed to it, written with his own hand.

"Liber iste Scripturæ Sacræ Novi et Veteris Testamenti, prout ex traditione habemus, est scriptus manu Thecla, nobilis fœminæ Ægyptiæ, ante mille et trecentos annos circiter, paulo post concilium Nicænum. Nomen Thecla in fine libri erat exaratum: sed extincto Christianismo in Ægypto a Mahometanis, et libri una Christianorum in similem sunt redacti conditionem; extinctum enim est Thecla nomen et laceratum; sed memoria et traditio recens observat.

"Cyrillus, Patriarcha Constantinopolitanus."

Which being rendered into English is as followeth: "This book of the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament, as we have it by tradition, was written by the hand of Thecla, a noble Egyptian lady, about one thousand three hundred years since, a little after the council of Nice. The name of Thecla was formerly written at the end of the bock: but the Christian religion being by the Mahometans suppressed in Egypt, the books of Christians were reduced to the like condition; and, therefore, the name of Thecla is extinguished, and torn out of the book: but memory and tradition do still observe it to have been hers.

"Cyril, Patriarch of Constantinople."

1 Usserius, Waltonus, Hodins, et Grabius, ibid. Antonius Caraffa in Præfatione ad editionem Romanam. Morinus in Præfatione ad editionem suam Parisianam Græcæ versionis TV LXX.

2 Antonius Caraffa, ibid.

3 Vide Prolegomena Lamberti Bos ad editionem suam Tv LXXII. Franequeræ publicatam A. D. 1709. 4 Grabius in Prolegomenis ad Octateuchum.