iii. Origin and History of the legend.— The story that there were seventy (or ratlier seventy-two) translators was first told by Aristeas, who claims to have been one of the ambassadors sent by Philadelphus to the high priest Eleazar of Jerusalem, to ask from him the copy of the Law and the men to translate it.
This interesting piece of literature was pub- lislied first in Latin in the famous Roman Bible of Suueynheym and Pannartz (1471, fol.), reprinted at Nurnberg, 1475 ; separately at Erfurt, 14S3. The editio princeps oi the Greek text was prepared by Simon Schard, printed at Basle 1561 ; subse- quent editions, 1610, 1691, 1692, 1705 (Hody), 1849 (Oikonomos), 1869 (Moritz Sclimidt in Merx, Archiv, i.) ; all superseded by that of Mendelssohn- Wendland (Aruitem ad PhUocratem epistvla . . Lipsiie, Teubner, 1900), and that of H. St. J. Th.ackeray in the Appendix to Swete's Introduction to the OT in Greek (Cambridge, 1900). L. Men- delssohn had begun to add a commentary, only a part of which appeared after his death, edited by M. Kraschennikow, Jurievi (ol. Dorpati), 1897. A German translation (by P. Wendland) opens the second volume of Die Apokryphen und Pseudepi- qraphen des Alten Testaments icbersetzt. . , . u. "herausgegeben von E. Kautzsch (Tiibingen, 1900, u. 1-31).
Fresh investigations are necessary ; for though it is now generally acknowledged that the letter is a literary fiction, — Constantine Oikonomos (irept Tuv o' fpfj.rjveuTOji' ttjs jraXotas diadTjKTjs, ^t^Xia 5', Athens, 1844-1849, 4 vols.; cf. also E. \V. Grinlicld, An Apology for the Septuagint, in which its claims to Biblical and Canonical AutJiority are briefly stated and vindicated, London, 1850) is the last defender of its genuineness, — scholars disagree entirely about its date and value. E. Schiirer places it not later than c. 200 B.C. ; Herriot (on Philo), c. 170-150; Wendland, between 96 and 93, nearer to 96; L. Cohn (Neue Jahrbiicher fur d'ts klass. Altert. i. (1898) 52111".) doubts whether it was used by Philo ; H. Willrich {Judaica, Gottin- gen, 1900, pp. 111-130) brings its composition down to ' later than A.D. 33.'
Strange, above all, are the varieties of form
• At one time It was common in German to speak of the ' 70 Dollmetscher * ; cf. J. D. Michaelis, Programina wuriune er row seinen CoUcgiii iiber die 70 Dollmetscher Sachri^it gi<bt (Gott 1787); the translation of Owen's Enquiry (Untersuchui^ del grgeiiwdrtigen Beschat^enheit der 70 Dollmetscher, 1772). Less- iiig seems to have formed the noun 'Siebziger' (see Grimm, Deutsclies WSrterbuch, x. 834) ; in Old German we read in Isidore, 7. 4, in dhero siibunzo trattunffum = ' in translatione LXX.'
t It is strange that Lie. Kabisch (Religinnjibuch, i., Gottingen 1900, p. 2) finds the sense of the name obscure, and thinks of connecting it with the legend ol the 70 bidden (or apocryphal' books in 1 Ezra (2 Ksdras).
SEPTUAGIXT
SEPTUAGmT
439
wliiuli the story assumes in the writings of Epi- plianius, tlioiiyli he refers lo Aristeas as his authority. He ni;ikes the number of books in the Alexandrian Library '54,SOO xXeicj i) iXaaaui,' Aristeas ' more than 20 niyriails ' ; he lias two letters of Philadelphus, and in one of them the saj'iiig from Sir 2ir* •11" Orfaavpou KfKpvfifUfou koI wrjyTJs ia(ppa,yiciUvy)s rii un/>^\tta ^y d/xtporipoii. He alone, and that onlj' in the Syriac text as first published by Lagarde {Si/mmicta, ii. HSU'.), states that it was ' the sevuuth year of Philadelphus, wore or less,' when the translation took j)lace. He makes the translators work by pairs in 36 diderent cells, and originated the statement, re- peated as late as 15S7 in the preface to the Sixtina, that this happened ' trecentis uuo plus annis ante C'liristi adventum' (cf. Sw. p. 176; Wendland, 153, 159; Nestle, Sst. i. 12). Driieseke believed that Epiphauius drew from the lost chronicle of Justus of Tiberias, and that Augustine was lejiendent on Epiphanius ; but this has been rctuted by Wendlaiid {liheiniscltes Museum 56, 1. 11211.). On the use made of this story by Fhilo, Josephus, and the ecclesiastical writers see 8w. 12-17, and especially the 'testimonia' in Wend- land's edition, pp. 85-166.* That the number 70 and the legend of their wonderful harmony may be due to Ex 24", where (E reads koX rCm itriXiK- Ttav Tov *\(jpari\ ov5^ Sic^uvT^frcv ov5^ eis, was first pointed out by Daniel Ueinsius in the Aristarckus sacer, ch. 10.
As the year in whicli the translation originated, other ecclesiastical writers give the 2nd, 17th, 19lh, or 20th year of I'hiladelphus ; in the Chronicle of Eu.sebius the MSSvary between the years 1734, 1735, 1736, or 1737 of Abraham (see Walton's Prolego- iiieua). As therffiy, the Jews name the 8th of Tebet; according to the letter of Aristeas the arrival of the interpreters coincided with the day of a great naval victory of Philadelphus in the war against Antigonus, and was ordered to be celebrated for ever. liabbiuical Jews called that day the fast of darkness, for they re^'arded this translation as a national disaster, * like the daj' on which the golden calf was made' (see D. S. Maigoliouth, ' The Calendar of the Synagogue,' in the Erpu.sUor, Nov. 1900, p. 348 f.). Philo relates that in his time the Jews of Alexandria kept an annual festival, Tb x^piov trep.i'vi'ovi'rss, iv t^ TrputTov to ttJi iplirineias iii\ap.\p€ /coi iraXaiac ivcKiv evfpyeaias iel yca^oOarii euxapiaTT^aafTts t<^ Beip. He knows that the interpreters, before they began, asked God's blessing on this undertaking, 6 5' iTnfiOa raU evxah Iva TO -rrXclov f| xal t6 cru'jiirav y^vo9 tui' avOpwirwy