( — ) A Psalter not mentioned by Sw. is in the Brit. Museum, Add. MS 19,352 a.d. 1066, valuable not only aa a dated e.\aniple of Greek writing of the 11th cent., but especially as an example of the best style of Bj-zantine decorative art, applied to the ornamentation of copies of the Scrijjtures [sea Kenyon, Facsimiles, pi. vii., where Jesus Christ is enthroned between two cherubim (or rather sera- phim) as illustration of Ps 79 (80) -].
On the Lectionaries, which must be classed among the MSS, see Sw. p. 1G8 f. Their value would be increased if the Lectionary-system of the Greek Church is as old as has been contended for recently by C. R. Gregory, Tcxtkritik des Neuen Testa- mentes, i. (1901), p. 327 11".
In spite of the great mass of witne.sses thus used for the great work of Holmes-Parsons and later editions, their classification is still a problem, even in a book like that of Judges, where the differences are most marked. Compare the judg- ment of G. Moore (SBOT, 'Judges,' p. 22): 'A
SEPTUAGIXT
SKPTUAGINT
419
comiilete stemma exhibiting the filiation of tliese M.SS and recensions cannot ue made from the colla- tions in HP ' ; we may even doubt the correctness of the remark added by Moore : ' it would be comparatively easy if we po^i>^es.sed a few accurate collations of tj'pic-j.1 MSS properly arraiij^uj.'
Perhaps a good step towards this end would be to arrange complete lists of the singular and sub- singular readings of our oldest witnesses, as ABS, e?i)ucially for B, because this MS serves as standard for the collations of the larger Cambridge Septua- gint.
Another fact worth mentioning in this connexion is, that every new witness, in spite of the great number of MSS already collated and the still greater number of variations extracted from them, adds a new reading, even for the I'salms, for which some 120 JISS have been used for HP. See, for instance, the spelling irpbaax^^ instead of Tojcxes first making its appearance in Kenyou, tarsinnks, plate v. Ps 79 (8U)''.
(2) (3) The same is the case with the Versions and Quotations. On these see above, §§ iv. and vi. As but few of the Greek Fathers are accessible in trustworthy editions, a large field waits here for patient and careful workers. But, even before these viinutite be settled, ffi can and must be used for that purpose for which it is of the greatest import- ance, namely the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible.
vii. Use of G.* — The remark of Swete has already been quoted— that ffi possesses a new and incrcasint importance in the field of biblical study (p. 437'' n.t). Its value as a witness to the Hebrew text was recognized partially in the time of Origen and Jerome, and afresh in tlie days of the Renais- sance and onwards from the 17th cent. ; but it can be fully acknowledged only by those who adopt the views maintained chiefly by Olsliausen, Lagarde, and their followers, that all existing MSS of the Hebrew OT go back to a single official copy or re- cension, made up somewhere in Palestine, perhaps at Jamnia, about the 2nd cent, after Clirist. To quote only one statement. G. Moore (SBOT, 'Judges,' p. 23) writes —
•The other Ancient Versions fexcept O) — the Latin of St. Jerome in iU Vulj^ate form (.'^), the Sj riof; (S), and the .Jewish TarjT^im ("O are all Ijiised on the I'aleMijiian Hebrew Standard Tfil 0/ the tnd ceiii. A.D., aji are also the new Greek transla- tixtis of 'A!£H, aiiri the revisions of (3 after these, and in the main the translation found (for Jud^resl in ©BVUmN [t.e. B and its allifs). The pre-he^aplaric O alone represents a Hebrew text older than the oJJldtU rmnon made m tlie tchool 0/ £. AyiAa.'
In other words, ffi represents for ns (I) the excgetical tradition, or at lea-st the exegetical opinions of a Jewish school, or — if that name asserts too much — of individual scholars more than 2U0(J years before our time ; it is the oldest commentary on the Hebrew Bible in existence ; (2) when re-translated into Hebrew — with the necessary precautions, of course — it represents for UB the Hebrew MS (or MSS) lying before its authors, which is 1000 years older than the oldest MS at present at our disposal, and 300 years older than the one to which all of our Hebrew MSS go back.
In the first instance, it is sufficient to recall the great number of hnprtx hqomena which occur in the limited range of Old Helirew literature. In the second iilace, we learn first that the pala>o- graiihical cnaraotcr of the pre-Massoretic MSS was very dillerent from ours : few matres lertionis, no vowels, no lilterii; Jinnies, no separation of words, so that even in liturgical books there was uncertainty about those points (cf. I's 105 (100)' aVa/3oii'o>'T«! = D'^i.' for D-H') ; perhniis abbreviation
* Ct. tor the following, Sw. ch. t. ' Tb« S«ptaairint M • T«F«lon,' pp. 314-841. VOL. IV. — 29
strokes for n, o, n ; see Lagarde, Mitthcilicngen, i. 21 ; Fel. Perles, Analckten (18'Jo, pp. 4-35). The second fact that comes to liglit from a cora-
S arisen of ffi and iB. is, that there is a great illerence between particular books or seta of books in the OT. This arises partly from the circumstance that all the books are not due to the same translators, but still more from the ditlerent character of the text Ijiiig before them. That Isaiah, for instance, found an interpreter not worthy of this book, was remarked long ago oy Zwingli ; the translator of Job, saj-s Swete, p. 316, was perhaps more familiar with Greek pagan literature than with Semitic poetry; where the grandson of Jesus Sirach made his mistakes, we can judge better now than before. I5ut more im- portant is the fact that already the Hebrew texts used by the translators dillered in varying degrees from the Massoretic text.