(ii. ) As regards the form, of the quotations, the dependence upon the LXX shown by tlie NT writers may be seen by the following facts, which are summarized from Swete's Introduction, pp. 391-398.
Every part of the NT afibrds evidence of a know- ledge of the LXX, and a great majority of the passages cited from the OT are in general agree- ment with the Greek version. In the Synoptic Gospels there is a marked contrast between (a) quotations belonging to the common narrative or to the sayings reported by all three or by two of them, and (^) quotations which are peculiar to one of them, (ai The former (with the exception of Mt 15"- 26»M adhere closely to LXX. (/3) Of the 16 in Mt. which are not found in Mk. or Lk., 4 (5^8 9^3 13'4f- 211") are in the words of the LXX with slight variants ; 4 exhibit important variants ; and the remaining 7 bear little or no resemblance to the Alexandrian Greek. Neither Mk. nor Lk. has any series of independent quotations ; Mk 9^* 12^- are from the LXX, but show affinities to the text of A ; Lk 4'8f- differs from the LXX in im- portant particulars.
The causes which have produced variation are manifold: (1) loose citation, (2) the substitution of a gloss for the precise words which the writer professes to quote, (3) a desire to adapt a prophetic context to the cifcum stances under which it was thought to have been fulfilled, (4) the fusing to- getlier of passages from ditt'erent contexts. Further, (5) some variations are recensional. The Evan- gelists appear to have employed a recension of the LXX which came nearer to the text of A than to that of our oldest uncial B. In some cases it may be argued that the text of the LXX MSS was influenced by the NT ; but this objection is greatly minimized by tlie fact that Josephus, and to a less extent Philo, show the same tendency. And there are occasional .signs that NT writers used a recen- sion to which the version of the later translator Theodotion shows some affinities. (6) Some varia- tions are translational, and imply an independent use of the original, wliether by the Evangelist or by the author of some collection of excerjjts which he employed. Prof. Swete (pp. 396 ft'.) prints in full, and annotates, five of these passages from Mt (2« 4i5f- 817 13=*5 27^'-). together with the corre- sponding passages in the LXX ; and he comes to the conclusion that while ' the compiler of the First Gospel has more or less distinctly thrown off' the yoke of the Alexajidrian version, and substituted for it a paraphrase, or an independent rendering of the Hebrew,' 'our evidence does not encourage the belief that the Evangelist used or knew another complete Greek version of the OT or of any par- ticular book.'
The writer of the Fourth Gospel quotes from the LXX, with varying degrees of exactness. The citations in 2" 10^^ 12^^ 19-'*"^''aret'cr&n<iwior nearly so ; those in 6^i- 4s 1318 15'^5 are freer ; in ps 12i5- 4o he paraphrased loosely, with a general reminiscence of the LXX wording ; in 19^^, 6\j/ovrai ei's fiy i^eKivr-qaav is a non-Septuagintal rendering of Zee 12"*, which was perhaps current in Palestine, since els (iv i^e- KivTy)(xav appears also in Theod. (Aq. i^eK^vrrjo-av, cf. Rev V ; Symm. eTre^eKevT-rjaav).
The quotations in the Acts are exclusively from the LXX, but sometimes they are inclined to be free and paraphrastic.
In St. Paul's quotations the same phenomena
SEPTUAGINT
SEPTUAGINT
605
appear : the majority are verbally exact, but many contain important variants ; sometimes the Apostle appears to quote from memory ; in some cases he freely conflates two or more passages. In Hebrews, in which the argument is carried on largely by a catena of quotations from the LXX, ' the text of the quotations agrees in tlie main with some form of the present text of the LXX' (Westcott, Hehreios, p. 476). On 1 P 28 see Hort, St. Peter, in loc.
In this short summary of Prof. Swete's results enough has been said to show the large extent to which the Alexandrian Greek version influenced the direct quotations made by the NT writers. But direct citation formed only a fraction of the im- mense use which they m,ade of the LXX. Their writings, and the utterances of our Lord, abound in expressions and phrases from the LXX which are not formal quotations, but which were due to their intimate knowledge of the OT. These are conveniently marked by uncial type in WH's text of the NT. In many cases the force and meaning of the NT passage are multiplied when the OT context is taken into consideration. [N.B. — There are no quotations from the Apocryphal books wliich were included in the Greek Bible. There are, however, in the Epistles some half-dozen reminiscences ; see Wis 7^" 9^^ IS^ 15^ Sir 5'i 7^^ 15"].
B. Borrowed terminology. — It must not be for- gotten that the LXX was but a very small part of a large Greek literature whose ideas and vocabu- lary and grammar differed materially from those of the old classical writers. New philosophical and theological conceptions, changes political and social, developments in the arts of life, increased opportunities of intercourse with foreign nations, all combined to alter the language. The Koiv-f] or 'WO^rjVLKT] SidXeKTos ' was based on Attic Greek, but embraced elements drawn from all Hellenic dialects. It was the literary language of the cos- mopolitan Hellas created by the genius of Alex- ander ' (Swete, Intr. p. 294). ' The language used by the writers of the Greek Diaspora may be re- garded as a subsection of an early stage of the koivtj ' (ib.), and of this subsection the LXX and the NT are the best representatives in Egypt and Palestine respectively. Though a change began to appear as early as Xenophon, the era of the kolvti may be said to have opened in the latter half of the 4th cent. B.C. ; and its golden age extends from c. B.C. 145 (Polybius) to c. A.D. 160 (Pausanias). The NT vocabulary, then, was derived not only from the LXX but from the current language of the day. See the Appendix in Grimm-Thayer's Gr.- Encf. Lexicon of the NT (pp. 691-696), in which are collected a large number of non-classical words which find parallels in Greek waitings (including LXX) from B.C. 322 to A.D. 100.