3. Further, the language of the Sept. is the mould in which the thoughts and expressions of the apostles and evangelists are cast. In this version Divine Truth has taken the Greek language as its shrine, and adapt- ed it to the things of God. Here the peculiar idioms of the Hebrew are grafted upon the stock of the Greek tongue ; words and phrases take a new sense. The terms of the Mosaic ritual in the Greek version are employed by the apostles to express the great trutlis of the Gospel, e. g. dpxitpti'(;. Bvaia, offftn) eutociag. Hence the Sept. is a treasury of illustration for the Greek Testament. Many examples are given by Pear- son {PrceJ] ad LXX), e. g. ac'tpS,, Trvivfia, SiKawu), <ppi)v>]fia rile (TapKoQ, " Frustra apud veteres Graecos quaeras quid sit TzianvHv t(ij Otip, vel eIq tov i)t6v, quid sit tiQ TOV Kvpioi', vel Trpot' tov Btov vicrTtQ, quae toties in Novo Foedere inculcantur, et ex lectione Seniorum facile intelliguntur." Valckenaer also (on Luke i, 51) speaks stronglj' on this subject: "Grai- cum Novi Testamenti contextum rite intellecturo niliil est utilius, quam diligenter versasse Alexandrinam An- tiqui Foederis interpretationcm, e qua una plus peti poterit auxilii, quam ex veteribus scriptoribus Grajcis simul sumtis. Centena reperieutur in N. T. nusquam obvia in scriptis Grscorum veterum, sed frequentata in Alex^ versione." E. g. the sense of to vaaxa. in Deut. xvi, 2, including the sacrifices of the Paschal week, throws light on the question as to the day on which our Lord kept his last Passover, arising out of the words in John xviii, 28, dW 'iva (pciywcri to •Kaa\a.
4. The frequent citations of the Sept. bj' the Greek fathers, and of the Latin version of the Sept. by the fa- thers who wrote in Latin, form another strong reason for the study of the Sept. Pearson cites the appellation of Scarahaus bonus applied to Christ by Ambrose and Au- gustine, as explained by reference to the Sept. in Hab. ii, 11, Kuv^apoQ Ik ^vXov.
5. On the value of the Sept. as a monument of the Greek language in one of its most curious phases, this is not the place to dwell. Our business is with the use of this version as it bears on the criticism and interpre- tation of the Bible ; and we may safely urge the theo- logical student who wishes to be " thoroughly furnished" to have always at his side the Sept. Let tlie Hebrew, if possible, be placed before him; and at his right, in tiie next place of honor, the Alexandrian version. The close and careful study of this version will be more profitable tlian the most learned inquiry into its origin; it will help him to a better knowledge both of the Old Test, and the New.
YH. Objects to be Attained hi/ the Critical Scholar. — 1. Among these a question of much interest, suggested above, still waits for a solution. In many of the pas- sages which show a -ttudied variation from the Hebrew (some of which are above noted), tlie Sept, and the Sa- I
maritan Pentateuch agree — e. g. Gen. ii, 2 ; Exod. xii, 40.
They also agree in many of the ages of the post-di- luvian patriarchs, adding one hundred years to the age at wliich the first son of each was born, according to the Hebrew (see Cappelli Critica Sacra, IH, xx, 7). See Patkiakcu.
They agree in the addition of the words Sit\Bwfifi> EiQ TO TTtSioi' (Gen. iv, 8), which many have seen reason to think rightly added.
Various reasons have been conjectured for this agree- ment— translation into Greek from a Samaritan text, interpolation from the Samaritan into the Greek, or rice veisa; but the question does not seem to have found a satisfactory answer (see § ii above).
2. For the critical scholar it would be a worthy ob- ject of pursuit to ascertain as nearly as possible the original text of the Sept. as it stood in the time of the apostles and Philo, If this could be accomplished with any tolerable completeness, it would possess a strong in- terest, as being the first translation of any writing into another tongue, and the tirst repository of divine truth to the great colony of Hellenistic Jews at Alexan- dria.
The critic would probably take as his basis the Ro- man edition from the Codex Vaticamis as representing most nearly the ancient (icoivi]) texts. The collection of fragments of Origen's Hexapla, by Montfaucon and others, would help him to eliminate the additions which have been made to the Sept. from other sources, and to purge out the glosses and double renderings; the cita- tions in the New Test, and in Philo, in tlte early Chris- tian fathers, both (ireek and Latin, would render assist- ance of the same kind; and perhaps the most effective aid of all would be found in the fragments of the old Latin version collected by Sabbatier in 3 vols. fol. (Rheiras, 1743).
3. Another work of more practical and general in- terest still remains to be done, viz. to provide a Greek version, accurate and faithful to the Hebrew original, for the use of the Greek Church, and of students read- ing the Scriptures in that language for purposes of devotion or mental improvement. Field's edition is as j'ct the best of this kind. It originated in the de- sire to supply the Greek Church with such a faithful copy of tlie Scriptures; but as the editor has followed the text of the Alexandrian MS., only correcting, by the help of other MSS., the evident errors of transcrip- tion (e. g. in Gen. xv, 15, correcting Tpa<pBig in the Alexandrian MS. to Ta<ptic, the reading of the Com- plut. text), and as we have seen above that the Alex- andrian text is far from being the nearest to the He- brew, it is evident that a more faithful and complete copy of the Old Test, in Greek might yet be pro- vided.