Septuagint, Version of the

SEPTUAGINT, Version of the. - The oldest Greek version, and the oldest of all the versions of the Old Testament. The name, in its full form "version of the seventy-two interpreters" (Tertullian), comes from the pseudonymous letter of Aristeas (v.), which attributes the Greek version of the 5 books of Moses to 72 Jewish scholars, called for brevity "the LXX."

These are said to have been summoned by King Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), eager to have in his Library at Alexandria in Egypt a copy of the Mosaic Law, and to have translated it in the prodigiously short span of 72 days. Philo (v.) too reports this legend, adding that, even though each of them translated separately on his own, they all produced the exact same version. Later the name of the "LXX" was extended also to the other books, translated subsequently. This term, although legendary as regards the number of translators and inaccurate in its application beyond the Mosaic Law, nevertheless serves as a conventional name as well as, for example, that of "Alexandrian version." Today, analogously to the term "the Bible" (τὰ βιβλία), it is used as a feminine singular "the LXX" (abbreviation: LXX), to denote the version itself.

The legendary character of the letter of Aristeas, clearly inspired by the desire to exalt the Jewish people and their literature in the eyes of the pagans, was recognized as early as the 16th century and is today admitted by all. Nevertheless, a historical core must be acknowledged in it, since the LXX was undoubtedly translated in Egypt, predominantly at Alexandria (v.), as the distinctly Egyptian coloring of the vocabulary employed and other indications show. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the Pentateuch, given its supreme authority among the Jews and its importance in their liturgy, was the first part to be translated. The time suggested by the letter of Aristeas is also approximately accurate.

It is true that the first certain notice of the existence of the LXX dates from the 2nd century B.C., that is, from the grandson of Jesus son of Sirach, who some time after his arrival in Egypt (132 B.C.) translated into Greek the book Ecclesiasticus of his grandfather, saying in the prologue that Greek versions of the "Pentateuch, of the prophetic books and of the other sacred books" already existed, without however specifying them in particular. Taking into account the difficulties inherent in so vast and difficult a translation, it is not at all improbable that it was begun much earlier. In fact the Jewish writer Demetrius, a contemporary of Ptolemy Philopator (221-204 B.C.), uses terms drawn from the LXX to describe biblical events. One may therefore regard it as certain that considerable parts of the Greek Old Testament already existed in the second half of the 3rd century B.C.

The LXX is not the work of a single effort nor entirely the work of the same translators. Already Humfrey Hody (1705), guided by undoubted linguistic criteria, proved that the various books were translated by different authors, and more recently even within individual books different hands have been discovered, for example, in the books of Jeremiah, of Ezekiel, of Kings, of the minor prophets. In Isaiah too two translators were thought to be distinguishable, but this claim was later contested on the basis of more exact and detailed studies. Not only does the technique of translating vary from book to book, but also the fidelity, now greater now lesser, of the version betrays the plurality of translators. If the LXX follows the Hebrew text closely in the Pentateuch, in other books it is freer and even paraphrastic, in the manner of the Aramaic Targum. Some of the translators handle the Greek language with a certain skill, others instead often do violence to it. Thus the version itself reveals something of the manner in which it developed.

The earliest origins of the LXX lie in obscurity. It is quite possible and even probable that, before the plan of creating an integral version of the sacred books had been conceived, there had been attempts, whether by private scholars or by teachers on the occasion of instruction. Already then the most important concepts of the Old Testament were probably in part formed and coined in Greek, certain passages even translated for the purpose of public reading in the synagogues. These were then used, when the idea arose of undertaking a systematic version, above all to make the Old Testament accessible to the Hellenistic Jews who did not understand Hebrew. With good reason Thackeray (1921) insists on the requirements of the liturgy as the motive for the version. It may be that in translating they also aimed at the gentiles. It then grew in the slow and long labor of generations, until there resulted from it the monumental work that was the pride of the Hellenistic Jews and celebrated every year at Alexandria with a festival.

It is not easy to evaluate the merits of the translators. Their knowledge of Hebrew and their greater nearness to the times of the Old Testament must have made their work easier. But considering the profound difference between Hebrew and Greek, the lack of linguistic resources and of models, the diversity of the cultural environment in which they lived, the result of their efforts must be highly appreciated.

The LXX became the official Bible of the Hellenistic Jews. For example, Philo, although knowing Hebrew, used exclusively the Greek version in his writings, even believing the translators to be inspired by God. It is therefore no wonder that the LXX spread widely and that its influence grew from century to century. Traces of the use of the LXX are found in Greek Jewish inscriptions of Rhenia (Delos) of about 100 B.C. (A. Deissmann, Licht vom Osten, 4th ed., Tübingen 1923, pp. 351-62). It was adopted by the disciples of Christ and is often cited in the New Testament. It became a true ally of the Gospel and a precious instrument in the hands of the heralds of Christian doctrine, both to inculcate monotheism and to prove the messiahship of Jesus. This last fact, however, drew upon the already venerated LXX the hatred of the Jews, who, in order to destroy its value, pointed to many discrepancies from the Hebrew text, and abandoned it for the Greek versions (v.) of the 2nd century A.D.

This change, however, did not happen all at once, as the text of the Greek fragments of the minor Prophets, found in 1952 in the Judaean desert, shows (cf. Revue biblique, 60 [1953], pp. 18 ff. and 85). It is a rabbinic recension of the LXX against the Hebrew, made between 70-100 A.D. and disseminated in the 2nd century in Palestine, Greece and Egypt, since the versions of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion are recensions of this, and it agrees with the text of the Jews cited by St. Justin (Dialogue with Trypho) and with the 5th of Origen, and seems to be at the basis of the Coptic versions.

The Septuagint thus passed entirely into the hands of the Christians and continued its triumphal march in the Greek-speaking and also Latin-speaking Christian world. It extended the range of its influence even further when it was in turn translated progressively into Latin, Coptic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic and Slavonic. In the East the Syrians did indeed have their Peshitta, derived directly from the Hebrew, but so great was the authority of the Septuagint, the official text in the neighbouring Byzantine Empire, that the Syrians made three versions of the Septuagint — the Philoxenian, the Harklean and the Palestinian — and the Peshitta itself was conformed to the Septuagint in many passages. To this day the Christians of the East read the Old Testament either in the Septuagint or in a version derived from it. In the West the old Latin version succumbed to the Vulgate of St. Jerome only after centuries of resistance. The Psalter, despite its many deficiencies, survived in the liturgy down to the present day. Certain inspired books, namely those composed from the outset in Greek (Wisdom, II Maccabees) and those whose Hebrew original was lost (Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, I Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, parts of Daniel), have been preserved only in the Septuagint.

The Bible of the Hellenists was in living and continuous use for centuries, handled in very many places, copied innumerable times. Hence into its text, from the very beginning of its transmission, there were introduced numerous corruptions, inevitable in every long text transcribed by hand: confusions of similar letters and words, false division of words, mistaken understanding of abbreviations and many others that are found in all ancient manuscripts. It was natural that the orthography too should be modernized in the course of the centuries or adapted to the new iotacistic pronunciation. A source of frequent and profound alterations was the fact that the Septuagint was not an original work but a version, and an imperfect version. This invited learned and scholarly readers to adapt it to the Hebrew text where it seemed too free, and to correct its Greek where the style was unsatisfactory, sometimes sporadically, sometimes in a methodical recension. All these factors changed the appearance of the version to such an extent that the various branches of transmission sometimes give the impression of being altogether different translations.

The best known among these recensions or adjustments of the text is the one that the most learned Origen (v.) made in Palestine in 230-40 in his Hexapla (v.), where he assimilated the Greek text as far as possible to the current Hebrew text, supplying above all the missing parts with the recent Greek versions (v.). Around the year 300 the priest and martyr Lucian (v.) made another recension at Antioch in Syria. According to St. Jerome, a recension by Hesychius (v.) would have been in vogue in Egypt. In the present day, the examination and comparison of the text of the codices has revealed yet other recensions, such as the one discovered by A. Rahlfs in the commentaries called "catenae" (v.), according to him somewhat later than that of Origen. All these great systematizations of the text, far from unifying it, as was the intention of their authors, contributed rather to increasing still further the already great variety of textual forms. Moreover the form of scroll or volume, used for centuries before and after Christ, allowing only a limited number of columns, forced the various books to be transmitted more or less separately. This fact meant that not all the books went through the same vicissitudes, just as it did not permit a fixed order of the books to be imposed.

From the 4th century onward the use of the codex prevailed, capable of greater amplitude, and from that time date also the first great manuscripts that contain more or less the whole Septuagint: the Vaticanus (B), the Sinaiticus (S), the Alexandrinus (A), the palimpsest codex of Ephraem (C). An accurate list of the numerous manuscripts of the Septuagint is that of A. Rahlfs (Verzeichnis der griechischen Handschriften des Alten Testaments, Berlin 1914). Worthy of special mention are the celebrated papyri of Chester Beatty (v.) and of Scheide (v.) of the 2nd-4th centuries A.D. All these manuscripts are of Christian origin. Only the oldest fragments are from Jewish hands: the Rylands papyrus (v.) G. 458 of the 2nd century B.C. and the Fu'ad papyrus no. 266 of the 2nd-1st century B.C.

The fact that the Septuagint was the first translation of an entire literature signified an enormous cultural progress for humanity. It also forced the Western world to take account of Oriental ideas, to analyse them and to take a position before them. Even today the Septuagint is of great importance. Apart from the fact that it preserves the then pronunciation of the Hebrew proper names and aids the understanding of the Hebrew Old Testament, it is above all a precious instrument for repairing many of its textual disfigurements, since, descending from a different and older Hebrew text, though less pure, than the Masoretic text, it has preserved numerous original readings, which, with the necessary and methodical precautions, can in many cases be reliably recovered. It reveals the literary history of certain books, for example, of Jeremiah, which has a different arrangement of chapters and a shorter text than the Hebrew. A peculiar merit are the pieces of information about the theological and religious ideas of the Judaism of the time of transition from the Old to the New Testament, which are mirrored in the free and paraphrastic manner of the version. For this reason investigators of the origins of Christianity cannot do without a diligent study of the Septuagint, because, as has been said, it influenced the formulation of the beliefs and the language of the first Christian writers and nourished their religious conceptions. Finally the Septuagint is a vast document of the κοινή, of the vulgar Greek language of the last centuries before Christ, to be exploited by philologists.

But all these critical, theological, literary and philological researches lack the necessary foundation, if the original text of the Septuagint is not ascertained as far as possible. It is therefore indispensable to eliminate the disfigurements of the text. Immense efforts and works have already been made in this sense and they continue to this day. They cannot be listed here even in summary fashion. It is noted that the first editions of the Septuagint were those of the Complutensian Polyglot (1514-17) and of the Venetian printer Aldus Manutius (1518 ff.). The most influential, however, was the Sixtine edition (1586-87), made by order of Sixtus V to carry out the recommendation of the Council of Trent: it is based on the Vaticanus codex (B) of the 4th century and later became the Greek "Vulgate". The edition of Grabe (1657) made the text of codex A accessible to learned investigations. But the decisive impulse for scientific research on the Septuagint was given by the work published at Oxford by R. Holmes and J. Parsons, who, reproducing the text of the Sixtine edition, added variants collected from about 20 uncial codices, from over 300 minuscules, from the Holy Fathers and from the ancient versions deriving from the Septuagint. A new step was taken by P. de Lagarde (v.), when in 1863 he postulated the edition of a critically restored text and set out the problems inherent in such an undertaking and the principles to be followed; he also published many preparatory works for this task. Subsequently, with the aim of to provide "clearly and with relative fullness the material for a future reconstruction of the text," A. E. Brooke and N. McLean began in 1906 at Cambridge to publish, with the text of codex B, an accurate and well-chosen critical apparatus, without undertaking the reconstruction itself. The Pentateuch and almost all the historical books appeared up to 1940. Lagarde's spiritual heirs at Göttingen, for their part, resolved to face the arduous task of producing a critical text with an apparatus that would contain the various readings of all accessible manuscripts. Since no manuscript contains a pure text, the only rational way is to select in each case, from all the variants, the one that, according to sound principles resulting from the facts themselves, has the greatest probability of being genuine. Of the Göttingen Septuaginta there appeared the Psalms (A. Rahlfs, 1931), I Maccabees (W. Kappler, 1936), Isaiah (J. Ziegler, 1939), the 12 Prophets (J. Ziegler, 1943): in many cases the emendation adopted is certain, in others more or less probable. In any case the editor of the text provides his well-founded judgment to the reader less competent in the matter, and to specialists a basis for further research.

An interesting theory on the origin of the Septuagint was put forward in 1925 by F. X. Wutz (v.), who asserted that the Septuagint was made from a Hebrew text transcribed in Greek characters, and believed he had found in this a new criterion capable of opening new possibilities for the reconstruction of the Hebrew text that was the prototype of the Septuagint, and of thoroughly reorienting the textual criticism of the Old Testament. But once the first enthusiasm had passed, the theory did not withstand careful examination.

Altogether revolutionary are the ideas of P. Kahle (1941). According to him, the Jews of Egypt would never have had a complete normative Greek version of the Old Testament, but only of the Pentateuch. The Egyptian Jews, imitating the practice of Palestine, where in every synagogue after the reading of the sacred Hebrew text an interpreter improvised on the spot a free Aramaic version, the basis of the future Targumim, would likewise have created parallel Greek versions, oral first and then written, Greek Targumim. Around 100 B.C. the Jewish authorities would have had a selection made from these versions and established an official translation of the Pentateuch. The Letter of Aristeas would have aimed to recommend it and to propagandize for it. All the other versions of the Mosaic law and likewise the versions of other books, never officially recognized, would have continued to be in use among many Jews and then also among Christians of the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., as the biblical quotations in Philo and in Matthew would show. In the 3rd century the Church, choosing among the various versions, would have established a canonical version of the whole Old Testament, giving it the name of "Septuagint." The others would then have been lost, and the quotations in Philo and in the New Testament, as well as the recensions of Lucian and of Hesychius, would preserve their last traces. It would therefore be utopian to seek the original text of the Septuagint.

But this ingenious theory of Kahle raises serious doubts. If it was easy to improvise an Aramaic translation from the very closely related Hebrew, it is altogether improbable that the same could have been done for Greek. It is true that in some books the Greek version may be called targumic, but only in the sense that it is paraphrastic. The quotations in Philo and in the New Testament do indeed require an explanation, but Kahle's is not the only possible one, even if it is probable, and therefore his conclusion is not compelling. If the Septuagint, the result of the common work of generations, is not homogeneous, this does not take away its unity, which comes to it from the purpose of forming a complete version. There remains, then, the imperative necessity of reconstructing the primitive form that the Septuagint had in pre-Christian times, in which it came to be complete and acquired normative value, and in which other possible partial versions fell into oblivion.

Ernesto Vogt