ua 



SEPTKMBKU 



SEPTUAGINT 



which is known commercially as Knman cement, 

 because of it* properties being the name as a famous 

 hydraulic cement made of ferruginous volcanic ash 

 brought from Home. Such septaria occur in layers 

 in clay deposit*, and are quarried for economical 

 purposes in the clays of the London basin. Large 

 numbers are also dredged up off Harwich, which 

 nave been washed out of the shore-cliffs by the 

 waves. The septarian nodules of the Carbonifer- 

 ous strata consist generally of clay ironstone, and 

 are sometimes employed in the manufacture of 

 iron. The nodules generally contain a scale, shell, 

 plant, fruit, coprolite, or some other organic sub- 

 stance, forming the nucleus that has apparently 

 excited the metamorphic action which withdrew 

 from the surrounding clay the calcareous and 

 ferruginous materials scattered through it, and 

 aggregated them around tin- fci>.>il. 



September (Lat. septem, 'seven') was the 

 seventh month of the Roman calendar, but is the 

 ninth according to our reckoning (see CALENDAR). 

 The Anglo-Saxons called it gertt-monath, ' barley- 

 montli.' 



Septembrists, the perpetrators of the atrocious 

 September massacres in the prisons of Paris, which 

 went on continuously for six days and five nights, 

 September 2-7, 1792. Every violent movement 

 in the history of Paris during the fever of Revolu- 

 tion was a counterpart to some menace or disaster 

 on the frontier, and the immediate occasion of this 

 crowning atrocity was the reaction of panic at the 

 capture of Longwy and Verdun by the Prussians. 

 It assured the political jwiwer of the Commune and 

 controlled the elections to the Convention. Las 

 Cases tells us that NajM)leon found himself able to 

 suggest apologies for the atrocity in the exigencies of 

 the moment. M. Taine gives tne numl>er of victims 

 as follows : 171 at the Abbaye, 169 at La Force, 

 223 at the Chatelet, 328 at tile Conciergerie, 73 at 

 the Tour-Saint Bernard, 120 at the Carmelites, 79 

 at Saint- Finnin. 170 at Bicfitre, 35 at the Sal- 

 petriere ; among them 250 priests and the Princess 

 de Lamballe. See DANTON, MARAT, and ROBES- 

 PI KRRE. 



Septennial Act. See PARLIAMENT, p. 776. 



Septica-mia. See GERM, PYAEMIA. 



SeptURgeslma. See QUTOQUAGESIMA. 



Septliagint (Gr. o" 6 ; Lat. Sffitiinyiiifii, LXX., 

 Alexandrian Version), the most ancient trans- 

 lation of the Old Testament, important as the 

 version used by Christ and the apostles, and as the 

 chief (surviving witness to the purity of the text of 

 the Hebrew Scriptures. It derives its name from 

 the story of its origin, first told in the Letter of 

 Aruleai, which purports to have been written by a 

 Greek of Alexandria at the time of the events to 

 which it refers. Arixteas relates how King Ptolemy 

 Philadelphus (284-247 B.C.), when engaged in 

 making a collection of the laws of all nations for 

 the great Alexandrian library, was advised by his 

 librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, to have the Je'wish 

 S'-riptures translated into Greek; how the king 

 -'ni an embassy to Jerusalem to request the help 

 of the "!- men of Israel ; how seventy-two learned 

 Jews ( six out of each tribe ) came to Alexandria 

 and were Kent to labour in the seclusion of the 

 Island of Pharos ; and how, in seventy-two days, 

 they dictated to Demetrius the librarian a trans- 

 lation <if the whole Scriptures, which soon became 

 the authorised Bible of the Greek-speaking Jews. 

 This story is a mixture of truth ami romance. His 

 certain tne Alexandrian version was the work of 

 Hellenistic Jews. It is highly probable that it 

 was f product of the great literary activity of the 

 age of Ptolemy II. It is probable that the trans- 

 lation was begun at the king's instigation. It is 



possible that the king's aim was not the satisfac- 

 tion of a pressing want among his Jewish subject*, 

 but simply tlie gratification of personal curiosity. 

 But the picturesque details of tne story the em- 

 bassy to Jerusalem, the choice of seventy-two 

 translators, the seventy-two day's sojourn on 

 I'liiiros, and so on are purely mythical. Internal 

 evidence shows that the translators who were 

 certainly numerous were not Palestinian but 

 Egyptian Jews. And it can be demonstrated that 

 they were not a public body meeting and deliberat- 

 ing daily for a short period, but private individuals 

 working independently in ilillerent ages. Where 

 there are many different styles of work and many 

 degrees of excellence, we make the inference tha't 

 there were many independent workmen ; and 

 nothing is more striking than the want of uni- 

 formity in the LXX. Some of the workmen were 

 evidently more competent than others, some more 

 conscientious. Some aimed at exact translation, 

 some at writing good Greek. Some liked to con- 

 dense, some to expand. Infinite care seems to 

 have been bestowed upon the Pentateuch. The 

 translators of the Psalms and the Prophets were 

 hardly equal to their difficult task. Some books, 

 such as Lcclesiastes, Canticles, and Chronicles, are 

 rendered into extremely Hebraic Greek. Others, 

 such as Job and Proverbs, of which the Greek is 

 excellent, must be regarded as paraphrases rather 

 than translations. 



Taking these things into account, one is prepared 

 to find in the LXX. numerous small deviations 

 from the received Hebrew text, due partly to the 

 unskilfulness, partly to the arbitrariness of some 

 of the translators. Hut there are divergencies of 

 a more important kind. The books are differently 

 arranged. In some books the order of the chapters 

 is quite different. Additions and omissions ar 

 alike frequent. Occasionally, as in the books of 

 Job, Esther, and Daniel, the Greek text contains 

 whole chapters for which there is no equivalent 

 in Hebrew. These variations offer an interesting 

 problem for solution. How are they to ! 

 accounted for? They cannot be regarded as mere 

 mistakes or caprices of the translators. They 

 seem clearly to indicate that the Hebrew text 

 which formed the basis of the LXX. was not the 

 text that has come down to us that the LXX. U 

 the translation of an ancient text which has been 

 lost ; as such it is invaluable. It may be used as 

 practically a second, independent text of the Old 

 Testament. It cannot indeed be trusted im- 

 plicitly. As a translation it has blemishes, and 

 in the course of transmission many corruptions 

 have crept into the text. But with all drawi>acks 

 it is of immense service in textual criticism. It 

 not only establishes the general accuracy of the 

 Massoretic text, but supplies the means ot solving 

 many of the difficulties of that text. 



The LXX. has also close and important bearings 

 upon the New Testament. The historical links of 

 connection between them are as follows : Ptolemy's 

 gift of the LXX. to liis Jewish subjects was gladly 

 accepted. It soon began to be used in t he syna- 

 gogues. Before long it found its way from Egypt 

 into Palestine, and by the time of Christ it had 

 almost entirely superseded the original Hebrew 

 text. Thus it became the Bible of Christ and the 

 aiiostles. Not only was it the source from which 

 the authors of the New Testament drew almost all 

 their quotations, but it created the very language 

 in which they wrote. The Egyptian Jews who 

 adopted the Greek language never adopted Greek 

 ideas ; they modified the language to suit their 

 own ideas ; they gave a new content to many 

 important words. Thus there arose a dialect 

 which was Greek in form but entirely Semitic in 

 spirit. The LXX. stereotyped that dialect, and 



