CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



here and there in the Church Fathers (Origen, 

 Jerome, Eusebius), and one or two more distinct 

 but less generally known Talmudical utterances 

 respecting it, no information was possessed about 

 it till the year 1616, when Pietro della Valle 

 acquired a complete codex from the Samaritans 

 in Damascus. Since then, the number of manu- 

 scripts with and without translations (in Arabic) 

 has considerably increased in European libraries. 

 The manuscripts are written in the Samaritan 

 character, a kind of ancient Hebrew writing, 

 probably in use before and partly after the Baby- 

 lonish exile, and vary in size from octavo to 

 folio. None of the manuscripts that have 

 reached Europe is older than the loth cen- 

 tury. The Samaritan Pentateuch was first edited 

 by J. Morinus in the Paris Polyglott (1632) 

 from one codex, and was re-edited by Blayney in 

 the square Hebrew characters, at Oxford (1790). 

 The first publication of this strange document 

 marks a certain epoch in modern Biblical investi- 

 gation ; for incredible as it now appears, it was 

 placed by Morinus and his followers far above the 

 received Hebrew text, which was said to have been 

 corrupted from it. As reasons for this, its supe- 

 rior ' lucidity and harmony ' were adduced, and 

 its agreement with the Septuagint in many places. 

 This opinion was zealously cherished and fiercely 

 combated for two centuries, when the first proper 

 and scientific investigation (by Gesenius) set it at 

 rest, once for all, among the learned world at 

 least. The boasted superiority en bloc, gradually 

 dwindled down to two or three passages in which 

 the Samaritan reading seemed preferable, and 

 even these have now been disposed of in favour 

 of the authorised Masoretic text. A chronological 

 peculiarity deserves special mention namely, that 

 in the Samaritan Pentateuch, no one in the ante- 

 diluvian times begets his first son after the age of 

 a hundred and fifty, either the father's or the 

 son's age being altered in proportion ; after the 

 Deluge, however, the opposite method is followed 

 of adding fifty or a hundred years to the father's 

 years before the begetting of a son. 



The Septuagint. 



The most ancient Greek version of the Old 

 Testament that has come down to us, and the 

 one that was commonly in use among the Jews 

 at the time of Christ, is named the Septuagint. 

 Its origin is shrouded in deep obscurity. But the 

 myth concerning it is well known, and was re- 

 ceived by the church as a piece of genuine history 

 down to the i/th century. It is contained in 

 a letter purporting to be written by a Greek, 

 Aristeas, to his brother, Philocrates, during the 

 reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt 

 (284-247 B.C.), and is to the following effect: 

 Demetrius Phalereus, librarian to Ptolemy, while 

 engaged in drawing up a general collection of 

 laws, ascertained that those of the Jews were pecu- 

 liarly interesting, and expressed to his sovereign 

 a wish to have a copy of them. Ptolemy imme- 

 diately took steps to procure one. First of all, 

 he set free more than 100,000 Jewish captives, 

 whom his father had carried into Egypt, though 

 their ransom cost him a sum estimated at nearly 

 three millions sterling. Then he wrote a letter 

 to Eleazar, the high-priest, praying him to send 

 a copy of the Jewish Scriptures, together with 

 seventy-two learned men (hence the Latin name 



Septuaginta = 70, six from each of the twelve 

 tribes, who could translate Hebrew into Greek. 

 This letter, along with magnificent presents, was 

 conveyed to Jerusalem by two ambassadors, 

 Andreas and Aristeas. A favourable reception 

 was given to the embassy by Eleazar, who de- 

 livered up a copy of the Scriptures in letters of 

 gold, and selected for the work of translation 

 seventy-two of the wisest and most erudite men 

 in all Palestine. On their arrival in. Alexandria, 

 they were entertained for seven successive days 

 at splendid feasts, the king himself entering into 

 free conversation with his guests, and propound- 

 ing many abstruse questions for their solution. 

 Their answers inspired everybody with admiration 

 of their sagacity. At the close of the festivities, 

 they were conducted by Demetrius, for the sake 

 of quiet, to the isle of Pharos, which was con- 

 veniently near. There they worked hard for the 

 greater part of the day, returning to Alexandria 

 in the evening ; and at length, in exactly as many 

 days as there were translators, namely, seventy- 

 two, the version was finished. It was then read 

 by Demetrius, in the presence of the principal 

 Jews residing in Alexandria, who praised its 

 fidelity, and imprecated curses on the heads 

 of any who should dare to alter a word. Then 

 the king, after publicly expressing his admiration 

 of the wisdom of Moses, ordered the work to be 

 religiously preserved in the Alexandrian Library, 

 and loading the translators with gifts, permitted 

 them to return to Jerusalem. He also granted to 

 the Alexandrian Jews the privilege of transcribing 

 the work for their own use. 



This is the substance of Aristeas's letter, which 

 is still extant, and no one who has paid any atten- 

 tion to the peculiar traits of fabricated narratives, 

 can doubt for a moment that we have here a 

 choice specimen of the class. The author pro- 

 fesses to be a heathen, while his letter is in reality 

 steeped in Jewish prejudices. The attitude of 

 Ptolemy towards the Jews is a patriotic figment ; 

 his liberation of the captives and his gorgeous 

 presents to the Temple are things unknown to 

 history ; his desire for an equal number of trans- 

 lators from each of the twelve tribes is a ludicrous 

 homage to a vanished tribal system : the con- 

 vivial entertainments in Alexandria are merely 

 vulgar attempts to glorify the translators. Every 

 scholar, indeed, now admits that the letter is a 

 forgery, executed for the purpose of exalting the 

 credit of the version, which, in reality, was made 

 by different men at different times, and which, 

 instead of being remarkable for its uniform ex- 

 cellence, displays all the various degrees of merit, 

 from a painful literality, to the most arbitrary 

 license. Yet, on the other hand, the forgery is 

 I itself ancient, and therefore some grains of historic 

 I fact may perhaps lie hidden in the bushel of 

 falsehood, though we are now incapable of making 

 them out. Philo, who was a contemporary of 

 Christ, repeats the story in his Life of Moses 

 with some variations. He says nothing about 

 Demetrius Phalereus or Aristeas, but he men- 

 tions the deputation to Jerusalem, and the execu- 

 : tion of the work in the isle of Pharos. He also 

 : represents the translators (whose number he does 

 not specify) as producing each a separate version, 

 ! and adds, that when all were compared, they were 

 found to agree so exactly that it proved the trans- 

 lators to be inspired. But Philo was himself igno- 



