6 



PAUL DE LAGARDE, 



paly intended for distribution among the clergy in Greece, wliere the most deplorable want 

 of copies of the Greek Bible is found to exist. The correction of the press has been com- 

 mitted to the Archdeacon of the üspenskoi Cathedral, Jacob Dimetrievitch , one of the first 

 Hebrew and Greek scholars in the Kassian church. 

 Diese Ausgabe der lxx habe ich 1852 und 1853 in London stets zur Hand gehabt. Aus ihr ist 

 ein vierbändiger athenischer Druck geflossen. Aus dieser nach 1821 ins Werk gesetzten üeber- 

 schwemmung ist dann der Wahn entsprungen, der Text des Alexandrinus [wohl zu merken : Grabe- 

 Breitingerscher Form] sei the authorized text of the Greek church. 



Die Society for promoting Christian knowledge berichtet im report of the foreign translation 

 committee presented to the board, July 5th 1859, Folgendes: 



The labours of the Foreign Translation Committee have now extended over a quarter of a 

 Century; and in presenting this, their Twenty-fifth Aunual Report, the Committee have the 

 satisfaction of being able to mark such an epoch in the history of their proceedings , by 

 layiug before the Board a work of so important a character as their new edition of the 

 Greek Septuagint, just published. When they presented their Report this time last year 

 to the Board, the Committee expressed a hope, that this work might have appeared before 

 Christmas. And that object might, indeed, have been effected, if they had been able to sa- 

 tisfy themselves with Publishing merely the Greek fext alone. But, considering that this 

 edition of the Septuagint diflers, in some respects very materially, from all that have pre- 

 ceded it , while it had required no ordinary amount of learning and of critical skill and 

 care, to revise, and arrange, and carry through the press such a text as was contemplated 

 by the Committee, it was thought that it would be neither satisfactory to the public, nor 

 fair to the learned and conscientious editor, Mr. Field, to put forth a work of such impor- 

 tance, without some explanation of the objects for which it was undertaken, and of the prin- 

 ciple and plan on which it had been conducted and accomplished, together with some suffi- 

 cient indication of the careful and judicious criticism which had been brought to bear upon 

 it. And the Committee feel confident that , when the »Prolegomena« prefixed to the text, 

 and the »Collatio« which forms an appendix to the volume come to be examined, it will be 

 allowed that it was v/ell worth while to have delayed the publication, for the sake of inser- 

 ting such valuable and satisfactory documents. 



This edition of the Septuagint, it will be remembered, was undertaken with the sanetion 

 of the Board, five years ago, when the Foreign Translation Committee stated that their ob- 

 ject should be to produce such a text, as might be both serviceable to biblical students at 

 home, and also acceptable, at the same time, to the Greek Church, for whose benefit they 

 had already printed one edition of the Septuagint at Athens. The Athens edition, in four 

 volumes, was printed from the Moscow edition of the Bible , which was the one in common 

 use in the East, and might consequently be considered as exhibiting the authorized text of 

 the Greek Church; and, with the ready and entire approval of the Synod of Attica, in this 

 reprint of the text under their own superintendence, the apocryphal were separatedrfrom the 

 canonical books , and formed the fourth volume of the work. The apocryphal parts of the 

 books of Esther and Daniel were, however, inadvertently left where they were found in the 

 Moscow edition ; and although these portious were, in some instances, easily detected by not 

 being divided into verses at all, and in other cases were marked by a separate uumbering 

 of verses of their own, which distiuguished them from the canonical portions of the chap- 

 ters to which they were attached, yet those interpolations were considered sufficient cause 

 for not placing tliat edition on the Society's Catalogue for sale in this country. 



The Codex Alexandrinus is the basis of the Moscow text, which is, in fäct, nothing eise 

 than a creditably accurate reprint of Grabe's, Qr rather of Breitiuger's revisiou of Grabe's 

 edition of the Septuagint. To accomplish the double object, therefore, proposed by the Com- 



