mand of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and under the care and direction of Demetrius Phalereus, is no more than what is taken out of Aristeas; that book, it seems, having been forged before his time, and then gotten into credit among the Jews of Alexandria, when he took this out of it. For the one hundred and eightyeighth year of the era of contracts, the time in which he is said to flourish,' being one hundred and fifty-two years after that in which we place the making of this version, that was long enough for this fiction concerning it to have been formed, and also to have grown into such credit among the Jews as to be believed by them. For if we allow one hundred years for the former, that is, for the framing of this fiction, by that time all persons might have been dead, and all things forgotten, that might contradict it; and fifty-two years after might have been sufficient for the latter, that is, for its growing into the credit of a true history among the Jews. As to other things related of this Aristobulus, that is, that he was preceptor to the king of Egypt, and that he wrote commentaries on the five books of Moses, and dedicated them to Ptolemy Philometor, they are all justly called in question by learned men. As to his being King Ptolemy's master, this is said of him (2 Maccab. i. 10,) in the one hundred and eighty-eighth year of the era of contracts, when it was by no means likely he could have been in that office: for the Ptolemy that then reigned in Egypt was Ptolemy Physcon; and the one hundred and eighty-eighth year of the era of contracts, was the twenty-first year of his reign, and the fifty-sixth after his father's death; and therefore he must then have been about sixty years old, if not more; which is an age past being under the tuition of a master. If it be said he might still retain the title, though the office had been over many years before, the reply hereto will be, that he must then have been of a very great age, when mentioned with this title; for men use not to be made tutors to princes, till of eminent note, and of mature age; forty is the least we can suppose him of, when appointed to this office, if he ever was at all in it: and supposing he was first called to it, when Ptolemy Physcon was ten years old, he must have been ninety at least at the time when this title was given him in the place above cited. And if he had been preceptor to Ptolemy Physcon, how it came to pass that he should dedicate his book of commentaries on the law of Moses to Ptolemy Philometor, who reigned before Physcon? If any such book had been at all made by him, it is most likely that he would have dedicated it to that Ptolemy, who had been his pupil, and not unto the other, whom he had no such especial relation to. And as to what he is said to have written in these commentaries, of their having been a Greek version of the law before that of the Septuagint, and that the Greek philosophers borrowed many things from thence, it looks all like fiction. The light of reason, or else ancient traditions, might have led them to the saying of many things, especially in moral matters, which accord with what is found in the writings of Moses; and, if not, yet there were other ways of coming at them without such a version. Converse with the Jews might suffice for it, and particular instruction might be had from some of their learned men for this purpose; and such, Clearchus tells us, Aristotle had from a learned Jew in the Lower Asia. That there ever was such a version, no other writing besides these fragments quoted from Aristobulus do make the least mention. Neither is it likely that there should ever have been any such: for till the Jews settled among the Greeks at Alexandria, and there learned their language, and forgot their own (which was not done till some time after the death of Alexander,) there was no use of such a Greek version of the law among them. And, if it had thus been translated before, what need was there of having it done again in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus? All these things put together create a suspicion among learned men, that the commentaries of Aristobulus came out of the same forge with Aristeas, that is, were written under the name of Aristobulus by some Hellenistical Jew, long after the date which they bore. And it augments this suspicion, that Clemens Alexandrinus is the first that makes men1 2 Maccab. i. 10. 2 It was so according to Ptolemy's Canon. 3 See part 1, book 7, under the year 348. tion of them. For had there been any such commentaries on the law of Moses, and written, in the time when said, by so eminent a Jew, and so famous a philosopher, as Aristobulus is related to be, Philo-Judæus and Josephus could not have escaped making use of them: but neither of these writers makes the least mention of any such commentaries; which is a strong argument, that there were none such extant in their time; and those who mention them afterward, speak very inconsistently of this Aristobulus, whom they make to be the author of them. Sometimes they tell us, that he dedicated his book to Ptolemy Philometor;' at other times they say it was Ptolemy Philadelphus and his father together. Sometimes they will have it that he was the same that is mentioned in the first chapter of the second book of Maccabees; and sometimes they make him to have been one of the seventy-two interpreters one hundred and fifty-two years before; which uncertainty about him, makes it most likely that there was never any such person at all. That passage, where he is spoken of in the second book of the Maccabees, is no proof for him; for the letter, which is made mention of in it, being there said to have been sent to him from the people that were at Jerusalem, and in Judea, and the council, and Judas: this plainly proves that whole passage to be of the same nature with most other things written in the two first chapters of the second book of Maccabees, that is, all fable and fiction. For, by the Judas there mentioned, the writer of that book can mean no other Judas than Judas Maccabæus. But he was slain in battle thirty-six years before the date of this letter." Whatsoever these commentaries were, they seem not to have been long-lived; for as Clemens Alexandrinus was the first of the ancients, so Eusebius was the last, that makes mention of them. After that time, it is most likely they grew out of the reputation, and were no more heard of. Upon the whole, they that hold this book to have been spurious, and all that is said of the author of it to be fable and fiction, seem to say that, which, in all likelihood, is the truth of the matter. IV. What Philo adds to the story of Aristeas, was from such traditions as had obtained among the Jews of Alexandria in his time, which had the same original with all the rest, that is, were invented by them, to bring the greater honour and credit to themselves, and their religion; and also to gain among the vulgar of their own people the greater authority and veneration to that version of the holy scriptures which they then used. And when such things had once obtained belief, it was easy to introduce an anniversary commemmoration of them, and continue it afterward from year to year, in the manner as Philo relates. V. Where Josephus differs from Aristeas in the price paid by Ptolemy for the redemption of the captive Jews, there is a manifest error; for the sum total doth not agree with the particulars. The number of the Jews redeemed, Josephus saith, were one hundred and twenty thousand: the redemption of these, at twenty drachms a head, at which Aristeas lays it, would come to just four hundred talents, which is the sum also which he reckons it to amount to. But Josephus saith, the redemption money was one hundred and twenty drachms a head, which is six times as much, and yet he makes the sum total to be no more than four hundred and sixty talents. The error is in the numerical letters; for either the particulars must be less, or the sum must be more: but whether it was the author or the transcribers that made this error, I cannot say. Those who hold Josephus" to have put the price at one hundred and twenty drachms a head (which was just thirty Jewish shekels,) that so it might answer what was paid for a Hebrew servant according to the law of Moses, do fix the error on the author; but then they make him guilty of a great blunder, in not altering the sum total as well as the particulars, so as to make them both agree with each other. 1 Clemens Alexandrinus. Strom. lib. 1. 2 Clemens Alexandrinus. Strom. lib. 5. 3 Clemens Alexandrinus et Eusebius, ibid. 51 Maco. ix. 18. Eusebii Chronicon. p. 187. et Præp. Evang. lib. 13. c. 12. 4 Anatolius apud Eusebium in Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. 7. 32. 7 Usserius in Annalibus veteris Testamenti. sub Anno J. P. 4437. Hodius de Bibliorum, Textibus Origi nalibus, lib. 1. c. 17 8 Exod. xxi. 32. VI. As to Justin Martyr, and the rest of the Christian writers that followed him, it is plain they too greedily swallowed what they wished might be true. Had the seventy-two interpreters, who are said to have made this version of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, been all separated into so many different cells, and had all there apart, every one by himself, made so many versions as there were persons, and all these versions had exactly agreed with each other, without any difference or variation in any one of them from all the rest, this would have been a miracle, which must have irrefragably confirmed the truth of those scriptures, as well as the authority or the version which was then made of them, against all gainsayers. And for both these the Christians of those times were altogether as much concerned as the Jews; for the foundations of our holy Christian profession are laid upon the Old Testament as well as on the New. And this part of the holy scriptures was, out of Judea, no where else, in those times, read among Christians, but in this Greek version, or in such other versions as were made into other languages from it, excepting only at Antioch, and in the Syrian churches, depending upon that see, where they had a Syriac version from the beginning, immediately translated from the Hebrew original. And therefore Justin Martyr, finding these traditions among the Jews at Alexandria, on his being in that city, was too easily persuaded to believe them, and made use of them in his writings against the heathens of his time, in defence of the religion he professed. And upon this authority it was that Irenæus, and the other Christian writers above mentioned, tell us the same thing, being equally fond of the argument, by reason of the purpose it would serve to. But how little the authority of Justin was to be depended upon in this matter, may sufficiently appear from the inaccurate account which he gives us of it; for he makes Ptolemy, when intent upon having the Hebrew scriptures for his library, to send to King Herod first for a copy of them,' and afterward for interpreters to turn them into the Greek language; whereas, not only Ptolemy Philadelphus, but all the other Ptolemies who reigned after him in Egypt, were all dead before Herod was made king of Judea. So great a blunder in this narrative is sufficient to discredit all the rest. And it is farther to be taken notice of, that, though Justin was a learned man and a philosopher, yet he was a very credulous person, and, when he became a Christian, was carried on, by the great zeal he had for his religion, too lightly to lay hold of any story told him which he thought would any way make for it. An instance hereof is, that being at Rome, and there finding a statue consecrated to Semon Sancus, an old semigod of the Sabines, he was easily persuaded to believe it to be the statue of Simon Magus; and therefore, in his second apology, upon no better foundation than this, he upbraids the people of Rome for the making of such a wretch and impostor to be one of their gods. And it was from the like easiness and credulity, that, being shown by the Jews at Alexandria, the ruins of some old houses in the island of Pharus, he was by them made believe, that they were the remains of the cells in which, they told him, the seventy-two interpreters made their version of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek by the command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt; and hereon he gives us that account of it which I have related. But Jerome, who was a person of much greater learning, and far more judicious, rejects this story of the cells with that scorn and contempt which it seems to deserve. His words are, "I know not what author he was,* that, by his lying, first built seventy cells at Alexandria, in which the seventy elders being divided, wrote the same things; seeing neither Aristeas, who was one of the same Ptolemy's guards, nor Josephus, who lived long after him, says any such thing; but write, that they conferred together in one and the same 1 Justin in Apologia secunda pro Christianis. 2 Justin in Apología prima pro Christianis. Euseb. in Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. 2. c. 13. 3 This very statue was lately dug up at Rome, with this inscription on it, Semoni Sango Deo Fidio. See Valesius's notes on the thirteenth chapter of the second book of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History. 4 Præfat. at Pentateuchum, et in Apologia secunda contra Ruffinum. room, and did not prophesy; for to be a prophet is one thing, and to be an interpreter is another." VII. Epiphanius's account of the making of this version differing from all the rest, seems to have been taken from some other history of it than that which Josephus and Eusebius wrote from. It is probable some Christian writer, after the time of Justin Martyr, might have collected together all that he found written or said of this matter, and grafting the whole upon the old Aristeas, with such alterations as he thought fit to make in it, composed that book, which, under the name of Aristeas, fell into Epiphanius's hands, and that from thence he took all that he writes of this matter. It is certain, that the Aristeas which Epiphanius makes use of was not written till many years after the pretended author of that book must have been dead; for the second letter which Epiphanius out of him tells us Ptolemy Philadelphus sent to Eleazar, begins with this sentence: "Of a hidden treasure, and a fountain stopped up, what profit can there be in either of them?" which is taken out of the book of Ecclesiasticus:' but that book was not published by Siracides till the year before Christ 132, which was one hundred and fifteen years after the death of Ptolemy Philadelphus, by whose command, according to that author, this version was made. And it also seems to me as certain, that it could not be written till after the time of Justin Martyr; for all that is said of the cells, it is plain, had its original from that report which he brought back from Alexandria concerning them, on his return from his travels to that city.3 Epiphanius retains this tale of his of the cells, but contracts them to half the number; for he makes them to be but thirty-six, and puts two interpreters together into each of them. By this means thirty-six copies are made to suffice for all that laboured in this work; whereas, according to Justin, they being shut up each one singly by himself in his separate cell, there must have been as many copies as interpreters. But in this they do not so much differ from each other as both do from Aristeas: for he saith that they brought with them from Jerusalem but one copy in all, and that out of this alone they made the version by common consult, sitting together in one common hall, and there carrying on and finishing the whole work. And this one copy, Aristeas saith, was written in letters of gold; which contradicts an ancient constitution of the Jews, whereby it is ordained among them, that the law is never to be written otherwise than with ink only. Epiphanius moreover saith, that, besides the canonical books, there were sent from Jerusalem, on this occasion, seventy-two apocryphal books; which none of the rest that write of this matter before him make any mention of. And of these seventy-two books he makes twenty-two only to have been translated; whereas he seems elsewhere to imply, that all were translated that were sent. These contradictions, uncertainties, and various accounts, overthrow the credit of the whole story, and plainly prove all that hath been delivered to us concerning it by Aristeas, Philo, Justin Martyr, Epiphanius, and their followers, to be no more than fable, fiction, and romance, without any other foundation for it, save only, that in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, such a version of the law of Moses was made by the Alexandrian Jews into the Greek language, as those authors relate. For, VIII. Alexander, on his building of Alexandria, brought a great many Jews thither to help to plant this his new city, as hath been already mentioned; and Ptolemy Soter, after his death, having fixed the seat of his government in that place, and set his heart much upon the augmenting and adorning of it, brought thither many more of this nation for the same purpose; where, having granted unto them the same privileges with the Macedonians and other Greeks, they soon grew to be a great part of the inhabitants of that city; and their constant inter 1 Ecclesiasticus xx. 30. xli. 14. 1 It appears by the preface of Siracides to his book of Ecclesiasticus, that he came not into Egypt (where he published that book,) till the thirty-eighth year of Ptolemy Euergetes II. which was the year before Christ 132. 3 In libro de Ponderibus et Mensuris. 5 Part 1, book 7, under the year 332. 4 Vide Schickardi Mishpat Hammelec, c. 2. C Joseph. Antiq. lib. 12. c. 1. et contra Apionem, lib. 2. 2 course with the other citizens, among whom they were there mingled, having necessitated them to learn and constantly to use the Greek language, that happened to them here as had before at Babylon on the like occasion, that is, by accustoming themselves to a foreign language, they forgot their own; and therefore, no longer understanding the Hebrew language, in which they had been hitherto first read, nor the Chaldee, in which they were after that interpreted in every synagogue, they had them translated into Greek' for their use, that this version might serve for the same purpose in Alexandria and Egypt, as the Chaldee paraphrases afterward did in Jerusalem and Judea. And this was the original and true cause of the making of that Greek version, which hath since, from the fable of Aristeas, been called the Septuagint; for that fable, from the first broaching of it, having generally obtained, first among the Jews, and afterward among the Christians, soon caused that this name was given to that version. At first the law only was translated: for then they had no need of the other books in their public worship, no other part of the holy scriptures, save the law only, having been in those times read in their synagogues, as hath been before taken notice of. But afterward, when the reading of the prophets also came into use in the synagogues of Judea, in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, upon the occasion already mentioned,' and the Jews of Alexandria (who in those times conformed themselves to the usages of Judea and Jerusalem in all matters of religion,) were induced hereby to do the same, this caused a translation of the prophets also to be there made into the Greek lauguage, in like manner as the law had been before. And after this other persons translated the rest for the private use of the same people: and so the whole version was completed which we now call the Septuagint; and, after it was thus made, it became of common use among all the churches of the Hellenistical Jews, wherever they were dispersed among the Grecian cities. 1st, That the law only was at first translated into Greek in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, all that first speak of this version, i. e. Aristeas, Aristobulus, Philo, and Josephus, directly tell us.' 2dly, That it was done at Alexandria, the Alexandrian dialect, which appears through the whole version, is a manifest proof. 3dly, That it was made at different times, and by different persons, the different styles in which the different books are found written, the different ways in which the same Hebrew words and the same Hebrew phrases are translated in different places, and the great accuracy with which some of the books are translated above others, are a full demonstration. IX. Ptolemy Philadelphus having been very intent upon the augmenting of his library, and replenishing it with all manner of books, it is not to be doubted, but that as soon as this Greek version was made at Alexandria, a copy of it was put into that library, and there continued, till that noble repository of learning was accidentally burnt by Julius Cæsar in his wars against the Alexandrians. However, it seems to have lain there in a very obscure manner, none of the Grecian authors now extant, nor any of the ancient Latins, having ever taken the least notice of it; for all of them, in what they write of the Jews, give accounts of them so vastly wide of what is contained in the holy scriptures, as sufficiently show, that they never perused them, or knew any thing of them. There are, indeed, out of Eupolemus, Abydenus, and other ancient writers, now lost, some 4 1 After the time of Ezra, the scriptures were read to the Jews in Hebrew, and interpreted into the Chaldee language; but at Alexandria, after the making of this version, it was interpreted to them in Greek; which was afterward done also in all other Grecian cities where the Jews became dispersed. And from hence those Jews were called Hellenists, or Grecizing Jews, because they used the Greek language in their synagogues; and by that name they were distinguished from the Hebrew Jews, who used only the Hebrew and Chaldee languages in their synagogues. And this distinction we find made between them, Acts vi. 1.; for the word, which we there translate Grecians, is, in the original, EXAЯvi☛ov, i, e. not Grecians, but Hellenists, that is, Grecizing Jews, such as use the Grecian language in their synagogues. And, because herein they differed from the Hebrew Jews, this created some differences between them, and made a sort of schism among them. 2 Part 1, book 5. 3 Aristeas, Aristobulus, and Philo, say the law only was translated by the LXX; and Josephus more expressly tells us in the preface to his Antiquities, that they did not translate for Ptolemy the whole scriptures, but the law only. 4 Diodor. Sic. in Eclogis, lib. 34 et 40. Justin. ex Trogo, lib. 36. c. 2. Strabo, lib. 16. Tacitus Hist. lib. 5, c. 2. aliique. |