(5) Origen. When Origen traveled into Eastern countries collecting materials for his Polyglot, he discovered three other Greek versions not extend ing to the entire Old Testament, but only to sev eral books. These are usually designated the fifth, sixth, and seventh. The authors were un known to Origen himself. As far as we can judge, they appear to have translated the original some what freely and paraphrastically. The fifth com prehended the Pentateuch, Psalms, Song of Solo mon, and the twelve Minor Prophets, besides the books of Kings. Jerome says that the author was a Jew, meaning probably a Jewish Christian. The sixth version contained the same books as the fifth, except those of the Kings. The author appears to have been a Jewish Christian also. This inference has been drawn from his render ing of Habak. iii. 13. The seventh. embraced the Psalms and Minor Prophets. Perhaps the author was a Jew. The three translations in question were made subsequently to those of Aquila, Sym machus, and Theodotion. Very few fragments of them remain.
(6) Grwco-Veneta. In a MS. belonging to St. Mark's Library at Venice, there is a Greek ver sion of several Old Testament books. Its in ternal character proves that the translation was made directly from the Hebrew. It is more literal than any other ancient version, even that of Aquila, adhering with slavish scrupulosity to the original words. In the Chaldee portions of Daniel, the Attic dialect is changed for the Doric. The style, however, is a singular compound. Attic elegancies occur along with barbarous expres sions; high-sounding words used by the best Greek writers, by the side of others contrary to the genius of the Greek language. The origin of the version cannot be placed higher than the ninth century; the MS. itself was written in the fourteenth. It is uncertain whether the au thor was a Jew or a Christian.
6. Latin Versions. (See VULGATE.) 7. Persian Versions. The Bible seems to have been translated at an early period into the Persian language. Both Chrysostom (Second Horn. on John) and Theodoret (De curaud. Grcec. Affect.) speak of a Persian translation; and, ac cording to Maimonidcs. the Pentateuch was tran: lated many centuries before Mohammed into this language (Zunz's Gottesdicnstlichen Vortrage, p. g, note a) . A Persian version of the Pentateuch was first printed at Constantinople, in Hebrew characters (A. D. 1546), as part of a Polyglot Pentateuch; and afterwards inserted by Walton in the London Polyglot, in the proper Persian character. It was made after the time of the false prophet, and must have been later than the eighth century. The text follows the Hebrew very closely, according to the Masoretic recension, re taining many of the original terms, from the translator's inability to render them into Persian. Both Onkelo's and Saadia's versions appear to have been consulted by the author.
If credit is to be given to the inscriptions, it was made by Jacob, the son of Joseph Tawus, for the use of the Persian Jews.
8. Samaritan Versions. The Samaritan Pentateuch was a recension of the commonly re ceived Hebrew text of the Mosaic Law, in use with the Samaritans, and written in the ancient Hebrew (Ibri), or so-called Samaritan character. This recension is found vaguely quoted by some of the early Fathers of the church.
(1) History. Eusebius of Cxsarea observes that the LXX and the Samaritan Pentateuch agree against the Received Text in the number of years from the Deluge to Abraham. Cyril of Alexandria speaks of certain words (Gen. iv:8) wanting in the Hebrew, but found in the Samari tan. The same remark is made by Procopius of Gaza with respect to Deut. i :6; Num. x :to; x: 9, etc. Other passages are noticed by Diodorus, the Greek scholiast, etc. The Talmud, on the other hand, mentions the Samaritan Pentateuch distinctly and contemptuously as a clumsily forged record: "You have falsified your Pentateuch," said R. Eliezer b. Shimon to the Samaritan scribes, with reference to a passage in Deut. xi: 30, where the well understood word Shechem was gratuitously inserted after "the plains of Moreh;" "and you have not profited aught by it" (comp. Ter. Sotah 21 b, comp. 17 ; Babli 33 b). On an other occasion they are ridiculed on account of their ignorance of one of the simplest rules of He brew grammar, displayed in their Pentateuch.
Down to within the last two hundred and fifty years, however, no copy of this divergent code of laws had reached Europe, and it began to be pronounced a fiction, and the plain words of the church fathers—the better known authorities— who quoted it were subjected to subtle interpre tations. Suddenly, in 16t6, Pietro della Valle, one of the first discoverers also of the Cuneiform inscriptions, acquired a complete Codex from the Samaritans in Damascus. In 1623 it was pre sented by Achille Harley de Saucy to the Library of the Oratory in Paris, and in 1628 there ap peared a brief description of it by J. Morinus in his preface to the Roman text of the LXX. Three years later, shortly before it was pub lished in the Paris Polyglot,—whence it was copied, with few amendments from other codices, by Walton,—Morinus, the first editor, wrote his Exercitationcs Ecclesiastic-a. in utruntque Scutari tonarunt Pentateuchunt, in which he pronounced the newly found Codex, with all its innumerable variants from the Masoretic text, to be infinitely superior to the latter: in fact, the unconditional and speedy emendation of the Received Text thereby was oral most authoritatively. Between 162o and 163o si•: additional copies, partly com plete, partly incomplete, were acquired.