Dr. Lee (Prolegomena to Bagsters' Polyglott) ac counts for the agreement between the Septuagint and Samaritan in another way. He conjectures that the early Christians interspersed their copies with Samaritan glosses, which ig,norant transcri bers afterwards inser`ed in the text. But he has not shewri that Christians in general were ac quainted with the Samaritan Pentateuch and its additions to the Hebrew copy ; neither has he taken into account the reverence entertained by the early Christians for the sacred books. \Ve cannot, therefore, attribute the least probability to this hypothesis.
Another hypothesis has been mentioned by Frankel, viz., that the Septuagint flowed from a Chaldee version which was used before and after the time of Ezra — a version inexact and para phrastic, which had undergone many alterations and corruptions. This was first proposed by R. Asaria di Rossi, in the midst of other conjectures.
Frankel admits that the assumption of such a ver sion is superfluous, except in relation to the Samari tan Pentateuch, where much is gained by it. This Chaldee version circulated in various transcripts here and there ; and as the same care was not applied in preserving its integrity as that of the original He brew, the copies of it presented considerable dif erences among themselves. Both the Greek version and the Samaritan Pentateuch were taken from it. Frankel concedes that this hypothesis is not satis factory with regard to the Septuagint, because the mistakes found in that version must have fre quently originated in misunderstanding the Hebrew text. There is no evidence, however, that any Targum or Chaldee version had been made before Ezra's time, or soon after. Explanations of the lessons publicly read by the yews were given in Chaldee, not regularly perhaps, or uniformly ; but it can scarcely be assumed that a Chaldee version had been made out in writing, and circulated in different copies. Glosses, or short expositions of words and sentences, were furnished by the public readers for the benefit of the people ; and it is by no means irnprobable that several of these tradi tional comments were incorporated with the ver sion by the Jewish translators, to whom they were familiar.
In the present state of the question, nothing better can be proposed than that the countries where the Samaritan Pentateuch originated and the Jewish MSS. at the basis of the Seventy had been in circulation, were much less favourable to the preservation of a pure text than Palestine, or rather its metropolis, Jerusalem. The people, too,
who possessed the Pentateuch and the Jewish MSS. in question, were less careful of them. They lived amid less conservative influences than the Palestinian brethren. The Samaritan Penta teuch suffered in its text from the hands it passed through—not from any bad motive, but a mis taken desire of making it more intelligible, regular, and full. The Alexandrian Jews, living under the influence of the philosophy that prevailed in Egypt, had little superstitious veneration for the mere text of the sacred volume. The translators, too, were more intent on giving the sense than adhering to the literal text. They were inexperienced ; and often failed in the difficult task they had under taken. But why the agreement of the one docu ment with the other should be so extensive ; why both texts should harmonise so often where they differ from the Masoretic, we are unable to ex plain.
Tychsen (Tentamen a'e codd. Heb. V. T.
M.SS. gener.) thought that the Septuagint was made from the Hebrew transcribed into Greek characters. It is almost unnecessary to re fer to such a notion. It never obtained general currency ; having been examined and refuted by Dathe, Michaelis, and Hassencamp.
The Septuagint does not appear to have obtained general authority as long as Hebrew was under stood at Alexandria. It is remarkable that Aris tobulus quotes the original, even where it departs from the text of the Seventy. The version was in deed spread abroad in Egypt, northern Africa, and Asia Minor ; and it acquired a high reputation among the Hellenistic Jews. It is spoken of in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. It was read in some synagogues at least out of Egypt, as may be inferred from statements in Justin Martyr and Tertullian. Philo and Josephus adopted it ; and it was universally received by the early Chris tians.
When controversies arose between Christians and Jews ; and the former appealed with irresist ible force of argument to this version, the latter denied that it agreed with the Hebrew original. Thus by degrees it became odious to the Jews— as much execrated as it had before been com mended. Hence arose the Talmudic statement of a fast on the eighth clay of the month Thebet, the day on which the law was turned into Greek, to perpetuate the remembrance of an event so in auspicious. The Jews had then recourse to the translation of Aquila, who is imagined to have undertaken a new work from the Hebrew with the express object of supplanting the Septuagint and favouring the sentiments of his brethren.