1°. Old Testament Greek Manuscripts.— Traces of the version of Aquila (c. A.D. 130) are • found in: (1) fragments of Origen's third columns, written as marginal notes to some manuscripts of the Septuagint ; (2) the Milan palimpsest of the Hexapla, a 10th cen tury copy found by Mercati in 1896, containing about 11 psalms; (3) the Cambridge fragment, 7th century, giving parts of Psalm xxi.- Cf. Taylor, 'Cairo Genizah Palimpsests' (1900) ; (4) the Cairo fragments of the 4th and 5th centuries: three palimpsests (containing I Kings xx, 7-17, 2 Kings xxviii, 11-27), pub lished by Burkitt in 1897; also four portions of the Psalms (89:17-91:10, 95:7 —96:12, 98:3, 101:16— 102:13) published by Taylor (op. cit.) ; (5) the 4th century •papyrus fragments of Genesis i, 1-5, published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1900. Our few manuscript traces of the ver sions, which Symmachus and Theodotion issued toward the end of the 2d century, may be found in the same Hexaplaric fragments that witness to the text of Aquila. Theodotion's Daniel is preserved in the Septuagint manu scripts.
The Septuagint version of the Old Testa ment is extant in many manuscripts. These represent three textual families,— the Hexa plaric, Hesychian and Lucianic. The Hexapla ric text takes its name from the Hexapla of Origen. This colossal critical work, completed c. A.D. 240, presented in six columns the Hebrew text, the Greek transliteration thereof, Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint and Theodotion; and, for certain books, two other Greek trans lations that are named Quints and Sexta. Pam philus, a disciple of Origen, preserved manu scripts of the Hexapla at Caesarea. In the 4th century, Pamphilus and his disciple, Euse bins of Caesarea, reproduced the fifth column, i.e., Origen's Hexaplaric Septuagint text,— to gether with all its critical signs. By these criti cal signs, Origen had marked off passages, which he had found wanting in the Septuagint and had supplied from either Aquila or Theodo tion. Unfortunately the scribes were not faith ful in handing down the critical signs of Origen. In this wise the Cmsarean text of the Septuagint was evolved into a hopeless commingling of Origen's Septuagint together with his interpo lations from Aquila and Theodotion. Mean time two other editions of the Septuagint got a vogue,— those of Hesychius at Alexandria and of Lucian at Antioch. From these three editions of the Septuagint text, all of our ex tant manuscripts are descended, but by that have not yet been accurately traced. Hexaplaric, Hesychian and Lucianic texts acted and reacted upon each other. The result is that
most of the extant manuscripts of the Septua gint contain readings from each of the three textual families. Criticism is at work to trace the respective influences of each text upon the manuscripts now to hand. Consult Field, 'Originis Hexaplorum gum supersunt, sive vete rum interpretum Grmcorum in totem Vetus Testamentum fragmenta' (1875).
A. Papyrus Manuscripts.—About 40 papyrus manuscripts of parts of the Septuagint have been found in recent years. Of these the most important are (1) Oxyrhyncus Pap. 656, early 3d century, preserving parts of Gen. xiv-xxvii, wherein most of the great vellum manuscripts are defective; (2) British Museum Pap. 73, called U, 7th century, Psalms 10-33; (3) a Leipzig Papyrus, 4th century, Psalms 29-54; (4) a Heidelberg Papyrus, 7th century, Zachary iv, 6— Malachy iv, 5; (5) a Berlin Papyrus, 4th or 5th century, containing some 30 chapters of Genesis.
B. Vellum Uncial Manuscripts.— Parsons ( Wetus Testamentum Gra.cum cum Variis Lec tionibus,' 179R), designated uncial manuscripts of the Septuagint by Roman numerals, minus cule by Arabic. ILagarde inaugurated the now common usage of Roman and Greek capitals for uncials. Von Soden's system of manuscript symbols, though illuminating, has not been widely adopted. The important vellum uncials of the Septuagint text are here subjoined: Aleph, Cod. Sinaiticus (c. 350), 43 leaves at Leipzig, 156 together with New Testament at Petrograd; contains fragments of Genesis and Numbers, I Paral. 9:27— 19:17, Esdr. 9:9 to end, Esth., Tob., Judith, 1 and 4 Mach., Isa_.
Jer., Lam. (in part), Joel, Abd.-Mal., the Poetical Books, the entire New Testament, Epistle of Barnabas, and part of 'Shepherd of Hertnas.' The text is mixed; in Tobit it widely differs from A and B. Two correctors are of the 7th century. The first writes, at the end of Esther, that he compared the manuscript with a copy of the Hexaplaric text, authenti cated by Pamphilus.
A, Cod. Alexandrinus, 5th century, in British Museum, complete Bible (excepting Psalms 50:20-80:11 and smaller lacuna:) ; includes deuterocanonical books and fragments, apocry phal 3 and 4 Mach., also 1 and 2 Clement ; of Egyptian provenance, and likely Hesychian in text; differs much from B, especially in Judges.
B, Cod. Vaticanus, C. 350, in Vatican Library. complete Bible; the Old Testament lacks Gen i-xlvi, 28, 1 and 2 Mach., parts of 2 Kings ir Psalms 105-137; the New Testament lath Hebr. 9:14, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Apoc.: provenance, Lower Egypt; text deemed by Hort to be akin to the Hexaplaric.