He left a fon, named Onias; but he being then an infant, Eleazar, Simon's brother, was fubítituted highprieft in his stead. He executed this office fifteen years, but with this difference, that whereas all the highpriests before had-fat as prefidents of the fynagogue, or grand council of the Jews, Simon was fucceeded in his laft dignity by one Antigonus of Socho, a person of great learning and piety P. This man, who the Jews tell us was the mafter of Saddoc, the chief of the Sadducean fect, taught, that our ferving God ought to be free either from flavish fear of punishment, or from selfish hope of reward; and be wholly difinterested, and flow from the pure love and fear of that Supreme Being. Rife of the Hence his difciple being unable to relish such a spiritual Sadducees. doctrine, took it into his head that his master meant no more by it, than that there were neither rewards nor punishments, nor even life after this; which notion became in time fo general among the richer fort of Jews, that they monopolized all the great places in church and state, as we shall see in due time (D). Ptolemy, P De hoc. vid. lib. Juchafin, Shalfhel. El. Levita, in Cabbala, & al. revifal or correction. From this time the Jewish doctors applied themselves wholly to ftudy, explain, and comment upon them; and their expofitions were in time received with as much fubmiffion, as the facred books themselves. (D) Antigonus thus became head of a new kind of synagogue, which continued from this time to that of Jehudah Hakkadofh, the compiler of the Mishna, as the old one had from Ezra to Simon the Juft. The difference between them was, that the old one had beftowed their time and labour in collecting, revifing, and completing the canon of the Old Teftament; the latter were wholly employed in expounding and commenting upon it. Thefe, therefore, whom the authors of the New Tefta VOL. III. any ment call by different names, Yr. of Fl. 2064. Ante Chr. 284. Ptolemy Philadel phus a great friend to An account of the Septuagint verfion. Ptolemy, furnamed Philadelphus, having fucceeded his father in Egypt, the Jews found in him as great a protector as they had in Ptolemy Soter; and with this advantage, that the son, being a great lover of learning, and upon the point of rearing his noble library at Alexandria, ftrove to oblige them with greater favours than any of his predeceffors had granted, in order to obtain from them a copy of the facred books, to be tranflated into Greek, and the Jews. depofited there among that immenfe number of volumes which he had procured from all parts of the world. This verfion is that which is commonly known by the name of Septuagint. Ufher places the making of it in the seventh year of that monarch's reign. Indeed, when we confider how much this performance has been celebrated, not only by the most learned Jewish writers, but alfo by the ancient fathers, as well as many celebrated moderns; how much it has been extolled, as a work manifeftly conducted by a miraculous Providence, and as fuch referred to and quoted, both by our Saviour and his apoftles, and by all the primitive writers of the Chriftian church, it will perhaps be expected that we should be fomewhat copious upon the fubject. But when we reflect on the other hand, that all those extravagant encomiasts have not only blindly followed their romantic leader, but have, in many cafes, embellished his furprising account of this tranfaction; that Arifteas, the first broacher of this hiftory, has only covered himself with the perfonage, if not with the name of a heathen writer, and an officer of Ptolemy's guards, that he might be the more liberal of his incenfe to the Jewish nation; that he is guilty of feveral flagrant anachronisms, and of a manifeft falfhood at the very threshold of his account, where he makes Demetrius Phalereus the fuppofed promoter of this great work, a favourite of the king, when the contrary plainly appears; when we confider that Jofephus, Ariftobulus, a Jewish peripatetic philofopher, Philo, the Talmudifts, and other rabbies, either only copied, or in fome cafes improved upon him; and laftly, that those ancient fathers, Juftin Martyr, Irenæus, Cyril, Chryfoftom, Austin, Epiphanius, and others, have too greedily fwallowed up the Jewish account of this pretended miraculous verfion, by reason of the preference which Chrift and his apoftles feem to have given it either to the original, or to the other verfions then extant; we The author of it a fa bulous writer. Blindly fol lowed by the Chrif tians and Jews. two, down to the more inferior city; and upon this account they were also called counsellors. hope, hope, upon all these confiderations, our readers will eafily excufe our not entering into fo fpacious a field, and be content with the fuccinct account we fhall now give them of it in the note (E). (E) The account we have of this verfion, out of the book which goes under the name of Arifteas, and out of thofe other authors who have followed him, is in fubftance as follows: Ptolemy Philadelphus, a great lover of learning, was enriching the noble library which had been begun by his father, when Demetrius Phalereus, Phalereus, who had the inspection of that work, acquainted him, that there were certain books held facred among the Jews, which highly deferved a place in his collection, if they could by any means be procured. He advised him, at the fame time, of a method, in all likelihood the most effectual, to prevail on the Jewish fanhedrim to fend thofe volumes, together with a fufficient number of learned men, to Alexandria, to tranf late them into Greek; namely, by a general redemption of all the Jewish captives that had been taken during the late wars. Upon enquiry, the number of them was found to amount to about a hundred thousand; at which Ptolemy was fo far from being difcouraged, that he caused an edict to be iffued out for a total release, and the fum of twenty drachms per head to be paid for their redemption out of his own treafury. After this fignal favour to the Jewish nation, the king fent a fplendid embaffy, laden All with prefents, to Eleazar the then Jewish high-priest; who, on his fide, readily complied with the king's request, and fent him, with the сору of the facred books, written in letters of gold, feventy-two Jews, well skilled in the Hebrew and Greek tongues, and a letter of thanks for his noble prefents, in which he congratulated him on his glorious undertaking, and wifhed him good fuccefs. re Ptolemy received the interpreters with uncommon fpect, and paid fuch a regard to the facred volume, that he bowed himfelf feven times down to the ground before it ; after which he entertained his guests with fuitable magnificence feven days fucceffively, affuring them, that he should esteem the day of their arri val as an addition to the glory of his reign. They were conducted three days after into the island of Pharos, which ftood about seven furlongs from Alexandria, where Demetrius placed them in a fumptuous edifice, conveniently fituated near the fhore, and there they set immediately about the work. Their method, according to Arifteas, was to fit at it from fix in the morning to three in the afternoon; after which they returned into the city, where they had their victuals, and other neceffaries, prepared for them at the king's expence. Whenever any difficulty was D 2 started, All that we fhall add here will be two or three remarks concerning this work. The first is, that there was near ftarted, they debated it in a full affembly; and when the point was fettled, a fair tranfcript was made, and sent to Demetrius, till the whole verfion was finished, which took up only feventy or seventy-two days. Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, who was fent on an embaffy to Caius Cæfar, foon after our Saviour's death, has greatly improved the story of Arifteas, and fpeaks of this verfion as altogether miraculous; for, he adds, that upon comparing the feveral interpretations of thofe feventy men, which, according to him, had been carried on by each of them feparately, there was not found fo much as the difference of a word between them all, but that they had rendered every period, not only in the fame fenfe, but in the fame phrafe, word, and order, throughout the whole; from whence he infers, that they were divinely infpired. He mentions nothing either of Arifteas or Demetrius Phalereus, probably because he would not be fufpected of having copied and enlarged the former. a Juftin Martyr, who has adopted this extraordinary addition of Philo, tells us, that Ptolemy had caufed the interpreters to be shut up, each in feparate cell, to prevent their communicating their thoughts to one another; that, by the conformity of their feveral tranflations, he might the more eafily judge of the faithfulness of the whole verfion, that He adds, that when they came to be compared together, there was fuch an exact conformity between them all, that the king, who looked upon it as altogether miraculous, fent the interpreters home laden with honour, and with the richest prefents; and received their writ ings with that veneration which was due to books divinely inspired. His account of this verfion is fomewhat different in another work of his, where he tells us, that Ptolemy fent to Herod, king of the Jews, for thofe facred books; and that, upon their being fent in their original tongue and character, which were unknown in Egypt, he had been forced to fend tohim for fome interpreters to tranflate them into Greek; which defire being likewise complied with, copies of that verfion were still every where to be seen in the hands of the Hellenift Jews in his time. After this ample testimony of that good and learned martyr, we need not wonder if fo many ancient fathers have embraced the flory, and looked upon that verfion as divinely inspired; and fome of them have given it even the preference to the original, in those places where the difference between them could not be reconciled. Epiphanius, who lived about the middle of the third century, and pretends to have preferved the letter which Ptolemy wrote to the Jews, to obtain this verfion from them, has that time a verfion made of the facred Hebrew books into Greek, with which the Hellenist Jews were so highly delighted, has given us a copious account of it; and to what has been faid by Arifteas, and the other authors above mentioned, has added fome other circumftances by way of improvement; fuch as that there were but thirtyfix cells, into which the interpreters were fhut up by two in each; that they had no windows, but received their light from the top by fkylights; that each couple had a book given them to tranflate, which, when finished, was conveyed to the next cell, and fo on to the third, fourth, &c. and thence to all the reft; by which means each book was tranflated thirty-fix times: that they were confined to their work from morning to evening; after which each couple was conveyed in a feparate boat to the royal palace, where they fupped with the king; after which they were fhut up, each in their feparate chamber, till the next day, when they were again conveyed to their refpective cells. When the whole book of the Old Testament had gone thro' the thirty-fix couples, their verfions were read before the king, by thirty-fix readers, while a thirty-feventh held the original in his hand, with which they were compared; and at the end were found to agree in every respect, both with the Hebrew, and with each other, to fuch a degree of exactnefs, that Ptolemy looked upon those interpreters as divinely infpired, and caused their feveral works to be depofited in his library of Bruchium. ac The Talmuds of Jerufalem and Babylon agree in most of thefe particulars above mentioned; but pretend that Ptolemy fent for those feventy-two Jewish elders, without quainting them what work he defigned to fet them upon, till they were arrived at Alexandria, when he caused them to be all fhut up, each in a separate cell, and gave them the facred books to tranflate. Lastly, and to name no more, St. Clement of Alexandria, and Eufebius, quote fome fragments out of one Ariftobulus, a peripatetic Jew of Alexandria, who is faid to have written a comment on the Pentateuch, and to have dedicated it to Ptolemy Philometor, to whom he had been tutor. which dedication he mentions this Greek verfion, which had been made by Ptolemy's command, and under the direction of Demetrius Phalereus. In The two fathers above mentioned quote this comment to prove the poffibility of Pythagoras, Plato, and other Greek philofophers, having taken most of their philosophy out of the facred volumes, fince they had been tranflated fo long before in that known language. The reader may fee, by what has been extracted out of all thofe authors, both Jewish and Chriftian, that the story of this verfion has gained confiderably by every hand it has gone D 3 through; |