Seventy thus critically marked, had been separately transcribed; so that Origen's Septuagint text and indices survived the destruction which overtook the other parts of his great work. But repeated transcription, by the inadvertent or intermeddling copyists of after-days, materially diminished the value of the work, in having rendered it difficult to identify the critical marks of Origen with certainty. The text in this state, together with such fragments of the other versions as could be ascertained, was edited in two folio volumes at Paris in 1713, under the superintendence of Montfaucon,* and afterwards by Bahrdt, in two volumes, 8vo. at Leipsic in 1769 and 1770.

VI. LUCIAN and HESYCHIUS.-Lucian, a presbyter of Antioch, who died as a martyr A.D. 312, published the Septuagint in an emended edition, which became so widely used as to obtain the name of the Kov, or Vulgate Greek, and also Дouxiaveia, the Lucianian; and a little time after him, an Egyptian bishop, Hesychius, succeeded in another recension. On the text of these last recensions, that of the leading printed editions, those, namely, of Aldus, Ximenes, in the Complutensian Polyglot, the Roman, and the Oxonian by Grabe, has been formed. Of these the Vatican, or Roman, is considered the preferable, and has been the basis of the valuable edition of Holmes and Parsons, at Oxford, 1798, 1827.

VII. GRECO-VENETA.-There is a translation of some of the books of the Old Testament into Greek in the library of St. Mark at Venice, and distinguished on that account by the name of Græco-Veneta. The author was probably a Levantine Jew, of the ninth century. He

* Hexaplorum quæ supersunt, Versione ac Notis illustrata, edidit MONTFALCONIUS.

translated closely. This codex was collated for Holmes's edition of the LXX. But the work itself may be obtained in print, the Pentateuch having been edited by Ammon, at Erlangen, in 1790, 1791, and the other parts by Villoisin, in 1784, at Strasburg.

VIII. Tò ΣaμaperTixòv.-The appellation of Samareitikon has been given to certain fragments of Greek text which are referred to largely in the scholia of the Roman edition of the LXX. They are parts of a version made on the text. of the Hebræo-Samaritan Pentateuch, and no longer extant. It appears, however, to have been known to Cyril of Alexandria, Jerome, and others of the early fathers.

The Greek translations now enumerated, and more especially the Septuagint, have greatly contributed to the critical emendation of the Hebrew scriptures, and to the interpretation of the New Testament itself. The best Lexicon for the study of them is that of Schleusner.*

II. CHALDAIC AND SAMARITAN TARGUMS. I. THE CHALDEE TARGUMIN are versions or paraphrases of various parts of the Old Testament into the Babylonian or East-Aramaic language, which superseded the vernacular use of Hebrew in Judea from the time of the captivity. The immigration of large numbers of Arameans into Palestine, in place of the Israelites led into exile by Shalmanezer, (2 Kings xvii. 24,) and the subsequent conquest of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar, (xxiv. 1,) who garrisoned the country with his soldiers, (xxiv. 2,) and appointed his own courtiers to the public offices, (xxv. 22,) had long before introduced a new medium of communication adverse to the purity and continuance of the ancestral speech; but, subsequently to the

* Novus Thesaurus Philologico-Criticus: sive Lexicon in LXX. et reliquos Interpretes Græcos, &c. 3 vols. 8vo.

coming of the Jewish people from Babylon, of which the great mass of them were natives, habituated from childhood to the use of the Chaldee, the Hebrew of their forefathers fell into perfect desuetude, except as the language of literature and theology.

On the restoration of the institutes of divine worship and religious instruction at Jerusalem, under the ministry of Ezra, it became necessary under these circumstances to adopt, in the public assemblies, a systematic verbal interpretation of the Mosaic and prophetical writings, section by section, into the only language then spoken by the people at large. The priest, whose "lips kept knowledge," construed into Chaldee as he read from his Hebrew manuscript: or, as the Book of Nehemiah describes it, "while the people stood in their place, the Levites read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." (Neh. viii. 7, 8.) In this process the scripture read was the Hebrew text, which, when (methurgam) interpreted or translated, became Targuma, this word merely signifying "a translation or paraphrase," by which the sense of a document is freely or explicatively transferred from one language to another. On the establishment of the economy of the synagogue, which took place not long after, if not in the time of Ezra, the office of interpreter (turgeman or meturgeman) became distinct from that of reader.* And in process of time these verbal interpretations, which at first were extempore, may have been prepared for the congregation in a written. form, and a basis thus laid for the productions which, under the name of Targumin, have held for many ages a distinguished place in the biblical literature of the Jews.

* A diebus Esdræ consueverunt habere interpretem qui populo id interpretaretur quod Lector ex lege perlegit, ut sensum verborum intelligeret. So MAIMONIDES, Hilc. Tiphil. cap. xii.

Of these the two which most properly answer to the idea of versions of scripture are those of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel. The first is confined to the Pentateuch. Its author, Onkelos, p, according to good tradition,* lived in the time of Hillel the elder, that is, about forty years before Christ, under Hyrcanus. His work is deservedly valued as a piece of faithful and sound Bible translation.

The same praise may also be accorded in general to the other, on the prophets, by Jonathan the son of Uzziel. He is considered to have been contemporary with Onkelos; and, writing before the subject had been obscured to the Jewish mind by the fatal prejudices of after-days, his interpretations of many of the passages which relate to the Messiah harmonize entirely with. the theology of the Christian church. In the former prophets the character of the translation is simple and sufficiently literal; but in the latter ones he indulges in the more free and allegorical tone of the rabbinical schools. The prophet Daniel is not translated, or at least not extant.

; on

There are eight other Targums on different parts of the Old Testament; but they are of later dates, and inferior to the two now noticed. They were either unworthily executed at first, or their text has been greatly debased. These are, that on the Pentateuch, by the Pseudo-Jonathan; the Targum Yerushlemey, of which only detached portions on the Pentateuch remain the Ketubim, or Hagiographa, by R. Jose, surnamed the Blind; on the Megilloth, or Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Lamentations, Ruth, and Esther; three others on the history of Esther, and one on the Books of Chronicles. The Targums have been printed, both separately by vari* R. ASAR, in Meor Enajim, cap. xlv. apud WALTON. Prol. xii. 9.

ous editors, and also embodied with Latin translations in the London, Antwerp, and Paris Polyglots.

II. SAMARITAN VERSION of the Pentateuch.-The history of the Samaritan people is too well known to detain us. They were originally a colony "from Babylon and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim," which settled at Shomeron or Samaria, after the deportation of the native Israelites by Shalmaneser, as related in 2 Kings xvii. Idolaters at the time of their establishment in the country, they were afterwards, and, as their perseverance evinced, sincerely, converted to the Hebrew monotheism. Yet their intercourse with the inhabitants of Judea, never cordial from the first, was soon broken up altogether; while their opposition to the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem, and the subsequent erection of one of their own on Mount Gerizim, as a rival shrine to that on Moriah, ripened the growing dislike into confirmed and perpetual enmity. From that period the Samaritans, as if ashamed of their Heathenish extraction, seem to have cherished the ambition of being regarded as the genuine and only worthy descendants of the patriarchs, boasted of a high priesthood of the purest Aaronic descent, and of an adherence to the institutions of Moses more close than that of their neighbours of Jerusalem itself.

[So even in modern times when Ludolf, in the inscription of his letter to the Samaritans of Sichem, had called them Beni Schomron, sons or inhabitants of Schomeron, or Samaria, which had taken its name from Schemer, (1 Kings xvi. 24,) they disclaimed the name, affirming in their reply, that they knew nothing of Schomeron; and that they themselves were Beni Israel Schamerim, that is, Israelites, observers of the holy law.*]

* From schamar, "to keep, observe."