TO VIMU

knowing God for ever and ever is as yet abortive; and immortality itself, instead of wearing a character of promise, threatens to be a frightful and immeasurable calamity.

The Bible reveals the way of salvation. It is employed by the Divine Spirit to convert and regenerate the sinner, (Psalm xix. 7; James i. 18; 1 Peter i. 23,) to build up the saint, (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17,) to console the afflicted, (Psalm cxix. 92,) to give victorious confidence in death; (1 Cor. xv. 54;) and, while it tends to the sanctification of the church, (John xvii. 17,) is the ordained instrument to be employed in her evangelic agencies for the pacification and renovation of the world. (Phil. ii. 15, 16; Isai. xi. 9.)

All human beings have a right to the Bible. Our interest in it is universal. It is the gift of God to our race, the true charter of humanity. If man have a soul, and that soul need salvation, the book of life becomes indispensable to his welfare.

The Christian church has never appeared in a more legitimate or dignified position than when holding forth the light of revelation to the benighted millions of the earth; nor, without a literal communication of the written word, can she worthily fulfil the commission intrusted to her,—of teaching all nations. God will have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. The donation of the volume in which that truth is enshrined, must therefore be accordant with his will. All the communities of our race, endowed with intelligence, invested with the responsibilities of a probation for eternity, alike ruined by sin, redeemed by mercy, and living for the great future which is before us all, were made to possess, and ought to possess, those very oracles of the Holy One which have made the best of us wise unto salvation.

But, from the national distinctions which prevail, by

the divine appointment, among mankind, it is necessary, if revelation should be thus diffused, that the documents in which it was originally given be faithfully rendered into the various languages of the world. That such a procedure is in agreement with the divine will, is evident as well from the nature of the case, as from the practice of the inspired apostles and evangelists in quoting the scriptures of the Old Testament indifferently from the original Hebrew, or from the Greek version of the Seventy,-a practice which gives a plain recognition of the principle of vernacular translations. The efforts which have been put forth by individuals or communities for the manifestation of the word of God through such mediums, would form, could they be set forth to the eye, one of the most profitable chapters in the universal history of the church. The few pages of the present introduction which can be given to the subject, will be devoted to a short account of the origin and character of the biblical versions which appeared in ages long passed away the object in such an exposition being to set before the general reader the elements necessary for a proper judgment on the comparative merits of these works, so as to make evident the peculiar excellence and value of the particular version which was in such early use in the Syrian churches; and a faithful delineation of which, in the English language, has been attempted in this and a preceding volume.

It will be proper in such a review to notice, first of all, the translation previously referred to as in use, in a limited way, both among Jews and Gentiles, a considerable time before the evangelic epoch, and which forms the basis of several Christian versions of different parts of of the Old-Testament scriptures.

I. TRANSLATIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT INTO

GREEK.

I. 1. THE SEPTUAGINT.-The Hellenistic version of the Old Testament, commonly known by this name, is the most ancient of all biblical translations. The name, "Septuagint," may have been adopted to express the approval of it by the Jewish Sanhedrin, (an opinion maintained by Father Simon and Dr. Adam Clarke,) or may have been given it in accordance with the old tradition of the number of men employed in the work itself.

2. Without dilating on the difficulties by which the early history of this version has been perplexed, it appears evident, by the quotations of it in the New Testament, that, in the time of the evangelists and apostles, the greater part, if not all, of the Jewish canonical scriptures existed in the Greek language. Next, in the prologue of the apocryphal book of Jesus the Son of Sirach, we find the author affirming that in his time, B.C. 132, "the law and the prophets, and the rest of the books," were extant in a Greek translation. Finally, a still earlier reference occurs in a fragment of Aristobulus, a Jewish commentator * on the Pentateuch, who lived in the time of Ptolemy Philometer, B.C. 146. In this passage, which is preserved in the Evangelical Preparation of Eusebius, and in the Stromata of St. Clement, Aristobulus (in pointing out the source from which some of the most eminent Gentile philosophers had derived their knowledge) affirms, that "the entire law had been first rendered into Greek under Ptolemy Philadelphus." That monarch, who had succeeded to the throne B.C. 285,

* In 2 Macc. i. 10, he is described as being of the "anointed race of the priesthood, and preceptor to Ptolemy the king."

completed the institutions of learning in Alexandria, begun by his father Soter, and placed among the seven hundred thousand manuscripts of the library a copy of the Jewish law. But, whether by this term we are to understand the entire Hebrew scriptures, or only the books of Moses, is a matter of debate. They seem to have the more correct idea who take the latter view.

Such is the amount of what is now really known on the original history of the Septuagint. The legendary statements of Aristaus and others, of the employment by the Egyptian king of seventy-two Jews, six of each tribe, for the accomplishment of this work; and how "each of these translated the whole of the sacred books while confined in separate cells in the island of Pharos; but was so over-ruled by the Divine Spirit, as that not only every species of error was prevented, but the seventy-two copies, when compared, were found to be precisely alike in words, and even letters ;"—these accounts, I say, have been long ago exploded as worthless tales. The authenticity of the passage of Aristobulus being admitted,—and this is considered well established,—there is no ground for doubt as to the fact that the Pentateuch, at least, was rendered into Greek more than two hundred and eighty years before the Christian era. And this might have led the way, in the same or the following reign, to the translation of several or of all the remaining books of the sacred canon.

3. The authors of this work were probably Jews of Alexandria. For though the genius of the interpretation which reigns in the Septuagint is Palestinian, and indicative of a free consent with the authorized or traditional exegesis, the nomenclature and terminology employed are such as, in some instances, neither arose from, nor were adapted to, the manner of speaking in the home domain of Judaism, but to that in use among the Græco-Egyptian

scholars of the day. The dialect is Alexandrine, and the style of translation diffuse rather than literal.

4. The different portions of the work, bearing internal evidence of a plurality of authorship, exhibit various degrees of ability. The Pentateuch and Book of Proverbs are considered the best accomplished; but the historical books have not met with exact translators. He who laboured on the poetical books, is thought to have been more familiar with the magnificent diction of the tragedians, than with the recondite Hebrew of Job or the Psalms. In like manner Isaiah, among the prophets, is not happily rendered, though the version of Jeremiah and of Ezekiel has been commended. The translation of Daniel falls below the general merits of the work, and is considered by Michaëlis and others to have been done subsequently to the apostolic age.

5. The Septuagint has been more or less esteemed by the Jews, but never obtained a full canonical authority among them. It is disputable whether it was read publicly in the synagogue, even at Alexandria. The public reading of the scriptures appears to have been invariably in the original; and, after the promulgation of the gospel, the private value attached by the Israelites to the Greek version was materially diminished, by the influence of dislike to the Christians, who recognised its full authority, and used it with a disagreeable effectiveness in arguing with their Hebrew opponents.

II. AQUILA. It was this state of feeling, perhaps, which led Aquila, or Akylas, a Jewish proselyte of Pontus, to undertake a new and literal translation of the Old Testament into Greek, which he finished about the twelfth year of Adrian, A.D. 128. He accomplished this task in an able and, generally speaking, impartial manner; though he has been accused of giving some of the Messi