§ 43. Fifth, sixth, and seventh Greek versions.

These three versions by anonymous authors, none of which extend to the whole number of the sacred books, are designated by the numbers of the columns which they occupied in the Hexapla. The author of the sixth was a Christian; for he renders Hab. iii. 13. dıα Indou Xpisou. The object of these three translators seems to have been to instruct those belonging to their side of the question who might be engaged in the controversies between the Jews and the Christians, in the contents of the Hebrew text.- -All three contained the Psalms and minor Prophets the fifth and sixth the Pentateuch and Canticles in addition, and the fifth and seventh beside the books just mentioned those of Kings, fragments of which were found by Bruns in a Syriac Hexaplar Manuscript at Paris.*. -The fifth and sixth frequently accord with Theodotion, and the seventh appears to be the work of a learned interpreter.

Origen in JEROME (Praef. ad Homil. Orig. in Cant.) relates that the fifth version was found in a cask at Nicopolis in Actium. Epiphanius gives the same account of the sixth, adding that the fifth and seventh were found at Jericho. Eusebius' account of this matter, E. H. VI. xvi. is ra

ther obscure.

§ 44. Remains of the Greek versions.

These six versions in course of time became neglected, not only by the Jews and Ebionites, but also by the Christians; hence they have all perished, nothing remaining but some fragments found in the works of ecclesiastical writers, in some very ancient Hexaplar manuscripts, and in a Syriac Hexaplar version. From these the indefatigable industry of the learned has endeavoured to restore the Hexapla of Origen, and, considering the difficulty of the task, much has been done to effect it. The first who collected these scattered fragments was Peter Morin, who added all that he could find to his edition of the Alexandrine version, published in 1587. At the same time Drusius was labouring upon a collection, which was first published in 1622. Martianai collected a considerable number of fragments from the works of Jerome, and added them to the third volume of

[See EICHH. Repert. VIII. Th. S. 100. f. IX. Th. S. 157. ff. X. Th. S. 58. ff.)

his edition of those works, published in 1699, at Paris. All these were collected into one body, and increased by the addition of many other fragments, by Montfaucon, who published the whole at Paris, in 2 vols. folio, in 1714. Bahrdt reprinted this work at Leipzig, 1769-1770, but his edition is so full of errors as to be of no utility. In the last century several learned men, particularly Semler, Scharfenberg, Doederlein, Matthai, Buns, Adler, Schleusner, Loesner, and Fischer, have corrected many parts of the preceding collections, and increased them by large additions.* It is much to be wished, that all were published in a single collection.[a]

There is extant in the library of St. Mark's at Venice, a manuscript of a Greek version of the Pentateuch, Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, and Lamentations, which seems to have been made from the Hebrew text in the eleventh century. It is of no great consequence, and yet not wholly deserving of neglect. Part of it has been published by VILLOISON, at Strasburg, in 1784, and the Pentateuch by AMMON, 1790 -1791. Comp. EICHHORN, Allgemeine Bibliothek, VII. B. S. 194–203.

[a) Among these fragments the following are to be met with: viz. ὁ Ἑβραιος, ὁ Σύρος, ὁ Ελληνικος, το Σαμαρείτικον, ο αλλος and ὁ ανεπίγραφος.. -The 'Egalos agrees generally with Jerome, and the explanations of the Hebrew words under this name were according to all appearances borrowed, at least in a great measure, from Jerome by the owners of manuscripts, on the margin of which they are found. [It derives its name from its correspondence with the original. Tr.] The Zugos appears in like manner to be Jerome, who lived a long time in Palestine, consequently in a part of Syria, and is therefore really called a Syrian by Theodore of Mopsuestia in Photius. It constantly agrees with Jerome.

Comp. DOEDERLEIN, Diss. qui sit ó Zugos V. T. interpres Altdorf, 1772. Who is meant by the 'EXλnvixos has not yet been ascertained.- -The ZapageTixov is undoubtedly the reading of the Samaritan text, but it remains uncertain whether it sprang from a Samaritan Greek version, or was borrowed from Origen.-The aλλos or the 'Avery gapos appears to be a negligent quotation, where the writer had

not taken the trouble to mark the author's name, or else was unacquainted with it.]

* See RosenmueLLER'S Handbuch für die Literatur der Bibl. Krit. und Exeg. II. Th. S. 459. ff. [For a notice of these several works, see a note in FISCHERI (J. F.) Clavis Reliquiarum Versionum Græcorum V. T. Specimen, in Comm. Theol. a VELTHUESEN, Tom. IV. pp. 204–207. Tr.]

§ 45. Samaritan Version. [a]

The author and date of the Samaritan version are unknown, but it is certainly much older than the 7th century; perhaps it belongs to the 3d or 4th. It follows the Hebræo-Samaritan text word for word, except that sometimes, especially where the Deity is represented with human form or passions, or where appearances of GOD are mentioned, it renders the name of God by the angel of GOD;' this peculiarity does not, as John Morin thought, belong to the Samaritans alone, for it occurs also in the Arabic version of the Jew Saadias Gaon,[b] and is almost the same with the nin of the Chaldee para

phrases. The changes of the guttural letters, which frequently recur, are not various readings, but errors of transcription, arising from the circumstance that the Samaritans do not pronounce those letters. Frequently two readings of a single passage are given. The various readings of this translation were published by Castell in the 6th volume of the London Polyglot. Comp. MICHELIS, Einleit. in die Göttl. Schrift. des A. B. § 64. S. 337–540.

This version is published in the Paris and London Polyglots.

[a) Comp. EICHHORN, 303-305. SIMON, L. II. c. xvii. Tr.] [b) Gaon or Haggaon is not a proper name, but a title of honour, 78, equivalent to excellent, illustrious, applied to the masters of the schools of Babylon. See BARTOLOCCI, Biblioth. Rabbin. P. III. p. 668. WOLFII, Biblioth. Heb. Tom. I. p. 932-936, BASNAGE, Hist. des Juifs, VII. c. iv. § 2. Tr.]

§ 46. Targum of Onkelos. [a]

The Chaldee paraphrases are known by the name of Targums.* The most celebrated among them is that of the Pentateuch, ascribed to Onkelos, whom the Babylonian Talmud makes contemporary with Gamaliel, adding many incoherent tales respecting him: it is evident however, that he lived several centuries before the Talmudical writers, since they knew so little of him, although he wrote in Baby

* [From the word D, which means a version or an interpretation. Comp. Ez, iv. 7. Fr.]

lonia.

Onkelos, therefore, would seem to have written not in the fourth or fifth century of the Christian era, but in the third, or rather in the second, and this is confirmed by his paraphrase itself; for it not only closely follows the Hebrew text, and is free from those fables and digressions with which the later books of its kind are filled, but it is also written in a Chaldee dialect which approximates nearly to that of Ezra and Daniel, and is not adulterated with that multitude of foreign words with which the later paraphrases abound. The work indeed is not mentioned by Origen or Jerome, but Origen was ignorant of Chaldee, and Jerome only learned it in his old age; besides, a work composed in Babylonia in the second century, could hardly have become known to Origen or Jerome in Palestine in the third and fourth, when the Mishna of the Talmud, written in Palestine between the years 190 and 220, was little known in Babylonia, and did not obtain a Gemara (or commentary) until the fifth century.

The principal editions of this paraphrase are the following: at Bononia, in 1483, with the commentary of Jarchi; without mention of place, in 1490; at Lisbon, in 1491; at the end of the fifteenth century without date or place; in the Complutensian Polyglot, under the inspection of some learned Jewish converts, who changed the points in many places; in the Antwerp Polyglot, after the Complutensian text, but with some changes of the points and omissions of the matres lectionis; at Venice, by Bomberg, from a MS. copy, in 1518, and again with corrections from another MS. in 1526: from this last edition those which followed were taken, until in 1616, Buxtorf, in his edition, altered the points according to the rules of grammar, and here and there the text itself, according to the Hebrew and his own conjectures;* this last edition has been followed in the Paris and London Polyglots. A Latin translation of the paraphrase of Onkelos, with notes, was published by Fagius, at Strasburg, in 1547, in folio.

[a) On the subject of this and the four following sections, Comp. HORNE, Vol. II. pp. 157–163. CARPZOV, Pars II. Cap. I. p. 430–481. EICHHORN, 213–245. Bauer, § 59–81. p. 288-308. SIMON, L. II.

* [This assertion, which is made also by EICHHORN in his first edition, Th. I. S. 437, is denied by DE WETTE, Einl. § 58. anm. c., who affirms that Buxtorf merely changed the punctuation. EICHHORN in his third edition, Th. II. S. 28, has somewhat modified his assertion, though without entirely acquitting Buxtorf from the charge of an undue attachment to the Hebrew text. Tr.]

c. xviii. PRIDEAUX, Part II. Book viii. An. 37. p. 531-555. On the Targum of Onkelos, particularly, DE WETTE Einleit. § 58, and WINER, de Onkeloso ejusque Paraphrasi Chaldaica, Lips. 1820, 4to. Tr.]

§ 47. Targum of Jonathan on the Prophets.

Jonathan, the son of Uzziel, is in the Babylonian Talmud (Bava Bathra, c. 8. p. 134, and Succoth, p. 28.) called the disciple of Hillel, and the colleague of Simeon, and (Tract. Megilloth, c. 1. p. 3.) many wonderful things are related of him. From this it is plain that he must have lived long before the time of the Talmudists, and not, as some have supposed, in the 5th or 6th century, since, in that case, his history would have been better known. In confirmation of this we may adduce the citation of this paraphrase, written in Palestine, in the Babylonian Gemara; but as it is not cited in the Gemara of Jerusalem, it must have been either recently published, or not at all, in the year 282 when the author of that Gemara died. [a] This paraphrase contains the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets. Its language is not as pure as that of Onkelos, yet it does not contain as many foreign words as the more recent Targums, and is free from the digressions and idle tales with which they abound. Hence arises an additional proof of the correctness of the date above assigned to the work. Neither the language nor the method of interpretation is the same in all the books: in the historical works the text is translated with greater accuracy than elsewhere; in some of the prophets, as in Zechariah, the interpretation has more of the Rabbinical and Talmudical character. From this variety we may properly infer that the work is a collection of interpretations of several learned men, made towards the close of the third century, and containing some of a much older date for that some parts of it existed as early as in the second century, appears from the additions I. Sam. xvii. 12-31, 41, 50, 55-58. xviii. 1—5, 9—11, 17-19, which have been transferred from some Chaldee paraphrase into the Hebrew text, and were already read in the text in the second century. See below, § 136.

The first prophetical books of this version were printed at Liria in 1494, fol.* After this edition they were printed together with Onkelos,

* [With the Hebrow text, and the commentaries of Levi and Kimchi. Tr.}