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Rh from על־השׁמינית that there were eight different melodies (Arab. ‘l - hân). And eight נגינית are also mentioned elsewhere; perhaps not without reference to those eight church-tones, which are also found among the Armenians. Moreover the two modes of using the accents in chanting, which are attested in the ancient service-books, may perhaps be not altogether unconnected with the distinction between the festival and the simpler ferial manner in the Gregorian style of church-music. 8. Translations of the Psalms The earliest translation of the Psalms is the Greek Alexandrine version. When the grandson of the son of Sirach came to Egypt in the year 132 b.c., not only the Law and the Prophets, but also the Hagiographa were already translated into the Greek; of course therefore also the Psalms, by which the Hagiographa are directly named in Luk 24:44. The story of the lxx (lxxII) translators, in its original form, refers only to the Thôra; the translations of the other books are later and by different authors. All these translators used a text consisting only of consonants, and these moreover were here and there more or less indistinct; this text had numerous glosses, and was certainly not yet, as later, settled on the Masoretic basis. This they translated literally, in ignorance of the higher exegetical and artistic functions of the translator, and frequently the translation itself is obscure. From Philo, Josephus and the New Testament we see that we possess the text of this translation substantially in its original form, so that criticism, which since the middle of the last century has acquired many hitherto unknown helps, more especially also in the province of the Psalms, will not need to reverse its judgment of the character of the