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 HEXAPLA

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HEXAPLA

because his version was largely a revision of the other; for a similar reason, Theodotion's version came after the Septuagint. To these six columns, according to the same testimony, Origen added, but for certain books only, a seventh and an eighth column contain- ing two more Greek versions, which were called re- spectively the Quinta and the Sexta, because they were the fifth and sixth versions in Origen's arrangement. Eusebius and Jerome mention a seventh Greek ver- sion, however nothing seems to be known of the char- acter of the Septima. It may have been a very frag- mentary version, a collection of variant readings which later editors did not consider worth preserving. Concerning the Quinta and Sexta, St. Jerome tells us that their authors were Jews, Field finds traces of the Quinta not only in Psalms, Job, Proverbs, and the Canticle of Canticles, but also in the Pentateuch and IV Kings, though, in regard to IV Kings, Burkitt has advanced good reasons for considering the Quinta a col- lection of variant readings, probably rejected from the Septuagint. The Sexta is quoted for Exodus, III Kings, Psalms, Job, Canticle of Canticles, .4mos, and Ilabacuc.

The presence of these two additional versions in the Hexapla has led to a discussion of that term and of others applied to Origen's work. By some the " six- fold " Bible was considered so called because it con- tained six Greek versions of certain books; but the common opinion has been that the name designates probably the six columns (the two of Hebrew and the four of the chief Greek versions, which constitute the bulk of the work), and came to be extended to the en- tire work. The terms Pentapla, Heptapla, Octapla, were also used of Origen's work, according as it contained five, seven, or eight columns. Since the si.x or seven columns, as the case might be, were visible at every opening of the Hexapla, each column must have been quite narrow. The fragments show, in fact, that one or at most two Hebrew words were placed on each line, with the transliteration in the adjoining column and the various renditions in the succeeding columns, all on the same level. This arrangement would natu- rally necessitate, at times, a shifting of the Greek words from their proper order, although this was not always done. An arrangement so minute and liberal must produce a work of enormous bulk. Swete estimated 3250 leaves, or 6500 pages, but Nestle considers 6000 leaves not far beyond the number. In addition to these columns of texts and versions, Origen copied out on the margins or between the lines other readings which he cited as given by o 'E/3/)aios, 6 2i5pos, ri Za/ia- pciTLKdv, the meaning of which is obscure. Field considers " the Hebrew " to be the Hebrew author of a Greek version, otherwise unknown, of certain books; "the Syrian", the author of another Greek version made in Syria; while "the Samaritan" gives Greek readings taken, not from the current Hebrew text, but from the Samaritan Pentateuch (thirty-six out of forty-three readings agree with that text). Loisy's opinion, not to mention many others, is that "the Hebrew" denotes citations from a 'Targum, "the Syrian", from the Peschito.

Origen's purpose, as regards the Septuagint, was to indicate very clearly its exact relation to the Hebrew text, and incidentally to the other Greek versions. With this in view, he adopted (and placed in the Septuagint column only) the symbols used by Aristarchus in his edition of Homer. "As employed by Origen in the fifth column of the Hexapla, the obelus was prefixed to words or lines which were wanting in the Hebrew, and therefore, from Origen's point of view, of doubt- ful authority, while the asterisk called attention to words or lines wanting in the Septuagint, but present in the Hebrew. The close of the context to which the obelus or asterisk was intended to apply was marked by another sign known as the metobelus" (Swete). The fifth column, therefore, contained not the mere text of the Septuagint only, but in addition a transla-

tion taken generally from Theodotion (occasionally from Aquila) of these words or lines of the Hebrew which were lacking in the Septuagint. In certain in- stances, where the Septuagint translation differed widely from the Hebrew meaning, Origen inserted the true rendering (from Theodotion or Aquila) alongside the false; he deleted nothing from the Septuagint text. By this arrangement and these .symbols, any reader, even if ignorant of Helirew, could generally tell at a glance the exact relation of the Septuagint text to the Hebrew.

The principles which guided Origen in his work as textual critic are partly explained by Origen himself. He began by assuming the correctness of the current Hebrew textus receptus, and considered the Septuagint as more or less pure according to the degree in which it approximated to the Hebrew. He frequently changed the spelling of proper names to conform with the Hebrew. 'The sjonbols were intended not only to indicate a difference between the two texts, but to mark a departure from the Hebrew verity or genuine text. These principles are rightly discredited by modern scholars, who recognize that the Septuagint often bears plain witness to a Hebrew original different from the textus receptus and older than it in some parts. Moreover, of two readings, one a free, the other a lit- eral, translation of the Hebrew, the free is more likely to be the original rendering of the Septuagint tran.sla- tor, while the literal is more apt to represent the effort of correctors, who very frequently endeavoured to bring the Greek into greater conformity with the Hebrew. Origen's critical principles were at fault, then, but his use of symbols ought to have guarded others from being led by his work into error. Un- fortunately, the symbols were not reproduced in many copies which were taken of the fifth column — the Septuagint together with the readir^s from Theodo- tion and Aquila.

After the completion of the Hexapla Origen pre- pared a minor edition, or extract from it, consisting of the tour principal versions, Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint, and Theodotion ; this is the Tdrapfa. It has been sometimes maintained, however, that the Tetrapla is the earlier work and was expanded into the Hexapla, principally on the ground that the Hexapla, which in a few instances has a superior reading, as at Ps. Ixxxvi, 5, presents light missing to Origen when he composed the Tetrapla, a very unstable ground, we judge, for the Hexapla did not leave the hand of Origen as a printed work becomes independent of a modern author, but received occasional additions and corrections with the progress of his knowledge. The language of Eusebius implies that the Tetrapla was the later work. The dates of the two works, however, cannot be definitely fixed; all we know, says Field, is that the Hexapla or the "Tetrapla was com- posed before Origen's letter to Africanus (c. 240).

No copy of the entire Hexapla, on account of the immense labour and expense involved, seems ever to have been made, but the Psalter, minus the first col- umn, was copied, as the two fragments prove. A reading in Isaias is quoted from the Pentapla, which possibly (though very doubtfully) implies the exist- ence of a similar copy. Shortly after the begirming of the fourth century, Pamphilus, the martyr, and Euse- bius, Bishop of Caesarea, gave out an edition of the fifth column of the Hexapla, containing the Septua- gint, the insertions from Theodotion and Aquila, and the symbols, together with variant readings on the margin, in the belief that they were bestowing on the Church the purest text. It was through the reproduc- tion of this edition by later scribes, without Origen's critical signs, that arose the Hexaplar text which so greatly increased the confusion of Septuagint manu- scripts. However, it hardly circulated outside of Palestine. It was translated into Syriac, "with the Origenic signs scrupulously retained", by Paul,