The Septuagint Version of Isaiah and Cognate Studies (Forschungen Zum Alten Testament) 3161483723, 9783161578229, 9783161483721

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Forschungen zum Alten Testament Herausgegeben von Bernd Janowski (Tübingen) • Mark S. Smith (New York) Hermann Spieckermann (Göttingen)

40

Isac Leo Seeligmann 10. Januar 1907 bis 14. Mai 1982

Isac Leo Seeligmann

The Septuagint Version of Isaiah and Cognate Studies edited by Robert Hanhart and Hermann Spieckermann

Mohr Siebeck

ISAC LEO SEELIGMANN ( 1 9 0 7 - 1 9 8 2 ) : f r o m 1936 u p to his d e p o r t a t i o n 1943 l e c t u r e r at t h e

Israelite Seminar in the Netherlands; from 1946 on librarian at the University of Amsterdam; 1948 PhD; 1950-77 Professor of Biblical Literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

978-3-16-157822-9 Unveränderte eBook-Ausgabe 2019 ISSN 0940-4155 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament) I S B N 3-16-148372-3

Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de. © 2004 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher's written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was printed by Guide Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier.

Preface The present volume makes accessible once more the groundbreaking work on recent Septuagint scholarship - "The Septuagint Version of Isaiah" (1948) by Isac Leo Seeligmann (1907-1982). The work is accompanied by two of his studies that have to be seen as prolegomena to the book as a whole: "Problems and Perspectives in Modern Septuagint Research" (1940) and "Phases of Jewish Historical Consciousness" (1947). Both essays were originally written in Dutch; the latter one is made available in English for the first time. All these works mentioned above document in an impressive way the new approach taken by Seeligmann: to understand the Septuagint - based on a careful methodological basis - as a witness of Hellenistic Judaism striving to maintain the text's special character as a document of faith. At the same time all of Seeligmann's works edited in this volume are documents of the suffering of European Judaism during the time of National Socialism as the dates of publication amply demonstrate. Seeligmann mentions this in his studies only in passing. Rather than moving those sufferings into the spotlight, the scholar seeks to conceal them. The careful reader, however, will realise that the history of Israel during the Hellenistic period does not simply represent an object of scholarly research for Seeligmann but also serves as the background for the interpretation of the history of the Jewish people in his own time. The new edition, accompanied by a volume in German containing a biographical sketch of Seeligmann as well as his studies in the field of Biblical exegesis as a whole, aims to prevent the epochal achievement of this scholar from being forgotten and serves, at the same time, as a remembrance to the suffering endured by himself and his family as members of the Jewish people. Many were involved in the publication of this volume. First and foremost, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks to Mrs Margot Seeligmann who kindly agreed to the new edition of the works of her late husband and made the hand-written marginal comments in his copy of "The Septuagint of Isaiah" available to us. Without her generous help and interest this new edition would not have been possible. The same has to be said of the co-operation of her daughter, Mrs Judith H. Seeligmann, who already in 1990 translated the essay "Problems and Perspectives in Modern Septuagint Research" into English and gladly agreed to do the same for the essay "Phases of Jewish Historical

VI Consciousness". We offer our deepest thanks to Mrs Judith H. Seeligmann for preparing these translations which were possible only because of her linguistic competence and her familiarity with the work of her father. Furthermore, we would like to thank the publisher Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, especially Dr. h.c. Georg Siebeck. He and the fellow editors of the Forschungen zum Alten Testament, Prof. Dr. Bernd Janowski and Prof. Dr. Mark S. Smith, immediately and gladly embraced our idea for this publication. The realization of this publishing enterprise has happened through the help of the editor for Theology at Mohr Siebeck, Dr. Henning Ziebritzki. As usual, the co-operation has been a pleasure and we thank him for that. Many thanks to E.J. Brill, Leiden and Magnes Press, Jerusalem for granting us permission to republish the works of Seeligmann. We would especially like to thank Drs. Hans van der Meij and Prof. Dr. Shemaryahu Talmon. Collaborators in Berlin and Göttingen offered invaluable help. Sincere thanks to Dr. Anselm C. Hagedorn, Berlin for helping to prepare the English version of the Preface and Introduction. We are equally very grateful to stud, theol. Michael Grimmsmann and stud, theol. Angelika Maske for proofreading and to stud, theol. Ulrike Verwold for preparing the indices. Without stud, theol. Sarah Oltmanns, not deterred by hard work, this book would neither been published within the tight schedule nor would it have been produced with the desired care. She alone was responsible for producing the electronic version of the articles, the layout, the checking of references and all those countless things that are the daily bread of such an editorial project. Our deepest thanks for that! Göttingen, March 2004

Robert Hanhart and Hermann Spieckermann

Contents

Preface

V

ROBERT HANHART

Introduction

3

ROBERT HANHART a n d HERMANN SPIECKERMANN

Rules Applied to the Edition of

ISAC LEO SEELIGMANN'S

Works

19

ISAC LEO SEELIGMANN

Problems and Perspectives in Modern Septuagint Research

23

(translated by JUDITH H. SEELIGMANN)

I. The Septuagint in Ancient Tradition and Evaluation 1. Jewish Hellenistic tradition 2. Rabbinic tradition 3. Christian tradition

24 25 27 29

II. The Text History of the Septuagint 1. 2. 3. 4a. 4b. 5.

Text editions Paul de Lagarde and the ideal of an Urtext of the Septuagint The state of transmission Emendations - method and tools Classification of the manuscripts Textual variants before Origen

31 32 34 35 38 40 41

III. Literary Criticism and the Character of the Septuagint as Translation 1. 2. 3. 4.

Distinguishing different hands in the Septuagint The origin of the Septuagint as a Targum Arguments favouring the Targum character Translation character of the various books

45 45 47 48 50

VIII

Contents

IV. The Septuagint and the Hebrew Text 1. 2. 3. 4.

Translation technique of the Septuagint Retroversion from the Greek The Septuagint and the history of the Hebrew language The Septuagint and the history of the Hebrew text

52 52 53 54 60

V. The Language of the Septuagint

66

VI. Hellenization and Actualization of the Bible in the Septuagint 1. Forms of Hellenization in the Septuagint 2. Hellenistic theology of the Septuagint 3. Actualization of the Bible in the Septuagint

69

69 72 76

ISAC LEO SEELIGMANN

Phases of Jewish Historical Consciousness (translated by JUDITH H.

83

SEELIGMANN)

ISAC LEO SEELIGMANN

The Septuagint Version of Isaiah

119

Preface Introduction

123 124

Significance of the Septuagint 124. History of the origin of the Septuagint 124. Need of, and a programma for, monographs on the several books, 124. Character of the Isaiah translation, 126. Problems raised by the Isaiah translation and their treatment in the present study, 128. Previous literature on the Isaiah translation, 128.

I.

The Text of the Septuagint of Isaiah and its Transmission.

135

Function of this chapter, 135. (1) Accidental factors in the transmission of the text; correct readings, accidentally preserved and scattered, 136. (2) Classification of the available material handed down to us, 140. (3) Hexaplaric and Lucianic recensions, 142. (a) Revisionary processes and their spread, 142. (b) The Origenic material and its character, 143. (c) The Lucianic material and its character, 147. (4) Traces of younger revisions in the transmission outside the Origenic and Lucianic material, 155. (5) Other revisionaiy processes, 157. (a) Christian elaboration, 158. (b) Quasi-Greek phrasing given to original transcriptions of Hebrew words, 166: (c) Secondary components in unanimously transmitted versions, 167. (5) Doublets in the Septuagint of Isaiah and their character, 168. Traces of the existence of parallel translations and their use in ancient revisions, 174. Great age of some of these variants, 176.

II. The Technique Employed in the Translation and its Relation to the Hebrew Text.

179

(1) The question of the unity of the translation and the inconsistencies in the translator's working method, 179. (2) The licence shown in the translation a result of an endeavour to produce acceptable Greek; characteristics of the idiom of the translation, 183. (3) Some aspects of the translator's knowledge of Hebrew, 187. (a) The translation, or

Contents

IX

various translations of the Pentateuch as the source of the translator's knowledge of Hebrew, 187. (b) Hebrew an acquired language for the translator; Aramaisms, 193. (c) Examples of the translator's lexicological knowledge of Hebrew, 195. (d) Examples of the translator's grammatical knowledge of Hebrew, 201. (4) The freedom and daring of the translator's technique, the result of defective knowledge of Hebrew and of his striving after free interpretation, 203. (5) The script of the Hebrew manuscripts used by the translator; the theory of WUTZ, 206. Slight value of our translation for criticism of the Masoretic text, 207. (a) Places where the Septuagint preserves a correct reading, 208. (b) Categories of places where the Septuagint may be deemed to reflect an ancient text which really existed, 209. (a) Different stages of the script and the mutual substitutions of letters, 209. (fi) Mistranslations pointing to actually existing readings in the Hebrew text, 210. ( y ) Correspondence to independent sources, 211. (5) Differences between the various strata of the Septuagint elucidating an evolution of the Hebrew text, 212. (c) The Septuagint as a document of orthographical peculiarities and copyists' habits in the Hebrew manuscript, 215. Word-substitution, 217.

III. Date and Historical Background of the Translation.

222

Difficulties in dating books of the Septuagint, 222. (1) Relationship of the Isaiah translation to that of other books; the translation of Isaiah is younger than that of the Psalms, the Dodecapropheton and Ezechiel, 222, and older than that of Daniel, ben Sira, Kings, 229. (2) The historical background of the Isaiah translation, 231. The geographical notions of the translator: Hellenistic, Jewish and contemporizing elements, 231. (3) Historical reminiscences, 238. Allusions to Antiochius IV Epiphanes, 239; Onias III, 242; the fleet of the Philistines, 245; Maccabean victories, 246; hatred against Maccabees and Jews in the Phoenician cities, 247; expansion of the Nabatean state, 248; revolutions and Ethiopian rebellion in Ptolemaic Egypt, 249; destruction of the Carthaginian fleet, 250.

Excursus: Onias III and the Onias Temple in Heliopolis. IV. The translation as a Document of Jewish-Alexandrian Theology.

252 258

Methodology in using the Septuagint as a source of Jewish-Alexandrian theology, 258. (1) Epithets and attributes of God, 260; the heathen deities, 263; religious ceremony and traces of ancient Jewish-Alexandrian liturgy, 267; (2) notions concerning virtue and social conceptions, 269; conceptions regarding divine law, Thorah and the sight of the Gnosis, 270; the prophecy, 277; (3) historic consciousness and conception of the Galuth (exile), 279; national symbols and the yearning for liberation, 284; the Remnant of Israel and its increase by proselytizing, 288; the ideal of peace, 290; the Messiah, 291. Jewish and Hellenistic elements in the translation, 293.

List of Original Publication

295

Index of Authors

297

Index of Passages

303

Introduction ROBERT HANHART

Everybody concerned with the understanding of the biblical tradition has to be deeply moved that those scholarly works which served for the past 50 years as basis and guidance for any research into the Greek translation of the Old Testament originated from the suffering and persecution of the Jewish people during the Second World War: the three early studies by Isac Leo Seeligmann (10.1.1907-14.5.1982) republished in this volume. The first, a seminal literary-critical study on the "Problems and Perspectives in Modern Septuagint Research", already inaugurated in pre-war Amsterdam during the year 1933 and finished five month after the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, "one of the last scholarly works written by a member of the Dutch-Jewish community during that period" (thus Seeligmann's translator into English, his daughter Judith). The second, a first theological and intellectual evaluation on "Phases of Jewish Historical Consciousness: Bible, Jewish Hellenism, Talmud Literature", originated in the autumn 1942 following an invitation to address this problem and completed in July 1945 after his and his family's liberation from Theresienstadt. Finally, the second, exegetical, evaluation on "The Septuagint Version of Isaiah, a Discussion of its Problems", already conceptualized during May 1945, still in Theresienstadt, submitted as a doctoral thesis to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Leiden and published in 1948. The historical work is dedicated "to the memory of my teachers, friends and pupils, who died as Jews 1941-1945", while the exegetical work is dedicated to the memory of his father in the Isaianic hope for deliverance of the remnant survivors in the new Jerusalem (Is. 37.31-32; 62.6-7). Remembering this past suffering and the hope for this coming joy as a symbol for I. L. Seeligmann's work has a deeper dimension: The history and faith of Israel in Hellenistic times are an example for his own life. Remembrance and hope in time of suffering are based on the awareness of the earlier brief period of peace given to him. The internal unity of suffering and hope shows itself also realised biographically in that the work on those two topics interferes with his own time of anguish.

4

R. Hanhart

I The work "Problems and Perspectives in Modern Septuagint Research" is - as the title indicates - a history of research focussing on the two major aspects of inquiry: The otherwise never achieved plethora of covered literature on the Septuagint of the past 50 years is not just reported critically but also investigated as a 'problem' with regard to the question what each single study can contribute towards an understanding and illumination of the object at hand, and as a 'perspective' on how the separate results relate to each other. First and foremost, the study is concerned with an understanding of the Septuagint "in its own rightthis means independent from its significance for the Old Testament as a whole, from the literature of the Jewish-Hellenistic and Palestinian environment and without making "it instrumental to the understanding of either Old or New Testament". All topics of the separate chapters are related to this "own right of the Septuagint" - a significant difference from all other contemporary studies. According to the author, the independent path of this attempt consists of formulating the question how the Septuagint reflects the new understanding the Bible yielded for its translator and his intention: to shed light on the contents within the dominating cultural atmosphere of the faith-community of the Hellenistic-Jewish diaspora and at the same time to transfer its theological testimony in the Hellenistic world as a whole. Here, "transfer": "transponeren" is not seen as 'reinterpretation' but rather, quite literally, as carrying over the testimony - in its own right - into the Hellenistic world. 2 This own right of the Septuagint serves as a leitmotif for the first chapter "The Septuagint in Ancient Tradition"; its subtitles - "Jewish-Hellenistic, Rabbinic and Christian Tradition" - provide the external dates for its origin and earliest history as the historical and intellectual frame within which such work of translation in its own right will be developed. The section on the Hellenistic tradition investigates the historical core in the Letter of Aristeas, while that on the Rabbinic tradition focuses on the question that arose early on whether the translation into a foreign language was compatible with Divine Law, while the passage on the Christian tradition finally addresses the discussion - culminating in the work of Origen - over the legitimation of the Greek Holy Scripture, originally accepted by both faith-communities. The next two chapters, II "The Text History of the Septuagint" and III "Literary Criticism and the Character of the Septuagint as Translation" are part of this own right of the Septuagint too. The most important themes are a

1 2

p. 24. p. 24.

Introduction

5

comparison of diplomatic editorial work (Cambridge Septuagint of BROOKEMCLEAN-THACKERAY) and critical editorial work (Gottingen-Septuagint from LAGARDE via RAHLFS to ZIEGLER'S edition of the Book of Isaiah [ 1 9 3 9 ] ) , as well as an inventory of the textual sources of the past 50 years; a stadium of research and tradition, who called into question the editorial concept of LAGARDE who thought it possible to reach the original translation by eliminating the three Christian recensions handed down by Jerome in his famous note. It became important for subsequent scholarship to realise the limitations of both editorial concepts: With regard to the diplomatic edition the limitation consists of the - never changed - fact that if Codex Vaticanus, on which the edition is based, is missing the codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus are used, because both codices are the most ancient textual witnesses, though not the manuscripts that are closest to Vaticanus, as far as the critical edition is concerned it consists of the fact that the reconstruction of an original form of the text, i.e. "eines Textes, der einmal Wirklichkeit war" (ARTHUR ALLGEIER), is impossible, a limitation that nevertheless does not allow the conclusion - often postulated by critics - to do away with such a critical editorial method of texts. With regard to the conclusions drawn from the new state of the tradition Seeligmann points out the obligation to exercise a careful comparison and evaluation of new textual conceptions emerging from recent findings dating to the period before the Hexapla. A necessary consequence is to correct the Einheitshypothese considering the so called 'Targum-hypothesis': His view that the documented plurality of the Septuagint tradition has to be tested, in regard to both conceptions, already for pre- and early Christian times - thus he is able to accept the Einheitshypothese in the more subtle form of ALFRED RAHLFS instead of LAGARDE'S view with the slight correction that by postulating a process of tradition closer to the Targum several problems of the history of the text can be solved easier - , could have helped to avoid the later confrontation of radical followers of both conceptions often unnecessary and hardly fruitful. The main character of the Septuagint "in its own right" is that of being a translation. Therefore, it is impossible to recognise its character without asking for the Vorlage of each sentence. This conclusion makes it necessary to add two further chapters IV "The Septuagint and the Hebrew Text" and V "The Language of the Septuagint": On translation technique, the possibility of a retranslation of lost Vorlagen, on the recoverability of the original Hebrew or Aramaic language and its history as well as on change in the linguistic conception of the target language caused by equivalent terms. Here too, the new level of knowledge on the basis of the data available at that time - before the discoveries from the Dead Sea - is made apparent without ignoring the limits of the correct interpretation that should not be transgressed, a standard

R. Hanhart

6

still valid today: a new understanding of the Septuagint's language on the basis of recently discovered contemporary popular language has to be evaluated solely within the sphere of the Israelite community in Hellenistic times. "Herewith we have crossed the bounds: from history of language into history of culture". 3 What Seeligmann calls in chapter VI "History of Culture" under the title "Hellenization and Actualization" can only be understood properly - and this is the overall theme of the whole study if the meaning attached to the term "Hellenistic theology" is understood properly: "However, when the translators theologized, theirs was a Jewish theology". 4 From this perspective, the term Hellenistic gains a new dimension that underlies all phenomena that Seeligmann groups under the heading "Hellenization and Actualization of the Bible in the Septuagint" - and without this presupposition his conception of the Septuagint's character could be easily misunderstood - : 'God', 'Israel', its 'Messianic expectation', 'the Thorah': He is concerned with the question how each statement of the given witnesses, under the present condition of a newly shaped history, society and culture, can be rendered according to its original meaning. From here, the categories 'semantic', 'sociological' and 'dogmatic' used in the work are defined once and for all: semantic as a dissociation from using terminology too heavily influenced by common Hellenistic culture; sociological in historical statements of the actualised replacement of "'IcrpaifX" with 'IovSaCa, and dogmatic for the careful replacement of selected anthropomorphic epithets for Israel's God. This is the starting point for an open consideration of the scholarly positions associated with ADOLF DEISSMANN, GEORG BERTRAM and

- programmatically - put forward in the Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, positions that are naturally removed from Seeligmann's own view. Again, it is the Septuagint in its own right and only this that is the starting point. It is his intention to recognise the Septuagint in its own right which enables Seeligmann in all his questions to define the fine border that, within apparent contradiction, separates the true nature of the Septuagint from a false understanding, that is, one that distorts its true character: It is the fine line between correct and incorrect understanding of diplomatic and critical editorial work, of faith in tradition and conjectural critique, faith in the possibility of reconstructing lost traditions or its renunciation, of changes in meaning through translation and the unchanging nature of original statements. The criterion for correct knowledge of this borderline is made manifest in the last sentence of these three studies - a sentence that is valid right from the beginning for all of them: "It is, therefore, as ancient testimonies of the Jewish

3 4

p. 69. p. 72.

Introduction

1

exegesis, that the Books of the Septuagint must be investigated and understood." 5

II This insight, programmatically laid out in the first study, is interpreted in the second study that looks at the nature of Israel's understanding of history in the Hellenistic period: "Phases of Jewish Historical Consciousness. Bible, Jewish Hellenism, Talmud Literature". 1. The work is first and foremost concerned with Israel's understanding of history according to its biblical testimony as a whole. To begin with, the translation of the Septuagint demonstrates its correct interpretation of the given tradition when Israel's understanding of time, nJJ, is not translated by \p6vos, i.e. a course of events, but by Kaipds, thus determining the history of Israel as the realization of the divine plan. The characterization of the nature of the given tradition as an entity in its own right, in contrast to the Ancient Near Eastern ideas, corresponds to the aim of the first study to determine the nature of the Septuagint "in its own right": the text is a statement of Israel's faith that reveals itself as a historical statement on the basis of the prophetic interpretation of history as atonement and redemption from Israel's guilt in view of the divine order "not to be like the other nations". "Ezekiel, the prophet of the Babylonian exile is the paramount preacher of this theodicy" (20.32-33).6 2. The own right of the Septuagint for the determination of Israel's understanding of history in this period of its history - the beginning opens still on to the Persian period, the end on to the Roman rule of the world - is seen to lie in the independent statements, compared with the Hebrew-Aramaic Vorlage of the Septuagint, that can be found in the realm of Hellenistic Alexandria mainly in the Greek historical witnesses outside the "Alexandrian Canon", in the realm of Palestine mainly in the apocalyptic tradition. However, the standard for canonical authority during this period - regarding both the original and the translation - remains open: "Neither the nature of the Alexandrian translations of the Prophets, nor Philo's discourses render it likely that prophecy enjoyed any kind of canonical authority in Alexandrian Judaism". 7 Nevertheless, the necessary border between 'biblical' and 'Hellenistic' historical consciousness is taken for granted and on this premise 5 6 7

The Septuagint Version of Isaiah, p. 294. p. 95. p. 99.

R. Hanhart

8

Seeligmann carefully: "met behoedzaamheid", asks "for traces of difference between biblical and Hellenistic historical consciousness." 8 Fundamental changes are recognised in four phenomena: national consciousness, the view of God, the understanding of Galuth and the expectation of things to come. It is the change in the definition of Israel as a people exclusively and directly determined by God toward the character as a people bestowed by God as expressed in the Septuagint translation of Psalm 90(89). 16. Here, where the request that God may reveal His works to His servants is replaced by the supplication that He may look upon His servants and His works {[Se eiN TOVS SovXovs aov Kai rd epya aov), a definition that appears to be more significant in the Maccabeaen historiography. It is the change from the understanding of Israel's suffering as a judgement imposed by its God toward the emphasis on the injustice Israel suffered at the hands of the nations, how it is stressed in the Septuagint of Isaiah by introducing the term aSiia'a several times. It is the change from the Galuth's terminology to that of foreign rule and of longing for Zion as expressed in the Septuagint-Psalter as well as to that of a conscientious mission of the diaspora as expressed in the Septuagint of Isaiah in the blessing of "my people in Assur and in Egypt" (Is. 19.24), further extended in the elevation of Israel within the entire creation in the contemporary Sybilline Oracles ( i r a a a Se yala aeBev TT\I\PT)S Kai rraaa QaXaaaa [111:271]). Finally, it is this change from statements about past events to the expression of current suffering - the "today" - in the Septuagint of Isaiah during the time of Seleucid persecution that is seen as the origin of eschatological expectation - an expectation ultimately expressed in apocalypticism. 3. Based on this definition of Israel's understanding of history during the Hellenistic Period, in which the Septuagint - notwithstanding the multitude of tradition and the rather problematic use of the term 'canon' for this period - is seen as a basis in its relationship to the Hebrew-Aramaic tradition, the last period, the Talmudic period of Midrashic exegesis, - the start of the period is cautiously placed in the year 70 CE - appears as a time, now with a fixed canon, during which the presuppositions of historization and actualization were newly defined: They are the tools of exegesis: "Every branch of Jewish literature succeeding the Bible sees itself in one way or another as a commentary or a lawful continuation of the Bible. This applies most particularly to the entire Talmud literature, which knows no truth that is not yet extant in the Bible. Every religious conviction, every practical wisdom should be retrieved there." 9 The structuring principle of the Talmudic system of thought is wisdom in form of Thorah. 8 9

p. 97 (in the Dutch original p. 58). p. 107.

Introduction

9

In this sense and with this premise it is actualization that remains the binding force linking Israel's historical consciousness in the Palestinian and Alexandrian writings of the Hellenistic period with Talmudic era. It is the realization of the suffering of Israel at the hands of the World's Empires which forms a link between the three studies. In Talmudic characterization it reaches its deepest form in the prayer, given to all generations: "I trust in Your faithfulness during the Babylonian exile; my heart will exult in You in the days of the Persian empire; I will sing to the Lord during the reign of the Hellenistic Kings; for He has been good to me when oppressed by the Romans". The Babylonian empire is the 'wilderness', the Persian one the 'chaos', the Hellenistic one the 'darkness' and the Roman empire 'the abyss'" l0 : If one remembers that this study originated during a time of the abyss, preceded by a period of still relative calm during which the foundations of the study were laid and which was to be followed by a time of liberation, it seems justified to regard the middle part of the trilogy in the spirit of the author as the core of the work.

Ill The third study, in a closer look at the translation of the Book of Isaiah, further develops the insight that the character of the Septuagint can only be determined correctly by investigating and understanding its individual books as witnesses of Jewish exegesis. Here, Seeligmann realises his perception gained by a reappraisal of pre-war scholarship - of the Septuagint as a whole, exemplified on one book from the Alexandrian canon, that was not merely the only one most readily available based on the textual and editorial work done by JOSEPH ZIEGLER but that was also, because of its translation technique, well suited for gaining insights into the nature of the Septuagint in an individual case: "I. Text and Textual Tradition; II. Translation Technique and its Relationship to the Hebrew Vorlage; III. Time and Historical Background of the Translation; IV. The Translation as a Document of Jewish-Alexandrian Theology." 1. Although the first chapter about text and tradition of the Septuagint of Isaiah does not yet move beyond a repetition of the report on the Septuagint as a whole in the first three chapters of the first study - origin, early history up to Origen and contemporary state of tradition - , progress is made by indicating special phenomena in the tradition of this biblical book: Seeligmann points first at textual forms that can be explained as original ones, only weakly attested by some Lucianic manuscripts, in contrast to them the 10

p. 112f.

10

R. Hanhart

best attested readings can be explained paleographically as transformations of the original form. Next, he shows the elements of Hexaplaric and Lucianic recensions whose character is more precisely and completely verified than was the case in the preliminary studies of J. ZIEGLER. Finally he concerns himself with the question of further revisions after the Christian recensions, as well as the pre-Lucianic congruencies with the Masoretic text, the Jewish translations of the 2nd century CE and the so called interpretationes Christianae. The astute and careful text selection forms the basis for the actual goal of the investigation: a historical and theological interpretation of a translated text purged from later influences. 2. The oldest possible text of the translation that Seeligmann sets out to interpret has to be determined - right from the outset - as a text whose statements are only understandable and explicable in the light of the presupposed Hebrew Vorlage. This is the topic of the second chapter. The inquiry into translation technique and its relationship to the Masoretic Text is therefore a necessary part of the interpretation. The translated text, purged from all secondary elements, and in a first stage compared with the Hebrew or Aramaic Vorlage, is next investigated regarding each individual phenomenon. The first criterion for the comparison is the Masoretic text; the Hebrew Isaiah texts from the Dead Sea were not yet known. The canonical authority of prophecy is stressed much stronger than in the second study and better corresponding to the nature of Israel in Hellenistic times. From this centre-point the plethora of possibilities of translation faithful translation and degree of freedom, choice of equivalents, foundation in given traditions, especially the Pentateuch - are evaluated in view of their significance for maintaining identity as well as with a view to the conscientious differentiation between archetype and image. The criteria according to which a single translator rather than many is proposed and the arguments for assuming a certain freedom in translation fully intended by the translator rather than postulating a Vorlage that differs significantly from the Masoretic text, are here determined in a much more subtle way than before. 3. From this representation of the oldest reachable form of the text arises the question of a relative chronology within the Septuagint as a whole and of an absolute chronology in the framework of the history of Israel in Hellenistic times. This is the theme of the third chapter. A relative chronology can be established only by demonstrating that different books of the Septuagint follow the same translation technique with regard to equivalence of words and syntax: a translation technique which cannot be explained from a common Vorlage and thus has to originate independently. An absolute chronology can only be reached by looking at the actualization made by the translator that

Introduction

11

allows us to use concrete events or conditions of his own days for determining a firm or still probable terminus ante quern or post quem non. Seeligmann's cautiously formulated view of a relative chronology has to be taken seriously: within the frame of the translation of the Pentateuch as the beginning and the translation of Daniel as the end of the translation process, Isaiah relies on the translations of the Psalms, the Dodekapropheton and Ezekiel and has thus to be seen as belonging to a relatively late stage of the Septuagint tradition; it is hardly possible to dismiss his thesis with a general objection that commonalties in the translation technique cannot serve as a criterion for the differentiation between primary and secondary texts. 4. The question regarding the absolute chronological placement of the Septuagint of Isaiah on the basis of actualizations taken from the historical reality of the translator appears - in close connection with the last chapter on "The translation as a Document of Jewish-Alexandrian Theology" - as the problem whose solution, taking up and expanding the final chapter of the first study "History of culture, Hellenization and actualization", is the goal of the first period of Seeligmann's lifework and will become the basis for all of his later studies: It is his earlier definition of "Hellenization" and "actualization" as "Jewish Theology" now represented in the Greek translation of the Isaianic testimony. The focus on this testimony as the symbol for the manifestation of Israel's faith during the Hellenistic period had already become apparent in the second study: In the description of Israel's concept of history, that showed the special significance of the suffering at the hands of the foreign people, of the Galuth as the seed of salvation and of the expectation of an eschatological future. This is made clear in the final statement of the three studies. It is explained in more detail by demonstrating the actualization of the oracles of judgement against the imperial powers during the persecution under Antiochos Epiphanes, by the new definition of the Galuth in the realization of the sanctuary at Leontopolis, thus combining Palestine and Alexandria - also the 'excursus' on the interpretation of the tradition on Onias developed by a closer look at the Maccabaean historiography is based on the results gained from the translation of Isaiah - and, due to the historical circumstances, by the necessary transformation of the expectations for the future into the hope for a messianic rule. As the last result of the three studies the historical and theological actualization has to be regarded as the only criterion of a textual interpretation that is valid as a whole for the Greek translation of the biblical testimony. This is the nature of the Septuagint "in its own right."

12

R. Hanhart

IV

It must be said, and I think we are entitled to doing so, that in view of Septuagint research immediately following these three studies, that no other examination of a witness of the Septuagint has attained comparable depth and greatness. However, further studies on the basis of Seeligmann's research, now incorporating the new textual evidence would certainly be desirable. Moreover, the newly discovered Christian and Jewish texts of the Septuagint, including the Minor Prophets Scroll of Nahal Hever as the most important document seem to confirm the results reached with his method. Corrections are not necessary, only slight adjustments have to be made. In certain cases the - often criticised - views on biblical semantics, as most radically exemplified in the works of JAMES BARR, a scholar much respected by Seeligmann, have to be taken into account. Here however, the work of Seeligmann - due to his text-related and Jewish-exegetical quest for the change in the meaning of words - might serve as an exemplary demonstration of the limits that should not be crossed by legitimate biblical semantics; his unprejudiced use of contemporary research into semantics - in some instances also research caused by the times - as exemplified by the Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament deserves deep respect in any case. The criterion that saved him from applying interpretative categories that might be entirely foreign to the biblical text, be it in Hebrew or in the Septuagint, has always been his intention to make the texts speak according to their own right. For this goal, as much as for justified Christian exegesis, the definition of canon or canonicity becomes crucial, a phenomenon common, to both the Christian and the Jewish tradition. He distinguishes between different phases within the Hellenistic and Jewish-Palestinian tradition: First, he determines a preliminary stage to canonicity following an early degree of canonical authority fully manifest only in the Torah, more fluid in the other witnesses, serving already in the Palestinian canon, especially in the Books of Chronicles and Daniel, as a presupposition for Midrashic exegesis: the actualization, then in Alexandrian canon of the Septuagint as a whole as the interpretative principle of the translation. Finally, he determines the conclusive form of the canon in its Palestinian and its Alexandrian shape: for the Palestinian realm the basis for Misdrashic exegesis, in the Alexandrian realm of the Septuagint, however, due to its fleeting influence within Judaism, existing - in analogy to the interpretationes Christianae - only in traces of it. There is a deeper meaning to the fact that Isac Leo Seeligmann looking at this last borderline of the Hebrew and Greek biblical tradition, where an ultimate form of exegesis commences in Judaism that is based on the Hebrew text and subsequently will be called Midrash, while the Greek text of the Septuagint remains open only for Christian and profane exegesis,

Introduction

13

remembering the above mentioned interpretation of the teaching on the World Empires in the Book of Daniel according to which a growing closeness of Israel to its God emerges as a result of the growing decline of the creation: from the "wilderness" Babylon the trust in his help, from the "chaos" Persia the happiness, from the "darkness" Macedonia the praise, from the "abysse" Rome the thanks for his charity, expresses his regret that HARALD FUCHS'S study on the intellectual resistance against Rome in Antiquity ( D e r geistige Widerstand gegen Rom in der antiken Welt), published in 1 9 3 8 , probably the most sophisticated study of this view on history outside Israel, does not take the Rabbinic tradition into account." To the one who honours both scholars as his teachers this seems, even today, a debt not yet redeemed. How his own path was continued on the basis of his first three works and in view of the availability of newly discovered sources from antiquity is shown best in his essay "SeîÇai avraS tpcôç" first published in Hebrew in Tarbiz 27 (1957/58), 127-141 and then again in an English translation by Judith Seeligmann in Textus 21 (2002).12 It is concerned with the statement on the suffering servant in the fourth Servant Song: into' TOT TOD3 ^ODO: The translation of the Septuagint (dirà TOV TTÔUOV TT}S v\T)s AVTOV) SeîÇai avrtS C K I N (cf. Symmachus' translation ad Prov. 12.24); BERTRAM saw it as the inserting of a Jewish-Hellenistic tenet concerning the rich, although there is no actual basis for this in the text. As a result of the numerous studies to which W U T Z and his writing gave an impetus, as well as from what can be gleaned from rabbinic literature, we may conclude that in the milieus of the Hellenized Jews, both in and outside Palestine, such transliterated copies of the Hebrew Bible did indeed circulate (though there is no mention of the fact in the places in question in the Letter of Aristeas). Incidentally, we do have Sumero-Accadian texts transcribed into Greek from the second or first century B.C.E. which were preserved in Babylonia. It is highly plausible that such ancient transcriptions lie at the root of the much later ones by Origen. 85 W U T Z did not prove that the| 83 See the polemic between M. GINSBURGER and L. BLAU, "La transcription de PAncient Testament en c h a r a c t e r s grecs," REJ 87-88 ( 1 9 2 9 ) 4 0 - 4 2 , 184-186. 84 1 will mention here only those reviews which seem especially important to me: 'the first shock of surprise' - R. KITTEL DLZ 46 ( 1 9 2 5 ) 6 5 7 - 6 6 4 ; M. PLESSNER, "Neue Arbeiten zur Septuaginta Forschung," MGWJ 7 0 ( 1 9 2 6 ) 2 3 7 - 2 5 0 . The studies of BERTRAM, the first on transcriptions, the second and third on history o f religion, the fourth on textual criticism and history of language: G. BERTRAM, OLZ 30 ( 1 9 2 7 ) 266270; OLZ 38 ( 1 9 3 5 ) 33-39; "Das Problem der Umschrift und die religionsgeschichtliche Erforschung der L X X , " B Z A W 66, Giessen 1936, 97-109; T h R N S 1 0 ( 1 9 3 8 ) 6 9 - 8 0 , 133159. Unfavourably see: J. FISCHER, Zur Septuaginta Vorlage im Pentateuch ( B Z A W 42; Giessen 1926) 2 2 - 4 2 and later publications by the same author which are methodically exemplary. See also: M. L. MARGOLIS, "Transliterations in the Greek Old Testament," JQR N R 16 ( 1 9 2 5 ) 117-125. A. BARROIS, "Une nouvelle theorie des LXX," RB 39 ( 1 9 3 0 ) 323-361, Ch. HELLER, Untersuchungen zur Septuaginta I, Berlin 1932. R. S. HAUPERT, "The Transcription Theory o f the Septuagint", JBL 53 ( 1 9 3 4 ) 2 5 1 - 2 5 5 . 85 This was already postulated by HALEVY (above, n. 14); previously BLAU had written regarding the existence of such transcribed texts: L. BLAU, Zur Einleitung in die Heilige Schrift, Budapest 1894, 80-84. BARROIS quotes studies by PINCHES and by

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translators exclusively or even mainly used such transliterations for their work.86 However, even W U T Z ' S opponents allow that a number of readings are explained more to the point and more convincingly by his theory, than by presuming that the translators worked from a Hebrew or Aramaic script. Such instances should be explained by assuming that words in Greek transcription were introduced into the original translation as glosses which came to criticize, correct or confirm the translation.87 b. In addition to the value of the Septuagint for the history of the Hebrew script it greatly contributes to our knowledge of the pre-Masoretic pronunciation of the Hebrew.873 Thus the transcription of proper names often reflects a pronunciation closer to the Assyrian inscriptions than to the Masoretic text! Unfortunately, research here is thwarted and results are reduced, due to the great lack of consistency with| which the various codices of the Septuagint spelled or transcribed proper names. On the other hand these very inconsistencies pointed the keen eyes of W U T Z and SPERBER toward the various systems of transliteration of the Hebrew into

SCHILEICO of Sume|rian-Accadian texts in Greek transcription, see: A. B A R R O I S , R B 39 (1930) 346. About these texts see now: E. VAN DER MEER, "Topographical Texts of Babylon," AfO 13 (1940) 124ff. 86 For a specially keen formulation see ORLINSKY: "This theory has been subjected to such thoroughgoing criticism that ere long it will be remembered as nothing more than a curiosity": H. M. O R L I N S K Y , "The Columnar Order of the Hexapla," JQR NS 27 (1936) 141. 87 See: M. L. MARGOLIS, "Transliterations in the Greek OT," JQR 16 (1926) 124-125; W. R U D O L P H , "Zum Text des Jeremia," ZAW 48 (1930) 274. 87a [See now: E. BRONNO, "Some Nominal Types in the Septuagint," Classica et Mediaevalia III (1940); "Einige Namentypen der Septuaginta," Acta Orientalia XIX (1941). B R 0 N N O criticizes at length the methods and conclusions of his predecessors, especially the studies of STAPLES and SPERBER (see n. 88). According to B R O N N O the starting point of any study in this field should always be the search for the most frequent rendering of a certain nominal type in the Masoretic pronunciation through its transcription in the Septuagint. In addition to this there are deviating transcriptions obtaining sporadically which must be explained as variants in the Hebrew or as orthographical mistakes in the Greek and merit no conclusions for the pre-Masoretic pronunciation. On the basis of the research of proper names in the tradition of codex Vaticanus, B R O N N O arrives at the conclusion that most types of nomina known to Masoretic Hebrew, correspond in the Septuagint with a fixed type, running parallel with the Tiberian system both in pronunciation and quality of vowels. In certain cases the Septuagint deviates from the Massorah in the allotting of the segolates to a fixed type, in the treatment of the laryngeals. B R O N N O ' S studies constitute a methodically founded protest against modern theories regarding the arbitrariness and un-pruned variety in the pre-Masoretic pronunciation of Hebrew. It is to be regretted that B R 0 N N O does not verify his results by what is known to us about the pre-Masoretic pronunciation of Hebrew from sources other than the Septuagint.]

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the Greek; for example the reproducing of gutturals and the doubling of consonants. These systems, aided by material from Origen and Jerome, could be placed in chronological relation to each other and assist in disclosing a chapter in the history of the Hebrew pronunciation. It goes without saying that the results of this research allow important conclusions for the pre-Masoretic grammar as well. We learn that in the declination of the segolates the strict uniformity of the later qatl, qitl, qotl patterns were still often disrupted. In combination with phenomena obtaining in old texts vocalized according to the pre-Masoretic system found in the Cairo Geniza, as well as with the inconsistencies in the Tiberian system still betraying a diversity of old systems, it is clear that the study of transliteration may contribute to the reconstruction of the still untouched morphology of a living Hebrew language, perhaps even of different dialects. 88 An important contribution to the study of pre-Masoretic phonology and morphology was made by R A H L F S and FISCHER. They traced the orthography of the Hebrew manuscripts used by the translators of the Septuagint as evident from peculiarities in their translation. F I S C H E R concluded that in these manuscripts matres lectionis appear at the end of words, whereas in their middle they obtain less frequently and inconsistently. In addition, the Septuagint, in many instances, still reflects the habit of the copyists of Hebrew manuscripts to write identical final and opening letters only once. S.| D . L U Z Z A T T O was the first to postulate this phenomenon. This habit is feasible only in manuscripts showing no, or hardly any, space between words or verses. 89 It seems to me that this fruitful field of research into the orthographic character of manuscripts used by the Septuagint has not yet been fully exhausted. It would certainly be worthwhile to look into the question which was the form of the plural prevalent in the Hebrew texts of the translators: whether it was the 88

W . E . STAPLES, " T h e H e b r e w o f t h e S e p t u a g i n t , " A J S L 4 4 ( 1 9 2 7 ) 6 - 3 0 . O n t h e

transcription of the second column of the Hexapla o f Psalms found by MERCATI see: G. MERCATI, "D'un palimpsesto Ambrosiano continente i Salmi essaplari," Atti della Reale Accademia di Scienze di Torino 31 (1896) 655-676. F. X. WUTZ, Die Psalmen, München 1926. Cf. also: E. A. SPEISER, The Pronunciation o f Hebrew, Based Chiefly on t h e T r a n s l i t e r a t i o n s in t h e H e x a p l a , " J Q R N S 1 6 ( 1 9 2 6 ) 3 4 3 - 3 8 2 ; 2 3 ( 1 9 3 3 ) 2 3 3 - 2 6 5 ; 2 4

(1934) 9-46; O. PRETZL, "Aussprache des Hebraeischen nach der zweiten Kolumne der Hexapla des Orígenes," BZ 2 0 (1932) 4-22. On page 7 there we find a methodical argumentation as to our fragmentary knowledge o f both: the pronunciation of the Hebrew of pre-Masoretic times as well as of the history of pronunciation o f the Greek. For a fascinating study on the development of the methods o f transcriptions see: A. SPERBER, "Hebrew Based upon Greek and Latin Transliterations," HUCA 12-13 (1938) 103-274. S e e a l s o : M . FLASHAR, " D a s G h a i n d e r S e p t u a g i n t a , " Z A W 2 8 ( 1 9 0 8 ) 1 9 4 - 2 2 0 , 3 0 3 - 3 1 3 .

Wutz (above, n. 30) I, 132-146. 89

S e e : FISCHER ( a b o v e , n. 8 4 ) 1 - 2 1 , e s p e c i a l l y

11-16.

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Perspectives

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Aramaic or the purer Hebrew The unintelligible reading CP of the Masoretic text in Ps. 106.7 goes back to j'1?!? as in Ps. 78.17 and 56. Could it be that duafiaiuoures of Septuagint is an intermediate stage, if we read vocalized as which was later corrected to D,l?i> and then in turn became Aquila translates Ez. 2.10 D T p by KTIOIS = ]'3p. It is quite probable that he read p r p in his Vorlage. It would certainly be desirable to attempt an analysis of the grammatical knowledge the Septuagint evinces. Most of the material FRANKEL brings in the relevant chapter of his justly renowned Vorstudien, would better reside under the heading translation-technique. It would be instructive for our evaluation of the grammatical knowledge of the translators if, among other things, we succeeded in establishing to what extent they were able to distinguish between similar verbal roots belonging to different classes. Their ability, in general, seems limited; it is therefore doubtful whether we may conclude much from the confusion between verbs tertiae infirmae and tertiae aleph, a situation in itself remarkable (see for example Is. 11.11). In rabbinic Hebrew the two classes interchanged. 90 Recently, much attention has been paid to the interesting question whether the Septuagint regarded certain words and conjunctions in their Hebrew text as Aramaisms. Already in J. G. EICHHORN'S Einleitung, in the edition of 1823, there is a list of translations which prove how strongly the interpretation of the Septuagint depends on the translators being familiar with the Aramaic idiom of their times. NESTLE tersely and pointedly formulates the situation: "dass wir in ihr (der LXX) auch...| das älteste Wörterbuch zum A.T. besitzen". 9 0 3 In this matter Franz W U T Z certainly went too far. His theory, according to which the Septuagint is a "Zeuge eines verloren gegangenen hebräischen Sprachschatzes", actually results from an insufficient command of the Semitic languages which he believed he could reconstruct from the lexica available to him at Eichstätt. KAHLE clearly expounded this in a discourse on W U T Z ' S last book, a review which with all its decisive criticism honours both the late author and the reviewer. 91 This does not obviate the fact that many of the translations in 90

Z. FRANKEL, Vorstudien zu der Septuaginta, Leipzig 1841, 132ff. [Actually this paragraph about the grammatical knowledge of the translators is not explicit enough as to how scanty this knowledge was. I should have stressed the many misunderstandings which resulted from their faulty etymologies.] 90a [In connection with the explanation of the word D ' t ö n S = Pharisees, it is important to note that the root Ü1Q = 'separate' nowhere obtains in the Bible; the oldest witness to the root is found in the (doublet) translation o f D I O I S ] in the Septuagint ad Ez. 34.12 as Siaicexupioßtvovs.] 91 For a list o f Aramaisms see: J. G. EICHHORN, Einleitung in das Alte Testament I, Göttingen 1823, 469ff. As to the exposition o f the problem see: E. NESTLE, Septuagintastudien IV, Maulbronn 1911, 14. For WUTZ' books and studies, in which his

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the Septuagint should be elucidated with the help of Aramaic or even Arabic. Out of tens of examples we mention Ps. 59(60): 10 f " m = eXiris', Mi. 1:11 TSCD = KaX(Ss (Aram.); Ps. 83(84).7 HCDU = 8iS6vai (Arab.); and probably also Job 14.12 ^ ' p 1 T^H = ov fiij avppa dyiov for TO Xöyiov (only V gives TO dyiov) = ^ N l ü 1 D H p . GRABE. (It should be noted that, here, the lectio difflcilior o f the entire tradition is erroneous; a related counterpart is Ps. 137 (138).2, where GRABE corrects the phrase TÖ dyiöv aov o f the MSS. to rd Xäyiäv aov = I M D X ) ; 43.12, ¿vuinaa for ¿velSioa = TLÜDOH, SEMLER, DÖDERLEIN cf. 44.8; 43.17, dfia for dXXd = H I T , ZIEGLER; 44.13 would seem better than the phrase ¿kXvdpevos (¿KXealidiievos) proposed by DÖDERLEIN and SCHLEUSNER for ¿KXeidfievos (? influence o f 4 0 . 2 0 ) and ¿KXeXu^vos translating ^ i ! " ! finish o f verse 12, cf. 46.2, 51.20 Idc. 8.5, 2 Samuel 16.2 and 14, 17.2 and 29; 53.2, drfreiXe fiiv for dvnyyelXatiev = ZIEGLER (dvaTiXXeiv is customary for plant-growth; precisely in the Isaiah tradition, forms of dvayytXXeiv are often substituted for those of duariXXeiv)-, 53.11, wXrjaat for nXaaai = CAPPELLUS; 54.5, dyios for avrds = ! 2 H P , WUTZ; one feels

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2. The discovery of isolated, unexpected fragments of the genuine tradition and the correction of individual corrupted passages is both interesting and instructive. When, however, we wish to obtain some insight into the different phases of the history of the transmission of the texts, it is more useful to classify the available material into groups, and in the case of a text of the Septuagint we cannot detach this classification from a consideration of the various revisions to which the Septuagint has been subjected. Any study of these questions is bound to start from the results obtained by Z I E G L E R , contained in his edition. Z I E G L E R distinguishes three main categories: (a) a non-revised text, fair examples of which are the codex Alexandrinus (A, fifth century); the codex Marchalianus (Q., sixth century), and a number of minuscle codices following in the footsteps of A; the commentary of Cyrillus of Alexandria; further, a goodly part of the Chester Beatty papyrus (P, first half of the third century), which, in scattered fragments, has preserved some two hundred verses of Isaiah; the Sinaiticus (S, fourth century); a number of mediaeval codices mixti; the Coptic translation, and finally, some quotations by the old Latin Fathers of the Church such as Tyconius, Tertullian, etc. Hieronymus quotes two additions, as, in Alexandrinis exemplaribus additum, one of which occurs in almost the| entire branch of the tradition here discussed. Z I E G L E R accordingly suggests that this type of text has its origin in Alexandria; he praises the excellence and originality of this tradition because of its independence towards the Masoretic text

inclined to radicalize this conjecture by the conversion dyios IapatjX Beds rracg rq yij KITIEIFAERAI, KATZ. In those cases where the Masoretic text, owing to the free, deviating transaltion in the Septuagint, offers no reliable parallel, the choice from a "split" Septuagint tradition becomes difficult; thus, for example, in 33.11, as between aia{0rf)6ifcrecree and aCaxvvBrjaeaBe. The Masoretic text, however, may sometimes prove a misleading guide, and definitely so in the case of a translation such as that o f Isaiah, which so often follows its own paths. It was this that caused GRABE to substitute a number of Origenic - or still younger - corrections for accurate readings from the Alexandrinus: 7.20, tiepnT6a)fi^v (= ilTDtOH) for n e / i e e w ^ y y - an original, albeit erroneous exegesis; 32.13, iiri yg = flQIX bv, for the original, Hebraizing i) y f j ... dxavSa xai x, which latter helps to express one o f the translator's most cherised notions; or when he reads, in 26.18, on the ground o f trveufia ouTijpias OI/K ¿noiTfoaiiev for m>ev)ia auriiptas aov ¿rronjaafieu.

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Version of Isaiah

141

and the - very ancient - testimony of the Chester Beatty fragments. He does not think it justified to regard this text as the product of Hesychius, of whose existence we are properly aware only from a single passage in Hieronymus. (b) In one passage in Theodoretus' commentary (63.11 and 6a\daar\s instead of: ¿k r f j s yrjs), and in a number of glossae in Q and in 86 (Rome, ninth-tenth centuries), certain versions are attributed to the Septuagint column of Origen's hexapla. The majority of these readings are found in the Vaticanus (B, fourth century); the Venetus (V, eighth century); 88 (Rome, tenth century); the Syrohexapla - i.e. the Syrian translation of the hexaplaric Septuagint text made by Paulus of Telia in 616 C.E., preserved in the codex Syrohexaplaris Ambrosianus of the eighth century - and in the codices 109 (Vienna, thirteenth century), and 736 (Venice, twelfththirteenth centuries), which are closely akin to each other. It has been established that these codices, together with the marginal notes in Q, reflect the hexaplaric recension, though not in an entirely pure and complete manner; and the commentaries by Eusebius, Basilius and Hieronymus are in agreement with this version. (c) A well-defined group of five minuscule codices, with which, in many respects, may also be classed three small subsidiary groups, the latter, however, each showing distinct peculiarities in several details, exhibits a characteristic type of text strongly corresponding to that of Theodoretus and to the chapters of Chrysostomus' commentary preserved in the Greek original. This text may be identified with the Lucianic revision; in 9.6 it also contains, in common with some of the other codices, e.g. A, V, the version davfiaurds avfipovXos which pseudo-Chrysostomus explicitly attributes to Lucian. Codex S contains a great many corrections, and 86, a large number of glossae according to this Lucianic text. There may be some objections to the eclectic principle adhered to in the composition of the text of the Septuagint of Gottingen; one may disagree with ZlEGLER in appraising certain facts, and, for that reason, arrive at a preference or an assumption differing from his, when endeavouring to reconstruct the original text 9 . After using his edition for any considerable length of time, however, and doing so with care, one is bound to become more and more convinced that the groups, as classified by him, really do exist in the wealth of material handed down to us, albeit with many inconsistencies, the origin of which we shall explain presently.

9 Cf. my article in JEOL VII, 1940, p. 3 6 4 - 3 7 6 (cf. the translation in this volume p. 31-52, esp. p. 33 n. 22), especially the recension o f ALLGEIER, D L Z 53, 1932, 3 4 3 - 3 4 4 cited therein, concerning the Isaiah edition o f ZlEGLER; cf. also ALLGEIER, D L Z 61, 1940, 601 etseq.

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3. Those texts which can be recognized either as hexaplaric or Lucianic recensions are surely secondary to those in which the traces of revisions are less easily found. Investigations purporting to penetrate from later phases of the history of the text to older ones, therefore, will have to commence with a study of these recensions - although, for practical reasons, the older of the two, Origen, will here be discussed first. (a) Any attempt to make a contribution to the characteristic of these texts with the aid of the material qualified, by Z I E G L E R in his edition of Isaiah, as hexaplaric and Lucianic must be preceded by an outline of the picture which the data gathered from sources outside the textual material itself may suggest to our mind. Recent research work has thrown serious doubt upon the view formerly held, that the| texts by Origen, Lucian and Hesychius were once in official use, each in its own province, according to an order issued by the Church. Without any doubt, a considerable influence on the circulation of the texts must have been the activity of professional copyists and booksellers as well as keen competition, causing violent disputes about the purity of the current, authoritative texts, and advocacy of others. And even when, thanks to the intervention of Eusebius and Pamphilus, a text like that of Origen had been generally and probably officially adopted, no completely fresh manuscripts were made, but a large number of existing codices were corrected from start to finish, in accordance with the new, standardized text, and provided with marginal notes - probably in varying degrees of completeness and exactness 1 . The result of this was that hardly any of the codices remained free from hexaplaric elements 11, while, on the other hand, none of them contains the integral text of Origen's hexapla; the Lucianic material, too, is likewise scattered far and wide, and probably not preserved in its pure form. It is obvious, therefore, that, in the Septuagint of Isaiah that has come down to us, not all members of the groups representing the recensions O and L, contain all the renderings of their type of text; whilst, conversely, many elements originating in a given recension, may turn up at altogether different and quite unexpected periods in the transmission. 10

The fact that different recensions of the Septuagint were the object of propaganda and polemics, and that the traditions show traces of this, has, in my opinion, been convincingly demonstrated by H. DORRIE in his "Zur Geschichte der Septuaginta im Jahrhundert Konstantins", ZNW 39 (1940), 62-85. About the manner in which codices were put into circulation and corrected to correspond with standard specimens, cf. ibid., 87-91. " A frequently quoted passage from CEL LV, ed. HILBERG, p. 289, is that from Hieronymus Ep. 112, where he prevails upon Augustinus to avoid the use of hexaplaric copies containing asterisks: Quodsifeceris omnes Ecclesiarum bibliothecas condemnare cogeris, vix enim unus aut alter invenietur liber, qui ista non habeat.

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The Septuagint Version of Isaiah

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(b) The material qualified as Origenic is supposed to be derived from the fifth column of the hexapla of Origen, which comprised the Septuagint text revised by him, and which was put into circulation by Pamphilus and Eusebius, as a separate text-form, in the beginning of the fourth century. For Isaiah, Z L E G L E R finds this material mainly in three groups of manuscripts, each characterized by special traits of its own. All three, however, may be regarded as reflecting one and the same recension, any others besides the hexaplaric one being unthinkable on account of the aforementioned testimonies: Theodoretus, and marginal notes in Q and in 86. This assumption, however, confronts us with the following problem. Neither the spirit of the material in question nor its technique is of that uniformity which we might assume Origen's annotations to possess on the ground of both his own and others' testimonies. In two places Origen refers to his work on the Septuagint. Although one of these statements contains a more detailed description of his method of working than the other one, there is no difference between the two places in respect of the purport of his revision. He writes that his intention was to bring the text which has been handed down to his generation as the Septuagint into line with the Hebrew original by adding what was lacking in the Greek text, marked with an asterisk, and by providing that of which there was no example in the Hebrew, with an obelus 12. Now quite apart from Isaiah the 12 An excellent and very clear summary of the great number of publications dealing with Origen's work and the putting into circulation of the hexaplar text, together with the principal data from ancient sources, will be found in H. B. SWETE, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek 2 , Cambridge 1914, p. 59-78. Origen's own communications concerning his recension are to be found in Ep. ad Africanum 5, and comm. in Matthew 15.14; vide for the texts SWETE o.c. p. 60. It has been endeavoured to explain the paucity of his communications concerning his voluminous and foundational recension of the text of the Septuagint, from his diffidence and lack of candour with regard to his critical notions concerning the Septuagint, which was backed by the authority of the Church. Cf. P. KAHLE, The Cairo Geniza, p. 160. This view would seem consistent with the tone of self-defence in which he points - in Ep. ad Africanum - to the advantage which the Church may derive from his work in case of disputes, etc. The general tendency of his description, however, must surely be regarded as credible; about his use of asterisks and obeli, cf also Hieronymus Ep. 106.7 ad Sunniam et Fretelam; Epiphanius: De mensuris et ponderibus 2.3, and Scholion in Sinaiticum; vide, for the texts, SWETE p. 70. According to P. WENDLAND, Christentum und Hellenismus, 1902 (cf. GGA 1906, 360 2 ), Origen applied the principles of Aristarchian textual criticism to the Holy Writ. This view is rightly opposed by O. B. BARDENHEWER, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur II2, Freiburg 1914, p. 112 et seq. A really text-critical tendency was precluded in the case of Origen, (a) because of his lack of knowledge of Hebrew, and (b) because he regarded the Septuagint as an inspired work. What he aimed at was a statistical comparison of the Greek text with that which was used by the Jews. A. SPERBER, "New Testament and Septuagint", JBL 59 (1940), 205-248, attempts a new approach in "... a complete break with the theories of the past" with respect to Origen's work. He regards the asterisks- and

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occurence! of asterisks and obeli, in the renderings come down to us, is inconsistent; part of them impress one as having been placed there at a later date by subsequent correctors. It is not certain whether all of Origen's additions were originally marked with an asterisk; more in particular, it is questionable whether Origen actually confined himself to "obelising" certain passages, and whether he did not occasionally take the liberty to have something out here and there. And further, the material generally ascribed to Origen is characterized not only by passages having been left out and others added, but also by other marks of interference, evidently for the purpose of levelling down the discrepancies between the text of the Septuagint and the Masoretic text. Quite a large proportion of the variants of the Isaiah groups of the mss., which Z I E G L E R qualified as Origenic, fit in nicely with the picture of Origen's working methods as outlined above. (a) We find a l t e r a t e r i o n s to have been made in the choice of words or their order of sequence, evidently to make the text of the Septuagint conform to the Masoretic text as, for instance, in 40.4, where 68oi>s Xeias has been replaced by neSCa = iiyp3; in 43.14, where, instead of nduras (pevyovras, we read fyevyovras irdvTas = C^D • T P ' Q ; in 51.12 for riua evXaPqOetaa ¿4>oprf6r\s, O " substitutes TCS ovaa e