Miscellanies Christian and Judaical, Chapter 22 – Chapter 24
CAP. XXII. Septuaginta interpreters.
I Will not with Clemens, Iosephus, Austen, Epiphanius, and others, spend time in locking them vp seuerally in their closets, to make their translation the more admirable: I will onelyonly mind that: They did the worke of this translation against their will, and therefore we must expect but slipperie doing: And that appeares by them. Their additions, variations, and (without doubt) ouersights, may well argue with what a will they went about this businesse. It were easie to instance in thousands of places. How they adde men and yeares, Gen. 5. and 10. and 11. and 46. How they add matter of their owne heads: as how they helpe Iobs wife to skold, Iob: 2. adding there a whole verse of female passion. I must now (saith she) go wander vp and downe, and hauehave no place to rest in: and so forth: And so Iob 1.21. Naked came I out of my mothers wombe, and naked shall I returne thither, the Lord hath giuen and the Lord hath taken away, euen as pleas…th the Lord, so come things to passe, blessed be the name of the Lord, which clause (euen as pleaseth the Lord so come things to passe) is not in the Hebrew but is added by them, and so is it taken from them into our common prayer booke, in that pa…t of the manner of buriall. To trace them in their mistakes is pretty, to see how their vnpricked Bible deceiued them. As to instance in one or two for a tast.
Hebrew.
Gen. 15.11. It is said, that the birds light vponupon the carcasses, and Abraham droue them away: in He…rew foreign vaijashhebh.
Iudges 5.8. The Hebrew saith, they choose new gods, then foreign lahhem shegnarim, was warre in the gates.
Iudges 7.11. The Hebrew saith, and hee and Phurah his seruant, went downe to the quarter (or side) of foreign Hhamushim the armed men.
Septuag.
They reade in stead of foreign vajashhebh hee droue them away, foreign vajeshhebh, hee sate by them: and of this Saint Austen makes goodly Allegories.
They say, they chose new gods, as foreign lehhem segnorim, *foreign.barly bread.
They say: he and his seruant Pharah went downe to the quarter of foreign Hhamishim, fi…ty men.
Thus doe they vary in a world of places, which the expert may easily see and smile at. I omit how they vary names of men and places. I will trouble you with no more but one, which they comment as it were to helpe a difficulty.
1. King. 12.2.
It is said of Ieroboam that hee dwelt in Egypt, foreign vaijeshhebh bemitzraijm.
2. Chron. 10.2.
It is said that he re…urned from Aegypt foreign vaijashobh mimmitzraijm.
The septuagint heales this thus▪ thus translating 2. Chron. 10.2. foreign: And he (had) dwelt in Aegypt, and he returned out of Aegypt.
Such is the manner of that worke of the Greeke: Now to examine the Authoritie of this wee shall find it wonderfull: That some of the Iewish Synagogues read the old Testament in Greeke and not in Hebrew, Tertullian seemeth to witnesse. But those were Iewes out of Canaan: for they were not so skilfull in the Greeke tongue in Canaan, for ought I can find, as to vnderstand it so familiarly: if they had beene, I should hauehave thought the septuagint to bee the booke that was giuen to Christ in the Synagogue Luke 2.17. Because his text that he reades, does nearer touch the Greeke then the Hebrew: But I know their tongue was the Mesladoed Chaldee.
The greatest authority of this translation appeareth, in that the holy Greeke of the new Testament doth so much follow it. For as God vsed this translation for a Harbinger to the fetching in of the Gentiles, so when it was growen into Authority by the time of Christs comming, it seemed good to his infinite wisdome to adde to its Authority himselfe, the better to forward the building of the Church. And admirable it is to see with what sweetnesse and Harmony the New Testament doth follow this translation, sometime euen besides the letter of the old, to shew that he that gaue the old, may and can best expound it in the new.
CAP. XXIII. The Septuagint ouer-authorized by some.
SOme there were in the Primitiue Church, like the Romanists now, that preferred this translation of the Greeke (as they do the vulgar Latine) before the Hebrew fountaine: Of these Saint Austen speakes, of their opinion herein, and withall giues his owne in his fifteenth booke de Ciuitate Dei, Cap. 11.13.14- where treating of Methushelahs liuing foureteene yeares after the flood, according to the Greeke translation: Hence came (saith he) that famous question, where to lodge Methuselah all the time of the flood: Some hold (saith he) that he was with his father (Enoch) who was translated, and that he liued with him there, till the flood was past. They hold thus, as being loath to derogate from the …uthority of those bookes, quos in autori…atem celebriorem suscepit ecclesia, which the Church hath entertained into more renowned Authority: And thinking that the bookes of the Iewes rather then these, do mistake and erre. For, they say that it is not credible that the seuentie Interpreters, which translated at one time, and in one sense, could err, or wouldly or erre, where it concerned them not: But that the Iewes, for enuy they beare to vsus, seeing the Law and Prophets are come to vsus by their interpretation, hauehave changed some things in their bookes, that the Authority of ours might be lessened. This is their opinion. Now his owne he giues Cap. 13. in these words. Let that tongue be rather beleeued, out of which a translation is made into another by Interpreters. and in Cap. 14. The truth of things must be fetched out of that tongue, out of which, that that we hauehave, is interpreted.
It is apparent by most of the Fathers both Greeke and Latine, how they followed the Greeke, though I thinke, not so much for affectation as for meere necessity, few of them being able to reade the Bible in Hebrew.
I will conclude with Clemens Alex. his reason, why God would hauehave the Bible turned into Greeke. foreign [viz. foreign. Strom. 1. Pag. 124. That is, For this were the Scriptures interpreted, in the Grecians tongue, that they might hauehave no excuse for their ignorance, being able to vnderstand ours (scriptures) if they would.
CAP. XXIIII. Phrases taken from Iewes in the New Testament.
THese Phrases are by the great Broughton called Talmudicke Greeke, when Iewish and Talmudicall Phrases are vsed in holy writ: Such is Gehenna frequent in all Rabbins. Maranatha 1. Cor. 16.22. the bitter excommunication. The world to come, so often vsed in the Gospell, and nothing more often among the Iewes and Chaldees. Raka Mat. 5.22. of which see Cap. 19. Iannes and Iambres, 2. Tim. 3.8. whose names I find in the Chaldee Paraphrast with very little difference, and a goodly legend of them. As in Exod. 1.15. Pharaoh slept and saw in his dreame, and behold all the land of Egypt was put in one scale and a *Chal. Talia bar imera.young lambe in the other scale, and the lambe waighed downe the scales of himselfe, *Chal. Miiadb. out of hand: a Phrase most vsuall in Iewes Authors, and the very same in Eng. out of hand.out of hand he sends and calls all the sorcerers of Egypt, and tells them his dreame: Out of hand Ianis & Iimbres chief of the sorcerers opened their mouthes and said vntounto Pharaoh: there is a child to be borne of some of the congregation of Israel, by whose hands all the land of Egypt shalbe wasted, therfore the King consulted with the Iewish midwiues, &c. And in Exo. 7.11▪ He cals them Ianis and Iambres. And that you might the better vnderstand who these two were, the Hebrew comment vponupon the Chaldee text saith, they were schollers for their art of enchanting to the noble wizard Balaam: and so he fetches Zophar for authority to maintaine them▪ And to proue Ianis and Iambre… …her very constant enemies and opposers to Moses, or else very good dutifull schollers to Balaam, the Chaldee saith that these two were the two seruants that went with Balaam, Num. 22.22. when he went to curse Israel.
Beelzebub, or as the New Testament Greeke calls it Beelzebul, is a wicked phrase vsed by the Iewes of Christ, Mar. 3.22. and elsewhere. Now whether this change of the last letter were among the Iewes accidentall or of set purpose, I cannot determine. Such ordinary variation of letters, without any other reason, euen vse of eueryevery country affoords. So Reuben is in the Syrian called Rubil, Apoc. 7.5. So the Greeke and Latine Paulus, is in the Syrian Phaulus, in Arabian Baulus. But some giuegive a witty reason of l in Beelzebul, that the Iewes in derision of the Ekronites god Baalzebub (which was a name bad enough, the god of a flie) gaue him a worse, Baalzebul, the god of a Sir-Reuerence, for so foreign signifies in Chaldean.
To omit any more Iewish Phrases honoured by the New Testament vsing them, this very thing does shew, the care is to be had for the right reading of the Greeke, since so many idiomes and so many kinds of stile are vsed by it.