to the Euphrates and the Nile, and in the numerous cities in Asia and Egypt, founded by the Macedonian kings. All of them abounded with Jews. They were known by the name of Grecian or Hellenistic Jews, from the application which the Jews made of the term Hellenistic, to describe them as residing in Grecian cities, and speaking the Greek language. Alexandria, upon many accounts, was, in regard to them, the capital of the countries they inhabited. By living among the Greeks, they naturally acquired their language; but they incorporated into it numberless words and phrases of their own. This must always be the case where foreigners acquire a language. It was so in a particular manner with the Jews, as they acquired the Greek language by practice rather than grammar and as they did not live promiscuously among the natives, but separately, in large communities, among themselves. Besides, they had a more than common reverence for the sacred book. It comprised all their religion, all their morality, all their history, all their politics, and whatever was most excellent of their poetry. It may, therefore, be said to have contained all their language and its phrases. Unavoidably they would be led to adopt its idiom, even in their ordinary discourse, and to introduce it into their writings. The consequence was, that, always bearing in their minds the idiom of their mother tongue, they moulded the Greek words into

Hebraic phrases, and sometimes even used words, which resembled certain Hebrew terms in their sound, in an Hebraic sense. The effect of this was the more striking, as no languages are more dissimilar than the Hebrew and the Greek; the copiousness and variety of the latter forming a strong contrast to the simplicity and penury of the former. Hence, when the Jews came to translate the Sacred Writings into Greek, their version carried, in every part of it, the strongest tincture of their native idiom: so that, though the words were Greek, the phraseology was, every where, Hebrew. This was greatly increased by the scrupulous, not to say superstitious, attachment of the Jews to the Holy Writings, by which they were led to translate them in the most servile manner. To this must be added, that the whole tenor of the Holy Writings relates to facts and circumstances peculiar, in many respects, to the chosen people. Besides, the duties which they inculcate, and the sentiments they contain or raise, were unknown to the writers of Greece. In expressing them, therefore, the translators were often at a loss; and then, for want of a corresponding or equivalent word to convey their author's meaning fully, they were constrained to do the best they could, by approximation. The letter written by the German Jews, residing in England, to their foreign brethren, recommending Doctor Kennicott to their protection and assistance in

his Biblical pursuits, inserted by him in his Dissertatio Generalis, (a valuable edition of which, with many additions, was published by Bruns, in octavo, at Brunswick, in 1783), is a curious specimen of the language of a Jew, when he attempts to express modern, and, in respect to him, foreign ideas, in the Hebrew language. One of the most striking peculiarities in the Greek Testament is, the total absence of the dual number. Mr. Marsh's observations on this singular circumstance, (see his note 67, to ch. 4. 55. of Michaelis), deserve great consideration.

II. 2. With respect to the History of the Septuagint,―There scarcely is a subject of literature upon which more has been written, or of which less, with any degree of certainty, is known. The popular account of its being made in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, at the suggestion of Aristeas, and under the direction of Demetrius Phalereus, by seventy or seventy-two Jews, shut up in cells, appears to be generally exploded. The prevailing opinion is, that it was made at Alexandria, at different times, and by different interpreters; but that all of them were Jews. The Pentateuch, the book of Job, and the Proverbs, are the parts of the version most admired. The principal editions are,-Aldus's, published in 1518, from several manuscripts, with frequent glosses, and some mixtures from the other versions ;-the Roman, published in 1587, from the Vatican

Dr.

Manuscript, but not exactly, some readings of consequence having been transferred to it, and some chasms in it having been filled up, from other manuscripts ;-Mr. Grabe's, printed at Oxford in 1707, from the famous Alexandrine Manuscript; -and Professor Breitinger's, published at Zurich, in Switzerland, in 1730-1732, in four volumes quarto. The last edition is particularly valuable, because it not only contains the text of Grabe's edition, or the Alexandrine Manuscript, but because, in the margin at the bottom of the page, it has the principal variations of the Roman edition of 1587, or the Vatican Manuscript. To these editions should be added, the Complutensian, published in 1515. Owen says, that it adheres to no particular copy; but that, taking out of all, the readings which came nearest to the Hebrew text, it may be looked upon rather as a new translation, than the antient Greek version of the Seventy. Before him Monsieur Huet had observed, (Dissertations Recueillis par Monsieur l'Abbé de Tilladet, Paris 1712, vol. i. p. 473-475,) that," when the version of "the Seventy was printed in the Bible of Complutum, the Editors did not follow the Ancient Manuscripts of that version, but altered the 66 copy before them, from citations in the writings of the fathers, so that the text pub"lished by them was irregular, confused, and "made up of citations; and therefore, when at a

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subsequent time it came to be compared with "the Ancient Manuscripts, which ought to have "been done by the Editors, it lost its authority.' The version of the Septuagint is generally cited by the fathers. Respectable writers, as Salmasius, Bochart, Capellus and Abarbanel, have asserted, that it was the text made use of by Josephus, in the composition of his Hebrew Antiquities: the contrary opinion is maintained by Dr. Hody, but he concedes that Josephus followed it on some occasions and it seems generally admitted that it was always followed by Philo. That the Evangelists sometimes cite the version of the Seventy, even in places where it differs from the present Hebrew Text, is clear: but, as the writer of the critique on this Work in the British Review for December 1799 justly observes, "we must not "therefore conclude, that Christ himself quoted "from the Septuagint. He conversed with the "Jews of Palestine in the language of their "country, that is the Aramaan; his quotations "therefore were in that language; and, if he did "not use the words of an established Targum, "which however is not improbable, he must be

supposed to have given his own Aramæan trans"lation, not of a Greek version, but of the "Hebrew original. On the other hand, in Greek Gospels, written for the use of Greek Christians, quotations from the Old Testament, even "such as had been made by Christ himself, were

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