An Apology for the Septuagint, in which its Claims to Biblical and Canonical Authority are briefly stated and vindicated. By E. W. Grinfield, M. A. [pp. 541-557]

1850.] Grin/,eld's Apology for the Septitagint.
consideration so far as it could be shown to have escaped this
Iterative process.
From this ground the transition was an easy one to that
extreme depreciation of the Septuagint, by which some
mo(lern schools of criticism have been distinguished and even
characterized. Let it once be conceded that the advantage,
not merely as to inspiration, but even as to purity of text, is
on the side of the original, and the centrifugal force of these
critics is so great as to forbid their stopping short of the opposite extreme. Their fundamental principle is All or Nothing. The Septuagint, if not an authoritative standard, must
be absolutely worthless. If not a judge in the last resort, it
cannot even be a witness. Such, when stripped of their
sophistical disguises, are the shallow and precipitate reasonings, which have led some to the total and contemptuous
neglect of this most ancient and important version.
But this ground is too hollow and factitious to be long occupiel by candid and enlightened critics; and accordingly we
find that in exact proportion as the strongest and the soundest
minds of all schools and parties have been sensibly receding
from other extreme doctrines in relation to the criticism
of the scriptures, there ias been a similar and simultaneous
recession from this false position with respect to the Septuagint version. It may be regarded as one of the points on
which the learned, after many oscillations of opinion, have at
length subsided into an agreement, equally removed firom the
error of the Fathers who regarded the Septuagint version as
a second revelation, by which the first had been legitimately
supcrseded, and that of the contemporary Jews, who not content with rejecting its unauthorized pretensions to take precedence of the Hebrew text, repudiated and denounced it as an
impious abomination. Individual exceptions there will always
be; but the great majority of learned critics at the present day
are just as unanimous in condemning both of these extremes,
as in condemning those of Buxtorf and Parkhurst with
respect to the vowel points, or those of the IHebraists and
Purists with respect to the Greek of the New Testament.
Sutch is thie wise and learned compromise, if such it may bec
'ta l tiit a'a'eniia t...t..t. aso,Ciati()n(, i: which
TOL. XXIr. —IO. IY. I 6
549