The Christian Schools of Alexandria [pp. 354-365]

The Christian Schools of Alexandria.
least. He himself had collected
some such manuscripts, and the duties
of his office made him acquainted
with many more. Fromn the commencement of his career he had been
accustomed to compare and criticise
'them, and he had grown skilful, as
may be supposed, in distinguishing the
valuable ones from those that were
worthless. We have said sufficient
to show how the idea of the "Hexapla" arose in his mind. The
Hexapla was nothing less than a
complete transcription of the Septuagint side by side with the Hebrew text,
the agreement and divergence of the
two illustrated by the parallel transcription of the versions of Aquila,
Theodotion, and Symmachus; the remaining collumn containing the Hebrew text in Greek letters. The whole
of the Old Testament was thus transcribed sixfold in parallel columns.
These extra illustrations were furnished by the partial use of three
other Greek versions which Origen
found or picked up in his travels,
land which he considered of sufficient
importance to be occasionally used in
his great work. And Origen was
not content with the mere juxtaposition of the versions. The text of the
Septuagint given in the Hiexapla was
his own; that is to say, it was an
edition of the great authoritative
translation completely revised and
corrected by the master himself. It
was a great and a daring work. Of its
necessity there can be no doubt; but
nothing except necessity could have
justified it; and it is certainly to the
bold and unprecedented character of
the enterprise that we owe the shape
that he has given it in performance. To correct the Septuagint to
his own satisfaction was not enough;
it must be corrected to the satisfaction of jealous friends and, at least,
reasonable enemies. Side by side,
therefore, with his amended text he
gave the reasons and the proofs of
his corrections. He was scrupulously
exact in pointing out where he had
altered by addition or subtraction.
The Alexandrian critics had invented
a number of critical marks of varied
shape and value, which they industriously used on the works about
which they exercised their propensity
to criticise. Origen, "Aristarchus
sacer," as an admiring author calls
him, did not hesitate to avail himself
of these profane note. There was
the "asterisk," or star, which marked
what he himself had thought it proper
to insert, and which, therefore, the
original authors of the Septuagint had
apparently thought it proper to leave
out. Then there was the "obelus,"
or spit, the sign of slaughter, as St.
Jerome calls it; passages so marked
were not in the original Hebrew, and
were thereby set down as doubtful
and suspected by sound criticism.
Moreover, there was the "lemniscus,"
or pendent ribbon, and its supplement, the "hypo-lemniscus;" what
these marks signified the learned cannot agree in stating. It seems certain, however, that they were not
of such a decided import as the first
two, but implied some minor degree
of divergence from the Hebrew, as
for instance in those passages where
the translators had given an elegant
periphrasis instead of the original
word, or had volunteered an explanation which a critic would have preferred to have had in the margin.
The "asterisk" and "obelus" still
continue to figure in those scraps of
Origen's work that have come down
to us; so, indeed, does the lemniscus;
but since the times of St. Epiphanius
and St. Jerome no MS. seems to
makle much distinction between it and
the "asterisk." Of the other marks,
contractions, signs, and references
which the MISS. of Hexapla show,
the greater part have been added by
transcribers who had various purposes in view. Some of these marks
are easy to interpret, others continue
to exercise the acumen of the keenest
critics.
The hlexapla, as may be easily
supposed, was a gigantic work. The
labor of writing out the whole of the
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