transcribed, it must have been still more rarely accessible for any purpose of collation.

Nor is it probable that any doubt arose as to the correctness of the Septuagint; and thus it would necessarily become the sole authority referred to, as being the only one generally understood, or valued. But still, among the learned Jews, previous to the Christian era, traces must be found of the existence of the Hebrew numbers, if they were really according to the original computation: and that such traces are to be observed, I hope hereafter to prove; not only on the authority of that computation made use of in the book of Enoch, which the reader has already seen, but from other sources also.

It will be found that the ancient Jews did not expect the Messiah in the sixth, but in the fourth chiliad; and therefore the supposition that the reckoning of time was altered by them, so as to throw the advent of the Messiah, acknowledged by the Christians, upon the precise time at which his coming had been foretold and expected, will become totally inadmissible; and some other

reason, as well as some other time, for this alteration, will remain yet to be discovered.

Thus, we may discern a possible and not improbable cause for the alteration of the Septuagint, whether we consider it to have taken place during the translation, or shortly before that period.

If, indeed, we give credit to the account of Philo, the translators not only performed their task with exactness; but, although separated, miraculously made use of the very same words. But to such a witness as this I pay no regard; since, of all testimonies, that which proves too much, is the most liable to suspicion.

Nor do I imagine that the pseudo Aristeas can be otherwise regarded than as a work of imagination, in which truth and fiction are so blended, that it is impossible to separate them.

It is, however, to be remarked, that although Philo, within a few pages of the passage above cited, (p. 501 and 496,) speaks of the Hebrews by name, calling Moses also, at p. 823, Eßparov, and εκ γενους Εβραιων ; and although, in a great number of places, he speaks of the Chaldeans as distinct from the Hebrews, yet repeatedly observes, that the Septuagint was translated, not

from the Hebrew, but from the Chaldean tongue, using the words Χαλδαιος and Χαλδαικος several times*: and by this, as he declares that the copy was sent from Jerusalem, he must have meant the mixed language, which was in use in Judea at that time.

There is thus some evidence in favour of the conjecture of Bp. Horsley, already mentioned; since it would have been much easier to collect a number of interpreters, to whom both that language and the Greek were known, than such as might be qualified to translate the pure Hebrew; and as copies in the vernacular idiom must have been far most easily attainable, the probable circumstances of the case very much coincide with the expression used by Philo.

The testimony of Josephus, depending, as it does, upon the existence of single words, which in the various copies occur with some variation, is of so mixed a character that little reliance can be placed on it, either to support the Septuagint calculation, or to invalidate it; for if there seems cause to conclude that he wrote the sum of years

*De Vit. Mosis, lib. xi. p. 509.

anterior to the flood as 1658, in agreement with the Hebrew; so, on the other hand, the separate numbers ascribed by him to the successive generations, closely approximate to those of the Septuagint.

The variation in the numbers, which are given by the version of Ruffinus, adds to the difficulty of founding any arguments upon the statements of former copies, since the greater proportion of those given by Ruffinus, agree with the Hebrew calculation; while two of them, those of Malaleel and Enoch, neither agree with the Hebrew nor with the Septuagint itself. For the former, the Hebrew has 65 years; the Septuagint, 165; while Josephus gives 162: and for the latter, while there is the same difference of a century between the Hebrew and Septuagint, which have 165 and 65 years, Josephus has 105. Doubtless these numbers originally agreed either with the Hebrew or Greek, but their casual alteration impairs the general credit of the calculation to which they belong, as much as if we were to suppose that they had been wilfully corrupted.

The remark of Fabricius, "That the ancients

seem universally to have paid but little atten

"tion to the verification of dates may perhaps account for much of this confusion; and as it would seem that Josephus used the Hebrew and the Septuagint indifferently, his own statements might thus have differed, from mere inadvertence to the subject of chronology.

Josephus indeed has expressly stated, that he drew his materials from the original Hebrew, but yet it seems that he certainly made use of the Septuagint for the purpose of quotation. This appears from many changes of names, in which, differing from the Hebrew, he has exactly followed the Septuagint.

Some such coincidences might be attributed to an agreement of opinion in both translators, as to the euphony of the Greek; but the substitution of Payav for Rehu, or of Nebowd for Nimrod, being entirely arbitrary, could not be accidental in both cases. But thus the authority of Josephus, as a witness with respect to the state of the Hebrew original at the period when his work was composed, will always be doubtful, since we can have no assurance that any pas

* "Mirari licet veteres diu et passim doctrinæ temporum parum curiosos fuisse."-Chron. p. 164.