From this can be ascertained how far the Clementine editors have departed in their authoritative recension from the purity of the pristine Jerome.

Apart from the Hebrew manuscripts, our most ancient as well as best witness for the Old Testament text is the Septuagint Greek version. Its text is more than eight hundred years, its oldest manuscript more than three hundred years older than the most ancient manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. Only to be compared with it, in respect to hoary antiquity, is the Samaritan Pentateuch. In many cases of doubt this venerable version is our only sure clue to the reading. It is hence of the utmost importance to ascertain the most ancient current form of this valuable text. The work under review is the first really critical edition to answer the question, What is the true reading of the Septuagint? Four forms of Septuagint Text have been current since the invention of the printing press, designated by the title of their primary editions. I. The Complutensian text of the Biblia Polyglotta Complutens, 1514-1517, was based upon unknown manuscripts, all of which were of recent origin, and contained Syrian readings. II. The text of the Biblia Graeca Venetiana in aedibus Aldi et Asulani, 1518. This text was the basis of the many German reprints until superseded by the text of III., Vetus Testamentum Juxta Septuaginta ex auctoritute Sixti V., ed. Romae, 1587. Itself was based upon the pride of the Vatican library, Codex Vaticanus, Gr., 1209, known in textual criticism as B. Upon the text of the Codex Alexandrinus, British Museum, Royal MS. 1 D., was based IV., the edition of Grabe, Oxford, 1707-20. This is the three-volume edition put forth by the Oxford press, and is the received text of England. But gradually the Sixtine text displaced the other competitors and took the lead, being reprinted and reprinted. The Oxford press issued in 1798-1827 the great work of Holmes and Parsons, which "offers merely a reprint of the Sixtine text, in which even its obvious errors are left without correction." But vast stores of critical materials were collected by these editors, and are yet of great value. Tischendorf put forth four editions of the Septuagint in his lifetime, 1850, 1856, 1860, 1869. Posthumous editions, with the prolegomena of the second edition, appeared in 1875 and 1880, the latter under the supervision of Professor Nestle. Tischendorf merely corrected the errors of the Sixtine text and added the critical digest from the Alexandrine, Sinaitic and Ephraem Syrus manuscripts. So that his labors have not the same value for Old and New Testaments. Probably I should do many an injustice in not mentioning the edition of Leander Van Ess, 1824. In its Van Ess form the Sixtine text reigns supreme in America, being the standard edition of our Bible Society. So that all accessible editions of the Septuagint are but reproductions of the Sixtine text, based upon MS. B. Does the Sixtine text represent the readings of B.? No, it was made at a time of inaccurate collations. None of the redactors of the Sixtine text have used an accurate collation, not even the great Tischendorf himself. He, it is true, made a hasty collation, but it has since been proven very inaccurate. Only in the last decade has the edition of Vercellone, Cossa and Sergio, 1868-'81, made the Vatican text accessible. Therefore it follows that the accessible editions of this great version are chock-full of errors, and hence there is need of a new critical edition.

This need was expressed by Dr. Scrivener, the great critic, in 1875; the syndics of the University Press undertook the work in hope that Dr. Scrivener remain editor. His health and arduous labors forbidding this, Dr. H. B. Swete was appointed in 1883 to carry on the work. How well he has done it is shown in the

volumes under review. Two editions are under way, the one the subject of this sketch, a manual edition in two volumes with a limited apparatus; the other to be the work of many hands and years, and to present well-digested the whole known critical apparatus.

Dr. Swete is well-known as an editor. He is a man of whom Gonville and Caius College may well be proud, a man fully equal to the work set him to do. His elegant edition of Theodore of Mopsuestia's Commentary on the Minor Epistles of St. Paul is sufficient of itself to give him a name. So far as I can judge from material at hand, the editing of these volumes is admirably done. Their mechanical features are all that could be desired. The convenient size, excellent paper and admirable press-work of the University Press publications are well known to all. These volumes form no exception to the rule.

The text of the Vatican MS. is followed in the present edition, supplemented where B fails by the Alexandrine text. So, at last, we have a form of the text of the Septuagint as it was current in the fourth century. Back of this we cannot go with our present apparatus. Below the text is given a digest of the most valuable readings. Here one cannot help but compare the paucity of the Septuagint in variant readings and the superabundant richness of the New Testament. God be thanked! Our New Testament apparatus is all that could be desired. The readings of six manuscripts have been thought worthy of a place in this digest.

Codex Sinaiticus; A, Codex Alexandrinus; B, Codex Vaticanus; D, Codex Cottonianus Geneseos; E, Codex Bodleianus Geneseos; F, Codex Ambrosianus. The student of New Testament Greek will here notice that only the first three letters denote the same MS. in Old Testament and New Testament. "Tis a pity, too, that the same letters do not mean the same thing in both cases. Two of these MSS., D and E, cover only Genesis, and that only partially. F extends only from Gen. xxxi. 15, to Joshua xii. 12, with many lacuna. In it Numbers only is complete. N is very defective in the Old Testament. In the present volume aid is had from it only in Gen. xxiii., xxiv. and Num. v., vi., vii. In the Psalms fortunately it is complete, and gives invaluable aid. A and B, while nearly complete, are not entirely So. We have no complete MS. of the Septuagint; but we have enough material to give us in the present text the long desired critical edition of the LXX. And the edition represents the probable extent of our present knowledge. It is fully abreast

It follows:

of the times. I have but one stricture to make upon this edition. The Septuagint is a translation. We have the original text, and we know, from the care taken by the Israelites of the letter of their law that this text is substantially the same as when committed to writing. From the history of this version it appears that it was made by men who knew both languages as vernacular. And especially was this the case in the Pentateuch, acknowledged to be the most accurate part of that version. It comports to reason, then, to say that the version as it came from its authors was an exact one. A manuscript, therefore, whose text agrees most closely with the original text in certain readings has a priori the best claim to be followed in those which are doubtful. And the editor who presents us with a revised text should print as his basis in every case that text which most accurately represents the Hebrew. Doctor Swete has not done this.

From the statement of a verbal critic, and studying exhaustively the book of Exodus as well as other parts of the Heptateuch, I have been irresistibly led to the conclusion that of all the MSS. F is nearest the mark. To go into all the passages

and to note all the difference would require a small volume.

The cursory reader

will see evidences of this statement of every page where F is read. F is the closest adherent to the Hebrew of all the MSS.

This difference between F and B can be seen in many places, zaì B for more F representing conversive, the omission and addition of words, the introduction of explanatory clauses, the employment of pronouns, tenses, numbers, persons; in many a case does F show its loyalty to the Hebrew. We conclude, then, that F, shows a much earlier text than B. The same thing, so far as I can judge, is true, though in a less degree, of N, A, and D. B it seems does not represent a primitive text; but as I think a later recension, of which we know there were three by Hesychius at Alexandria, Lucian at Antioch, and Eusebius and Pamphilus in Palestine, the latter being grounded upon Origen. From the fact that B is manifestly not the best MS. in certain passages, I would deplore its use in doubtful ones. Does this militate against its supremacy in New Testament criticism? I think not. But of this I am assured: a critical edition of the Septuagint should adopt the readings of F, wherever possible, in preference to all other manuscripts; and this closeness is clearly not the result of a recension, because recensions work out entirely different results. Here I am constrained to think Dr. Swete has missed it. F is a worthy rival of B, an uncial MS. of the fourth century, upon the thinnest, whitest and smoothest vellum, and well written with accents and breathings a prima manu, with three columns to a page and initial letters. It was bought in Corcyra by Borromeo (1561-1631), founder of the Ambrose library. It is of Macedonian origin, and in point of antiquity is not a whit behind the great B, while its text is much earlier and infinitely better; and its text deserves to be followed in preference to any of its rivals. In spite of this objection the fact remains: Dr. Swete has given us a model edition of the Septuagint, and one which will, I hope, take the place of all those we have now.

Union Theological Seminary, Va.

R. B. WOODWORTH.

IX. RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. By Henry Burton, M. A.

THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES. With a New Translation. By Samuel Cox, D. D., author of Commentaries on Job, Ruth, etc.

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. Vol. II., Isaiah xl. -lxvi.

With a Sketch of the History of Israel from Isaiah to the Exile. By the Rev. George Adam Smith, M. A., Minister of Queen's Cross Church, Aberdeen.

Each Cr. 8vo.; about 450 pages. Red cloth, $1.50. To subscribers to the series, six volumes for $6.

These are the latest additions to that admirable series, "The Expositor's Bible," so often described in these pages. The series is now becoming quite full, and is a rich treasure-house to its happy possessor. Naturally there is a certain amount of "unevenness" in a work coming from so many hands, but we believe there is not a poor book among them all. A few of them will have to be taken carefully and error in them guarded against, but as a whole the publishers have been remarkably successful in supplying us with one of the most helpful, suggestive and popular series ever issued. The work is not a commentary, and in many instances not even an exposition, but consists largely of discourses upon the salient features of each book.

Burton's LUKE is a striking presentation of the prominent features of that Gospel, the author telling us, in the first chapter, the distinguishing characteristics of its writer and his special design. Using the word "gentility" in a sense different from its ordinary meaning, and with a new accent, he declares it to express the leading feature of this Gospel. It is the gospel preached to the Gentile world, the "good tidings" to "all people." The peculiar fitness of Luke to be the medium of this proclamation to the world is well set forth. In a special chapter on "The Eschatology of the Gospel," the author maintains that there is nothing in this Gospel to warrant the illusive dream of "the larger hope," as some have been pleased to call it; that the direct words of Christ in many instances, and his parable of Dives and Lazarus, leave no room for such a belief.

The volume on ECCLESIASTES contains lectures by its author which were published under the title of The Quest of the Chief Good, in 1867, now revised and rewritten with special reference to later studies and riper experience. In his Introduction he treats of the authorship, form, design, and contents of Ecclesiastes and the history of the captivity. He rejects the Solomonic authorship, and gives at length his reasons for ascribing the book to a period far later, certainly, he maintains, not earlier than B. C. 500, and probably somewhat later. Following the Introduction there is a careful translation in poetic form. The author then unfolds its teachings under the title of "The Quest of the Chief Good," tracing this

to come.

quest through wisdom, pleasure, devotion to the affairs of business, wealth, and "the golden mean," until, failing in all these, it attains success in a wise use and a wise enjoyment of the present life, combined with a steadfast faith in the life While setting forth, in his last chapter, the fact that the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes reaches a conclusion as to the perfection of man through means which are common to many of the ancient systems of morality and religion, Hindu, Egyptian, Persian, Chinese, Greek, Latin, he is yet careful to show that in the Supreme Pattern, the Lord Jesus, we find the greatest help to reach the ideal; yea, more, that this help is sovereign, since by the sacrifice of the cross Christ took away the sins which rendered the pursuit hopeless, and by the gift of his Spirit wins us to the love of our neighbor, fidelity in the discharge of duty and cheerful and constant trust.

Turning to the ISAIAH, we are prepared what to expect by the very division of the volumes. The author deals with these twenty-seven chapters as a prophecy entirely separate from the first thirty-nine chapters, and belonging to a period a century and a half later than Isaiah himself, and so different in its style and subjects as to require a different method of exposition. To the maintenance of this now most common division of the book and post-exilic theory of the authorship of its latter part the author devotes large attention, so that the student will here find a full and perhaps the strongest possible presentation of that theory of the higher critics. The post-exilic view of the book controls the exposition throughout. The Exile, the Lord's Deliverance, the Servant of the Lord, the Restoration, are the titles of the several books into which the work is divided. One finds in it more historical and critical matter than is usual in the volumes of this series. While utterly rejecting the author's view of the latter part of Isaiah, we would recommend this work to any who desire to know the general grounds upon which it is

based.

WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. By Marvin R. Vincent, D. D., Baldwin Professor of Sacred Literature in Union Theological Seminary, New York. Vol. III. The Epistles of Paul: Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. 8vo, pp. 565. $4. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1890.

This work occupies a middle ground between the dictionary and the commentary, though it is somewhat like both. In the volume before us, the third in the series, the author sustains his reputation for ability and scholarship. In the treatment of the apostle's words in the eighth and ninth chapters of Romans, however, he is decidedly off solid Calvinistic ground, and somewhat disposed to sneer at it. especially in his statements in connection with the interpretation of

This is seen

"did foreknow" (pożyvo) where he adds, in a foot-note: "This is the simple common-sense meaning. The attempt to attach to it the sense of preëlection, to make it include the divine decree, has grown out of dogmatic considerations in the interest of a rigid predestinarianism. The scope of this work does not admit a discussion of the infinitesimal hair-splitting which has been applied to the passage, and which is as profitless as it is unsatisfactory." He further says: "It is to be .. that a predetermination of God is clearly stated as accompanying or (humanly speaking) succeeding, and grounded upon the foreknowledge". and "that the relation between foreknowledge and predestination is incidental.”

remarked.