|
So earnest and assiduous was Origen's research into the divine words
that he learned the Hebrew language, and procured as his own the
original Hebrew Scriptures which were in the hands of the Jews. He
investigated also the works of other translators of the Sacred
Scriptures besides the Seventy. And in addition to the well-known
translations of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, he discovered
certain others which had been concealed from remote times, in what
out-of-the-way corners I know not, and by his search he brought
them to light. Since he did not know the authors, he simply stated
that he had found this one in Nicopolis near Ac-tium and that one in
some other place. In the Hexapla of the Psalms, after the four
prominent translations, he adds not only a fifth, p but also a sixth
and seventh. He states of one of these that he found it in a jar in
Jericho in the time of Antoninus, the son of Severus.
Having collected all of these, he divided them into sections, and
placed them opposite each other, with the Hebrew text itself. He
thus left us the copies of the so-called Hexapla. He arranged also
separately an edition of Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion with the
Septuagint, in the Tetrapla.
|
|