Vetus Testamentum Graecum: Septuagint with Latin Translation

two other editions of uncertain authority: one found in jars near Jericho under the Emperor Antoninus Caracalla, and another near Nicopolis under Alexander Severus. Because they held the fifth and sixth places among the Greek editions in the Octapla an eight-columned Bible, they retained the names of the fifth and sixth editions. But these were not considered sufficiently faithful translations either. To these is added another edition by Saint Lucian the Martyr, who lived under the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, which was indeed very highly approved. Yet it can in no way be compared with the Seventy translators, as even the Greek writers themselves attest, and Nicetas confirms in these very words in his commentary on the Psalms: "We, while respecting such an edition, adhere most of all to that of the Seventy, because they made the change of language distinctly, and rendered one meaning and word in each instance."

So great was the reputation of the edition of the Seventy among all; it was clearly produced into the light, elaborated by a certain divine instinct, for the benefit of the human race. But this very edition, because it was placed first by Origen in the Hexapla so that other editions could be set beside it for the purpose of easier comparison, and because only the varieties from them began to be noted upon it under daggers and asterisks, it happened that, as the marks were obliterated by age, it reached us too insincere and very unlike itself. Indeed, with the interpretations of others inserted everywhere, and in some places a double or even triple interpretation of the same sentiment introduced, and furthermore poorly treated by copyists, it lost its clarity and integrity. Hence those varieties of readings that diverge entirely from one another, and those disagreements of the manuscripts—not only among themselves but also from the ancient writers—which for a long time tormented the minds and ingenuity of the most learned men. This evil, ignored at first by many and later neglected by others, creeping further every day, has stained with no light marks the principal book upon which the entire divine law and Christian institutions depend. For this reason, it cannot be said how much all good men owe to Sixtus V, the Supreme Pontiff. For he, because he spent almost his entire life in the sacred letters from which he drew the most holy doctrine,