The Holy Bible

...them into Hebrew, such as those they say are the Ebionite and the Aquila-based translations, the details of which this place is not suited to expand upon.

D. But indeed, as we have said, over the course of many centuries, as copies were handed down, this wonderful version of the Septuagint translation, partly through negligence and partly through the incompetence of the scribes themselves, as is often the case, suffered not a few alterations and noticeable corruptions. For this reason, Origen, in the third century, rightly wishing to provide a remedy for such accidents, thought of composing his Hexapla original: "Վեցէջեան" - six-columned book, leaving aside the Tetrapla original: "քառէջեան" - four-columned and the Octapla original: "ութէջեան" - eight-columned, and others, of which there are various opinions. And he arranged this Hexapla in the following manner: on the first page of the book, he placed the Hebrew original in its own native script; on the second page, the same Hebrew original transliterated into Hellenic letters; on the third, the translation of Aquila; on the fourth, the translation of Symmachus; on the fifth, the translation that was attributed to the Septuagint at that time; and on the sixth, the translation of Theodotion. However, the copy of the Septuagint he took was not simply transcribed as it was, but with additions and subtractions according to a comparison with the Hebrew. By such a method, where anything was missing from the Hebrew, he would place it from the translation of Symmachus or Aquila, and in many cases from Theodotion, so that they would seem to be in perfect agreement with the Hebrew original, stamped opposite them with an asterisk like this: ※. But wherever an excess was found in the copy of the Septuagint—a word or phrase more than the Hebrew—leaving them as they were, he marked them with signs called obeli, such as ÷ or ֊, with precise fidelity to distinguish the deficiency and excess of the copy of the Septuagint from the Hebrew original of his own time. And from that time on, with the gradual disappearance of other Hellenic translations, together with the newly edited translation of Lucian the martyr, and the so-called recension of Hesychius that appeared later, this Hexapla copy of the Septuagint was considered the most precious of all, and was received by everyone as a completely flawless and most faithful version of the holy books. Especially during the time of the great Constantine, through the initiative of the highly skilled Eusebius of Caesarea, who, having received an order from the great Emperor (as he himself writes in his Life, Book 4, Chapters 37, 38), received a choice copy of the Septuagint according to the Hexapla model from the library of the martyr Pamphilus. He took care to have fifty copies of that book produced, written in precise and unerring script, decorated on parchment, and, loading them onto two wagons, he sent them to the royal city of Constantinople according to the order of that Emperor.

E. Then, by the care of the Most High, towards the fifth century, with the flourishing of the study of wisdom in our own land of Armenia, through the support of the radiant illuminators of our nation, the holy Sahak and Mesrop, their first effort was to provide, through laborious acquisition, the Holy Scriptures in the Armenian dialect, in order to perform the translation of the divine books without stumbling, as history shows. For this reason, when they undertook for the second time to make a more perfect translation from the Hellenic dialect, abandoning the first which they had begun to do from Syriac copies, as the opportunity arose to send their students to the royal city of Constantinople to seek the best Hellenic version, it was entrusted to our scholars by the Patriarch Maximianus of that time, as written by Khorenatsi, Book 4, 63, "The Beginning of the Copy of the Books." And Koryun, telling of this, says: "The firm copies of the god-breathed books... came, appearing in the land of the Armenians." Indeed, from the history of the translation of the holy books for us (about which the students and collaborators of our many-benefactor translators Sahak and Mesrop wrote), we have almost no doubt in philosophizing that it was from the most faithful Hellenic version that was most esteemed in the royal city in the fifth century, for which reason Khorenatsi and Koryun call it a "Firm and Authentic Copy." And if this same one was the one handed down from that Hexapla copy of Origen, which Eusebius sent from Caesarea to Constantinople, as we showed above, it is clearly evident to us from the traces of the Origenian asterisks and obeli that appear in our manuscripts today. As we understand, they were carefully marked by our Armenian translators in their Hellenic version, and we have also carefully marked them in the present work in each place, comparing it to our version, omitting the obeli that two of our other manuscripts had outside our own. Although, upon this, it would be inappropriate for us to think that only those which we notice in place after place in our present manuscripts are the ones precisely marked with Origenian signs. For not only in our Armenian books, but also in the Hellenic copies themselves, transposed over many centuries, due to the lack of careful attention by scribes, many of those signs were altered; either by putting one in place of another, or by marking an excess where it should not have been, or by completely omitting the important ones. As those who examine such things know well, because of what has been said, those signs that appear in Hellenic manuscripts today also fall equally under doubt.

But now, returning to the purpose of our words regarding the Armenian translation: it would have been appropriate in the following history to tell of it with lengthy praise, bringing forth its superiority from various chapters, if the proper moderation of the introduction to this book did not force us to provide an extensive discourse elsewhere. It suffices for now to say that our blessed translators, having become highly skilled in the Hellenic language, as can be seen from the fruits of their labors, and having this most choice version before them, then made it their effort to pour it into the Armenian dialect with complete care and caution according to the truth.