It should be observed in this connection that the author carefully avoids the expression “New Testament” throughout the pages of this section (pages 19-22), studiously employing the term “Bible.” This is significant, for the New Testament was not a part of the Hexapla. Yet the author seems content to let the impression prevail that the Hexapla of Origen,—which he is discussing, in its influence upon MSS. “B” and “Aleph,”—contained both the New and Old Testaments, while as a matter of truth it was confined to the Old Testament, as the following authorities, both Protestant and Catholic, assert:RABV 26.1

“The edition of the Old Testament compiled by Origen, in the 3rd century, consisting of the Hebrew text, a transliteration in Greek, and the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint, Theodotion.”—Webster’s New International Dictionary, art. Hexapla.RABV 27.1

“Hexapla, the name given to Origen’s edition of the Old Testament in Hebrew and Greek, the most colossal critical production of Antiquity.”—” Catholic Encyclopedia,” Vol. VII, p. 316.RABV 27.2

Thus the author’s severe strictures upon the alleged “depravations” in the New Testaments of these noted MSS. (the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus),—to which his treatment is virtually confined,—cannot in any sense be connected with the Hexapla of Origen which was limited to the Old Testament.RABV 27.3

Additional evidence in support of this fact is found in the paragraph from Dr. Ira M. Price, in his “Ancestry of our English Bible” (p. 70), and quoted by the author on p. 20, in which the statement is unequivocally made that the “fifty copies” of Scripture prepared for Constantine were of “the fifth column of the Hexapla.” Here is the precise quotation:RABV 27.4

“Eusebius of Caesarea (260-340), the first church historian, assisted by Pamphilus or vice versa, issued with all its critical marks the fifth column of the Hexapla, with alternative readings from the other columns, for use in Palestine. The Emperor Constantine gave orders that fifty copies of this edition should be prepared for use in the churches.”RABV 27.5

But Dr. H. B. Swete, in “Introduction to the Old. Testament in Greek,” pp. 62, 63, gives a “specimen” of the Hexapla taken from Psalm 45 which he says (p. 61) “will assist the reader to understand the arrangement of the columns.” They are in the following order, which of course agrees with the quotation above from “Webster“:RABV 27.6

“HEBREW Heb. TRANSLITERATION AQUILA SYMMACHUS LXX (SEPTUAGINT) THEODOTION”RABV 27.7

An identical numerical listing is found in “The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge,” Vol. 8, p. 270, Art. “Origen” under “Hexapla,” where a similar specimen is exhibited, so there is no possible mistaking of the identity of the “Fifth column.”RABV 28.1

The conclusion is therefore unavoidable that the fifty copies of the Hexapla made for Constantine were of the fifth-column Septuagint, which is confined to the Old Testament Scriptures: and even if the MSS. Aleph and B were of the fifty, such could apply to their Old Testament sections only. Consequently the sustained attack of the author upon the alleged New Testament “depravations” in the Vaticanus (for example, p. 247), and his efforts to slur them by cataloguing them as of “Eusebio-Origen type” are entirely unwarranted, inasmuch as the Hexapla does not include the New Testament.RABV 28.2

We conclude these observations on the Hexapla and the Vaticanus by this illuminating excerpt from Thomas Hartwell Horne. It was written in 1839, fifteen years before the discovery of the Sinaiticus MS., and provides food for enlightening thought:RABV 28.3

“On the ground of its internal excellence, Michaelis preferred the Vatican manuscript (for the New Testament) to the Codex Alexandrinus. If, however, that manuscript be most respectable which comes the nearest to Origen’s Hexaplar copy of the Septuagint O1d Testament, the Alexandrian manuscript seems to claim that merit in preference to its rival [the Vaticanus]: but if it be thought a matter of superior honour to approach nearer the old Greek version, uncorrected by Origen, that merit seems to be due to the Vatican.”—” An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, “Thomas Hartwell Horne, B. D. (1839), pp. 101, 102.RABV 28.4

Misuse of Authorities

Misquotation of Authorities