work. Nevertheless, this translation, as being the oldest key to the understanding of the language of the Old Testament writings, as being the oldest mirror of the Old Testament text, which is not to be exempted from modest critical investie gation, and as sn important check upon the interpretation of Scripture handed down in the Talmud, in the Midrash, and in that portion of the national literature in general, not orig- inating in Egypt, — is invaluable.
In one other respect this version claims a still greater significance. Next to the Book of Isaiah, no book is so fre- quently cited in the New Testament as the Psalter. The Epistle to the Hebrews has grown up entirely from the roots of the language of the Old Testament psalms. The Apoca- lypse, the only book which does not admit of being referred back to any earlier formula as its basis, is nevertheless not without references to the Psalter: Ps. ii in particular has a significant part in the moulding of the apocalyptic concept- ions and language. These New Testament citations, with few exceptions (as John xiii. 18), are based upon the LXX, even where this translation (as. e.g., Ps. xix. 5, li. 6, cxvi. 10), only in & general way, correctly reproduces the original text. The ex- planation of this New Testament use of the LXX is to be found in the high esteem in which this translation was held among the Jewish people: it was accounted, not only by the Hellenistic, but also by the Palestinian Jews, as a providential and almost mira- culous production; and this esteem was justified by the fact, that, although altogether of unequal birth with the canonical writ-
pureum described by Breitinger 1748, Greek Text likewise of the 5th or 6th century (vid. ibid. p, lix 8q.); 3) Palmorum Fragmenta papyracea Londi- nensia (in the British Museum), Ps. x. 2—xviii. 6, xx. 14—xxxiv. 6, of the 4th century, given in Tischendorf's Monumenta Sacra Inedita. Nova Collectio t. i; 4) Fragmenta Psalmorum Tischendorfiana Ps, cxii (ii), 7—8, cxlii (iii). 1—3, exliv (v). 7—13, of the 5th or 4th century in the Monumenta t, ii. There still remain unused to the present time 1) the Psalterium Greco-Latinum of the library at St. Gall, Cod. 17 in 4to, Greek text in uncial charac- ters with the Latin at the side; 2) Psalterium Gallico-Romano-Hebraicoe Gracum of the year 909, Cod. 230 in the public library at Bamberg (vid. a description of this MS. by Schinfelder in the Serapeum, 1865, No. 21) written by Solomon, abbot of St. Gall and bishop of Constance (d. 920), and brought to Bamberg by the emperor Henry II (d. 1024), who had received it as a gift when in St:Gall; as regards the criticism of the tert of the LXX it is of like importance with the Veronense which it resembles.
