Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/61

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44
TRANSLATIONS OF THE PSALMS.

different quarters[1] are unfortunately still scattered and uncollated.
Euthymius Zigadenus mentions beside the lxx, Aq., Symm., Theod., V, and VI, as a Seventh version that of Lucian which attempts to restore the original Septuagint-text by a comparison with the original text. Lucian died as a martyr 311 a.d. in Nicomedia, whither he had been dragged from Antioch. The autograph of this translation was found in Nicomedia, hidden in a small rough-plastered tower.[2]
We are as little able to form a conception of this Septuagint-recension of Lucian as of that of the contemporary Egyptian bishop Hesychius, since not a single specimen of either is extant. It would be interesting to know the difference of treatment of the two critics from that of Origen, who corrected the text of the κοινή after the Hebrew original by means of Theodotion's, obelis jugulans quae abundare videbantur, et quae deerant sub asteriscis interserens, which produced a confusion that might easily have been foreseen.
From the Old Latin translation, the so-called Itala, made from the lxx, we possess the Psalter complete: Blanchini has published this translation of the Psalms (1740) from the Veronese Psalter, and Sabbatier in the second volume of his Latinae Versiones Antiquae (1751) from the Psalter of the monastery of St. Germain. The text in Faber Stapulensis' Quincuplex Pslaterium (1509) is compiled from Augustine; for Augustine, like Hilary, Ambrose, Prosper, and Cassiodorus, expounds the Psalms according to the old Latin text. Jerome first of all carefully revised this in Rome, and thus originated the Psalterium Romanum, which has been the longest retained by

  1. Thus e.g., Montfaucon was only able to make use of the Psalter-MS Cod. Vat. 754 for 16 Psalms; Adler has compared it to the end and found in it valuable Hexapla fragments (vid., Repert. für Bibl. u. Morgenl. Lit. xiv. S. 183f.). The Psalm-commentary of Barhebraeus and the Psalterium Mediolanense have also been begun to be worked with this object; but as yet, not the Syriac Psalter of the Medici library mentioned by Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum i. 240 and supposed to be based upon the Quinta.
  2. Comp. the Athanasian synopsis in Montfaucon, Hexapla t. 1 p. 59 and the contribution from a Syriac MS in the Repertorium für Bibl. u. Morgenl. Lit. ib. (1784) S. 48f.