It is not the purpose of these pages to supply a general Introduction to the Septuagint. To repeat the history of that Version, the legend of its birth, the destinies it fulfilled and the handling it received in the centuries that followed; to state the problems which it still offers for solution, and to furnish descriptive lists of its MSS. and printed editions, would be either to exceed the limits of a portable volume, or uselessly to epitomize the work of previous writers. At a future time the subject will claim the full consideration and careful treatment which a larger experience may render possible. For the present it may suffice to recall only so many of the facts as are necessary to illustrate the relation which this edition bears towards those which have preceded it, and to describe the method pursued and the materials employed in its preparation.

Since the invention of printing four primary editions of the Septuagint have issued from the press—the Complutensian, the Aldine, the Roman, and the Oxford representation of the Alexandrine text.

I. The Greek text of the O. T. in the Complutensian Polyglott (1514-1517)1 claims to be drawn partly from MSS. collected by Cardinal Ximenez himself, partly from others borrowed from the Vatican. "Testari possumus (so the Cardinal writes in the dedication of his work to Leo X.) . . . maximam laboris nostri partem in eo praecipue fuisse versatam ut . . . castigatissima omni ex parte vetustissimaque exemplaria pro archetypis haberemus; quorum quidem tam Hebraeorum quam Graecorum . . . multiplicem copiam variis ex locis non sine summon labore conquisivimus.