- ance for textual criticism is great; indeed, we may say
with Klostermann that the Massoretic text and this translation are virtually two copies of one and the same archetype. It is distinguished from the Septuagint versions of the Books of Job, Proverbs, and even Psalms by its fidelity. Those versions approximate more or less closely to the elegant manner of Symmachus, but the Greek style of the Septuagint Koheleth is most peculiar, admitting such words as [Greek: antirrêsis], [Greek: enkopos], [Greek: ekklêsiastês], [Greek: entryphêma], [Greek: epikosmein], [Greek: paraphora], [Greek: periousiasmos,] periphereia], [Greek: perispasmos], [Greek: proairesis] (in special sense, ii. 17) [Greek: exousiazein] (not less than eleven times), and such abnormal phrases as [Greek: hypo ton hêlion] (i. 3 and often), and especially [Greek: syn], as an equivalent of when distinctive of the accusative (ii. 17, iii. 10, iv. 3, vii. 15, and nine other passages; elsewhere [Greek: sympanta] or the like). The last-named peculiarity reminds us strongly of Aquila[1] (comp. [God created] [Greek: syn ton ouranon kai syn tên gên], Aquila's rendering of Gen. i. 1); but it must be also mentioned that in more than half the passages in which of the accusative occurs in the original, this characteristic rendering of Aquila is not found. This fact militates against the theory of Grätz,[2] that the Septuagint version of Ecclesiastes is really the second improved edition of Aquila, and against that of Salzberger,[3] who argues that the fragments given as from Aquila in Origen's Hexapla are not really Aquila's at all, the one and only true edition of Aquila's Ecclesiastes being that now extant in the Septuagint (comp. the case of Theodotion's Daniel). It seems clear that the Septuagint version, as it stands, is a composite one, but it is possible, as Montfaucon long ago pointed out,[4] that an early version once existed, independent of Aquila.
- ↑ On Aquila and his theory of interpretation, comp. Renan, L'Ecclésiaste, p. 54; and on his artificial vocabulary, Field's remarks, Hexapla, Prolegomena, p. xxii.
- ↑ Kohélet, Anhang. Before Grätz, Frankel was already inclined to think that the Septuagint version might be really Aquila's (Vorstudien, p. 238, note w). So more positively Freudenthal. Renan inclines to agree with Grätz.
- ↑ Grätz's Monatsschrift, 1873, pp. 168-174
- ↑ Hexapla (1713), i., Præliminaria, p. 42. Montfaucon indicates vii. 23a as manifestly made up of a genuine version, and one interpolated from Aquila. Comp. Clericus' note on Eccles iv. 1.
