The two most noted MSS. of the Septuagint Version are the Codex Alexandrinus and the Codex Vaticanus. The Codex Vaticanus, or Vatican copy, is so called from belonging to the Vatican Library, at Rome; and contains not only the Old Testament, but also the New. It is supposed to have been written in the fifth or sixth century; and is executed in the uncial or square characters, (what we commonly call capitals,) without distinction of chapters, verses, or words. Cardinal Carafa edited the first printed edition of this MS. by order of Pope Sixtus V. in folio; but without the New Testament. The Cardinal and his associates were employed nine years upon this edition, which was printed at Rome, by Franciscus Zunetti, in 1587.

The Codex Alexandrinus, or Alexandrian copy, was presented to king Charles 1. by Sir Thomas Roe, from Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, who accompanied the MS. with the following note, written by his own hand :

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Liber iste Scripturæ Sacræ Novi et Veteris Testamenti, ⚫ prout ex Traditione habemus, est scriptus manu Thecla, nobilis fœminæ Egyptiæ, ante mile (pro mille) et tricentos Annos circiter, paulo post concilium Nicænum. Nomen Theclæ in fine Libri erat exaratum; sed extincto Christianismo in • Egypto à Mahometanis, et Libri una Christianorum in similem 'sunt redacti conditionem ; extinctum ergo et (lege est) Thecla 6 nomen et laceratum, sed memoria et traditio recens observat.' Cyrillus, Patriarcha Constantinopolitanus. (TRANSLATION.)

This book of the Holy Scriptures of the New and Old Tes'tament, was written, according to tradition, by the hand of Thecla, a noble Egyptian woman, about thirteen hundred # years since, a little after the council at Nice. The name of Thecla was formerly written at the end of the book, but Christianity being suppressed in Egypt, by the Mohamme

dans, the books also of the Christians shared the same fate.

* Cyril's note was written in the year 1628. The council of Nice was held at a city of that name in Nicomedia, in 324. The most strenuous advocates of this MS., however, consider this date as too early, and it is much more probable, that it is about the same age as the Codex Vaticanus.

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But though the name of Thecla be blotted and torn out, yet memory and tradition continue to preserve it.'

Cyril, Patriarch of Constantinople.

It is written on parchment, and like all the most ancient manuscripts, in uncial characters, without distinction of chapters, verses, or words, and originally without accents. It consists of four folios, three of which contain the Old Testament, and the fourth, the New Testament. It formerly belonged to the King's Library, from whence it was transferred in 1753, to the British Museum. A fac simile edition of the New Testament of this MS. was published in 1786, by Dr. C. G. Woide, with types cast for that purpose, line for line, without intervals between the words, as in the manuscript itself. It is a splendid folio; and is accompanied with a learned preface, containing an accurate description of the manuscript, with an exact list of all its various readings. In 1814, the British House of Commons ordered, that a fac simile edition also of the Old Testament should be executed at the public expence. The Rev. Henry Harvey Baber, one of the librarians of the British Museum, and editor of a beautiful edition of "Wiclif's New Testament," printed in 4to. 1810, was appointed the editor, and has since published the book of Psalms, for which he had issued proposals prior to his appointment; and several other parts of it.

The Autograph, or original copy of the Septuagint version, was, most probably, consumed in the fire which destroyed the Alexandrian Library, in the time of Julius Cæsar, about 50 years before the Christian era; but the translation was preserved by the numerous transcripts taken for the use of the different synagogues in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, and which were sure to be copied with the utmost accuracy and care. Other copies were also taken for the use of individuals. The Evangelists, and Apostles, and primitive Fathers, made their quotations from this translation; all the Greek churches used it; and the Latins, till the time of Jerom, had no version of

* Eclectic Review, II. pt. i. p. 216. Marsh's Michaelis, II. pt. ii. p. 651.

the Old Testament, but what had been translated from it; and nearly all the older Oriental versions, as well as several of the Western, are derived from it.

The Hellenist Jews, i. e. those who spoke the Greek language, continued the use of this version from the time of its formation, till about 100 years after the Incarnation of our Lord, when they began to disuse it, and formed another for themselves. For as this version grew into use among the Christians, it grew out of credit with the Jews; and they, being pressed in many particulars urged against them out of this version, by the Christians, in order to deprive them of the benefit of that authority, began to deny that it agreed with the Hebrew text. Further, to discredit the character of the Septuagint, the Jews instituted a solemn fast, on the eighth day of the month Thebet (December), to execrate the memory of its having been made. Not satisfied with this measure, we are assured by Justin Martyr, who lived in the former part of the second century, that they proceeded to expunge several passages out of the Septuagint; and abandoning this, adopted the version of Aquila,† a native of Sinope, a city of Pontus, who, having been expelled from the Christian church for addicting himself to magic and judicial astrology, turned Jew, and was admitted into the school of Rabbi Akiba, the most celebrated Jewish teacher of his day. This man, having made considerable proficiency in Hebrew, was thought sufficient for the translation, which he undertook and published in the year of our Lord 128. This is the translation mentioned in the Talmud, and not the Septuagint with which it has been confounded.§

The Septuagint being written in the same dialect as the New Testament (the formation of whose style was influenced by it),

* EXλviç sunt pagani. Exλ Judæi Græcis Bibliis in Synagogis utentes.lo. Scaliger apud Hody, De Bib. Text. Orig. p. 221.

+ Owen's Inquiry into the present state of the Septuagint version, pp. 29-87.; and 126-138.

Prideaux's Connection, &c. III. pt. ii. b. 1, and Hody, De Bibl. Text. Orig. Lib. iv. p. 573.

Prideaux, II. p. 50, and Lightfoot's Works, II. pp. 806, 807.

THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN.

THE blue sky to carnation had varied its hue,

And the mountains were spangled with dew as with rain,
When, refulgent with glory, the sun rose to view,
And extended his beams over Jordan's green plain.

And the rose with her fragrance replenished the air,
And the delicate myrtle bent down to the breeze,
And the lotus expanded her leaves broad and fair,
And the golden pomegranates embellished the trees.
The dark mulberries shone, and the fruit of the viné
Intermingled with olives in violet ties ;

And the well-watered vallies were covered with kine,
And Gomorrha's high battlements rose to the skies.

But destruction soon raised o'er the cities his sword:
Desolation abode where fertility bloomed :

A fire came from heaven by command of the Lord;
The inhabitants, cities, and plains were consumed.

Like phosphor ignited the bitumen burned,

And the ocean's vast waves like volcanos arose :
Consternation and terror to misery turned,

Man complained for a moment-death finished his woes.
As the world were consuming, the darkening clouds
Aspired to the zenith of heaven in their rage;
And triumphantly death slew his victims in crowds,
And the grave bared his arm in the fray to engage.

Terror governed each heart; the inhabitants fled

From the country around at this terrible sight;

The wild beasts sought their dens, the flocks trembled with dread, And the beeves strangely wandered o'erpowered by the light.

And this Eden is gone, and her beautiful bowers

In the spring of their bloom have forsaken the world!
And Gomorrha and Sodom's sublimely raised towers
Are consumed in an hour-to oblivion are hurled!

T. W.

Biblical Ellustrations.

ISAIAH, xviii.

WOE to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: that sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto ; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled! All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling-place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, and take away and cut down the branches. They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them. In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose laud the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Zion. THIS eighteenth chapter is generally acknowledged to be the most obscure of all the prophecies of Isaiah. The subject of it, the end and design of it, the people to whom it is addressed, the person who sends the messengers, and the nation to whom they are sent, are, in bishop Lowth's opinion, all obscure and doubtful. But Lowth unites with Vitringa in supposing the chapter to refer to Sennacherib, and Houbigant applies it to that king, and Tirhaka; the swift messengers representing the messengers sent by Tirhaka to the Jews, to inform them that he was upon the march against their enemy Sennacherib: Dr. Wells' paraphrase of this chapter is by no means satisfactory. Most interpreters have supposed that this prophecy referred to Egypt, and that it denounced a great woe, or judgment; consequently such interpretations have been adopted as suited this pre-conceived opinion, without any grammatical examination of the