CHAPTER XVI

THE GREAT STUDY WHICH ORIGEN DEVOTED TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

SO great was the research which Origen applied in the investigation of the holy Scriptures, that he also studied the Hebrew language; and those original works written in the Hebrew and in the hands of the Jews, he procured as his own. He also investigated the editions of others, who, besides the seventy, had published translations of the Scriptures, and some different from the well-known translations of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, which he searched up, and traced to I know not what ancient lurking places, where they had lain concealed from remote times, and brought them to the light. In which, when it was doubtful to him from what author they came, he only added the remark that he had found this translation at Nicopolis near Actium, and that translation in such a place. In the Hexapla, indeed, of the Psalms, after those four noted editions, he adds, not only a fifth, but a sixth, and seventh translation, and in one it is remarked that it was discovered at Jericho, in a tub, in the times of Antonine the son of Severus. Having collected all these versions, and divided them by punctuation into their proper members, and arranged them opposite one another in parallel columns, together with the Hebrew texts, he left us those copies of the Hexapla which we now have. In a separate work he also prepared an edition of Aquila and Symmachus, and Theodotion, together with the Septuagint, in what is called the Tetrapla.