cannot possibly bear that meaning in this connection. Comp. also Frankel, Vorstudien, p. 31.
The Pentateuch once translated, whether by one, or more likely by several persons,26 the other
books of the Old Testament would naturally soon receive the same treatment. They were
evidently rendered by a number of persons, who possessed very different qualifications for their
work - the translation of the Book of Daniel having been so defective, that in its place another
by Theodotion was afterwards substituted. The version, as a whole, bears the name of the
LXX. - as some have supposed from the number of its translators according to Aristeas'
account - only that in that case it should have been seventy-two; or from the approval of the
Alexandrian Sannedrin27 - although in that case it should have been seventy-one; or perhaps
because, in the popular idea, the number of the Gentile nations, of which the Greek (Japheth)
was regarded as typical, was seventy. We have, however, one fixed date by which to compute
the completion of this translation. From the prologue to the Apocryphal `Wisdom of Jesus the
son of Sirach,' we learn that in his days the Canon of Scripture was closed; and that on his
arrival, in his thirty-eighth year.28 In Egypt, which was then under the rule of Euergetes, he found
the so-called LXX. version completed, when he set himself to a similar translation of the
Hebrew work of his grandfather. But in the 50th chapter of that work we have a description of
the High-Priest Simon, which is evidently written by an eye-witness. We have therefore as one
term the pontificate of Simon, during which the earlier Jesus lived; and as the other, the reign of
Euergetes, in which the grandson was at Alexandria. Now, although there were two High-
Priests who bore the name Simon, and two Egyptian kings with the surname Euergetes, yet on
purely historical grounds, and apart from critical prejudices, we conclude that the Simon of
Ecclus. L. was Simon I., the Just, one of the greatest names in Jewish traditional history; and
similarly, that the Euergetes of the younger Jesus was the first of that name, Ptolemy III., who
reigned from 247 to 221 b.c.29 In his reign, therefore, we must regard the LXX. version as, at
least substantially, completed.
26. According to Sopher. i. 8, by five persons, but that seems a round number to correspond to the five
books of Moses. Frankel (Ueber d. Einfl. d. paläst. Exeg.) labours, however, to show in detail the
differences between the different translators. But his criticism is often strained, and the solution of the
question is apparently impossible.
27. Böhl would have it, `the Jerusalem Sanhedrin!'
28. But the expression has also been referred to the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Euergetes.
29. To my mind, at least, the historical evidence, apart from critical considerations, seems very strong.
Modern writers on the other side have confessedly been influenced by the consideration that the earlier
date of the Book of Sirach would also involve a much earlier date for the close of the O. T. Canon than
they are disposed to admit. More especially would it bear on the question of the so-called `Maccabean
Psalms,' and the authorship and date of the Book of Daniel. But historical questions should be treated
independently of critical prejudices. Winer (Bibl. Realwörterb. i. p. 555), and others after him admit that
the Simon of Ecclus. ch. L. was indeed Simon the Just (i.), but maintain that the Euergetes of the
Prologue was the second of that name, Ptolemy VII., popularly nicknamed Kakergetes. Comp. the
remarks of Fritzsche on this view in the Kurzgef. Exeg. Handb. z. d. Apokr. 5te Lief. p. xvii.
From this it would, of course, follow that the Canon of the Old Testament was then practically
fixed in Palestine.30 That Canon was accepted by the Alexandrian translators, although the more