For all these guides and helps granted by God, or overruled by His providence, let us

be thankful and, where we can, let us not omit to use them for the opening up of His own

inspired truth.

In the two preceding articles we have sought to indicate the keen interest that was

taken both by Jew and Christian in the Greek translation of the O.T. Scriptures. The use

of these versions in synagogue, church and home would naturally lead to a multiplication

of copies, and also, as naturally, to a multiplication of copyists' errors. These errors were

partly through the inability of some scribes to distinguish between the actual text and the

marginal notes that were added. The same century that saw the versions of Aquila,

Theodotion and Symmachus come to light, saw also the fruit of the work of the man

whose unremitting labours still stand as his abiding monument. We speak of Origen.

When Origen was seventeen years of age his father suffered martyrdom for the faith,

and at eighteen Origen is found at the head of the catechetical school of Alexandria.

Desiring a thorough acquaintance with the O.T. Scriptures, he applied himself to the

study of Hebrew. Those of us who have any acquaintance with the study of languages

know something of their demands upon time and thought, but when we realize that for

about fourteen years Origen's studies were carried on under the cloud of persecution, we

cannot but be thankful for the grace of God that sustained him in his great work. In the

course of his studies he was continually faced with the problem of dealing with

conflicting versions and alternative readings. It was obviously impossible for him to

produce a new translation, but what he did undertake was the collation of the Greek text

then in use with the original Hebrew, and with the other Greek translations that had been

put forward. This colossal task occupied twenty-eight years of his life. His method was

somewhat on the following lines.

Having collected his manuscripts, he arranged a series of columns, in the first of

which he placed the Hebrew, and in the second he transliterated the Hebrews into

corresponding Greek letters. Then, side by side with this, he placed the translation of

Aquila, as being nearer to the Hebrew original than the versions of Symmachus, the LXX

and Theodotion. The illustration below will give some idea of what Origen's great work

looked like, but it must not be taken as anything more than an illustration.