CHAPTER I - Literary use of the Septuagint by non-Christian Hellenists

Summary

1. A happy accident has preserved fragments of the lost literature produced by the Hellenised Jews of Alexandria between the inception of the Alexandrian Version and the Christian era. The Greek historiographer, Alexander Cornelius—better known as Polyhistor (ὀ πολνΐστωρ), from his encyclopaedic learning—wrote a treatise On the Jews which contained extracts from Jewish and Samaritan Hellenistic writings. Of these a few were copied from Polyhistor's book by Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea, in whose pages they may still be read. They consist of fragments of the historians Demetrius, Eupolemus, Artapanus, and Aristeas, the poets Philo, Theodotus, and Ezekiel, the philosopher Aristobulus, and Cleodemus or Malchas. There is reason to believe that Demetrius flourished c. b.c. 200; for the other writers the date of Polyhistor (c. b.c. 50) supplies a terminus ad quem, if we may assume that he wrote the work attributed to him by Clement and Eusebius.

The following references will enable the student to find the fragments: (1) Demetrius: Clem. Al. strom. i. 141. Eus. pr. ev. ix. 19(?), 21, 29. (2) Eupolemus: Clem. Al. strom. i. 141. Eus. pr. ev. ix. 17, 26 (= Clem. Al. strom. i. 153), 30—34, 39. (3) Artapanus: Eus. pr. ev. ix. 18, 23, 27. (4) Aristeas: Eus. pr. ev. ix. 25. (5) Philo the poet: Eus. pr. ev. ix. 20, 24, 37 (cf. Clem. Al. strom. i. 154). […]