Introduction

Summary

THE present volume completes the manual edition of the Cambridge Septuagint. The work was commenced in 1883; the first volume appeared in 1887, the second in 1891. Little is needed by way of preface to this last instalment of a long task. The general principles upon which the edition is based were stated in the preface to the first volume, and both the earlier volumes have been accompanied by some account of the MSS. used in the preparation of the text and notes. It remains only to add particulars relating to the volume which is now in the reader's hands.

The great Vatican MS., whose text and order we have generally followed, ends with the Prophets. For the Books of the Maccabees we have been compelled to look elsewhere, and since the Codex Alexandrinus is the only early Uncial which contains them all, the text of that MS. has been adopted throughout; in the notes to these Books use has been made of the Codex Sinaiticus so far as it is available, and of the important although relatively late Codex Venetus, which has been newly collated for this purpose.

In the Prophets it has been possible to employ, in addition to the great codices BℵA, the Codex Marchalianus (Q), the Codex rescriptus Cryptoferratensis (F), and the Dublin fragments of Isaiah (O), as well as those edited by Tischendorf (Z).