PREFACE TO THE OCTATEUCH

Summary

IN the Cambridge University Reporter for March 13, 1883, the announcement was made that the Syndics of the University Press had undertaken an edition of the Septuagint and Apocrypha with an ample apparatus criticus, intended to provide materials for the critical determination of the text. It was proposed to give the variations of all the Greek uncial MSS., of select Greek cursives, of the more important Ancient Versions, and of the quotations made by Philo and the earlier and more important ecclesiastical writers. As a preliminary step a portable text of the Septuagint and Apocrypha was published under the editorship of Dr Swete. The text was taken from the Vatican MS., supplemented from the Alexandrine or other MSS. where the Vatican MS. is defective. The variations of three or four other early MSS. were given. This edition, of which the first volume, containing Genesis—iv Kingdoms, appeared in 1887, and the third and last in 1894, has gained recognition in all countries as the standard edition of the Old Testament in Greek. The first volume has reached its fourth, the second its third, and the third its third edition.