HistoricalChristian.Faith

Isidore of Seville on the Rabbinic Corruption of Scripture

Dates: c. 636 (d. 636; the Etymologies was compiled c. 615–630) · Wikipedia
Summary: The Latin transmitter, who carries the premise but not the accusation. In the short Bible-book of his encyclopedic Etymologies (Book VI), Isidore relays the Septuagint legend in its strongest form — the seventy, sealed in separate chambers, rendered the text "through the Holy Spirit" so identically that nothing differed "even in the order of words" — the inspired, word-for-word-guarded Greek text on which the whole corruption charge depends. Yet he levels no charge against the Jews: he lists the later versions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) flatly, with no hint of malice, attributes the one textual "corruption" he names to the gentiles (healed by Ezra), and ranks Jerome's Hebrew-based Vulgate "deservedly preferred… truer" than the rest. He thus shows the legend persisting into the seventh-century West stripped of its polemical edge — and his fuller role belongs to the companion doctrine, the Origin and Inspiration of the Septuagint.

Claims & evidence

The Seventy translated "through the Holy Spirit," identical even in the order of words

"This Ptolemy, moreover, seeking from the pontifex Eleazar the writings of the Old Testament, was responsible for the translation from Hebrew into Greek, by seventy scholars of those writings that he held in the Alexandrian library. Although they were separated, each apart in his own chamber, through the Holy Spirit they translated everything in such a way that nothing was found in the manuscript of any of them that was different from the rest, even in the order of words."

— Isidore of Seville, Etymologies VI.iv.1–2, trans. Barney, Lewis, Beach & Berghof (Cambridge, 2006), p. 139, source.¹ This is the inspiration miracle at its most developed: not merely the same sense, but the same words in the same order, produced by men who could not consult one another — the providential guarantee that makes the Greek text authoritative, and so makes any later Hebrew divergence look like tampering. Isidore frames it with his characteristic interest in round numbers: Ptolemy Philadelphus, "very perceptive about all kinds of literature," gathered "not only pagan authors, but even divine literature," so that "in his time seventy thousand books could be found in Alexandria."²

He lists the rival versions flatly — with no charge of malice

"There were also other translators who translated the sacred writings from Hebrew into Greek, such as Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and also that common (vulgaris) translation, whose authorship is not evident – for this reason the work is designated the Fifth Edition (Quinta Editio) without the name of the translator."

— Isidore of Seville, Etymologies VI.iv.3, trans. Barney et al., p. 139, source.³ Where Epiphanius had told the tale of Aquila as one of apostasy and deliberate distortion of the christological proof-texts, Isidore simply enumerates the later versions alongside the Septuagint and Origen's "sixth and seventh edition," as items in a bibliography. The polemical charge that this strand of the tradition could carry — the rival versions as anti-Christian forgeries — is entirely absent from his telling.

The one "corruption" he names is by the gentiles; and Jerome's Hebrew Vulgate is "truer"

"After the Law (i.e. Torah) was burned by the Chaldeans, the scribe Ezra, inspired with the divine spirit, restored the library of the Old Testament when the Jews had returned to Jerusalem, and he corrected all the scrolls of the Law and Prophets, which had been corrupted by the gentiles…"

— Isidore of Seville, Etymologies VI.iii.2, trans. Barney et al., p. 138, source.⁴ The corruption motif appears in Isidore, but pointed the opposite way from the doctrine's thesis: the text was "corrupted by the gentiles," and the remedy was a Jew — Ezra, "inspired with the divine spirit" — restoring and correcting the scrolls. And when Isidore turns to the Latin Bible he sides plainly with the Hebrew: Jerome "translated the same Scriptures from Hebrew into Latin speech… His translation is deservedly preferred over the others, for it is closer in its wording, and brighter in the clarity of its thought" — one manuscript tradition even adding, "inasmuch as it is by a Christian, the translation is truer."⁵ He thus holds the inspired-LXX legend and a preference for Jerome's Hebraica veritas side by side, untroubled by the tension the corruption charge would later draw out of it.

Notes

• A transmitter, not a charger. Isidore belongs on this timeline as a measure of how much of the corruption thesis is inference, not tradition. He inherits every ingredient — the inspired LXX, the separate cells, the word-perfect agreement, the named rival versions — and draws none of the conclusion. The malice charge is not something the Fathers simply handed down; it had to be argued from the premise, and Isidore is a witness who held the premise without the argument.
• His real home is the origin legend. The substance of Isidore's testimony — the Holy-Spirit inspiration, the identity "even in the order of words" — is a witness to the Origin and Inspiration of the Septuagint, the growth of which is traced on that page. As the Wassersteins note, Isidore "has a strong, if ultimately barren, interest in numbers": seventy thousand books, seventy translators, seventy little houses — and the inspiration "through the Holy Spirit," identical in content and word order.⁶ He is here on the rabbinic-corruption timeline only because he carries that premise into the Latin West, where it would later (in Julian of Toledo and others) be turned into the chronological accusation it never is in Isidore.
• Source note. Isidore's Etymologies is cited from the standard English translation (Barney, Lewis, Beach & Berghof, Cambridge 2006) as hosted online. The brackets "(i.e. Torah)" and "(vulgaris)" are the translators'; the closing clause "inasmuch as it is by a Christian, the translation is truer" is a manuscript addition the editors bracket.

Sources