HistoricalChristian.Faith

John Chrysostom on the Rabbinic Corruption of Scripture

Dates: c. 407 (preaching at Antioch and Constantinople, c. 386–407) · Wikipedia
Summary: Chrysostom presses the corruption charge in its dating form. Preaching on Matthew 1:22–23, he meets the synagogue's appeal to the later Greek translators — who at Isaiah 7:14 read "young woman" where the Septuagint had "virgin" — by impeaching their date and their loyalty: those versions "were made after Christ's coming," by men "continuing to be Jews," who "may justly be suspected as having spoken rather in enmity, and as darkening the prophecies on purpose"; whereas the Seventy, finishing "an hundred years or more before the coming of Christ," "stand clear from all such suspicion." The premise of the contrast — that the Septuagint is the older, providentially-given Greek — he retails elsewhere as the Ptolemy legend (the seventy brought from Judea under Ptolemy Philadelphus). He supplies the same dating filter later furnished with a rationale by Philoxenus: only a version made after Christ could be bent against him, so suspicion falls on the post-Christian revisions (Aquila and the rest), not on the LXX.

Claims & evidence

On Isaiah 7:14: the later translators "darkening the prophecies on purpose"

"But if, when their mouths are stopped on this point, they should seek another, namely, what is said touching Mary's virginity, and should object to us other translators, saying, that they used not the term 'virgin,' but 'young woman;' in the first place we will say this, that the Seventy were justly entitled to confidence above all the others. For these made their translation after Christ's coming, continuing to be Jews, and may justly be suspected as having spoken rather in enmity, and as darkening the prophecies on purpose; but the Seventy, as having entered upon this work an hundred years or more before the coming of Christ, stand clear from all such suspicion, and on account of the date, and of their number, and of their agreement, would have a better right to be trusted."

— John Chrysostom, Homily 5 on Matthew (on Matthew 1:22–23), §4, trans. NPNF 1.10.¹ This is the charge in its sharpest dating form. The disputed passage is Isaiah 7:14, where the later Greek versions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) render the Hebrew 'almah as neanis ("young woman") against the Septuagint's parthenos ("virgin"). Chrysostom does not argue the philology; he disqualifies the witnesses — they translated after Christ, "continuing to be Jews," so their divergence from the LXX is read as motivated enmity, a deliberate "darkening" of a christological prophecy. The argument is one of suspicion by date and allegiance, and it is the messianic-proof-text strand of the corruption charge given a clean chronological rule.

The Seventy, pre-Christian, "stand clear from all such suspicion"

"All the sacred books of the Old Testament were originally composed in Hebrew, no one contradicts it. Now, a few years before the birth of Jesus Christ, King Ptolemy, curious to gather a rich library, wanted to join our Holy Books to all those of various kinds that he had already gathered. This is why he brought some Jews from Jerusalem to translate into Greek, which they did happily. And this is how it came about, by a particular disposition of Providence, that not only those who heard Hebrew, but generally all peoples, were able to profit from our holy books."

— John Chrysostom, Homily 4 on Genesis, §4, English (from the French of Bareille).² The other half of the contrast: the Septuagint is the old Greek, made under Ptolemy before Christ and "by a particular disposition of Providence." Chrysostom retells the same Ptolemy story in his first homily Against the Jews — Ptolemy Philadelphus "sent for men from Judea and had them translate those books, which he then had deposited in the temple of Serapis, for he was a pagan" — the pre-Christian provenance that, on his dating rule, makes the LXX innocent by construction. He turns the detail to a different point there (that the holy books did not sanctify Serapis's pagan temple, so neither does the synagogue's possession of them sanctify it), but the historical claim is the same: the Seventy preceded Christ and so cannot have translated "in enmity" to him.

Notes

• The dating filter, before Philoxenus furnished its rationale. Chrysostom's whole move is the rule later credited to Philoxenus of Mabbug (and narrated at length by Agapius): a version made after Christ could be knowingly bent against him, so the post-Christian revisions carry the suspicion and the pre-Christian Septuagint is cleared. He states the filter c. 407; Philoxenus (c. 523) gives it as a stated principle, and the medieval Syriac and Arabic chroniclers build it into a narrative.
• "Other translators," not Aquila by name. Chrysostom impeaches the later Greek translators collectively rather than naming Aquila; but the Isaiah 7:14 neanis reading he has in view is exactly Aquila's, so this is a witness for the Aquila-revision argument (assessment: weak) on the messianic strand — the charge that the post-Christian revisions distorted the proof-texts on purpose.
• A translation choice read as a textual one. Isaiah 7:14 is the charge's weakest example, because the divergence is one of rendering, not of the Hebrew text: the consonantal Hebrew ('almah) is the same in every witness, and neanis ("young woman") is the more literal Greek for it, while the Septuagint's parthenos ("virgin") is the interpretive gloss. Chrysostom treats the later translators' more accurate rendering as a malicious "darkening" — folding a translation dispute into a corruption charge. The master argument (assessment: weak) and the Aquila argument weigh this move and find the distortion reading does not hold.
• The "hundred years or more" understates the gap. The Septuagint Pentateuch was made in the third century BC, well over two hundred years before Christ; Chrysostom's "an hundred years or more" is a conservative minimum for the rhetorical point (the Seventy long predate Christ), not a precise date. His Homily 4 on Genesis likewise dates it loosely, "a few years before the birth of Jesus Christ."
• Texts used. The central passage is Homily 5 on Matthew §4 (NPNF translation of the Greek); the providence notice is Homily 4 on Genesis §4 (English from J.-B. Bareille's French of the Greek); the Ptolemy–Serapis story is Against the Jews (Homily 1, VI.1, trans. Paul W. Harkins, FOTC 68). All three are c. 386–407, from Chrysostom's Antioch and Constantinople preaching; the timeline anchors him at c. 407.

Sources