HistoricalChristian.Faith

The Cohortatio ad Graecos on the Origin of the Septuagint

Dates: c. AD 260 · Hortatory Address to the Greeks
Summary: The cells made physical — and the first eyewitness claim. The Cohortatio ad Graecos (Hortatory Address to the Greeks), an apologetic addressed to pagan readers and transmitted under the name of Justin Martyr but in fact by a later, unknown hand, gives the separate-cells miracle its fullest concrete form: Ptolemy housed the seventy translators in "as many little cots as there were translators," seven stadia off on the island of Pharos, each man working alone and forbidden to communicate, "in order that the accuracy of the translation might be discernible even by their agreement." When the drafts matched word for word the king judged the version "written by divine power." The author then does what no earlier witness had: he stakes the story on autopsy — "we ourselves having been in Alexandria, saw the remains of the little cots at the Pharos still preserved" — and names Philo and Josephus as his authorities.

Claims & evidence

The separate cells made physical, and the agreement as proof of divine power

"Ptolemy, king of Egypt, when he had built the library in Alexandria, and by gathering books from every quarter had filled it, then learnt that very ancient histories written in Hebrew happened to be carefully preserved; and wishing to know their contents, he sent for seventy wise men from Jerusalem, who were acquainted with both the Greek and Hebrew language, and appointed them to translate the books. And that in freedom from all disturbance they might the more speedily complete the translation, he ordered that there should be constructed, not in the city itself, but seven stadia off (where the Pharos was built), as many little cots as there were translators, so that each by himself might complete his own translation; and enjoined upon those officers who were appointed to this duty, to afford them all attendance, but to prevent communication with one another, in order that the accuracy of the translation might be discernible even by their agreement."

"And when he ascertained that the seventy men had not only given the same meaning, but had employed the same words, and had failed in agreement with one another not even to the extent of one word, but had written the same things, and concerning the same things, he was struck with amazement, and believed that the translation had been written by divine power, and perceived that the men were worthy of all honour, as beloved of God; and with many gifts ordered them to return to their own country. And having, as was natural, marvelled at the books, and concluded them to be divine, he consecrated them in that library."

— Hortatory Address to the Greeks 13, source. This is the device Irenaeus introduced — the translators sealed apart so that their unforeseeable agreement would compel belief — but rendered as architecture. Irenaeus had said only that the king "separated them from each other"; Clement dropped the isolation altogether and had the elders reach agreement by comparison. Here, for the first time on this timeline, the separation becomes a building program: a row of individual "cots" (Greek oikiskoi, little houses) on Pharos, one per translator, with guards posted to enforce silence. The miracle is the same as Irenaeus's — identical independent renderings down to the last word — but the machinery that produces it is now spelled out in stone.

"We ourselves … saw the remains of the little cots" — the first autopsy claim

"These things, ye men of Greece, are no fable, nor do we narrate fictions; but we ourselves having been in Alexandria, saw the remains of the little cots at the Pharos still preserved, and having heard these things from the inhabitants, who had received them as part of their country's tradition, we now tell to you what you can also learn from others, and specially from those wise and esteemed men who have written of these things, Philo and Josephus, and many others."

— Hortatory Address to the Greeks 13, source. No earlier teller had offered physical evidence. Aristeas, Philo, Josephus, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement told the story as received tradition; this author converts it into an eyewitness report, claiming to have walked the island and seen the ruined cells himself and to have heard the tradition from the locals. The move parallels Tertullian's appeal to the Hebrew originals on display "at the temple of Serapis" — both reach for tangible, checkable proof for a pagan audience — but Tertullian pointed to books, this author to the very buildings the miracle is said to have happened in. The citation of "Philo and Josephus" as sources is accurate as to names (both did write of the origin) but anachronistic as to substance: neither Philo nor Josephus has separate cells at all, so the autopsy authenticates a feature its own named authorities lack.

Notes

• Authorship and date. The Cohortatio ad Graecos is transmitted among the works of Justin Martyr but is not his; on grounds of style, sources, and theology it is the work of a later, unidentified writer, and is usually cited as Pseudo-Justin. Its date is disputed — proposals range from the mid-third century to the fourth — and it is placed here at c. AD 260, after Clement, following the conventional earlier dating; a later date would only push it further down the timeline without changing its place in the legend's development.
• The through-line: cells now explicit, and "still preserved." This is the witness at which the physical separate-cells apparatus, implicit in Irenaeus and absent in Clement, becomes fully concrete — individual cells, counted one per translator, on a named site, and claimed to be visible ruins in the author's own day. The legend's growth is here at its most vivid: not merely told but "seen." Later tellers elaborate the architecture further — Epiphanius will pair the translators in thirty-six houses, Augustine will marvel "as if the translators had been one" — but the eyewitness flourish is this author's own.
• "Seventy," not seventy-two. Like Irenaeus and Clement, the author writes "seventy wise men," the round number that named the version, rather than the precise seventy-two of Aristeas and Tertullian — yet still has "as many little cots as there were translators," so the count of cells silently follows the count of men.
• Apologetic aim. Like Justin and Tertullian, the author tells the story to commend the antiquity and reliability of the Hebrew Scriptures to a Greek readership — "no fable, nor do we narrate fictions" — not to charge the synagogue with corrupting the text. The inspired-translation premise that later underwrites the corruption charge is fully present, but its polemical edge against Aquila and the rival Greek versions, drawn by Irenaeus, is not in view here.