HistoricalChristian.Faith

Eusebius of Caesarea on the Origin of the Septuagint

Dates: c. AD 313 · Praeparatio Evangelica VIII
Summary: The compiler — the legend gathered, and given a providential frame. Eusebius, the first Church historian, does not so much add to the origin story as collect its sources and set them in order. In the Chronicon he notes in passing that the Greek text "was translated by seventy Hebrew men… in complete harmony" under Ptolemy Philadelphus; in the Praeparatio Evangelica he transcribes the Letter of Aristeas at length, prefacing it with a new theological reading — the translation was God's own doing, arranged so the prophecies of Christ should stand ready in Greek for the nations before He came; and in the Church History he reproduces Irenaeus's separate-cells miracle verbatim. His distinctive contribution is the frame: the inspired translation is now an act of divine providence for the Gentile mission — the same premise that, turned against the synagogue's later Hebrew, becomes the corruption charge he presses elsewhere on the chronology of Genesis.

Claims & evidence

The Chronicon: seventy translators "in complete harmony," and the Septuagint as the text "we use"

"The Greek translation also differs significantly from the Jewish version in some respects, but it does not differ much from the Hebrew version of the Samaritans. There are some differences in the period up to the flood; but from then onwards until the time of Abraham, the two versions are in agreement.

The text which we use was translated by seventy Hebrew men, out of their native language into Greek. They produced the translation in complete harmony during the reign of Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, and placed it in the library at Alexandria."

— Chronicon, Book 1, source. The origin notice here is bare and almost incidental, dropped in to authorize the recension Eusebius is about to use for his world chronology: "seventy" translators (not the seventy-two of Aristeas), Ptolemy Philadelphus, the library at Alexandria, and the single word that carries the whole later legend — the version was made "in complete harmony." That phrase is the unanimity-marvel of Philo and Irenaeus compressed to a clause; the separate cells and the inspiration argument are not spelled out here but in the Church History. The same chapter is where Eusebius collates the Septuagint, Hebrew, and Samaritan reckonings of Genesis 5–11 and concludes the Greek preserves the original — the chronology charge treated on the rabbinic-corruption timeline.

The Praeparatio Evangelica: God arranged the translation for the Gentile mission

"For when the light of the salutary preaching of our Saviour was all but ready to shine forth unto all men in the Roman empire… God Himself, the author of these blessings, anticipating the future by His foreknowledge as God, arranged that the predictions concerning Him who was to appear before long as the Saviour of all mankind… should be revealed to them all, and be brought into the light by being accurately translated, and set up in public libraries. So God put it into the mind of King Ptolemy to accomplish this, in preparation, as it seems, for that participation in them by all the nations which was so soon to take place.

For we should not otherwise have got from the Jews those oracles which they would have hidden away for their jealousy of us; but these in consequence of the divinely ordered interpretation were vouchsafed to us in a translation by the men who were approved among them for intelligence and hereditary culture."

— Praeparatio Evangelica VIII, Preface, source. This is Eusebius's own addition to the tradition. Earlier tellers had ascribed the translation to God's inspiration; Eusebius ascribes the whole occasion to providence — God "put it into the mind of King Ptolemy" so that the messianic prophecies would be on public record in Greek, among the nations, before Christ appeared. The pagan king becomes an unwitting instrument of the Gentile mission. The note's polemical undertow is already audible: but for "the divinely ordered interpretation," the Jews "would have hidden away" the oracles "for their jealousy of us" — the inspired-Septuagint premise pointed, in advance, against the synagogue. Having framed the matter so, Eusebius then quotes the Letter of Aristeas "word for word" as his authority.

The Church History: Irenaeus's separate-cells miracle, transmitted verbatim

"But wishing to try them individually, as he feared lest, by taking counsel together, they might conceal the truth of the Scriptures by their interpretation, he separated them from one another, and commanded all of them to write the same translation. He did this for all the books.

But when they came together in the presence of Ptolemy, and compared their several translations, God was glorified, and the Scriptures were recognized as truly divine. For all of them had rendered the same things in the same words and with the same names from beginning to end, so that the heathen perceived that the Scriptures had been translated by the inspiration of God."

— Church History V.8, quoting Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.21.2, and closing "Such are the words of Irenaeus," source. Eusebius does not retell the inspiration miracle in his own voice; he preserves it, lifting Irenaeus's account into the Church History as documentation. This is the form on which the legend's separate-cells line depends — the translators sealed apart, their independent drafts agreeing word for word, the heathen onlookers compelled to confess divine inspiration. By embedding it in the standard narrative of Christian history Eusebius did as much as anyone to fix the miracle in the tradition, even while his own fresh framing (the Praeparatio's providence) and his own data (the Chronicon's chronology) lay elsewhere.

Notes

• A transmitter more than an inventor. Eusebius's role on this timeline is largely curatorial: he reproduces Aristeas in full (Praep. Ev. VIII) and Irenaeus's separate-cells miracle verbatim (Church History V.8). He adds no new physical detail to the cells — that step had already been taken by the Cohortatio — and keeps Irenaeus's round "seventy," not the seventy-two of Aristeas. What is his own is the providential frame in the Praeparatio.
• The legend gathering its own sources. In Church History VII.32 Eusebius quotes Anatolius of Laodicea calling the second-century Aristobulus one "chosen among the seventy interpreters of the sacred and divine Hebrew Scriptures by Ptolemy Philadelphus and his father" — an anachronism of a century that folds a later witness back into the translation he supposedly took part in. Eusebius passes it on without demur, a sign of how settled the seventy-translators frame had become.¹
• Two strands, one writer. Eusebius carries both threads this project tracks. Here he transmits the origin legend and frames it as providence; on the rabbinic-corruption timeline the same Chronicon chapter argues that the Jews shortened the Hebrew begetting-ages of Genesis 5–11, so the Septuagint preserves the original chronology. The inspired-Septuagint premise of the one underwrites the corruption charge of the other.
• Dating. The Praeparatio Evangelica is conventionally dated c. AD 313; the Chronicon's first edition is c. 311 (the surviving Armenian reflects the later, c. 325 recension), and the Church History grew through several editions c. 313–325. The page anchors at c. 313, after the Cohortatio and before Cyril of Jerusalem.

Sources