HistoricalChristian.Faith

Eustathius of Tarihan on the Origin of the Septuagint

Dates: c. AD 750 · Commentaries (Introduction)
Summary: The legend in its developed Syriac form, opening a biblical commentary. Eustathius of Tarihan — an East Syriac (Church of the East) writer of the see of Tirhan, on the Tigris — prefaces his Commentaries with the origin story in full: "seventy elders" sent for by Ptolemy "king of Egypt" to render "the books of the prophets" from Hebrew into Greek, housed in "small lodgings corresponding to the number of them" seventy stadia outside Alexandria, each man working "by himself alone" under attendants who supplied every need and kept them from talking — so that, the drafts proving identical "through the conformity of their words," the king "believed that the translation had been made by the power of God." Both the separate cells and the inspiration miracle are present, in the round-seventy form, with the scope widened past the Law to "the prophets." ⚠ This witness is cited from the verbatim translation printed by the Wassersteins; the underlying Syriac has not been independently collated against a critical edition. The author's identity (possibly the East-Syriac writer Shahdost of Tirhan) and the c. 750 date — the collection's, not securely the author's — remain uncertain.

Claims & evidence

The separate cells and the inspiration miracle — round-seventy, the books of the prophets

The introduction to Eustathius's Commentaries gives the legend in one continuous telling:

"…the seventy elders whom Ptolemy, the king of Egypt sent for, summoning them from Jerusalem, in order that they might translate for him the books of the prophets from Hebrew into Greek. In order that these might be free from all disturbance, and translate rapidly, he commanded that there should be built for them small lodgings corresponding to the number of them, not in Alexandria, but at (a distance of) seventy stadia, so that each one of them should complete his translation by himself alone. And it was commanded the attendants who were stationed with them that they should meet every need. They should prevent them from talking with one another – so that it should be possible that the accuracy of their translations would be manifestly known, through the conformity of their words. Now because he knew that these seventy men employed not only the (same) sense but also the (same) words, and had not deviated among themselves in a single word from the conformity of words, but had written there the same (words), and about the same matters, then he believed that the translation had been made by the power of God. And he knew that they were worthy of all honours, as men who love God. He gave instructions that they should return to their own land with many gifts."¹

For the through-line this timeline traces — whether each teller carries the separate cells and the inspiration claim — Eustathius carries both, in their strong form. The cells are explicit ("small lodgings corresponding to the number of them… each one of them should complete his translation by himself alone"), the isolation is enforced (attendants "stationed with them" to "prevent them from talking with one another"), and the agreement is turned into proof of inspiration: because the seventy "had not deviated… in a single word," the king "believed that the translation had been made by the power of God." It is the Irenaean machinery — sealed isolation producing unforeseeable unanimity — kept whole, two centuries deeper into the Syriac East than Zacharias, whose bare Eusebian abridgment had dropped the cells and the marvel altogether.

What is distinctive — the prophets, the seventy stadia, and the round seventy

Three features mark his telling. First, the scope: the elders are summoned to translate "the books of the prophets," not the Law — the same quiet widening from Pentateuch to the whole Greek Old Testament that Justin ("the books of the prophets"), Clement ("the law and… the prophets"), and Cyril of Alexandria ("the holy prophets") had been settling into the tradition. Second, the place: the cells stand "not in Alexandria, but at (a distance of) seventy stadia" — a generalized echo of the Cohortatio's island of Pharos "seven stadia" offshore, without naming Pharos, the distance now itself a round figure. Third, the count: he keeps the round "seventy" of Eusebius, Clement, and Isidore — "seventy elders," "these seventy men" — not the seventy-two of Aristeas. He names neither Demetrius the librarian nor Eleazar the high priest nor "Philadelphus," giving only "Ptolemy, the king of Egypt"; the frame has been pared to the essentials — king, seventy, cells, identical drafts, divine power, gifts home — and set as the preface to a working commentary, the legend now the assumed warrant for the Greek text the commentator is about to expound.

Notes

• Who he is. Eustathius of Tarihan (the Greek name corresponds to the Syriac Shahdost, "friend of martyrs") was a writer of the East Syriac see of Tirhan, a diocese of the Church of the East on the Tigris southeast of Mosul, attested from the sixth century onward. He is a minor figure; the legend survives in the introduction to his biblical Commentaries, dated in the collection drawn on here to about AD 750. Biographical detail is thin, and the identification should be held loosely.
• Where the East Syriac chain stands. He belongs to the long Syriac and Arabic transmission of the legend that runs from Zacharias of Mitylene (the bare Eusebian form, c. 518) down through Ishodad of Merv, Moses bar Kepha, and the Arabic chroniclers to the thirteenth century. Against Zacharias's one-sentence abridgment, Eustathius restores the full apparatus — the cells, the enforced silence, the identical drafts, the inference of divine power — showing that the developed inspiration-miracle form, not only the bare commission, was alive in the eighth-century East.
• Text and provenance. The English is quoted verbatim as printed in Abraham & David J. Wasserstein, The Legend of the Septuagint: From Classical Antiquity to Today (Cambridge, 2006), which translates the Syriac of the commentary's introduction. The underlying Syriac has not been independently collated against a critical edition, so the page is sourced to the Wassersteins' verbatim translation.

Sources