HistoricalChristian.Faith
HistoricalChristian.Faith
Dates: c. AD 175 · Wikipedia
Summary: The turning point. In Against Heresies III.21.2 Irenaeus is the first Christian
writer to give the legend its full inspiration-miracle form: Ptolemy, fearing the elders might collude to
conceal the truth, separates them from one another and orders each to write the whole translation alone;
when their independent versions prove identical "in the very same words and the very same names, from beginning to
end," even the Gentiles present recognize that "the Scriptures had been interpreted by the inspiration of God."
Philo had the marvel of unanimity; Irenaeus adds the isolation that
turns unanimity into proof — and he does so for a polemical end, to defend the Septuagint's "virgin" of Isaiah 7:14
against the Jewish proselytes Aquila and Theodotion, who rendered it "young woman." In the same breath (III.21.3) he
gives the tradition its other lasting prop — that "the apostles… agree with this aforesaid translation; and the
translation harmonizes with the tradition of the apostles" — the earliest patristic form of the claim that the apostolic
church's Old Testament was the Greek Septuagint.
"For before the Romans possessed their kingdom, while as yet the Macedonians held Asia, Ptolemy the son of Lagus, being anxious to adorn the library which he had founded in Alexandria, with a collection of the writings of all men, which were [works] of merit, made request to the people of Jerusalem, that they should have their Scriptures translated into the Greek language. And they—for at that time they were still subject to the Macedonians—sent to Ptolemy seventy of their elders, who were thoroughly skilled in the Scriptures and in both the languages, to carry out what he had desired. But he, wishing to test them individually, and fearing lest they might perchance, by taking counsel together, conceal the truth in the Scriptures, by their interpretation, separated them from each other, and commanded them all to write the same translation. He did this with respect to all the books. But when they came together in the same place before Ptolemy, and each of them compared his own interpretation with that of every other, God was indeed glorified, and the Scriptures were acknowledged as truly divine. For all of them read out the common translation [which they had prepared] in the very same words and the very same names, from beginning to end, so that even the Gentiles present perceived that the Scriptures had been interpreted by the inspiration of God."
— Against Heresies III.21.2, source. This is the hinge of the whole tradition. The earlier witnesses had the pieces separately: Aristeas and Josephus have the seventy-two elders but no marvel (their translators confer, reaching a text by collation); Philo has the marvel of identical language but his translators still work together "in a secret place." Irenaeus fuses them: by isolating the translators and then finding their separate drafts word-for-word identical, he converts Philo's inspiration into a public, testable demonstration of it. The physical "little cells" on Pharos, and the claim "we ourselves have seen the traces," are not yet here — that explicitness is added a generation later in the Cohortatio ad Graecos — but the logical machinery of the cells-miracle is now in place.
"And there was nothing astonishing in God having done this—He who, when, during the captivity of the people under Nebuchadnezzar, the Scriptures had been corrupted, and when, after seventy years, the Jews had returned to their own land, then, in the times of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, inspired Esdras the priest, of the tribe of Levi, to recast all the words of the former prophets, and to re-establish with the people the Mosaic legislation."
— Against Heresies III.21.2, source. Irenaeus braces the Septuagint marvel with a second one: just as God once re-created the lost Scriptures through an inspired Ezra after the Babylonian captivity, so He guided the seventy. The pairing reveals the doctrine's deep premise — that the authoritative text of Scripture is something God produces and guards by inspiration, not merely a manuscript transmitted by scribes. That premise is exactly what makes a later, divergent Hebrew text look like corruption, the charge gathered on the Rabbinic Corruption page.
"For the apostles, since they are of more ancient date than all these [heretics], agree with this aforesaid translation; and the translation harmonizes with the tradition of the apostles. For Peter, and John, and Matthew, and Paul, and the rest successively, as well as their followers, did set forth all prophetical [announcements], just as the interpretation of the elders contains them."
— Against Heresies III.21.3, source. Having told the inspiration-marvel, Irenaeus closes the argument by anchoring the Septuagint in the apostles themselves: the apostolic preaching and the Greek of the seventy are the same Scripture, each vouching for the other. It is the earliest patristic statement of what later apologists press as a self-standing thesis — that the apostles' working Old Testament was the Greek Septuagint, weighed across the timeline on the "was the apostles' Bible the Septuagint?" argument. For Irenaeus the point is still polemical, not canonical: the Greek text the apostles used carries his Isaiah 7:14 "virgin" against Aquila and Theodotion, and its agreement with "the tradition of the apostles" is what makes the heretics' fresh translations "impudent and presumptuous." He draws no inference about the extent of the Old Testament from it — that step belongs to the later argument, not to him.