051

LXXII.

Ptolemy, the king (of Egypt), assembled seventy-two elders of Israel and lodged them in seventy-two separate chambers, but did not tell them why he did so. Then he visited. each one in turn and said, "Write out for me the law of Moses your Rabbi." The Holy One--blessed be He!--went and counseled the minds of everyone of them, so that they all agreed, and wrote, "God created in the beginning," etc.

Meggillah, fol. 9, col. 1. The Talmudic story of the origin of the Septuagint agrees in the main with the account of Aristeas and Josephus, but Philo, gives the different version. Many of the Christian fathers believed it to be the work of inspiration.