Origen
Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, Asceticism#Christianity, ascetic, and Christian theology, theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Early cent ...
's
Hexapla
''Hexapla'' (), also called ''Origenis Hexaplorum'', is a Textual criticism, critical edition of the Hebrew Bible in six versions, four of them translated into Ancient Greek, Greek, preserved only in fragments. It was an immense and complex wor ...
, a compilation of the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" . '' As such it serves as an important document for Hebrew
philology
Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...
, in particular the study of
Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...
phonology.
Authorship
There is contention as to whether Origen wrote the Secunda, or perhaps a contemporary of his, or that it was a copy of a preexisting older text. Some suppose that Origen wrote the text himself, perhaps with Jewish helpers. Others think that the Secunda was a preexisting text added into the Hexapla as an aid for the reader. There is evidence that Jews of the time made use of transcriptions; for instance, a passage in the Jerusalem Talmud describes how the Jews of Caesarea would misread the
Tetragrammaton
The TetragrammatonPronounced ; ; also known as the Tetragram. is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliteration, transliterated as YHWH or YHVH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from ...
as the graphically similar ', suggesting the use of transcribed texts with the Tetragrammaton preserved in Hebrew characters. There is also phonetic evidence for the Secunda being a preexisting text. By the time of Origen, < η αι > were pronounced ː ɛː a merger which had already begun around 100 BCE, while in the Secunda, they are used to represent Hebrew /eː aj/.
Orthography
The text of the Secunda uses various
Greek diacritics
Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The more complex polytonic orthography (), which includes five diacritics, notates Ancient Greek phonology. The simpler monotonic orthography (), introduce ...
iota
Iota (; uppercase Ι, lowercase ι; ) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh. Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin I and J, the Cyrillic І (І, і), Yi (Ї, ї), and J ...
(<ι> to <ϊ>) precisely when iota occurs after a vowel, except when <ει> indicates /iː/. This is completely independent of whether the segment is consonantal or vocalic in Hebrew, as the following examples attest:
: Secunda αλαϊ ''alaï'' /a.la.i/ = Tiberian ''ʿālay'' /ʕaːlaj/
: Secunda φεδιων ''phediōn'' /pʰɛ.di.on/ = Tiberian ''pīḏyōn'' /piːð.joːn/
The diaeresis was a later addition of the 8th or 9th century to the Secunda.
The use of rough and
smooth breathing
The smooth breathing (; ''psilí''; ) is a diacritical mark used in polytonic orthography. In Ancient Greek, it marks the absence of the voiceless glottal fricative from the beginning of a word.
Some authorities have interpreted it as repr ...
signs does not follow an obvious pattern; for example, compare:
: Secunda ἀμιμ ''amim'' /a.mim/ = Tiberian ''ʿammīm'' /ʕam'miːm/ versus ἁφαρ ''haphar'' /(h)a.pʰar/ = ''ʿāp̄ār'' /ʕaːfaːr/. These signs were also an addition of the 8th or 9th century.
The use of accents in the Secunda does not correspond with stress in Masoretic Hebrew; their presence remains a puzzle.