That the early church used the Septuagint is not in dispute; even its critics concede it. This page is about something stronger. Across regions and centuries, the church’s teachers said the translation was the work of God, defended its readings in public argument, and grounded its authority in the apostles’ own use. And when one scholar finally broke ranks to translate from the Hebrew, the reaction, from the leading theologian of the age down to a congregation in North Africa, measured how settled the conviction was.
Greek-speaking Christians reading a Greek Bible proves little by itself. The question is conviction: did the church’s teachers merely use the Septuagint, or did they hold it as authoritative Scripture, say so, and defend it when it was challenged?
Anchor exhibits, quoted verbatim from the primary sources in their standard 19th-century English translations, each checked against the published text. A fuller ledger mapping the conviction across every region and century is in progress; this page presents the anchor cases and counts the dissent alongside them.
That the conviction was real, broad, and defended, and that the one famous break confirms it. It does not claim unanimity, it does not claim the Greek text is superior to the Hebrew, and it does not ask anyone to obey the Fathers. They are witnesses here, not authorities.
If the claim is right, the Fathers should not just quote the translation. They should make statements about it. They do, across the map.
The Scriptures have been interpreted with such fidelity, and by the grace of God… the apostles, since they are of more ancient date than all these, agree with this aforesaid translation; and the translation harmonizes with the tradition of the apostles.
Irenaeus does not defend the Septuagint in the abstract. He defends a specific reading: “the virgin shall conceive” at Isaiah 7:14, against Theodotion and Aquila, “both Jewish proselytes,” who rendered the word “a young woman.” These are the same second-century revisers documented on the Jewish history page. Within two generations of the apostles, a bishop in Gaul knew the translations differed, knew where, and argued that the church’s text carried both the grace of God and the agreement of the apostles.
Are we to suppose that that Providence which in the sacred Scriptures has ministered to the edification of all the Churches of Christ, had no thought for those bought with a price, for whom Christ died?
Origen is the hardest witness to dismiss, because he knew more about the differences between the Greek and the Hebrew than anyone alive. He built the Hexapla, a six-column edition comparing them line by line. Challenged on why he used disputed Greek readings at all, his answer was the Providence quote above, and his account of his own method: he labored “in all the editions and various readings,” paying particular attention “to the interpretation of the Seventy, lest I might be found to accredit any forgery to the Churches.” Full knowledge of the differences, and a settled loyalty to the church’s text.
The Church has received this Septuagint translation just as if it were the only one… For the same Spirit who was in the prophets when they spoke these things was also in the seventy men when they translated them.
Augustine’s ground for the Septuagint was not church custom. Writing to Jerome, he called it the version that “has no mean authority, seeing that it has obtained so wide circulation, and was the one which the apostles used.” That is the same fact documented on the New Testament page of this series, used in the year 403 as the decisive argument by the most influential theologian in Christian history.
A consensus is only credible if the exceptions are on the ledger. There are real ones, and they are famous.
An innovation is only a scandal against a settled conviction. Jerome’s new translation produced a decade of letters between the two greatest scholars of the age, and one near-riot. The reaction is the measurement.
Hearing of Jerome’s project, Augustine asks him to translate the Old Testament the cautious way, from the Greek, or at least “with the addition of notes” marking every departure, as Jerome had done with Job. The letters travel badly; some take years to arrive, and the tone sours with the delays.
A bishop in Oea, in Roman North Africa, reads Jerome’s new Jonah to his congregation. At Jonah 4:6, the plant is no longer the “gourd” the church had chanted for generations. The congregation erupts, “especially among the Greeks,” denouncing the reading as false, and the bishop is forced to consult the town’s Jewish residents to defend the new wording. Augustine reports the scene to Jerome as evidence of what the new translation will cost.
Note who the rioters are defending: not the Hebrew original, but the Greek translation’s wording as their scripture. The Septuagint was not a scholars’ preference. It was the congregation’s Bible, known by heart.
Jerome concedes nothing. He explains the Hebrew word behind the disputed plant, defends translating “from the Hebrew itself,” and closes with the veteran’s jab at the younger bishop: “do not, because you are young, challenge a veteran in the field of Scripture… The tired ox treads with a firmer step.”
Fairness to Jerome is the strongest move here, and this page keeps it. His Hebrew scholarship was real, and his case that a translation of a translation drifts was serious. The decisive, narrow point: even Jerome argued the Hebrew was more exact. He never called the church’s Greek Bible illegitimate.
Augustine restates his position in its final form: the Septuagint carries “the seal of approbation… given by the apostles themselves.” His fear is practical: if the Latin churches read one Old Testament and the Greek churches another, the church divides over its own Bible.
Augustine’s last word, in City of God, makes room for both texts: the same Spirit in the prophets was in the translators, and where they differ, both may be honored. History’s verdict split the same way. Jerome’s Vulgate became the Latin West’s Bible over the following centuries, and the Greek East never left the Septuagint, to this day.
Thereupon arose such a tumult in the congregation, especially among the Greeks, correcting what had been read, and denouncing the translation as false, that the bishop was compelled to ask the testimony of the Jewish residents.
Made and revered in the synagogue. Argued from by Jesus. Built on by the apostles. Kept by the church.
The reader shows the Greek beside two public-domain English translations. The gourd is still at Jonah 4:6, where the congregation at Oea defended it.
Quotations follow the standard 19th-century English translations (Ante-Nicene Fathers and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series), verified verbatim against the published texts. The Augustine and Jerome letters survive in both men’s collections and carry a number in each; both are given. A fuller research ledger for this page is in progress.