(iii.) Distortions of Old Testament narratives. Examples of this are the exaggerated account of the Egyptian plagues and the miracles wrought in the Desert-wanderings (see Wisd. 11. 2-20). Compare also the additions to the Books of Esther and Daniel with the Canonical portions of these books.

(iv.) The introduction of fictitious letters and other documents, and the attempt to gain glory for the Jewish nation or its conspicuous men by the invention or exaggeration of incidents tending to their credit. Examples are to be found in 1st [3rd] Esdras and 2 and 3 Maccabees.

So much we may say as to the less favourable characteristics of the books of the Apocrypha, and the reasons, whether connected with these characteristics or not, which draw a broad line of demarcation between them and the books which we receive as Canonical.

On the other hand, they form an extremely valuable branch of religious literature :—

(i.) They supply a connecting link between the Old and New Testaments. When we compare the religious condition of the Jews in the earlier period after the Return, with that of the same nation as disclosed to us in the time of our Lord's earthly ministry, we become aware of a considerable advance. Between the days of Nehemiah and of John the Baptist much had happened. Not only is there no mention of any inclination to idolatry, but monotheism is securely established. There is in the air a strong Messianic hope. The doctrine of the resurrection of the body and of a future life now holds a place in the most cherished convictions of the most religious portion of the nation. The Scriptures are the objects of deep reverence and of earnest study, even if that study be not always of the most enlightened

Now the books of the Apocrypha give us by far the fullest and the most trustworthy accounts obtainable as to the process of change which produced these results. When inspired authority is silent, we have recourse to such information as we can obtain, and we here find a portion of the unconscious "Praeparatio Evangelica," paving the way for the central event in the world's history. Dr. Salmon* supplies us with illustrations of the historical value of the Apocrypha from this point of view, in relation to the doctrine of a future life. He points out that "the third part of the Homily on the Fear of Death offers proof of the belief in a future life held by 'the holy fathers of the old Law,' but these proofs are taken exclusively from the Book of Wisdom. And it would not be possible to replace the two passages from that book selected as the lesson for All Saints' Day, by two other Old Testament chapters expressing the same belief with equal distinctness."†

(ii.) The same writer points out the value of a knowledge of these books as supplying a key to the interpretation of current allusions in modern literature, otherwise incomprehensible, e.g. "A Daniel come to judgment," "The affable archangel" §; or,

"the sociable spirit, that deign'd

To travel with Tobias, and secured

His marriage with the seven-times-wedded maid." ||

or "magna est veritas et praevalet."¶

(iii.) Again, they preserve to us the peculiar features which were the result of the contact of Jewish religious thought and

*Op. cit., p. xlb.

+ P. xxxvi.

Merchant of Venice, Act. iv., Sc. 1.

§ Paradise Lost, vii. 41.

Ibid., v. 221 ff.

Dr. Salmon, however, in common with nearly everyone else, has praevalebit, and thus fails to give the saying quite in accordance with the Greek, in which the tense is present, not future. (Meyáλn ǹ åλýðłeia kaì vñepiσxvel, 1 Esd. 4. 41).

Greek philosophy, of sacred learning and the highest cultivation which heathendom could shew. "They help to unfold the process of preparation by which Graeco-Jewish thought and language grew to be the chief instrument, in the writings of the Apostles and in the preaching of the early Christians, for the spread and development of a new and a universal religion. They illustrate the condition of the Jewish people, their habit of thought, their literary taste and skill, their mental training, their historical judgment at or about the Christian era.'

(iv.) We may add that their quotations from the Canonical Books of the Old Testament, quotations made from the Septuagint Version of those books, form a testimony in themselves to the completion of the Canon and to the age of the earliest Greek Version of its contents.

* Ryle, as above, p. 1826.

CHAPTER XII.

HISTORICAL OR QUASI-HISTORICAL BOOKS.

1. The Third Book of Esdras.

THE Third Book of Esdras is the title given in our Sixth

Article to the book which stands first on the list there given of received Apocrypha. This title it takes from the numbering in the Vulgate, which calls our Ezra and Nehemiah the First Book of Esdras and the Second Book of Esdras respectively.

*

On the other hand, the Septuagint † combines our canonical Books of Ezra and Nehemiah into one book, which it calls the Second Book of Esdras, and places in front of them the one with which we are now dealing-perhaps as taking up the history at an earlier point-under the title of the First Book of Esdras. As we shall presently be comparing the Greek text of this book with the form in which large portions of it appear in other parts of the Septuagint Version, it will be convenient to adopt for our present purpose the Septuagint nomenclature.

St. Jerome,§ while rejecting the two Apocryphal books of Esdras, and calling them dreams, shews that the former (the subject of our consideration at present) was found in the LXX. of his day, while he also says that Ezra and Nehemiah

*It may be noted that this book is wanting in Codex Amiatinus and elsewhere. And so the Old Latin. See Sabatier, Bibliorum sacr. Latina versiones antiquæ, Rheims, 1748.

The reign of Josiah. See below.

§ Præfatio Hier. in Ezram. Migne, Patrologia xxviii. 1403a.

|| Somnia, a name more appropriate, as we shall see later, to what the Sixth Article calls "The Fourth Book of Esdras."

66 even among the Hebrews,"* were combined into one book. He further speaks of the variations of text which characterized the MSS. of this book—a statement which is amply borne out by those still extant. We may add that the Council of Trent (1546 A.D.), in defining the Canon of Scripture, omitted this book, whether as unaware that it existed in Greek, or as being determined by the authority of St. Jerome.

PARALLELISM TO CERTAIN PARTS OF CANONICAL SCRIPTURE.

We find that the book, with the exception of one section (chaps. 3, 4, 5. 1–6), runs on parallel lines with certain parts of 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. A conspectus of the parallel portions here follows:

In Ezra 4. 1-6 is related the opposition of the Samaritans which followed immediately upon the return from Babylon (538 B.C.). There then follows the section (vv. 7-24), which deals with Samaritan hostility to the Jews about the middle of the following century: while thereupon (Ezra 5. 1, etc.) we are immediately brought back to circ. 521 B.C. (the second year of Darius), when the work was resumed. In the further displacement in 1 Esdras we see still more strongly emphasized the juxtaposition of the events of this section with those of the

* et apud Hebræos.

For the probable cause of the omission of the book from the Codex FridericoAugustanus (Sinaiticus) see Lupton, Speaker's Commentary, "Introduction to First Esdras," p. 1.

See Ryle, Ezra, etc. (“Cambridge Bible for Schools"), pp. xvi., 64 ff.

S 7551.

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