(c) The Hebrew Scriptures have a second division which bears the name Prophets. In the earliest Hebrew list known to us, they are arranged as follows: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Twelve. This represents a second layer of canonical formation. It does not embrace the book of Daniel, and therefore must have been fixed before Daniel gained canonical recognition. It includes the prophecy Is. 24-26, which probably belongs to the time of Alexander the Great. Therefore this Canon cannot be earlier than the Greek period subsequent to Alexander in the third century B. C. This is confirmed by the testimony of Jesus ben Sirach from the early part of the second century B.C. In Ecclesiasticus,2 in the praise of the fathers, he goes over the heroes of the books of the Law, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve, especially mentioning the latter by the technical name of the Twelve.3 It is evident that the collection of the Twelve had then been closed, and all the Prophets were used as sacred books. That seems to carry with it the entire prophetic collection as we now have it. Furthermore, Daniel cites Jeremiah as belonging to the books, which implies a collection

of prophetic books of recognized divine authority.

In the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, written by the grandson of the author in the last half of the second century B.C., it is said that: "Many and great things have been delivered unto us by the Law and the Prophets, and by others that have followed their steps"; and the author speaks of his grandfather, Jesus ben Sirach, as having "given himself to the reading of the Law and the Prophets and other books of our fathers." These passages clearly recognize the division of the Prophets as next in the Canon to the division of the Law.

It is also probable that this second formation of the Canon, composed of the Law and the Prophets, is reflected in the phrase "the Law and the Prophets " of New Testament times.5 Excursus A, pp. 250 seq. Both of these are valuable discussions of the subject. They make it perfectly evident that no such body as the Great Synagogue ever existed. 1 See pp. 252 seq. 2 Chapters 44-50.

.רגם שנים עשר הנביאים .4910 .Ecclus 3

4 Dan. 92.

5 Mt. 517; Acts 1315.

The second Canon of the Old Testament seems to have been established in the high-priesthood of Simon, whose character and administration are so highly praised by Ben Sirach.1

(5) The third layer of the Hebrew Canon is composed of the Writings. These in the oldest lists are, Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles.

(a) It is still held by some scholars that the testimony of the grandson of Ben Sirach in his prologue to Ecclesiasticus is in favour of the opinion that the third division of the Canon had been fixed before his time. But the terms that are used do not make this evident. In the one passage he says: "by the Law and the Prophets, and by others that have followed their steps." In the other passage he says: "the reading of the Law and the Prophets and other books of our fathers." The Law and the Prophets are technical terms, but the other expressions differ so greatly in the two passages from one another, and also from the later technical term, that they evidently are not technical terms. It is quite true that none of the writings contained in the third division of the Hebrew Canon were composed subsequently to the second half of the second century B.C., but that does not prove that they had been collected into a canon in the third century B.C., or included by this prologue in its reference to the other writers or other books.

(b) It is improbable that the Greek Septuagint version would have added to this third division of the Canon and rearranged the books composing it, if it had been fixed before the translations were made.

The Septuagint gives a much larger collection of writings. The story prevailed for many centuries in the Eastern and Western churches that this translation was made by seventytwo accomplished scholars chosen from the twelve tribes of Israel, with the coöperation of Ptolemæus Philadelphus, king of Egypt, and the Jewish high-priest of Jerusalem, and that they were inspired to do their work by the Divine Spirit. This story has been traced to its simpler form in Josephus 2 2 Antiq. XII. 2.

1 Ecclus. 50.

and Philo,1 and back of these to the original letter of Aristeas, and that has been proved to be a forgery 2 and its statements have been shown to be wide of the truth. An internal examination of the Septuagint version shows it to have been made by different men on different principles and at different times. Frankel is followed by a large number of scholars in the opinion that the Septuagint was a Greek Targum which grew up gradually at first from the needs of the synagogue worship in Egypt and then from the desire of the Hellenistic Jews to collect together the religious literature of their nation, just as the Palestinian and Babylonian Targums were subsequently made for the Jews of Palestine and Syria who spoke Aramaic.3 Some of the sacred books, such as Daniel and Esther, have additional matter not found in the Hebrew Massoretic text. The apocryphal writings are mingled with those of the Hebrew Canon without discrimination. As Deane 5 says:

"If we judge from the MSS. that have come down to us, it would be impossible for any one, looking merely to the Septuagint version and its allied works, to distinguish any of the books in the collection as of less authority than others. There is nothing whatever to mark off the canonical writings from what have been called the deuterocanonical. They are all presented as of equal standing and authority, and, if we must make distinctions between them, and place some on a higher platform than others, this separation must be made on grounds which are not afforded by the arrangement of the various documents themselves."

(c) Another evidence for the fixture of the Old Testament Canon has been found in a supposed writing of Philo of the first Christian century.6 This work speaks of the Law, the Prophets, hymns, and other writings, making either three or four classes, but without specification of particular books. But this writing has recently been proved to have been written in the

1 Vita Mosis, II. §§ 5-7.

2 The original text of the letter is best given in Merx, Archiv für Wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten Testaments, I. pp. 242 seq. Halle, 1870. See

also pp. 188 seq.

8 Frankel, Vorstudien z. d. Septuaginta, Leipzig, 1841; Scholtz, Alexand. Uebersetz. d. Buch Iesaias, 1880, pp. 7 seq.

4 See p. 138 for the order of the books in the several codices of the Septuagint. 5 Book of Wisdom, Oxford, 1881, pp. 37 seq.

De Vita Contemp. S. III.

third century A.D., and wrongly attributed to Philo.1 The testimony of Philo is therefore reduced to the books that he quotes as of divine authority. He uses all of the Rabbinical Canon except Ruth, Esther, Ezekiel, Lamentations, Daniel, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs.2 He uses Proverbs and Job. This we would expect from Philo's type of thought and the subject-matter of his writings. But his omission of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs is surprising. These writings belong to the same class of Wisdom Literature as Job and Proverbs. They would have given him the very best field for his peculiar method of allegory. Ezekiel and Daniel, the symbolical prophets, we would expect him to make use of. Under these circumstances it is not valid to argue against the canonicity of the apocryphal books because Philo does not quote them as authoritative. The books of the Palestinian Canon which he omitted came within his scope more than the apocryphal writings. If silence is to be used against the Apocrypha, it is still more telling against those writings of the third Canon which he

omits.

"It is abundantly clear that to Philo the Pentateuch was a bible within a bible, and that he only occasionally referred to other books whose sanctity he acknowledged, as opportunity chanced to present itself. There are two reasons which, whether considered separately or in conjunction, may be said in a measure to account for Philo's silence in respect of these four books. (1) In the 1st century A.D. Some of the books of the Hagiographa were probably not yet accepted by all Jews as worthy to be ranked among the Holy Scriptures. (2) Some of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek much later than others; and the problems of the Greek text in, e.g. Daniel and Esther, show that there was often a considerable difference between the text of rival Greek versions, which fact must be considered to be incompatible with the early recognition of their sacred authority among the Jews of the Dispersion.

1 Lucius, Die Therapeuten und ihre Stellung in der Askese, Strassburg, 1880; Strack, art. Kanon, in Herzog, 2te Aufl., vii. p. 425; Einleitung, 5te Aufl., 1898, 8. 174; Massebieau, Le Traité de la Vie Contemplative, Paris, 1888, maintains its genuineness; and Sanday, Inspiration, 1893, p. 99, says: "the tide of opinion seems to have turned in its favour." I cannot agree with him.

2 Eichhorn, Einleitung, 3te Ausg. 1803, I. p. 98.

"It must be remembered that the mere citation of a book is not the same as the recognition of its Divine Inspiration. In the case of the books of Judges and Job, Philo quotes from them, but it is not strictly accurate to say that he definitely acknowledges their position as inspired Scripture. The evidence does not permit us to go so far. At the same time it is practically impossible that a book like Judges, included as it was among the "Prophets" of the Hebrew Canon of Scripture, should have been rejected by Philo; and exceedingly unlikely that Job, one of the most important of the poetical Hagiographa, should not have ranked in his estimation as Scripture. While we may feel convinced that these books were in Philo's Scripture, the evidence does not amount to actual demonstration.

"The case is different with Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Daniel, which have been among the latest books to be received into the sacred Canon. It may indeed be said of any one of them, as might, perhaps, be said of the book of Ezekiel, that they did not furnish Philo with suitable material for quotation, or that Philo was, for some reason, not so close a student of these books. "But another explanation is possible. In the case of all four of these books, there is good ground for supposing that their Canonicity had not been fully recognized in Egypt in the lifetime of Philo. And while, in view of other evidence, we may claim that the Canonicity of Daniel was probably generally established in Palestine in the 1st century B.C., and possibly also that of Ecclesiastes, we have not the right to make the same plea for the recognition of Esther and the Song of Songs." 1

(d) Josephus 2 mentions 22 books as making up his Canon -five of the Law, thirteen of the Prophets, and four of the poems and precepts. He uses all of the Talmudic Canon except. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Job. The silence of Josephus as to these cannot be pressed, because they did not clearly come within his scope. Various efforts have been made to determine his books, but without conclusive results. If on the one hand the lists of Origen and Jerome favour the Talmudic Canon, the list of Junilius Africanus favours the exclusion of Chronicles, Ezra, Job, Song of Songs, and Esther. Graetz 5 excludes the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes from the list of 1 Ryle, Philo and Holy Scripture, 1895, pp. xxxii, xxxiii. 2 Contra Apion, I. 8.

3 Eichhorn, in l.c., I. p. 123.

See Kihn, Theodore von Mopsuestia und Julius Africanus als Exegeten, Freib. 1880, p. 86. 5 Gesch. d. Juden, III. p. 501, Leipzig, 1863.