his niece could no longer have been so distinguished as was Esther for personal charms.* Darius Hystaspis married daughters of Cyrus and of one of his associates in the conspiracy against Smerdis; he would hardly have dared ignominiously to divorce one of them. Not one of the names of his counsellors, preserved by Herodotus,† corresponds with the names of the same officers in this book; nor did his character or his treatment of the Jews § at all correspond with what is here reported of Ahasuerus. The Persian kings before Darius were Cyaxares, Cyrus, Cambyses, and Smerdis; but the longest of their reigns was of less than eight years' duration, whereas Ahasuerus is represented to have reigned at least twelve or thirteen years. In short, it is in vain to undertake to show what Persian king the author had in his mind. It is not likely that the author himself entertained any such question. He set down what had reached him of the occasion of an ancient institution. As to time and characters, he was writing at a venture.

I have already remarked, that those portions of the Book of Esther which are not found in the Hebrew Bible are in the Septuagint interpolated in different parts of the canonical book, so as to make with it one connected whole.

The Greek copy opens with the account of the dream of Mordecai, and of the information conveyed by him

*To escape this inference, it has been suggested that it is not Mordecai, but his great-grandfather, Kish, who is related to have been carried to Babylon with Jehoiachin; with what probability, let the reader compare Esther ii. 5, 7, and judge.

† Lib. III. §§ 70, 84.

Esther i. 14.

§ Comp. Joseph. "Antiq. Jud.," Lib. XI. capp. 3, 4.

|| Esther iii. 7.

to Ahasuerus, of the conspiracy against his life.* Here are given the same statements as in a later place, of the descent of Mordecai, and of his transportation to Babylon with Jehoiachin; † a mere repetition without use, if both originally made parts of the same treatise. Here, also, the promotion of Mordecai to be "a great man, a servitor in the king's court," is represented to have been as early as "the second year of the reign of Artaxerxes," and antecedent to the transactions described in the narrative; ‡ contrary to other statements, that he was not advanced till after the accession of Esther, and after the seventh year of that monarch's reign.§ The names of the two conspirators are here differently given; || Mordecai "certified the king," it is said, as if he had the means of doing so directly, without any necessity of having recourse to Esther's intervention; ¶ he is related to have been rewarded for his fidelity at the time, and not on an investigation long after; ** and Haman is called a Bugaan, instead of an Agagite, as in the Hebrew, or a Macedonian, as elsewhere in the Greek.tt

What purports to be a copy of the royal proclamation for the destruction of the Jews, is inserted in the Greek between the thirteenth and fourteenth verses of the third chapter of the canonical book. ‡‡ The narrative appears incomplete without it.

*Esther xi. 2 - xii. 6.

† xi. 2-4; comp. ii. 5, 6. xi. 3; xii. 1.

i. 3; ii. 16, 19; iii. 1, 2.

xii. 1; comp. ii. 21, vi. 2.

Txii. 2; comp. ii. 22.

** xii. 5; comp. vi. 3, et seq.

ffxii. 6 (the English version, I know not on what authority, avoids the word "Bugæan," which is in the Vulgate as well as in the Greek); comp. iii. 1; xvi. 10.

‡‡ xiii. 1–7.

Between the fourth and fifth chapters are inserted prayers, said to have been offered by Mordecai and Esther after their conference on the perils encompassing their people; * after which follows an account of the same interview between Esther and the king which is related in the canonical book, but much more full and circumstantial than in the other account. Indeed, these are so different, that they must be regarded as independent records of the same transaction, almost as much as the different accounts of the persecution under one of the Ptolemies. +

The proclamation in favor of the Jews, which is only related in the canonical book to have been issued, is in the Greek inserted in full in its place in the eighth chapter.§ In it, not only is Haman called "a Macedonian," but he is said to have plotted to reduce the Persians to the Macedonian sway, circumstances which sufficiently indicate the comparatively modern date of the composition.|| What is further observable is, that in this decree the Persians are commanded by their king to keep a festival of rejoicing for the Jews' escape, instead of its being a merely national commemoration. T

Finally, the Greek book closes with the statement, that Mordecai remembered the dream related at its beginning, and, in the light of the great transactions through which he had passed, he now clearly saw its significance.**

The Book of Esther belongs to the class of the Jewish Aggadoth, as that description of writings has been

* Esther xiii. 7-xiv. 19.

See above, pp. 213-215.

|| xvi. 10, 14.

**

x. 4-13.

† xv. 1-16; comp. v. 1, 2.
xvi. 1-24; comp. viii. 13.
Txvi. 1, 22-24; comp. ix. 20-22.

heretofore defined. As to its canonical authority, it is not embraced in the catalogue of Melito, nor in those of Athanasius and the Council of Carthage.† It is not quoted, or referred to, in the New Testament.

"The Books of Judith and Esther," says the cautious Corrodi, "are not unlike. The former, too, is a story representing a Jewish woman as extricating her people from imminent danger of destruction, and so giving occasion to the institution of a Thanksgiving Feast. To that book and the Book of Tobit undeserved honor has been accorded, in their reception into the canon by so large a portion of the Christian world. Yet in my opinion the Book of Esther is inferior to both, in a moral point of view, presenting no such rules of conduct, no such pieces of devotion, no such intimations of future retribution, no such views of Divine Providence, as abound in the other two books."‡

* See above, p. 127, note †.

† See Vol. I. pp. 32, 37, 38.

"Versuch einer Beleuchtung," u. s. w., ss. 125, 126.

NEUS, -OF ALEXANDRA, OF HYRCANUS, - -OF ARISTOBULUS II.. DISTURBANCES EXCITED BY THE PHARISEES. - ARRIVAL OF POMPEY IN SYRIA. · REINSTATEMENT OF HYRCanus. -RISE OF ANTIPATER TO

POWER. CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM, AND CHANGES IN THE GOVERNMENT, BY THE ROMANS. VISITS OF POMPEY AND CRASSUS TO THE TEMPLE. - HYRCANUS DEPOSED, AND ANTIGONUS PLACED ON THE THRONE, BY THE PARTHIANS. HEROD THE GREAT MADE KING OF JUDEA BY THE ROMANS.-HIS ESPOUSAL OF THE ASMONEAN PRINCESS MARIAMNE. HIS FORTUNES AND CHARACTER. - - BUILDING OF CESAREA, SEBASTE, A ROYAL PALACE, AND THE TEMPLE. BIRTH OF JESUS AT BETHLEHEM.-DEATH OF HEROD. REIGN OF ARCHELAUS.-JUDEA REDUCED TO A ROMAN PROVINCE. ADMINISTRATION OF COPONIUS,—

--

OF PONTIUS PILATE.-
AND THE SADDUCEES..
- CURRENCY OF THE

OF AMBIVIUS, OF RUFUS, OF GRATUS,
SECTS OF THE ESSENES, -THE PHARISEES,
INSTITUTION AND WORSHIP OF THE SYNAGOGUES.
ALEXANDRINE VERSION. BAPTISM OF JESUS. DISPERSION OF JEWS
THROUGHOUT THE EMPIRE. CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE STATE OF OPIN-
ION, AND IN THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF
WORLD, FAVORABLE TO THE PROMULGATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

THE ROMAN

THE First Book of Maccabees brought down the history to the death of Simon, high-priest and governor of the Jews, the last survivor of the Asmonæan brotherhood. His son John, surnamed Hyrcanus, who had distinguished himself in the recent military operations, was at this time at Gazara,† where, receiving immediate information of his father's fate, and of

* See above, P. 177.

† Gazara (comp. 1 Mac. xiv. 34; xv. 28) I take to be the same as Gezer (Josh. xvi. 3, 10; xxi. 21; Judg. i. 29).