The Apocryphal Scriptures Inserted into the Divine Scripture — Section Three

OF THE APOCRYPHAL SCRIPTURES INSERTED INTO THE DIVINE SCRIPTURE — SECTIO TERTIA

WE HAVE RUN THROUGH, in the two preceding Sections, all the canonical writings as well of the first as of the second order — which the Greeks call Διαθηκόγραφα, that is, Testamentary, and which all catholic doctors profess to be true, native, and genuine. It remains that in the third and last Section of this book I should run through certain Apocryphal scriptures — that is, of obscure author and of ambiguous authority — which many of the ancient fathers reproved as illegitimate, and mingled among the sacred volumes by uncertain writers. Their catalog is this:

THE APPENDIX OF THE SECOND BOOK OF PARALIPOMENON

THE APPENDIX of the second book of Paralipomenon ¹ — which some think was copied out of the books of Hozai, a most ancient writer — contains the prayer of Manasses, king of Jerusalem, when he was detained captive in Babylon; which is had neither in the hebrew nor in the greek vulgate exemplars. Yet it is most certainly established that this king, in the bonds of Babylon, offered to God a prayer from his inmost heart — the divine scripture witnessing this in the latter volume of the annals, in these words: THE PRINCES of the king of the Assyrians took Manasses, and bound with chains and fetters they led him into Babylon; who, after he was straitened, prayed to the lord his God, and did penance exceedingly before the God of his fathers; and he entreated him, and besought him intently; and God heard his prayer ²; and a little after: But his prayer, and the hearing thereof, are written in the words of Hozai ³ — although the greek edition, in place of Hozai, has ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων τῶν ὁρώντων, that is, In the words of the seers. But whether Manasses brought forth this prayer or another, nothing certain is had. The Latin fathers received it among the holy writings, and, as appears from the ordinary gloss, illustrated it with annotations applied. This prayer is said to be extant in Greek in the Bibles of the library of Saint-Victor of Paris [bibliothecae Victorinae Parisiorum].

## THE APPENDIX OF THE BOOK OF ESTHER

THE APPENDIX of the book of Esther ⁴ — which embraces the seven later chapters, that is, from about the beginning of the tenth chapter to the end of the book — is woven of various rags and patchworks [centones]; of which nothing at all is extant in the exemplars of the Hebrews, but in the Greek these are had, namely:

THE EPISTLE, OR EDICT, OF ARTAXERXES FOR THE DESTROYING OF THE NATION OF THE JEWS: which our edition has transferred from the third chapter of the Greek codex (according to our supputation) into the thirteenth chapter.

THE PRAYER OF MARDOCHAEUS; THE LAMENT OF ESTHER, AND HER ENTRANCE, TERRIFIED, TO THE KING: which among us are had in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth chapters; in the Greek codices they are had near the end of the fourth chapter, immediately after those words, Καὶ βαδίσας Μαρδοχαῖος ἐποίησεν — that is, And Mardochaeus, going, did all things which Esther had commanded him.

LIKEWISE THE EDICT OF ARTAXERXES FOR THE LIBERATION OF THE JEWS: which our codices report in the sixteenth chapter; in the Greek exemplars it is placed a little before the end of the eighth chapter, immediately after those words, Now the sum of the epistle was this.

LIKEWISE THE DREAM OF MARDOCHAEUS, OF THE LITTLE FOUNTAIN GROWING INTO A GREAT RIVER: which among us is contained in the tenth chapter; and the rest, up to those words of the eleventh chapter, In the second year, Artaxerxes reigning, etc., are had among the Greeks at the end of the whole volume.

THE DREAM ALSO OF THE TWO DRAGONS: which is narrated from about the beginning of the eleventh chapter — that is, from those words, In the second year, Artaxerxes reigning — to the end of the twelfth chapter, has been borrowed from the first chapter of the Greek edition.

JOSEPHUS, in the eleventh book of the Hebrew Antiquities, chapter six, recites the two aforesaid epistles, or edicts, of king Artaxerxes in the same words, from head to foot, so faithfully that it is uncertain to us whether he received these from the vulgate edition of the Greeks, or whether the author of the Greek edition copied the same out of Josephus.

BUT IT COMES TO MIND in this place at once to admonish and to exhort the pious and benevolent Reader, that he not accuse me of temerity because I have removed these seven last chapters from the canonical writings and reduced them into this last order of the Apocrypha ⁵ — as if I had forgotten the decree of the Holy synod of Trent, which under the threat of anathema commands all the books to be received entire, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and are had in the old vulgate Latin edition. For that canon is to be understood of the true and genuine parts which look to the integrity of the books, not however of certain torn Appendices and ragged additions, rashly set on by some unknown author and sewn on anyhow. And of such a sort, surely, are these last chapters — which not only Hugo the Cardinal, Nicolaus of Lyra, Dionysius the Carthusian, and the other more recent interpreters deny to be canonical, but the divine Jerome also cuts them away from the whole volume of Esther as a vitiated part, and (that I may use his own words) one patched together out of ragged endings of words — out of things which could be said and heard on the spur of the moment, as scholars in the schools are wont to devise upon a theme taken up: “which words he could have used who suffered the injury, or he who did the injury.” Origen also, in the epistle to Julius Africanus, hisses off these same additions. [MS note in ink beside this passage, in a cursive hand, apparently: This opinion — let it not conflict with the Council of Trent, which the author wrongly twists and interprets (Haec sententia ne repugnat Concilio Tridentino, quod autor male torquet, et interpretatur).]

THE THIRD AND FOURTH BOOKS OF ESDRAS

THE THIRD BOOK of Esdras ⁶ — in which almost all the same things are repeated which are narrated in the first and second volumes of Esdras — is not had among the Hebrews, but is extant only among the Greeks, distinguished into one hundred and nine chapters, or titles. But the fourth book, embracing the visions and chiefly the nocturnal dreams of Esdras himself, is neither among the Greeks nor among the Hebrews. Jerome, in the preface of that same work, rejects both among the Apocrypha, as writings as much of obscure author as of uncertain authority, and calls the things which are narrated in them dreams. The Greeks however not only receive the third book in the sacred canon, but even place it before the two legitimate and undoubted volumes of Esdras and Nehemias in the catalog of the divine scripture, for the cause which was spoken above. ⁷ Among whom Athanasius, writing the third book against the Arrians, brings in the testimony of Zorobabel, noted in the third chapter of this volume, as of a scripture of solid authority, against the followers of Arrius. But among the Latins, Augustine, acknowledging this same third book as genuine [a book] of Esdras, writes thus in the eighteenth [book] Of the city of God: ABOUT THE SAME time of the liberation of the people from the Babylonian servitude, Esdras also wrote — who has been held a writer of deeds rather than a Prophet; unless perhaps he is to be understood to have prophesied in this, that, a question having arisen among certain young men as to what was of most avail in things — when one had said KINGS, another WINE, the third WOMEN, which for the most part command kings — yet that same third demonstrated that truth is victorious over all things. For, the Gospel being consulted, we know that Christ is the truth. The divine Ambrose also thinks the fourth book was put forth by Esdras himself not without divine revelation, asserting that Paul the Apostle followed the opinion of Esdras in those things which, near the end of the former epistle to the Corinthians, he had written of the diverse orders of the brightness and glory of the elect rising again. And this opinion Ambrose himself received as a testimony of the weightiest authority for confirming the dogma of the dwelling-places of holy souls after their separation from the body, writing thus in the book Of the good of death: But that there are dwelling-places of souls is strongly proved by the testimonies of scripture; since in the books of Esdras also we read that, when the day of judgment shall have come, the earth shall give back the bodies of the departed, and the dwelling-places shall give back the souls which were commended to them. These are the habitations of which the lord says that there are many mansions with his father. And I have used the writings of Esdras, that [the gentiles] may know the Gentiles that those things which are admired in the books of philosophy have been translated from ours. And below he adds: WHICH was the earlier, Esdras or Plato? For Paulus followed the sayings of Esdras, not of Plato: for Esdras revealed, according to the revelation conferred upon him, that the just shall be with Christ and with the saints. Hence also that famous Socrates says that he hastens to those his own Gods. Ours, assuredly, are the things which stand supreme in the letters of the philosophers. Let us not therefore fear that end owed by all, in which Esdras found the remuneration of his devotion, the Lord saying to him: FOR THOU shalt be received up with men, and shalt converse with the residue, with my son, and with those like thee. Thus Ambrose; who also, in the second commentary on Luke, alleges out of the seventh chapter of this book a prophecy of the time of the advent of Christ, and of his death, and of the future conversion of the world to Christ. And the words of the vaticination are these: MY SON JESUS SHALL BE REVEALED, with those who shall rejoice with him, who are left, in four hundred years; and it shall be after these years, and my son Christ shall die, and the world shall be converted. Finally, in the epistle to Horontianus, which is the twenty-first in number, he persuades that the fourth book of Esdras should be read, because in it the soul is demonstrated to be of celestial substance, and the trifles of the philosophers concerning its substance are confuted. From these things it appears of how great authority this book was with Ambrose: out of which, many years before, the divine Cyprian seems to have taken what he wrote against Demetrianus — namely that the world is growing old, and is now hastening to its imminent end; and that this is easily perceived from the decrement of all things, since the powers of the elements, of plants, and of animals have been diminished and weakened, and the bodies of men especially are now smaller and feebler than they were of old. Which opinion, indeed, there is no doubt that Cyprian drew from the fifth chapter of this book, where these words are read: THE WORLD now draweth near to old age. Ask her that beareth, Wherefore they whom thou hast now brought forth are not like to those who were before thee, but lesser in stature? and she herself shall say to thee: Some there are who were born in the vigor of youth, and others who were born under the time of old age, when the womb was failing. Consider therefore thou also, that ye are of lesser stature than those who were before you, and those who come after you [shall be] lesser than you, as of creatures now growing old, and passing beyond the strength of youth. ⁸ The Catholic Church also venerates this book: she who, every single year, on the third day [Tuesday] of Pentecost, begins the sacrosanct mysteries of the mass from that sentence which is read in the second chapter of this volume: RECEIVE the delight of your glory, giving thanks to God, who hath called you to the celestial kingdoms ⁹; and in the solemnities of martyrs she chants out of the same chapter, concerning the rewards of those who have valiantly fallen for Christ, that verse: NOW they are crowned, and receive the palm. ¹⁰ From the authority, therefore, of these witnesses and testimonies I judge it to have come about that this book was joined to the divine scriptures; which afterward, more diligently examined, the common consent of almost all the fathers judged should be held among the Apocrypha ¹¹ — and that, as I suppose, on account of certain suspect dogmas handed down in it, which seem openly to contradict the rules of the orthodox faith. Of which sort are these:

IN THE FOURTH CHAPTER he says that the souls of the saints are detained in certain hidden store-chambers in the lower world ¹², until the number of all the elect be fulfilled, and the day of the last and supreme judgment come, in which all shall be led out thence together. And in the fifth chapter, pursuing the same opinion, he likens the day of the last judgment and retribution to a crown: in which, as there is neither first nor last, but all things at once, so in the retribution of eternal felicity the swiftness of the former souls shall not outstrip the tardiness of the last, but all together, and at the same time, shall obtain the awaited beatitude. Which opinion, although the divine Ambrose, in the book already cited, seems to have approved, yet the later fathers, in the council of Florence, reproved.

LIKEWISE, chapter 6, he relates that God on the fifth day, among the other animals, created two greatest living creatures, the one called Henoch [Behemoth], the other Leviathan; whose immense masses of body since not even the seventh part of the earth could hold together in fellowship, God disjoined them in place: and he placed Henoch in one of the seven parts of the earth, in which there are a thousand mountains; but Leviathan he set in another of the seven parts of the earth, in which are all the waters which God on the third day commanded to be gathered into one place; and there he keeps him, that he may prepare food out of him for whom he will, and when he will. Which narration indeed seems to have affinity with that fable of the Jews ¹³ which I remember to have read of old in the Thalmudic books, in the fourth order, third tractate; in which the Rabbins write that God on the fifth day created two fishes of well-nigh boundless magnitude, called Leviathans; the vastness of whose bodies when he weighed with himself in his mind — fearing lest every kind of fish should be swallowed down by such great beasts, and lest by them the whole sea should be rendered impassable to ships, and thus the commerce of the human race be utterly taken away if offspring were propagated from them — he slew the female, and out of her salted flesh prepared most delicate salt-meats, to be eaten by the just and his elect after this life; but the male he reserved alive for himself, that he might play with him daily in six hours of the day, according to that sentence of the hundred-and-second psalm [so this edition prints — psalmi centesimi secundi; the correct citation is Psalm 103:26 (= Hebrew Ps 104:26), which the alternate edition gives as centesimi tertij, with the margin Psal. 103. 26]: THAT DRAGON, whom thou hast formed to mock him — for which the Hebrews read לויתן זה יצרת לשחק בו Leuijathan ze iatsartha lesachek bo, that is, this Leviathan, whom thou hast created, that thou mightest play with him. [In this primary scan the type is damaged just here: the Hebrew is broken and gapped, the transliteration drops the word lesachek (printing only “Leuijathan zeia-zaretha … hekuo”), and the gloss leaves a blank where eo should stand (“ut cum ▢ luderes”). The complete reading given above is supplied from the alternate copy, its PDF p. 46, where the sentence prints entire and undamaged.]

LIKEWISE, in the fourteenth chapter, teaching at what time the world shall have its end ¹⁴, he hands down that the last old age of the world is at hand, and the end of mundane duration; whose whole time is divided into twelve parts: of which, since ten parts and the half of the eleventh part have already passed, nothing remains beyond, save what is left after the half of the eleventh — that is, the residue of the eleventh part, with the twelfth part, the last of all. Which things, if they were true, the world must needs have ceased a thousand five hundred years ago. For if the time which intervened from the creation of the world to Esdras contains, according to the supputation of the divine scripture, about three thousand four hundred and seventy years, and this sum of years embraces ten parts and a half of the twelve parts of the whole mundane age, it follows that the residue of time from Esdras to the end of the world should not exceed the number of 500 years; whereas nevertheless from Esdras even to the pre-[-sent] year MDLX, in which we write these things, almost two thousand years have flowed by. Besides these things, Jerome, in the declamation against Vigilantius, objects to Vigilantius himself that in confirmation of his heresy he brought forth a certain Apocryphal book of Esdras, in which it was written that after death no one may dare to pray for another. I suspect that the book cited by Vigilantius is this very one; because there is reported in it a certain sentence not altogether unlike that other sentence of John in the sixth chapter of the Apocalypse — from which Vigilantius, as Jerome testifies, strove to build up [the claim] that after death no one’s prayer for another is to be heard; especially since John asserts that the souls of the holy martyrs, set beneath the altar of God, could not obtain even for themselves the judgment and retribution which they earnestly sought, crying with a great voice: HOW LONG, O lord, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood? — and it was said to them that they should wait until the number of their fellow-servants should be fulfilled. ¹⁵ To which place plainly very similar is another place, in the sixth chapter of this book, in which it is narrated how the souls of the saints, shut away in their store-chambers, demand of God the day of judgment and retribution, saying: HOW LONG, O lord, do we hope thus? and when shall come the fruit of our reward? ¹⁶ — and answer is made to them that they should wait until the number of the elect among them be fulfilled, and the measure of the times of the whole age be fulfilled; before whose completion their bodies are not to be raised. It is likely that Vigilantius coupled this testimony with the aforesaid authority of John, and twisted both to his own purpose. For these causes, therefore, I should believe this book was rejected by the fathers. Some also judge it to be of another Esdras than he who is the author of the first book: since this one, at the beginning of this book, writes that he descended from Aaron through nineteen generations; but that one, in the seventh chapter of his book, writes that he was begotten from Aaron through only fifteen generations.

THE APPENDIX OF THE BOOK OF JOB

THE BOOK of Job, in all the exemplars of the Greeks, as well ancient as recent, has at its very end — immediately after the last period of the volume — annexed, out of the edition of the seventy interpreters, a certain genealogy of Job and of his friends, alluding not a little to the genealogy of the sons of Esau described in the book of genesis; which is read neither in the Hebrew nor in the latin codices. Its words are these: γέγραπται δὲ αὐτὸν πάλιν ἀναστήσεσθαι μεθ’ ὧν ὁ κύριος ἀνίστησιν. οὗτος ἑρμηνεύεται ἐκ τῆς συριακῆς βίβλου, ἐν μὲν γῇ κατοικῶν τῇ αὐσίτιδι, ἐπὶ τοῖς ὁρίοις τῆς ἰδουμαίας καὶ ἀραβίας. προϋπῆρχε δὲ αὐτῷ ὄνομα ἰωβάλ. λαβὼν δὲ γυναῖκα ἀράβισσαν, ἐγέννα υἱὸν, ᾧ ὄνομα ἐννών. ἦν δὲ αὐτὸς πατρὸς μὲν ζαρὲ τῶν ἠσαῦ υἱῶν υἱὸς, μητρὸς δὲ βοσόρρας· ὥστε εἶναι αὐτὸν πέμπτον ἀπὸ Ἀβραάμ. καὶ οὗτοι οἱ βασιλεῖς οἱ βασιλεύσαντες ἐν ἐδώμ, ἧς καὶ αὐτὸς ἦρξε χώρας· πρῶτος βαλὰκ ὁ τοῦ βεώρ, καὶ ὄνομα τῇ πόλει αὐτοῦ δενναβά. μετὰ δὲ τὸν βαλὰκ ἰωβὰλ ὁ καλούμενος ἰώβ. μετὰ δὲ τοῦτον ἀσὼν, ὁ ὑπάρχων ἡγεμὼν τῆς θαιμανίτιδος χώρας. μετὰ δὲ τοῦτον ἀδὰδ υἱὸς βαδὰδ, ὁ ἐκκόψας μαδιὰν ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ μωάβ, καὶ ὄνομα τῇ πόλει αὐτοῦ γεθθαίμ. οἱ δὲ ἐλθόντες πρὸς αὐτὸν φίλοι, ἐλιφὰζ τῶν ἠσαῦ υἱῶν, θαιμανῶν βασιλεύς· βαλδὰδ ὁ σαυχαίων τύραννος· σῶφαρ ὁ μιναίων βασιλεύς. The sense of which narration, that I may render word for word, is this: Now it is written that he shall rise again with those whom the Lord raiseth up. This man is interpreted out of the Syriac book [as] dwelling in the region Ausitis, on the borders of Idumaea and Arabia; and his name before was Jobal. Taking therefore an Arabian wife, he begot a son by name Ennon. And he was himself the son, by his father, of Zare, of the sons of Esau; by his mother, of Bosorra; so that he is himself the fifth from Abraham. And these are the kings who reigned in Edom — over which region he himself also ruled: first Balach, son of Beor, and the name of his city was Dennaba; and after Balach, Jobab, who is called Job; and after these Ason, who was captain of the Thamanitid region; after him Adad, son of Badad, who smote Madian in the region of Moab, and the name of his city was Getthaim. And the friends who came to him: Eliphaz, of the sons of Esau, king of the Themanites; Baldad, tyrant of the Sauchaeans; Sophar, king of the Mynaeans. And these words, although they are extant neither among the Hebrews nor among the Latins, yet all the Greek Fathers receive them with the highest veneration, and very many even expound them diligently. There are still read — in the Greek catena of explanations on Job, which, written by hand, I keep in my own Library — various annotations upon this genealogy, by Origen, Chrysostom, Julianus, Severus, Euagrius, and Olympiodorus.

ORIGEN, at the end of the commentaries on Job, which the royal Library of the French [Bibliotheca regia Gallorum] lately sent forth into the light, after the aforesaid context of the genealogy subjoins another addition, out of the thirty-third chapter of Genesis [so printed], taken over in almost the same words; and he expounds it with a brief little annotation. The words of the addition are these: ἀπέθανε δὲ ἀδὰδ, καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἀντ’ αὐτοῦ σαμαδὰ ἐκ μασσεκάς. ἀπέθανε δὲ σαμαδὰ, καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἀντ’ αὐτοῦ σαοὺλ ἐκ ῥοβεὼθ τῆς παρὰ ποταμόν. ἀπέθανε δὲ σαούλ, καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἀντ’ αὐτοῦ βαλλαενὼν υἱὸς ἀχοβώρ. ἀπέθανε δὲ βαλλαενὼν υἱὸς ἀχοβώρ, καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἀντ’ αὐτοῦ ἀρὰδ υἱὸς βαράδ, καὶ ὄνομα τῇ πόλει αὐτοῦ φογώρ. ὄνομα δὲ τῇ γυναικὶ αὐτοῦ μετεβεήλ, θυγάτηρ ματραῒθ υἱοῦ μαιζοώβ. That is: And Adad died, and Samada of Masseca reigned in his stead. [And Samada died,] and Saul of Robooth, which is by the river, reigned in his stead. And Saul died, and Ballaenon, son of Achobor, reigned in his stead; and he being dead, Arad, son of Barad, reigned in his stead, and the name of his city was Phogor; and his wife was called Metebeel, daughter of Matraith, son of Mazoob. Then follow these things also: θεμὰν υἱὸς ἐλιφὰζ ἡγεμόνος ἰδουμαίας. οὗτος ἑρμηνεύεται ἐκ τῆς συριακῆς βίβλου, ἐν μὲν γῇ κατοικῶν αὐσίτιδι, ἐν πέρασι τοῦ εὐφράτου· προϋπῆρχε δὲ αὐτῷ ὄνομα ἰώβ, καὶ ἦν αὐτῷ πατὴρ ζαρὲ ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν ἡλίου. That is: Theman, son of Eliphaz, captain of Idumaea. This man is interpreted out of the Syriac book [as] dwelling in the land Hussitis, within the bounds of the Euphrates; and his name before was Job, and his father was Zare, from the rising of the Sun. Thus far the Addition of the genealogy of Job; which Jerome rejects as uncertain and foreign to the Hebraic verity, writing thus in the questions upon Genesis: THE FIRSTBORN

Nachor, the brother of Abraham, by Melcha his wife: of his daughter was born Huz, from whose stock Job descends — even as it is written in the exordium of his volume: THERE WAS A MAN in the land of Huz, by name Job. Wrongly, therefore, do certain men suppose Job to be of the race of Esau; since that which is had at the end of his book — namely, that it was translated out of the Syrian speech, and that he was the fourth from Esau — and the rest of the things which are contained there, are not had in the Hebrew volumes. Thus he [Jerome].

THERE IS EXTANT also, in certain ancient [Bibles] of the Latins, and in all the Bibles of the Greeks, a certain little speech [oratiuncula] of the wife of Job, expounded by well-nigh all the Greek interpreters; which Origen, in the epistle to Julius Africanus, denies to pertain to the verity of the Hebraic scripture. It is contained in the second chapter of this book, in these words: χρόνου δὲ πολλοῦ προβεβηκότος, εἶπεν αὐτῷ ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ, μέχρι τίνος καρτερήσεις λέγων, ἰδοὺ, ἀναμένω χρόνον ἔτι μικρὸν, προσδεχόμενος τὴν ἐλπίδα τῆς σωτηρίας μου. ἰδοὺ γὰρ, ἠφάνισταί σου τὸ μνημόσυνον ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς. υἱοὶ καὶ θυγατέρες, ἐμῆς κοιλίας ὠδῖνες καὶ πόνοι, οὓς εἰς τὸ κενὸν ἐκοπίασα μετὰ μόχθων. σύ τε αὐτὸς ἐν σαπρίᾳ σκωλήκων κάθησαι, διανυκτερεύων αἴθριος. κἀγὼ πλανῆτις καὶ λάτρις, τόπον ἐκ τόπου περιερχομένη, καὶ οἰκίαν ἐξ οἰκίας, προσδεχομένη τὸν ἥλιον, πότε δύσεται, ἵνα ἀναπαύσωμαι τῶν μόχθων μου καὶ τῶν ὠδίνων, αἵ με νῦν συνέχουσιν. ἀλλὰ εἰπέ τι ῥῆμα πρὸς κύριον, καὶ τελεύτα. That is: Now when much time had gone before, his wife said to him: How long wilt thou persevere, saying, Behold, I await yet a little time, receiving the hope of my salvation? For behold, thy memorial is blotted out from the earth — the sons and daughters, the pangs and labors of my womb, whom in vain I brought forth laboriously, with vexations; and thou thyself sittest in the rottenness of worms, passing the night under the open sky; and I, a wanderer and a drudge, going about from place to place and from house to house, awaiting the sun, when it shall set, that I may rest from my labors and my pangs, which now hold me fast. But speak some word against the lord, and die.

THE APPENDIX OF THE PSALTER

THERE IS EXTANT in the Greek Psalters, according to the edition of the seventy interpreters, immediately after the end, a psalm inscribed to David outside the number of the hundred and fifty psalms; of which I have hitherto been able to find some mention in no explanator of the divine scripture — whether Greek, or Hebrew, or Latin — save in the one divine Athanasius; who, in the Synopsis of the divine scripture, reviewing this psalm by name among the canonical writings, writes thus: AGAINST GOLIATH, PSALM 151. This psalm is inscribed peculiarly to David, and outside the number of the rest, when in single combat he had laid low Goliath. And the same [Athanasius], at the end of the same work, the testimony of the book of Paralipomenon being cited, adds that David put forth three thousand psalms; out of which the friends of king Ezechias selected only a hundred and fifty, but hid away the rest. And it is possible that this is one of those; which, because it is short, it has pleased [me] to insert here, as well in Greek as in Latin, together with its own inscription.

Οὗτος ὁ ψαλμὸς ἰδιόγραφος τοῦ Δαβὶδ ἐστι, καὶ ἔξωθεν τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τῶν ἑκατὸν καὶ πεντήκοντα ψαλμῶν, ὅτε ἐμονομάχησε πρὸς τὸν Γολιάθ.

Μικρὸς ἤμην ἐν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς μου· καὶ νεώτερος ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ πατρός μου, ἐποίμαινον τὰ πρόβατα τοῦ πατρός μου.

Αἱ χεῖρές μου ἐποίησαν ὄργανον, καὶ οἱ δάκτυλοί μου ἥρμοσαν ψαλτήριον.

Καὶ τίς ἀναγγελεῖ τῷ κυρίῳ μου; αὐτὸς κύριος, αὐτὸς εἰσακούει.

Αὐτὸς ἐξαπέστειλε τὸν ἄγγελον αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἦρέ με ἐκ τῶν προβάτων τοῦ πατρός μου, καὶ ἔχρισέ με ἐν τῷ ἐλαίῳ τῆς χρίσεως αὐτοῦ.

Οἱ ἀδελφοί μου καλοὶ, καὶ μεγάλοι, καὶ οὐκ εὐδόκησεν ἐν αὐτοῖς ὁ κύριος.

Ἐξῆλθον εἰς συνάντησιν τῷ ἀλλοφύλῳ, καὶ ἐπικατηράσατό με ἐν τοῖς εἰδώλοις αὐτοῦ.

Ἐγὼ δὲ σπασάμενος τὴν παρ’ αὐτοῦ μάχαιραν, ἀπεκεφάλισα αὐτὸν, καὶ ἦρα ὄνειδος ἐξ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ.

TRANSLATION

This psalm was written by David himself, outside the number of the hundred and fifty, when in single combat he had engaged with Goliath.

LITTLE was I among my brethren, and younger in the house of my father: I pastured the sheep of my father.

MY HANDS constructed an instrument [organum], and my fingers fitted together a psaltery.

AND WHO shall announce [it] to my lord? the lord himself — he himself hears.

HE HIMSELF sent his angel, and took me from the sheep of my father, and anointed me with the oil of his anointing.

MY BRETHREN [were] fair and great: and the lord was not well pleased in them.

I WENT OUT to meet that alien [Goliath]: and he cursed me by his idols.

BUT I, wresting from him his own sword, beheaded him, and took away the reproach from the sons of Israel.

EVTHYMIVS touched upon this Psalm in passing, in the Preface of the commentaries on the Psalms.

THE APPENDIX OF THE WISDOM OF SYRACH [the heading’s italic Y is worn and prints almost as a T: “SṪRACH”]

THERE IS FOUND, in almost all Latin codices, after the end of the Wisdom of Syrach, or Ecclesiasticus, a certain prayer of Salomon; which is nothing else than a fragment, or the former part, of that prayer which Salomon put forth at the dedication of the temple, copied word for word out of the eighth chapter of the third book of Kings. Which prayer, although it has a certain author, one of irrefragable credit, and is not apocryphal, yet — since it has been cut off from thence by some unknown author, lopped like a limb from its proper body, and has been added into this place superfluously and rashly, against the credit of the Hebrew and Greek exemplars — it has pleased [me] to cast it back among the apocryphal additions. It is likely that the adder of this fragment, whoever he was, added to this volume just so many lines out of the aforesaid prayer of Salomon as would suffice to fill up the space which, on the last [leaf], as gener-[-ally] [as gene]rally happens, had remained empty on a page of the book; which [lines] afterward, through the imprudence of those who copy out all things without any discrimination, whatsoever they be, were spread abroad into the other Latin codices.

THE LITTLE PREFACE OF THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAS

THE LITTLE PREFACE of the Threni [Lamentations], which the Latin codices carry before the beginning of the Lamentations of Jeremias, is not among the Hebrews; who begin this book — written throughout in a fourfold alphabet [four alphabetic acrostics] — from the word אכה [so printed, lacking the yod of איכה] Eca, that is, How, commencing from א Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew Alphabet; and from this word they name the book אכה Ecà. But the other words which are read before this word were added, as is believed by many, by the seventy interpreters, wishing to connect the lamentation of the devastated city with the narration of the devastation of the same city, which is described at the close of the book of Jeremias. Now these are the words of this preface among the seventy interpreters: Καὶ ἐγένετο μετὰ τὸ αἰχμαλωτισθῆναι τὸν ἰσραὴλ, καὶ ἱερουσαλὴμ ἐρημωθῆναι, ἐκάθισεν ἱερεμίας κλαίων, καὶ ἐθρήνησε τὸν θρῆνον τοῦτον ἐπὶ ἱερουσαλὴμ, καὶ εἶπεν — that is: And it came to pass, after Israel was brought into captivity, and Hierusalem was made desert, Jeremias sat weeping, and wailed this lamentation over Hierusalem, and said. The Hebrews do not receive this argument, because it does not seem to them likely that Jeremias wrote, or saw in the spirit, these Threni after the destruction of Hierusalem, but before the destruction: for it is a prophecy. Whence they also hand down that king Joachim read these Threni before the overthrow of the city; and, some verses out of them having been read, cast the book into the fire: which the prophet a little afterward wrote out again much more copiously; even as he himself testifies in the 36th chapter of his own prophecy.

THE THIRD BOOK OF MACCABEES

THE THIRD BOOK of Maccabees ¹⁷ — whose argument is the marvelous and ever-memorable liberation of the Jews, whom, bound in troops with chains, Ptolemaeus Philopater, fourth king of Egypt, exposed in the Hippodrome of the city of Alexandria, to be trampled down by maddened elephants — is utterly unknown to the Hebrews; although Josephus, in the second volume against Apion, touched briefly, in passing and quite summarily, on the sum of this history. Yet it is had everywhere in almost all the codices of the Greeks, and even in very many volumes of the Latins. Athanasius makes mention of this book in the Synopsis; and Eusebius in the chronicles: which [book] Clemens, the third Roman pontiff after Peter, in the book of the apostolic canons, canon 84, had long before numbered among the canonical books. There are those who judge it to have been put forth by Josephus, from the similarity of the style. But the things which are narrated in it were done before those which are reported in the first and second books of Maccabees, by almost fifty years — that is, under Antiochus the great, most friendly to the Jews, about the year from the founding of the world three thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight [ter millesimum septingentesimum trigesimum octauum]; and it pertains not at all to the history of the Maccabees, although they [these copies] carry its inscription. The beginning of the book is: Ὁ δὲ Φιλοπάτωρ μαθὼν παρὰ τῶν ἀνακομισθέντων τὴν γενομένην τῶν ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ κρατουμένων τόπων ἀφαίρεσιν ὑπὸ Ἀντιόχου — that is: But Philopater, learning from those who had returned that the places which he himself had held had been taken away, Antiochus [being the taker] [as printed in the italic Latin: At Philopater, cognoscens ex his, qui redierant, locos, quos ipse tenuerat, Antiochum abstulisse — “But Philopater, learning from those who had returned that Antiochus had taken away the places which he himself had held”].

THE FOURTH BOOK OF MACCABEES

THE FOURTH [book] of Maccabees, ¹⁸ which the Synopsis of Athanasius reviews among the apocryphal writings, contains a history of one-and-thirty years — that is, the deeds of Joannes Maccabaeus, who from the conquered Hyrcanus received the surname of Hyrcanus. He, after his father Simon had been slaughtered by the fraud of Ptolemaeus, obtained the pontificate of his nation together with the principate; and immediately led out an army against his father’s striker-down. Then he joined a league with Antiochus, king of Syria; upon whose death he took many cities of Syria by force. First of all the captains of the Jews, he hired foreign soldiery at his own pay ¹⁹: he dug out three thousand talents from the sepulcher of David. He renewed the league with the Romans, already entered upon by his father: he routed Antiochus Cizygenus [Cyzicenus], king of Syria, conquered in war: Samaria, the rival of the city of Hierosolyma, captured after a whole year of siege, he leveled to the ground; and, torrents having been led into it, he removed by the flooding of the waters even the very ruins of the destroyed city, and all its traces: the walls of Hierosolyma, collapsed with age, he restored. Which things happily accomplished, he dies in the thirty-first year of his rule — a man most illustrious under a threefold name, that is, in priesthood, in principate, and in prophecy — namely in the hundredth year before the birth of Christ. In which [year] the fourth and last book of Maccabees leaves off: whose beginning, out of a Greek codex which we read at Lyons, written by hand, in the Library of Sanctes Pagninus, a most learned man, among the preachers [the Dominicans], runs thus: Καὶ μετὰ τὸ ἀποκτανθῆναι τὸν Σίμωνα ἐγενήθη Ἰωάννης υἱὸς αὐτοῦ ἀρχιερεὺς ἀντ’ αὐτοῦ — that is: And after Simon was slain, Joannes his son was made high priest in his stead. The series of the history and the narration is almost the same as that in Josephus, in the thirteenth book of the Antiquities; but the style, abounding in Hebraic idioms, is far unlike. It is likely that this [book] was translated by an unknown interpreter out of the book of the days of the priesthood of Joannes; of which, at the close of the first of Maccabees, it is written thus: ²⁰ THE REST of the discourses of Joannes, and of his wars, and of the good virtues in which he bore himself bravely, and of the building of the walls which he erected, and of his deeds — behold, these are written in the book of the days of his priesthood and principate.

From these things it is gathered, not obscurely, that they are deceived who think the fourth book of Maccabees to be that one in which Josephus described the agony of the Maccabee mother and of her seven sons; which also is had in some Bibles of the Greeks, with the inscription ἰωσίππου εἰς τοὺς μακκαβαίους [of Josippus (Josephus), On the Maccabees].