Heresy XI, Of the Books of Esdras, Tobit, Judith, and Esther

OF THE BOOKS OF ESDRAS, TOBIT, JUDITH, AND ESTHER — Heresy XI (De Libris Esdrae, Tobiae, Iudith, et Esther. Haeresis XI)

To cast away the books of Esdras [Ezra], Tobit, Judith, and Esther, as histories of uncertain faith and authority.

ASSERTORES HVIVS HAERESEOS [The Assertors of this Heresy]

The Anabaptists reject these books in general; but Luther says that he doubts whether the book of Tobit and [that] of Judith are to be received into the order of the sacred volumes.

IMPVGNATIO [The Refutation]

The authority of the whole Church, the decrees of the Councils, and the testimonies of the fathers, damn this heresy. For the first and second [book] of Esdras — which is called Nehemiah [Nehemias] — not only are found in all the catalogues of the most ancient fathers of the Church, and their testimonies are cited in the decrees of the Pontiffs, but also among the Hebrews are reckoned among the כתובים (Chetubim [Ketuvim]) — that is, the Hagiographa, or holy writings, which were placed in the ark. But Tobit, although among them [the Hebrews] it is not in the Canon, yet the Church of the Christians, from the third Council of Carthage down to these our times, always had it in the Canon; and all the most ancient fathers of the Church brought forth various testimonies concerning it, as [from] canonical scripture. Among others indeed, Clement the first pontiff of that name, in [his] first and second epistle, and Anacletus in his first decree, [and] Alexander

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But Alexander, Pope the first, in [his] first epistle, for the confirmation of the most holy Trinity, uses the testimony of the benediction of Tobit, saying: “If the Trinity is not, why is Tobit — when he sent his son into the city of Rages with Raphael the Archangel — taught to have blessed them, saying thus: ‘May God [of] Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, himself fulfill his benediction in you’?” Similarly also Innocent the first, in his decretal epistle to Exuperius; Callistus, Pope the first, in [his] second decree; and Marcellus, Pope the first, in [his] second epistle, used the testimonies of this history. The book of Judith also, not only the holy Nicene Synod (Jerome himself being witness) received into the number of the holy scriptures, but the Hebrews likewise hold [it] among the histories worthy of faith, placing it, together with the book of Tobit, among the sacred writings which among them were kept outside the ark, and were not guarded within the ark with the rest of the canonical books. They hand down, too, that the author of this book was Joachim the priest, son of Jesus the high priest — whom Philo the Jew, in [his] second booklet of the Chronography, mentions in these words: “Jesus, then, held (Gessit) the first pontificate up to the twelfth year of Assuerus Priscus [the Elder], thirty-six years; but Joachim his son, in [his] absence, eight years. He also wrote out the deeds of Judith, and instituted the anniversary memory of the liberation, to be kept yearly.” ¹ But concerning the book of Esther — although of old, among certain Greek fathers, it was doubted whether it was canonical — nevertheless all the Councils reckoned it in the catalogues of the sacred volumes, and the Hebrews numbered it among the holy Chetubim (so printed “Cherhubim” [Ketuvim, the Hagiographa]) books. Most of the Latins think this [book] was published by Mardochaeus [Mordecai]; but Philo the Jew, in the place above mentioned, asserts [it was] written by the same Joachim the pontiff — who, when he was now for the second time pontiff, at the exhortation by letters of Mardochaeus the Hebrew, the adoptive father of Esther herself, committed this history to writing, and instituted the annual solemnity פורים (Phurim [Purim]) — that is, “of lots” — which is noted in the volume of Esther, and is celebrated by the Jews down to this time, every single year, in memory of the Jewish liberation. ²

OBIECTA HAERETICORVM [The Objections of the Heretics]

1. What is to be thought concerning the books of Esdras, Jerome, in the preface to Esdras, indicates in these words: “Nor let (Nec) any one be moved that one book only is published by us, nor let [any] be delighted with the dreams of the apocryphal third and fourth book: for among the Hebrews the discourses of Esdras and of Nehemiah are compressed into one volume; and those [things] which are not had among them, nor are of the twenty-four elders [books], are without doubt to be rejected.” From which words it is manifest that the third and fourth of Esdras contain nothing but mere and vain dreams, and that only two books out of the four remain in the canon: of which the one — namely the second, which is called Nehemiah — Isidore, in the sixth book of the Etymologies, ch. 2, casts out of the canon, affirming that the second and third books of Esdras are not had among the Hebrews, but are by them reckoned among the apocrypha.

2. But concerning the books of Tobit and Judith — that they are not in the canon — Jerome openly testifies in the prologue to Tobit, saying: “The book (Librum) of Tobit indeed, which the Hebrews record [as] consigned, from the catalogue of the divine scriptures, among the apocrypha”; and in the Helmeted Prologue: “Judith,” he says, “and Tobit, and the Shepherd [Pastor], are not in the canon.” And lest any one should think that he spoke of the Jewish canon only, in the preface to Proverbs he added: “The books of Judith, and of Tobit, and of the Maccabees, the Church of God indeed reads for the edification of the people, but does not receive them among the canonical scriptures.”

3. And deservedly indeed does the Church of God not receive the book of Judith into the canon, on account of the uncertainty of the history — whose neither deeds nor times agree with the approved histories of the nations. For those two kings of the Medes who are named at the beginning of the book of Judith — namely, Arphaxad and Nabuchodonosor — in whose times the deeds of the present history are narrated to have happened, are nowhere commemorated in the histories of the nations. Nor does that make anything to the matter, which Lyra, and the author of the Gloss, and Eusebius in the Chronicles bring forward — that those two kings were called by diverse names among the Hebrews and among the profane historians: so that, whom the Greeks call Cambyses, second king of the Persians, the Jews name Nabuchodonosor; and whom the Greeks make Diocles [Deioces], fifth king of the Medes, founder of the city Ecbatana, the Hebrews call that same [man] Arphaxad, founder of Ecbatana. For if it be so, how could Nabuchodonosor — by the Greeks called Cambyses, in whose time Eusebius in the Chronicles writes that this history happened — fight against Arphaxad (whom the author of the Gloss asserts to be Diocles, the builder of Ecbatana) in the great plain of Ragau, and obtain his kingdom (as is written in the exordium of the present history), when between Cambyses and Diocles more than a hundred and twenty years intervened? in which (as is gathered from the Chronicles of Eusebius) four intermediate kings reigned one after another, namely: Phraortes [Phaartes], twenty-four years; Cyaxares, thirty-two years; Astyages, thirty-eight years; Cyrus, thirty years — which, joined together, comprehend a hundred and twenty-four years. The history of this book is rendered uncertain also by many other [things] which are contained in it. As, concerning Arphaxad, or Diocles — whom Eusebius, and all the later chronographers, write to have held the kingdom of the Medes fifty-four years — but the beginning of the book of Judith narrates that he reigned only twelve years, and that in the twelfth year of [his] reign he was vanquished and cast down from empire by Nabuchodonosor, or Cambyses, king of the Assyrians. ³ And concerning the city Ecbatana — which the author of the book of Judith records that Arphaxad (otherwise Diocles) built most mightily of squared stone — Pliny, book 6, ch. 14, hands down [that it was] founded by King Seleucus a long time afterward. To which so open contradictions accedes also the authority of Josephus, who — although he professed to commit to writing all the Jewish antiquities, whatsoever he believed true — [yet] made no mention of this history, [and thus] rendered it uncertain and suspected of falsity: since no cause ought to have restrained him from transmitting to posterity so magnificent a victory of his own nation, had he esteemed it worthy of faith and of history.

4. Concerning the book of Esther likewise, there is no less suspicion than concerning the book of Judith: because (as Jerome in the pre-[face]

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[as Jerome, in the pre]face to Esther, affirms — the theme of the history being taken, [the book] was written with historical artifice, these [things] being added at the writer’s discretion which could, according to the occasion, be said and heard — just as it is customary in scholastic disciplines [school exercises], a theme being taken, to devise with what words he could use who has suffered an injury, or who has done an injury. That this opinion of Jerome is true, the last six chapters of this book show — namely from the tenth to the sixteenth — which are not had in the Hebrew volume, but were fabricated either by Josephus, or by some other writer. For both the copy of the letters of Aman [Haman], which are recited in the thirteenth chapter, and the copy of the epistle of King Artaxerxes, which is recounted in the sixteenth chapter, are excerpted into this book — with almost no word changed — out of the sixth chapter of the eleventh book of the Antiquities of Josephus. For Josephus, as he was skilled in the historical law [method], when he had noticed either that this history was rendered suspect, or that the king could easily be noted for inconstancy and levity — because, after the letters in which he had ordered the whole race of the Jews to be abolished, [being] suddenly changed, he revoked his sentence by new letters sent forth — inserted into the third and eighth chapter, and into very many other places of this history, many [things] by which he might vindicate this change of mind in the king, together with the narration of the history, from all suspicion of calumny or of fiction. But what was done by him in these chapters, it is credible that the same was done in the rest, either by him, or by other corruptors.

5. Besides these [things], the parts of the history are so dissonant among themselves that what before is reported to have been done in it under one king and time, the same is later read to have happened under another king and time. For although in its second chapter it is written that Bagatan [Bigthan] and Thares [Teresh], royal eunuchs and doorkeepers of the royal palace, who had conspired against the murder of King Assuerus, were detected, and both hanged upon a gibbet — and that after the seventh year of King Assuerus — below, in the eleventh and twelfth chapter, the same is reported to have been done by the same eunuchs, and by Mardochaeus, under a different king and time, namely under King Artaxerxes, against whom those eunuchs are written to have conspired in the second year of his reign. And if any one should say that this Artaxerxes is the same with him who above was called Assuerus (as Eusebius notes in the Chronicles) — thinking this [man] to have been Artaxerxes Memnon, son of Darius Nothus and of Parysatis — then another, greater controversy arises, which overturns the whole authority of the history. For if the present history happened in the time of Artaxerxes, it is consequent that Mardochaeus the Jew was then two hundred years of his life — which exceeds all credit of truth: especially indeed since the history describes him as having exercised the royal services in the palace of the king with strength still entire, and to have ridden vigorously through the city, and to have accomplished many other [things] of this kind not sluggishly — which [things] it is not verisimilar that he could perform in so decrepit an age, [while] passing the two-hundredth year of [his] age. For we find that he lived so many years, if we reckon the time from his captivity down to King Artaxerxes. For Mardochaeus was of the sons of the captivity, whom Nabuchodonosor king of the Assyrians carried over into Babylon, together with Joachim, surnamed Jeconiah [Jechonias], king of the Jews; and that (as Eusebius writes in the Chronicles) in the eighth year of Astyages, the eighth and last king of the Medes. And it is verisimilar that Mardochaeus was then a boy, at least of ten years; to which if there be added the thirty years of Astyages — who reigned thirty-eight years — they will be forty; to which if there be added the number of years in which the eleven kings of the Persians reigned one after another — from Cyrus (who first transferred the kingdom of the Medes to the Persians, their king Astyages being conquered) down to Artaxerxes Memnon son of Darius Nothus — they will be a hundred and ninety-nine years: which sum of years it is necessary that Mardochaeus not only completed, but even survived by many years after. For it is written, in the tenth chapter of Judith ⁴, that King Assuerus, after the event of this history, waged many wars, and subdued to his dominion all the land and the islands of the sea, and thereupon set Mardochaeus over the rest, [and] made him ruler over his whole empire. Which, since it presents no likeness of truth, it is plain that the history of Judith ⁵, the theme being taken from an uncertain author, was fabricated for the exercise of style (as Jerome hints).

DILVTIO OBIECTORVM [The Dissolution of the Objections]

1. Concerning the third and fourth books of Esdras — which Jerome calls “dreams,” and does not take into the Canon — although we judge that nothing need be answered to the heretics, nevertheless we do not dare to damn them, and altogether to reject them: especially since the blessed Ambrose (as we already showed in the first book) receives the fourth volume of Esdras, and Augustine indicates that some [things] which are in the third book are to be understood mystically, as of Christ. As is that [passage] where — a question having arisen among certain young men, [as to] what should be most powerful [strongest] in things — one said kings, another wine, the third women, who for the most part command kings; yet the same third demonstrated that truth is victorious over all: which certainly can most fittingly be applied to Christ, who is the highest truth. But concerning the second book, which Isidore seems to exclude from the Canon, we say that it is one book of Esdras which he calls “second” and rejects from the canon, and another that is the second book of Esdras which we receive in the canon. Ours begins: “The WORDS (Verba) of Nehemiah, son of Helchiah [Hachaliah]” — which among the Hebrews is the same with the first Esdras, and makes one single book with it. But the second [book], according to Isidore, begins thence, whence among us the third Esdras takes its beginning — namely from these words: “And JOSIAS made (Et fecit Iosias) [the Passover]” — which, together with the following book, does not exist among the Hebrews. But that Isidore receives, as canonical, the book which we, from the name of Nehemiah, made the second, is plain from the very words of Isidore, which he premised a little before, saying: “The book of Esdras is prenoted with the title of its author, in whose text the discourses of Esdras and of Nehemiah are alike contained.” ⁶

2. Concerning the books of Tobit also, and of Judith, we briefly respond, that nothing of authority is taken from them because the Jews reckon them among the apocrypha; for although the Synagogue of the Jews does not receive them, yet the holy Church of Christ receives [them] in the Canon; and them like-[wise]

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and them [Tobit and Judith] it reads and venerates with equal veneration with the other holy books. But to that opinion of Jerome, by which he asserts that these books are by no means received by the Church of God among the canonical scriptures, we say [that] his words, thus considered without any distinction, are not wholly true: since Augustine, contemporary with Jerome, in the second book On Christian Doctrine, ch. 8, enumerates each in the order of the canonical books; and the third Council of Carthage, at which Augustine was present, enumerates [them] in the catalogue of the sacred scriptures. From which it most evidently stands [established] that these books were, even in the time of Jerome, received into the Canon by the Catholic Church. Accordingly Ambrose, bishop of Compsa, meeting this argument, says that the “Church” is sometimes taken in two ways among the ancient writers: sometimes for those who preside over the rest in the Church of God — as are the doctors, pastors, and rectors of the Church — of which Church Christ wished himself to be understood, when he said: “Go (Vade), and tell the Church”; but sometimes the “Church” is taken for the whole assembly of the faithful, but especially for those who are inferior, and of the flock of sheep which are subjected to the pastors — of which Church Paul, admonishing the pastors, says: “Take heed (Attendite) to yourselves, and to the whole flock, in which God has placed you to rule the Church of God.” And of this Church Jerome spoke, when he said that the Church of God in his time had not yet received these books among the canonical scriptures — certain seditious [men], namely, still making tumult, and, together with them, a certain vicious custom of the multitude resisting — lest they should be received by the whole congregation of the faithful, generally. But among the Church, taken in the first signification, these books were always held as canonical. These [things] Ambrose. ⁷ But since, in the beginning of this work, it was shown that very many fathers of great name, and leaders of the Church, reckoned the volumes of Tobit and of Judith among the apocrypha, it must be known — as we already warned in the first book — that there are two orders of the Canonical volumes: of which the prior contains the books concerning whose faith and authority there was never any controversy among the prelates and pastors of the Church; but the latter embraces the scriptures not straightway, in the exordium of the nascent Church, recognized and received by the fathers and pastors, but a long time after — when there had first been doubts, and diverse judgments among them, concerning these. Jerome, therefore, together with some fathers, looking to the first order, pronounced the books of Tobit and of Judith not to be Canonical — that is, [not] of the number of the canonical [books] of the first order; but Augustine, with other fathers, having regard to the second order, reckons the same books among the Canonical; nor does Jerome disapprove this.

3. But what they bring forward concerning the uncertainty of the history is easily dissolved, if we consider that all the ambiguity of the alleged difficulty consists in the reckoning of the various times and kings who were [living] through those times — in which [reckoning] the historians of the Greeks (whose prince is Herodotus, whom our Eusebius followed) differ very much from the historians and chronographers of the Jews and of the Persians, such as are Metasthenes the Persian, Ctesias [Cthesias] of Cnidus, and Philo the Jew: and on account of this diversity, it is necessary to reject some of them. Rejected, therefore, are Eusebius and the rest, who, in reckoning up the kings of the Persians and Medes, and in recounting their names and times, followed the fabler [fabulatorem] Herodotus; but received, for a most just cause, are Ctesias of Cnidus, Metasthenes, and Philo. For Ctesias (as Diodorus Siculus reports in the third book of his history) brought the annals into Greece out of the public faith [record] and Library of the Persians — for which cause Diodorus himself judges that his opinion, rather than Herodotus’, is to be stood by. But Metasthenes, for the same cause, is preferred to Herodotus: because (as he himself reports) in numbering the series and time of the kings of the Persians and Medes, he used no other author than the public Susian Library of the Persians, in which the annals of the kings of the Persians were, in his age — that is, in the time of Alexander the Great — still preserved whole and incorrupt. But Philo the Jew is for this reason alone received of the Hebrew writers: because he most diligently collected the times of the four Monarchies, and especially the years and the names of those who reigned in Israel from Moses down to Herod — not following uncertain opinions, as Josephus did, but drawing most certain testimonies out of the books of the seventy Elders, whom the Hebrews call Zanedrin [Sanhedrin].

Nor does it move me, that the Anabaptists, enemies of the truth, object: that the Chronography which is reported under the name of Philo is not his — because neither Eusebius, in book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History, ch. 18, nor Jerome, in the book On Illustrious Men, made mention of this volume, whereas each of them wove a long enough catalogue of the individual works of Philo. Since [in fact] both confess that Philo wrote more books, besides those numbered by them in the catalogue, which did not come to their hands. To this accedes also that which most declares the book to be Philo’s — namely, the very testimony of the author of this Chronography: for the author writes, at the foot [end] of the third booklet, that he, quite a young man, was sent by his [fellow] Jews from Alexandria as legate to Rome, in the twenty-first year of Herod the tetrarch — which words can suit no one but Philo the Alexandrian Jew, whom Josephus, in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, and Eusebius, in book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History, ch. 5, hand down was sent, [while] still a young man, to Rome to Caius [Gaius] Caesar, against Apion the accuser of the Jews, and wrote a book concerning that legation, in which the single [deeds] done by him were contained.

These [things] have been said by us for this [reason]: that out of this Chronography of Philo we might open a very broad way to the dissolution, not only of the present difficulty, but of all other ambiguities of this kind which can emerge in the apparent contradictions of the sacred histories. Now, therefore, responding to the proposed difficulty of the Anabaptists, we say that Arphaxad and Nabuchodonosor are not those whom they themselves think — namely Diocles and Cambyses — but far others, whom Metasthenes the Persian and Philo the Jew recorded in the second book of the Chronography. For Arphaxad was neither a king of the Medes nor of the Persians, but a certain notable and most powerful favorer (as Philo says) of the Tamyric [Tamyris] faction, who rose up immediately after Cyrus was killed by Tamyris the queen of the Scythians; and into whose place was substituted Artaxerxes Priscus Assuerus, who in the book of Judith

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who, in the book of Judith, is surnamed Nabuchodonosor — first king of the Medes, the Persians, and the Assyrians, son of Darius Hystaspes [Istaspis], who, together with his colleague Cyrus, had ruled the Medes, Persians, and Assyrians (Baltassar [Belshazzar] king of the Babylonians being conquered), as is had in the first book of Esdras, and in the volume of Daniel. This Arphaxad, then, prince of the Tamyric faction — Cyrus being dead — increased the number of his own [followers]; and, Media being occupied, restored Ecbatana, the royal seat of the Medes (once built by the kings of the Medes, and afterward half-ruined by Cyrus), and fortified it with squared stones (as is read in the book of Judith). He also compelled the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians to defection [revolt], and armed them against Artaxerxes Priscus Assuerus, surnamed Nabuchodonosor, who still kept himself within the bounds of Babylon. Meeting whom, Artaxerxes surnamed Nabuchodonosor — in the twelfth year of his reign (as the history of Judith narrates) — routed him in a memorable battle in the great plain of Ragau; and, vengeance being taken against the rebels, obtained his paternal kingdom, pacified on every side. After which victory, when in the following year he had heard that Holophernes, sent by himself, was beheaded by the Jews, being gravely indignant, by a public edict he forbade the temple to be raised — as is noted in the fourth chapter of Esdras. Nor ought it seem wondrous to any one that this Artaxerxes Priscus Assuerus is called Nabuchodonosor in the book of Judith — because (as is written in the book of Judith, and Philo confirms) Arphaxad had invaded the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians; but this Artaxerxes Assuerus held Babylonia alone, where the ruler is, by the common appellation of dignity, called Nabuchodonosor — just as in Egypt the kings were called first Pharaohs, then Ptolemies, and among the Romans, Caesars. These [things], therefore, being disposed according to the order of Metasthenes and of Philo, all the doubt of the Anabaptists is removed concerning Arphaxad and Nabuchodonosor, who are not found in the catalogues of the kings of the Persians and Medes among the Greeks. Likewise, concerning the number of years in which Diocles reigned, this alone remains to be discussed: how Pliny says that the city Ecbatana was first built by Seleucus (who reigned after Alexander the Great), and why Josephus did not mention this history. It behooves [us], therefore, to know that the Ecbatana of which Pliny writes is different from that of which the book of Judith speaks, and of which Strabo makes mention in the eleventh book, saying: “Media (Media) is divided into two parts, the one of which they call the greater, whose metropolis was the city Ecbatana, head of the Median empire, which now the Parthians also use as a royal seat.” But the [other] Ecbatana, of which Pliny makes mention, is not in Media, but a city of Syria, founded by King Seleucus near the Caspian gates, twenty thousand paces [distant] — which some, writing it “Epiphania,” others “Egbatana” (with a g), named. And that Josephus passed over this history is not without reason, since among the Hebrews it is not in the canon: for Josephus took to write only those things which were had in the canon of the Hebrews. Whence Josephus himself, excusing [himself] that he left untouched many sacred histories of the Hebrews, thus speaks: “Let NO ONE (Nemo), then, blame me, in that I have thus narrated the single [matters], just as they are found written in the ancient books. For at the very beginning of my history, on account of those who raise questions and strive to blame [me] in something, I asserted, saying that I would translate the Hebrew books into the Greek speech, and open [expound] these — promising neither to add anything apart, nor to subtract.” ⁸ But why the Hebrews do not have this book in the canon, neither does it sufficiently stand [clear], nor is it to be anxiously investigated by us — since the Christian Church willed it to be among the canonical [books]. Thus far concerning Judith.

4. Concerning the book of Esther — which the Anabaptists contend was written upon a fabricated theme — I would not believe them to be so unskilled that they could not see into the meaning of Jerome; but [I would believe them] rather wicked and impudent, who were unwilling to understand Jerome. For he does not affirm that this history was written by its first Hebrew author upon a taken or fabricated theme; but he asserts that its Vulgate translation was vitiated [corrupted] by the fault of the translators, who — a narration-theme being taken (as is the custom in the schools) — mixed in much of their own head [invention] into this translation. For these are the very words of Jerome: “The BOOK (Librum) of Esther, it is agreed, is vitiated by various translators: which I, disclosing [it] out of the archives of the Hebrews, translated word for word more expressly; which book the Vulgate edition drags out with tattered fringes of words here and there, adding those [things] which could, according to the occasion, be said and heard — just as it is customary in the scholastic disciplines, a theme being taken, to devise with what words he could use who has suffered an injury, or who has inflicted an injury.” Thus Jerome. Accordingly, if the translators added something, either from Josephus or out of some other pious intention, this derogates nothing from the Hebrew verity, which always remained inviolate in its own sincerity, and has come to us in its integrity out of the translation of St. Jerome — who, as appears from his scholia, cut off those last six chapters as adventitious [ascititious], and the Catholic Church neglected the same, as adventitious and apocryphal.

5. From which it becomes plain that the controversy of the Anabaptists, between the second chapter of this book and the eleventh and twelfth chapters of the same book, is null — as [being one] which leans upon the additional and apocryphal appendices of the book. Yet we confess that that Artaxerxes, who is treated of in those apocryphal chapters, is the same with that Assuerus of whom mention is made in the whole book of Esther according to the Hebrew verity: who also (Philo being witness) was called Great Artaxerxes, and Assuerus Darius Mnemon, the fifth king after Cyrus of the Persians, Medes, and Assyrians. In the twelfth year of whose reign this history happened — as is narrated in the third chapter of Esther — Mardochaeus being then nearly in the one-hundred-and-eightieth year of his life. And lest it seem incredible to any one that Mardochaeus could survive so long a time, we have the testimony of Philo, who in the second book of the Chronography thus writes: “Him succeeded Joachim — likewise second [time] pontiff — for forty-eight years, up to the twelfth year of the great Artaxerxes; who wrote the deeds of Esther, and instituted the memory of פורים (Phurim [Purim]), at the exhortation, by letters, of Mardochaeus, who by eighteen years exceeded the age of Isaac” — signifying by these words that Mardochaeus lived a hundred and ninety-eight years. For Isaac, as is read in Genesis, lived a hundred and eighty years. ⁹ Nor is it to be esteemed impossible that a man so long-[lived]

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so long-lived an old man served, with strength still entire, in the royal court — since nothing is impossible with God, who, out of the love with which he most especially cherished his people, led such a man to that age beyond the usual course of human life, that the people, oppressed by the yoke of the nations, might, while he lived, be freed. Thus also he willed Jesus the high priest (as Philo writes) to be a survivor of a hundred and thirty years, that with him — together with Esdras, and Zorobabel the leader — the people might be recalled from Babylon into Jerusalem. Thus he led Tobit the elder (as the last chapter of his history testifies) to the hundred-and-second year, or (as the Greek edition has) up to the hundred-and-fifty-eighth year, that the calamity of those who were in the captivity of Salmanassar might, by him as consoler and benefactor, be partly relieved: as, for that same cause, he prolonged the life of his son Tobit up to the ninety-ninth [year], or (as it is had in Greek) up to the hundred-and-twenty-seventh year; and made Judith reach the hundred-and-twenty-fifth year, that, she surviving, the fatherland, freed by her, might longer enjoy its liberty.