[426] Unless the mention of fasting, in iv. 16, ix. 31, can be included in this.
[427] Op. cit., p. 258.
[428] In the margin of the Revised Version this note occurs: “Or, the seers. So the Septuagint”; this is, no doubt, what should be read.
[429] Op. cit., p. 362.
[430] Op. cit., p. 612.
[431] See Swete, Intro. to the O.T. in Greek, p. 142 (1900).
[432] See Swete, Op. cit., p. 253. The Greek text is given in Swete’s The O.T. in Greek, iii. pp. 824-826.
[433] Where it follows a reference to 2 Chronicles xxxiii. 18.
[434] In ii. 22.
[435] Op. cit., p. 613.
[436] Ryle treats these words as though they stood in the text of Cod. T in addition to “I have set up ...” (which is the case in the Latin Version); but according to Swete’s apparatus criticus they are not an addition, but a substitution.
[437] The text of Cod. A agrees, however, with that of the Apostolical Constitutions.
[438] See Fritzsche; Kurzgefasstes exeget. Handbuch zu den Apokryphen des Alten Testamentes, i. pp. 158 ff.; Ball, Op. cit., pp. 362 ff.
[439] The Didascalia was incorporated into the Apostolical Constitutions of which it forms the first six books; the Apostolical Constitutions belongs to the fourth or fifth century.
[440] Oesterley, Op. cit., I, p. 59.
[441] Oesterley, Op. cit., p. 61.
[442] See Josephus, Antiq., XIV, iv. 2-4; Bell. Jud., I, vii. 3-6.
[443] See further, Schürer, Op. cit. II, iii. pp. 13, 14.
[444] The present writer has given many of these in his commentary referred to above.
[445] This section is taken substantially from the present writer’s commentary in Charles, I, pp. 61-65.
[446] Juden und Griechen vor der makkabäischen Erhebung, pp. 70 ff.
[447] Hermes, ix. pp. 284 ff., cp. Kautzsch, Op. cit., i. p. 30.
[448] Op. cit., p. 72.
[449] Though this did not actually come about until some time after the period dealt with in our book.
[450] “Saviour,” on account of his having delivered the Babylonians from the satrap Heraclides.
[451] The name of the Hasmonæan dynasty comes from that of the ancestor of the house, Asmonæus (Josephus, Antiq., XII, vi. 1; XIV, xvi. 4; XVI, vii. 1), who is said to have been the grandfather of Mattathias.
[452] It is in 1 Maccabees xiv. 41 that we are told of the ratification by the people of the high-priestly and princely dignity in the house of Asmonæus; “And the Jews and the priests were well pleased that Simon should be their leader and high-priest for ever....”
[454] According to Josephus (Bell. Jud., II, x. 2) this was a high hill a hundred stadia north of Ptolemais.
[455] No further mention is made of him in 1 Maccabees; he was murdered three or four years later by the usurper Alexander Zabinas, who gave himself out to be the son of Alexander Balas.
[456] Josephus (Antiq., XIII, vii. 2) says that he “fled from Dora to Apamæa, where he was taken during the siege, and put to death, when he had reigned three years.”
[457] These formed originally one book, as in the Septuagint; their division into two books is probably due to Christian influence.
[459] For the exceptions to this, see below.
[460] Volz (Encycl. Bibl., II, 1490) says of this story that “it is an independent piece of narrative that is also found standing by itself in a MS. of the Vulgate (Berger, Hist. de la Vulgate, p. 94 [1893]). To all appearance this piece is itself also a composite production, the praise of truth being an addition. The whole seems to have been originally written in Greek, and shows affinity with the epistle of Aristeas (Ewald, Hist., v. 165); the writer appears to have knowledge of the court history of Persia (iv. 29 ff.). The hero of the story is not originally Zerubbabel.”
[461] Hastings’ Dict. of the Bible, I, 759 f.
[462] They are clearly and succinctly summarized by Thackeray in Hastings’ Dict. of the Bible, I, 758-763.
[463] History of Israel, v. pp. 126 ff.
[464] In the Academy for 1893.
[465] Op. cit., p. 2.
[466] Cp. Josephus, Antiq., XI, iii. 2-6.
[467] The International Journal of Apocrypha, April 1913, pp. 33, 34.
[468] That the book was originally written in Greek admits of no doubt.
[469] Quoted by Goodrick, Op. cit., p. 34.
[470] He is followed by Wright, McNeile, and Barton, in their works on Ecclesiastes.
[471] Ecclesiastes, or, The Preacher, pp. 70 f.
[472] Cp. Barton, The Book of Ecclesiastes, pp. 57 f., where the passages are quoted in full in parallel columns.
[474] For the various untenable theories regarding the identity of the author, see Grimm, pp. 16 ff., Farrar, pp. 410 ff.; the question of composite authorship is dealt with in the next section.
[475] Some scholars hold strongly that the author was an Essene; earlier commentators have argued in favour of the author being a Christian. That the book was written for Jews is probable, apart from other considerations, from the numerous references to the Old Testament and past history of the Jews.
[476] Op. cit., p. xvii.
[478] It must be remembered that in the Hebrew Bible the Book of Job is reckoned among the Hagiographa.
[479] The words in the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus, “and the rest of the books,” are too indefinite for us to assume that the writer meant the Hagiographa as we understand them. In the Hebrew of Ecclesiasticus (xlix. 9), Job is mentioned, but only in reference to Ezekiel xiv. 14, 20, nothing is said of Job as we know him from the book that bears his name.
[480] Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, p. 26 f.
[481] Goodrick, Op. cit., p. 15.
[482] We have adopted some of Goodrick’s renderings in this quotation as being superior to that of the Revised Version; see Swete’s text, The Old Testament in Greek, ii. p. 606 f.
[483] Encycl. Bibl., iv. 5347.
[484] Mr. Gregg (Op. cit., p. xxvii.) says: “Attacks upon the unity of the book have failed, and no serious effort to dispute it has recently been made.” This is really not quite in accordance with the facts; Mr. Gregg has overlooked some not unimportant contributions to the literature on the subject; during the years 1903-1906 quite serious efforts have been made to show that the book is of composite authorship by at least five first-rate scholars.
[485] It is true that Wisdom is mentioned in xiv. 2, but it is used there in quite a different sense from that of the personified semi-divine Wisdom of part I, a fact which, if anything, strengthens the argument in favour of different authorship.
[486] Toy, in Encycl. Bibl., iv. 5338.
[487] Op. cit., i. pp. 522, 523.
[488] It should, however, be pointed out that differences of opinion exist as to where the dividing line between the two parts lies; Toy follows Houbigant here.
[489] Op. cit., p. 77.
[490] It is true that the book opens with an address to rulers; but Gregg is doubtless right in saying that this “would seem to be a purely rhetorical artifice, screening the real purpose of the book ...” (Op. cit., p. xxi.).
[491] Op. cit., pp. xxiii. f.
[492] The Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought, p. 231 (1900).
[493] Torrey, in the Encycl. Bibl., iii. 2870.
[494] On this obscure episode of pre-Maccabæan Jewish history see Büchler, Die Tobiaden und die Oniaden, pp. 106 ff.
[495] These are very conveniently drawn up in parallel columns by Moffatt, in Charles, I, pp. 126, 127.
[497] There are some few scholars who take a different view, e.g. Niese, less directly in favour of 2 Maccabees are Büchler and Laqueur, more modified in their opinion are Sluys and Wellhausen, see Schürer, German ed., III, p. 484 (not mentioned in the English edition).
[498] The text reads “belonging to Bacenor’s company,” but this can scarcely be right, as in xii. 17-19 Dositheus belongs to the “Jews that are called Tubieni.”
[499] Encycl. Bibl., iii. 2873 f.
[500] This figure should be “eight” according to 1 Maccabees iv. 95.
[501] The month Chislev = approximately December.
[502] Cp. Torrey, Encycl. Bibl., iii. 2875 f.
[503] “The senate and Judas” in verse 10 should be read, with the Syriac Version, “the senate of the Jews.”
[504] Torrey, Op. cit., iii. 2877.
[505] Cp. the far more sober account in 1 Maccabees vi. 8-17.
[506] Op. cit., iii. 2876.
[507] Op. cit., iii. 2877.
[508] Antiq., XII, vii. 7.
[509] Lucius, Der Essenismus, pp. 36 ff.
[510] In his Prologus Galeatus.
[511] Westcott, in Smith’s Dict. of the Bibl., ii. p. 175.
[512] Or “first origin.”
[513] E.g., by Irenæus, Adv. Haeres., v. 35; Clement of Alexandria, Paed., i. 10.
[514] Intr. to the O.T. in Greek, p. 274 (1900).
[515] Cp. Charles, The Apocalypse of Baruch, pp. xvi. f. (1896).
[516] Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidos, the last king of Babylon, who was overthrown by Cyrus.
[517] See the account given by Josephus, Bell. Jud., II, xvii. 3.
[518] See Josephus, Bell. Jud., VI, iii. 4, ix. 2, 3.
[519] See the long account given by Josephus, Bell. Jud., VI, iv. 1-7.
[520] Cp. the Pharisaic additions in Ecclesiasticus.
[521] See Zunz, Die Gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden, passim (1892).
[522] I.e., the Shemoneh Esreh (“Eighteen Benedictions”); the name Amidah (“Standing”) is given to it because it is said standing.
[523] In the liturgy the order of these two clauses is reversed.
[524] I.e. “‘Hear,’ O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” Deuteronomy vi. 4-9; xi. 13-21; Numbers xv. 37-41; in this last the deliverance from Egypt is referred to.
[525] Oesterley and Box, The Religion and Worship of the Synagogue, p. 367 (1911).
[526] According to Cornill, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, p. 274 (1896).
[527] In Hastings’ Dict. of the Bible, i. 253.
[528] This was pointed out long ago by Ryle and James, The Psalms of the Pharisees, pp. lxxii. ff.
[530] Op. cit., pp. lxxii.-lxxvii.
[531] In the Revised Version wrongly reckoned as verse 1, which is not done either in the Vulgate or the Septuagint.
[532] xxxvi. 1 in the Septuagint.
[533] In Hastings’ Dict. of the Bible, II, 579.
[534] Encycl. Bibl., ii. 2395.
[535] See further, p. 439 above. In the Vulgate the Prayer of Manasses, 1 (3) Esdras and 2 (4) Esdras are not included among the Apocrypha, but are placed in an Appendix at the end of the whole Bible, i.e. after the Book of Revelation.
[536] That it was originally written in Hebrew does not admit of doubt. See Box, Op. cit., pp. xiii.-xx.
[537] Hastings’ D.B., i. 766a.
[538] The following is translated from the Latin text edited by Bensly (see the Literature above); the words in brackets are wanting in the Latin, and are supplied from the Syriac Version.
[539] So the Syriac, which is required by the context; the Latin reads, “were burned.”
[540] The text is corrupt here; it reads multitudo tempestatio.
[541] Box rightly sees the hand of the Redactor in the form of the Vision as we now have it; he follows Kabisch in holding that the date of the Redactor is A.D. 120, possibly even a little later.
[542] For other interpretations that have been put forth, see Drummond, Op. cit., pp. 99-114.
[543] The passage v. 56-vi. 6 is a polemic against Christian teaching.
[544] At viii. 63 the dialogue is interrupted by a section on the Signs of the End; at ix. 13 it is taken up again.
[545] Maldwyn Hughes, The Ethics of Jewish Apocryphal Literature, p. 240.
[546] Box, Op. cit., p. xlvi.
[547] I.e. during the destruction of the city.
[548] This is the cup of inspiration, “full of the holy spirit, which, clear as water, is like fire” (Box).
[549] Box, Op. cit., p. 305; see also his Introduction, pp. lviii. ff.