CHAPTER III.

OF THE DEUTEROCANONICAL ADDITIONS TO THE BOOK OF Esther.

THE Alexandrine version of the book of Esther contains many things which are wanting in the Hebrew text, and which in the Vulgate are added at the end, c. x. 4-xvi. 24.* We will mention them as they are found in the Alexandrine version, and will point out the places which they occupy in the Vulgate.-1) The book begins with a dream of Mordecai concerning two fighting dragons, which represented Mordecai and Haman. Mention is also made of the discovery of the conspiracy of the eunuchs by Mordecai, which is related Esth. ii. 21. ss. This is in the Vulgate c. xi. 1-10. and xii. 1-6.-2) The royal mandate relating to the plundering and slaying of the Jews, iii. 13. Vulgate; xiii. 1-7.-3) The prayers of Mordecai and Esther, iv. 17. Vulgate; xiii. 8-xiv. 19.4) The entrance of Esther to the king, v. 1. Vulgate; xv. 4—19. (xv. 4—16.) -5) The royal mandate for the deliverance of the Jews, viii. 13. Vulgate; xvi. 1—25.-6) The remark that Mordecai now understood the dream above mentioned; and the subscription purporting that the epistle concerning the feast of Phurim or Purim was brought by Dositheus into Egypt under Ptolemy and Cleopatra, c. x. 3. Vulgate; x. 3-xi. 1.

* [In the English translation forming a separate book in the Apocrypha, under this title: "The rest of the chapters of the book of Esther, which are found neither in the Hebrew nor in the Chaldee." Tr.]

233. Language of these additions.

The Chaldee text of these additions, found in some Hebrew manuscripts, has been translated from the Greek, and interpolated into those manuscripts.[a] For the Greek of these fragments is evidently that of a Jew writing in that language, and exhibits not the slightest trace of a Chaldee original. The diversity of style in the different fragments, too, shows that they have been written by different authors. JEROME, Præf. in Esth., says, concerning them: "It is certain that the book of Esther has been corrupted by its various translators. I have more closely rendered it word for word, exhibiting it to the reader as it is found in the records of the Hebrews. This book is swelled out in the [old] Vulgate edition with patchwork appendages of matter which might be said and heard extempore, such as students in the schools compose on some given theme, inventing speeches suitable to the character of an injured person, or of him who does the injury."*_ -Besides, there are some passages which are contradictory to the protocanonical book, as c. xvi. 14. comp. Esth. ii. 2-23. Hence SIXTUS SENENSIS says, Biblioth. Sanct. p. 33, "the other six chapters, extending to the close of the book, are added by some unknown Greek writer from various histories, but especially from the eleventh book of the Antiquities of Josephus, from which the copy of the letter of Haman, and that of the proclamation of the king, given in c. xiii. and xiv. are taken word for word."-Those who urge that the deuterocanonical parts throw light on the book of Esther and must therefore be portions of it, do not consider that the same remark might be made of scholia, which are certainly not parts of the works to which they are appended.

[a) This is asserted by Jahn in opposition to the hypothesis maintained by De Rossi, Specimen variorum Lectionum Sacri textus V. T. et Chaldaica Estheris additamenta. 1782, Romæ, pp. 131. ss., that the whole

"Librum Esther variis translatoribus constat esse vitiatum, quem ego de arehivis Hebraeorum revelans, verbum e verbo expressius transtuli. Quem librum editio (antiquior) Vulgata laciniosis hinc inde verborum sinibus trahit, addens, quae ex tempore dici poterant et audiri, sicut solitum est scholaribus discipulis, sumto themate excogitare, quibus verbis uti potuerit, qui injuriam passus est, vel qui injuriam fecit."

book of Esther, together with these additions, was originally written in Chaldee, and that the present Hebrew book is an abridgment of it, omitting the deuterocanonical parts, which have been restored by the Alexandrine translator. See Germ. Introd. S. 285. ff. Tr.]

The Latin version of these fragments is not by Jerome, but more ancient than his time. In the Vulgate they are thrown at the end of the book, because Jerome, who followed the Hebrew, did not think proper to give them any place in the text.- -An imperfect Arabic version, and a Syriac version, are contained in the London Polyglot.

-The Chalace version already noticed, is sometimes more diffuse, sometimes more succinct, than the Greek text; it has been published by EVODIUS ASSEMAN in his Bibliotheca Vaticana, whence it was taken by DE ROSSI, Specimen Var. Lect. V. T.

§ 235. Whether these additions are Deuterocanonical.

The common opinion is, that these additions are part of the second canon. But SIXTUS SENENSIS, Bibliotheca Sancta, Tom. I. § 6. p. 22. s., reckons them among the apocryphal books, and says: "It occurs to me at present, to admonish and exhort the pious and benevolent reader, not to accuse me of temerity because I have detached these latter seven chapters from the canonical scriptures, and thrown them back into this lowest rank, among the apocryphal books, as though I had forgotten the decree of the holy Council of Trent, which under pain of anathema, commands us to receive all the books entire, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church, and are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition. That canon is to be understood of the true and genuine parts, which only are necessary to constitute the integrity of a book; and not of any mutilated appendixes, and patchwork additions rashly affixed by some unknown author, and in some way or other foisted in. Yet such is the character of these last chapters, which are not only rejected from the canon by Cardinal Hugo, Nicolas de Lyra, Dionysius the Carthusian, and other more modern interpreters, but are also separated from the whole book of Esther by Saint Jerome, as a corrupted part, and, to use his own words, as patchwork appendages of matter which

might be said and heard extempore, such as students in schools compose on some given theme, inventing speeches suitable to the character of an injured person, or to that of him who has done the injury.' Origen too, in his epistle to Julius Africanus, throws aside these same additions with contempt." -On these matters every one is free to form his own opinion: but the book of Sixtus Senensis was accepted by Benedict XIV. when dedicated to him by Milante.[a]

(a) The struggles of the author in this, and indeed, in all the preceding sections, to evade the dogmatic decisions of his church, must be evident to every reader. They afford additional proof, if proof were needed, of the correctness of the Protestant canon of Scripture. Tr.]

THE book of Tobit contains a narrative, belonging to the time of the Assyrian captivity, and relating to Tobit the father, (according to the Vulgate Tobias,) and his son Tobias. The principal heads are as follows.Tobit of the tribe of Naphtali, a native of the city Thisbe, or Thesbe, in Galilee, having been carried captive into Assyria by Salmanasar after the destruction of Samaria, and having been made ayopasns, a merchant or factor for the king, in the city of Nineveh, constantly adhered to the law of Moses, was a benefactor of the needy Israelites, and even secretly buried the slain, who were thrown on the outside of the walls. On a certain journey he had deposited ten talents of silver with Gabael in Rages, a city of Media. Being deprived of his office, under Sennacherib, he did not cease secretly to bury the Israelites whom that monarch frequently put to death after the destruction which his army had sustained in Judea. At length being betrayed, he merely saved his life by flight, but was despoiled of all his property, i. 1-20. Sennacherib being a short time after slain by his sons, Tobit, by the intercession of his relative Achiacharus, who had been elevated to an exalted dignity, obtained from Esarhaddon permission to return to Nineveh, and went on in his practice of burying the murdered Israclites. Having interred one of them on the feast of Pentecost, and on account of the uncleanness thus contracted, having slept in the court of his house under shelter of a wall, the dung of swallows who had built their nests in the wall, fell into his eyes, and brought on λsuxwμara or white spots in his eyes.