Some of the apocryphal writings, as, for example, the book of Wisdom, the book of Ecclesiasticus, the first book of Maccabees, were highly valued by the ancient Jews.  But they were never received into the Hebrew canon, because their authors lived after “the exact succession of the prophets,” which ended with Malachi.  They knew how to make the just distinction between books of human wisdom and books written “by inspiration of God.”

18.  The earliest notice of the contents of the Hebrew Canon is that contained in the prologue to the Greek translation of Ecclesiasticus, where it is described as “the law, the prophets, and the other national books,” “the law, and the prophecies, and the rest of the books,” according to the three-fold division already considered.  Chap. 18, No. 4.  Josephus, in the passage already referred to (against Apion, 1. 8), says:  “We have not among us innumerable books discordant and contrary to each other, but only two-and-twenty, containing the history of all time, which are justly believed to be divine.  And of these five belong to Moses, which contain the laws and the transmission of human genealogy to the time of his death.  This period of time wants but little of three thousand years” (the longer chronology followed by him).  “But from the death of Moses to the reign of Artaxerxes, who was king of the Persians after Xerxes, the prophets after Moses wrote the history of their times in thirteen books.  The remaining four contain hymns to God and precepts for human life.  From Artaxerxes to our time various books have been written; but they have not been esteemed worthy of credence like that given to the books before them, because the exact succession of the prophets has been wanting.”  In this list the books of the Old Testament are artificially arranged to agree with the number two-and-twenty, that of the Hebrew alphabet.  The four that contain “hymns to God and precepts for human life” are, in all probability:  Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles; and the thirteen prophetical books (see below) are:  (1) Joshua, (2) Judges and Ruth, (3) the two books of Samuel, (4) the two books of Kings, (5) the two books of Chronicles, (6) Ezra and Nehemiah, (7) Esther, (8) Isaiah, (9) Jeremiah and Lamentations, (10) Ezekiel, (11) Daniel, (12) the book of the twelve Minor Prophets, (13) Job.  See Oehler in Hertzog’s Encyclopaedia, Art.  Canon of the Old Testament.  Origen, as quoted by Eusebius (Hist.  Eccl. 6.25), and Jerome (both of whom drew their information concerning the Hebrew Canon immediately from Jewish scholars, and may, therefore, be regarded as in a certain sense the expositors of the above list of Josephus) make mention of the same number, twenty-two.  Origen’s list unites Ruth with Judges, puts together the first and second of Samuel, the first and second of Kings, the first and second of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah (under the names of the first and second of Ezra), and Jeremiah