who translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew, understood perfectly the distinction between the canonical and the apocryphal books.  The canon which he has given agrees with that of the Palestine Jews.  He says (Prologus Galeatus) of the apocryphal books Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, and Maccabees, that the church reads these “for the edification of the people, not for authority in establishing church doctrines.”  The same distinction is made by Rufinus, the contemporary and antagonist of Jerome.  The language of Augustine was more wavering and uncertain.  At the Council of Hippo, A.D. 393, at which he was present, the “ecclesiastical books,” as the apocryphal books are called, were included in the catalogue of sacred books; and from that day to the time of the Reformation the extent of the Old Testament canon was regarded as an open question.  But the Romish Council of Trent included the apocryphal books in the canon of the Old Testament, with the exception of Esdras and the prayer of Manasseh, pronouncing an anathema on all who should hold a contrary opinion.  The Protestant churches, on the other hand, unanimously adhered to the Hebrew canon, separating from this the apocryphal books as useful for reading, but of no authority in matters of faith.

4.  Although the Protestant churches rightly reject the apocryphal books as not belonging to the inspired word, the knowledge of their contents is nevertheless a matter of deep interest to the biblical scholar.  The first book of Maccabees is in the main authentic, and it covers an important crisis of Jewish history.  All of the apocryphal books, moreover, throw much light on the progress of Jewish thought, especially in the two directions of Grecian culture and a rigid adherence to the forms of the Mosaic law.  Keil divides the apocryphal books into historical, didactic, and prophetic, but with the remark that this division cannot be rigidly carried out.  In the following brief notice of the several books the arrangement of the English Bible is followed.

I. THE TWO BOOKS OF ESDRAS.

5.  The first two in order of the apocryphal books in the English version bear the title of Esdras, that is, Ezra.  The Greek Bible has only the first, which stands sometimes before our canonical book of Ezra, and sometimes after Nehemiah.  In the former case it is called the first book of Esdras, that is, Ezra; in the latter the third, Nehemiah being reckoned as the continuation of Ezra, and called the second book of Ezra.  It gives the history of the temple and its service from Josiah to Ezra—­its restoration by Josiah, destruction by the Chaldees, rebuilding and reestablishment through Zerubbabel and Ezra.  Its original and central part is a legend from an unknown source respecting a trial of wisdom between Zerubbabel and two other young men, made in the presence of Darius, king of