25. The third book of Maccabees. This book does not belong to the Maccabean age, but to the earlier time of Ptolemy Philopator (B.C. 221-204).  Its title seems to have come simply from the similarity of its contents.  It relates in a pompous and oratorical style how Ptolemy Philopator, being enraged at his failure to enter the sanctuary at Jerusalem, determined to wreak his vengeance on the Jews in Egypt, and assembled them for this purpose in the circus, that they might be trampled under foot by drunken elephants, but was hindered by the miraculous interposition of God; whereupon the king liberated the Jews, prepared for them a sumptuous feast, and gave them permission to take vengeance on their apostate countrymen.  The narrative probably has a groundwork of truth with legendary embellishments, after the manner of the later Jews.  Its author is believed to have been an Alexandrine Jew, but his age cannot be determined.  It was never admitted into the Romish canon.

26. The fourth book of Maccabees opens with a philosophical discussion respecting the supremacy of devout reason over the passions, which is then illustrated by the history of the martyrdom of Eleazar and the mother with her seven sons, an account of which we have in 2 Macc., chaps. 6 and 7.  The author of this book was a Jew imbued with the spirit of the stoical philosophy.  It has been falsely ascribed to Josephus.

27. The fifth book of Maccabees exists only in Arabic.  We draw our notice of it from Alexander’s Kitto, according to which “it contains the history of the Jews from Heliodorus’ attempt to plunder the treasury at Jerusalem till the time when Herod revelled in the noblest blood of the Jews;” that is, from 184-86 B.C., thus embracing a period of 98 years.  The book is a compilation made in Hebrew, by a Jew who lived after the destruction of Jerusalem, from ancient Hebrew memoirs or chronicles, which were written shortly after the events transpired.  In the absence of the original Hebrew, the Arabic versions of it, printed in the Paris and London Polyglotts, give the text upon which we must rely.

PART III.

INTRODUCTION
TO
THE NEW TESTAMENT.

FIRST DIVISION, GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER XXIV.

LANGUAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

1.  In the character of the original languages of the Bible, as in every thing else pertaining to the plan of redemption, God’s hand is to be reverently acknowledged.  It was not by chance, but through the provident care of Him who sees the end from the beginning, that the writers of the Old Testament found the Hebrew, and those of the New Testament the Greek language ready at hand, each of them so singularly adapted to the high office assigned to it.  The stately majesty, the noble simplicity, and the graphic vividness of the Hebrew fitted it admirably for the