The step from Sir to the Hellenistic Wis is not great. Here, too, the Law is the supreme revelation (e.g. 18*), t and here, too, in answer to prayer (cf. Sir 39°), the spirit of wisdom is given to men, that spirit which is the life and reason of the world, and which 'generation after generation enters into holy souls and makes friends of God and prophets' (T", cf. chs. 1. 6 ff.).
Apart from 4 Ezr, which, not being in the LXX, does not deserve consideration at this point, the other books of the A. make no claun to be reckoned among sacred Scriptures.
It is not easy to estimate the significance of the fact that we have no evidence in Jewish books that they were ever so regarded. Disputes are recorded regarding the exclusion of books of the Canon, but none regarding the admission of a*" books. Yet it should oe said that the Je'wish Rabbis usually covered up the tracks of past wanderings from the straight path that led to their own position. That additions to Dn and Est, and books like To and Jth, were once current among the Hagiographa in Pal. is not impossible. Josephus uses 1 Mac, 1 Es, and Ad. Est, without distinction from can. books as historical sources, and even says that he has written his whole history ' as the sacred books record it' (Ant. XX. xi. 2, cf. Pro. §3). Yet he counts 22 books, and excludes from the first rank all later than Est. In his time, then, the line had been drawn.
In the rabbinical writings there are many
• Baba bathra 14 aBcribea Job to Moses, Ru to Samuel, Ps to Pavid, Ca and Ec to Uezekjoh and his friends, Dn and Est to the men of the Great Synapopriie, Ch to Ezra and Nehemiah.
t The identification of Wisdom with the Law is found also In Bar S^ff- 4. Judith and Tobit and his son are examples of the gloriflcatioD ol ths Law in life.
citations from Sir ; Zunz * counts 40, among them some ' in a manner usual only of Scripture passages,' and some as late as the 4th cent., which speak of it as one of the Kethubhim. Some doubt, at least, regarding its canonicity is probable. Of Ad. Est some traces exist in Heb. literature, Haggadic stories concerning Dn, among them traces of Bel, are found. The Mac- cabcean legend of the mother and seven sons (2 Mac, 4 Mac) was a favourite theme of rabbinical Midrashim. Yet 1 Mac, which Jerome knew in Heb., seems to have left no trace in rabbinical books. The legend of Judith is found, though in a form very diflerent from the LXX, and Tobit is still extant in Heb. Jerome says the Jews had Jth and To, and regarded them as historical but not as canonical ; while Origen says they did not possess them even among their A.
3. The Relation of the Apocrypha to the Religious Tendencies and Parties of Judaism. — Of a theology of the A. it is unhistorical to speak. The collection presents the ideas of no one man or party, of no one period or place. The theology, or the religious ideas of each book, may be treated (see separate articles), or a history of the religious ideas and movements in Judaism in a given period (e.g. 200 B.c.-lOO a.d.) may be under- taken, in which these books will be important sources ; but the historian of theology cannot separate the A. from the later can. books on the one side, and from Philo and Josephus, the Pseudepigrapha and the early rabbinical literature, on the other.
A few suggestions may, however, be made regarding the relation of these books to the chief religious tendencies and parties of Judaism.
Tne main distinction in the post-exilic Jewish religion was that between the pnest, whose sphere was the temple and its cultus, and the scribe, whose activity centred in the synagogue and the law. The centre of gravity seems to have shifted gradually from the temple to the synagogue, from priestly ritual to the legalism of the scribes, whose work made it possible for Jews in the Dispersion, out of reach of the temple, to live religious lives, and prepared Judaism to survive the loss of its temple. The Hagiographa stands, as a whole, at the earlier stage, beginning with the Ps, the book of temple devotion, and ending with the great temple history of Ch, Ezr, Neh. The five ^legil- loth also came into connexion with the cultus by their use at the national feasts, though it is not known how early this happened. On the other hand, there is no early evidence of the regular use of Hagiographa in the synagogue service, and of the scribes' legalism they contain little. Only Dn, perhaps the latest book in this collection, can be called Pharisaic in tendency.
In the A., on the other hand, the legal pre- dominates over the priestly interest. Sir, perhaps its oldest book, shows a transition from the priestly standpoint of Ch (to which belongs 1 Es) to the legal standpoint of the scribes (Zunz). The writer delights in the temple and the high priest's impressive ceremony, and dwells upon Aaron much more at length than upon Moses (ch. 45), and with stUl more enthusiasm upon the Simon whose minis- trations he had himself witnessed (ch. 50) ; while Ezra, the patron saint of the Rabbis, is passed by in his praise of famous men. Yet he praises also the law as the wisdom of God (see above), and glorifies the office of the scribe (3S"»* 39'-").