I\. Author, Date, and original Language. — From 1
what has been remarked in the foregoing section, it will at once be apparent that these apocryphal addi- tions were neither maiuifiictured hy the translator of the canonical Esther into Greek, nor are they the pro- duction of the Alexandrian nor of any other school or individual, but embody some of the numerous national stories connected with this marvellous deliverance of God's ancient people, the authorship of which is lost in the nation. Many of them date as for back as the nucleus of the event itself, around which they cluster, and all of them grew up at first in the vernacular language of the people (i. e. in Hebrew or Aramaic), but afterwards assumed the complexion and language of the countries in which the Jews happened to settle down. Besides the references given in the preceding section which lead us to these conclusions, we also re- fer to the two Midrashim published by Jellinek in his Biith Ha-Midrash, i (Lpz. 1853), 1 scj. In ch. iii the pretended copy of Artaxerxes's decree for the destruc- tion of the Jews is written in thorough Greek style; the prayer of Esther excuses her for being wife to the uncircumcised king, and denies her having eaten any- thing or drunk wine at the table of Hainan ; the pre- tended copy of Artaxerxes's letter for reversing the previous decree is also of manifestly Greek origin in ch. viii, in which Haman is called a Macedonian, and is accused of having plotted to transfer the empire from the Persians to the Macedonians, a palpable proof of this portion having been composed after the overthrow of the Persian empire bj- the Greeks.
V. Canonicity nf these Additions. — It is of this Sept. version that Athanasius (Fest. Epist. p. 30, Oxf. trans- lation) spoke when he ascribed the book of Esther to the non-canonical books ; and this, also, is perhaps the reason wdiy, in some of the lists of the canonical books, Esther is not named, as, e. g. in those of Jlelito of Sar- dis and Gregory Nazianzen (see Whitaker, Disput. on II. Scr. Park. Soc. p. 57, 58 ; Cosin on the Canon of Scr. p. 49, 5(1), unless in these it is included under some other book, as Ruth or Esdras ("this book of Es- ther, or sixth of Esdras, as it is placed in some of the most ancient copies of the Vulgate," Lee's Dissert, on 2d Esdras, p. 25). The fathers, who regarded the Sep- tuagint as containing the sacred scriptures of the 0. T., believed in the canonicity of these additions. Even Origen, though admitting that they are not in the He- brew, defended their canonicity (^Ep. ad African, ed. West, p. 225), and the Council of Trent pronounced the whole book of Esther, with all its parts, to bo ca- nonical. These additions, however, were never in- cluded in the Hebrew canon, and the fact that Jose- t plius quotes them only shows that he believed them to be historically true, but not inspired. St. Jerome, who knew better than any other father what the an- cient Jews included in their canon, most emphatically declares them to be spurious (" Librum Esther variis translatoribus constat esse vitiatum ; quern ego de ar- chivis Hebrajorum relevans, verbum e verbo exprcs- sius transtuli. Quem librum editio vulgata laciniosis hiiic inde verborum sinibus [al. funil)us] trahit, addens ea qu;e ex tempore dici poterant et audiri ; sicut soli- tum est scholaribus disciplinis sumto themate excogi- tare, quibus verbis uti potuit, qui injuriam passus est, vel qui injuriam fecit," Prcef. in 1 Esth.'). Sixtus Se- nensis, in s])ite of the decision of the council, speaks of these additions after the example of Jerome (as "la- cinias hiiic inde quorumdam scriptorum temeritate in- sertas"), and thinks that they are chiefly derived from Josephus ; but this last opinion is without probability. The manner and the order in which Josephus cites them (.l);;'. xi, vi) show that they had already, in his days, obtained currency among the Hellenistic Jews as portions of the book of Esther, as we know from the way in which l>e cites other apocryphal books that they were current likewise, with others which arc now lost; for it was probably from such that Josephus de- rived his stories about Moses, about Sanballat, and the
ESTHER
313
ETERNAL
temple on Mount Gerizim, and the meeting of the high-priest and Alexander the Great.
VI. Literature. — Josephus,.l«^. xi, 6, 6 sq. ; the Mid- rash Esther; Targum Ske7ii on Esther, in Walton's Poli/ffi'ot^ vol. iv ; Josippon ben-Gorion (ed. Breithaupt, ITlOj, p. 72 sq. ; Whitaker, Disputation on Scripture (Park. Soc, ed. 1849), p. 71, etc. ; Usher, Syntagma de Gnrca LXX interptretum versione (London, 1655) ; De Rossi, (Specwiew Variarum Lectiimum sacri Textus et Chal- daica Estheris Additamenta (Eomaj, 1782); Eichhorn, Einleitung in d. AjKikr. Schriften d. A. T. (Leip. 1795), J). 483 sq. ; Fritzsche, 'Ecrji'/p, Duplicem Uhri textum ad optimos cdd. emend, et cum selecta lectionis varietate (ed. Toriei, 1848) ; and by the same author, Exegeiisches Jhmdbuch z. d.AjwJcr. d. A . T. i, G9 sq. ; Davidson, The Text of the 0. T. considered (Lond. 185G), p. 1010 sq. ; Herzfeld, Geschirkte d. Volkes Israel, vol. i (Nordhau- sen, l''^57), p. 305 sq. ; Keil, Lehrbuch der historisch- kritisvhen Einleitung, etc. (ed. 1859), p. 705 sq. ; Wolf's Bibl. Ilehr. p. 11, 88 sq. ; Hotting. Thesaur, p. 494 ; Walton, Proleg. ix, § 13 ; Nickes, De Estherce lihro (Rom. 1857, 1858); Baumgarten, De Fide Lib. Esther (Hal. 1839); Schnurrer (ed.), Var. Led. Estheris (2d ed. Tubing. 1783).— Kitto, s. v. ; Smith, s. v. See Apoc- rypha.