6. But little is added by later tradition to the O.-T. narrative of Manasseh's reign. The prayer that bears his name among the apocryphal books can hardly, in the absence of any Hebrew original, be considered as identical with that referred to in 2 Chron. xxxiii, and is probably rather the result of an attempt to work out the hint there supplied than the reproduction of an older document. There are reasons, howe\'er, for believing that there existed at some time or other a fuller history, more or less legendary, of Manasseh and his conversion, from which the prayer may possibly have been an ex- cerpt, preserved for devotional iiurposes (it appears for the first time in the Apostolical Constitutions) when the rest was rejected as worthless. Scattered here and there, we find the disjecta membra of such a work. Among the offences of Manasseh, the most prominent is that he places in the sanctuary an uya\f^ia rtrpaTrporrMTrov of Zeus (Suidas, s. v. Mavairtrijt; ; Georg. Syncellus, C//?-o- no(jraph. i, 404). The charge on which he condemns Isaiah to death is that of blasphemy, the words " I saw the I/ord" (Isa. vi, 1) being treated as a presumptuoufl boast at variance with Exod. xxxiii, 20 (Nic. de Lyra, from a Jewish treatise: Jehamoth, quoted by Amama, in Crit. Sacri on 2 Kings xxi). Isaiah is miraculously rescued. A cedar opens to receive him. Then comes the order that the cedar should be sawn througli (ibid.). That which made this sin the greater was that the king's mother, Hcphzibah, was the daughter of Isaiah. When Manasseh was taken captive by IMerodach and taken to Babylon (Suidas), he was thrown into prison
MANASSEH B.-JOS. B. -ISRAEL 696
MANASSES
and fell daily with a scanty allowance of bran-bread and water mixed with vinot;ar. Then came his condemna- tion, lie was encased in a brazen image (the descrip- tion suggests a punishment like that of the bidl of Pe- rillus), but he repented and prayed, and the image clave asunder, and he escaped (Suidas and Georg. SynceUus). "And the Lord heard the voice of Manasses and pitied him," tlie legend continues, " and there catne around him a tinme of tire, and all the irons about him (r« ■iripi avTui' aici}pa) were melted, and the Lord delivered him out of his affliction" (Const. A post, ii, 22; compare Jul. Afric. aj). Routh, Eel. fSnc. ii, 288). Then he returned to Jerusalem and lived righteously and justly.
4. An Israelite of the descendants (or residents) of rahath-moab, who repudiated his foreign wife after the exile ( Ezra x, 30). B.C. 459.
5. Another Israelite of Hashun who did the same (Ezra X, 33). B.C. 459.
Manasseh ben-Joseph ben-Israel, one of the most distinguished Jewish theologians of the 17th ceii- turj', was born at Lisbon, Portugal, in 1604, at a time when the Iberian peninsula was a place of torture for all non-Koman-Catholic believers, but more particularly the Jews. Joseph, his father, a rich merchant, feared the power of the inquisitors, and, like many religiously liersecutetl, turned towards hospitable Holland for an asylum for himself and his family. The household found a safe home in Amsterdam, and when yet a youth ben-Joseph was placed under the instruction of the cel- ebrated Isaac Uzziel, then rabbi at the Dutch capital. So rapid was his progress and so luibounded the confi- dence of the Jews of Amsterdam in jNLniasseh ben-Is- rael, as he is commonly called, that on the death of Uz- ziel, when only eighteen years old (lt)22), he was deem- ed a worthy successor of the departed rabbi. In 1020, in need of means to meet the expenses of his father's family, largely dependent upon him for support, he es- tablislied the celebrated " Amsterdam Hebrew printing- office." Two years later he printed his own maiden production, and in 1032 finally came before the public with the tirst volume of his great and justly celebrated Conciliator, or Ilarmontj of the Pentateuch (see below), in which upwards of two hundred and ten Hebrew works, and tifty-four (ireek, Latin, Spanish, and Portuguese au- thors, both sacred and profane, are quoted. His fame ^vas now established in all Europe, and his authority ac- cepted not only by the Jews, but even Christian scholars acknowledged his scholarship, and wrote to him from far and wide, requesting explanations of difficulties which they encountered in the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish history. The celebrated Vossius, Dionysins, lingo Gro- tius, Iluet, Episcopus, Sobierre, Frankenberg, Thomas Fuller, Nathaniel Homesius, etc., were among his corre- spondents. He solicited their influence in behalf of his suffering brethren, and was thereby enabled to petition the Long Parliament (1050) to readmit the Jews into EnglantI, whence they had been expelled ever since 1290. Shortly after, he dedicated The Hope of Israel to the English Parliament, which was gratefully acknowl- edged in a letter written by lord Middlesex, addressed To mij dear brother M. B. I., the Ilehrein philosopher. Encouraged thereby, -Manasseh came over to England in 1055; presented ''A Humble Address" in behalf of his coreligionists to Cromwell; published in London, 1656, his Viiiilicatian of Jews, in answer to those Christians ■\iho r>])piisod the readmission of Jews into that country; autl though Cromwell, with all his power, could not car- ry thniugli the measure permitting Jews to settle m England (see .li;ws\ he granted to M.anasseh ben-Is- rael a pension of £100 per annum, iiayable quarterly, and commencing Feb. 20, 1650 (comp. Carlyle, ii, 103). Ma- nasseh, however, did not long enjoy this generQus gift, for he died in Middleburg in 1657, on his way back to Am- sterdam. Griitz (Cesch. (I. Jiitlen, K, 13, m^HO) rather belittles Manasseh's literary ability. lie regards him as "a man of much inforuialimi. but of little lliounbt." and yet his accjuaintance with Manasseh is founded mainly on