not enough. Lomentations was in ancient days ascribed to Jeremiah, yet the Book of Lamentations is placed among the K'thubim. It is evident there was some oth,ir reoson why oerlain books were placed among the K'thubim. It was really the style of composition. We have olready seen the difference between the prophetic and apocalyptio styles, and the.t certe.inly was enough to make the distinction. It may be objected the.t the resemble.nee between Samuel e.nd Kings on the one side, oncl Ezra, Nehemie.h, and 1 and 2 Ohronicles:on the other, makes it difficult to under- ste.nd why the first were reckoned prophetic writings, e.nd the others were placed in the more miscellaneous division of K'thubim. The fact that Ezra, the reputed author of these four last-ne.med books, we.a a scribe, not a prophet, and that these four books form really one book, may be the reason. If, however, Ezra and his school completed the canon, and this appendix to the canon was added by them, the position occupied by these books is even more easily explicable. There were thus two reasons at work which might lead to placing any book among the Hagiographa. First, special literary style-that is to say, one differing from that of the prophets. Next, the office of the author, if he were something other than an official prophet. There is thus nothing to be deduced as to the date of Daniel from the position it occupies in the Massoretic canon. (3) There now comes the second question-Is there any evidence as to the date of Daniel to be drawn from the fact that the book is in the canon? It is clear if we could fix the date at which the canon was closed; then, as Daniel is included in the canon, it mll8t be dated before that event. But further, the date at which the Jews decided that certain books formed, and alone formed, their canon of sacred books, does not determine the latest date at which a book could be admitted to it. The Christian canon is by many regarded as fixed by the Council of Laodiciea. No one would pretend that any books were admitted into the canon of the Fathers of Laodiciea which they knew to have been composed but a few years before their own day. If we regard that as spurious, and look to the Third Council of Carthage, still the same thing holds. The books, while thus •declared to be canonical, were regarded as having originated some three centuries before. To find the date at which the canon was fixed would only supply a lower limit. This date is very difficult to determine-difficult, that is to say, to any one who will not determine the date simply to snit his prejudices. The date assumed as the latest at which e. book had been admitted into the canon is placed without any proof, by Professor Ryle, at B.o. 105-a date which is demonstrably false. The prologue of Siracides was written, at the le.test, B.o. 132, not impossibly a century earlier, and e.t that time the canon was not only fixed, but all the books which composed it hacl been translated into Greek. Dr. Xavier Kcenig ('La Formation du Canon') wishes to turn aside the force of the threefold mention of the tripartite division by laying stress on the indefinite and varying name given to the K'thubim. But it would be difficult to translate that term and not seem to assert that this class contained all the scriptural books. The word K'thubim we.s the technical term by which the canonical Scriptures were denoted; it also was the term by which those sacred books were denoted that were neither Law nor prophets. Hence the variation in the phrase by which the younger Siracides denotes them. It would be difficult to imagine this selection and translation
by the logioal oonueotion that one oan .6x the meaning, and that seems olearly to imply thot, though Amos had not been of the sons of the prophets, and bad received no previous trnining to fit him to be a prophet when God" took him from behind the fiock," yet the Lord oalled him to prophesy, e.nd to prophesy to Israel, therefore he would not go to prophesy elsewhere. He does not deny that he is a professional prophet; what he doea deny is thot he he.d either sought the office himself or had drifted into it from deijcent. xx:ui INTRODUCJTION TO