The Pulpit Commentary — Daniel — Section 31

to have been completed In 11!81! than half a oentury. Thi.I would plaoe the formation of the canon 1111 early RI! 11.0. 180; that ii to BRY, filleen yean before the oritloal date of Daniel. The other question ....., which we referred is much more import.ant-What was the principle according to which this selection WRB made? Dr. Kronig indicates the Idea that perhapi; these are all the Hebrew books that have survived the period of persecution (' Formation du Canon,' p. 55). This cannot be maintained, else why WRB Ecclesiastiou1 excluded from the canon? In hie rhetorical fashion, Dean Farrar (' Daniel,' 109) explains the inclusion of Daniel in the canon, while Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom are exclnded," by it.s intrinsic superiority." He does not show that this would be ob11ervable to a Jew of the period of the Maoc&bees; the literary sense of Jews of that period, judged by their productions, was pretty low. One bas only to read Judith to see this, If a per110n had only the books before him, and knew nothing more, he would be a singular critic who would say that Esther was immeasurably superior to even such a book as Tobit, not to speak of the Book of Wllldom, or that Ecclesiastes was imm«J- wra1ily superior to Ecclesiasticus. .AIJ.y such merely subjective test as this could never have been employed to settle the canon. ln a writer of the first century of our era we have a principle of canonicity laid down which is not liable to objection, and which, it seems to us, is proved to be true by the facis of the cue. Josephus (' Contra Apionem ') lays down the principle that those books alone were considered canonical which had originated before the end or the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanua. Of course, this only supplies one principle of aelection. He farther assert.I! that the works included were by prophets, Thie would imply that the works attribut.ed to David and Solomon were included in the canon because of the prophetic charsct.er assigned to their authors. The first chronological principle e:r:plaine, and seems to us alone to explain, the reuon of the exclusion of the apocryphal books. Ecclesia.sticus was often quoted by the Talmudists: why was it excluded? The traditional view-that of Josephna- explains it. If it i.& said that Ben Sira did not put a famous name at the head of hi.I work, and therefore it WBS not reckoned canonical. this assertion really admits the principle, and only implies that the Jew1 were sometimes cheated into misapplying it. But further: on the one band, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Books of Enoch had famous name11 at their head, and Ruth and Esther had not. Why were the latt.er included in the canon and the former excluded from it? The principle laid down by J01ephUB would explain it, especially if it had been applied and the canon fixed before the composition of any of the&e former books. The exclusion of the Book of Tobit appears to us the most irrefragable proof of the truth of JoaephUB'B assertion or the principles underlying the canonicity of the books of the Old Testament. It seems to us impossible to date Tobit later than the end of the Persian Empire, the date assigned to it by Ewald. If so, why was it not included? Simply because it was composed after the canon had been closed. It claimed a much higher antiquity than Daniel, but its claims were not admitted. It seems, then, that 10mewhere about the end of the Persian rule, that is to say, about the time the Talmudists place the great synagogue, the canon wu fixed, The principles on which they &elected the books which were to form the canon seem to have been those laid doWil by Joeeph11&-that the book must be reputed to have been compoeed before the death of Artuerxe11 Longimanus, and to have been the work of a prophet. If thia iB granted-and, in the light of the evidence, it is impossible reascmably to re11illt itr-the Book of Daniel must certainly date 10 much before the end of the Persian period, that its claim to belong to the Babylonian peric.d oould not be  THE BOOK OF DANil<:L. :uxvii