[2050] i.e., of Ochozias.
[2051] Athalia.
[2052] She was slain in the seventh year of her reign.
[2053] Not of her brother, but of her son Ahaziah, all of whom she slew except Joash.
[2054] Clement is wrong in asserting that Amos the prophet was the father of Isaiah. The names are written differently in Hebrew, though the same in Greek.
[2055] By a strange mistake Hosea king of Israel is reckoned among the kings of Judah.
[2056] Lev. xxvi. 30.
[2057] 2 Kings xxiii. 22.
[2058] 2 Kings xxii. 8.
[2059] Huldah.
[2060] Zephaniah.
[2061] o Iosiou, the reading of the text, is probably corrupt.
[2062] Josias.
[2063] o kai Ioachas, instead of which the text has kai Ioachas.
[2064] The names, however, were not the same. The name of the latter was Jehoiachin. The former in Hebrew was written yhvyqym, the latter yhvykyn. By copyists they were often confounded, as here by Clement.
[2065] Lowth suplies Iezekiel, which is wanting in the text.
[2066] He was a contemporary of Jeremiah, but was killed before the time of Zedekiah by Joachin. Jer. xxvi. 20.
[2067] Habakkuk.
[2068] Juba.
[2069] Malachi, my angel or messenger. [Again, p. 331, infra.]
[2070] On account of killing the serpent, as is related in the apocryphal book, "Bel and the Dragon, or Serpent."
[2071] Dan. ix. 24-27. [Speaker's Commentary, Excursus, ad locum.]
[2072] The text has David.
[2073] Hiram or Huram was his name (1 Kings vii. 13, 40). Clement seems to have mistaken the words huper on occuring in the epistle referred to for a proper name.
[2074] Such, according to Harpocration, was the title of this work. In the text it is called Trigrammoi. Suidas calls it Triasmoi.
[2075] The passage seems incomplete. The bearing of the date of the building of Thasos on the determination of the age of Archilochus, may be, that it was built by Telesiclus his son.
[2076] Called so because he sojourned at Athens. His birthplace was Acarnania.
[2077] Another reading is Timotheos; Sylburgius conjectures Timoxenos.
[2078] The text has Phuto, which Sylburgius conjectures has been changed from Putho.
[2079] Plato's Theages, xi. p. 128.
[2080] [Not to be lightly passed over. This whole paragraph is of value. Noah is the eighth preacher (2 Pet. ii. 5) of righteousness.]
[2081] [The baptism of Jesus as distinguished from the baptism of repetance. John is clearly recognised, here, as of the old dispensation. John iv. 1.]
[2082] [It is extraordinary that he fails to mention the blessed virgin and her Magnificat, the earliest Christian hymn; i.e., the first after the incarnation.]
[2083] i.e., of Io, the daughter of Inachus.
[2084] For Babulonos, Basileon has been substituted. In an old chronologist, as quoted by Clement elsewhere, the latter occurs; and the date of the expulsion of the kings harmonizes with the number of years here given, which that of the destruction of Babylon does not.
[2085] Gen. xlvi. 27, Sept.
[2086] [This assent to Plato's whim, on the part of our author, is suggestive.]
[2087] [This assent to Plato's whim, on the part of our author, is suggestive.]
[2088] Luke iii. 1, 2, 23.
[2089] [A fair parallel to the amazing traditional statement of Irenæus, and his objection to this very idea, vol. i. p. 391, this series. Isa. lxi. 1, 2.]
[2090] [Mosheim, Christ. of First Three Cent., i. 432; and Josephus, Antiquities, ii. 14.]
[2091] Dan. viii. 13, 14.
[2092] Dan. xii. 12.
[2093] Dan. xii. 11, 12.
[2094] Matt. i. 17.
[2095] [As to our author's chronology, see [36]Elucidation XV., infra.]
Chapter XXII.--On the Greek Translation of the Old Testament.
So much for the details respecting dates, as stated variously by many, and as set down by us.
It is said that the Scriptures both of the law and of the prophets were translated from the dialect of the Hebrews into the Greek language in the reign of Ptolemy the son of Lagos, or, according to others, of Ptolemy surnamed Philadelphus; Demetrius Phalereus bringing to this task the greatest earnestness, and employing painstaking accuracy on the materials for the translation. For the Macedonians being still in possession of Asia, and the king being ambitious of adorning the library he had at Alexandria with all writings, desired the people of Jerusalem to translate the prophecies they possessed into the Greek dialect. And they being the subjects of the Macedonians, selected from those of highest character among them seventy elders, versed in the Scriptures, and skilled in the Greek dialect, and sent them to him with the divine books. And each having severally translated each prophetic book, and all the translations being compared together, they agreed both in meaning and expression. For it was the counsel of God carried out for the benefit of Grecian ears. It was not alien to the inspiration of God, who gave the prophecy, also to produce the translation, and make it as it were Greek prophecy. Since the Scriptures having perished in the captivity of Nabuchodonosor, Esdras [2096] the Levite, the priest, in the time of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, having become inspired in the exercise of prophecy restored again the whole of the ancient Scriptures. And Aristobulus, in his first book addressed to Philometor, writes in these words: "And Plato followed the laws given to us, and had manifestly studied all that is said in them." And before Demetrius there had been translated by another, previous to the dominion of Alexander and of the Persians, the account of the departure of our countrymen the Hebrews from Egypt, and the fame of all that happened to them, and their taking possession of the land, and the account of the whole code of laws; so that it is perfectly clear that the above-mentioned philosopher derived a great deal from this source, for he was very learned, as also Pythagoras, who transferred many things from our books to his own system of doctrines. And Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher, expressly writes: "For what is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic Greek?" This Moses was a theologian and prophet, and as some say, an interpreter of sacred laws. His family, his deeds, and life, are related by the Scriptures themselves, which are worthy of all credit; but have nevertheless to be stated by us also as well as we can. [2097]
[2096] [The work of Ezra, as Clement testifies concerning it, adds immensely to the common ideas of his place in the history of the canon.]
[2097] [Concerning the LXX., see cap. vii. p. 308, [37]note 4, supra.]