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    after the expulsion of the Jews from that country , by those of Babylon . * These Talmudieal writings contain all the books of the prophets , though not in precisely the same order in which they stand in our English Bibles;—a qjrcumstance which it will be necessary to explain by observing , that the Talmudical doctors divided the books of the Old Testament into the three following classes : ( 1 ) the Law , called illin * containing the five books of Moses ; ( 2 ) the Prophets , called E 3 > KQi , which were subdivided into two

    parts , the former containing the books of Joshua , Judges , Samuel , and Kings , and the latter those of Jeremiah , Ezekiel , Isaiah , and the twelve minor prophets ; and ( 3 ) the remaining books , called C 3 Qiror containing Ruth , Psalms , Job , Proverbs , Ecclesiastes , Canticles , Lamentations , Daniel , Ezra and Nehemiah in one book , and Chronicles , and amounting in all to twenty-four books . f In most of the Talmudical writings an inferior rank is assigned to Daniel , J partly in consequence of a fanciful notion which prevailed among

    the ancient Jewish doctors that prophecies were never committed to writing out of Judaea , and partly on account of the high estimation in which the early Christians held that book and the use which they made of it in their controversies whh the Jews . These Talmudists say , that Daniel lived in the Babylonish court in a style of magnificence inconsistent with the simplicity of the prophetical character , and that the medium through which future events were made known to him was inferior to the other modes of

    revelation specified by God in his address to Aaron and Miriam ( Num . xii . 6—8 ); but $ ey admit that the Daniel who is mentioned by Ezekiel , ( xiv . 14 , xxyiii . 3 , ) and wl \ p flourished during the Babylonish captivity , was favoured with divine communications , and that he was the author of the book which is inserted in the Jewish canon under his name .

    2 . Among the Christian Fathers none < Jevot ; ed so much attention to the study of the Jewish Scriptures , and none , therefore , are so competent to give evidence on the present question , asOrigen and Jerome . —Origen was at the trouble of collating the copies and correcting the text of the Septuagint Version , a work of great labour and inestimable value ; and Jerome , in like manner , undertook the revision of the oltj Latin versions of the Jewish Scriptures , and afterwards executed , witi ? great ability , a complete version of the

    Old Testament into Latin . Both these fathers published catalogues of the books of the Old Testament . That of Origen is preserved by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History , § and that of Jerome forms the substance of the celebrated Prologus Galeatus , (| generally prefixed to our modern copies of the Vulgate . Jerome , who took great pains lo make his collection , adopts the threefold division of the Talmudists , but makes the whole number of books twenty-two , to correspond with the number of letters in the Jewish

    alphabet . The order \ n which he mentions the later prophets differs likewise in a slight degree from that of the Talmud , and is as follows : Isaiah , Jeremiah , Ezekiel , and the twelve minor prophets . The book of Daniel is placed by Jerome among the Chetubim or Hagiograp ha ; but his catalogue embraces all the prophetical books . Origen places Daniel before Ezekiel , and , according to our present copies of Eusebius , omits the book containing the writings of the twelve minor prophets ,. This ,, however , must be a

    mis-* Marsh ' s Lectures , Part II . p . 128 , and Butler's Hone BU > Uc » , Vol . I . pp . 10—12 . t Bava Bathra , fol . 13 , 14 , ed . Venet . 1548 . See Eicjihorn ' s Einleitung in das A . T . Band I . § 56 . X Yet Daniel is reckoned among the Prophets in some Talmudical books . Vide MegiUa , cap . U . Jacchiades in Dan . i . 17 . Gray ' 8 Key to the O . T ., Dublin ed . 1792 , p . 332 . § Lib . vi . cap . xxv . K Hieron . Op . Tom . III . p . 287 .

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    Canonical Authority of the Books of the P / ophets . 247

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1827, page 247, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1795/page/15/