From hence also St. Jude, ver. 9. had that passage of the dispute that Michael the archangel had with the Devil about the body of Moses; which body, as Josephus probably says, (Ant. iv. 8.) if any relic of it had been kept, would have drawn the people into idolatry. That passage, we are told by some of the Fathers, was taken out of an apocryphal book called the Analepsis of Moses, [Clem. Alex. in Jud. et Origen. Tepì 'Apxv, iii. 2.] Grotius tells us, the Jews have the like things in their Midrash on Deut. in the Aboth of R. Nathan, and in some other books.

It was from hence that St. Paul understood that some of the prophets were sawn asunder, Heb. xi. 37. Though he spoke in the plural, he meant it only Origen. Re- of one, saith Origen, namely of the prophet Esay, spons. ad who was sawn asunder by the command of Manas

African.

Orig. ib. p. 232, &c.

Joseph.

Ant. 1. 10. c. 8.

ses, according to the Jewish tradition. Which also is mentioned by Justin Martyr, as a thing out of dispute between him and Trypho the Jew; and it is taken notice of in the Gemara tr. Jevamot, ch. iv.

It was from hence that Christ took what he said. of the martyrdom of Zachary the son of Barachiah, who was killed between the temple and the altar, Matt. xxiii. 35. which Origen there also mentions as a Jewish tradition, though, he says, they suppressed it as being not for the honour of their nation.

I do not deny but that there might be some ancient authors, besides the canonical writers, who kept the memory of these names of persons, and other matters of fact: as for example, that there were eighteen high priests who officiated in the first temple, though they are not all mentioned in Scripture. But if there were any such authors, it is very probable that they were lost in the captivity, or in the bloody persecutions of the Jewish Church, long before the time of our blessed Saviour and his holy Apostles. Josephus, who lived in that age, and writ the history of the Jews, makes no mention of them, and gives a very lame account of the things which passed under several kings of Persia.

2. Besides the canonical books, they had writings of a less authority, wherein were inserted by the great men of their nation several doctrines that came from the Prophets, which were in a very high esteem and veneration among them, though not regarded as of equal authority with the writings of the Prophets. It is not improbable that St. Matthew had respect to some book of this nature, when he quoted that which is not found in express words in any of the writings of the Prophets; as that the Messias should be called a Nazarene, Matt. ii. 23. if he doth not allude to the idea of the Jews, who referred to the Messias the Netzer, or Branch spoken of by Isaiah, xi. 1. So Christ himself may seem to have alluded to a passage in one of these books, John vii. 38. where he saith, He that believeth on me, as saith the Scripture, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water; for there is nothing perfectly like this in any of the canonical books that are come to our hands.

St. Paul, as Jerom (in Ephes. v. 14.) observes, has cited divers such apocryphal books, accommodating himself, no doubt, to the Jews, who gave much deference to their authority. Thus he did, Rom. ix. 21. and perhaps in some other places of his Epistles, from the Book of Wisdom, which is still extant in our Bibles. Elsewhere he has quotations out of books that are lost, as, 1 Cor. ii. 9. out of an apocryphal book that went under the name of the prophet Elias; and, Ephes. v. 14. out of an apocryphal piece of the prophet Jeremy, as we are told by Georgius Syncellus in his Chron. p. 27. A. But the most express quotation of this kind is that which is alleged by St. James, iv. 5, 6. For these words, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy, are not in any books of the Old Testament; nor are the following words, God resisteth the proud, but he giveth grace to the humble and yet both

Apostle. Of the first he saith plainly, гpapǹ λéye, the Scripture saith. Then he goes on to the other, and of that he saith also Aéye, without any nominative case but гpap before mentioned, which implies that the Scripture saith this also. Now what Scripture could he mean? for it is certain that neither of these sayings is any where else in our Scriptures. He must therefore mean one or other of the apocryphal books. And one of the Fathers, that was born within a hundred years after St. James's death, gives a very probable guess at the book that he intended. It is Clement of Alexandria, who saith of the latter quotation, "These are "the words of Moses," Strom. iv. p. 376. meaning in all likelihood of the Analepsis of Moses, which book is mentioned by the same Clement elsewhere, on Jude ver. 9. as a book well known in those times in which he lived. Therefore it is very probable that the words also of the former quotation were taken from the Analepsis of Moses, and it was that apocryphal book that St. James quoted, and called it Scripture.

This can be no strange thing to him that considers what was intimated before, that the Jews had probably these books joined to their ana, or Hagiographa; and therefore they might well be called Ipapai, without any addition. The apocryphal books that are in our Bibles were commonly called so by the primitive Fathers. Thus Clement before mentioned, Strom. v. p. 431. B. quotes the words that we read in Wisdom vii. 24. from Sophia in the Scriptures and the Book of Ecclesiasticus is called гpaǹ seven or eight times in his writings, [Pæd. i. 10. ii. 5, et ver. 8vis. et 10mis. iii. 3, 11.] So it is quoted by Origen with the same title, Orig. in Jerem. Hom. xvi. p. 155. D. There are many of the like instances to be found in the writings of the ancientest Fathers. They usually called such books the Scriptures, and sometimes the holy Scriptures; and yet

they never attributed the same authority to them, as to the books that were received into the canon of the Old Testament, which, as the Apostle saith, were written by divine inspiration, 2 Tim. iii. 16.

The same is to be said of the prophecy of Enoch, out of which St. Jude brings a quotation in his Epistle, ver. 14, 15. Grotius, in his annotations on the place, saith, this prophecy was extant in the Apostles' times, in a book that went under the name of the Revelation of Enoch, and was a book of great credit among the Jews; for it is cited in their Zohar, and was not unknown to Celsus the heathen philosopher, for he also cited it, as appears by Origen's answer to him, [Origen. in Cels. lib. v.] Grotius also shews, that this book is often cited by the primitive Fathers; and he takes notice of a large piece of it that is preserved by Georg. Syncellus in his Chronicon. And whereas in this piece there are many fabulous things, he very well judges that they might be foisted in, as many such things have been thrust into very ancient books. But whether his conjecture in this be true or no, it is certain that the piece which is quoted by St. Jude was truly the prophecy of Enoch, because we have the Apostle's authority to assure us of the historical truth of it.

3. It is clear that the Jews had very good and authentic traditions concerning the authors, the use, and the sense of divers parts of the Old Testament. For example, St. Matthew, xxvii. 9. quotes Jeremy for the author of a passage which he there transcribes, and which we find in Zechary xi. 12. How could this be? but that it was a thing known among the Jews, that the four last chapters of the Book of Zechary were written by Jeremy, as Mr. Mede has proved by many arguments. It is by the Mede's help of these traditions, that the ancient interpreters 709, 963, have added to the Psalms such titles as express 1022. their design, and their usage in the synagogue.

Works, p.

many of the Psalms, contribute much to make us understand the sense of those Psalms; which a man that knows the occasion of their composing, will apprehend more perfectly than he can do that reads the Psalms without these assistances. And for the titles of several Psalms in the Septuagint, and other of the ancient translations, which shew on what days they were sung in the public worship of the Jews; as Ps. xxiv. xlviii. lxxxi. lxxxii. xciii. xciv. &c. though these titles are not in the Hebrew, and therefore are not part of the Jewish Scriptures; yet that they had the knowledge of this by tradition we find by Maimonides, who though a stranger to those translations, yet affirms that those several Psalms were Tract. de Sung on such and such days; and he names the Sacrificiis days that are prefixed to them in the said titles.

De Cultu

Divino,

Jugibus, c.

6. sect. 9.

Tehillim

Rabbat. in

very

It is from the same tradition that they have these rules concerning the Psalms: I. This rule to know the authors of them; namely, that all Psalms, that are not inscribed with some other name, are David's Psalms, although they bear not his name; Præfat. in a maxim, owned by Aben-Ezra, and David Kimchi; Psalmos. and we see an instance of this rule in that quotation of Ps. xcv. 7. which is ascribed to David in Heb. iv. 7. II. From hence they have learnt also another rule, by which they distinguish between the Psalms spoken by David in his own name, and as King Ps. 24. fol. of Israel; and those which he spoke in the name of 22. col. 2. the synagogue, without any particular respect to his own time, but in a prospect of the remotest future Tehillim times. From thence they have learned to distinguish between the Psalms in which the Holy Ghost spoke of the present times, and those in which he speaks of the times to come, viz. of the time of the Messias. So R. David Kimchi and others agree, that the Psalms xciii. xciv. till the Psalm ci. speak of the days of the Messias. So they remark upon Ps. xcii. whose title is for the sabbath-day, that it is, for the time to come, which shall be all sabbath. Manasseh Ben Is. in Exod. q. 102.

Rab. ib.