hs one may be mentioned as showing how
rich in myth-making material was the atmosphere which enveloped our own
earlier sacred literature.

In the third century before Christ there began to be elaborated among
the Jewish scholars of Alexandria, then the great centre of human
thought, a Greek translation of the main books constituting the Old
Testament. Nothing could be more natural at that place and time than
such a translation; yet the growth of explanatory myth and legend around
it was none the less luxuriant. There was indeed a twofold growth. Among
the Jews favourable to the new version a legend rose which justified it.
This legend in its first stage was to the effect that the Ptolemy then
on the Egyptian throne had, at the request of his chief librarian, sent
to Jerusalem for translators; that the Jewish high priest Eleazar had
sent to the king a most precious copy of the Scriptures from the temple
at Jerusalem, and six most venerable, devout, and learned scholars from
each of the twelve tribes of Israel; that the number of translators thus
corresponded with the mysterious seventy-two appellations of God;
and that the combined efforts of these seventy-two men produced a
marvellously perfect translation.

But in that atmosphere of myth and marvel the legend continued to grow,
and soon we have it blooming forth yet more gorgeously in the statement
that King Ptolemy ordered each of the seventy-two to make by himself
a full translation of the entire Old Testament, and shut up each
translator in a separate cell on the island of Pharos, secluding him
there until the work was done; that the work of each was completed in
exactly seventy-two days; and that when, at the end of the seventy-two
days, the seventy-two translations were compared, each was found exactly
like all the others. This showed clearly Jehovah's APPROVAL.

But out of all this myth and legend there was also evolved an account of
a very different sort. The Jews who remained faithful to the traditions
of their race regarded this Greek version as a profanation, and
therefore there grew up the legend that on the completion of the work
there was darkness over the whole earth during three days. This showed
clearly Jehovah's DISAPPROVAL.

These well-known legends, which arose within what--as compared with any
previous time--was an exceedingly enlightened period, and which were
steadfastly believed by a vast multitude of Jews and Christians for
ages, are but sin