carry forward the chain of history in their
sacred books. While they had been under the yoke of the Babylonians, the
Persians, and the Syrians, their language had undergone some changes;
and when the Hebrew of the Old Testament was no longer the spoken
language, they perhaps thought it unworthy of them to write in any
other. At any rate, it is to their Greek brethren in Egypt that we
are indebted for the history of the bravery of the Maccabees. Jason
of Cyrene wrote the history of the Maccabees, and of the Jewish wars
against Antiochus Epiphanes and his son, Antiochus Eupator. This work,
which was in five books, is lost, and we now read only the short history
which was drawn from it by some unknown Greek writer, which, with the
letter from the Jews of Judaaa to their brethren of Egypt, forms the
second book of Maccabees.

In the list of Alexandrian authors, we must not forget to mention Jesus,
the son of Sirach, who came into Egypt in this reign, and translated
into Greek the Hebrew work of his grandfather Jesus, which is named the
Book of Wisdom, or Ecclesiasticus. It is written in imitation of the
Proverbs of Solomon; and though its pithy sayings fall far short of the
deep wisdom and lofty thoughts which crowd every line of that wonderful
work, yet it will always be read with profit and pleasure. In this
book we see the earliest example that we now possess of a Jewish writer
borrowing from the Greek philosophers; though how far the Greek thoughts
were part of the original Hebrew may be doubted, because the work
was left unfinished by Jesus the grandfather, and completed by the
Alexandrian translator, his grandson. Hereafter we shall see the
Alexandrian Jews engrafting on the Jewish theology more and more of the
Platonic philosophy, which very well suited the serious earnestness of
their character, and which had a most remarkable effect in making their
writings and opinions more fitted to spread into the ancient schools.

This and other writings of the Alexandrian Jews were by them added to
the list of sacred books which together made their Greek Bible; but they
were never acknowledged at Jerusalem. The Hebrew books of the law and
the prophets were first gathered together by Nehemiah after the return
of the Hebrews from Babylon; but his library had been broken up during
the Syrian wars. These Hebrew books, with some few which had since been
written, were again got together by Judas Maccabaeus; and after his time
nothi