authority
in establishing church doctrines." The same distinction is made by
Rufinus, the contemporary and antagonist of Jerome. The language of
Augustine was more wavering and uncertain. At the Council of Hippo, A.D.
393, at which he was present, the "ecclesiastical books," as the
apocryphal books are called, were included in the catalogue of sacred
books; and from that day to the time of the Reformation the extent of
the Old Testament canon was regarded as an open question. But the Romish
Council of Trent included the apocryphal books in the canon of the Old
Testament, with the exception of Esdras and the prayer of Manasseh,
pronouncing an anathema on all who should hold a contrary opinion. The
Protestant churches, on the other hand, unanimously adhered to the
Hebrew canon, separating from this the apocryphal books as useful for
reading, but of no authority in matters of faith.

4. Although the Protestant churches rightly reject the apocryphal books
as not belonging to the inspired word, the knowledge of their contents
is nevertheless a matter of deep interest to the biblical scholar. The
first book of Maccabees is in the main authentic, and it covers an
important crisis of Jewish history. All of the apocryphal books,
moreover, throw much light on the progress of Jewish thought, especially
in the two directions of Grecian culture and a rigid adherence to the
forms of the Mosaic law. Keil divides the apocryphal books into
_historical_, _didactic_, and _prophetic_, but with the remark that this
division cannot be rigidly carried out. In the following brief notice of
the several books the arrangement of the English Bible is followed.

I. THE TWO BOOKS OF ESDRAS.

5. The first two in order of the apocryphal books in the English version
bear the title of _Esdras_, that is, _Ezra_. The Greek Bible has only
the first, which stands sometimes before our canonical book of Ezra, and
sometimes after Nehemiah. In the former case it is called the _first_
book of Esdras, that is, Ezra; in the latter the _third_, Nehemiah being
reckoned as the continuation of Ezra, and called the _second_ book of
Ezra. It gives the history of the temple and its service from Josiah to
Ezra--its restoration by Josiah, destruction by the Chaldees, rebuilding
and reestablishment through Zerubbabel and Ezra. Its original and
central part is a legend from an unknown source respecting a trial of
wisdom between Zerubbabel and two other young men, made i