Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ...who suffered at the hands of their enemies (including apostates from the Jewish law), the requirements of the passage appear to be satisfied; and even Gratz, who thinks that he detects a few Christian interpolations, does not place the account of the righteous man under suspicion. In the absence, then, of undeniably Christian colouring or of clear allusion to Christian events, we may accept the prevailing opinion that the work is of purely Jewish authorship. Still less convincing is Mr. Sharpe's statement that the author "wrote after the conquest of Judaea by Vespasian, as he says that God's people were crushed by their enemies." In proof of this statement there is merely a reference to xv. 14. Here, however, there is no mention of a conquest, but only a general allusion to all the enemies that oppressed the Israelites; and in the long historical retrospect which is thus opened there is nothing to show that the Romans are included. Gratz is equally confident that the persecution under Caligula, and the claims to divine honours advanced by that imperial fool, come under the writer's hostile criticism. The worship paid to the statues of kings is undoubtedly described;f but it does not follow that the deification of the Roman Caesars was already known. The deification of the Ptolemies preceded that of the Caesars, J and the writer could Gesch. der Jud., III. p. 442-3. t xiv. 16-20. J It is sufficient to refer to the inscription on the Eosetta stone, in which the gods Soteres, the gods Adelphi, the gods Euergetae, the gods Philopatores, are mentioned, and an order is given that the statue of the god Ptolemy Epiphanes shall be worshipped in every temple in Egypt, and be carried out in the processions with those of the gods of the...