though the Maccabean period had no prophets, it is nevertheless to be supposed that many possessed the gift of poesy, and that the Spirit of faith, which is essentially one and the same with the Spirit of prophecy, might sanctify this gift and cause it to bear fruit. An actual proof of this is furnished by the so-called Psalter of Solomon (Ψαλτήριον Σαλομῶντος in distinction from the canonical Psalter of David)[1] consisting of 18 psalms, which certainly come far behind the originality and artistic beauty of the canonical Psalms; but they shew at the same time, that the feelings of believers, even throughout the whole time of the Maccabees, found utterance in expressive spiritual songs. Maccabean psalms are therefore not an absolute impossibility — no doubt they were many; and that some of them were incorporated in the Psalter, cannot be denied à priori. But still the history of the canon does not favour this supposition. And the circumstance of the LXX version of the Psalms (according to which citations are made even in the first Book of the Maccabees), inscribing several Psalms Άγγαίου καὶ Ζαχαρίου, while however it does not assign the date of the later period to any, is against it. And if Maccabean psalms be supposed to exist in the Psalter they can at any rate only be few, because they must have been inserted in a collection which was already arranged. And since the Maccabean movement, though beginning with lofty aspirations, gravitated, in its onward course, towards things carnal, we can no longer expect to find psalms relating to it, or at least none belonging to the period after Judas Maccabæus; and from all that we know of the character and disposition of Alexander Jannæus it is morally impossible that this despot should be the author of the first and second Psalms and should have closed the collection.
IV. ORIGIN OF THE COLLECTION.
The Psalter, as we now have it, consists of five books.[2] Τοῦτό σε μὴ παρέλθοι, ὦ φιλόλογε — says Hippolytus, whose
