Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/205

Rh remote and inaccessible regions, St. Paul could never have subjected himself to be reminded by Agrippa that they were lost, nor would St. James have inscribed his epistle to those who could not be found to receive it.

Such are the proofs and deductions to be drawn from the sacred Scriptures, in correction of the fable to which so many learned men, as well as others on their authority, have given so much undeserved credit. In the Apocryphal writings, with the exception of the dream in Esdras, the innocent cause perhaps of so many fanciful theories respecting the ten tribes, we have no references to them but what are in strict accordance with the preceding statements. The book of Esdras is in a great measure compiled from that of Ezra, beyond which it is utterly worthless as an authority. It however repeats the accounts given in Ezra of the sacrifices and other circumstances already detailed, with one addition worthy of notice. Narrating the preparations made to return to Judæa, it says, "After this were the principal men of the families chosen according to their tribes to go up." (ch. v. ver. 1.) Here the phrase "according to their tribes," seems to convey a larger signification than we can imagine would be imphed if there were only two or three tribes returning.

The book of Judith is the only other work in the Apocrypha to which it is necessary to advert, and it is valuable as showing, that even before the Babylonian captivity, many of those taken away by the Assyrians had already returned (ch. iv. ver. 3), "Now the children of Israel that dwelt in Judæa, heard all that Holofernes had done to the nations; Therefore they were exceedingly afraid, and were troubled for Jerusalem, and for the temple of the Lord their God. For they were newly returned from the captivity, and all the people of Judaea were lately gathered together, and the vessels and the altar and the house were sanctified after the profanation." From this then it appears that the temple, though profaned, had not been yet destroyed, and the mention of their being again sanctified, with other circumstances in the narrative, might lead us to believe the reference to be to the latter years of the long reign of Manasseh. Judith herself was of the tribe of Simeon (ch. ix. ver. 2), as was also her husband (ch. viii. ver. 2), and Ozias, the ruler of her city of Bethulia (ch. vi. ver. 15). This city seems then to have been a possession of the Simeonites, but distinctly irom that branch of them already mentioned as remaining in the lands they had taken from the Amalekites, from the time of Hezekiah to that of the compiler of the book of Chronicles. (1 Book, ch. iv. ver. 41-43.) It is of little impor-