Page:LostApocryphaOfTheOldTestamentMRJames.djvu/124

 visited the secluded land and found it inhabited by the descendants of the Rechabites. He had to leave them because he suggested to his host that he should make an untruthful excuse. The text will be found in my Apocrypha Anecdota, L, and a translation in Recently discovered MSS. (Ante-Nicene Christian Library).

  There are, of course, many other legends woven about the Old Testament history which may have been the themes of apocryphal books. Such, for instance, is the Story of the Captivity, which is current in Arabic. Two versions of it are accessible, one in the Revue de l'Orient Chrétien for 1910–11, the other in Amélineau's Contes de l'Égypte Chrétienne, II. It is a picturesque embroidery of the Bible story, of which Jeremiah is the hero, and it shows a knowledge of the Paralipomena of that prophet. Another is the Slavonic tale of Babylon, translated by Wesselovsky in the Archiv für Slavische Philologie, II. Neither could possibly be at all early in date, I think; the second might fairly be called a folk-tale. There are, besides, lives of Biblical heroes such as Joseph, David, and Job, in Arabic and other Eastern tongues, which have not as yet been looked into, and which may prove to contain old elements. But to stray much further than I have done into late workings-up of earlier matter would be inappropriate. I hope and believe that in the present collection not much that is of really old date will be found to have been passed over. 