Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/182

 any of the above rules is forbidden to minister at the altars or to take any other part in divine worship.

The Twenty-two Books of Scripture

The task of writing (our national history) is thus one which cannot be capriciously undertaken by all alike; and there is no discrepancy in the records. No; the prophets alone (had this privilege), obtaining their knowledge of the most remote and ancient history through the inspiration which they owed to God, and committing to writing a faithful account of the events of their own time just as they occurred. From this it naturally, or rather necessarily, follows that we do not possess vast numbers of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. Our books, those to which we justly pin our faith, are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time.

Of these, five are the books of Moses, comprising the laws and the traditional history from the birth of man down to the death of the lawgiver. This period falls only a little short of three thousand years. From the death of Moses to the (death) of Artaxerxes, who succeeded Xerxes as King of Persia, the prophets subsequent to Moses wrote the history of the events of their own times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for (the conduct of) human life.

From Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history("till the reign of "), not found in Niese's MS. Perhaps we should read simply "until Artaxerxes" ([Greek: mechris] for [Greek: mechri tês]).]); Xerxes = Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah.]