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Begin Typing VigilThis book, composed, possibly in Aramaic, in the last quarter of the third century B.C, probably emanated from orthodox circles in Egypt. It therefore throws considerable light upon the religious and ethical conditions of the Diaspora in that country some 150 years after the date of the recently discovered Aramaic papyri.
The evidences of its popularity, almost from the moment of its composition until the eighteenth or nineteenth century of our era, in themselves constitute a long and interesting history. Its influence is apparent alike in Jewish writings, in the New Testament, in the early Church and in mediaeval art. Carefully revised by A.D. 150 in Jewish circles into the form most common to-day, but almost immediately translated into Aramaic from the first Greek version and later, and more than once, into Hebrew, and yet again revised in Greek in Christian circles, it remained on the one hand a favourite Jewish work, and on the other hand, translated into various languages, it followed the spread of the Christian religion to Edessa in the East, to Rome and Africa in the West, and Ethiopia in the South.
Its religious and moral outlook, with a delightful mixture of real piety and Oriental superstition, is still refreshing to the modern reader. The author's chief merit, however, lies not so much in the originality of his conceptions as in his artistic genius and inimitable art in combining, and working up, strong priestly and prophetic tendencies, distinct pagan and Jewish sources, various written and oral information, definite religious and moral precepts, into a work of singular aesthetic beauty and remarkably liberal sympathies. ‘Is it history?’ wrote Luther. ‘Then is it a holy history. Is it fiction? Then is it a truly beautiful, wholesome, and profitable fiction, the performance of a gifted poet.’
These deuterocanonical books were received as scripture in many Greek-speaking Jewish and Christian communities.