Section 128
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 9/ twenty books, and his history of the Jewish war in seven books, which he says were not only written in Greek, but also translated by him into his native tongue ; in all which he is worthy of credit, as well as in other matters. There are also two other works of his that deserve to be read, viz. those on the Antiquity of the Jews. In these he also makes his reply to Apion, the grammarian, who had then written against the Jews ; they con tain also a refutation of others, who attempted to vilify the na tional peculiarities of the Jewish people. In the first of these works he gives us the number of the canonical books of the Scriptures called the Old Testament, such as are of undoubted authority among the Hebrews, setting them forth, as handed down by ancient tradition, in the following words. CHAPTER X. The manner in which Josephus mentions the Holy Scriptures. " WE have not therefore among us innumerable books that disagree and contradict each other, but only two and twenty, embracing the record of all history, and which are justly con sidered divine compositions. Of these, five are the books of Mo ses, comprehending both the laws and the tradition respecting the origin of man, down to his own death. This time comprehends a space of nearly three thousand years. But from Moses until the death of Artaxerxes, who reigned after Xerxes king of Per sia, the prophets after Moses wrote the events of their day in thir teen books. The remaining four, comprehend hymns to the praise of God, and precepts for the regulation of human life. From Artaxerxes until our own times, the events are all re corded, but they are not deemed of authority equal with those before them, because, that there was not an exact succession of the prophets. But it is evident from the thing itself, how we re gard these books of ours. For in the lapse of so many ages, no one has dared either to add to them, or to take from them, or to N