They were not written by a prophet.
They were not written by a prophet.
§ 200. [II] It was not written by a prophet. Lyra (on Esther 11) and Sixtus Senensis (Biblioth., bk. 1, sect. 2, c. Esther, f. 24) think that Josephus or someone else added this to the genuine Book of Esther. Josephus, however, was not notable for prophetic authority; therefore he could not have written a prophetic book. It is not likely that some one person wrote the same account, and the repetition of the same matters conflicts with this. But if someone wrote the Book of Esther and someone else the supplement, which seems more probable to Bellarmine, then we ask: If the author of the supplement was a prophet, why did he not write in the prophetic language? Bellarmine’s opinion, that “the supplement was first written in Hebrew and afterward was translated into Greek by Lysimachus,” depends on pure conjectures. Moreover, this supplement was written after the time of Artaxerxes, for Esther 11 mentions Ptolemy and Cleopatra, who, it is evident, lived after Artaxerxes. But now, after the time of Artaxerxes, no prophetic books were written. In De verbo Dei, bk. 1, c. 17, Bellarmine quotes and approves the statement of Josephus in Contra Apion., bk. 1, that “among the Hebrews, those books that were written after the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus are not in the canon of Holy Scripture.” In fact (Bellarmine adds), “Ezra arranged the canon of the sacred books, and his life did not extend beyond the time of Longimanus.”