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one, the Hebrew Jews would never have increased the number to twenty-four, since the Hebrew alphabet never contained twenty-four letters. Josephus, however, is not a witness with regard to the orthodox opinions of the Hebrew Jews, but was an eclectic and a Hellenist, who used the Old Testament in the Septuagint version and not in the original text, and who arranged the books of the Old Testament in the most singular manner. The fathers, too, with the exception of Jerome, whenever they give any account of their inquiries among the Jews with regard to the number and order of the books accepted by them as canonical, never give them in either the order or number found in the Hebrew canon, but simply according to the Septuagint version, which was the only one that the Christians understood. This is obvious in the case of Melito, from the fact that he reckons Βασιλειῶν τέσσαρα and Παραλειπομένων δύο, and places Daniel between the twelve minor prophets and Ezekiel. We find the same in Origen, although he gives the Hebrew names to the different books, and states in connection with the four books of Kings and the two books of Paralipomena, that the Hebrews named and numbered them differently. Lastly, it is true that Jerome arranges the writings of the Old Testament in his Prol. Gal. according to the three classes of the Hebrew canon; but he endeavours to bring the Hebrew mode of division and enumeration as much as possible into harmony with the Septuagint numbering and order as generally adopted in the Christian Church, and to conceal all existing differences. You may see this very clearly from his remarks as to the number of these books, and especially from the words, Porro quinque litterae duplices apud Hebraeos sunt, Caph, Mem, Nun, Pe, Sade ...  Unde et quinque a plerisque libri duplices existimantur, Samuel, Melachim, Dibre Hajamim, Esdras, Jeremias cum Kintoh, i.e., Lamentationibus suis. For the plerique who adopt two books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, are not Hebrew but Hellenistic Jews, as the Hebrew Jews did not divide these writings in their canon into two books each, but this mode of dividing them was first introduced into the Hebrew Bibles by Dan. Bomberg from the Septuagint or Vulgate. The further remark of this father, quanquam nonnulli Ruth et Kinoth inter hagiographa scriptitent, etc., is also to be estimated in the same way, and the word nonnulli to be attributed to the conciliatory efforts of Jerome. And lastly, his remark concerning the connection between the book of Ruth and that of Judges is not to be regarded as any evidence of the position which this book occupied in the Hebrew canon, but simply as a proof of the place assigned it by the Hellenistic Jews.</ref>
The book of Ruth is not a mere (say a third) appendix to the book of Judges, but a small independent work, which does indeed resemble the two appendices of the book of Judges, so far as the incidents recorded in it fall within the period of the Judges, and are not depicted in the spirit of the prophetic view of history; but, on the other hand, it has a thoroughly distinctive character both in form and contents, and has nothing in common with the book of Judges either in style or language: on the contrary, it differs essentially both in substance and design fro the substance and design of this book and of its two appendices, for the simple reason that at the close of the history (Rth 4:17), where Obed, the son