Application. Are you easily moved to anger? Have you in anger insulted, struck, or wished ill to others? Just observe the words and actions of an angry man, and you will see what a hateful passion anger is. Do not allow yourself to be ever carried away by it, but suppress its very first movements. If the angry impulse comes, be silent, and say within yourself: O gentle Jesus, have mercy on me and help me to overcome anger.
Chapter LXXXII.
TRANSLATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT INTO GREEK.
(285 B. C.)— WISE SAYINGS OF JESUS, THE SON OF SIRACH.
[Book of Ecclesiasticus.]
THE Jews, who had returned to their country, lived in peace for two hundred years under the dominion of the successors of Cyrus. This peace was not disturbed even when Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, destroyed the Persian empire. Whilst Alexander lived, he treated the Jews with great kindness; but when, at his death, the Macedonian empire was divided, evil times came upon Judaea.
That province formed the object of dispute between the kings of Syria and those of Egypt, who made it the battle-ground for their contending armies, so that it was turned almost into a desert. As a natural consequence of these protracted wars, ignorance, corruption and vice struck daily deeper root among the Jewish people. This was one of the darkest periods of their history, all the more so as the succession of prophets [1] seemed to have ceased.
While the Jews were under the sceptre of the king of Egypt, it happened that the king desired a Greek translation of the sacred books[2] of the Jews. He therefore expressed his desire to the
- ↑ Succession of prophets. After about 400 B. C. God sent no more prophets to His people. The last of the prophets, Malachias, was raised up to upbraid the people for their falling away from the correct observance of the Law. Regarding the priests we read: “I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will not receive a gift of your hand. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to My name a clean oblation.” Inspired writers, however, did not cease to exist.
- ↑ The sacred books. The Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament consist of twenty-one historical books, seven moral books, and seventeen prophetical books. The historical books are: the five Books of Moses, the Book of Josue, the Judges, Ruth, the four Books of Kings, two Paralipomena, two of Esdras, Esther, Tobias, Judith, and two of Machabees. The moral books are: Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, the Preacher, the Song of Solomon, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. The prophetical books are: Isaias, Jeremias with the Lamentations, Ezechiel, Daniel, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Baruch, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggeus, Zacharias and Malachias. These 45 books form the Catholic Bible of the Old Testament. The Protestant Bible excludes 7 books, viz. Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobias, Judith, Baruch and the two books of Machabees, which it calls “apocrypha”.
