If this was the method of a writer as late as 300 B.C., whose work was afterwards received as canonical, two things are evident. First, that the canon of the earlier Books of the Old Testament could not have been then fixed and invested with the same sacred authority as we find to be the case two or three centuries later, when the Thora, or Book of Moses and the Prophets, was regarded very much as the Moslems regard the Koran, as an inspired volume which it was impious to alter by a single jot or tittle. This late date for fixing the canon of the Books of the Old Testament is confirmed by Canon Cheyne's learned and exhaustive work on the Psalter, in which he shows that a great majority of the Psalms, attributed to David, were written in the time of the Maccabees, and that there are only one or two doubtful cases in which it can be plausibly contended that any of the Psalms are pre-exilic. Secondly, that if a writer, as late as 300 B.C., could employ this method, and get his work accepted as a part of the Sacred Canon, a writer who lived earlier, say any time between the Chronicler and the foundation of the Jewish Monarchy, might probably adopt the same methods. If the Chronicler put a speech of his own composition into the mouth of David, the Deuteronomist might well do so in the case of Moses. According to the ideas of the age and country, this would not be considered to be what we moderns would call literary forgery, but rather a legitimate and praiseworthy means of giving authority to good precepts and sentiments.