till about 200; for we identify the Simon celebrated in Sirach l. 1-26 with Simon II., son of the high-priest Onias II., B.C. 221-202; not with Simon I., son and successor of the high-priest Onias I., B.C. 310-291. Josephus’s opinion, indeed, is contrary; but leading Jewish scholars, such as Zunz, Herzfeld, Krochmal, Derenbourg, Jost, and Bloch differ from him. To the great synagogue must be referred the compilation of the second canon, containing Joshua, Judges with Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah with Lamentations, Ezekiel and the twelve minor prophets. It was not completed prior to 300 B.C., because the book of Jonah was not written before. This work may be called a historical parable composed for a didactic purpose, giving a milder, larger view of Jehovah’s favor than the orthodox one, that excluded the Gentiles. Ruth, containing an idyllic story with an unfinished genealogy attached, meant to glorify the house of David, and presenting a kindred spirit towards a people uniformly hated, was appended to Judges; but was subsequently transferred to the third canon. It was written immediately after the return from the Babylonian captivity; for the Chaldaising language points to this date, notwithstanding the supposed archaisms discovered in it by some. In like manner, the Lamentations, originally added to Jeremiah, were afterwards put into the later or third canon. Joshua, which had been separated from the five books of Moses with which it was closely joined at first, formed, with the other historical portion (Judges, Samuel, Kings), the proper continuation of Ezra’s canon. The prophets included the three greater and twelve minor. With Isaiah’s authentic oracles were incorporated the last twenty-seven chapters, belonging for the most part to an anonymous prophet of the exile, besides several late pieces inserted in the first thirty-nine chapters. Men of prophetic gifts wrote in the name of distinguished prophets, and put their productions with those of the latter, or adapted and wrote them over after their own fashion. The fiftieth and fifty-first chapters of Jeremiah show such over-writing. To Zechariah’s authentic oracles were attached chapters ix.-xiv., themselves made up of two parts (ix.-xi., xii.-xiv.) belonging to different times and authors prior to the destruction of the Jewish state by the Babylonians.