51 Talmudic tradition, which attributes the redaction of the book to the men of the great synagogue who are said to have acted under the influence of the divine spirit, separates the three apocryphal pieces from the rest; but this arose from the desire of discountenancing the idea that the work consists of romance and legend. Such later tradition took curious ways of justifying the canonicity of Daniel and the redaction of it by the great synagogue, _ex gr._, the assumption that the second part arose out of a series of unconnected _Megiloth_ which were not reduced to chronological order. Still the Midrash maintains that Daniel, or the person writing in his name, was no prophet, like Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, but a man of visions, an _apocalyptist_. It was a general belief, that _visions_ had come into the place of _prophecy_ when the book appeared. The Greek translation could not have been long after the original, because it is used in the First Book of Maccabees. The interval between the Hebrew and the Greek was inconsiderable. The translator not only departed from, but added to, the original, inserting such important pieces as the Prayer of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, the history of Susanna, and that of Bel and the Dragon. Whether any of these had been written before is uncertain. Most of the traditions they embody were probably reduced to writing by the translator, and presented in his peculiar style. The assertion, that Josephus was unacquainted with these additions is hazardous, since the way in which he speaks of Daniel’s fame (Antiq. x. 11, 7), and especially of _the books_ he wrote (τὰ βιβλία), supposes some relation to them. Elsewhere he speaks of _one book_ (x. 10, 4; xi. 8, 5), where he may have thought of the canonical part. 52 פתוביס, translated by the Greek ἁγιόγραφα, hagiographa. 53 It has been thought that the phrase פעלי אמפות in the ninth verse alludes to the great council or synagogue. This conjecture is plausible on various grounds. The reasons for attributing the epilogue to a later time than the writer of the book appear to be stronger than those assigning it to the original author. The 13th and 14th verses in particular, are unlike Coheleth. 54 τὰ ἀλλα πάτρια βιβλία; τὰ λοιπὰ τῶν βιβλίων. The younger Sirach does not use γραφαὶ, which would have been a proper translation of _c’tubim_. Does not this ἀλλα imply the non-application of the specific title _c’tubim_ to the hagiographa at that time, and therefore the idea that the third canon was still open? _ 55 Contra Apion_, i. 8.