apostolic age. And 3rdly. Because of the light which its ascertained existence at this early period throws upon the testimony of Josephus, who, within, at most, half a century before, declared that no Jew, on any consideration, would dare to add to the twenty-two books which constituted the sacred canon of the nation." Can it now be reasonably doubted, that the Song of Solomon formed one of the four which that historian describes as celebrating the Divine praises, and furnishing precepts for the regulation of human conduct? Is it likely that, between the period at which he wrote and that at which the version of Aquila was executed, it, could have been foisted into the Jewish Bible? On the contrary, is it not certain that the increased attention which had been excited to that divine volume by our Lord and his apostles, and the necessary attitude of mutual jealousy with respect to the nature and interpretation of its contents, in which the Jews and Christians stood to each other, must have rendered it absolutely impossible for an interpolation to have taken place?
Equally conclusive is the argument from the evidence of Melito, Bishop of Sardis (fl. 170 A.D.) Anxious to know the [GR:a)kri/beian], the exact truth of the whole matter respecting the Jewish Scriptures, this highly intelligent and spiritual man travelled from Sardis to Palestine in order to obtain information on this subject. The result of his laborious and anxious inquiry is contained in a letter to Onesimus, preserved by Eusebius in Hist. Eccl. iv. 26, in which the Song of Songs is expressly mentioned as contained in the sacred Scriptures. Now, as the jealousy subsisting among the different Jewish parties, as the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, and also between the Jews and Christians, must have rendered it impossible for the Song of Songs to have been foisted into the Hebrew Scriptures between the time of Josephus, born A.D. 37, and that of Melito, we are confirmed in our conclusions, that this Song was included in the catalogue given by Josephus, that it formed one of the four books which the historian describes
