ana translation

INTRODUCTION
xvii
and his " Second of Ezra " is Nehemiah. His " Daniel " is of the text
given by the Cod. Chisianus* in Greek, and followed by the Milan
Cod. Ambrosianus in Syriac, usually described as "Daniel according
to the Seventy " as ( distinguished from " Daniel according to
Theodotion ").
The Daniel extracts are identified, by comparison with
Cod. Ambrosianus as belonging to the Version of Paul ;
and there
can be no doubt that the extracts from Chronicles and Esdras come
from that Version likewise.
3. The passages of 1 and 2 Chronicles have been selected with
discrimination. They are taken from the parts which have no counterpart
in the Four Books of Kings. Hence the First Book is represented
in our Catena by excerpts wholly genealogical, from chh. i.-iii., and vi.,
which (beginning from Adam) set forth (1) the regal pedigree through
Judah to Zerubbabel and his sons (i.-iii.),
and (2) the sacerdotal
and (generally) the Levitical pedigree to the time of Jozedek (vi.).
After these is a brief note of the descendants of Moses (ch. xxiii.).
The excerpts from the Second Book are written continuously with
" Further from the Second
those from the First, but with the rubric,
Book of Chronicles," interposed. This Book (chh. xxvi.-xxxv.) yields
the more interesting narratives of the sacrilege and punishment of
Uzziah (xxvi.); the revival of worship under Hezekiah (xxix., xxx.) ;
his honourable interment (xxxii.) ;
the apostasy of Manasseh and his
repentance and reformation (xxxiii.) the ; attempt of Josiah to check
the advance of Egypt against Assyria, his death, and the mourning
of his people (xxxv.)
facts omitted or briefly recorded in 4 Kings.
4. Of " Esdras," it is noteworthy that the compiler of the Catena
gives nothing that belongs to the canonical Ezra. After the conclusion
of the above passages from 1 and 2 Chronicles, nearly two pages of
illustrative matter intervene, before he proceeds " From the First Book
of Ezra, according to the interpretation of the Seventy," introducing
many pages of extracts, all (as above noted) from the
" Greek Esdras,"
which the Latin and English Bibles alike class among Apocrypha.
After these, with no interval of separation, but (as in the case of
1 and 2 Chronicles) a rubric interposed "Further from the Second
Book of Ezra," with the addition " from the words of Nehemiah son
* See Dr. Swete's Introduction to O.T. in Greek, p. 47 ;
also his O.T. in Greek,
vol. iii, p. 498, for its text. It is also printed in Tischendorf s V.T. Or., t. ii, p. 589.
c*