The Tomb of Ezra.
Another writer of distinguished merit, belonging to this age, was the scribe and priest Ezra (already mentioned), who was permitted to return from Babylon to Jerusalem with a company of his people, 458 B.C. He settled the canon of Scripture, restoring and editing the whole of the Old Testament.
The Apocrypha (secret writings) consist chiefly of the stories of To’bit and Judith, the first and second books of Esdras and of the Maccabees, Ba’ruch, the Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus or the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach. Composed during the three centuries immediately preceding the Christian Era, they bear internal evidence, in their lack of the ancient poetical power, of belonging to an age of literary decline. They were mostly included in the canon of Scripture by the Council of Trent in 1545, but are rejected by Protestants as uninspired.
Ecclesiasticus, best of the Apocryphal books, is full of moral, political, and religious precepts, its object being to teach true wisdom and its style resembling the didactic poetry of Solomon. The following fine passage, versified by Lowth, personifies
WISDOM.
“Wisdom shall raise her loud exulting voice,
And midst her people glory and rejoice;
Oft the Almighty’s awful presence near,
Her dulcet sounds angelic choirs shall hear.
Me before time itself He gave to-day,