viii. 12 of the canonical Esther; it purports to give the contents of

the letter of Artaxerxes (see viii. 8 ff. of the canonical Esther) written to revoke the order given in the former one (see (2)). Here the object is twofold; in the first place it is, once more, to give a religious tone to the book; the king speaks of those who try to escape “the evil-hating justice of God”; he says that the Jews are the “children of the most high and most mighty living God, Who hath ordered the kingdom both unto us and to our progenitors in the most excellent manner”; and in other ways he gives due honour to God by what he says. Secondly, another object of the addition seems to be to mitigate the rather bloodthirsty spirit of the canonical Esther.

(6) The last addition (but first in _position_ in the English Apocrypha, x. 4-xi. 1) comes at the end of the book in the Septuagint; x. 4-13 contain the interpretation of the dream given in addition which we have numbered (1). This last addition, too, has the object of giving a more religious tone to the book; “these things are of God,” is the way in which the interpretation of the dream is introduced; and the fact that the name of God is mentioned nine times in as many verses amply illustrates the purpose of the addition. xi. 1 is a note added to the last addition which is intended to explain how the “Letter of Purim” (by which is meant the whole book of Esther with the additions) was brought to Egypt; but, as Swete says: “the historical value of the book is more than doubtful.”[427]

II. AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE ADDITIONS

That the author, or, perhaps more probably, the authors of these additions were Hellenistic Jews is sufficiently clear from the whole tone of them; a striking example of detail is that Artaxerxes is made to say that both he and his forefathers had received their kingdom from God. As to the date at which the additions were made there is nothing in the additions themselves which offers any clue; but a book, such as the canonical Esther, in which a wonderful deliverance of the Jews is recorded, would be especially welcome to the people during a time of stress and anxiety; and if, at a time when such a book might well have been eagerly sought after, patriotic Jews should have enhanced its lesson of hope and encouragement by adding explanatory details, such a procedure would have been in the highest degree natural. There is but one period of stress and anxiety that can come into consideration here, and that is the time of the Maccabæan struggle; so we conclude that these additions must have been made during the latter half of the second century B.C.