§ 8. LATER USE OF THE BOOK

(a) Although the Book of Judith was not received by the Jews, the story was well known to them, at least in the middle ages. It is mentioned in the liturgy for H́anukka (the feast of the Dedication of the temple, instituted by Judas Maccabaeus on Chisleu 25), and appears in various Hebrew forms among the minor midrashim (see Zunz, Gottesd. Vorträge, ed. 2, p. 131). A short recension of it is edited by Jellinek in his Bet ha-Midrasch, 1, p. 130, a longer text, ibid. p. 132, and another, ibid. 2, p. 12. Three more forms of the story are found in MSS. of the Bodleian Library. See also Gaster in PSBA, 16, p. 156. A text translated from the Vulgate, and agreeing with that of two Bodleian MSS. (Heb. d. 11 f. 259 and ms. Opp. 712 f. 164), was published at Venice about 1651, under the title of מעשה יהודית. None of these is in any sense a translation of the Greek, still less the original form of the book. They are free sketches of a well-known story, set down from memory, like other מעשיות, in more or less detail according to the taste of the writer. They are usually short, and of no great antiquity. In the MSS. they are generally headed ‘for Hanukka’. Hebrew translations of the Greek were published by Meir b. Ascher at Berlin in 1766, by Benseb at Vienna in 1819, and by Fränkel at Leipzig in 1830 (with other apocrypha). A Judaeo-German translation by S. Landau appeared at Frankfurt a. M. in 1715. A Persian version exists in a Bodleian ms. (Hyde 19). It is anonymous, but is made from the Vulgate, and the ms. was probably written about 1600.

(b) In the Church it was well known from the Greek (and Latin) translations, and was often quoted, not as canonical but as edifying, e.g. by Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Ambrose, Augustine (see Fritzsche, Einleitung, § 9), thus gradually acquiring a quasicanonical recognition. On the use of the book in mediaeval times, see Pentin, Judith, London, 1908.

After the Council of Trent, the Protestants, though rejecting it from the canon, maintained the early view that it was good for edifying, and used it largely in preaching. It was never admitted to the English Church lectionary.