§ 2. TITLE OF THE BOOK

Just as this ‘Addition’ is not really a book, so originally, being merely a section of the Greek Daniel, it had no separate title. Thus Swete4 says, ‘In the Greek MSS. no break or separate title divides these Greek additions from the rest of the text.’5 But the Alex. MS. gives the Prayer and the Song under the titles ‘Prayer of Azarias’ and ‘Hymn of our Father’ as two of the fourteen hymns which it inserts as an appendix to the Psalter. Other MSS. head the Song ‘Hymn of the Three Children’. The Vulgate inserts after Dan. 3:23 the note Quae sequuntur in hebraeis voluminibus non reperi. Then follows our ‘Addition’ and then another note, Hucusque in Hebraeo non habetur; et quae posuimus de Theodotionis editione translata sunt.

Lagarde in his edition of the Syriac version of the Apocrypha gives the heading ‘Prayer of Hananiah and his companions’ from one MS., and from Walton (literally) ‘Prayer of the House of Hananiah’; the meaning of the latter phrase being the same as the former.6

In the A.V. and R.V. the whole ‘Addition’ is placed under the title ‘The Song of the Three Holy Children’, adding the note, ‘Which followeth in the third Chapter of Daniel after this place,—fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.—Verse 23. That which followeth is not in the Hebrew, to wit, And they walked—unto these words, Then Nebuchadnezzar—verse 24.’

In the Prayer Book verses 35–65 form one of the canticles of the Morning Service, the opening words of the Latin version, Benedicite, Omnia Opera, being used as a title.