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MANASSES, PRAYER OF

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 541 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MANASSES, See also:PRAYER OF , a}1 apocryphal See also:book of the Old Testament. This See also:writing, which since the See also:Council of See also:Trent has been relegated by the See also:Church of See also:Rome to the position of an appendix to the See also:Vulgate, was placed by See also:Luther and the translators of the See also:English See also:Bible among the apocryphal books. In some See also:MSS. of the See also:Septuagint it is the eighth among the See also:canticles appended to the Psalter, though in many See also:Greek psalters, which include the canticles, it is not found at all. In Swete's Old Testament in Greek, iii. 8o2 sqq., A is printed with the variants of T (Psalterium turicense).2 From the statements in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 12, 13, 18, 19, it follows that the Old Testament chronicler found a prayer attributed to See also:Manasseh in his See also:Hebrew See also:sources, The See also:History of the See also:Kings of See also:Israel and The History of the Seers. Naturally the question arose, had the existing Prayer of Manasses any See also:direct connexion with the prayer referred to by the chronicler ? See also:Ewald was of See also:opinion that the Greek was an actual See also:translation of the lost Hebrew; but See also:Ball more wisely takes it as a See also:free rendering of a lost Haggadic narrative founded on the older document from which the chronicler See also:drew his See also:information. This view he supports by showing that there was once a considerable literature in circulation regarding Manasseh's later history. On the other See also:hand most scholars take the Prayer to have been written in Greek, e.g. Fritzsche, See also:Schurer and Ryssel (Kautzsch, Apok. u. -Pseud. i.

165–168). " See also:

Political " See also:verse or See also:metre is the name given to a See also:kind of verse found as See also:early as the 6th See also:century in See also:proverbs, and characteristic of See also:Byzantine and See also:modern Greek See also:poetry. It takes no See also:account of the quantity of syllables; the scansion depends See also:tin See also:accent, and there is always an accent on the last syllable but one. It is specially used of an See also:iambic verse with fifteen syllables, i.e. seven feet and an unaccented syllable over. See also:Byron compares (" A See also:captain bold of See also:Halifax who lived in See also:country quarters." Such facile metres are called " political," in the sense of "See also:commonplace," "of the See also:city." Cf. See also:Gibbon's Decline and Fall (ed. See also:Bury, 1898), vi. 108; Du Cange, See also:Gloss. med. et infin. See also:lat. (vi. 395), who has an interesting See also:quotation from See also:Leo Allatius. Leo explains " political " as implying that the verses are " scorta et meretrices, quod See also:omnibus sunt obsequiosae et peculiares, et servitutem publicam serviunt." 2 Nestle (Septuaginta Studien III.) contends that the See also:text of A and T is derived from the A See also:post. Const. ii.

22, or from its See also:

original, and not from a MS. of the Septuagint. This See also:fine See also:penitential prayer seems to have been modelled after the penitential See also:psalms. It exhibits considerable unity of thought, and the See also:style is, in the See also:main, dignified and See also:simple. As regards the date, Fritzsche, Ball and Ryssel agree in assigning this See also:psalm to the Maccabean See also:period. Its See also:eschatology and See also:doctrine of " divine forgiveness " may point to an earlier date. The best See also:short account of the book is given by Ball (See also:Speaker's Apocrypha, ii. 361–371); see also See also:Porter in See also:Hastings's Dict. Bible, iii. 232–233. (R. H.

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