INTRODUCTORY 25
such as occur in ii. 44 and ix. 41, may be citations
from now lost poems, as vii. 17 is from a still
extant Psalm (lxxix. 2, 3). In ix. 20, 21 reference
is made to an elegy on Judas and the opening
words are cited. It is possible to infer the Hebrew
original of these words with practical certainty,
and to detect in
lxrWy fywvm | rvbgh lpn jyx
How hath the valiant man fallen,
He that delivered Israel,
the opening of a poem constructed after the same
form^1 as elegies in the Old Testament.
In the book of Judith, which may have been
written about 150, or as some think about 80 B.C.,
we find a long poem of praise and thanksgiving;
in part, it is a close imitation of earlier poems in
the Old Testament; but its parallelistic, as was
also presumably its rhythmical, regularity is by
no means least where it is most independent, as,
for example, in the lines (xvi. 8-10)
She anointed her face with ointment,
And bound her hair in a tire;
And she took a linen garment to deceive him,
Her sandal ravished his eye,
And her beauty took his soul prisoner,
The scimitar passed through his neck,
The Persians quaked at her daring,
And the Medes at her boldness were daunted.
Not only the Apocrypha, but the Pseudepi-
grapha, contain much, the New Testament,
1 See below, pp. 96 ff.