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$0 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE.
Theodoret and the Law Book of Josiah.
PROF. JAMES A. KELSO.
WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ALLEGHENY, PA.
IN the last volume of the Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wis-
senschaft, Professor Nestle 1 has called attention to the fact that
several of the Church Fathers identified the law book, found in the
reign of Josiah and referred to in 2 Ki. 2 2 8ff -, with Deuteronomy. He
mentions three : Jerome, Procopius of Gaza, and Chrysostom. It is
entirely unnecessary to repeat the details presented by Professor
Nestle. However, his suggestion that other references along the
same line might be found in the Patristic literature led the writer
to investigate further. The search did not prove entirely futile, for
in the commentary of Theodoret 2 on the Second Book of Kings,
known as " Qucestiones in Librum IV Regnorum" the following pas-
sage was found under Interrogate LIV : 6 8t exyovos ttjv aKpav
7)<TKr)<rtv aptTr/v, kcu tov irpoyovov Aa/31B (KT^craro Tr/v evtrc'/Sciav. kou
irp£>Tov filv to. Otpanrtias Sto/ucra tov deiov veto irdo-rjs cirificAeias rjiioxrev.
eiruTa. tw Otiotv Xoyitav aKOvaas, tS>v iv tu> Aevrepovop-Lio Ktip.tvu>v, koI
rrjv l(rOrJTa SUppr/i*, kcu im irAcicrTW l6pr}vr)<Tt, Kal ftadtiv to 7rpa.KTtov
vtpl tov Otov tw oXojv it,Tyri)0-ev .
This passage has apparently escaped the notice of investigators, as
Holzinger, 3 although giving a quotation from Theodoret, makes no
allusion to it in his chapter entitled " Geschichte der Kritik" § 6,
where he discusses the apparent traces of later critical views in the
writings of the Church Fathers.
While Theodoret was a member of the celebrated Antiochian
school of exegesis that rendered the cause of sound hermeneutics such
signal service, it would be a serious historical anachronism to infer
from the above quotation that he had even an inkling of the modern
critical theory. Much less had he any conception of the part Deu-
teronomy and the narrative of 2 Ki. 22 would play in the docu-
mentary hypothesis. Notwithstanding this, it is of interest to know
that Patristic testimony and modern scholarship agree in regard to
the limits of the !"Hirn "ISO found in the reign of the godly Josiah.
1 ZATW., 1902, pp. 170, 312. 2 Migne, Patrolog., vol. 80, p. 794.
3 Holzinger, Einleitung in den Hexateuch, pp. 25 ff.
