Judith, book of. One of the canonical books of the Old Testament, so named because it contains the story of the Israelite heroine Judith. Judith liberated her homeland of Bethulia from Nebuchadnezzar by assassinating his general Holofernes.

The authenticity and the canonicity of the Book of Judith are strongly contested. Jews read and preserved this text at the time of Saint Jerome. Pope Saint Clement, who also recorded the Apostolic Constitutions, cites it in his epistle to the Corinthians. Saint Clement of Alexandria’s book IV of the Stromata  [1] , Origen’s Homily 19 on Jeremiah  [2] and vol. III on Saint John  [3], chapter 17 of Tertullian’s On Monogamy  [4] , and book 3 of Saint Ambrose’s De Officiis a nd De Viduis all mention it also. Saint Jerome cites Judith’s story in his letter to Furia and in his preface to the Book of Judith . He states that the Council of Nicaea received the text among other canonical works, not that the Council had passed a specific motion to approve it. At the very least, no one was familiar with any such motion or had heard of any mention of one. Saint Jerome himself could not cite one, but perhaps he knew the text had been submitted for review or he presumed it had been approved because the Fathers of the Council had since recognized and cited the work. Saint Athanasius, author of one of the synoptic gospels, wrote a summary of the book as he had for other sacred texts. In book II, chapter 8 of his work On Christian Doctrine,  [5] Saint Augustine wrote that the entire African Church accepted Judith into their canon. Pope Innocent I and Pope Gelasius recognized it as canonical in an epistle to Saint Exuperius and in the Council of Rome respectively. The Book of Judith is cited by Saint Fulgentius and by two ancient authors whose sermons are printed in the appendix of the fifth volume of Saint Augustine’s writings. Finally, the Council of Trent declared it canonical as well.

The author of the Book of Judith is unknown. In Commentariorum in Aggeum . chapter I, verse 6, [6] Saint Jerome seems to believe that Judith wrote it herself but he provides no convincing proof of his assertion. Others hold that the high priest Joachim or Eliakim, who are both discussed in the Book of Judith , was the author. These claims, however, are nothing more than simple conjectures. Others attribute the Book of Judith to Joshua, son of Josedek. The author, whoever he may have been, does not seem to have been a contemporary of Judith. In ch. XIV, v.6, the author says that the Achior family still remained in Israel during his/her time and also states that one still celebrated Judith’s victory in Israel in ch. XVI, v. 31. These two statements imply that the events recounted in the Book of Judith had taken place long before it was written.

In the time of Origen, Jews possessed the story of Judith in Hebrew, or rather in Chaldean, which was often confused with Hebrew. Saint Jerome stated that one still read the Book of Judith in Chaldean in his day and placed it alongside a number of hagiographies. See Hagiographies . Sebastian Münster believes that Jews in Constantinople still have it in Chaldean at the present time, but at this point one has never seen Judith printed in that language. The Syriac version we have is translated from Greek, but from a more classical Greek version than the one we read today. Saint Jerome used the Chaldean version to produce his Latin translation, which is so different from the Greek that one cannot say that they come from the same original source. He forcefully decried the discrepancies between the Latin copies available in his time.

Calmet, Dictionary of the Holy Bible , volume II, pg. 460 and 461. [7] One can also consult the preface and this wise author’s commentary on the Book of Judith . [8]

Notes

1. See Clement, Otto Stählin, and Ludwig Früchtel , Stromata, (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1960). [with Greek text]

2. See Hieronim, Jacques-Paul Migne, and Jean Martianay. S. Eusebii Hieronymi Stridonensis Presbyteri Opera omnia . T. 5 T. 6. , p. (Parisiis: Venit apud Editorem, 1845), 583 – 691, https://books.google.com/books?id=M_kUAAAAQAAJ.

3. See Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologiae cursus compleìtus, seu Bibliotheca universalis, integra, uniformis, commoda, oeconomica omnium s. s. patrum, doctorum, scriptorumque ecclesiasticorum sive datinorum, sive graecorum qui ab aevo apostolico ad aetatem Innocenti III (ann. 1216) pro Latinis et ad Photii tempora (ann. 863) pro Graecis floruerunt... Series graeca in qua prodeunt patres, doctores scriptoresque Ecclesiae graecae a S. Barnaba ad Photium. 38, 38. (Petit Montrouge: apud j.-P. Migne, 1862), 21-830, http://books.google.com/books?id=NklFyxtsJoIC.

4. See Tertullian, and E. F. Leopold. 1839. Qu. Sept. Flor. Tertulliani Opera . (Lipsiae: Sumtibus et typis Bernh. Tauchnitz jun., 1839) , 112-134 , http://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.ah3wmz.

5. See Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, Oxford early Christian texts. R.P.H. Green (ed. and trans.). (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).

6. Commentary on the book of Haggai (Aggeus), in Hieronim, Jacques-Paul Migne, and Jean Martianay. S. Eusebii Hieronymi Stridonensis Presbyteri Opera omnia . T. 5 T. 6. (Parisiis: Venit apud Editorem, 1845), 1387-1416, https://books.google.com/books?id=M_kUAAAAQAAJ.

7. Augustin Calmet, Dictionnaire historique, critique, chronologique, geographique et litteral de la Bible: enrichi de plus de trois cent figures en taille-douce, qui représentent les antiquitez judaïques , Volume 2. (Paris: Emery, 1730), 460-461, https://books.google.com/books?id=3S9EAAAAcAAJ.

8. Augustin Calmet and Isaac-Louis le Maistre de Sacy, Commentaire littéral sur tous les livres de l'ancien et du nouveau testament: Les deux livres d'Esdras, Tobie, Judith, et Ester (Paris: Emery, 1722), 331-495, https://books.google.com/books?id=yL9bAAAAQAAJ.