A new history of ecclesiastical writers containing an account of the authors of the several books of the Old and New Testament, of the lives and writings of the primitive fathers, an abridgement and catalogue of their works ... also a compendious history of the councils, with chronological tables of the whole / written in French by Lewis Ellies du Pin.

(yy) Malachi, whose Name in the Hebrew, sig∣nifies, My Angel.] And this has made Origen and Tertullian believe, that he was an Angel Incarnate. He is called an Angel by the greatest part of the Fathers, and in the Version of the Septuagint, but he was Angel by Office and not by Nature, as he himself calls the Priests Angels. Some Persons, as Jonathan the Chaldee Paraphrast, St. Jerome, and several Jews believed, that it was an Appellative Name which Ezrah assumed, and that he was Au∣thor of this Book, but this Opinion is established upon very weak Conjectures; and besides, Ezrah is no where in Scripture called a Prophet. St. Je∣rome proves his Opinion in the first place, because Malachi and Ezrah lived at the same time; Se∣condly, Because what is in Malachi is very like what we find in Ezrah; And lastly, Because in chap. 2. vers. 7. he seems to point at Ezrah by these Words, Verba Sac••rdotis custodiunt Scienti••m, &c. ••ut these Conjectures are light and frivolous. For the first only proves that Malachi and Ezrah lived at the same time, not that they were one and the same: The second is not true, and if it were, it would prove just nothing. The Words quoted in the third ought to be understood of Levi, and all the Priests of the Law. He adds, that in Ec∣clesiasticus, chap. 49. where mention is made of all the Prophets, the Name of Malachi is not to be found. To this it is answered, That we ought not to be surprized, because he is not Named there, since in the same place there is no mention made of Daniel, and several others.