I. THE SONG OF THE THREE HOLY CHIL DREN.
I. Title and Position.—This piece is generally called The Song or Hymn of the Three Holy Chit. dim, because ver. 28 says, that the three, as out of one mouth, praised, glorified, and blessed God,' though it ought more properly to be denominated The Prayer of Azarias and the Song of the Three Holy Children, inasmuch as nearly half of it is occupied with the prayer of Azarias. • Originally it was inserted in the 3d chapter of Daniel, between the 23d and 24th ver. ; but, being used liturgically in connection with similar fragments, it was after wards transposed to the end of the Psalms in the Codex Alexandrinus as hymn ix. and x., under the titles of The Prayer of Azarias,' and • The Ilymn of our Fathers.' It occupies a similar posi tion in many of the Greek and Latin Psalters, and was most probably so placed already in the old Latin version.
2. design of this piece is evidently liturgical, being suggested by the apparent abrupt ness of the narrative in Daniel (iii. 23), as well as by the supposition that these confessors, who so readily submitted to be thrown into a fiery fur. nace, in which they remained for some time, would employ their leisure in prayer to the God whom they so fearlessly confessed. Accordingly, Azarias is represented as praying in the furnace (2-22), and, in answer to this prayer, we are told the angel of the Lord appeared, who, notwithstanding the furnace being increasingly heated, cooled the air like a moist whistling wind' (26, 27), where upon all the three martyrs burst into a song of praise (28-68), thus affording an example of prayer and praise to the afflicted and delivered church, which she has duly appreciated, by having used it as a part of her service ever since the 4th century, and by its being used in the Anglican church to the present day.
3. Unity, author, date, and original language.— There is hardly any connection between the prayer of Azarias and the song of the three holy children. The former does not even allude to the condition of the martyrs, and is more like what we should expect from an assembly of exiled Jews on a solemn fast day than from confessors in a furnace. This want of harmony between the two parts, coupled with the fact that ver. 14, which tells that the temple and its worship no longer exist, contradicts ver. 30, 31, 61, 62, where both are said to exist ; and that the same author would not have put the prayer into the mouth of Azarias alone, shew that the two parts proceed from different sources. Those who are acquainted with the multifarious stories wherewith Jewish tradition has embalmed the me mory of Scriptural characters, well know that it is almost impossible to trace the authors or dates of these sacred legends. Neither can the language in which they were originally written be always ascertained. These legends grew with the nation, they accompanied the Jews into their wanderings, assumed the complexions, and were repeated in the languages of the different localities in which the Jews colonized. An apocryphal piece may, there fore, have a Palestine or Babylonian origin, and yet have all the drapery of the Alexandrian school.