DEDICATION.

...owe an account to no one except God, though it will undoubtedly seem otherwise to others, to whom the norms and laws of our Academic Life Vitæ Academicæ: The structured environment of university teaching and scholarly duties are known. For the occupations and exercises by which we are distracted for the benefit of the Studious Youth Referring to the author's students at the university so greatly restrict and cut short our time that we can hardly devote any efforts to our scholarly compositions except "stolen" ones; therefore, if these works are less polished and refined, they deserve some indulgence.

However, I might with greater justice fear lest anyone should accuse these efforts of mine of Ambition—because, not content with teaching Theology and interpreting the Divine Word Verbum Divinum: The Holy Scriptures or the Bible (a province in which I certainly have plenty to do if I have any talent at all), I might seem to "put my sickle into another's harvest" original: "falcem meam in alienam messem mittam"; a common Latin idiom for meddling in another professional's field of expertise and immoderately seek praise for expertise in Hebrew Antiquities. Or even of Arrogance, because, unmindful of Horace's warning The Roman poet Horace, in his Ars Poetica, warned writers to choose themes equal to their strength: "Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, aequam viribus", I have chosen a subject for writing that greatly exceeds the strength of my intellect, my skill, and my practice in the study of the Antiquities of the Jewish and Christian People.

But the more my conscience testifies before the Lord that I am pure of these vices, the greater the confidence with which I may dismiss their suspicions. No desire for empty little glory or for catching the "popular breeze"—which I do not know if I have ever valued highly—no vain pre-