85.

In what followeth: "The wicked have told me pleasant tales: but not like Thy law, O Lord" (ver. 85): the Latin translators have endeavoured to render the Greek ?doleschias, which cannot be expressed in one Latin word, so that some have rendered it "delights," and others "fablings," so that we must understand to be meant some kind of compositions, but in discourse of a nature to give pleasure. Both secular literature, and the Jewish book entitled Deuterosis, ¹ containing besides the canon of divine Scripture thousands of tales, comprise these in their different sects and professions; the vain and wandering loquacity of heretics holds them also. All these he wished to be considered as wicked, by whom he saith that ?doleschiai were related to him, that is, compositions which gave pleasure solely in their style: "But not," he addeth, "as Thy law, O Lord;" because truth, not words, pleases me therein. ²