Nothing more is known of Haggai than his name and the facts given in his book. But as with the other prophets whom we have treated, so with this one, Jewish and Christian legends have been very busy. Other functions have been ascribed to him; a sketch of his biography has been invented. According to the Rabbis he was one of the men of the Great Synagogue, and with Zechariah and “Malachi” transmitted to that mythical body the tradition of the older prophets.[648] He was the author of several ceremonial regulations, and with Zechariah and “Malachi” introduced into the alphabet the terminal forms of the five elongated letters.[649] The Christian Fathers narrate that he was of the tribe of Levi,[650] that with Zechariah he prophesied in exile of the Return,[651] and was still young when he arrived in Jerusalem,[652] where he died and was buried. A strange legend, founded on the doubtful verse which styles him _the messenger of Jehovah_, gave out that Haggai, as well as for similar reasons “Malachi” and John the Baptist, were not men, but angels in human shape.[653] With Zechariah Haggai appears on the titles of Psalms cxxxvii., cxlv.-cxlviii. in the Septuagint; cxi., cxlv., cxlvi. in the Vulgate; and cxxv., cxxvi. and cxlv.-cxlviii. in the Peshitto.[654] “In the Temple at Jerusalem he was the first who chanted the Hallelujah, ... wherefore we say: Hallelujah, which is the hymn of Haggai and Zechariah.”[655] All these testimonies are, of course, devoid of value.
Finally, the modern inference from chap. ii. 3, that Haggai in his youth had seen the former Temple, had gone into exile, and was now returned a very old man,[656] may be probable, but is not certain. We are quite ignorant of his age at the time the word of Jehovah came to him.
[615] In the English Bible the division corresponds to that of the Hebrew, which gives fifteen verses to chap. i. The LXX. takes the fifteenth verse along with ver. 1 of chap. ii.
[616] ii. 9, 14: see on these passages, pp. 243, n. 685, 246, n. 700.
[617] Besides the general works on the text of the Twelve Prophets, already cited, M. Tony Andrée has published _État Critique du Texte d’Aggée: Quatre Tableaux Comparatifs_ (Paris, 1893), which is also included in his general introduction and commentary on the prophet, quoted below.