The books of Ecclesiastes and the Canticles have nothing that was not Solomon’s except it be the titles or inscriptions. For The Words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem; and The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s, seem to have been made for distinction’s sake, then, when the books of Scripture were gathered into one body of the law; to the end, that not the doctrine only, but the authors also might be extant.

Of the prophets, the most ancient are Zephaniah, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Michah, who lived in the time of Amaziah, and Azariah, otherwise Ozias, kings of Judah. But the book of Jonah is not properly a register of his prophecy; for that is contained in these few words, “Forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed”; but a history or narration of his frowardness and disputing God’s commandments; so that there is small probability he should be the author, seeing he is the subject of it. But the book of Amos is his prophecy.

Jeremiah, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk prophesied in the time of Josiah.