Canon of the Old Testament
Canon of the Old Testament
The word canon as applied to the Scriptures has long had a special and consecrated meaning. In its fullest comprehension it signifies the authoritative list or closed number of the writings composed under Divine inspiration, and destined for the well-being of the Church, using the latter word in the wide sense of the theocratic society which began with God’s revelation of Himself to the people of Israel, and which finds its ripe development and completion in the Catholic organism. The whole Biblical Canon therefore consists of the canons of the Old and New Testaments. The Greek kanon means primarily a reed, or measuring-rod: by a natural figure it was employed by ancient writers both profane and religious to denote a rule or standard. We find the substantive first applied to the Sacred Scriptures in the fourth century, by St. Athanasius; for its derivatives, the Council of Laodicea of the same period speaks of the kanonika biblia and Athanasius of the biblia kanonizomena. The latter phrase proves that the passive sense of canon — that of a regulated and defined collection — was already in use, and this has remained the prevailing connotation of the word in ecclesiastical literature.
The terms protocanonical and deuterocanonical, of frequent usage among Catholic theologians and exegetes, require a word of caution. They are not felicitous, and it would be wrong to infer from them that the Church successively possessed two distinct Biblical Canons. Only in a partial and restricted way may we speak of a first and second Canon. Protocanonical (protos, “first”) is a conventional word denoting those sacred writings which have been always received by Christendom without dispute. The protocanonical books of the Old Testament correspond with those of the Bible of the Hebrews, and the Old Testament as received by Protestants. The deuterocanonical (deuteros, “second”) are those whose Scriptural character was contested in some quarters, but which long ago gained a secure footing in the Bible of the Catholic Church, though those of the Old Testament are classed by Protestants as the “Apocrypha”. These consist of seven books: Tobias, Judith, Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, First and Second Machabees; also certain additions to Esther and Daniel.
It should be noted that protocanonical and deuterocanonical are modern terms, not having been used before the sixteenth century. As they are of cumbersome length, the latter (being frequently used in this article) will be often found in the abbreviated form deutero.
The scope of an article on the sacred Canon may now be seen to be properly limited regarding the process of what may be ascertained regarding the process of the collection of the sacred writings into bodies or groups which from their very inception were the objects of a greater or less degree of veneration; the circumstances and manner in which these collections were definitely canonized, or adjudged to have a uniquely Divine and authoritative quality; the vicissitudes which certain compositions underwent in the opinions of individuals and localities before their Scriptural character was universally established. It is thus seen that canonicity is a correlative of inspiration, being the extrinsic dignity belonging to writings which have been officially declared as of sacred origin and authority. It is antecedently very probable that according as a book was written early or late it entered into a sacred collection and attained a canonical standing. Hence the views of traditionalist and critic (not implying that the traditionalist may not also be critical) on the Canon parallel, and are largely influenced by, their respective hypotheses on the origin of its component members.
A. THE CANON AMONG THE PALESTINIAN JEWS (PROTOCANONICAL BOOKS)
It has already been intimated that there is a smaller, or incomplete, and larger, or complete, Old Testament. Both of these were handed down by the Jews; the former by the Palestinian, the latter by the Alexandrian, Hellenist, Jews.
The Jewish Bible of today is composed of three divisions, whose titles combined from the current Hebrew name for the complete Scriptures of Judaism: Hat-Torah, Nebiim, wa-Kéthubim, i.e. The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. This triplication is ancient; it is supposed as long-established in the Mishnah, the Jewish code of unwritten sacred laws, reduced to writing, c. A.D. 200. A grouping closely akin to it occurs in the New Testament in Christ’s own words, Luke, xxiv, 44: “All things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me”. Going back to the prologue of Ecclesiasticus, prefixed to it about 132 B.C., we find mentioned “the Law, and the Prophets, and others that have followed them”. The Torah, or Law, consists of the five Mosaic books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The Prophets were subdivided by the Jews into the Former Prophets [i.e. the prophetico-historical books: Josue, Judges, Samuel, (I and II Kings), and Kings (III and IV Kings)] and the Latter Prophets (Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel, and the twelve minor Prophets, counted by the Hebrews as one book). The Writings, more generally known by a title borrowed from the Greek Fathers, Hagiographa (holy writings), embrace all the remaining books of the Hebrew Bible. Named in the order in which they stand in the current Hebrew text, these are: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticle of Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Esdras, Nehemias, or II Esdras, Paralipomenon.
1. Traditional view of the Canon of the Palestinian Jews
Proto-Canon
In opposition to scholars of more recent views, conservatives do not admit that the Prophets and the Hagiographa represent two successive stages in the formation of the Palestinian Canon. According to this older school, the principle which dictated the separation between the Prophets and the Hagiographa was not of a chronological kind, but one found in the very nature of the respective sacred compositions. That literature was grouped under the Ké-thubim, or Hagiographa, which neither was the direct product of the prophetical order, namely, that comprised in the Latter Prophets, nor contained the history of Israel as interpreted by the same prophetic teachers–narratives classed as the Former Prophets. The Book of Daniel was relegated to the Hagiographa as a work of the prophetic gift indeed, but not of the permanent prophetic office. These same conservative students of the Canon–now scarcely represented outside the Church–maintain, for the reception of the documents composing these groups into the sacred literature of the Israelites, dates which are in general much earlier than those admitted by critics. They place the practical, if not formal, completion of the Palestinian Canon in the era of Esdras (Ezra) and Nehemias, about the middle of the fifth century B.C., while true to their adhesion to a Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, they insist that the canonization of the five books followed soon after their composition.
Since the traditionalists infer the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch from other sources, they can rely for proof of an early collection of these books chiefly on Deuteronomy, xxxi, 9-13, 24-26, where there is question of a books of the law, delivered by Moses to the priests with the command to keep it in the ark and read it to the people on the feast of Tabernacles. But the effort to identify this book with the entire Pentateuch is not convincing to the opponents of Mosaic authorship.
The Remainder of the Palestinian-Jewish Canon
Without being positive on the subject, the advocates of the older views regard it as highly probable that several additions were made to the sacred repertory between the canonization of the Mosaic Torah above described and the Exile (598 B.C.). They cite especially Isaias, xxxiv, 16; II Paralipomenon, xxix, 30; Proverbs, xxv, 1; Daniel, ix, 2. For the period following the Babylonian Exile the conservative argument takes a more confident tone. This was an era of construction, a turning-point in the history of Israel. The completion of the Jewish Canon, by the addition of the Prophets and Hagiographa as bodies to the Law, is attributed by conservatives to Esdras, the priest-scribe and religious leader of the period, abetted by Nehemias, the civil governor; or at least to a school of scribes founded by the former. (Cf. Nehemiah 8-10; 2 Maccabees 2:13, in the Greek original.) Far more arresting in favour of an Esdrine formulation of the Hebrew Bible is a the much discussed passage from Josephus, “Contra Apionem”, I, viii, in which the Jewish historian, writing about A.D. 100, registers his conviction and that of his coreligionists–a conviction presumably based on tradition–that the Scriptures of the Palestinian Hebrews formed a closed and sacred collection from the days of the Persian king, Artaxerxes Longiamanus (465-425 B.C.), a contemporary of Esdras. Josephus is the earliest writer who numbers the books of the Jewish Bible. In its present arrangement this contains 40; Josephus arrived at 22 artificially, in order to match the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, by means of collocations and combinations borrowed in part from the Septuagint. The conservative exegetes find a confirmatory argument in a statement of the apocryphas Fourth Book of Esdras (xiv, 18-47), under whose legendary envelope they see an historical truth, and a further one in a reference in the Baba Bathra tract of the Babylonian Talmud to hagiographic activity on the part of “the men of the Great Synagogue”, and Esdras and Nehemias.
But the Catholic Scripturists who admit an Esdrine Canon are far from allowing that Esdras and his colleagues intended to so close up the sacred library as to bar any possible future accessions. The Spirit of God might and did breathe into later writings, and the presence of the deuterocanonical books in the Church’s Canon at once forestalls and answers those Protestant theologians of a preceding generation who claimed that Esdras was a Divine agent for an inviolable fixing and sealing of the Old Testament To this extent at least, Catholic writers on the subject dissent from the drift of the Josephus testimony. And while there is what may be called a consensus of Catholic exegetes of the conservative type on an Esdrine or quasi-Esdrine formulation of the canon so far as the existing material permitted it, this agreement is not absolute; Kaulen and Danko, favouring a later completion, are the notable exceptions among the above-mentioned scholars.
2. Critical views of the formation of the Palestinian Canon
Its three constituent bodies, the Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa, represent a growth and correspond to three periods more or less extended. The reason for the isolation of the Hagiographa from the Prophets was therefore mainly chronological. The only division marked off clearly by intrinsic features is the legal element of the Old Testament, viz., the Pentateuch.
The Torah, or Law
Until the reign of King Josias, and the epoch-making discovery of “the book of the law” in the Temple (621 B.C.), say the critical exegetes, there was in Israel no written code of laws, or other work, universally acknowledged as of supreme and Divine authority. This “book of the law” was practically identical with Deuteronomy, and its recognition or canonization consisted in the solemn pact entered into by Josias and the people of Juda, described in IV Kings, xxiii. That a written sacred Torah was previously unknown among the Israelites, is demonstrated by the negative evidence of the earlier prophets, by the absence of any such factor from the religious reform undertaken by Ezechias (Hezekiah), while it was the mainspring of that carried out by Josias, and lastly by the plain surprise and consternation of the latter ruler at the finding of such a work. This argument, in fact, is the pivot of the current system of Pentateuchal criticism, and will be developed more at length in the article on the Pentateuch, as also the thesis attacking the Mosaic authorship and promulgation of the latter as a whole. The actual publication of the entire Mosaic code, according to the dominant hypothesis, did not occur until the days of Esdras, and is narrated in chapters viii-x of the second book bearing that name. In this connection must be mentioned the argument from the Samaritan Pentateuch to establish that the Esdrine Canon took in nothing beyond the Hexateuch, i.e. the Pentateuch plus Josue. (See PENTATEUCH; SAMARITANS.)
The Nebiim, or Prophets
There is no direct light upon the time or manner in which the second stratum of the Hebrew Canon was finished. The creation of the above-mentioned Samaritan Canon (c. 432 B.C.) may furnish a terminus a quo; perhaps a better one is the date of the expiration of prophecy about the close of the fifth century before Christ. For the other terminus the lowest possible date is that of the prologue to Ecclesiasticus (c. 132 B.C.), which speaks of “the Law”, and the Prophets, and the others that have followed them”. But compare Ecclesiasticus itself, chapters xlvi-xlix, for an earlier one.
The Kéthubim, or Hagiographa Completes of the Jewish Canon
Critical opinion as to date ranged from c. 165 B.C. to the middle of the second century of our era (Wildeboer). The Catholic scholars Jahn, Movers, Nickes, Danko, Haneberg, Aicher, without sharing all the views of the advanced exegetes, regard the Hebrew Hagiographa as not definitely settled till after Christ. It is an incontestable fact that the sacredness of certain parts of the Palestinian Bible (Esther, Ecclesiastes, Canticle of Canticles) was disputed by some rabbis as late as the second century of the Christian Era (Mishna, Yadaim, III, 5; Babylonian Talmud, Megilla, fol. 7). However differing as to dates, the critics are assured that the distinction between the Hagiographa and the Prophetic Canon was one essentially chronological. It was because the Prophets already formed a sealed collection that Ruth, Lamentations, and Daniel, though naturally belonging to it, could not gain entrance, but had to take their place with the last-formed division, the Kéthubim.
3. The Protocanonical Books and the New Testament
The absence of any citations from Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles may be reasonably explained by their unsuitability for New Testament purposes, and is further discounted by the non-citation of the two books of Esdras. Abdias, Nahum, and Sophonias, while not directly honoured, are included in the quotations from the other minor Prophets by virtue of the traditional unity of that collection. On the other hand, such frequent terms as “the Scripture”, the “Scriptures”, “the holy Scriptures”, applied in the New Testament to the other sacred writings, would lead us to believe that the latter already formed a definite fixed collection; but, on the other, the reference in St. Luke to “the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms”, while demonstrating the fixity of the Torah and the Prophets as sacred groups, does not warrant us in ascribing the same fixity to the third division, the Palestinian-Jewish Hagiographa. If, as seems certain, the exact content of the broader catalogue of the Old Testament Scriptures (that comprising the deutero books) cannot be established from the New Testament, a fortiori there is no reason to expect that it should reflect the precise extension of the narrower and Judaistic Canon. We are sure, of course, that all the Hagiographa were eventually, before the death of the last Apostle, divinely committed to the Church as Holy Scriptures, but we known this as a truth of faith, and by theological deduction, not from documentary evidence in the New Testament The latter fact has a bearing against the Protestant claim that Jesus approved and transmitted en bloc an already defined Bible of the Palestinian Synagogue.
4. Authors and Standards of Canonicity among the Jews
Though the Old Testament reveals no formal notion of inspiration, the later Jews at least must have possessed the idea (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21). There is an instance of a Talmudic doctor distinguishing between a composition “given by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit” and one supposed to be the product of merely human wisdom. But as to our distinct concept of canonicity, it is a modern idea, and even the Talmud gives no evidence of it. To characterize a book which held no acknowledged place in the divine library, the rabbis spoke of it as “defiling the hands”, a curious technical expression due probably to the desire to prevent any profane touching of the sacred roll. But though the formal idea of canonicity was wanting among the Jews the fact existed. Regarding the sources of canonicity among the Hebrew ancients, we are left to surmise an analogy. There are both psychological and historical reasons against the supposition that the Old Testament Canon grew spontaneously by a kind of instinctive public recognition of inspired books. True, it is quite reasonable to assume that the prophetic office in Israel carried its own credentials, which in a large measure extended to its written compositions. But there were many pseduo-prophets in the nation, and so some authority was necessary to draw the line between the true and the false prophetical writings. And an ultimate tribunal was also needed to set its seal upon the miscellaneous and in some cases mystifying literature embraced in the Hagiographa. Jewish tradition, as illustrated by the already cited Josephus, Baba Bathra, and pseudo-Esdras data, points to authority as the final arbiter of what was Scriptural and what not. The so-called Council of Jamnia (c. A.D. 90) has reasonably been taken as having terminated the disputes between rival rabbinic schools concerning the canonicity of Canticles. So while the intuitive sense and increasingly reverent consciousness of the faithful element of Israel could, and presumably did, give a general impulse and direction to authority, we must conclude that it was the word of official authority which actually fixed the limits of the Hebrew Canon, and here, broadly speaking, the advanced and conservative exegetes meet on common ground. However the case may have been for the Prophets, the preponderance of evidence favours a late period as that in which the Hagiographa were closed, a period when the general body of Scribes dominated Judaism, sitting “in the chair of Moses”, and alone having the authority and prestige for such action. The term general body of Scribes has been used advisedly; contemporary scholars gravely suspect, when they do not entirely reject, the “Great Synagogue” of rabbinic tradition, and the matter lay outside the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrim.
As a touchstone by which uncanonical and canonical works were discriminated, an important influence was that of the Pentateuchal Law. This was always the Canon par excellence of the Israelites. To the Jews of the Middle Ages the Torah was the inner sanctuary, or Holy of Holies, while the Prophets were the Holy Place, and the Kéthubim only the outer court of the Biblical temple, and this medieval conception finds ample basis in the pre-eminence allowed to the Law by the rabbis of the Talmudic age. Indeed, from Esdras downwards the Law, as the oldest portion of the Canon, and the formal expression of God’s commands, received the highest reverence. The Cabbalists of the second century after Christ, and later schools, regarded the other section of the Old Testament as merely the expansion and interpretation of the Pentateuch. We may be sure, then, that the chief test of canonicity, at least for the Hagiographa, was conformity with the Canon par excellence, the Pentateuch. It is evident, in addition, that no book was admitted which had not been composed in Hebrew, and did not possess the antiquity and prestige of a classic age, or name at least. These criteria are negative and exclusive rather than directive. The impulse of religious feeling or liturgical usage must have been the prevailing positive factors in the decision. But the negative tests were in part arbitrary, and an intuitive sense cannot give the assurance of Divine certification. Only later was the infallible voice to come, and then it was to declare that the Canon of the Synagogue, though unadulterated indeed, was incomplete.
B. THE CANON AMONG THE ALEXANDRIAN JEWS (DEUTEROCANONICAL BOOKS)
The most striking difference between the Catholic and Protestant Bibles is the presence in the former of a number of writings which are wanting in the latter and also in the Hebrew Bible, which became the Old Testament of Protestantism. These number seven books: Tobias (Tobit), Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, I and II Machabees, and three documents added to protocanonical books, viz., the supplement to Esther, from x, 4, to the end, the Canticle of the Three Youths (Song of the Three Children) in Daniel, iii, and the stories of Susanna and the Elders and Bel and the Dragon, forming the closing chapters of the Catholic version of that book. Of these works, Tobias and Judith were written originally in Aramaic, perhaps in Hebrew; Baruch and I Machabees in Hebrew, while Wisdom and II Machabees were certainly composed in Greek. The probabilities favour Hebrew as the original language of the addition to Esther, and Greek for the enlargements of Daniel.
The ancient Greek Old Testament known as the Septuagint was the vehicle which conveyed these additional Scriptures into the Catholic Church. The Septuagint version was the Bible of the Greek-speaking, or Hellenist, Jews, whose intellectual and literary centre was Alexandria (see SEPTUAGINT). The oldest extant copies date from the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, and were therefore made by Christian hands; nevertheless scholars generally admit that these faithfully represent the Old Testament as it was current among the Hellenist or Alexandrian Jews in the age immediately preceding Christ. These venerable manuscripts of the Septuagint vary somewhat in their content outside the Palestinian Canon, showing that in Alexandrian-Jewish circles the number of admissible extra books was not sharply determined either by tradition or by authority. However, aside from the absence of Machabees from the Codex Vaticanus (the very oldest copy of the Greek Old Testament), all the entire manuscripts contain all the deutero writings; where the manuscript Septuagints differ from one another, with the exception noted, it is in a certain excess above the deuterocanonical books. It is a significant fact that in all these Alexandrian Bibles the traditional Hebrew order is broken up by the interspersion of the additional literature among the other books, outside the law, thus asserting for the extra writings a substantial equality of rank and privilege.
It is pertinent to ask the motives which impelled the Hellenist Jews to thus, virtually at least, canonize this considerable section of literature, some of it very recent, and depart so radically from the Palestinian tradition. Some would have it that not the Alexandrian, but the Palestinian, Jews departed from the Biblical tradition. The Catholic writers Nickes, Movers, Danko, and more recently Kaulen and Mullen, have advocated the view that originally the Palestinian Canon must have included all the deuterocanonicals, and so stood down to the time of the Apostles (Kaulen, c. 100 B.C.), when, moved by the fact that the Septuagint had become the Old Testament of the Church, it was put under ban by the Jerusalem Scribes, who were actuated moreover (thus especially Kaulen) by hostility to the Hellenistic largeness of spirit and Greek composition of our deuterocanonical books. These exegetes place much reliance on St. Justin Martyr’s statement that the Jews had mutilated Holy Writ, a statement that rests on no positive evidence. They adduce the fact that certain deutero books were quoted with veneration, and even in a few cases as Scriptures, by Palestinian or Babylonian doctors; but the private utterances of a few rabbis cannot outweigh the consistent Hebrew tradition of the canon, attested by Josephus–although he himself was inclined to Hellenism–and even by the Alexandrian-Jewish author of IV Esdras. We are therefore forced to admit that the leaders of Alexandrian Judaism showed a notable independence of Jerusalem tradition and authority in permitting the sacred boundaries of the Canon, which certainly had been fixed for the Prophets, to be broken by the insertion of an enlarged Daniel and the Epistle of Baruch. On the assumption that the limits of the Palestinian Hagiographa remained undefined until a relatively late date, there was less bold innovation in the addition of the other books, but the wiping out of the lines of the triple division reveals that the Hellenists were ready to extend the Hebrew Canon, if not establish a new official one of their own.
On their human side these innovations are to be accounted for by the free spirit of the Hellenist Jews. Under the influence of Greek thought they had conceived a broader view of Divine inspiration than that of their Palestinian brethren, and refused to restrict the literary manifestations of the Holy Ghost to a certain terminus of time and the Hebrew form of language. The Book of Wisdom, emphatically Hellenist in character, presents to us Divine wisdom as flowing on from generation to generation and making holy souls and prophets (vii, 27, in the Greek). Philo, a typical Alexandrian-Jewish thinker, has even an exaggerated notion of the diffusion of inspiration (Quis rerum divinarum hæres, 52; ed. Lips., iii, 57; De migratione Abrahæ, 11,299; ed. Lips. ii, 334). But even Philo, while indicating acquaintance with the deutero literature, nowhere cites it in his voluminous writings. True, he does not employ several books of the Hebrew Canon; but there is a natural presumption that if he had regarded the additional works as being quite on the same plane as the others, he would not have failed to quote so stimulating and congenial a production as the Book of Wisdom. Moreover, as has been pointed out by several authorities, the independent spirit of the Hellenists could not have gone so far as to setup a different official Canon from that of Jerusalem, without having left historical traces of such a rupture. So, from the available data we may justly infer that, while the deuterocanonicals were admitted as sacred by the Alexandrian Jews, they possessed a lower degree of sanctity and authority than the longer accepted books, i.e., the Palestinian Hagiographa and the Prophets, themselves inferior to the Law.
II. THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
The most explicit definition of the Catholic Canon is that given by the Council of Trent, Session IV, 1546. For the Old Testament its catalogue reads as follows: The five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), Josue, Judges, Ruth, the four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, the first and second of Esdras (which latter is called Nehemias), Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidic Psalter (in number one hundred and fifty Psalms), Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch, Ezechiel, Daniel, the twelve minor Prophets (Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacue, Sophonias, Aggeus, Zacharias, Malachias), two books of Machabees, the first and second. The order of books copies that of the Council of Florence, 1442, and in its general plan is that of the Septuagint. The divergence of titles from those found in the Protestant versions is due to the fact that the official Latin Vulgate retained the forms of the Septuagint.
A. THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON (INCLUDING THE DEUTEROS) IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Tridentine decrees from which the above list is extracted was the first infallible and effectually promulgated pronouncement on the Canon, addressed to the Church Universal. Being dogmatic in its purport, it implies that the Apostles bequeathed the same Canon to the Church, as a part of the depositum fedei. But this was not done by way of any formal decision; we should search the pages of the New Testament in vain for any trace of such action. The larger Canon of the Old Testament passed through the Apostles’ hands to the church tacitly, by way of their usage and whole attitude toward its components; an attitude which, for most of the sacred writings of the Old Testament, reveals itself in the New, and for the rest, must have exhibited itself in oral utterances, or at least in tacit approval of the special reverence of the faithful. Reasoning backward from the status in which we find the deutero books in the earliest ages of post-Apostolic Christianity, we rightly affirm that such a status points of Apostolic sanction, which in turn must have rested on revelation either by Christ or the Holy Spirit. For the deuterocanonicals at least, we needs must have recourse to this legitimate prescriptive argument, owing to the complexity and inadequacy of the New Testament data.
All the books of the Hebrew Old Testament are cited in the New except those which have been aptly called the Antilegomena of the Old Testament, viz., Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles; moreover Esdras and Nehemias are not employed. The admitted absence of any explicit citation of the deutero writings does not therefore prove that they were regarded as inferior to the above-mentioned works in the eyes of New Testament personages and authors. The deutero literature was in general unsuited to their purposes, and some consideration should be given to the fact that even at its Alexandrian home it was not quoted by Jewish writers, as we saw in the case of Philo. The negative argument drawn from the non-citation of the deuterocanonicals in the New Testament is especially minimized by the indirect use made of them by the same Testament. This takes the form of allusions and reminiscences, and shows unquestionably that the Apostles and Evangelists were acquainted with the Alexandrian increment, regarded its books as at least respectable sources, and wrote more or less under its influence. A comparison of Hebrews, xi and II Machabees, vi and vii reveals unmistakable references in the former to the heroism of the martyrs glorified in the latter. There are close affinities of thought, and in some cases also of language, between I Peter, i, 6, 7, and Wisdom, iii, 5, 6; Hebrews, i, 3, and Wisdom, vii, 26, 27; I Corinthians, x, 9, 10, and Judith, viii, 24-25; I Corinthians, vi, 13, and Ecclesiasticus, xxxvi, 20.
Yet the force of the direct and indirect employment of Old Testament writings by the New is slightly impaired by the disconcerting truth that at least one of the New Testament authors, St. Jude, quotes explicitly from the “Book of Henoch”, long universally recognized as apocryphal, see verse 14, while in verse 9 he borrows from another apocryphal narrative, the “Assumption of Moses”. The New Testament quotations from the Old are in general characterized by a freedom and elasticity regarding manner and source which further ten to diminish their weight as proofs of canonicity. But so far as concerns the great majority of the Palestinian Hagiographa–a fortiori, the Pentateuch and Prophets–whatever want of conclusiveness there may be in the New Testament, evidence of their canonical standing is abundantly supplemented from Jewish sources alone, in the series of witnesses beginning with the Mishnah and running back through Josephus and Philo to the translation of the above books for the Hellenist Greeks. But for the deuterocanonical literature, only the last testimony speaks as a Jewish confirmation. However, there are signs that the Greek version was not deemed by its readers as a closed Bible of definite sacredness in all its parts, but that its somewhat variable contents shaded off in the eyes of the Hellenists from the eminently sacred Law down to works of questionable divinity, such as III Machabees.
This factor should be considered in weighing a certain argument. A large number of Catholic authorities see a canonization of the deuteros in a supposed wholesale adoption and approval, by the Apostles, of the Greek, and therefore larger, Old Testament The argument is not without a certain force; the New Testament undoubtedly shows a preference for the Septuagint; out of the 350 texts from the Old Testament, 300 favour the language of the Greek version rather than that of the Hebrew. But there are considerations which bid us hesitate to admit an Apostolic adoption of the Septuagint en bloc. As remarked above, there are cogent reasons for believing that it was not a fixed quantity at the time. The existing oldest representative manuscripts are not entirely identical in the books they contain. Moreover, it should be remembered that at the beginning of our era, and for some time later, complete sets of any such voluminous collection as the Septuagint in manuscript would be extremely rare; the version must have been current in separate books or groups of books, a condition favourable to a certain variability of compass. So neither a fluctuating Septuagint nor an inexplicit New Testament conveys to us the exact extension of the pre-Christian Bible transmitted by the Apostles to the Primitive Church. It is more tenable to conclude to a selective process under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and a process completed so late in Apostolic times that the New Testament fails to reflect its mature result regarding either the number or note of sanctity of the extra-Palestinian books admitted. To historically learn the Apostolic Canon of the Old Testament we must interrogate less sacred but later documents, expressing more explicitly the belief of the first ages of Christianity.
B. THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES
The sub-Apostolic writings of Clement, Polycarp, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, of the pseudo-Clementine homilies, and the “Shepherd” of Hermas, contain implicit quotations from or allusions to all the deuterocanonicals except Baruch (which anciently was often united with Jeremias) and I Machabess and the additions to David. No unfavourable argument can be drawn from the loose, implicit character of these citations, since these Apostolic Fathers quote the protocanonical Scriptures in precisely the same manner.
Coming down to the next age, that of the apologists, we find Baruch cited by Athenagoras as a prophet. St. Justin Martyr is the first to note that the Church has a set of Old Testament Scriptures different from the Jews’, and also the earliest to intimate the principle proclaimed by later writers, namely, the self-sufficiency of the Church in establishing the Canon; its independence of the Synagogue in this respect. The full realization of this truth came slowly, at least in the Orient, where there are indications that in certain quarters the spell of Palestinian-Jewish tradition was not fully cast off for some time. St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis (c. 170), first drew up a list of the canonical books of the Old Testament While maintaining the familiar arrangement of the Septuagint, he says that he verified his catalogue by inquiry among Jews; Jewry by that time had everywhere discarded the Alexandrian books, and Melito’s Canon consists exclusively of the protocanonicals minus Esther. It should be noticed, however, that the document to which this catalogue was prefixed is capable of being understood as having an anti-Jewish polemical purpose, in which case Melito’s restricted canon is explicable on another ground. St. Irenæus, always a witness of the first rank, on account of his broad acquaintance with ecclesiastical tradition, vouches that Baruch was deemed on the same footing as Jeremias, and that the narratives of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon were ascribed to Daniel. The Alexandrian tradition is represented by the weighty authority of Origen. Influenced, doubtless, by the Alexandrian-Jewish usage of acknowledging in practice the extra writings as sacred while theoretically holding to the narrower Canon of Palestine, his catalogue of the Old Testament Scriptures contains only the protocanonical books, though it follows the order of the Septuagint. Nevertheless Origen employs all the deuterocanonicals as Divine Scriptures, and in his letter of Julius Africanus defends the sacredness of Tobias, Judith, and the fragments of Daniel, at the same time implicitly asserting the autonomy of the Church in fixing the Canon (see references in Cornely). In his Hexaplar edition of the Old Testament all the deuteros find a place. The sixth-century Biblical manuscript known as the “Codex Claromontanus” contains a catalogue to which both Harnack and Zahn assign an Alexandrian origin, about contemporary with Origen. At any rate it dates from the period under examination and comprises all the deuterocanonical books, with IV Machabees besides. St. Hippolytus (d. 236) may fairly be considered as representing the primitive Roman tradition. He comments on the Susanna chapter, often quotes Wisdom as the work of Solomon, and employs as Sacred Scripture Baruch and the Machabees. For the West African Church the larger canon has two strong witnesses in Tertullian and St. Cyprian. All the deuteros except Tobias, Judith, and the addition to Esther, are Biblically used in the works of these Fathers. (With regard to the employment of apocryphal writings in this age see under APOCRYPHA.)
C. THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT DURING THE FOURTH, AND FIRST HALF OF THE FIFTH, CENTURY
In this period the position of the deuterocanonical literature is no longer as secure as in the primitive age. The doubts which arose should be attributed largely to a reaction against the apocryphal or pseudo-Biblical writings with which the East especially had been flooded by heretical and other writers. Negatively, the situation became possible through the absence of any Apostolic or ecclesiastical definition of the Canon. The definite and inalterable determination of the sacred sources, like that of all Catholic doctrines, was in the Divine economy left to gradually work itself out under the stimulus of questions and opposition. Alexandria, with its elastic Scriptures, had from the beginning been a congenial field for apocryphal literature, and St. Athanasius, the vigilant pastor of that flock, to protect it against the pernicious influence, drew up a catalogue of books with the values to be attached to each. First, the strict canon and authoritative source of truth is the Jewish Old Testament, Esther excepted. Besides, there are certain books which the Fathers had appointed to be read to catechumens for edification and instruction; these are the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Esther, Judith, Tobias, the Didache, or Doctrine of the Apostles, the Shepherd of Hermas. All others are apocrypha and the inventions of heretics (Festal Epistle for 367). Following the precedent of Origen and the Alexandrian tradition, the saintly doctor recognized no other formal canon of the Old Testament than the Hebrew one; but also, faithful to the same tradition, he practically admitted the deutero books to a Scriptural dignity, as is evident from his general usage. At Jerusalem there was a renascence, perhaps a survival, of Jewish ideas, the tendency there being distinctly unfavourable to the deuteros. St. Cyril of that see, while vindicating for the Church the right to fix the Canon, places them among the apocrypha and forbids all books to be read privately which are not read in the churches. In Antioch and Syria the attitude was more favourable. St. Epiphanius shows hesitation about the rank of the deuteros; he esteemed them, but they had not the same place as the Hebrew books in his regard. The historian Eusebius attests the widespread doubts in his time; he classes them as antilegomena, or disputed writings, and, like Athanasius, places them in a class intermediate between the books received by all and the apocrypha. The 59th (or 60th) canon of the provincial Council of Laodicea (the authenticity of which however is contested) gives a catalogue of the Scriptures entirely in accord with the ideas of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the Oriental versions and Greek manuscripts of the period are more liberal; the extant ones have all the deuterocanonicals and, in some cases, certain apocrypha.
The influence of Origen’s and Athanasius’s restricted canon naturally spread to the West. St. Hilary of Poitiers and Rufinus followed their footsteps, excluding the deuteros from canonical rank in theory, but admitting them in practice. The latter styles them “ecclesiastical” books, but in authority unequal to the other Scriptures. St. Jerome cast his weighty suffrage on the side unfavourable to the disputed books. In appreciating his attitude we must remember that Jerome lived long in Palestine, in an environment where everything outside the Jewish Canon was suspect, and that, moreover, he had an excessive veneration for the Hebrew text, the Hebraica veritas as he called it. In his famous “Prologus Galeatus”, or Preface to his translation of Samuel and Kings, he declares that everything not Hebrew should be classed with the apocrypha, and explicitly says that Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobias, and Judith are not on the Canon. These books, he adds, are read in the churches for the edification of the people, and not for the confirmation of revealed doctrine. An analysis of Jerome’s expressions on the deuterocanonicals, in various letters and prefaces, yields the following results: first, he strongly doubted their inspiration; secondly, the fact that he occasionally quotes them, and translated some of them as a concession to ecclesiastical tradition, is an involuntary testimony on his part to the high standing these writings enjoyed in the Church at large, and to the strength of the practical tradition which prescribed their readings in public worship. Obviously, the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the “confirmation of the doctrine of the Church”, to borrow Jerome’s phrase.
But while eminent scholars and theorists were thus depreciating the additional writings, the official attitude of the Latin Church, always favourable to them, kept the majestic tenor of its way. Two documents of capital importance in the history of the canon constitute the first formal utterance of papal authority on the subject. The first is the so-called “Decretal of Gelasius”, de recipiendis et non recipiendis libris, the essential part of which is now generally attributed to a synod convoked by Pope Damasus in the year 382. The other is the Canon of Innocent I, sent in 405 to a Gallican bishop in answer to an inquiry. Both contain all the deuterocanonicals, without any distinction, and are identical with the catalogue of Trent. The African Church, always a staunch supporter of the contested books, found itself in entire accord with Rome on this question. Its ancient version, the Vetus Latina (less correctly the Itala), had admitted all the Old Testament Scriptures. St. Augustine seems to theoretically recognize degrees of inspiration; in practice he employs protos and deuteros without any discrimination whatsoever. Moreover in his “De Doctrinâ Christianâ” he enumerates the components of the complete Old Testament. The Synod of Hippo (393) and the three of Carthage (393, 397, and 419), in which, doubtless, Augustine was the leading spirit, found it necessary to deal explicitly with the question of the Canon, and drew up identical lists from which no sacred books are excluded. These councils base their canon on tradition and liturgical usage. For the Spanish Church valuable testimony is found in the work of the heretic Priscillian, “Liber de Fide et Apocryphis”; it supposes a sharp line existing between canonical and uncanonical works, and that the Canon takes in all the deuteros.
D. THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE FIFTH TO THE CLOSE OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY
This period exhibits a curious exchange of opinions between the West and the East, while ecclesiastical usage remained unchanged, at least in the Latin Church. During this intermediate age the use of St. Jerome’s new version of the Old Testament (the Vulgate) became widespread in the Occident. With its text went Jerome’s prefaces disparaging the deuterocanonicals, and under the influence of his authority the West began to distrust these and to show the first symptoms of a current hostile to their canonicity. On the other hand, the Oriental Church imported a Western authority which had canonized the disputed books, viz., the decree of Carthage, and from this time there is an increasing tendency among the Greeks to place the deuteros on the same level with the others–a tendency, however, due more to forgetfulness of the old distinction than to deference to the Council of Carthage.
E. THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT DURING THE MIDDLE AGES
The Greek Church
The result of this tendency among the Greeks was that about the beginning of the twelfth century they possessed a canon identical with that of the Latins, except that it took in the apocryphal III Machabees. That all the deuteros were liturgically recognized in the Greek Church at the era of the schism in the ninth century, is indicated by the “Syntagma Canonum” of Photius.
The Latin Church
In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome’s depreciating Prologus. The compilatory “Glossa Ordinaria” was widely read and highly esteemed as a treasury of sacred learning during the Middle Ages; it embodied the prefaces in which the Doctor of Bethlehem had written in terms derogatory to the deuteros, and thus perpetuated and diffused his unfriendly opinion. And yet these doubts must be regarded as more or less academic. The countless manuscript copies of the Vulgate produced by these ages, with a slight, probably accidental, exception, uniformly embrace the complete Old Testament Ecclesiastical usage and Roman tradition held firmly to the canonical equality of all parts of the Old Testament There is no lack of evidence that during this long period the deuteros were read in the churches of Western Christendom. As to Roman authority, the catalogue of Innocent I appears in the collection of ecclesiastical canons sent by Pope Adrian I to Charlemagne, and adopted in 802 as the law of the Church in the Frankish Empire; Nicholas I, writing in 865 to the bishops of France, appeals to the same decree of Innocent as the ground on which all the sacred books are to be received.
F. THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE GENERAL COUNCILS
The Council of Florence (1442)
In 1442, during the life, and with the approval, of this Council, Eugenius IV issued several Bulls, or decrees, with a view to restore the Oriental schismatic bodies to communion with Rome, and according to the common teaching of theologians these documents are infallible states of doctrine. The “Decretum pro Jacobitis” contains a complete list of the books received by the Church as inspired, but omits, perhaps advisedly, the terms canon and canonical. The Council of Florence therefore taught the inspiration of all the Scriptures, but did not formally pass on their canonicity.
The Council of Trent’s Definition of the Canon (1546)
It was the exigencies of controversy that first led Luther to draw a sharp line between the books of the Hebrew Canon and the Alexandrian writings. In his disputation with Eck at Leipzig, in 1519, when his opponent urged the well-known text from II Machabees in proof of the doctrine of purgatory, Luther replied that the passage had no binding authority since the books was outside the Canon. In the first edition of Luther’s Bible, 1534, the deuteros were relegated, as apocrypha, to a separate place between the two Testaments. To meet this radical departure of the Protestants, and as well define clearly the inspired sources from which the Catholic Faith draws its defence, the Council of Trent among its first acts solemnly declared as “sacred and canonical” all the books of the Old and New Testaments “with all their parts as they have been used to be read in the churches, and as found in the ancient vulgate edition”. During the deliberations of the Council there never was any real question as to the reception of all the traditional Scripture. Neither–and this is remarkable–in the proceedings is there manifest any serious doubt of the canonicity of the disputed writings. In the mind of the Tridentine Fathers they had been virtually canonized, by the same decree of Florence, and the same Fathers felt especially bound by the action of the preceding ecumenical synod. The Council of Trent did not enter into an examination of the fluctuations in the history of the Canon. Neither did it trouble itself about questions of authorship or character of contents. True to the practical genius of the Latin Church, it based its decision on immemorial tradition as manifested in the decrees of previous councils and popes, and liturgical reading, relying on traditional teaching and usage to determine a question of tradition. The Tridentine catalogue has been given above.
The Vatican Council (1870)
The great constructive Synod of Trent had put the sacredness and canonicity of the whole traditional Bible forever beyond the permissibility of doubt on the part of Catholics. By implication it had defined that Bible’s plenary inspiration also. The Vatican Council took occasion of a recent error on inspiration to remove any lingering shadow of uncertainty on this head; it formally ratified the action of Trent and explicitly defined the Divine inspiration of all the books with their parts.
III. THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT OUTSIDE THE CHURCH
A. AMONG THE EASTERN ORTHODOX
The Greek Orthodox Church preserved its ancient Canon in practice as well as theory until recent times, when, under the dominant influence of its Russian offshoot, it is shifting its attitude towards the deuterocanonical Scriptures. The rejection of these books by the Russian theologians and authorities is a lapse which began early in the eighteenth century. The Monophysites, Nestorians, Jacobites, Armenians, and Copts, while concerning themselves little with the Canon, admit the complete catalogue and several apocrypha besides.
B. AMONG PROTESTANTS
The Protestant Churches have continued to exclude the deutero writings from their canons, classifying them as “Apocrypha”. Presbyterians and Calvinists in general, especially since the Westminster Synod of 1648, have been the most uncompromising enemies of any recognition, and owing to their influence the British and Foreign Bible Society decided in 1826 to refuse to distribute Bibles containing the Apocrypha. Since that time the publication of the deuterocanonicals as an appendix to Protestant Bibles has almost entirely ceased in English-speaking countries. The books still supply lessons for the liturgy of the Church of England, but the number has been lessened by the hostile agitation. There is an Apocrypha appendix to the British Revised Version, in a separate volume. The deuteros are still appended to the German Bibles printed under the auspices of the orthodox Lutherans.
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GEORGE J. REID Transcribed by Ernie Stefanik
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IIICopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Canon of the Old Testament
The spirit of prophecy continued in the Israelite church, with intervals of intermission, down to Malachi. If any uninspired writing had been put forward as inspired it would have been immediately tested and rejected. Compare the instances, 1Ki 22:5-28; Jeremiah 28; Jer 29:8-32. At the same time the presence of the living prophets in the church caused the exact definition of the completed canon to be less needful, until the spirit of prophecy had departed. Accordingly (as the rabbis allege, compare 2 Esdras) it was at the return from the Babylonian captivity that Ezra and “the great synagogue” (a college of 120 scholars) collected and promulgated all the Old Testament Scriptures in connection with their reconstruction of the Jewish church. Nehemiah, according to 2Ma 2:13, “gathered together the acts of the kings, and the prophets, and of David.”
Zechariah (Zec 7:12) speaks of “the law” and “the former prophets” upon which the later prophets rested; the succeeding sacred writers, under inspiration, setting their seal to their predecessors by quotations from them as Scripture. Nehemiah (Neh 9:30) saith, “Thou testifiedst by Thy Spirit in Thy prophets.” Daniel (Dan 9:2) “understood by THE books (so the Hebrew) the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem”; probably Jeremiah’s letter to the captives in Babylon (Jer 29:1-10), others explain it the books of the Old Testament or of the prophets. “The book of the law of the Lord” (2Ch 17:9) was what the Levites under Jehoshaphat taught throughout all Judah. An increased attention to the law, the sanctified result of affliction during the captivity, was the probable cause under God of the complete abandonment of idolatry on their return (Psa 119:67; Psa 119:71).
Psalm 119, one continued glorification of the law or word of God, was probably the composition of Ezra “the priest and ready scribe in the law of Moses” (Ezr 7:6; Neh 8:9). The restorer of the national polity based it on the law, the Magna Charta of the theocracy. Israel is the real speaker throughout; and the features of the psalm suit the Jews’ position just after their return from Babylon. Their keenness to return to the law appears in Neh 8:1-8; Ezra the priest read to “all the people gathered as one man into the street before the water gate … from the morning until the midday.” The arrangement and completion of the canon accounts for Ezra’s honorable title “priest” becoming merged in that of” scribe.” “The synagogue of scribes” (1Ma 7:12) was a continuation probably of that founded by Ezra. Nehemiah and Malachi added their own writings as the seal to the canon.
The translator of Ecclesiasticus (131 B.C.) mentions the three integral parts, “the law, the prophets, and the remainder of the books,” as constituting a completed whole; just as the Lord Jesus refers to the whole Old Testament: “the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms” (answering to the hagiographa or the Kethubim), Luk 24:44, compare Act 28:23; and comprehends all the instances of innocent blood shedding in the formula “from Abel to Zacharias,” i.e. from Genesis the first book to 2 Chronicles, the last of the Hebrew Bible (Mat 23:35). So Philo, our Lord’s contemporary, refers to “the laws, … the prophets, … and the other books.” The law is the basis of the whole, the prophets apply the law to the national life, the hagiographa apply it to the individual. (See BIBLE.) Josephus refers to the 22 books of Scripture, namely, 5 of Moses, 13 of the prophets extending to the reign of Artaxerxes (the time of Nehemiah), 4 containing hymns and directions for life (c. Apion, 1:8): i.e. the FIVE of MOSES; THIRTEEN prophetical books, namely,
(1) Joshua,
(2) Judges and Ruth,
(3) the two of Samuel,
(4) the two of Kings
(5) the two of Chronicles,
(6) Ezra and Nehemiah,
(7) Esther,
(8) Isaiah,
(9) Jeremiah and Lamentations,
(10) Ezekiel,
(11) Daniel,
(12) the twelve minor prophets,
(13) Job; and FOUR remaining, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon: the 22 thus being made to answer to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Joshua Judges, Job, etc., are reckoned, in the Jewish use of the term “prophet” for inspired historian or writer, among” the former prophets.”
These sacred 22 are distinct from other Hebrew writings such as Ecc 12:12. Josephus says: “it is an innate principle with every Jew to regard them as announcements of the divine will, perseveringly to adhere to them, and if necessary willingly to die for them.” “The faith with which we receive our Scriptures is manifest; for though so long a period has elapsed, no one has dared to add to, detract from, or alter them in any respect.” The warnings: “add thou not to His words, lest He reprove thee and thou be found a liar” (Pro 30:6), “neither shall ye diminish ought from it” (Deu 4:2; Deu 12:32), fenced in the Old Testament canon as Rev 22:18-19 fences in the New Testament The Lord and His apostles quote all the books of the Old Testament except Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, the Song of Solomon, Lamentations, and Ezekiel.
Josephus denies the Apocrypha the same authority: “from the time of Artaxerxes to our own everything has been recorded; but these accounts are not worthy of the same credit, owing to the absence of the regular succession of prophets.” The Apocrypha was never in the Hebrew canon. The cessation of the prophetic gift marks the point of time in both Testaments when the canon was complete. Antiochus Epiphanes (168 B.C.) in persecuting the Jews sought out “the books of the law” and burnt them (1Ma 1:56). To possess a book of the covenant was made a capital offense. Just so the persecution of Diocletian in New Testament times was especially directed against those possessing the Christian Scriptures. The New Testament writers have not one authoritative quotation from the Apocrypha.
Some quotations in the New Testament are not directly found in the canonical books; thus Jud 1:17 takes a portion of the uninspired book of Enoch, and by inspiration stamps that portion as true; Paul also refers to facts unrecorded in Old Testament (2Ti 3:8; Eph 5:14; Heb 11:24); see also Joh 7:38; Jam 4:5-6; 2Ti 3:8. Melito of Sardis (A.D. 179), after an exact inquiry in the East gives the Old Testament books substantially the stone as ours, including under “Esdras” Nehemiah, Ezra, and Esther. Origen excludes expressly 1 Maccabees from the canon though written in Hebrew Jerome gives our canon exactly, which is also the Hebrew one, and designates all others apocryphal. “Whatever is not included in the enumeration here made is to be placed among the Apocrypha” He puts Daniel in the hagiographa.
The Alexandrine Jews, though more lax in their views, had at the beginning of the Christian era the same canon as the Hebrew of Palestine. But by admitting into the Septuagint Greek version of Old Testament the Apocrypha they insensibly influenced those Christian fathers who depended on that version for their knowledge of Old Testament, so that the latter lost sight of the gulf that separates the Hebrew canon from the Apocrypha. To the Jews, saith Scripture,” were committed the oracles of God” (Rom 3:2). It never accuses them of altering the Scriptures. Their testimony condemns the decree of Rome’s council of Trent that the apocryphal books deserve “equal veneration” as Scripture, and that all are “accursed” who do” not receive the entire books with all their parts as sacred and canonical.” (See APOCRYPHA.)
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Canon Of The Old Testament
CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
1. Explanation of terms.The word Testament is the Eng. tr. [Note: translate or translation.] Of the Gr. Diathk, which in its turn represents the Heh. Berth or Covenant. The epithet Old was introduced by Christians after the NT had come into being. Jews recognize no NT, and have a polemic interest in avoiding this designation of their Holy Scripture. The Gr. word kann, meaning primarily a measuring-rod, a rule, a catalogue, was applied by Christian authors of the 4th cent. to the list of books which the Church acknowledged to be authoritative as the source of doctrine and ethics. In investigating how the Hebrew race formed their Bible, these later appellations of their sacred books have to be used with the reservations indicated.
2. The three periods of formation.Briefly stated, the process of forming the OT Canon includes three main stages. Under the influence of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Law (Torah) as in the Pentateuch was set apart as Holy Scripture; at some date prior to b.c. 200, the Prophets (Nebm), including the prophetic interpretation of history in the four booksJoshua, Judges, Samuel, Kingshad been constituted into a second canonical group; by b.c. 132, most, though not all, of the remaining books ranked as Scripture. This third group was defined, and the OT Canon finally fixed, by the Synod of Palestinian Jews held at Jamnia, near Joppa, about the year a.d. 90.
3. Pre-canonical conditions
(a) The art of writing. The formation of language and the invention of writing must precede the adoption of a sacred book. An illiterate race can have no Scripture. Israels language was in its main features an inheritance from the common ancestors of the Semites; even its religious vocabulary was only in part its own creation. As to writing, the Semites in Babylonia had used the cuneiform syllabic script, and Egypt had Invented the hieroglyphs before the Hebrews had arisen as a separate race. But, happily for the Canon, an alphabet had become the possession of some of the Semitic family before the Hebrews had anything to put on record. The provincial governors of Canaan about b.c. 1400 sent their reports to Egypt in Babylonian cuneiform; whereas Mesha, king of Moab, and Panammu, king of Yadi in North Syria, in extant Inscriptions from about b.c. 900, make use of an Aramaic alphabet. After b.c. 1400, and some time before b.c. 900, must therefore be placed the genesis of the Hebrew alphabet.
(b) Absence of any precedent.In the case of other sacred books, the influence of a historical precedent has contributed to their adoption. Recognizing the OT, Christians were predisposed to use a literary record in preserving the revelation they had received. Similarly Islam admitted the superiority of the people of a book (Jews and Christians), and were easily induced to accord like sanctity to their own Koran. But such a precedent did not come into operation in the early religion of Israel. It is true that the Code of Hammurabi (c [Note: circa, about.] . b.c. 2200) was recorded on stone, and publicly set forth as the rule of civil life in Babylonia. But this method of regulating communal life can hardly have affected the earliest legislators in Israel. The relation of the Code of Hammurabi to the Mosaic Laws appears to be correctly indicated by Mr. Johns: The coexisting likenesses and differences argue for an independent recension of ancient custom deeply influenced by Babylonian law. Egypt also had literature before Moses, but the Hebrews appear to have acted on an independent initiative in producing and collecting their religious literature. The OT Canon is thus peculiar in being formed as the first of its kind.
(c) Religious experience.Other conditions of a less general kind have also to be noted. The religious leaders of the people must have had definite convictions as to the attributes of Jehovah before they could judge whether any given prophet or document were true or false. The life depicted in the book of Genesis reveals a non-writing age, when religious experience and unwritten tradition were the sole guides to duty. The Sinaitic legislation, although it formed the basis of national life, did not till late in the monarchy penetrate the popular consciousness. Mosaic Law provided that Divine guidance would be given through the voice of prophets and of priests (Deu 18:18; Deu 19:17; Deu 21:5; Deu 24:8); with these living sources of direction, it would be less easy to feel dependence on a book. The symbolism of a sacrificial system compensated for the want of literature. It was only after books of various kinds had become prevalent that the utility of writing began to be appreciated. Isaiah (Isa 30:8), about b.c. 740, perceives that what is inscribed in a book will be permanent and indisputable. On the other hand, Hosea (Hos 8:12), about b.c. 745, sees a limit to the efficacy of a copious literature. The exponents of the traditional Law appear to have applied it with arbitrary freedom. Even a high priest in Josiahs reign had apparently had no occasion to consult the Law-book for a long period. Variations appear in the reasons annexed even to the Decalogue; and the priests who offered incense to the brazen serpent in the Temple in the days of Hezekiah cannot have regarded the Tables of the Law in the light of canonical Scripture.
4. Josiahs reformation.The first trace of a Canon is to be found in the reign of King Josiah about b.c. 621. By this time the Northern Kingdom had disappeared with the Fall of Samaria (b.c. 722). It had left behind, as its contribution to the future Bible, at least the works of Hosea and the Elohist historian. The prophets, Isaiah I., Amos, and Micah, had delivered their message a century ago, and their words were in the possession of their disciples. The fate of the ten tribes had vindicated the prophetic warnings. The beginnings of Israels history were made familiar by the beautiful narratives of the Jahwist historian. Many songs were known by heart, and contributed to the growth of a feeling that the nation had a Divine mission to fulfil. Laws, that had been kept for rare reference in the sanctuary, were studied by disciples of the prophets, and were expounded with a new sense of their Divine obligation. The annals of the monarchy had been duly recorded by the official scribes, but their religious significance was as yet unthought of. Other books, which afterwards disappeared, were also in circulation. Such were the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21:14), and the Book of Jashar (Jos 10:13, 2Sa 1:18). In such conditions at Jerusalem there came about Josiahs reformation, described in 2Ki 22:1-20; 2Ki 23:1-37.
5. Inspiration recognized in the Bk. of Deuteronomy.A book identified on satisfactory grounds with our Deuteronomy (excluding possibly the preface and the appendix) was discovered in the Temple and read to the king. In consequence, Josiah convened a general assembly at Jerusalem, and read the words of the book to all the people. All parties agreed that this Lawbook should constitute a solemn league and coveoant between themselves and Jehovah. The grounds of its acceptance are its inherent spiritual power, the conviction it produced that it truly expressed the will of Jehovah, and also its connexion with the great name of Moses. The book was not imposed merely by royal authority; the people also stood to the covenant. These conditions combine to give Deuteronomy canonical authority of an incipient kind from that date onwards (b.c. 622).
6. Pentateuch made canonical. The next stage in the growth of the Canon is found in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (b.c. 457444). Much had happened in the intervening 170 years. The captivity in Babylon (b.c. 586536) intensified national feeling and made their books more precious to the exiles. Temple ceremonial had now no place in religious practice; and spiritual aspiration turned to prayer and reading, both public and private. Fresh expositions of the Mosaic Law were prepared by the prophet Ezekiel (b.c. 592570), and by the anonymous priest who put the Law of Holiness (Lev 17:1-16; Lev 18:1-30; Lev 19:1-37; Lev 20:1-27; Lev 21:1-24; Lev 22:1-33; Lev 23:1-44; Lev 24:1-23; Lev 25:1-55; Lev 26:1-46) into written form. Just as the Fall of Jerusalem in a.d. 70 supplied the Incentive for recording in the Mishna the oral tradition of the Pharisees, so in Babylon expatriation impelled the priestly families to write out their hereditary usages, thus forming the document known as the Priestly Code. The problem of suffering, national and individual, was considered in the work of the Second Isaiah and in the book of Job. The past history of Israel was edited so as to show the method of Divine Providence. The Restoration of the Temple (b.c. 516) and the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah began a new chapter in the story of Judaism. Many of the Jews remained in Babylon, and continued their activity in the study of the national literature. From Babylon they sent Ezra the scribe (b.c. 457) and Nehemiah (b.c. 444) with help for the Jerusalem community. Under the influence of these leaders the Pentateuch was made canonical (Neh 8:1-18; Neh 9:1-38; Neh 10:1-39). This work had been formed by constructing a Harmony of the various expositions of Mosaic Law (Exo 20:1-26; Exo 21:1-36; Exo 22:1-31; Exo 23:1-33, Deut., Lev 17:1-16; Lev 18:1-30; Lev 19:1-37; Lev 20:1-27; Lev 21:1-24; Lev 22:1-33; Lev 23:1-44; Lev 24:1-23; Lev 25:1-55; Lev 26:1-46, and the Priestly Code) and combining these with the histories of the Jahwist and the Elohist. The initial cosmology shows the high plane of religious thought that had now been attained. Some opposition appears to have come from the priests, who favoured mixed marriages and a Samaritan alliance; but the people as a whole make a sure covenant and write it. And our princes, our Levites, and our priests seal unto it (Neh 9:38). That this Canon included only the Torah is proved by the fact that the Samaritans, who were severed from Judaism shortly after Nehemiahs time, never had any Canon beyond the Pentateuch. Their apocryphal Joshua does not prove that Ezras Canon was the Hexateuch. Had Joshua been attached to the Law, the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] version of it would have been less inaccurate. Nor is it easy to see how a book so solemnly adopted could ever after have been relegated to a secondary place.
7. Canon of the Prophets.The next addition to the Canon consists of the Prophets, reckoned as 8 booksJoshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve (Minor Prophets) forming one book. No account of their canonization is available, and the process has to be inferred from what is known of the period. The books themselves give some guidance. Under the influence of Deut., history was studied so as to reveal the progress of a Divine purpose. The books of Kings record events down to about b.c. 560, hence their preparation for the Canon must have been some time later. Isaiah includes the works of the first and second of that name, besides chapters from later sources. The redaction of the whole must have been made at a time when the separate authorship was forgotten. Jeremiah (b.c. 627586) is supplemented by extracts from the book of Kings written after 560. The Twelve include Malacbi, who wrote between b.c. 458 and 432. Jonah and Zechariah are also late, and the latter book has a supplement of uncertain date. Internal evidence thus implies that when the Law was made canonical, the prophets had not been carefully edited or collected into one group. The Chronicler, writing about b.c. 300, recognizes that the Law has become Holy Scripture, but he makes the freest use of the history in Samuel and Kings. After Malachi the people became well aware that the voice of true prophecy had ceased (Zec 13:3, Neh 6:7; Neh 6:14, Psa 74:9, 1Ma 9:27, etc.). The predictions of the prophets had been ominously vindicated by the course of history. Such observations would tend continually to increase the veneration for the prophetic literature. The rivalry of Hellenic culture after the cooquests of Alexander the Great (c. [Note: . circa, about.] b.c. 300) may possibly have suggested to the Jews an Increase of their own sacred Canon. At all events, the canonization of the prophetic literature had become matter of past history by b.c. 200. This limit is fixed by the testimony of Jesus ben-Sira, who writes the book in the Apocrypha called Ecclesiasticus. His praise of the famous men in Israel (chs. 4450) shows that the Law and the Prophets were invested with canonical authority in his day. The Lectionary of the Synagogue would quickly establish the unique position of the Law and the Prophets as Holy Scripture (cf. Act 13:15; Act 13:27).
8. The Hagiographa made canonical.The third division of the OT is called in Hebrew Kethbhm, i.e. Writings. In Greek the name is Hagiographa, i.e. Sacred Writings. In a Hebrew Bible these books are arranged in the following order:
1. The Poetical Books: Psalms, Proverbs, Job.
2. The Five Megilloth (Rolls): Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther.
3. Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles.
This group is much more varied in form and substance than the first two parts of the Canon. Several of these books may have been prized as highly as the Prophets, though their inclusion in the Second Canon would have been incongruous. The Psalter, for instance, had been for long familiar through its use in Temple services; and its influence on religious life was great, apart from any declaration of canonicity. But as some Psalms (e.g. 74, 79) appear to have been composed about b.c. 170160, the final collection of the smaller hymnaries into the Psalter of five books cannot have been made before b.c. 150. The priestly summary of history in Chron., Ezr.-Neh. would be widely acceptable in an age when the Priestly Code was the dominant influence. The book about Daniel, published during the Maccaban persecutions (b.c. 165), quickly won recognition and proved its religious worth.
(a) Disputed books.A hesitating approval was extended to Esther, Canticles, and Eccleslastes, owing to the nature of their contents. Other books, apocalyptic and apocryphal, were competing for a place in the religious library. There is no means of showing how or when the third group was separated from other books. The conjecture is probable that the effort of Antiochus Epiphanes to destroy the copies of the Law may have evoked the determination to preserve the later religious literature by giving it a place in the Canon.
(b) Prologue to Sirach.The earliest testimony to the existence of sacred books in addition to the Law and the Prophets is given in the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus. The grandson of ben-Sira wrote in Egypt about b.c. 132, and made a Greek translation of his kinsmans Wisdom. In the preface he refers three times to the Law, the Prophets, and the other books of our fathers. He speaks of Greek versions of these books. But this statement does not say that the third group was definitely completed. In the 1st cent. a.d., the schools of Hillel and Shammal differed as to whether Ecclesiastes was in the Canon or not.
(c) New Testament.The NT expresses a doctrine of Holy Scripture; it acknowledges a threefold division (Luk 24:44); it implies that Chronicles was the last book in the roll of the OT (Mat 23:35, Luk 11:51); but it does not quote Esther, Cant., Eccl., and leaves undecided the question whether these disputed books were as yet admitted to the Canon.
(d) Philo.Philo of Alexandria (d. a.d. 40) acknowledges the inspiration of Scripture (the Mosaic Law pre-eminently), and quotes many of, but not nearly all, the OT books. His use of the Greek Apocrypha for information only, suggests, however, that he did know of a Palestinian limit to the third group.
(e) Josephus.Josephus (a.d. 100), defending his earlier books against adverse reviews, maintains that Jewish records had been made by trained historians. The elegant inconsistencies of Greek narratives had no place in his authorities.
It is not the case with us, he says (c. Apion. i. 8), to have vast numbers of books disagreeing and conflicting with one another. We have but two-and-twenty, containing the history of all time, books that are justly believe din. Though so great an interval of time has passed, no one has ventured either to add or to remove or to alter a syllable; and it is the instinct of every Jew from the day of his birth to consider these books as the teaching of God, to abide by them, and, if need be, cheerfully to lay down life in their behalf.
The number 22 is probably due to his reckoning, with the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , Ruth and Judges as one, and Lamentations and Jeremiah as one. It is less likely that he refused to count Cant, and Eccl. as Scripture. His words reveal the profound reverence now entertained for the OT as a whole, although individuals may still have cherished objections to particular books.
(f) Synod of Jamnia.The completion of the Hebrew Canon must be associated with a synod held at Jamnia, near Joppa, where the Sanhedrin settled after Jerusalem was taken by Titus (a.d. 70). The popularity of the Alexandrian OT, including Apocrypha, and the growing influence of NT books caused the Rabbinical teachers to remove all doubt as to the limits of their Scripture. All Holy Scriptures defile the hands (the Hebrew phrase for are canonical): Canticles and Eccleslastes defile the hands. Such was the dictum at Jamnia (c [Note: circa, about.] . a.d. 90) to which Rabbi Akiba (d. a.d. 135) appealed in dismissing the possibility of reopening discussion on the limits of the Canon.
9. Text.The Hebrew Bible was now complete. Elaborate precautions were taken to secure an unchangeable text; and a system of vowel-signs was invented some centuries later to preserve the old pronunciation. It has been considered strange that the oldest dated MS of the OT should be so recent as a.d. 916, whereas the Greek Bible and NT are found in MSS of the 4th and 5th centuries. This may be due to the requirement of the Synagogue that the copy in use should be perfect, and that any roll deficient in a word or letter should be suppressed, if not destroyed. The vigilant care of copies in use lessened the interest in superseded MSS.
10. Relation of the Church to the OT.The NT freely acknowledges Divine inspiration in the OT. Such a formula as All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet (Mat 1:22), Implies that the Supreme Disposer of events had Intimated His purpose through the prophets. Posterity, therefore, rightly apprehends any occurrence when it has detected its place in the scheme of things foretold by the prophets. But it is also recognized that Scripture may be misapplied, and that therefore criticism is essential. The Interpretation of the OT must differ among Jews and Christians. The logic of events cannot be Ignored, and the Advent of the Messiah cannot be treated as a negligible accident. The attitude of our Lord has the effect of making the OT a subordinate standard as compared with His own words and the teaching of the Apostles. He did not report the word of the Lord as received by vision or prophecy; in His own name He supplied what was wanting in Law and Prophets. He did not pronounce any book in Itself adequate to determine the communion between the Living God and living men; all Scripture must be illuminated by the testimonium Spiritus Sancti. The 24 Hebrew books are valid for the Church only in so far as their authority is sanctioned by the NT. But, subject to this limitation, the OT remains profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for Instruction which is in righteousness (2Ti 3:16).
D. M. Kay.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Canon of the Old Testament
kanun:
I.Introductory
1.The Christian Term Canon
2.The Corresponding Hebrew Expression
3.The Hidden Books of the Jews
4.The Determining Principle in the Formation of the Canon
5.The Tripartite Division of the Old Testament
6.How Account for the Tripartite Division?
II.Examination of the Witnesses
1.The Old Testament’s Witness to Itself (circa 1450-444 bc)
2.The Samaritan Pentateuch (circa 432 bc)
3.The Septuagint Version (circa 250-150 bc)
4.Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach (circa 170 bc)
5.The Prologue to Ecclesiasticus (circa 132 bc)
6.1 and 2 Maccabees (between 125 and 70 bc)
7.Philo (circa 20 bc-50 ad)
8.The New Testament as a Witness (circa 50-100 ad)
9.4 Esdras (circa 81-96 ad)
10.Josephus’ Contra Apionem (circa 100 ad)
11.The Councils of Jamnia (90 and 118 ad)
12.The Talmud (200-500 ad)
13.Jewish Doubts in the 2nd Century ad
14.Summary and Conclusion
III.The Canon in the Christian Church
1.In the Eastern or Oriental Church
2.In the Western Church
Literature
I. Introductory
The problem of how we came by 39 books known as Old Testament Scripture is a purely historical investigation. The question involved is, not who wrote the several books, but who made them into a collection, not their origin or contents, but their history; not God’s part, but man’s. Our present aim, accordingly, must be to trace the process by which the various writings became Scripture.
1. The Christian Term Canon
The word canon is of Christian origin, from the Greek word , kanon, which in turn is probably borrowed from the Hebrew word, , kaneh, meaning a reed or measuring rod, hence, norm or rule. Later it came to mean a rule of faith, and eventually a catalogue or list. In present usage it signifies a collection of religious writings Divinely inspired and hence, authoritative, normative, sacred and binding. The term occurs in Gal 6:16; 2Co 10:13-16; but it is first employed of the books of Scripture in the technical sense of a standard collection or body of sacred writings, by the church Fathers of the 4th century; e.g. in the 59th canon of the Council of Laodicea (363 ad); in the Festal Epistle of Athanasius (365 ad); and by Amphilochius, archbishop of Iconium (395 ad).
2. The Corresponding Hebrew Expression
How the ancient Hebrews expressed the conception of canonicity is not known; but it is safe to say that the idea, as an idea, existed long before there was any special phrase invented to express it. In the New Testament the word Scriptures conveys unquestionably the notion of sacredness (Mat 21:42; Joh 5:39; Act 18:24). From the 1st century ad and following, however, according to the Talmud, the Jews employed the phrase defile the hands. Writings which were suitable to be read in the synagogue were designated as books which defile the hands. What this very peculiar oriental expression may have originally signified no one definitely knows. Probably Lev 16:24 gives a hint of the true interpretation. According to this passage the high priest on the great Day of Atonement washed not only when he put on the holy garments of his office, but also when he put them off. Quite possibly, therefore, the expression defile the hands signified that the hands which had touched the sacred writings must first be washed before touching aught else. The idea expressed, accordingly, was one akin to that of taboo. That is to say, just as certain garments worn by worshippers in encircling the sacred Kaaba at Mecca are taboo to the Mohammedans of today, i.e. cannot be worn outside the mosque, but must be left at the door as the worshippers quit the sanctuary, so the Hebrew writings which were fit to be read in the synagogue rendered the hands of those who touched them taboo, defiling their hands, as they were wont to say, so that they must first be washed before engaging in any secular business. This seems to be the best explanation of this enigmatical phrase. Various other and somewhat fanciful explanations of it, however, have been given: for example, to prevent profane uses of worn-out synagogue rolls (Buhl); or to prevent placing consecrated grain alongside of the sacred rolls in the synagogues that it might become holy, as the grain would attract the mice and the mice would gnaw the rolls (Strack, Wildeboer and others); or to prevent the sacred, worn-out parchments from being used as coverings for animals (Graetz); or to declare the hands to be unclean unless previously washed (Frst, Green). But no one of these explanations satisfies. The idea of taboo is more likely imbedded in the phrase.
3. The Hidden Books of the Jews
The rabbins invented a special phrase to designate rolls that were worn- out or disputed. These they called genuzm, meaning hidden away. Cemeteries filled with Hebrew manuscripts which have long been buried are frequently found today in Egypt in connection with Jewish synagogues. Such rolls might first be placed in the genzah or rubbish chamber of the sanctuary. They were not, however, apocryphal or uncanonical in the sense of being extraneous or outside the regular collection. For such the Jews had a special term sepharm hconm, books that are outside. These could not be read in the synagogues. Hidden books were rather worn-out parchments, or canonical rolls which might by some be temporarily disputed. See APOCRYPHA.
4. The Determining Principle in the Formation of the Canon
Who had the right to declare a writing canonical? To this question widely divergent answers have been given. According to a certain class of theologians the several books of the Old Testament were composed by authors who were conscious not only of their inspiration but also that their writings were destined to be handed down to the church of future generations as sacred. In other words each writer canonized, as it were, his own writings. For example, Dr. W. H. Green (Canon, 35 f, 106, 110) says: No formal declaration of their canonicity was needed to give them sanction. They were from the first not only eagerly read by the devout but believed to be Divinely obligatory … Each individual book of an acknowledged prophet of Yahweh, or of anyone accredited as inspired by Him to make known His will, was accepted as the word of God immediately upon its appearance…. Those books and those only were accepted as the Divine standards of their faith and regulative of their conduct which were written for this definite purpose by those whom they believed to be inspired of God. It was this which made them canonical. The spiritual profit found in them corresponded with and confirmed the belief in their heavenly origin. And the public official action which further attested, though it did not initiate, their canonicity, followed in the wake of the popular recognition of their Divine authority…. The writings of the prophets, delivered to the people as a declaration of the Divine will, possessed canonical authority from the moment of their appearance…. The canon does not derive its authority from the church, whether Jewish or Christian; the office of the church is merely that of a custodian and a witness. So likewise Dr. J. D. Davis (Pres. and Ref. Review, April, 1902, 182).
On the contrary, Dillmann (Jahrb. fr deutsche Theol., III, 420) more scientifically claims that history knows nothing of the individual books having been designed to be sacred from their origin…. These books bore indeed in themselves from the first those characteristics on account of which they were subsequently admitted into the sacred collection, but yet always had first to pass through a shorter or longer period of verification, and make trial of the Divine power resident within them upon the hearts of the church before they were outwardly and formally acknowledged by it as Divine books. As a matter of fact, the books of the Old Testament are still on trial, and ever will be. So far as is known, the great majority of the writers of Holy Scripture did not arbitrarily hand over their productions to the church and expect them to be regarded as canon Scripture. Two parties are involved in the making of canonical Scripture – the original authors and the church – both of whom were inspired by the same Spirit. The authors wrote inspired by the Divine Spirit, and the church ever since – Jewish and Christian alike – has been inspired to recognize the authoritative character of their writings. And so it will be to the end of time. We cannot be certain that anything comes from God unless it bring us personally something evidently Divine (Briggs, The Study of Holy Scripture, 162).
5. The Tripartite Division of the Old Testament
The Jews early divided the Old Testament writings into three classes: (1) The Torah, or Law; (2) The Nebh’m, or Prophets; and (3) The Kethubhm, or Writings, called in Greek the Hagiographa. The Torah included the 5 books of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), which were called the Five-fifths of the Law. The Nebh’m embraced (a) The four so-called Former Prophets, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, counted as one book, 1 and 2 Kings, also counted as one book; and (b) The four so-called Latter Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets, counted as one book; a total of 8 books. The Kethubhm, or Writings, were 11 in all, including Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, the five Meghilloth or Rolls (Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther), Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, counted as one book, and 1 and 2 Chronicles, also counted as one book; in all 24 books, exactly the same as those of the Protestant canon. This was the original count of the Jews as far as we can trace it back. Later certain Jewish authorities appended Ruth to Judges, and Lamentations to Jer, and thereby obtained the number 22, which corresponded to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet; but this manner of counting was secondary and fanciful. Still later others divided Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah and Jeremiah-Lamentations into two books each respectively and thereby obtained 27, which they fancifully regarded as equivalent to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet plus 5, the number of letters having a peculiar final form when standing at the end of a word. Jerome states that 22 is the correct reckoning, but he adds, Some count both Ruth and Lamentations among the Hagiographa, and so get 24. 4 Esdras, which is the oldest (85-96 ad) witness to the number of books in the Old Testament, gives 24.
6. How Account for the Tripartite Division?
The answer to the question of how to account for the tripartite division involves the most careful investigation of the whole process by which the canon actually took shape. If the entire canon of the Old Testament were formed, as some allege, by one man, or by one set of men, in a single age, then it is obvious that the books must have been separated into three groups on the basis of some material differences in their contents. If, on the other hand; the process of canonization was gradual and extended over several generations, then the various books were separated from one another probably because one section of the canon was closed before certain other books of similar character were written. At any rate it is difficult to see why Kings and Chronicles are not included in the same division, and especially strange that Daniel does not stand among the prophets. To explain this mystery, medieval Jews were wont to say that the Prophets were inspired by the spirit of prophecy, whereas the Writings by the Holy Spirit, implying different degrees of inspiration. But this is a distinction without a difference, the Holy Spirit and the spirit of prophecy are one and the same. Modern Protestants distinguish between the donum propheticum and the munus propheticum, i.e. between the gift and the office of prophecy. They allow that Daniel possessed the gift of prophecy, but they deny that he was Divinely appointed to the office of prophet. But compare Mat 24:15, which speaks of Daniel the prophet, and on the other hand, Amo 7:14, in which Amos resents being considered a prophet. Oehler modifies this explanation, claiming that the threefold division of the canon corresponds to the three stages of development in the religion of Israel, namely, Mosaism, Prophetism, and Hebraism. According to Oehler, the Law was the foundation of the entire canon. From it there were two lines of development, one objective, the Prophets, the other subjective, the Writings. But Oehler’s theory does not satisfactorily account for Ezra and Nehemiah and Chronicles, being in the third division; for in what sense can they be said to be more subjective than Judges, Samuel, and Kings? The Septuagint version (250-150 bc) takes no notice of the tripartite division. The true solution probably is that the process was gradual. When all the witnesses have been examined, we shall probably discover that the Law was canonized first, the Prophets considerably later, and the Writings last of all. And it may further become evident that the two last divisions were collected synchronously, and hence, that the tripartite divisions of the canon are due to material differences in their contents as well as to chronology.
II. Examination of the Witnesses
1. The Old Testament’s Witness to Itself (Circa 1450-444 bc)
Though the Old Testament does not tell us anything about the processes of its own canonization, it does furnish valuable hints as to how the ancient Hebrews preserved their writings. Thus in Exo 40:20 it is stated that the testimony, by which is meant the two tables of the Law containing the Ten Commandments, was put into the Ark of the Covenant for safe-keeping. In Deu 31:9, Deu 31:24-26, the laws of Deuteronomy are said to have been delivered to the sons of Levi, and by them deposited by the side of the ark … that it may be there for a witness against thee. Such language indicates that the new lawbook is regarded as a standard of faith and action (Driver, Deuteronomy, 343). According to 1Ki 8:9, when Solomon brought the Ark up from the city of David to the Temple, the two tables were still its only contents, which continued to be carefully preserved. According to 2Ki 11:12, when Joash was crowned king, Jehoiada the high priest is said to have given (literally put upon) him the testimony, which doubtless contained the substance of the fundamental laws of the covenant, and was regarded as the fundamental charter of the constitution (compare H. E. Ryle, Canon of the Old Testament 45). Likewise in Pro 25:1, it is stated that a large number of proverbs were copied out by Hezekiah’s men. Now all these, and still other passages which might be summoned, witness to the preservation of certain portions of the Old Testament. But preservation is not synonymous with canonization. A writing might easily be preserved without being made a standard of faith and conduct. Nevertheless the two ideas are closely related; for, when religious writings are sedulously preserved it is but natural to infer that their intrinsic value was regarded as correspondingly precious.
Two other passages of paramount importance remain to be considered. The first is 2Ki 22:8, describing the finding of the Book of the Law, and how Josiah the king on the basis of it instituted a religious reformation and bound the people to obey it precepts. Here is an instance in which the Law, or some portion of it (how much no one can say), is regarded as of normative and authoritative character. The king and his coadjutators recognize at once that it is ancient and that it contains the words of Yahweh (2Ki 22:13, 2Ki 22:18, 2Ki 22:19). Its authority is undisputed. Yet nothing is said of its canonicity, or that it would defile the hands; consequently there is no real ground for speaking of it as the beginnings of the canon, for in the same historic sense the beginnings of the canon are to be found in Exo 24:7. The other passage of paramount importance is Neh 8:8 f, according to which Ezra is said to have read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly. Not only did Ezra read the Law; he accompanied it with an interpretation. This seems to imply, almost beyond question, that in Ezra’s time (444 bc) the Law, i.e. the Pentateuch, was regarded as canonical Scripture. This is practically all that the Old Testament says about itself, though other passages, such as Zec 7:12 and Dan 9:2 might be brought forward to show the deep regard which the later prophets had for the writings of their predecessors. The former of these is the locus classicus in the Old Testament, teaching the inspiration of the Prophets; it is the Old Testament parallel to 2Ti 3:16.
2. The Samaritan Pentateuch (Circa 432 bc)
Chronologically the Old Testament is of course our most ancient witness. It brings us down to 444 bc. The next in order is the Samaritan Pentateuch, the history of which is as follows: About 432 bc, as we know from Neh 13:28 and Josephus (Ant., XI, vii, 2 through viii, 4), Nehemiah expelled from the Jewish colony in Jerusalem Manasseh, the polygamous grandson of Eliashib the high priest and son-in-law of Sanballat. Manasseh founded the schismatic community of the Samaritans, and instituted on Mt. Gerizim a rival temple worship to that at Jerusalem. Of the Samaritans there still survive today some 170 souls; they reside in Shechem and are known as the smallest religious sect in the world. It is true that Josephus, speaking of this event, confuses chronology somewhat, making Nehemiah and Alexander the Great contemporaries, whereas a century separated them, but the time element is of little moment. The bearing of the whole matter upon the history of the formation of the canon is this: the Samaritans possess the Pentateuch only; hence, it is inferred that at the time of Manasseh’s expulsion the Jewish canon included the Pentateuch and the Pentateuch only. Budde (Encyclopaedia Biblica col. 659) says: If alongside of the Law there had been other sacred writings, it would be inexplicable why these last also did not pass into currency with the Samaritans. Such a conclusion, however, is not fully warranted. It is an argument from silence. There are patent reasons on the other hand why the Samaritans should have rejected the Prophets, even though the y were already canonized. For the Samaritans would hardly adopt into their canon books that glorified the temple at Jerusalem. It cannot, accordingly, be inferred with certainty from the fact that the Samaritans accept the Pentateuch only, that therefore the Pentateuch at the time of Manasseh’s expulsion was alone canonical, though it may be considered a reasonable presumption.
3. The Septuagint Version (Circa 250-150 bc)
The Septuagint version in Greek is the first translation of the Old Testament ever made; indeed the Old Testament is the first book of any note in all literature to receive the honor of being translated into another tongue. This fact in itself is indicative of the esteem in which it was held at the time. The work of translation was inaugurated by Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 bc) and probably continued for well-nigh a century (circa 250-150 bc). Aristeas, a distinguished officer of Ptolemy, records how it came about. It appears that Ptolemy was exceedingly fond of books, and set his heart on adding to his famous collection in Alexandria a translation of the Hebrew Pentateuch In order to obtain it, so the story goes, the king set free 198,000 Jewish slaves, and sent them with presents to Jerusalem to ask Eleazar the high priest for their Law and Jewish scholars capable of translating it. Six learned rabbis from each tribe (6 X 12 = 72) were sent. They were royally feasted; 70 questions were asked them to test their wisdom, and after 72 days of coperation and conference they gave the world the Old Testament in the Greek language, which is known as the Septuagint version. To this fabulous story, Christian tradition adds that the rabbis did the work of translating in 72 (some say 36) separate cells on the island of Pharos, all working independently of each other, and that it was found at the expiration of their seclusion that each had produced a translation exactly word for word alike, hence, supernaturally inspired. Justin Martyr of the 2nd century ad says that he was actually shown by his Alexandrian guide the ruins of these Septuagint cells. The story is obviously a fable. The kernel of real truth at the bottom of it is probably that Ptolemy Philadelphus about the middle of the 3rd century bc succeeded in obtaining a translation of the Law. The other books were translated subsequently, perhaps for private use. The lack of unity of plan in the books outside the Law indicates that probably many different hands at different times were engaged upon them. There is a subscription, moreover, at the close of the translation of Est which states that Lysimachus, the son of Ptolemy in Jerusalem, translated it. But the whole was apparently completed before Jesus ben Sirach the younger wrote his Prologue to Ecclesiasticus (circa 132 bc).
Now the Septuagint version, which was the Bible of our Lord and His apostles, is supposed to have included originally many of the Apocryphal books. Furthermore, in our present Septuagint, the canonical and Apocryphal books stand intermingled and in an order which shows that the translators knew nothing of the tripartite division of later Judaism, or if they did they quite ignored it. The order of the books in our English Old Testament is of course derived from the Septuagint through the Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 ad) of Jerome. The books in the Septuagint are arranged as follows: Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, 1 and 2 Esdras, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zepheniah, Hagai, Zechariah, Malachi, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, Lamentations, Ep. Jer., Ezekiel, Daniel, 1, 2 and 3 Maccabees. On the basis of the Septuagint, Catholics advocate what is known as the larger canon of the Jews in Alexandria; Protestants, on the other hand, deny the existence of an independent canon in Alexandria in view of the smaller canon of the Jews in Palestine The actual difference between the Catholic and Protestant Old Testaments is a matter of 7 complete books and portions of two others: namely, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, together with certain additions to Esther (Est 10:4 through 16:24) and to Daniel (Dan 3:24-90; The Song of the three Holy Children (Azariah); Susanna verse 13 and Bel and the Dragon verse 14). These Protestants reject as apocryphal because there is no sufficient evidence that they were ever reckoned as canonical by the Jews anywhere. The fact that the present Septuagint includes them is far from conclusive that the original Septuagint did, for the following reasons: (1) The design of the Septuagint was purely literary; Ptolemy and the Alexandrians were interested in building up a library. (2) All the extant manuscripts of the Septuagint are of Christian not Jewish origin. Between the actual translation of the Septuagint (circa 250-150 bc) and the oldest manuscripts of the Septuagint extant (circa 350 ad) there is a chasm of fully 500 years, during which it is highly possible that the so-called Apocryphal books crept in. (3) In the various extant manuscripts of the Septuagint, the Apocryphal books vary in number and name. For example, the great Vatican MS, which is probably the truest representative which remains of the Alexandrian Bible, and which comes down to us from the 4th century ad, contains no Book of Maccabees whatever, but does include 1 Esdras, which Jerome and Catholics generally treat as apocryphal. On the other hand, the Alexandrian MS, another of the great manuscripts of the Septuagint, dating from the 5th century ad, contains not only the extra-canonical book of 1 Esdras, but 3 and 4 Maccabees, and in the New Testament the 1st and 2nd Epistles of Clement, none of which, however, is considered canonical by Rome. Likewise the great Sinaiticus MS, hardly less important than the Vatican as a witness to the Septuagint and like it dating from the 4th century ad, omits Baruch (which Catholics consider canonical), but includes 4 Macc, and in the New Testament the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas; all of which are excluded from the canon by Catholics. In other manuscripts, 3 Maccabees, 3 Esdras and The Prayer of Manasseh are occasionally included. The problem as to how many books the original Septuagint version actually included is a very complicated one. The probability is that it included no one of these variants. (4) Still another reason for thinking that there never existed in Egypt a separate or larger canon is the fact that during the 2nd century ad, the Alexandrian Jews adopted Aquila’s Greek version of the Old Testament in lieu of their own, and it is known that Aquila’s text excluded all Apocryphal books. Add to all this the fact that Philo, who lived in Alexandria from circa 20 bc till 50 ad, never quotes from One of these Apocryphal books though he often does from the canonical, and that Origen, who also resided in Alexandria (circa 200 ad), never set his imprimatur upon them, and it becomes reasonably convincing that there was no larger canon in Alexandria. The value of the evidence derived from the Septuagint, accordingly, is largely negative. It only indicates that when the translation of the Old Testament into Greek was made in Alexandria, the process of canonization was still incomplete. For had it been actually complete, it is reasonable to suppose that the work of translation would have proceeded according to some well-defined plan, and would have been executed with greater accuracy. As it is, the translators seem to have taken all sorts of liberties with the text, adding to the books of Est and Dan and omitting fully one-eighth of the text of Jer. Such work also indicates that they were not executing a public or ecclesiastical trust, but rather a private enterprise. Our necessary conclusion, therefore, is that the work of canonization was probably going on in Palestine while the work of translation was proceeding in Alexandria.
4. Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach (Circa 170 bc)
Our next witness is Jesus ben Sirach who (circa 170 bc) wrote a formidable work entitled Ecclesiasticus, otherwise known as Sir. The author lived in Jerusalem and wrote in Hebrew. His book is a book of Wisdom resembling Proverbs; some of his precepts approach the high level of the Gospel. In many respects Ecclesiasticus is the most important of all the Apocryphal books; theologically it is the chief monument of primitive Sadduceeism. In chapters 44 through 50, the author sings a hymn to the Fathers, eulogizing the mighty heroes of Israel from Enoch to Nehemiah, in fact from Adam to Simon, including the most famous men described in the Old Testament, and making explicit mention of the Twelve Prophets. These facts would indicate that the whole or, at least, the most of the Old Testament was known to him, and that already in his day (180 bc) the so-called Minor Prophets were regarded as a special group of writings by themselves. What the value of Ecclesiasticus is as a witness, however, depends upon the interpretation one places on 24:33, which reads: I will yet pour out doctrine as prophecy and leave it unto generations of ages. From this it is inferred by some that he feels himself inspired and capable of adding to the canon already in existence, and that, though he knew the full prophetic canon, he did not draw any very definite line of demarcation between his own work and the inspired writings of the prophets. For example, he passes over from the patriarchs and prophets of Israel to Simon the son of Onias, who was probably the high priest in his own time, making no distinction between them. But this may have been partly due to personal conceit; compare 39:12, Yet more will I utter, which I have thought upon; and I am filled as the moon at the full. Yet, perhaps, in his day still only the Law and the Prophets were actually canonized, but alongside of these a body of literature was being gathered and gradually augmented of a nature not foreign to his own writings, and therefore not clearly marked off from literary compositions like his own. Yet to Sirach the Law is everything. He identifies it with the highest Wisdom; indeed, all wisdom in his judgment is derived from a study of the Law (compare Sirach 19:20-24; 15:1-18; 24:23; 2:16; 39:1).
5. The Prologue to Ecclesiasticus (Circa 132 bc)
The Prologue or Preface to Ecclesiasticus is our next witness to the formation of the canon. It was written by the grandson of Jesus ben Sirach, who bore his grandfather’s name (circa 132 bc). Jesus ben Sirach the younger translated in Egypt his grandfather’s proverbs into Greek, and in doing so added a Preface or Prologue of his own. In this Prologue, he thrice refers to the tripartite division of the Old Testament. In fact the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus is the oldest witness we have to the threefold division of the Old Testament books. He says: Whereas many and great things have been delivered unto us by the Law and the Prophets, and by others,… my grandfather, Jesus, when he had given himself to the reading of the Law, and the Prophets, and other books of our Fathers, and had gotten therein good judgment (the Revised Version (British and American) having gained great familiarity therein), was drawn on also himself to write something pertaining to learning and wisdom…. For the same things uttered in Hebrew and translated into another tongue, have not the same force in them; and not only these things, but the Law itself, and the Prophets, and the rest of the books, have no small difference, when they are spoken in their own language. These are explicit and definite allusions to the threefold division of the Old Testament writings, yet only the titles of the first and second divisions are the technical names usually employed; the third is especially vague because of his use of the terms, the other books of the Fathers, and the rest of the books. However, he evidently refers to writings with religious contents; and, by the other books of the Fathers, he can hardly be supposed to have meant an indefinite number, though he has not told us which they were or what was their number. From his further statement that his grandfather, having immersed himself in the Law and the Prophets, and other books of the Fathers, felt drawn on also himself to write something for the profit of others, it may be inferred that in his time there was as yet no definite gulf fixed between canonical writings and those of other men, and that the sifting process was still going on (compare W. R. Smith, OTJC2, 178-179).
6. 1 and 2 Maccabee (Between 125 and 70 bc)
1 Maccabee was written originally in Hebrew; 2 Maccabee in Greek, somewhere between 125 and 70 bc. The author of 1 Maccabee is acquainted, on the one hand, with the deeds of John Hyrcanus (135 to 105 bc), and knows nothing on the other of the conquest of Palestine by Pompey (63 bc). The value of this book as a witness to the history of the canon centers about his allusions to Daniel and the Psalms. In 1 Macc 1:54, he tells how Antiochus Epiphanes set up the abomination of desolation upon the altar at Jerusalem, referring most likely to Dan 9:24-27; and in 1 Macc 2:59, 60 he speaks of Ananias, Azarias and Misael, who by believing were saved from the fiery furnace, and of Daniel, who was delivered from the mouths of the lions (compare Dan 1:7; Dan 3:26; Dan 6:23). From these allusions, it would seem as though the Book of Daniel was at that time regarded as normative or canonical. This is confirmed by 1 Macc 7:16, 17, which introduces a quotation from Psa 79:2, with the solemn formula, According to the words which he wrote; which would suggest that the Ps also were already canonical.
2 Maccabee, written circa 124 bc, also contains a couple of passages of considerable importance to us in this investigation. Both, however, are found in a spurious letter purporting to have been sent by the inhabitants of Judea to their fellow-countrymen residing in Egypt. The first passage (2 Macc 2:13) tells how Nehemiah, founding a library, gathered together the acts of the kings, and the prophets, and of David, and the epistles of the kings concerning holy gifts. These words throw no special light upon the formation of the canon, but they do connect with the name of Nehemiah the preservation of public documents and historical records of national interest, and how he, as a lover of books, founded a library. This is in perfect agreement with what we know of Nehemiah’s character, for he compiled the genealogy of Neh 7; besides, collection precedes selection. The other passage (2 Macc 2:14) reads: In like manner also Judas gathered together all things that were lost by reason of the war we had, and they remain with us. Though found in a letter, supposed to be spurious, there is every reason for believing this statement to be true. For when Antiochus, the arch enemy of the nation, sought to stamp out the religion of the Jews by destroying their books (compare 1 Macc 1:56, 57), what would have been more natural for a true patriot like Judas than to attempt to re-collect their sacred writings? This statement, therefore, as Wildeboer says, may well be worthy of credence (The Origin of the Canon of the Old Testament, 40). Though it yields nothing definite as to the number of the books recovered, it is obvious that the books collected were the most precious documents which the nation possessed. They were doubtless religious, as was the age.
7. Philo (Circa 20 bc-50 ad)
Philo is our next witness. He flourished in Alexandria between circa 20 bc and 50 ad, leaving behind him a voluminous literature. Unfortunately, he does not yield us much of positive value for our present purpose. His evidence is largely negative. True, he nowhere mentions the tripartite division of the Old Testament, which is known to have existed in his day. Nor does he quote from Ezekiel, the Five Megilloth (Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther), Daniel, Chronicles, or from the Twelve Minor Prophets, except Hosea, Jonah, and Zechariah. Moreover he held a loose view of inspiration. According to Philo, inspiration was by no means confined to the sacred Scriptures; all truly wise and virtuous men are inspired and capable of expressing the hidden things of God. But as Dr. Green (Canon, 130) right fully contends, Philo’s loose views of inspiration cannot be declared irreconcilable with the acceptance of a fixed canon, unless it is first shown that he places others whom he thinks inspired on a level with the writers of Scripture. This he never does. Philo’s reverence for the Law was unbounded. In this respect he is the type of other Alexandrians. He quotes predominatingly from the Law. Moses was to him the source of all wisdom, even the wisdom of the Gentiles. Concerning the laws of Moses, he is reported by Eusebius as saying: They have not changed so much as a single word in them. They would rather die a thousand deaths than detract anything from these laws and statutes. On the other hand, Philo never quotes any of the Apocryphal books. Hence, it may safely be assumed that his canon was essentially ours.
8. The New Testament as a Witness (Circa 50-100 ad)
The evidence furnished by the New Testament is of the highest importance. When summed up, it gives the unmistakable impression that when the New Testament was written (circa 50-100 ad) there was a definite and fixed canon of Old Testament Scripture, to which authoritative appeal could be made. And first, too much importance can scarcely be attached to the names or titles ascribed to the Old Testament writings by the authors of the New Testament: Thus, the scripture (Joh 10:35; Joh 19:36; 2Pe 1:20), the scripture s (Mat 22:29; Act 18:24), holy scriptures (Rom 1:2), sacred writings (2Ti 3:15), the law (Joh 10:34; Joh 12:34; Joh 15:25; 1Co 14:21), law and prophets (Mat 5:17; Mat 7:12; Mat 22:40; Luk 16:16; Luk 24:44; Act 13:15; Act 28:23). Such names or titles, though they do not define the limits of the canon, certainly assume the existence of a complete and sacred collection of Jewish writings which are already marked off from all other literature as separate and fixed. One passage (Joh 10:35) in which the term scripture, is employed seems to refer to the Old Testament canon as a whole; and the scripture cannot be broken. In like manner the expression law and prophets is often used in a generic sense, referring to much more than merely the 1st and 2nd divisions of the Old Testament; it seems rather to refer to the old dispensation as a whole; but the term the law is the most general of all. It is frequently applied to the entire Old Testament, and apparently held in Christ’s time among the Jews a place akin to that which the term the Bible does with us. For example, in Joh 10:34; Joh 11:34; Joh 15:25, texts from the prophets or even from the Ps are quoted as part of the Law; in 1Co 14:21 also, Paul speaks of Isa 28:11 as a part of the law. These names and titles, accordingly, are exceedingly important; they are never applied by New Testament writers to the Apocrypha.
One passage (Luk 24:44) furnishes clear evidence of the threefold division of the canon. But here again, as in the Prologue of Sirach, there is great uncertainty as to the limits of the 3rd division. Instead of saying the law, the prophets and the writings, Luke says, the law, the prophets and the psalms. But it is obvious enough why the Psalms should have been adduced by Jesus in support of His resurrection. It is because they especially testify of Christ: they were, therefore, the most important part of the 3rd division for His immediate purpose, and it may be that they are meant to stand a potiori for the whole of the 3rd division (compare Budde, Encyclopedia Biblica, col. 669).
Another passage (Mat 23:35; compare Luk 11:51) seems to point to the final order and arrangement of the books in the Old Testament canon. It reads: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Now, in order to grasp the bearing of this verse upon the matter in hand, it must be remembered that in the modern arrangement of the Old Testament books in Hebrew, Chronicles stands last; and that the murder of Zachariah is the last recorded instance in this arrangement, being found in 2Ch 24:20, 2Ch 24:21. But this murder took place under Joash king of Judah, in the 9th century bc. There is another which is chronologically later, namely, that of Uriah son of Shemaiah who was murdered in Jehoiakim’s reign in the 7th century bc (Jer 26:23). Accordingly, the argument is this, unless Ch already stood last in Christ’s Old Testament, why did He not say, from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Uriah? He would then have been speaking chronologically and would have included all the martyrs whose martyrdom is recorded in the Old Testament. But He rather says, from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah, as though He were including the whole range of Old Testament Scripture, just as we would say from Genesis to Malachi. Hence, it is inferred, with some degree of justification also, that Chronicles stood in Christ’s time, as it does today in the Hebrew Bible of the Massorets, the last book of an already closed canon. Of course, in answer to this, there is the possible objection that in those early days the Scriptures were still written by the Jews on separate rolls.
Another ground for thinking that the Old Testament canon was closed before the New Testament was written is the numerous citations made in the New Testament from the Old Testament. Every book is quoted except Esther, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Obadiah, Nahum, and Zephaniah. But these exceptions are not serious. The Twelve Minor Prophets were always treated by the Jews en bloc as one canonical work; hence, if one of the twelve were quoted all were recognized. And the fact that 2Ch 24:20, 2Ch 24:21 is quoted in Mat 23:35 and Luk 11:51 presupposes also the canonicity of Ezra-Nehemiah, as originally these books were one with Chronicles, though they may possibly have already been divided in Jesus’ day. As for Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles, it is easy to see why they are not quoted: they probably failed to furnish New Testament writers material for quotation. The New Testament writers simply had no occasion to make citations from them. What is much more noteworthy, they never quote from the Apocryphal books, though they show an acquaintance with them. Professor Gigot, one of the greatest of Roman Catholic authorities, frankly admits this. In his General Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures, 43, he says: They never quote them explicitly, it is true, but time and again they borrow expressions and ideas from them. As a matter of fact, New Testament writers felt free to quote from any source; for example, Paul on Mars’ Hill cites to the learned Athenians an astronomical work of the Stoic Aratus of Cilicia, or perhaps from a Hymn to Jupiter by Cleanthes of Lycia, when he says, For we are also his off-spring (Act 17:28). And Jud 1:14, Jud 1:15 almost undeniably quotes from Enoch (Jud 1:9; 60:8) – a work which is not recognized as canonical by any except the church of Abyssinia. But in any case, the mere quoting of a book does not canonize it; nor, on the other hand, does failure to quote a book exclude it. Quotation does not necessarily imply sanction; no more than reference to contemporary literature is incompatible with strict views of the canon. Everything depends upon the manner in which the quotation is made. In no case is an Apocryphal book cited by New Testament authors as Scripture, or as the work of the Holy Spirit. And the force of this statement is not weakened by the fact that the authors of New Testament writings cited the Septuagint instead of the original Hebrew; for, they are responsible only for the inherent truthfulness of each passage in the form which they actually adopt (Green, Canon, 145). As a witness, therefore, the New Testament is of paramount importance. For, though it nowhere tells us the exact number of books contained in the Old Testament canon, it gives abundant evidence of the existence already in the 1st century ad of a definite and fixed canon.
9. 4 Esdras (Circa 81-96 ad)
4 Esdras in Latin (2 Esdras in English) is a Jewish apocalypse which was written originally in Greek toward the close of the 1st century (circa 81-96 ad). The passage of special interest to us is 2 Esdras 14:19-48 which relates in most fabulous style how Ezra is given spiritual illumination to reproduce the Law which had been burned, and how, at the Divine command, he secludes himself for a period of 40 days, after which he betakes himself with five skilled scribes to the open country. There, a cup of water is offered him; he drinks, and then dictates to his five amanuenses continuously for 40 days and nights, producing 94 books of which 70 are kept secret and 24 published. The section of supreme importance reads as follows: And it came to pass, when the forty days were fulfilled, that the Most High spake, saying, ‘The first that thou hast written, publish openly, that the worthy may read it; but keep the seventy last, that thou mayest deliver them only to such as be wise among the people; for in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge.’ And I did so (4 Esdras 14:45-48). The story is obviously pure fiction. No wonder that a new version of it arose in the 16th century, according to which the canon was completed, not by Ezra alone, but by a company of men known as the Great Synagogue. From the legend of 4 Esdras it is commonly inferred that the 24 books which remain after subtracting 70 from 94 are the canonical books of the Old Testament. If so, then this legend is the first witness we have to the number of books contained in the Old Testament canon. This number corresponds exactly with the usual number of sacred books according to Jewish count, as we saw in section 5 above. The legend, accordingly, is not without value. Even as legend it witnesses to a tradition which existed as early as the 1st Christian century, to the effect that the Jews possessed 24 specially sacred books. It also points to Ezra as the chief factor in the making of Scripture and intimates that the Old Testament canon has long since been virtually closed.
10. Josephus’ Contra Apionem (Circa 100 ad)
Flavius Josephus, the celebrated Jewish historian, was born 37 ad. He was a priest and a Pharisee. About 100 ad, he wrote a controversial treatise, known as Contra Apionem, in defense of the Jews against their assailants, of whom Apion is taken as a leading representative, Now Apion was a famous grammarian, who in his life had been hostile to the Jews. He had died some 50 years before Contra Apionem was written. Josephus wrote in Greek to Greeks. The important passage in his treatise (I, 8) reads as follows: For it is not the case with us to have vast numbers of books disagreeing and conflicting with one another. We have but twenty-two, containing the history of all time, books that are justly believed in. And of these, five are the books of Moses, which comprise the laws and the earliest traditions from the creation of mankind down to the time of his (Moses’) death. This period falls short but by a little of three thousand years. From the death of Moses to the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, the successor of Xerxes, the prophets who succeeded Moses wrote the history of the events that occurred in their own time; in thirteen books. The remaining four documents comprise hymns to God and practical precepts to men. From the days of Artaxerxes to our own time every event has indeed been recorded. But these recent records have not been deemed worthy of equal credit with those which preceded them, because the exact succession of the prophets ceased. But what faith we have placed in our own writings is evident by our conduct; for though so great an interval of time (i.e. since they were written) has now passed, not a soul has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable. But it is instinctive in all Jews at once from their very birth to regard them as commands of God, and to abide by them, and, if need be, willingly to die for them.
The value of this remarkable passage for our study is obviously very great. In the first place Josephus fixes the number of Jewish writings which are recognized as sacred at 22, joining probably Ruth to Jdg and Lam to Jer. He also classifies them according to a threefold division, which is quite peculiar to himself: 5 of Moses, 13 of the prophets, and 4 hymns and maxims for human life. The 5 of Moses were of course the Pentateuch; the 13 of the prophets probably included the 8 regular Nebh’m plus Daniel, Job, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Esther; the 4 hymns and maxims would most naturally consist of Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles and Ecclesiastes. There is little doubt that his 22 books are those of our present Hebrew canon.
Another very remarkable fact about Josephus’ statement is the standard he gives of canonicity, namely, antiquity; because, as he says, since Artaxerxes’ age the succession of prophets had ceased. It was the uniform tradition of Josephus’ time that prophetic inspiration had ceased with Malachi (circa 445-432 bc). Hence, according to him, the canon was closed in the reign of Artaxerxes (465-425 bc). He does not pause to give any account of the closing of the canon; he simply assumes it, treating it as unnecessary. Prophecy had ceased, and the canon was accordingly closed; the fact did not require to be officially proclaimed. As remarked above. the value of Josephus as a witness is very great. But just here an important question arises: How literally must we interpret his language? Was the Old Testament canon actually closed before 425 bc? Were not there books and parts of books composed and added to the canon subsequent to his reign? Dr. Green seems to take Josephus literally (Canon, 40, 78). But Josephus is not always reliable in his chronology. For example, in his Antiquities (XI, vi, 13) he dates the story of Esther as occurring in the reign of Artaxerxes I (whereas it belongs to Xerxes’ reign), while in the same work (XI, v, 1) he puts Ezra and Nehemiah under Xerxes (whereas they belong to the time of Artaxerxes). On the whole, it seems safer on internal grounds to regard Josephus’ statements concerning the antiquity of the Jewish canon as the language not of a careful historian, but of a partisan in debate. Instead of expressing absolute fact in this case, he was reflecting the popular belief of his age. Reduced to its lowest terms, the element of real truth in what he says was simply this, that he voiced a tradition which was at that time universal and undisputed; one, however, which had required a long period, perhaps hundreds of years, to develop. Hence, we conclude that the complete Old Testament canon, numbering 22 books, was no new thing 100 ad.
11. The Councils of Jamnia (90 and 118 ad)
According to the traditions preserved in the Mishna, two councils of Jewish rabbis were held (90 and 118 ad respectively) at Jabne, or Jamnia, not far South of Joppa, on the Mediterranean coast, at which the books of the Old Testament, notably Ecclesiastes and Canticles, were discussed and their canonicity ratified. Rabbi Gamaliel II probably presided. Rabbi Akiba was the chief spirit of the council. What was actually determined by these synods has not been preserved to us accurately, but by many authorities it is thought that the great controversy which had been going on for over a century between the rival Jewish schools of Hillel and Shammai was now brought to a close, and that the canon was formally restricted to our 39 books. Perhaps it is within reason to say that at Jamnia the limits of the Hebrew canon were officially and finally determined by Jewish authority. Not that official sanction created public opinion, however, but rather confirmed it.
12. The Talmud (200-500 ad)
The Talmud consists of two parts: (1) The Mishna (compiled circa 200 ad), a collection of systematized tradition; and (2) The Gemara, Gemara (completed about 500 ad), a vast and desultory commentary on the Mishna A Baraitha’, or unauthorized gloss, known as the Babha’ Bathra’ 14b, a Talmudic tractate, relates the order of the various books of the Old Testament and who wrote or edited them. But it says nothing of the formation of the canon. To write is not the same as to canonize; though to the later Jews the two ideas were closely akin. As a witness, therefore, this tractate is of little value, except that it confirms the tripartite division and is a good specimen of rabbinic speculation. For the full text of the passage, see Ryle, Canon of the Old Testament, 273ff.
13. Jewish Doubts in the 2nd Century Ad
During the 2nd century ad, doubts arose in Jewish minds concerning four books, Proverbs, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. In a certain Talmudic tractate it is related that an attempt was made to withdraw (ganaz, conceal, hide) the Book of Prov on account of contradictions which were found in it (compare Pro 26:4, Pro 26:5), but on deeper investigation it was not withdrawn. In another section of the Talmud, Rabbi Akiba is represented as saying concerning Canticles: God forbid that any man of Israel should deny that the Song of Songs defileth the hands, for the whole world is not equal to the day in which the Song of Songs was given to Israel. For all Scriptures are holy, but the Song of Songs is the holiest of the holy. Such extravagant language inclines one to feel that real doubt must have existed in the minds of some concerning the book. But the protestations were much stronger against Ecclesiates. In one tractate it is stated: The wise men desired to hide it because its language was often self-contradictory (compare Ecc 7:3 and Ecc 2:2; Ecc 4:2 and Ecc 9:4), but they did not hide it because the beginning and the end of it consist of words from the Torah (compare Ecc 1:3; Ecc 12:13, Ecc 12:14). Likewise Est was vigorously disputed by both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Gemaras, because the name of God was not found in it; but a Rabbi Simeon ben Lakkish (circa 300 ad) defended its canonicity, putting Esther on an equality with the Law and above the Prophets and the other Writings. Other books, for example, Ezekiel and Jonah, were discussed in post-Talmudic writings, but no serious objections were ever raised by the Jews against either. Jonah was really never doubted till the 12th century ad. In the case of no one of these disputed books were there serious doubts; nor did scholastic controversies affect public opinion.
14. Summary and Conclusion
This brings us to the end of our examination of the witnesses. In our survey we have discovered (1) that the Old Testament says nothing about its canonization, but does emphasize the manner in which the Law was preserved and recognized as authoritative; (2) that to conclude that the Jews possessed the Law only, when the renegade Manasseh was expelled by Nehemiah from Jerusalem, because the Samaritans admit of the Law alone as the true canon, is unwarrantable; (3) that the Septuagint version as we know it from the Christian manuscripts extant is by no means a sufficient proof that the Alexandrians possessed a larger canon which included the Apocrpha; (4) that Jesus ben Sirach is a witness to the fact that the Prophets in his day (180 bc) were not yet acknowledged as canonical; (5) that his grandson in his Prologue is the first witness to the customary tripartite division of Old Testament writings, but does not speak of the 3rd division as though it were already closed; (6) that the Books of Maccabees seem to indicate that Psalms and Daniel are already included in the canon of the Jews; (7) that Philo’s testimony is negative, in that he witnesses against the Apocryphal books as an integral part of Holy Scripture; (8) that the New Testament is the most explicit witness of the series, because of the names and titles it ascribes to the Old Testament books which it quotes; (9) that 4 Esdras is the first witness to the number of books in the Old Testament canon – 24; (10) that Josephus also fixes the number of books, but in arguing for the antiquity of the canon speaks as an advocate, voicing popular tradition, rather than as a scientific historian; (11) that the Councils of Jamnia may, with some ground, be considered the official occasion on which the Jews pronounced upon the limits of their canon; but that (12) doubts existed in the 2nd century concerning certain books; which books, however, were not seriously questioned.
From all this we conclude, that the Law was canonized, or as we would better say, was recognized as authoritative, first, circa 444 bc; that the Prophets were set on an even footing with the Law considerably later, circa 200 bc; and that the Writings received authoritative sanction still later, circa 100 bc. There probably never were three separate canons, but there were three separate classes of writings, which between 450 and 100 bc doubtless stood on different bases, and only gradually became authoritative. There is, therefore, ground for thinking, as suggested above (section 6), that the tripartite division of the Old Testament canon is due to material differences in the contents as well as to chronology.
III. The Canon in the Christian Church
1. In the Eastern or Oriental Church
In making the transition from the Jewish to the Christian church, we find the same canon cherished by all. Christians of all sects have always been disposed to accept without question the canon of the Jews. For centuries all branches of the Christian church were practically agreed on the limits set by the Jews, but eventually the western church became divided, some alleging that Christ sanctioned the larger canon of Alexandria, including the Apocrypha, while others adhered, as the Jews have always done, to the canon of the Jews in Palestine taking the eastern or oriental church first, the evidence they furnish is as follows: The Peshitta, or Syriac version, dating from circa 150 ad, omits Chronicles; Justin Martyr (164 ad) held to a canon identical with that of the Jews; the Canon of Melito, bishop of Sardis, who (circa 170 ad) made a journey to Palestine in order carefully to investigate the matter, omits Est. His list, which is the first Christian list we have, has been preserved to us by Eusebius in his Eccl. Hist., IV, 26; Origen (died 254 ad), who was educated in Alexandria, and was one of the most learned of the Greek Fathers, also set himself the task of knowing the Hebrew verity of the Old Testament text, and gives us a list (also preserved to us by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., VI, 5) in which he reckons the number of books as 22 (Thus agreeing with Josephus). Inadvertently he omits the Twelve Minor Prophets, but this is manifestly an oversight on the part of either a scribe or of Eusebius, as he states the number of books is 22 and then names but 21. The so-called Canon of Laodicea (circa 363 ad) included the canonical books only, rejecting the Apocrypha. Athanasius (died 365 ad) gives a list in which Esther is classed as among the non-canonical books, but he elsewhere admits that Esther is considered canonical by the Hebrews. However, he included Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah with Jeremiah. Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium (circa 380 ad), speaks of Esther as received by some only. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem (died 386 ad), gives a list corresponding with the Hebrew canon, except that he includes Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Gregory of Nazianzus in Cappadocia (died 390 ad) omits Esther. But Anastasius, patriarch of Antioch (560 ad), and Leontius of Byzantium (580 ad) both held to the strict Jewish canon of 22 books. The Nestorians generally doubted Esther. This was due doubtless to the influence of Theodore of Mopsuestia (circa 390-457 ad) who disputed the authority of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Job. The oriental churches as a whole, however, never canonized the Apocrypha.
2. In the Western Church
Between 100 and 400 ad, the New Testament writings became canonical, occupying in the Christian church a place of authority and sacredness equal to those of the Old Testament. The tendency of the period was to receive everything which had been traditionally read in the churches. But the transference of this principle to the Old Testament writings produced great confusion. Usage and theory were often in conflict. A church Father might declare that the Apocryphal books were uninspired and yet quote them as Scripture, and even introduce them with the accepted formula, As the Holy Ghost saith. Theologically, they held to a strict canon, homiletically they used a larger one. But even usage was not uniform. 3 and 4 Esdras and the Book of Enoch are sometimes quoted as Holy Writ, yet the western church never received these books as canonical. The criterion of usage, therefore, is too broad. The theory of the Fathers was gradually forgotten, and the prevalent use of the Septuagint and other versions led to the obliteration of the distinction between the undisputed books of the Hebrew canon and the most popular Apocryphal books; and being often publicly read in the churches they finally received a quasi-canonization.
Tertullian of Carthage (circa 150-230 ad) is the first of the Latin Fathers whose writings have been preserved. He gives the number of Old Testament books as 24, the same as in the Talmud Hilary, bishop of Poitiers in France (350-368 ad), gives a catalogue in which he speaks of Jeremiah and his epistle, yet his list numbers only 22. Rufinus of Aquileia in Italy (died 410 ad) likewise gives a complete list of 22 books. Jerome also, the learned monk of Bethlehem (died 420 ad), gives the number of canonical books as 22, corresponding to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and explains that the five double books (1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Jeremiah-Lamentations) correspond to the five final letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In his famous Prologus Galeatus or Helmed Preface to the books of Samuel and Kings, he declares himself for the strict canon of the Jews; rejecting the authority of the deutero-canonical books in the most outspoken manner, even distinguishing carefully the apocryphal additions to Esther and to Daniel. As the celebrated Catholic writer, Dr. Gigot, very frankly allows, Time and again this illustrious doctor (Jerome) of the Latin church rejects the authority of the deutero-canonical books in the most explicit manner (General Intro, 56).
Contemporaneous with Jerome in Bethlehem lived Augustine in North Africa (353-430 ad). He was the bishop of Hippo; renowned as thinker, theologian and saint. In the three great Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397 and 419 ad), of which he was the leading spirit, he closed, as it were, the great debate of the previous generations on the subject of how large shall be the Bible. In his essay on Christian Doctrine, he catalogues the books of Scripture, which had been transmitted by the Fathers for public reading in the church, giving their number as 44, with which he says the authority of the Old Testament is ended. These probably correspond with the present canon of Catholics. But it is not to be supposed that Augustine made no distinction between the proto-canonical and deutero-canonical books. On the contrary, he limited the term canonical in its strict sense to the books which are inspired and received by the Jews, and denied that in the support of doctrine the books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus were of unquestioned authority, though long custom had entitled them to respect. And when a passage from 2 Maccabees was urged by his opponents in defense of suicide, he rejected their proof by showing that the book was not received into the Hebrew canon to which Christ was witness. At the third Council of Carthage (397 ad), however, a decree was ratified, most probably with his approval, which in effect placed all the canonical and deutero-canonical books on the same level, and in the course of time they actually became considered by some as of equal authority (see DEUTERO-CANONICAL, BOOKS). A few years later, another council at Carthage (419 ad) took the additional step of voting that their own decision concerning the canon should be confirmed by Boniface, the bishop of Rome; accordingly, thereafter, the question of how large the Bible should be became a matter to be settled by authority rather than by criticism.
From the 4th to the 16th century ad the process of gradually widening the limits of the canon continued. Pope Gelasius (492-496 ad) issued a decretal or list in which he included the Old Testament apocrypha. Yet even after this official act of the papacy the sentiment in the western church was divided. Some followed the strict canon of Jerome, while others favored the larger canon of Augustine, without noting his cautions and the distinctions he made between inspired and uninspired writings. Cassiodorus (556 ad) and Isidore of Seville (636 ad) place the lists of Jerome and Augustine side by side without deciding between them. Two bishops of North Africa, Primasius and Junilius (circa 550 ad) reckon 24 books as strictly canonical and explicitly state that the others are not of the same grade. Popular usage, however, was indiscriminate. Outside the Jews there was no sound Hebrew tradition. Accordingly, at the Council of Florence (1442 ad), Eugenius IV, with the approval of the Fathers of that assembly, declared all the books found in the Latin Bibles then in use to be inspired by the same Holy Spirit, without distinguishing them into two classes or categories (compare Gigot, General Introduction, 71). Though this bull of Eugenius IV did not deal with the canonicity of the Apocryphal books, it did proclaim their inspiration. Nevertheless, down to the Council of Trent (1546 ad), the Apocryphal books possessed only inferior authority; and when men spoke of canonical Scripture in the strict sense, these were not included.
Luther, the great Saxon Reformer of the 16th century, marks an epoch in the history of the Christian Old Testament canon. In translating the Scriptures into German, he gave the deutero-canonical books an intermediate position between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Lutheran church, also, while it does not expressly define the limits of the canon, yet places the Apocryphal writings by themselves as distinct and separate from Holy Scripture. This indeed was the attitude of all the early Reformers. In the Zrich Bible of 1529, as in the Genevan version in English of 1560, the Apocryphal books were placed apart with special headings by themselves. Thus the early Reformers did not entirely reject the Apocryphal writings, for it was not an easy task to do so in view of the usage and traditions of centuries.
Rome had vacillated long enough. She realized that something must be done. The Reformers had sided with those who stood by Jerome. She therefore resolved to settle the matter in an ecclesiastical and dogmatic manner. Accordingly the Council of Trent decreed at their fourth sitting (April 8, 1546), that the Apocryphal books were equal in authority and canonical value to the other books of sacred Scripture; and to make this decree effective they added: If, however, anyone receive not as sacred and canonical the said books entire with all their facts, and as they have been used to be read in the Catholic church, and as they are contained in the Old Latin Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 ad) edition … let him be anathema. The decree was the logical outcome of the ever-accumulating snowball tendency in the western church. The historical effect of it upon the church is obvious. It closed forever the field of Biblical study against all free research. Naturally, therefore, the Vatican Council of 1870 not only reiterated the decree but found it easy to take still another step and canonize tradition.
Repeated endeavors were made during the 16th and 17th centuries to have the Apocryphal books removed from the Scriptures. The Synod of Dort (1618-19), Gomarus, Deodatus and others, sought to accomplish it, but failed. The only success achieved was in getting them separated from the truly canonical writings and grouped by themselves, as in the Gallican Confession of 1559, the Anglican Confession of 1562, and the Second Helvetic Confession of 1566. The Puritan Confession went farther, and declared that they were of a purely secular character. The various continental and English versions of the Bible then being made likewise placed them by themselves, apart from the acknowledged books, as a kind of appendix. For example, the Zrich Bible of 1529, the French Bible of 1535, Coverdale’s English translation of 1536, Matthew’s of 1537, the second edition of the Great Bible, 1540, the Bishops’ of 1568, and the King James Version of 1611. The first English version to omit them altogether was an edition of King James’ Version published in 1629; but the custom of printing them by themselves, between the Old Testament and the New Testament, continued until 1825, when the Edinburgh Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society protested that the Society should no longer translate these Apocryphal writings and send them to the heathen. The Society finally yielded and decided to exclude them (May 3, 1827). Since then, Protestants in Great Britain and America have given up the practice of publishing the Apocrypha as a part of sacred Scripture. In Europe, also, since 1850, the tendency has been in the same direction. The Church of England, however, and the American Episcopal church, do not wholly exclude them; certain readings being selected from Wisdom, Ecclesiastes and Baruch, and read on week days between October 27 and November 17. Yet, when the English Revised Version appeared in 1885, though it was a special product of the Church of England, there was not so much as a reference to the Apocryphal writings. The Irish church likewise removed them; and the American Standard Revised Version ignores them altogether.
Literature
G. Wildeboer, The Origin of the Canon of the Old Testament, translated by B. W. Bacon, London, Luzac and Co., 1895; H. E. Ryle, The Canon of the Old Testament, London and New York, Macmillan, 1892; F. Buhl, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, translated by John MacPherson, Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark, 1892; W. H. Green, General Introduction to the Old Testament, The Canon, New York, Scribner, 1898; W. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, 2nd edition, London, A. and C. Black, 1895; F. E. Gigot, General Introduction to the Holy Scriptures, 3rd edition, New York, Cincinnati and Chicago, Benziger Bros., 1903; B. F. Westcott, The Bible in the Christian Church, London and New York, Macmillan, 1901; C. A. Briggs, General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, New York, Scribner, 1899; A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Divine Library of the Old Testament, London and New York, Macmillan, 1892; Hastings, DB, III, 1900, article Old Testament Canon by F. H. Woods; Cheney and Black’s EB, I, 1899, article Canon by K. Budde; The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, II, 1908, article Canon of Scripture by H. L. Struck; Jour. of Biblical Lit., 1896, 118-28, article The Alleged Triple Canon of the Old Testament, by W. J. Beecher; Abbe A. Loisy, Histoire du canon de l’ancien testament, Paris, 1890; J. Frst, Der Kanon des Altes Testament, Leipzig, 1868; E. Reuss, Histoire du canon des saintes ecritures dans l’glise chrtienne, Strassburg, 1864, English translation, Edinburgh, 1891.