THE PATRISTIC AND MEDIEVAL CANON.
§ 1. The Fathers to the Time of Jerome.
WE have now to watch the Jewish writings as they circulated amongst early Christians, in particular the so-called Fathers. Of the first Christians the Old Testament was of course the one written guide, until the New Testament Scriptures were disseminated and gained acceptance. As most could use the Old Testament only in Greek, they were accustomed to the books comprised in the Septuagint. Hence some of The Fathers' often cite the Apocrypha as though canonical. De Wette gives references to Irenæus, second century; Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, both of whom lived into the third century ; Cyprian, third century.
Origen, also of the third century, though acquainted with the Hebrew Canon, did not depart from the Alexandrian Bible. He refers to the books of the Maccabees as possessed of scriptural authority,' quotes Wisdom and Tobit, calls Ecclesiasticus the Divine Word,' and so on. The Churches of Syria were blessed with legitimate Scripture; for the Peshito Version in its original form—that is, the first Syriac Bible—followed the Hebrew Canon.
With the Synod of Laodicea (363), we meet with a better appreciation on the part of Greek-speaking Christians of the difference between the two classes of Books. Amongst the proceedings of this Synod is a specification of the Canonical Books of the New and of the Old Covenant.' This extends to all the Books that compose our present Bible, with slight difference of names, but takes in Baruch (Greek), which no Protestants accept, notwithstanding that Coverdale included this book in the first edition of his English Bible. If Oehler be right, Baruch was omitted in the old Latin translation of the Laodicean Canon. Westcott, however, supports the view of some German critics, that the list of Books given was a later addition. Although this assembly seems to have been composed of Arians, its decree was ratified by a council held at Constantinople in 692. Athanasius, who was living at the time of the Synod, held similar language; Cyril of Jerusalem, his contemporary, in offering advice to catechumens (cf. Greek of Luke 1:44That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed. (Luke 1:4)), recommended the reading of Canonical Books alone. The language employed by Cyril is most precise.
Although the whole of the Canonical Books were by most Easterns undisputed, doubts were felt by some as to the Book of Esther, because of the hesitation of isolated Jews, as Rabbi Samuel in the second century, in allowing it a place in the Canon. But indeed, as a recent writer of a school-book says of the New Testament, The very fact that some of the Books were at first regarded with doubt in the early Church, only shows what great care and caution were exercised in the matter of admitting books into the Canon'—which of course is as true of Jews as of Christians, perhaps more so, in respect of the Old Testament—' and thus affords an additional guarantee of the genuineness of the Canon as we now receive it.'
Thirty years later the Council of Carthage did a similar good work for Western Christendom; but we do not find the practice of Latin Christians as good as their theory. Hilary in France and Ruffinus in Italy set a good example, marred by the inconsistency of the former, but it was not followed. Hilary is only another example of the weakness of early Christian leaders, for while in his Prologue to the Book of Psalms he gives a list of inspired Books based upon the Hebrew Canon, he elsewhere treats some parts of the Apocrypha as Scripture. That he was not at all clear upon the point is shown by his supposing that Tobit and Judith made up the number twenty-four which some followed; whereas the difference of two Books was in fact made up by Ruth and Lamentations being taken separately.
At this time we meet with the expression ecclesiastical books.' It was applied to those books which, though regarded as not inspired, were “considered worthy of perusal: they did in fact contribute to the Church lectionaries. The ancient MSS. of the LXX, as we have said, are evidence of the practice . To this class appear to have been consigned the books of the LXX called in the Talmud extraneous .”
By apocryphal,' as far back as we have been able to trace the word, and down to the fourth century, were meant such books as had grown up since the Alexandrian Bible was completed. The reader may consult Sophocles' Lexicon of Roman and Byzantine Greek, under ἀπόκρυφος, where references are given to Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. We shall have to return to the discussion of its meaning when speaking of Jerome.
In the Western Church the older Greek books continued to hold their ground as though canonical. At the provincial Council of Hippo (393) amongst Canonical Books were reckoned five Books of Solomon, Tobit, Judith, two Books of the Maccabees : Augustine, who lived into the fifth century, seems never to have freed himself from the hold these writings had upon men's minds. This eminent theologian made a distinction between the divine ' and `canonical' writings : By divine,' Augustine meant the larger collection of books.
§ 2. Hieronymus, or Jerome.
Jerome, however, who died in 420, helped somewhat to clear away the confusion. He was raised up to do for Biblical criticism what Athanasius did for doctrine. Jerome called these ecclesiastical' books Apocrypha,' by which name they are known amongst Protestants. It is important, as a matter of historical criticism, to notice the passage in which he uses the word with, we think, great perspicuity, because Plumptre, in a Commentary on the Old Testament, says that Luther for the first time affixed' to the so-called ecclesiastical books the title of Apocrypha.' But the account given by this same scholar, usually a careful guide, in the Bible Educator,' was the exact truth. Jerome, in his Prologue to 2 Kings, after enumerating, according to the then still current Jewish computation, the twenty-two Books of the Hebrew Text, says,
Quicquid extra hos est, inter Apocrypha ponendum—'Whatever there is beyond these must be placed amongst the Apocrypha. De Wette (whom Davidson follows) supposes a misuse by Jerome of this word: the German critic, apparently thinking that ἀπόκρυφος had been applied only to what was spurious. Sophocles Lexicon s. v. will show that Epiphanius—by whom the one contemporaneous with Jerome must be meant—uses ἀπόκρυφος of these books added in the Alexandrian Bible. Cyril of Jerusalem clearly uses the word of the books we call Apocrypha, for he says, Read the divine writings, read nothing τῶν ἀποκρύφων’—of the Apocrypha—and proceeds to give a list of the θειαὶγραφαί, divine writings, from which our Apocrypha are excluded. We have but to consult his exact words to see he speaks the language of authority, and does not give a mere opinion: he is a mouthpiece of the Church : Moreover, these same books that Jerome calls 'Apocrypha ' Ruffinus, who was another of his contemporaries, speaks of as ecclesiastical' in the sense in which Jerome himself speaks of them in his Preface to the Books of Solomon. Liddell and Scott's explanation of ἀπόκρυφος will thus find illustration. They say: sometimes spurious, forged; sometimes merely unrecognized, uncanonical.' Compare the note in Westcott's Bible in the Church,' p. 46. The reader who uses his work should notice that at pp. 146, 158, 175, this able writer fails to observe the rule he had formed in distinguishing between 'Apocrypha ' and ‘apocryphal books.'
That Jerome himself elsewhere uses the word in the sense of unauthenticated or spurious, is nothing against the view we have taken, as Davidson thinks: it is rather proof of Jerome's having known what he was about. But this learned Father' fares little better at the hands of Davidson than the Jewish historian to whom reference has been made. In his work of undoing medieval corruption, to which Jerome's conservative treatment of the Latin Bible lent support, Luther did but act according to the better judgment of Rome's best scholar, who had not sufficient boldness himself to follow it. Nöldeke says truly of this Father, ‘With all his gifts and knowledge, he was not a man of character.'
§ 3. the Middle Ages.
The lax principles of Augustine continued through the Middle Ages to go side by side with the more rigid doctrine of Jerome. Westcott says, the later Greek Fathers universally exclude the Apocrypha from their lists of the books of the Bible and still constantly use them with respect in their own writings.'