The Books Denominated Apocryphal Have No Just Claim to a Place Among the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament
The word Apocrypha probably signifies that which is hidden, obscure, without authority. It is employed to designate such writings as claim a place in the canon, without possessing sufficient evidence to substantiate their claims. This word is said to have been first used by Melito, bishop of Sardis, in the second century. The subject acquires great importance from the fact, that it was formerly and is now a matter of earnest controversy, between Romanista and Protestants, whether certain books which are frequently included in Greek and Latin copies of the Bible, are canonical, or should be considered apocryphal. The number of books in dispute is six, namely, ToBiT, Judith, Wisdom, Eccle’-iasticus, Ba-RUCH, and the two books op Maccjees; and also, some additional chapters annexed to the book of Esther, which are not in the Hebrew; and lo the book of Daniel, the History of Susannah, and the Sons of the Three Children are prefixed, and the History of Bel and the Dragon is annexed. These )Ooks, and portions of books, are likewise placed at the end of the Old Testament, in jur largor English Bibles umier the name apocrypha. The council of Trent which sat in the sixteentlirentfiry, have given a catalogue of the cwnonical hooks of Scripture, in vnich those above mentioned are included; and they are inserted promiscuously with the other books, in the editions of the Latin Vulgate, and in all other versions prepared by members of the Roman Catholic Church. They consider all copies of the Bible imperfect and mutilated, m which these books are not found; and this has created a great obstacle to the circulation of the Scriptures among the people of that persuasion, as Protestant Bible societies have come to a resolution not to circulate Bibles which contain those books which they deem apocryphal
To show that these books are not canonical, but apocryphal, the following arguments are deemed sufficient.
1. These books are not found in the Hebrew Bible; nor are they written in the Hebrew tongue, but in the Greek or Chaldaic. For the proof of this fact we have the testimony of Jerome, a competent witness, who translated several of them into Latin. There is strong reason to believe, that all these books were composed originally in the Greek language, which ‘/as unknown to the Jews until after the canon of -he Old Testament was closed. It has been always (he current opinion, both among Jews and Christians, that Malachi was the last of the Old Testament writers; and books written by uncertain authors after the spirit of prophecy had ceased, have no just claim to a place in the sacred canon. The date of the composition of these books cannot be accurately fixed; but that it occurred long after the time of Ezra and Malachi, there can be no ground of reasonable doubt.
2. A second argument is, that these disputed books ha“e never been acknowledged by the Jews to be of divine authority, nor have by them been admitted into the canon; and they are the best judges of what books properly belonged to their sacred Scriptures. If these books had been of divine authority, the fact would have been known to the Jewish Chuich, to which “the oracles of God were committed.” And
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if they had ever belonged to the canon, they would not have been left out afterwards.
The opinion of the ancient and modern Jews on ihis point is the same; and there is among them no diversity of opinion respecting this matter. Josephns, in a passage already quoted, declares, “that no more than twenty-two books were received as inspired by his natbn.” And although Philo Judaeus refers often to the Old Testament, and comments largely on its contents in his writings, he never makes the least mention of any one of these books.
But if the ancient Jews knew any thing of these Dooks as a part of their sacred canon, we should certainly find it in the voluminous writings of the Talmud; but not one of these books is recognized as canonical in this great body of Jewish traditions. It may certainly be inferred, therefore, that they were not considered canonical by the ancient Jews.
And the more modern Jews are so far from acknowledging them, that their testimony is expressly against them. Rabbi Azariah says, “they are received by Christians, not by us.” He means Romanists, who acknowledged them as we have seen. And Rabbi Gedaliah, as quoted by Hottinger, has the following testimony. After giving a catalogue T»f inspired books received by the Jews, he goes on to say, “It is worth while to know, that the nations of the world wrote many other books which are in eluded in their systems of sacred books, but are not in our hands.” To which he adds, “They say that some of these are found in the Chaldee, some in the Arabic, and some in the Greek language.”
Rabbi Azariah, before mentioned, ascribes the Wisdom of Solomon to Philo. And Rabbi Gedaliah observes, “That if Solomon ever wrote it, t must have been in the Syriac language, to send it j some of the kings in the remotest part of the east.” “But,” says he,” Ezra only put his hand to such books as were published by the prophets under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and written in the sacred language And our wise men prudently and f’elib
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crately resolved to sanction none but s ich as were established by him.” “Their wise men,” says Buxterf, “pronounced this book to be apocryphal.”
The book called Ecclesiasticus, is expressly numbered among apocryphal books in the Talmud; where it is said, “In the book of the son of Sirach it is forbidden to read.” And Manasseh ben Israel, one of the most learned of the modern Jews, observes, “that those things which are alleged from a verse in Ecclesiasticus, are nothing to the purpose, because this is an apocryphal book.” In the same way, they are wont to speak of all these books; and Jerome informs us, that he heard one of the Jews deriding the history of Susannah, who said it was invented by some Greek, he knew not whom.” It is unnecessary to add further testimonies, because the fact that the Jews never did receive the apocrypha as a part of their canon, cannot be denied.
3. The third argument against the canonical authority of the aforementioned books, is, that they are never cited or referred to as a part of sacred Scripture, in the whole of the New Testament. We are aware that on this point we are at issue with the Roman Catholics. They even pretend to prove their right to a place in the canon, from quotations said to be made from them by Paul. One of the passages alleged is, “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?”* And the 3ther is, “For before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God,”t But both these passages are taken from the canonical books of the Old Testament; and there is no reason to think that the apostle had any thought of the apocrypha when he cited these texts.
4. The fourth argument against the divine authority of these books is, that they were not received a8 inspired by the Christian fathers; but were expressly rejected from the sa ;red canon, almost with one consent, by thos. who were best qualified to judge of their claims. In all the catalogues drawn up by
•Rom. 7 i. 34. t Heb. xi. 5.
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fathers and councils, for the very purpose of t -aciiing /he Church what books should be recieved as of divine authority, these are uniformly omitted. Justin Martyr, Origen, Athanasius, Hilary, Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome, Epiphanius, and Cyril, together with the coun-^ils of Laodicea and Carthage, have left catalogue? oi the canonical books of the Old Testament, among which, not one of these is to be found. And they ahiiost all number the books agreeably to the Jewish custom, and make the number twenty-two, according to the number of letters in the Hebrew Alphabet. And not only so, but many of these learned fathers make express mention of these books, and explicitly reject them from the sacred canon. This is especially the case in regard to Jerome, who wrote prefaces to most of the books of the Old Testament, and in these he takes occasion to mention those now in question, and declares them all to be apocryphal. And this conthmed to be the common opinion among the most learned theologians down to the time of the Reformation, as Dr. Cosins has abundantly shown in his “Scholastic History of the Canon of the Old Testament.”
5. As the external evidence is unfavourable to the canonical authority of the books in question, so also is the internal evidence.
Books which contain palpable falsehoods; abound in ridiculous and incredible stories; which contradict the plain acknowledged doctrines of the Bible; and which can by no means be reconciled with the recorded history of the Jews, cannot be a part of the sacred volume. And when the books under consideration are tried by these principles, they manifestly appear to be apocryphal.
In the book of Tobit an angel of God is made to tell a downright falsehood, by declaring that he was “Azarias the son of Ananias;” and in the same book, he declares, that he was “Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, which p esent the prayers of the saints, and go in and out before the glory of the Holy One.”
llthongh Judith is celebrated for h». r K;voted piety, and the book under her name was intended to exhibit her as a bright example of a person wholly consecrated to God; yet she is represented as speaking scarcely any thing else but falsehoods, to Holofernes; but what is still more inconsistent, she is made to pray to the God of truth, “Smite by the deceit of my lips, the servant with the prince, and the prince with the servant.-” She also commends the conduct 01 Simeon in the cruel slaughter of the Shechemites, of which God has expressed his strong disapprobation in various ways. Besides the objections to the book of Judith, already mentioned, there is another of great weight arising from the difficulty of finding; any room for such transactions and such a state of things as are therein described, in any period of the Jewish history; nor is it easy to identify the places mentioned in this book. These difficulties have led some of its advocates to maintain, that the whole is an allegory, and that by bethulia, we should understand the Church of God, and by Nebuchadnezzar, the enemies of the Church; and that the victory achieved by the courage and address of Judith, is intended to teach us, that the church’s deliverance is not to be accomplished by human power, &c. This perhaps is as favourable a view as can be taken of this extraordinary story; but no one ought any longer to claim a place for this book in the sacred canon.
In the second book of Maccabees, Razis, an elder of Jerusalem, is much commended for destroying his own life, to avoid falling into the hands of his enemies; but surely suicide has not the app-obation if God.
Between the two books of Maccabees there are irreconcilable discrepancies; and some statements respecting Jeremiah’s taking the ark and the golden altar to mount Pisgah, and hiding them in a cave, are manifestly fabulous.
The book of Wisdom is written under the name of Solomon, the son of David, and he talks about his being aopouited to build the temple of the Lord-, j!64 evidences of christianitf.
whereas it has been clearly shown by Jerome, tha this book never could have been written by Solomon
The absurd story in Tobit, of driving away the devil by the smoke of the liver of a certain fish, ano of healing blindness by its gall, could not have been given by divine inspiration.
There are several things in the book of Baruch, not reconcilable with the sacred record: and the account given of Mardocheus, in the chapters annexed to Esther, is not consistent with what is said of Mordecai in the genuine parts of that book; and in this apocryphal writing, Haman is declared to be a Macedonian, whereas in the canonical book of Esther, he IS called an Agagite; and he is represented in the former to have entertained a design of transferring the kingdom of Persia to the Macedonians; which is utterly incredible; for at that time the kingdom of Macedon, if it existed, must have been most obscure, and, in all probability, unknown at the Persian court.
6. And finally, these books are not canonical, because they were not written by prophets, or inspired men; but by writers who speak of their labours in a way wholly incompatible with divine inspiration.
The uniform belief of Jews and Christians is, that the spirit of prophecy ceased among the Jews after the time of Malachi. He has, therefore, been denominated the seal of the prophets.
We know not the author of the books of Maccabees. Both Jerome and Eusebius ascribe them to Tosephus; but they can scarcely be believed to have the same author, as they contradict one another. By the “Compiler of Jewish History,” quoted by Drusius, these books are placed after the writings of Josephus. The second book of Maccabees is professedly an abridgment of the work of one Jason of Cyrene, in which, five volumes are reduced to one If the original work of Jason was not inspired, neither is this abridgment.
The book of Wisdom is the only one which claims to have been written by an inspired man. But this 7ery claim condemns it; for “t may be demonstrated hat it was composed loi)g after the death of sing Solomon. It contains manifest allusions to ‘TUtcian customs, and to Grecian philosophy. The author oraises himself, and flatters the J-ewish natio i, in a style f’ltirely foreign to that of the inspired prophets. tt has been by some ascribed to Philo Judauus; but d is more probably the work of some other Jew. If Solomon had written it, it would have been in the ilebrew, and always inserted iii the Jewish canor..
The book of EccLEsiAsncus is the most valuao.e ul those denominated apocryphal, and would have llie best claim, as far as internal evidence is concerned, to a place in the canon; but the modest writer of this book is so far from pretendi.ig to be inspired, that he professes merely to have reduced to order a work of his grandfather, which he received from Sirach his father. And he entreats the reader to peruse his work with indulgence, and to pardon him if he should be found coming short in some words which he attempted to interpret. Evidently the writer was conscious of no divine inspiration.
To evade the force of the above arguments, the Roman Catholic writers have invented a distinction between priTnciry and secondary canonical books; but this is a delusive distinction. A book is either inspired, or it is not; it belongs to the canon, or it does not. There is no conceivable medium in this case. There may be an intermediate class of books, between the canonical and spurious; that is, human compositions, which though not inspired, nor claiming a place in the canon, may be read with profit, on account of the history or moral lessons which they contain. Some of the fathers made this distinction, and call these Ecclesiastical,’ln contradistinction both from the canonical and supposititious. Such oooks, lOO, were read in some churches in the early ages, not as of authority, but merely for edification; and thus they became mingled with the canonical books The Greek fathers were accustomed to use the Septuagiut version of the Old Testament, and several ol these hi oks, )iow in question, being also in Greek became mixed with the canonical books, in (he c))lha of this version. The oldest Greek MSS. of the LXX contain them intermingled with the other books, so that they must have become so at an early period But from the testimonies of the fathers, and the catalogues of canonical books which they have left, these D0<3ks do not appear to have been included in the sacred volume, in the very earliest ages of the Christian Church, These books, indeed, were known to the fathers; but they are careful to distinguish them from the canonical books. And as some of them even disapproved of their being read, and warned their hearers against them, it cannot reasonably be supposed, that they were then included in the volume of Holy Scripture.
These books, called apocryphal, may be read with profit by the judicious; but they ought by no means to be placed on a level with the oracles of God, nor should they be bound up in the same volume with the canonical books, nor publicly read as a part of Scripture.