INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME I
For in them is the spring of understanding,
The fountain of wisdom,
And the stream of knowledge.'
In a like laudatory sense Gregory of Nyssa reckons the New Testament Apocalypse as ἐν ἀποκρύφοις (Oratio in suam ordinationem, III. 549: Ed. Migne).
(2) But the word was applied to writings that were withheld from public circulation, not on the ground of their transcendent worth, but because their value was confessedly secondary or questionable. Thus Origen differentiates writings that were read in public worship from apocryphal works (Comm. in Matt. x. 18, xiii. 57). This use became current, and prepared the way for the third and unfavourable sense of the word.
(3) The word came to be applied to what was false, spurious, or heretical. This meaning appears also in Origen, Prolog. in Cant. Cantic.: Lommatzsch, xiv. 325).
§ 4. The attitude of the Christian Church to the Apocrypha.
The degree of estimation in which the apocryphal books have been held in the Church has varied with age and place.
(1) The Greek Fathers such as Origen and Clement, who used the Greek Bible, which included these books, frequently cite them as 'scripture', 'Divine scripture', 'inspired', or the like. Later Greek Fathers[1] rejected in various ways this conception of the Canon, but it was accepted and maintained in the West by St. Augustine. Where the Greek differed from the Hebrew Augustine held that the difference was due to Divine inspiration, and that this difference was to be regarded as a sign that in the passage in question an allegorical—not a literal—interpretation was to be looked for. Since he habitually used a Latin Bible, which embraced the Apocrypha, he appealed to the authority of these books as of the rest of the Scriptures. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393)[2] and that of Carthage (A.D. 397), at both of which Augustine was present respectively as a presbyter and a bishop, drew up a list of Canonical writings, which, though formed by Latin-speaking bishops, was the chief authority on which the Council of Trent based its own decision. In fact the list authoritatively issued by the Council of Hippo and that of Trent agree in nearly every respect, save that the Tridentine divines appear to have misunderstood the meaning of 1 and 2 Esdras in the list of the African Council. That in this list 1 Esdras meant the apocryphal book which Augustine acknowledged as Scripture (De Civ. Dei, xviii. 36) and 2 Esdras meant the Canonical Ezra and Nehemiah there is no reason for doubt; but the Tridentine divines, taking 1 Esdras as = the Canonical Ezra and 2 Esdras as = the Canonical Nehemiah;[3] through a misunderstanding declared 1 Esdras (i.e. the apocryphal Esdras) apocryphal.
(2) On the other hand, teachers connected with Palestine and familiar with the Hebrew Canon, like Africanus and Jerome, declared all books outside the Hebrew Canon as apocryphal.
(3) Alongside these two opposing views arose a third which held that, though these books were not to be put in the same rank as those in the Hebrew collection, they nevertheless had their value for moral uses, and should be read in the Church services. Hence they were called 'ecclesiastical'—a designation that is found first in Rufinus (ob. A.D. 410). Notwithstanding many variations in the attitude of different authorities and councils these three opinions maintained their ground down to the Reformation.
At the Reformation the above ecclesiastical usages were transformed into articles of belief, which may be regarded as characteristic of the Churches by which they were adopted. As we have already remarked, the Council of Trent adopted the Canon of the Council of Hippo and of Augustine, declaring: 'If any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with
- ↑ In the next century Athanasius, in an Easter letter (A.D. 365), states that the books of the Old Testament were twenty-two in number according to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Other books not included in the Canon, such as Wisdom, Sirach, Esther, Tobit, Judith, might be used for the instruction of catechumens. It is noteworthy here that the Maccabees are omitted, and Esther is treated as an apocryph.
- ↑ Zahn, Gesch. des N. T.lichen Kanons, II. i. 246–253.
- ↑ Council of Trent, April 8, 1546. 'Testamenti veteris . . . Esdrae primus et secundus, qui dicitur Nehemias.'
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