CANON
273
CANON
exhibits a curious exchange of opinions between the
West and the East, while ecclesiastical usage re-
mained unchanged, at least in the Latin Church.
During this intermediate ago the use of St. Jerome's
new version of the O. T. (the Vulgate) became wide-
spread in the Occident. With its text went Jerome's
prefaces disparaging the deuterocanonicals. and under
the influence of his authority the West began to dis-
trust these and to show the first symptoms of a cur-
rent hostile to their eanonicity. 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 ten-
dency, however, due more to forgetfulness of the old
distinctions than to deference to the Council of
Carthage.
(5) The Canon of the O. T.duringthe Middle Ages. — (a ) In the Greek Church. — The result of this tendency among the Greeks was that about tin- beginning of the twelfth century they possessed a canon identical with that of tin 1 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. (b) 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 these we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their eanonicity. The prevailing atti- tude 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 influ- ence, direct and indirect . (if St. Jerome's depreciating Prolpgus. 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 MS. copies of the Vulgate produced by these ages, with a slight, proba- bly accidental, exception, uniformly embrace the complete O. T. Ecclesiastical usage and Roman tradition held firmly to the canonical equality of all parts of the O. T. 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 8(35 to the bishops of France, appeals to the sann decree of Innocent as the ground on which all tin saer, .1 books are to be received.
(6) The Canon of the O. T. and the general coun- cils. — (a) In the Council of Florence. In 1442. dur- ing 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 com- mon teaching of theologians these documents are infallible statements of doctrine. The "Decretum pro Jacobitis" contains a com] lete list of the books received by the Church as inspired, but omits, per- haps 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 eanonicity. — (b) In the Council of Trent:
III.— 18
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 1510, when his opponent urged the
well-known text from II Machabees in proof of the
doctrine of purgatory, Luther replied that the pas-
sage had no binding authority since the book was
outside the Canon. In the first edition of Luther's
Bible, 1534, the deuteros were relegated, as apocry-
pha, 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 de-
clared 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". Dur-
ing the deliberations of the Council there never was
any real question as to the reception of all the tradi-
tional Scriptures. Neither — and this is remarkable
— in the proceedings is there manifest any serious
doubt of the eanonicity of the disputed writings.
In the mind of the Tridentine Fathers they had been
virtually canonized, by the decree of Florence, and
the same Fathers felt especially bound by the action
of the preceding oecumenical 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 immemo-
rial 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. — (c) In the Vatican Council, 1870. —
The great constructive Synod of Trent had put the
sacredness and eanonicity 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 out- side the Church. — (1) Among Oriental Schismatics. — 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 deu- terocanonical Scriptures. The rejection of these books by the Russian theologians and authorities is a lapse which began early in the eighteenth century (cf. "Revue biblique", April, 1901). The Mono- physites, Nestorians, Jacobites, Armenians, and Copts, while concerning themselves little with tin Canon, admit the complete catalogue and several apocrypha besides.
(2) Among Protestants. — The Protestant Churches have continued to exclude the deiitcro writings from their canons, classifying them as "Apocrypha". Presbyterians and Calvinists in general, especially since the Westminster Synod of nils have been the most uncompromising enemies of any recognition. and owing to their influence the British and Foreign Bible Society decided n. IS-'li to refuse to distribute Bibles containing the Apocrypha. Since that time the publication of the deuterocanonicals as an appen dix to Protestant Bibles has almost entirely cea English-speaking countries. The books still supply lessons for the liturgy of the I Ihurcb of England, but. the number has been lessened by the hostile agitation. There is an Apocrypha appendix to the British Re-
