be canonical by the Nestorians, who now read it in the edition of the New Testament printed at Ooroomiah by the American missionaries.
I have not been able to find a Church canon, or any other authoritative decree, determining what books are canonical and which are not. Mar Abd Yeshua speaks of all as having been written under the direction of the Holy Spirit,[1] but by this he evidently does not mean inspiration in its more restricted sense, since he uses the same expression when speaking of the writings of the primitive Fathers; and the 85th of the Apostolical Canons, given under § 3, (a later addition to the original which consisted of 83 only,) draws no distinction whatever between the Apocryphal and the Inspired books. Such a distinction may have been known to the learned Nestorians of former ages; but their descendants of the present day know nothing of such matters, and will doubtless continue to revere the one as they revere the other, until they are taught to know the truth more fully. Thus much, however, is certain, that the lessons in the Karyâna are nearly all selected from the canonical Scriptures.
It has already been observed that very few copies of the Bible, in manuscript, are to be found either among the Nestorians or Chaldeans, and in no instance is the Bible to be met with entire, but divided into separate portions forming several volumes. Thus the Oreita, containing the Pentateuch, forms one volume. The Beith Moutive, containing Judges, the two books of Kings, two of Chronicles, two of Samuel, Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Job, besides Judith and other apocryphal scriptures, forms another volume. The Newiyyé, containing the four greater and the twelve lesser Prophets, forms a third. The Mazmoré d'Daweedh, or Psalms, a fourth. And the Makwai, comprising the three books of Maccabees[2] and the Epistle of Baruch, a fifth volume. The New Testament is generally met with in one
- ↑ In the Homilies of our Church extracts from the Apocryphal books are quoted as inspired by the Holy Ghost.
- ↑ The third book of the Maccabees, which was never inserted into the vulgar Latin version of the Bible, nor, consequently, into any of our English copies, contains the history of the persecution of Ptolemy Philopater against the Jews in Egypt, and their sufferings under it.
