Heidegger's Bible Handbook: OT Apocrypha: Non-Canonical Status

5.  Their Canonical authority is opposed with seven arguments, and among them the suffrage of the Jewish and ancient Christian Church is explained.

That these books are not Canonical, that is, properly and κατ᾽ ἐξοχὴν, par excellence, that is, θεοπνεύστους, Divinely inspired, that they might be the canon of faith and life for the whole Church, is variously demonstrated by us through invincible arguments.  For, first, the Canonical books were written by authors ἀμέσως/immediately filled and inspired by the Holy Spirit, who are called Prophets in the Scriptures, Luke 24:27; Romans 1:2; 16:26; 2 Peter 1:19-21.  Those were enumerated by Christ under three sorts, Moses, the Prophets (taken more strictly), and the Psalms, or Poetic books, Luke 24:44.  But these controverted books are comprehended under no sort of Prophets or those Prophetic books.  All those were clearly written after Malachi, the last of the Prophets, with Genebrard[1] himself on the Year of the World 3640, that the second Temple was destitute of the Holy Spirit or inspiration, who was taking hold of the hearts of the Prophets, and so there were not Prophets between Malachi and John.  And I ask what sort of Prophet was the author of 2 Maccabees, epitomiser of profane books, appealing to his labor and effort in writing, and imploring kindness from the reader?  Second, the Canonical books of the Old Testament, were written for the use of the Jewish Church at Jerusalem, in an idiom known to the Jews, and so had to be written in Hebrew.  For God was able to address the Hebrew people only in Hebrew, Ezekiel 3:5, 6; 1 Corinthians 14:22.  But, that all those Apocryphal books were written in Hebrew, no one, having knowledge of these matters, and being honest, dares to assert.  Written first in Greek were Wisdom, Baruch, 1 Maccabees, and the addition of Esther and Daniel:  but in Chaldean, Tobit and Judith.  That Ecclesiasticus and 1 Maccabees have indeed appeared in Hebrew, but were not translated from Hebrew, Jerome testifies; hence no authentic sources of either survives:  yet Divine providence undoubtedly would have preserved them, if He had willed them to have Canonical authority.  Concerning the original idiom of those individual books we shall make a more abundant demonstration in the properly place, which we have now asserted summarily.  Third, in those Apocryphal books there are not a few things suspect, fabulous, and at odds with historical truth, piety, and the very books ἀντιῤῥήτως/undoubtedly Divine and Canonical, and like unto dross, which things sufficiently show, that they are not composed of that silver purified, and refined seven times,[2] and most pure gold, of which all Christians acknowledge the truly Sacred and Canonical books, each and all, to consist, which we shall also confirm concerning the individual Apocryphal in their own places by examinations of the matters themselves.  Also, the πλημμελήματα/blemishes of the individual books the Most Learned Men, the Englishman John Rainolds[3] in his Censura Librorum Apocryphorum Veteris Testamenti, Chamier[4] his Panstratia Catholica, book 4, chapter 5, Spanheim[5] in his Disputationibus Anti-Anabaptisticis, set out in the open sun, with all exceptions of adversaries most solidly destroyed, in such a way that no further room might remain for any just doubt.  Fourth, the Canonical books of the Old Testament were identified by the Jewish Church, to whom were entrusted τὰ λόγια τοῦ Θεοῦ, the oracles of God, Romans 3:2, and were received into the Canon, both because the same Holy Spirit, who delivers the books to the Church of God, even so that they might be received, and esteemed as the Canon of faith and life, brings it to pass:  and because the ancients also repudiated the book of Enoch and others as spurious by this argument also, that the ancient Jewish Church rejected them.  Rightly does Franciscus Cordubensis, Annotationibus Catholicis, Article II, chapter 70, speak upon this matter:  That the authority to approve Sacred Scripture was of old in the hands of the Synagogue of the faithful, is beyond question.  While also among the faithful Jews the Prophets of God were distinguished from the False Prophets, and the Hagiographa from the Apocrypha, in order to separate true and false Prophets, and to approve or not to receive their books, it was necessary for the Synagogue to have infallible authority.  Now, that these books, controverted by the ancient Jewish Church, were hitherto not received by the genuine people of God, is plainly shown from this, that they each were not written in the idiom known to the people of God; that they were not acknowledge by Christ, nor by His Apostles; that the ancient Jews, Josephus,[6] Philo,[7] and the Talmudists, and the more recent Jews do not reckon them in their Catalogue; that the ancients, Jerome in his Prologo Galeato, Epiphanius in hæresi Epicuræorum, and others reciting the Jewish Canon, do not even make mention of these Apocryphal books; finally, all are more recent than Ezra, that great Scribe, who sealed the Jewish Canon.  But that invention of Genebrard concerning some second Canon of the Hebrews, composed after the times of Ezra, both rests on no suitable testimony, but on the mere license of inventing whatever, and its overthrow is necessary, even because the Tridentine Synod proscribed the third and fourth books of Esdras were proscribed from the Canon, which were included in the same after Ezra, as Genebrard has affirmed.  Fifth, the suffrage of the Christian Church is also added, resting upon the tacit testimony of Christ and His Apostles, disregarding all the books outside of the Canon of the Jews as Apocryphal.  No other books than those that were in the Jewish Canon were of old numbered by Clement, Apostolic Constitutions,[8] book II, section 57; by Melito,[9] in Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica, book IV, chapter 26; by Athanasius in his Synopsi, and in a fragment from Epistle 39; by Epiphanius in his book de ponderibus et mensuris; by the Council of Laodicea,[10] Canon 59, confirmed also by the Sixth Council of Constantinople held in Trullo;[11] by Junilius Africanus,[12] in book I de partibus Divinæ legis, chapter 3; by Hilary[13] in his Prologo in Psalmos; by Amphilochius[14] or Nazianzen[15] in Jambis ad Seleucum.  Moreover, that enumeration, with the express designation of Apocrypha, is confirmed by Jerome in his Prologo Galeato, and also his Prologo in Esram, Nehemiam, libros Solomonis, Jeremiam, and Danielem; by Ruffinus[16] in his Expositione Symboli; by Damascenus,[17] de fide, book IV, section 18; by the Glossator of the Decrees, Distinction  16, ad Canones.  Sixtus Senensis,[18] Bibliotheca Sancta, book I, frankly admits that those controverted books were not received among the Scriptures of indisputable authority close to the times of the Apostles, but long afterwards, but were reckoned by the ancient Fathers of the Church in the list of the Apocryphal, not Canonical, books.  Sixth, the more recent Church, which dared to cram books excluded by the ancient Apostolic Church from the ark of the Canon into the same, was not furnished with greater authority, nor with great fidelity, than the Apostolic and primitive Church.  By what right then did it intrude those books into the Canon, which the ancient Church disregarded?  To be sure, if the doubting of certain ones was not justified, as Amphilochius testifies concerning the Epistle to the Hebrews, that it was doubted, the Church could demonstrate the injustice of that doubt.  But, if a book were of dubious authority, and some solid demonstration were not producing πληροφορίαν, full assurance, doubt will never be illicit.  And, if a certain true book were rejected by the ancient Church, by what means will the more recent Church, which certainly does not have greater authority, dare to intrude it ἀναποδείκτως, without proof, into the Catalogue of the Divine Canon, with the marks of Divinity not demonstrated to the conscience?  Seventh, it is not desirable to repeat here the vacillating of the Tridentine Church, which was the first to undertake to remove from the true Canon its honor, with alien books intruded, and to proclaim human books to be Divine.

[1] Gilbert Genebrard (1535-1597) was a French Benedictine scholar, specializing in Oriental studies.  He served the Roman Church as a professor of Hebrew at the Collège Royal, and later as Archbishop of Aix.  He is especially noteworthy for his commentary on the Psalms and his translation of Rabbinic works into Latin.

[2] Psalm 12:6.

[3] John Rainolds (1549-1607) was an Oxford academic and churchman.  He was Puritan in his views, and played an important role in initiating the Authorized Version.  Rainolds composed commentaries on Obadiah and Haggai.

[4] Daniel Chamier (1565-1621) was a Huguenot theologian.  He studied at the University of Orange and at Geneva under Theodore Beza.  After his ordination, he was installed as pastor at Montélimar.  In 1607, he established an academy at Montpellier, and served there for a time as professor, concluding his career as Professor of Theology at Montauban (1612).

[5] Frederic Spanheim the Younger (1632-1701) studied at Leiden and took the doctoral degree in 1651.  He was Professor of Divinity at Heidelberg (1655), and later at Leiden (1670), where he replaced Johannes Cocceius, but was a committed Voetian.

[6] Flavius Josephus (37-93) was a priest in the Temple of Jerusalem, a Jewish general, and an eyewitness to the final siege of Jerusalem.  Josephus’ works are invaluable to the student of Jewish antiquities and of the history of the fall of Jerusalem.

[7] Philo was a first century Jewish scholar of Alexandria, Egypt.  He is noted for his synthesis of Greek philosophy and Jewish theology.  With respect to exegesis, Philo indulges freely in allegorization.

[8] The Apostolic Constitutions is a collection of eight treatises on church order.  It was probably written around 375 in Syria.  Because of the implicit Arianism of some of its statements, it was not as widely received as the Apostolic Canons.  The origins of the Apostolic Canons can be traced to the early fifth century.  Although they claim for themselves Apostolic authorship and authority (at least as promulgated by their disciple, Clement of Rome), there is little to corroborate this.  It is a list of decrees concerning the government and discipline in the Church, attached to the end of the Apostolic Constitutions.  The Eastern Church received eighty-five canons at the Council of Trullo in 692, but only the first fifty canons circulated in the West.

[9] Melito (died c. 180) was Bishop of Sardis, near Smyrna in Asia Minor.  Melito provides what may be the earliest surviving list of the Christian canon of the Old Testament which closely parallels that received by Protestants, excepting its omission of Esther.

[10] The Council of Laodicea (364) was a regional synod, composed of about thirty ministers of Asia Minor.  It was principally concerned with the regulation of the manners of church members, but it also provided a list of the Books of the New Testament (omitting Revelation), forbidding the public reading of others.

[11] The Council in Trullo was a major ecclesiastical council held at Constantinople in 692 under Justinian II.  It confirmed the decisions of the Council of Laodicea.

[12] Junilius Africanus (sixth century) was an official in the palace of Justinian I.  His Instituta regularia divinæ legis (on Biblical exegesis) was an important link in familiarizing Western interpreters and theologians with the Antiochene school of exegesis.

[13] Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers (died 368), was, among the Latin Fathers, one of the chief defenders of the Nicean theology against Arianism.

[14] Amphilochius (c. 340-c. 400) was bishop of Iconium, and worked closely with the famous Cappadocian Fathers in the defense of orthodox Trinitarianism and Christology.

[15] Gregory of Nazianzus (330-389) was Archbishop of Constantinople, and a doctor of the Church, known as the Trinitarian Theologian.

[16] Ruffinus was a fourth century churchman, a friend of Jerome turned foe, a commentator, and a monastery builder.  His work in the translation of Greek patristic literature into Latin has proven to be of great importance, preserving works that would have otherwise been lost.

[17] John Damascenus (c. 676-c. 760) was a monk of St. Sabas, near Jerusalem.  He is remembered for his piety of life, writings, and compilation of chants in the eastern style; and, due to his defense of icons and his summary of the faith of the Fathers (Fountain of Knowledge), he is regarded by many as the last of the Eastern Fathers.

[18] Sixtus of Siena (1520-1569) converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism.  He was one of the great Dominican scholars of his age, excelling in particular in Biblical scholarship.