Heidegger's Bible Handbook: OT Apocrypha: The Apocrypha and the Synod of Dort

11.  The question concerning their conjunction with the Canonical Books was ventilated back and forth and settled at the Synod of Dort.

Concerning the conjunction of the Apocryphal books with the Canonical books, there was disputation at the Synod of Dort, in the ninth and tenth Sessions.  There were those that earnestly insisted that they were to be separated:  not wanting were those that thought they were to be conjoined.  The principal points of both opinions are exhibited by the Venerable Breitinger[1] ὁ  μακαρίτης, of blessed memory, not the least member of the Synod, in the Acts of that Synod committed to writing with great industry, which are kept in Manuscript in our Library.  Those thinking that they are to be separated (for example, Gomarus, Diodati, and others) were resting on these reasons:  That they contain things manifestly false:  that beyond all controversy they are merely human writings:  that they were never esteemed as authoritative by the Jews themselves:  that Christ the Lord made no mention of them:  that the Apostle Paul, who did not despise the maxims of profane Poets, did not even allege a syllable from the Apocryphal books:  that the young imbibe with their milk Magical fables concerning the driving away of demons by the liver of a fish:  that at least the books of Esdras, Tobit, Judith, and Bel ought to be rejected.  Those asserting with no less zeal that they are to be conjoined, that is, under this condition, that they be distinguished from the Canonical books by a Preface, by a gap in the pages, in character and use, were insisting upon these bulwarks of arguments:  that they were tolerated by the ancient Church, and judged useful:  that they were of old called, not simply Apocryphal, but Ecclesiastical:  that all the Reformed Churches retained these books:  that the saying of Philosophers and profane histories are cited in sermons; but it is better that the excellent maxims be brought forth from the Apocryphal books:  that a sudden change would furnish an occasion for scandals:  that the passages that the Papists think to support them are able easily to be taken from them, if they be accurately translated into the vernacular:  that in preaching the Church is able to be admonished concerning the difference between the Canonical and Apocryphal books, and other disadvantages are also able to be met with other cautions.  With these reasons ventilated back and forth, at length it was determined, as the printed Acts of Session X have it:  seeing that for many Ages past these books have been conjoined with the Sacred Scriptures in one and the same volume, and that this conjunction is even now preserved in the Reformed Churches of all Nations, etc., although indeed some wish that all these Apocryphal books were never joined to the Sacred Scriptures; it is pleasing, that at this time, without the consent and approbation of the other Churches, these not be separated from the body of the Biblical volume, but rather be adjoined to it, with these conditions added, that they be distinguished from the Canonical books by some just partition and peculiar inscription, in which it might be expressly advised, that these books are human writings:  that to them an accurate preface be attached, in which the readers might be accurately informed both of the authority of these books, and of the errors that are contained in them:  that they be printed in different, smaller type, and in the margin passages that are inconsistent with the verity of the Canonical books be noted and refuted, and especially those that are produced out of those books by the Papists against the Canonical verity:  that in addition the Printers distinguish them by their own numbering of pages, in such a way that they might also be able to be bound together separately.  And, although hitherto those books were inserted in the sacred volume of the Codex in between the books of the Old and New Testaments, because regard to the history appears to assign this place to them; nevertheless, so that the people might learn the better to discern and distinguish them from the Canonical Writings, it is pleasing to the Dutch (desiring that they might justify themselves to foreigners), that in the new edition of the translation they also be moved back to the end of all the Canonical books.  And an edition of the Apocryphal books, tied to those rulings, in the Dutch version soon appeared.  With the Venerable Fellow-Ministers of the Church of Basel not so long ago imitating the same in Tossanus’ edition of the Bible with enlarged notes,[2] except that it pleased them to move the Apocryphal books to the back of the Old Testament, not to the back of the New Testament.

[1] Johann Jakob Breitinger (1575-1645) was a Swiss Reformed pastor and scholar.  He represented Zurich at the Synod of Dort.

[2] Paul Tossanus (1572-1634), son of the Huguenot divine Daniel Tossanus, spent most of his life and ministry in Germany.  He represented the Palatinate at the Synod of Dort, taught dogmatics at the University of Heidelburg and Hanau, and produced a version of the Bible, enlarged with notes from Diodati and the Dutch Bible in the Basel edition.