§ 8. CANONICITY OF THE BOOK AND ITS USE IN THE EARLY CHURCH

As is well known, Sirach owed its place and use in the Christian Church to the fact that it was included in the Alexandrine Canon; before coming to speak, therefore, of the early patristic evidence concerning our book, it will be well to draw attention to the ecclesiastical lists of the biblical books. ‘Our earliest Christian list’, says Prof. Swete (Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 1900, p. 221), ‘was obtained from Palestine,2 and probably represents the contents of the Palestinian Greek Bible. It is an attempt to answer the question, What is the true number and order of the books of the Old Testament? Both the titles and the grouping are obviously Greek, but the books are exclusively those of the Hebrew Canon.’ Sirach, therefore, together with the rest of the books of the Apocrypha, is excluded. Origen, in his Commentary on Ps. 1, gives the second list that we know of, which belongs to a time not later than a.d. 231; he reckons as belonging to the Canon the twenty-two books of the Hebrew Old Testament.3 But, strange to say, Origen includes in his list the First Book of Esdras (he treats 1, 2 Esdras as one book) and the Epistle of Jeremiah, neither of which had ever been regarded as canonical by the Jews. Origen’s list is adopted by Athanasius, Cyril, and Epiphanius,4 as well as in the Laodicean Canon, in each case with the addition of Baruch. Furthermore, as Dr. Swete goes on to say (op. cit., p. 222), ‘Amphilochius mentions two books of Esdras, and it is at least possible that the Esdras of Gregory of Nazianzus is intended to include both books, and that the Epistle, or Baruch and the Epistle, are to be understood as forming part of Jeremiah in the lists both of Gregory and Amphilochius.’ The point of importance which these facts reveal is that ‘an expansion of the Hebrew Canon, which involved no addition to the number of the books, was predominant in the East during the fourth century’. Dr. Swete gives two other lists: one mentioned by Lagarde (Septuagintastudien, 2. 60 ff.), Σύνοψις ἐν ἐπιτόμῳ, in which the Wisdom of Jesus (the son) of Sirach is mentioned among the canonical Scriptures (so, too, Tobit and Judith); and the other is anonymous; in it Sirach is, together with Tobit and the Wisdom of Solomon, placed under Apocrypha, though Judith is reckoned among the canonical books.

The following evidence of a more official kind may be added. It is conceivable that there is in the Muratorian Fragment1 (which, as Westcott says, ‘expresses with fair distinctness the first known judgement of the Catholic Church on the sum of the Christian Scriptures’) a reference to the Wisdom of Sirach in the words: ‘Et Sapientia ab amicis Salomonis in honorem ipsius scripta;’2 it has to be remembered in this connexion that, as we shall see presently, the book of the Wisdom of Sirach, together with other books of the Apocrypha, seems from the beginning to have enjoyed greater esteem in the Western than in the Eastern Church. Next, the eighty-fifth of the Apostolical Canons gives a list3 of the books of the Hebrew Canon, and adds the three first books of the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach; these last four are not, however, included in the Canon, though the Wisdom of Sirach is specially recommended for the instruction of the young. Again, in the Apostolical Constitutions, 6. 14, 15 (= Didascalia), quotations from Sirach are given with the same formula as those from the books of the Hebrew Canon,4 but in the list given in 2:57 of the same work there is no mention of any of the books of the Apocrypha.5 On the other hand, at the Council of Hippo (a.d. 393) Sirach was specially mentioned as being one of the canonical books, while at the Council of Carthage (a.d. 397) the ‘five books of Solomon’, i.e. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, and Sirach, are reckoned among the canonical Scriptures.6 This was also confirmed by the Council of Carthage in a.d. 419.

Coming now to speak in some detail of what the Church Fathers7 say as to the canonicity or otherwise of the book, we turn first to the Eastern Church.

In the Didache 4. 6 (c. 120) Sirach 4:31 is quoted thus: Μὴ γίνου πρὸς μὲν τὸ λαβεῖν ἐκτείνων τὰς χεῖρας, πρὸς δὲ τὸ δοῦναι συσπῶν, which is sufficiently near the wording of Sirach 4:31 to show that it is intended to be a quotation, viz. Μὴ ἔστω ἡ χείρ σου ἐκτεταμένη εἰς τὸ λαβεῖν, καὶ ἐν τῷ ἀποδιδόναι συνεσταλμένη. The same text is quoted in the Epistle of Barnabas, 19:9 (c. 120). Eusebius, as we have already seen, quotes Melito of Sardis (d. c. 180), however, to the effect that the books of the Hebrew Bible are the only canonical ones; he excludes, therefore, Sirach.8 The evidence of Clement of Alexandria (d. 220) is conflicting; in his Paedagogus he quotes very often from Sirach, and speaks of it as ἡ γραφή and θεία γραφή (e.g. II, chap. 34:4, 48:4, 59:4; III, chap. 18, 23:4, 83:3), from which it would evidently appear that he regarded it as canonical Scripture; but, according to Eusebius, Clement reckoned Sirach among the ‘Antilegomena’, for in speaking of Clement’s works he mentions the Stromateis, or ‘Medleys’, and says: ‘He quotes in them passages from the disputed Scriptures, the so-called Wisdom of Solomon, for example, and (that) of Jesus the son of Sirach, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, and those of Barnabas, Clement, and Jude.’9 Origen, too, gives conflicting evidence; we have seen above that in the list of canonical Scriptures which he gives he only regards the twenty-two books of the Hebrew Canon as the genuine Scriptures of the Old Testament, but elsewhere he speaks of Sirach, the Book of Wisdom, and other books of the Apocrypha as ‘authoritative Scripture’, or as ‘the Divine Word’, or as ‘Holy Scripture’ (see e.g. Περὶ Ἀρχῶν, 2:95, ed. Migne; Contra Cels. 6. 7, 7. 12); in these works he quotes Sirach 6:4 and 21:18 as ‘Holy Scripture’ As Westcott says, in speaking of Origen: ‘In his other writings he uses apocryphal books as divine and authoritative, yet not without noticing the difference of opinion on the subject. But even in his case the familiar use of the Greek Bible practically overpowered his knowledge of the original Hebrew Canon, and in his famous “Letter to Africanus” he expressly defends the reception among Christians of the additions found in the Alexandrine Septuagint.’1 Not that Origen was ignorant of the Hebrew Bible, for Eusebius (H. E. 6. 16) tells us that ‘so accurate an examination was Origen undertaking with the Holy Scriptures that he even learned the Hebrew language, and acquired as his private possession original copies of the Scriptures in Hebrew characters, which were current among the Jews themselves’.2 The evidence of Eusebius (d. 340) has been admirably summarized by Westcott as follows: ‘Eusebius has left no express judgement on the contents of the Old Testament. In three places he quotes from Josephus, Melito, and Origen, lists of the books (slightly differing) according to the Hebrew Canon. These he calls in the first place “the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament (lit. ‘Scriptures in the Testament’), undisputed among the Hebrews”; and, again, “the acknowledged Scriptures of the Old Testament”; and, lastly, “the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament.” In his Chronicle he distinctly separates the Book of Maccabees from the “Divine Scriptures”, and elsewhere mentions Sirach and Wisdom as “controverted” books. On the other hand, like the older Fathers, he quotes in the same manner as the contents of the Hebrew Canon passages from Baruch and Wisdom. On the whole, it may be concluded that he regarded the Apocrypha of the Old Testament in the same light as the books of the New Testament, which were “controverted and yet familiarly used by many”. The books of the Hebrew Canon alone were, in his technical language, “acknowledged.” One general characteristic of his judgement must not be neglected. It is based expressly on the collective testimony of antiquity expressed in the works of the chief ecclesiastical writers. There was no combined decision of any number of churches to which he could appeal.… According to Eusebius the only method by which the contents of the Bible could be determined was that of a simple historical inquiry into the belief and practice of earlier generations, and this did not appear to him to lead to a certain conclusion in every case.’3 The evidence of Athanasius (d. 373) is likewise very important, both on account of his high ecclesiastical position as metropolitan of Egypt, as well as on account of his dominating personality. In the thirty-ninth of his Festal Letters4 he writes as follows: ‘As I am about to speak (of the divine Scriptures), I shall use for the support of my boldness the model of the Evangelist Luke, and say as he does, Forasmuch as some have taken in hand to set forth in order for themselves the so-called Apocrypha, and to mix these with the inspired Scripture which we most surely believe, even as they delivered it to our fathers which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having been urged by true brethren, and having learned the truth from the first, to publish the books which are admitted in the Canon, and have been delivered to us, and are believed to be divine, that if any one has been deceived he may condemn those who led him astray, and he that has remained pule from error may rejoice in being again reminded (of the truth). All the books therefore of the Old Testament are in number twenty-two.’ He then enumerates the books of the Hebrew Canon; these are followed by a list of the New Testament books, after which he continues: ‘But for the sake of greater accuracy I add this also, writing of necessity, that there are also other books excluded from among these (ἕτερα βιβλία τούτων ἔξωθεν), not canonical, which have been framed by the Fathers to be read by those who are just approaching [entry into the Church], and who desire to be instructed in the word of godliness: the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobias, and the so-called Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd. And, nevertheless, beloved, neither among those books which are canonical, nor among those that are read [i.e. those just enumerated], is there anywhere mention made of the apocryphal (books).’ It is worth noticing here that Athanasius uses the word ‘apocryphal’ in an entirely different sense from that in which the word is now used in reference to the books of our Apocrypha; indeed, he goes on to say in this passage that such apocryphal books are ‘a device of heretics’, words which in view of the passage before us he could not possibly have ever applied to the books of what we now understand by the Apocrypha. One example, at least, exists of Athanasius quoting from Sirach, and speaking of it as ‘Holy Scripture’ (Contra Arianos, 12), but it is evident that, upon the whole, Athanasius did not regard Ecclesiasticus as belonging to the canonical Scriptures, for among these he included only the books of the Hebrew Canon.1 Amphilochius (c. 380) enumerates the books of the Old Testament, but includes only the books of the Hebrew Canon, and makes no mention of the books of the Apocrypha.2 Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) in his Catechetical Lectures (4:35) quotes the books of the Hebrew Canon (among which he, too, includes Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah as belonging to the Book of Jeremiah) as the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, after which he says: Τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ πάντα ἔξω κείσθω ἐν δευτέρῳ. He, however, quotes Sirach in his Catechetical Lectures, 6. 3. Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 389) divides the books of the Hebrew Canon, which alone he acknowledges as canonical Scripture, into three groups—historical,3 poetical, and prophetical; in the second, besides Job and ‘David’, he includes three of ‘Solomon’, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, and Proverbs; no mention at all is made of any books outside the Hebrew Canon, there is only a reference to ‘strange books’, against which the reader is warned.4 In the Preface to the Synopsis Sacr. Script. (pseudo-Chrysostom)5 there is a threefold division of Scripture: τὸ ἱστορικόν, τὸ συμβουλευτικόν, and τὸ προφητικόν, in the second of which are included Proverbs, the Wisdom of Sirach, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles. Chrysostom himself quotes passages from Baruch, Sirach, and Wisdom as ‘divine Scripture’. We come next to the evidence of Epiphanius (d. 404); in three places6 he enumerates the canonical books, holding these to be only those of the Hebrew Canon; but he is not altogether consistent, for in one place he includes the ‘letters of Jeremiah and Baruch’ in Jeremiah, while in another he remarks that ‘the letters of Baruch’ are not found in the Hebrew Bible. ‘He is equally inconsistent or uncertain’, says Westcott, ‘with regard to Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. These’, he says, ‘occupy a doubtful place. They are useful, and still they are not reckoned among the acknowledged books, nor were they ever placed in the Ark of the Covenant,’7 i.e. regarded as Scripture by the Jews. Yet again, after enumerating summarily all the books of the Old and New Testaments, he adds, ‘and the books of Wisdom, that of Solomon, and of the son of Sirach, and generally all divine writings.’ It is evident that he wishes to combine the practice of the early Fathers with their direct teaching. He will sacrifice nothing which had even the appearance of authority, and this characteristic of the man gives weight to his repeated statement that the books of the Old Testament ‘were twenty-seven, counted as twenty-two’. The Hebrew Canon was that which he, like all the other Greek Fathers, wished to mark as definitely authoritative, though he admitted to a second place the books which had been sanctioned in some measure by Christian usage.8 In the list given by Leontius (De Sectis, 2) and in the Stichometria of Nicephorus no mention is made of Sirach, though in the latter Baruch is mentioned among the canonical books.9 Finally, John of Damascus (d. 750) in his De fide orthod. 4. 17 speaks of Wisdom and Sirach, after enumerating the books of the Hebrew Canon, in the following way: Ἡ δὲ Πανάρετος, τουτέστιν ἡ Σοφία τοῦ Σολομῶντος καὶ ἡ Σοφία τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, ἣν ὁ πατὴρ μὲν τοῦ Σιρὰχ ἐξέθετο Ἑβραϊστὶ Ἑλληνιστὶ δὲ ἡρμήνευσεν ὁ τούτου μὲν ἔγγονος Ἰησοῦς τοῦ δὲ Σιρὰχ υἱός· ἐνάρετοι μὲν καὶ καλαὶ ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἀριθμοῦνται οὐδὲ ἔκειντο ἐν τῇ κιβωτῷ.10 In his De Imag. 1 he speaks of Baruch as ‘divine Scripture’.

We turn next to the Western Church. The earliest evidence is that of Irenaeus (d. 202); although he nowhere quotes from Sirach,1 he has in his Adv. Haeres. 4. 26, 5. 35, quotations from Baruch, which he cites as ‘Jeremiah the prophet’, and from the Additions to Daniel, which he cites as ‘Daniel the prophet’, and also from Wisdom;2 presumably, therefore, he would have regarded the books of the Apocrypha as canonical. Tertullian (d. 220), in quoting from our book (e.g. Contra Gnostic. 8, De Exhort. Castit. 2, De Hab. Mul. 3), uses the same formula as that with which he introduces the quotations from the books of the Hebrew Canon, viz. sicut scriptum est. Cyprian (d. 258), in his Testimonia (e.g. 3. 95, 96)3 and in his letters (e.g. Ep. 59. 20),3 has many quotations from Sirach, and, like Tertullian, introduces them with the formula sicut scripture est, or with the even more definite words Scriptura divina dicit. Methodius4 (c. 311), who was bishop of Lycia, and afterwards of Tyre, quotes without reserve from Sirach, Wisdom, and Baruch, treating them all as ‘Scripture’. Hilary of Poitiers (d. 368) has a list of the books of the Old Testament in his Prol. in libr. Psalm.5 in which only the Epistle of Jeremiah among the books of the Apocrypha is included, but at the end of this list he adds the words: ‘Quibusdam autem visum est additis Tobia et Judith xxiv libros secundum numerum Graecorum literarum connumerare’; nevertheless, he cites Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom as ‘prophets’, an expression which seems to imply his belief in their canonicity. Philastrius of Brescia (d. 397) gives an account of the Scriptures in his De Haeres. 60, 61, in which he says that only the canonical books, meaning thereby the books of the Hebrew Canon, should be read in church; in the same work (88) he says that the ‘book of the Wisdom of Sirach’ is used by a heretical sect, but he quotes Wisdom as the work of a ‘prophet’. Rufinus (c. 410), in his Comm. in Symbol. Apostol., §§ 36–38, gives a list of the Old Testament Scriptures comprised in the Hebrew Canon as those which ‘the Fathers included in the Canon’ (§ 37); he then continues, in the next section: ‘Nevertheless, it should be known that there are also other books which by men of old were called not “canonical” but “ecclesiastical”, namely, Wisdom, which is called Solomon’s, and the other Wisdom, that of the son of Sirach’; he also includes other books in this category.6 The important evidence of Jerome (d. 420) requires a little more detailed consideration. He was the first to make any thoroughgoing and successful attempt to differentiate between the canonical books of the Hebrew Bible and the books of the Apocrypha in the Christian Church; his intercourse with Rabbis and his knowledge of the Bible in Hebrew were the means of equipping him in a special way for his biblical studies. Jerome was, moreover, the first to use the term ‘Apocrypha’, in its present technical sense, in reference to the uncanonical books. In the Prologus Galeatus (the ‘Helmed Prologue’, with which he prefaces his translation of the books of Samuel and Kings), after enumerating the books of the Hebrew Canon, he says that every other book (referring, of course, to the Alexandrine Canon) is to be reckoned among the Apocrypha (‘quidquid extra hos est, inter Apocrypha esse ponendum’); and he goes on: ‘Therefore Wisdom, commonly entitled (The Wisdom) of Solomon, and the book of Jesus the son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobit, and the Shepherd are not in the Canon.’ To the same effect are his words in the preface to his Commentary on the Salomonic books: ‘Porro in eo libro qui a plerisque Sapienta Salomonis inscribitur, et in Ecclesiastico, quam esse Iesu filii Sirach nullus ignorat, calamo temperavi, tantummodo canonicas Scripturas vobis emendare desiderans et studium meum certis magis quam dubiis commendare’; and, again, in the same preface he says: ‘Sicut ergo Judith et Tobi et Macchabaeorum libros quidem legit Ecclesia, sed inter canonicas Scripturas non recipit, sic et haec duo volumina (i.e. Sirach and Wisdom) legat ad aedificationem plebis, non ad auctoritatem ecclesiasticorum dogmatum confirmandam.’ But in spite of what Jerome says here, he not infrequently quotes from the books of the Apocrypha with the same introductory formula which he uses when quoting from the books of the Hebrew Canon; thus in his Commentary on Isaiah (2:3) he prefaces quotations from Sirach and Wisdom with ‘sicut scriptum est’.7

Our next authority is Augustine (d. 430), whose authority over the Western Church was almost as great as that of Jerome. The following, from his De Doctr. Christiana, 2. 8, will show that he regarded the books of the Apocrypha generally as more authoritative than Jerome did. After enumerating the Old Testament books in the order—Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1–4Kings, 1, 2 Chronicles, he goes on: ‘Haec est historia quae sibimet annexa tempora continet atque ordinem rerum: sunt aliae tanquam ex diverso ordine quae neque huic ordini neque inter se connectuntur, sicut est Job et Tobias et Esther et Judith et Machabaeorum libri duo et Esdrae duo, qui magis subsequi videntur ordinatam illam historiam usque ad Regnorum vel Paralipomenon terminatam: deinde Prophetae in quibus David unus liber Psalmorum, et Salomonis tres, Proverbiorum, Cantica Canticorum, et Ecclesiastes. Nam illi duo libri unus qui Sapientia et alius qui Ecclesiasticus inscribitur de quadam similitudine Salomonis esse dicuntur, nam Iesus Sirach eos conscripsisse constantissime perhibetur qui tamen quoniam in auctoritatem recipi meruerunt inter propheticos numerandi sunt.’ Though he thus speaks with some reserve respecting Wisdom and Sirach he regards them as canonical, for at the end of his enumeration of the books of the Old and New Testaments he says: ‘In his omnibus libris timentes Deum et pietate mansueti quaerunt voluntatem Dei.’ In the Speculum1 Augustine deals in the same way with Sirach as with the canonical books. John Cassian (c. 450) cites Sirach 2:1 as Scripture in his De Inst. Caen. 4. 38.2 Innocent II, in a list of the Scriptural books in his Ep. ad Exsuperium, 3 reckons five books of Solomon (i.e. he includes Sirach and Wisdom); the pseudo-Gelasian list4 includes Sirach and Wisdom, as well as Tobit, Judith, and 1, 2 Maccabees, among the canonical books. And, lastly, Cassiodorus (d. 570), in his enumeration of the books of the Bible (De inst. Div. litt. 14)5 also includes Sirach and Wisdom among the books of Solomon, and therefore regards them as canonical; so also Tobit, Judith, 1, 2 Esdras, 1, 2 Maccabees.

It is unnecessary to give further evidence, for from this time onwards all the books of the Apocrypha are usually found in the Old Testament undistinguished from the other books. So that the evidence of the early Church, taken as a whole, is in the direction of looking favourably upon Sirach as being, at the very least, a book which was both edifying and instructive; nevertheless, it is regarded as less authoritative than the books of the Hebrew Canon.