§ 4. The attitude of the Christian Church to the Apocrypha

The degree of estimation in which the apocryphal books have been held in the Church has varied with age and place.

(1) The Greek Fathers such as Origen and Clement, who used the Greek Bible, which included these books, frequently cite them as ‘scripture’, ‘Divine scripture’, ‘inspired’, or the like. Later Greek Fathers1 rejected in various ways this conception of the Canon, but it was accepted and maintained in the West by St. Augustine. Where the Greek differed from the Hebrew Augustine held that the difference was due to Divine inspiration, and that this difference was to be regarded as a sign that in the passage in question an allegorical—not a literal—interpretation was to be looked for. Since he habitually used a Latin Bible, which embraced the Apocrypha, he appealed to the authority of these books as of the rest of the Scriptures. The Council of Hippo (a.d. 393)2 and that of Carthage (a.d. 397), at both of which Augustine was present respectively as a presbyter and a bishop, drew up a list of Canonical writings, which, though formed by Latin-speaking bishops, was the chief authority on which the Council of Trent based its own decision. In fact the list authoritatively issued by the Council of Hippo and that of Trent agree in nearly every respect, save that the Tridentine divines appear to have misunderstood the meaning of 1 and 2 Esdras in the list of the African Council. That in this list 1 Esdras meant the apocryphal book which Augustine acknowledged as Scripture (De Civ. Dei, 18:36) and 2 Esdras meant the Canonical Ezra and Nehemiah there is no reason for doubt; but the Tridentine divines, taking 1 Esdras as = the Canonical Ezra and 2 Esdras as = the Canonical Nehemiah,3 through a misunderstanding declared 1 Esdras (i.e. the apocryphal Esdras) apocryphal.

(2) On the other hand, teachers connected with Palestine and familiar with the Hebrew Canon, like Africanus and Jerome, declared all books outside the Hebrew Canon as apocryphal.

(3) Alongside these two opposing views arose a third which held that, though these books were not to be put in the same rank as those in the Hebrew collection, they nevertheless had their value for moral uses, and should be read in the Church services. Hence they were called ‘ecclesiastical’—a designation that is found first in Rufinus (ob. a.d. 410). Notwithstanding many variations in the attitude of different authorities and councils these three opinions maintained their ground down to the Reformation.

At the Reformation the above ecclesiastical usages were transformed into articles of belief, which may be regarded as characteristic of the Churches by which they were adopted. As we have already remarked, the Council of Trent adopted the Canon of the Council of Hippo and of Augustine, declaring: ‘If any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate … let him be anathema.’1 All the Apocrypha except 1 Esdras, 4 Ezra, and the Prayer of Manasses belonging to the Apocrypha Proper were declared Canonical.

On the other hand, the Protestant Churches have universally declared their adhesion to the Hebrew Canon of the Old Testament. Yet amongst these a milder and a severer view prevailed. While in some Confessions, i.e. the Westminster, it is decreed that they are not ‘to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings’, a more favourable view is expressed regarding them in many other quarters; e.g. in the preface prefixed to them in the Genevan Bible: ‘As books proceeding from godly men (they) were received to be read for the advancement and furtherance of the knowledge of history and for the instruction of godly manners: which books declare that at all times God had an especial care of His Church, and left them not utterly destitute of teachers and means to confirm them in the hope of the promised Messiah’; and in the Sixth Article of the Church of England: ‘the other books the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners.’

In addition to the spiritual and moral service rendered by these books, the modern student recognizes that without them it is absolutely impossible to explain the course of religious development between 200 b.c. and a.d. 100. In this respect the Apocrypha is to be regarded as embracing the Pseudepigrapha as well. If the Canonical and Apocryphal Books are compared in reference to the question of inspiration, no unbiased scholar could have any hesitation in declaring that the inspiration of such a book as Wisdom or the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs is incomparably higher than that of Esther.