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THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT, 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE LATEST GREEK TEXT OF 
 TISCHENDORF. 
 
 A New and thoroughly Revised Edition. 
 
 Post Svo, Cloth, Price los 6d. 
 
 " Of high and distinctive value." — Saturday Review. 
 
 "Will prove a very useful book to almost any student of the New 
 Testament." — A thenteum. 
 
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 Dr Davidson has done the translation with fidelity, vigour, and 
 elegance." — Watchman. 
 
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 London : 
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THE 
 
 CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 ITS FORMATION, HISTORY, 
 AND FLUCTUATIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL DAVIDSON, D.D. 
 
 OF HALLE, AND LL.D. 
 
 THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 London : 
 C. Kegan Paul & Co., i Paternoster Square. 
 
 1878. 
 
Kr«i: 
 
 » T.ifc 
 
 JiiSTOfin 
 
 15' 
 
 
 ( 7)4^ rights of Translation and of Reproduction are reset ved.] 
 
/Of , 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The substance of the present work was written 
 towards the close of the year 1875 for the 
 new edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." 
 Having been abridged and mutilated, contrary 
 to the author's wishes, before its publication 
 there, he resolved to print it entire. With that 
 view it has undergone repeated revision with en- 
 largement in different parts, and been made as 
 complete as the limits of an essay appeared 
 to allow. As nothing of importance has been 
 knowingly omitted, the writer hopes it will 
 be found a comprehensive summary of all that 
 concerns the formation and history of the 
 
 Bible canon. The place occupied by it was 
 a 
 
 2^5^40 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 vacant. No English book reflecting the pro- 
 cesses or results of recent criticism, gives an 
 account of the canon in both Testaments, 
 Articles and essays upon the subject there are ; 
 but their standpoint is usually apologetic not 
 scientific, traditional rather than impartial, 
 unreasonably conservative without being critical. 
 The topic is weighty, involving the considera- 
 tion of great questions, such as the inspiration, 
 authenticity, authority, and age of the Scriptures. 
 The author has tried to handle it fairly, founding 
 his statements on such evidence as seemed 
 convincing, and condensing them into a moder- 
 ate compass. If the reader wishes to know the 
 evidence, he may find it in the writer's Intro- 
 ductions to the Old and New Testaments, 
 where the separate books of Scripture are 
 discussed ; and in the late treatises of other 
 critics. While his expositions are capable of 
 expansion, it is believed that they will not be 
 easily shaken. He commends the work to the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 attention of all who have an interest in the 
 progress of theology, and are seeking a founda- 
 tion for their faith less precarious than books 
 however venerable. 
 
 It has not been the writer's purpose to 
 chronicle phases of opinion, or to refute what he 
 believes to be error in the newest hypotheses 
 about the age, authority, and composition of the 
 books. His aim has been rather to set forth the 
 most correct view of the questions involved in a 
 history of the canon, whether it be more or less 
 recent. Some may think that the latest or most 
 current account of such questions is the best ; 
 but that is not his opinion. Hence the fashion- 
 able belief that much of the Pentateuch, the 
 Book of Leviticus wholly, with large parts of 
 Exodus and Numbers, in a word, that all the 
 laws relating to divine worship with most of 
 the chronological tables or statistics, belong to 
 Ezra, who is metamorphosed in fact into the first 
 Elohist, is unnoticed. Hence also the earliest 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 gospel is not declared to be Mark's. Neither 
 has the author ventured to place the fourth 
 gospel at the end of the first century, as 
 Ewald and Weitzsacker do, after the man- 
 ner of the old critics ; or with Keim so early as 
 110-115 A.D. 
 
 Many evince a restless anxiety to find some- 
 thing novel ; and to depart from well-established 
 conclusions for the sake of originality. This 
 shews a morbid state of mind. Amid the 
 feverish outlook for discoveries and the slight 
 regard for what is safe, conservatism is a com- 
 mendable thing. Some again desire to return, 
 as far as they can, to orthodoxy, finding be- 
 tween that extreme and rationalism a middle 
 way which offers a resting-place to faith. The 
 numerous changes which criticism presents are 
 not a symptom of soundness. The writer is far 
 indeed from thinking that every question con- 
 nected with the books of Scripture is finally 
 settled ; but the majority undoubtedly are, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 though several already fixed by great scholars 
 continue to be opened up afresh. He does not 
 profess to adopt the phase of criticism which is 
 fashionable at the moment; it is enough to state 
 what approves itself to his judgment, and to 
 hold it fast amid the contrarieties of conjecture 
 or the cravings of curiosity. Present excres- 
 cences or aberrations of belief will have their 
 day and disappear. Large portions of the 
 Pentateuch will cease to be consigned to a post- 
 exile time, and the gospels of Matthew and 
 Luke will again be counted the chief sources of 
 Mark's. It will also be acknowledged that the 
 first as it now exists, is of much later origin 
 than the fall of Jerusalem. Nor will there be so 
 great anxiety to show that Justin Martyr was 
 acquainted with the fourth gospel, and owed his 
 Logos-doctrine chiefly to it. The difference of 
 ten or twenty years in the date of a gospel will 
 not be considered of essential importance in 
 estimating its character. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The present edition has been revised through- 
 out and several parts re-written. The author 
 hopes that it will be found still more worthy of 
 the favour with which the first was received. 
 
 May 1878. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY, ..... I 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON FROM ITS BEGINNING TO 
 
 ITS CLOSE, . . . . .ID 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 THE SAMARITAN AND ALEXANDRIAN CANONS, . 8 1 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 NUMBER AND ORDER OF THE SEPARATE BOOKS, . 92 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BY THE FIRST CHRISTIAN 
 WRITERS, AND THE FATHERS TILL THE TIME OF 
 ORIGEN, ...... 97 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON IN THE FIRST THREE 
 
 CENTURIES, ..... 108 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE BIBLE CANON FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY TO 
 
 THE REFORMATION, . . . • 173 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ORDER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS, . . 221 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE SUBJECT, . . . . 23I 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CANON IN THE CONFESSIONS OF DIFFERENT 
 
 CHURCHES, ..... 240 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE CANON FROM SEMLER TO THE PRESENT TIME, 
 
 WITH REFLECTIONS ON ITS READJUSTMENT, . 247 
 
THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 As introductory to the following dissertation, 
 I shall explain and define certain terms that 
 frequently occur in it, especially caiton, apocry- 
 phal^ ecclesiastical^ and the like. A right appre- 
 hension of these will make the observations 
 advanced respecting the canon and its formation 
 plainer. The words have not been taken in the 
 same sense by all, a fact that obscures their 
 sense. They have been employed more or less 
 vaguely by different writers. Varying ideas 
 have been attached to them. 
 
 The Greek original of canon^ means primarily 
 a straight rod or pole; and metaphorically, what 
 
 ^ Kavibv. 
 A 
 
' V •' ' •*'•' '''TffE'ekSm2^k)F THE BIBLE. 
 
 serves to keep a thing upright or straight, a rule. 
 In the New Testament it occurs in Gal. vi. i6 
 and 2 Cor. x. 13, 15, 16, signifying in the former, 
 a measure ; in the latter, what is measured, a dis- 
 trict. But we have now to do with its ecclesiasti- 
 cal use. There are three opinions as to the origin 
 of its application to the writings used by the 
 church. According to Toland, Whiston, Semler, 
 Baur, and others, the word had originally the 
 sense of list or catalogue of books publicly read 
 in Christian assemblies. Others, as Steiner, sup- 
 pose that since the Alexandrian grammarians 
 applied it to collections of Old Gk-eek authors 
 as models of excellence or classics, it meant 
 classical (canonical) writings. According to a 
 third opinion, the term included from the first 
 the idea of a regulating principle. This is the 
 more probable, because the same idea lies in the 
 New Testament use of the noun, and pervades 
 its applications in the language of the early 
 Fathers down to the time of Constantine, as 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Credner has shown.^ The " canon of the church" 
 in the Clementine homilies ;2 the "ecclesiastical 
 canon," ^ and "the canon of the truth," in 
 Clement and Irenaeus;* the "canon" of the 
 faith in Polycrates,^ the regula fidei of Ter- 
 tullian,^ and the libri regular es of Origen,^ imply 
 a normative principle. But we cannot assent to 
 Credner's view of the Greek word for canon 
 being an abbreviation of "Scriptures of canon,"^ 
 equivalent to Scriptures legis in Diocletian's 
 Act^ — a view too artificial, and unsanctioned 
 by usage. 
 
 It is true that the word canon was employed 
 by Greek writers in the sense of a mere list ; 
 
 ^ Zur Geschichte des Kanons^ pp. 3-68. 
 ^ Clement. Horn. ap. Coteler.y vol. i. p. 608. 
 ^ Stromata, vi. 15, p. 803, ed. Potter. 
 * Adv. Hczres., i. 95. 
 5 ^;>. Euseb. H. E., v. 24. 
 ^ De prczscript. Hareticorum, chs. 12, 13. 
 ^ Comment, in Mat. iii. p. 916 ; ed. Delarue. 
 8 ypa<pal KavSvos. 
 
 ^ Monumenta Vetera ad Donaiistarum hisioriam pertinentia, 
 ed. Dupin, p. 168. 
 
THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 but when it was transferred to the Scripture 
 books, it included the idea of a regulative and 
 normal power — a list of books forming a rule or 
 law, because the newly-formed Catholic Church 
 required a standard of appeal in opposition to 
 the Gnostics with their arbitrary use of sacred 
 writings. There is a lack of evidence on behalf 
 of its use before the books of the New Testa- 
 ment had been paralleled with those of the Old 
 in authority and inspiration. 
 
 The earliest example of its application to a 
 catalogue of the Old or New Testament books 
 occurs in the Latin translation of Origen's homily 
 on Joshua, where the original seems to have 
 been " canon.''^ The word itself is certainly in 
 Amphilochius,2 as well as in Jerome,^ and 
 Rufinus.* As the Latin translation of Origen 
 
 ^ KOWWK 
 
 ' At the end of the Iambi ad Seleucum^ on the books of the 
 New Testament, he adds, oDtoj dipei/S^oTaTOS Ko.v\av hv ttrj rSov 
 d€0True6ffT(i)v ypa<pwv. 
 
 * Prologus galeatus in ii. Reg. 
 
 < Expos, in Symb. Apost., 37, p. 374, ed. Migne. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 has canonicus and canonizatus, we infer that he 
 used " canonical,"^ opposed as it is to apocrypJms 
 or secretus. The first occurrence of "canonical" 
 is in the fifty-ninth canon of the Council of 
 Laodicea, where it is contrasted with two other 
 Greek words.2 " Canonized books,"^ is first used 
 in Athanasius's 39th festal epistle.* The kind 
 of rule which the earliest fathers attributed to 
 the Scriptures can only be conjectured ; it is 
 certain that they believed the Old Testament 
 books to be a divine and infallible guide. But 
 the New Testament was not so considered till 
 towards the close of the second century when 
 the conception of a Catholic Church was realized. 
 The latter collection was not called Scripture, 
 or put on a par with the Old Testament as 
 
 ^ KavouLKds. 2 tStwrt/cds and aKavdvLaros. ^ Kavovi^6/ji.€va. 
 
 * After the word is added, Kal Trapadodivra, irLarevdivTa rk 
 6eia etvai. 0pp., vol. i. p. 962, ed. Benedict. The festal or 
 passover letters of the Alexandrian bishops were pastorals ad- 
 dressed to the church in Egypt, at the approach of the yearly 
 festival of Easter. It was natural that they should have some 
 authority there. 
 
THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 sacred and inspired, till the time of Theophilus 
 of Antioch (about i8o A.D.) Hence Irenaeus 
 applies the epithets divine and perfect to the 
 Scriptures; and Clement of Alexandria calls 
 them inspired. 
 
 When distinctions were made among the 
 Biblical writings other words ^ were employed, 
 synonymous with "canonised." ^ The canon was 
 thus a catalogue of writings forming a rule of 
 truth, sacred, divine, revealed by God for the 
 instruction of men. The rule was perfect for its 
 purpose. 
 
 The word apocryphal ^ is used in various senses, 
 which it is difficult to trace chronologically. 
 Apocryphal books are, — 
 
 1st, Such as contain secret or mysterious things, 
 books of the higher wisdom. It is thus applied 
 to the Apocalypse by Gregory of Nyssa.* Akin 
 to this is the second meaning. 
 
 * Such as ivSi6^r}Kaj iipifftih/a. • Kauopito'fiepa or KCKavouia-fiiva. 
 ' d7ro'/c/)i/0oj. * Orat. de Ordin., vol. ii. p. 44. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 2nd, Such as were kept secret or withdrawn 
 from public use. In this sense the word cor- 
 responds to the Hebrew gaimz?- So Origen 
 speaking of the story of Susanna. The oppo- 
 site of this is read in ptibliCy'^ a word em- 
 ployed by Eusebius.^ 
 
 3rd, It was used of the secret books of the 
 heretics by Clement* and Origen,^ with the 
 accessory idea of spurious, pseudepigraphical^ 
 in opposition to the canonical writings of the 
 Catholic Church. The book of Enoch and 
 similar productions were so characterized.^ 
 
 4th, Jerome applied it to the books in the 
 
 ^ T132. The Jews applied the word genuzim to books with- 
 drawn from public use, whose contents were thought to be out of 
 harmony with the doctrinal or moral views of Judaism when the 
 canon was closed. See Fiirst's Der Kanon des alien Testaments, 
 p. 127, note; and Geiger's Urschrift, p. 201. 
 
 ^ dedrj/xoa-tevixiva. 
 
 3 H. E. II. 23, III. 3-16. 
 
 * Stromata, lib. iii. p. 1134, ed. Migne. 
 
 ^ Prolog, ad Cant., dpp., vol. iii. p. 36. 
 
 ^ See Suicer's Thesaurus, s. v. 
 
THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Septuagint which are absent from the Hebrew 
 canon, i.e., to the books which were read in the 
 church, the ecclesiastical ones^ occupying a rank 
 next to the canonical. In doing so he had 
 respect to the corresponding Hebrew epithet. 
 This was a misuse of the word apocryphal, 
 which had a prejudicial effect on the character 
 of the books in after-times.^ The word, which 
 he did not employ in an injurious sense, was 
 adopted from him by Protestants after the 
 Reformation, who gave it perhaps a sharper 
 distinction than he intended, so as to imply a 
 contrast somewhat disparaging to writings 
 which were publicly read in many churches and 
 put beside the canonical ones by distinguished 
 fathers. The Lutherans have adhered to 
 Jerome's meaning longer than the Reformed ; 
 but the decree of the Council of Trent had 
 
 ^ Bt/3\(a iLvayivuxTKOfieva, libri ecclesiastici. 
 
 2 In his epistle to Laeta he uses the epithet in its customary 
 sense, of books unauthentic, not proceeding from the authors 
 whose names they bear. 0pp., vol. i. p. 877, ed. Migne. 
 
INTR OD UCTOR V. 
 
 some effect on both. The contrast between 
 the canonical and apocryphal writings was 
 carried to its utmost length by the Westminster 
 divines, who asserted that the former are in- 
 spired, the latter not. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON FROM ITS 
 BEGINNING TO ITS CLOSE. 
 
 The first important part of the Old Testament 
 put together as a whole was the Pentateuch, 
 or rather, the five books of Moses and Joshua. 
 This was preceded by smaller documents, 
 which one or more redactors embodied in it. 
 The earliest things committed to writing were 
 probably the ten words proceeding from Moses 
 himself, afterwards enlarged into the ten com- 
 mandments which exist at present in two 
 recensions (Exod. xx., Deut. v.) It is true 
 that we have the oldest form of the decalogue 
 from the Jehovist not the Elohist; but that 
 is no valid objection against the antiquity of 
 the nucleus out of which it arose. It is also 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 probable that several legal and ceremonial 
 enactments belong, if not to Moses himself, 
 at least to his time ; as also the Elohistic list 
 of stations in Numbers xxxiii. To the same 
 time belongs the song of Miriam in Exodus 
 XV., probably consisting of a few lines at first, 
 and subsequently enlarged ; with a triumphal 
 ode over the fall of Heshbon (Numbers xxi. 27- 
 30). The little poetical piece in Numbers 
 xxi. 17, 18, afterwards misunderstood and so 
 taken literally, is post-Mosaic. 
 
 During the unsettled times of Joshua and the 
 Judges there could have been comparatively 
 little writing. The song of Deborah appeared, 
 full of poetic force and fire. The period of 
 the early kings was characterized not only by 
 a remarkable development of the Hebrew 
 people and their consolidation into a national 
 state, but by fresh literary activity. Laws were 
 written out for the guidance of priests and 
 people ; and the political organization of the 
 
12 THE CANON OF 7 HE BIBLE. 
 
 rapidly growing nation was promoted by- 
 poetical productions in which spiritual life 
 expressed its aspirations. Schools of prophets 
 were instituted by Samuel, whose literary efforts 
 tended to purify the worship. David was an 
 accomplished poet, whose psalms are composed 
 in lofty strains ; and Solomon may have 
 written a few odes. The building of the 
 temple, and the arrangements connected with 
 its worship, contributed materially to a written 
 legislation. 
 
 During this early and flourishing period ap- 
 peared the book of the Wars of Jehovah,^ a 
 heroic anthology, celebrating warlike deeds; and 
 the book of Jashar,^ also poetical. Jehoshaphat 
 is mentioned as court-annalist to David and 
 Solomon.' Above all, the Elohists now ap- 
 peared, the first of whom, in the reign of Saul, 
 was author of annals beginning at the earliest 
 
 * Num. xxi. 14. ^ Joshua x. 12, 13 ; 2 Sam. i. 18. 
 
 * 2 Sam. viii. i6 ; i Kings iv. 3. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 time which were distinguished by genealogical 
 and chronological details as well as systematic 
 minuteness, by archaic simplicity, and by legal 
 prescriptions more theoretical than practical. 
 The long genealogical registers with an artificial 
 chronology and a statement of the years of 
 men's lives, the dry narratives, the precise ac- 
 counts of the gradual enlargement of divine 
 laws, the copious description of the tabernacle 
 and the institution of divine worship, are weari- 
 some, though pervaded by a theoretic interest 
 which looks at every thing from a legal point 
 of view. A second or junior Elohist was less 
 methodical and more fragmentary, supplying 
 additional information, furnishing new theo- 
 cratic details, and setting forth the relation of 
 Israel to heathen nations and to God. In con- 
 trast with his predecessor, he has great beauty 
 of description, which is exemplified in the ac- 
 count of Isaac's sacrifice and the history of 
 Joseph ; in picturesque and graphic narratives 
 
14 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 interspersed with few reflections. His parallels 
 to the later writer commonly called the Jehovist, 
 are numerous. The third author, who lived in 
 the time of Uzziah, though more mythological 
 than the Elohists, was less formal. His stand- 
 point is prophetic. The third document in- 
 corporated with the Elohistic ones formed an 
 important part of the whole, exhibiting a vivid- 
 ness which the first lacked ; with descriptions 
 of persons and things from another stand-point. 
 The Jehovist belonged to the northern kingdom; 
 the Elohists were of Judah. 
 
 The state of the nation after Rehoboam was 
 unfavourable to literature. When the people 
 were threatened and attacked by other nations, 
 divided among themselves in worship and all 
 higher interests, rent by conflicting parties, the 
 theocratic principle which was the true bond of 
 union could not assert itself with efiect. The 
 people were corrupt ; their religious life debased. 
 The example of the kings was usually prejudicial 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 to political healthiness. Contact with foreigners 
 as well as with the older inhabitants of the land, 
 hindered progress. In these circumstances the 
 prophets were the true reformers, the advocates 
 of political liberty, expositors of the principles 
 that give life and stability to a nation. In 
 Judah, Joel wrote prophetic discourses ; in 
 Israel, Amos and Hosea. Now, too, a redactor 
 put together the EJohistic and Jehovistic docu- 
 ments, making various changes in them, adding 
 throughout sentences and words that seemed 
 desirable, and suppressing what was unsuited to 
 his taste. Several psalm-writers enriched the 
 national literature after David. Learned men 
 at the court of Hezekiah recast and enlarged 
 (Proverbs xxv. — xxix.) the national proverbs, 
 which bore Solomon's name because the nucleus 
 of an older collection belonged to that monarch. 
 These literary courtiers were not prophets, but 
 rather scribes. The book of Job was written, 
 with the exception of Elihu's later discourses 
 
I6 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 which were not inserted in it till after the 
 return from Babylon ; and Deuteronomy, with 
 Joshua, was added to the preceding collec- 
 tion in the reign of Manasseh. The gifted 
 author of Deuteronomy, who was evidently 
 imbued with the prophetic spirit, completed the 
 Pentateuch, i.e., the five books of Moses and 
 Joshua, revising the Elohist-Jehovistic work, 
 and making various additions or alterations. 
 He did the same thing to the historical books 
 of Judges, Samuel, and Kings ; which received 
 from him their present form. Immediately 
 before and during the exile there were numer- 
 ous authors and compilers. New psalms 
 appeared, more or less national in spirit. 
 Ezekiel, Jeremiah and others prophesied ; 
 especially an unknown seer who described the 
 present condition of the people, predicting their 
 coming glories and renovated worship in strains 
 of far-reaching import.^ This great prophet 
 
 ^ Isaiah xl. -Ixvi. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 17 
 
 expected the regeneration of the nation from 
 the pious portion of it, the prophets in particular, 
 not from a kingly Messiah as Isaiah did ; for 
 the hopes resting on rulers out of David's house 
 had been disappointed. His aspirations turned 
 to spiritual means. He was not merely an en- 
 thusiastic seer with comprehensive glance, but 
 also a practical philosopher who set forth the 
 doctrine of the innocent suffering for the guilty ; 
 differing therein from Ezekiel's theory of indi- 
 vidual reward and punishment in the present 
 world — a theory out of harmony with the cir- 
 cumstances of actual life. The very misfortunes 
 of the nation, and the signs of their return, 
 excited within the nobler spirits hopes of a 
 brighter future, in which the flourishing reign of 
 David should be surpassed by the universal 
 worship of Jehovah. In consequence of their 
 outward condition, the prophets of the exile 
 were usually writers, like Ezekiel, not public 
 speakers ; and their announcement of glad 
 
l8 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 tidings could only be transmitted privately from 
 person to person. This explains in part the 
 oblivion into which their names fell ; so that 
 the author or redactor of Jeremiah 1., li. ; the 
 authors of chapters xiii.-xiv. 23, xxi. i-io, 
 xxiv.-xxvii., xxxiv., xxxv., inserted in Isaiah ; 
 and, above all, the Babylonian Isaiah, whom 
 Hitzig improbably identifies with the high- 
 priest Joshua, are unknown. After the return 
 from Babylon the literary spirit manifested 
 itself in the prophets of the restoration — 
 Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi — who wrote to 
 recall their countrymen to a sense of religious 
 duties; though their ideas were borrowed in 
 part from older prophets of more original 
 genius. The book of Esther appeared, to make 
 •the observance of the purim feast, which was of 
 Persian origin, more general in Palestine. The 
 large historical work comprising the books of 
 Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, was compiled 
 partly out of materials written by Ezra and 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Nehemiah, partly out of older historical records 
 which formed a portion of the national litera- 
 ture. Several temple-psalms were also com- 
 posed ; a part of the present book of Proverbs ; 
 Ecclesiastes, whose tone and language betray 
 its late origin ; and Jonah, whose diction puts 
 its date after the Babylonian captivity. The 
 Maccabean age called forth the book of Daniel 
 and various psalms. In addition to new pro- 
 ductions there was an inclination to collect 
 former documents. To Zechariah's authentic 
 prophecies were added the earlier ones con- 
 tained in chapters ix. — xiv. ; and the Psalms 
 were gradually brought together, being made up 
 into divisions at different times ; the first and 
 second divisions proceeding from one redactor, 
 the third from another, the fourth and fifth from 
 a still later. Various writings besides their own 
 were grouped around the names of earlier pro- 
 phets, as was the case with Isaiah and Jeremiah. 
 The literature is more indebted for its best 
 
20 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 constituents to the prophetic than to the 
 priestly order, because the prophets were 
 preachers of repentance and righteousness 
 whose great aim was to make Israel a Jehovah- 
 worshipping nation to the exclusion of other 
 gods. Their utterances were essentially ethical 
 and religious ; their pictures of the future 
 subjective and ideal. There was silently 
 elaborated in^their schools a spiritual mono- 
 theism, over against the crude polytheism of 
 the people generally — a theocratic ideal inade- 
 quately apprehended by gross and sensuous 
 Israel — Jehovism simple and sublime amid a 
 sacerdotal worship which left the heart impure 
 while cleansing the hands. Instead of taking 
 their stand upon the law, with its rules of 
 worship, its ceremonial precepts and penalties 
 against transgressors, the prophets set them- 
 selves above it, speaking slightingly of the 
 forms and customs which the people took for 
 the whole of religion. To the view of such as 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 21 
 
 were prepared to receive a faith that looked for 
 its realisation to the future, they helped to 
 create a millennium, in which the worship of 
 Jehovah alone should become the basis of a uni- 
 versal religion for humanity. In addition to the 
 prophetic literature proper, they wrote historical 
 works also. How superior this literature is to 
 the priestly appears from a comparison of the 
 Kings and Chronicles. The subjective under- 
 lies the one; the objective distinguishes the 
 other. Faith in Jehovah, clothed, it may be 
 in sensible or historical forms, characterises the 
 one ; reference of an outward order to a divine 
 source, the other. The sanctity of a people 
 under the government of a righteous God, is 
 the object of the one ; the sanctity of institu- 
 tions, that of the other. Even when the 
 prophets wrote history, the facts are subordinate 
 to the belief. Subjective purposes coloured 
 their representation of real events. 
 
 To them we are indebted for the Messianic 
 
22 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 idea, the hope of a better time in which their high 
 ideal of the theocracy should be realised. With 
 such belief in the future, with pious aspirations 
 enlivening their patriotism, did they comfort 
 and encourage their countrymen. The hope, 
 general or indefinite at first, was afterwards 
 attached to the house of David, out of which a 
 restorer of the theocracy was expected, a king 
 pre-eminent in righteousness, and marvellously 
 gifted. It was not merely a political but a 
 religious hope, implying the thorough purifica- 
 tion of the nation, the extinction of idolatry, 
 the general spread and triumph of true religion. 
 The pious wishes of the prophets, often repeated, 
 became a sort of doctrine, and contributed to 
 sustain the failing spirit of the people. The 
 indefinite idea of a golden age was commoner 
 than that of a personal prince who should reign 
 in equity and peace. Neither was part of the 
 national faith, like the law, or the doctrine of 
 sacrifice; and but a few of the prophets por- 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 23 
 
 trayed a king in their description of the period 
 of ideal prosperity. 
 
 The man who first gave public sanction 
 to a portion of the national literature was Ezra, 
 who laid the foundation of a canon. He was 
 the leader in restoring the theocracy after the 
 exile, " a ready scribe in the law of Moses, who 
 had prepared his heart to seek the law of the 
 Lord and to teach in Israel statutes and judg- 
 ments." As we are told that he brought the 
 book of the law of Moses before the congrega- 
 tion and read it publicly, the idea naturally arises 
 that he was the final redactor of the Pentateuch, 
 separating it from the historical work consisting 
 of Joshua and the subsequent writings, of which 
 it formed the commencement. Such was the 
 first canon given to the Jewish Church after its 
 reconstruction — ready for temple service as well 
 as synagogue use. Henceforward the Mosaic 
 book became an authoritative guide in spiritual, 
 ecclesiastical, and civil matters, as we infer from 
 
24 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 various passages in Ezra and Nehemiah and 
 from the chronicler's own statements in the 
 book bearing his name. The doings of Ezra 
 with regard to the Scriptures are deduced not 
 only from what we read of him in the Biblical 
 book that bears his name, but also from the 
 legend in the fourth book of Esdras,^ where it 
 is related that he dictated by inspiration to five 
 ready writers ninety-four books ; the first twenty- 
 four of which he was ordered to publish openly 
 that the worthy and unworthy might read, but 
 reserved the last seventy for the wise. Though 
 the twenty-four books of the Old Testament 
 cannot be attributed to him, the fact that he 
 copied and wrote portions need not be ques- 
 tioned. He edited the law, making the first 
 canon or collection of books, and giving it an 
 authority which it had not before. Talmudic ac- 
 counts associate with him the men of the great 
 
 1 Chap. xiv. 23.50, &c. Sec Hilgenfeld's Messias Jtidaorum, 
 p. 107. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 25 
 
 synagogue. It is true that they are legen- 
 dary, but there is a foundation of fact beneath 
 the fanciful superstructure. As to Ezra's treat- 
 ment of the Pentateuch, or his specific mode of 
 redaction, we are left for the most part to 
 conjecture. Yet it is safe to affirm that he 
 added ; — making new precepts and practices 
 either in place of or beside older ones. Some 
 things he removed as unsuited to the altered 
 circumstances of the people ; others he modi- 
 fied. He threw back later enactments into 
 earlier times. It is difficult to discover all 
 the parts that betray his hand. Some elabor- 
 ate priestly details show his authorship most 
 clearly. If his hand be not visible in Leviticus 
 chap. xvii. — xxvi. ; a writer not far removed 
 from his time is observable ; Ezekiel or some 
 other. It is clear that some of the portion (xxv. 
 19 — 22 ; xxvi. 3 — 45) is much later than the 
 Elohists, and belongs to the exile or post-exile 
 period. But great difficulty attaches to the 
 
26 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 separation of the sources here used ; even after 
 Kayser's acute handling of them. It is also 
 perceptible from Ezekiel xx. 25, 26, that the 
 clause in Exodus xiii. 15, "but all the firstborn 
 of my children I redeem," was added after the 
 exile, since the prophet shews his unacquaint- 
 ance with it. The statute that all which 
 openeth the womb should be burnt in sacrifice 
 to Jehovah, appeared inhuman not only to 
 Ezekiel, but to Ezra or his associates in re- 
 editing the law ; and therefore the clause about 
 the redemption of every firstborn male was sub- 
 joined. Ezra, a second Moses in the eyes of 
 the later Jews, did not scruple to refer to Moses 
 what was of recent origin, and to deal freely 
 with the national literature. Such was the first 
 canon — that of Ezra the priest and scribe. 
 
 The origin of the great synagogue is noticed 
 in Ezra x. 16, and described more particularly 
 in Nehemiah viii.-x., the members being appar- 
 ently enumerated in x. 1-27 ; at least the 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 27 
 
 Megila Jen (i. 5) and Midrash Ruth (§ 3) 
 speak of an assembly of eighty-five elders, 
 who are probably found in the last passage. 
 One name, however, is wanting, for only eighty- 
 four are given ; and as Ezra is not mentioned 
 among them, the conjecture of Krochmal that 
 it has dropped out of x. 9 may be allowed. 
 Another tradition gives the number as one 
 hundred and twenty, which may be got by 
 adding the " chief of the fathers " enumerated 
 in Ezra viii. 1-14 to the hundred and two heads 
 of families in Ezra ii. 2-58. Whether the num- 
 ber was the same at the commencement as 
 afterwards is uncertain. Late Jewish writers, 
 however, such as Abarbanel, Abraham ben 
 David, Ben Maimun, &c., speak as if it con- 
 sisted of the larger number at the beginning; 
 and have no scruple in pronouncing Ezra pre- 
 sident, rather than Nehemiah.^ 
 
 1 See Buxtorf's Tiberias^ chap, x., p. 88, &c.; and Herz- 
 feld's Geschichte des Volkes Israel^ vol. i. p. 380, &c. Zwolfter 
 Excursus. 
 
28 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 The oldest extra-biblical mention of the 
 synagogue is in the Mishnic treatise Pirke 
 Abothy where it is said, "Moses received the 
 law from Mount Sinai, and delivered it to 
 Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the 
 prophets, and the prophets delivered it to the 
 men of the great synagogue. These last 
 spake these words: "Be slow in judgment; 
 appoint many disciples ; make a hedge for 
 the law"i In the Talmudic Baba Bathra, 
 their biblical doings are described : " Moses 
 wrote his book, the section about Balaam and 
 Job. Joshua wrote his book and eight verses 
 of the law. Samuel wrote his book and Judges 
 and Ruth. David wrote the book of Psalms 
 by (?)2 ten elders, by Adam the first man, by 
 Melchizedek, by Abraham, by Moses, by He- 
 
 1 Chapter i. 
 
 » n* ^y. I^ocs this mean for^ instead of^ as Bloch vmder- 
 stands it? Waehner inserts, to fill up the sense, "some of 
 which, however, were composed by;" but this is far-fetched. 
 See AntiquUates Ebraorum, p. i^. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 29 
 
 man, by Jeduthun, by Asaph, and the three 
 sons of Korah. Jeremiah wrote his book, the 
 books of Kings and Lamentations. Hezekiah 
 and his friends wrote Isaiah, Proverbs, Can- 
 ticles, and Coheleth ; the men of the great syn- 
 agogue, Ezekiel, the twelve prophets, Daniel 
 and Esther. Ezra wrote his own book and 
 the genealogies of Chronicles down to himself "^ 
 This passage has its obscurities. What is 
 meant by the verb write ? ^ Does it mean com- 
 position and then something else ; the former 
 in the first part of the passage, and editing in 
 the second } Rashi explains it of composition 
 throughout, which introduces absurdity. The 
 most obvious interpretation is that which un- 
 derstands the verb of writing in one place, and 
 editing in the second. But it is improbable 
 that the author should have used the same 
 word in different senses, in one and the same 
 
 iFol. 15, I. "3n2. 
 
30 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 passage, Bloch ^ understands it of copying or 
 writing outy a sense that suits the procedure of 
 the men of the great synagogue in regard to 
 Ezekiel, the twelve prophets, &c., but is inap- 
 plicable to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, 
 Jeremiah, &c. It is probable enough that the 
 synagogue scribes put into their present form 
 and made the first authorised copies of the 
 works specified. The Boraitha, however, is 
 not clear, and may only express the opinion 
 of a private individual in a confused way. 
 Simon the Just is said to have belonged to 
 the remnants of the synagogue. As Ezra is 
 called " a ready scribe," and his labours in con- 
 nection with the law were important, he may 
 have organised a body of literary men who 
 should work in harmony, attending, among 
 other things, to the collection and preservation 
 of the national literature ; or they may have 
 
 * SiudUn zur GeschichU cUr Sammlun^ dcr althebraiscJwn 
 Literature p. 127, &c. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 31 
 
 been an association of patriotic men who 
 voluntarily rallied round the heads of the new- 
 state, to support them in their fundamental 
 reforms. The company of scribes mentioned 
 in I Maccabees does not probably relate to it.^ 
 A succession of priests and scribes, excited at 
 first by the reforming zeal of one whom later 
 Jews looked upon as a second Moses, laboured 
 in one department of literary work till the cor- 
 poration ceased to exist soon after if not in 
 the time of Simon, i.e., from about 445 B.C. till 
 about 200 ; for we identify the Simon cele- 
 brated in Sirach 1. 1-26 with Simon II., son 
 of the high-priest Onias II., B.C. 221-202; not 
 with Simon I., son and successor of the high- 
 priest Onias I., B.C. 310-291. Josephus's 
 opinion, indeed, is contrary ; but leading 
 Jewish scholars, such as Zunz, Herzfeld, 
 Krochmal, Derenbourg, Jost, and Bloch differ 
 from him. 
 
 ^ vii. 12, (Tvva'^ui^T] ypaix[iaTio)V, not ^ (jwayuiyi]. 
 
32 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 To the great synagogue must be referred the 
 compilation of the second canon, containing 
 Joshua, Judges with Ruth, Samuel, Kings, 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah with Lamentations, Ezekiel 
 and the twelve minor prophets. It was not 
 completed prior to 300 B.C., because the book of 
 Jonah was not written before. This work may- 
 be called a historical parable composed for a 
 didactic purpose, giving a milder, larger view 
 of Jehovah's favour than the orthodox one that 
 excluded the Gentiles. Ruth, containing an 
 idyllic story with an unfinished genealogy 
 attached meant to glorify the house of David, 
 and presenting a kindred spirit towards a 
 people uniformly hated, was appended to 
 Judges ; but was subsequently transferred to 
 the third canon. It was written immediately 
 after the return from the Babylonian captivity ; 
 for the Chaldaising language points to this 
 date, notwithstanding the supposed archaisms 
 discovered in it by some. In like manner, the 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 33 
 
 Lamentations, originally added to Jeremiah, 
 were afterwards put into the later or third canon. 
 Joshua, which had been separated from the 
 five books of Moses with which it was closely- 
 joined at first, formed, with the other historical 
 portion (Judges, Samuel, Kings), the proper 
 continuation of Ezra's canon. The prophets, 
 included the three greater and twelve minor. 
 With Isaiah's authentic oracles were incorpor- 
 ated the last twenty-seven chapters, belonging 
 for the most part to an anonymous prophet of 
 the exile, besides several late pieces inserted 
 in the first thirty-nine chapters. Men of pro- 
 phetic gifts wrote in the name of distinguished 
 prophets, and put their productions with those 
 of the latter, or adapted and wrote them over 
 after their own fashion. The fiftieth and fifty- 
 first chapters of Jeremiah shew such over-writing. 
 To Zechariah's authentic oracles were attached 
 chapters ix.-xiv., themselves made up of two 
 
 parts (ix.-xi., xii.-xiv.) belonging to different 
 C 
 
34 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 times and authors prior to the destruction of 
 the Jewish state by the Babylonians. 
 
 The character of the synagogue's proceedings 
 in regard to the books of Scripture can only be 
 deduced from the conduct of Ezra himself, as 
 well as the prevailing views and wants of the 
 times. The scribes who began with Ezra, see- 
 ing how he acted, would naturally follow his 
 example, not hesitating to revise the text in 
 substance as well as form.^ They did not re- 
 frain from changing what had been written, or 
 from inserting fresh matter. Some of their 
 novelties can be discerned even in the Penta- 
 teuch. Their chief work, however, related to 
 the form of the text. They put into a proper 
 
 * That the Scribes always adhered to the prohibition to write 
 no religious laws and ordinances cannot be held, even in the 
 face of the Talmudic saying, niin 51"11C^D T\\:h''\\ 3ni3 (writers 
 of Halacoth are like a burner of the law). This may apply to 
 the late scribes or bookmen, not to the earlier. The greater 
 part of Geiger's Urschrift is based on the opposite idea. As 
 the reverence for former scholars increased, the Talmudic say- 
 ing might be accepted. See Temura^ 14 b. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 35 
 
 form and state the text of the writings they 
 studied, perceiving less need for revising the 
 matter. What they did was in good faith, 
 with honest intention. 
 
 The prophetic canon ended with Malachi's 
 oracles. And it was made sometime after he 
 prophesied, because the general consciousness 
 that the function ceased with him required a 
 considerable period for its growth. The fact 
 that it included Jonah and Ruth brings the 
 completion after 300 B.C., as already stated. 
 There are no definite allusions to it till the 
 second century B.C. Daniel speaks of a 
 passage in Jeremiah being in "the books" or 
 " writings ; " ^ and the prologue of Jesus Sirach 
 presupposes its formation. Such was the 
 second canon, which had been made up 
 gradually (444-290 B.C.) 
 
 Another view of the collection in question 
 has been taken by various scholars. Accord- 
 
 ^ Chapter ix. 2. 
 
36 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 ing to a passage in the second book of 
 Maccabees, the second canon originated with 
 Nehemiah, who " gathered together the acts of 
 the kings and the prophets and (psalms) of 
 David, and the epistles of the kings con- 
 cerning the holy gifts." ^ These words are 
 obscure. They occur in a letter purporting 
 to be sent by the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem 
 to the Jews in Egypt, which contains apo- 
 cryphal things ; a letter which assigns to 
 Nehemiah the merit of various arrangements 
 rather belonging to Ezra. It is difficult to 
 understand the meaning of "the epistles of 
 the kings concerning the offerings." If they 
 were the documents of heathen or Persian 
 kings favourable to the rebuilding of Jeru- 
 salem and its temple, would they not have 
 been rejected from a collection of sacred 
 books belonging to the chosen people.? They 
 might perhaps have been adopted had they 
 * Chapter ii. 13. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 37 
 
 been interwoven with the holy books them- 
 selves, like portions of Ezra and Nehemiah ; 
 but they could not have formed a distinct part 
 of the national literature, because they were 
 foreign and heathen. Again, "the psalms of 
 David " cannot have existed in the time of 
 Nehemiah, if the phrase includes the whole 
 collection. It may perhaps refer to the first 
 three divisions of the book, as Herzfeld thinks ; 
 but these contain many odes which are not 
 David's ; while earHer ones belong to the last 
 two divisions of the Psalm-book. In like 
 manner, "the prophets" could not all have 
 belonged to this canon ; neither Malachi, who 
 was later, nor Jonah. The account will not 
 bear strict examination, and must be pro- 
 nounced apocryphal. Nehemiah was a states- 
 man, not a priest or scribe ; a politician, not 
 a literary man. It is true that he may have 
 had assistants, or committed the work to com- 
 petent hands ; but this is conjectural. The 
 
38 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 account of his supposed canon hardly com- 
 mends itself by inherent truthfulness or pro- 
 bability, though it is accepted by Ewald and 
 Bleek. 
 
 When the great synagogue ceased, there was 
 an interval during which it is not clear whether 
 the sacred books were neglected, except by 
 private individuals ; or whether they were 
 studied, copied, and collected by a body of 
 scribes. Perhaps the scribes and elders of the 
 Hasmonaean time were active at intervals in this 
 department. The institution of a senate by 
 Judas Maccabaeus is supposed to be favoured 
 by 2 Maccabees (chapter i. lO — ii. i8); but the 
 passage furnishes poor evidence of the thing. 
 Judas is there made to write to Egypt in the 
 year of the Seleucidae i88, though he died 
 thirty- six years before, z>., 152. Other places 
 have been added as corroborative, viz., 2 
 Maccab. iv. 44, xi. 27 ; i Maccab. vii. 33. 
 Some go so far as to state that Jose ben Joeser 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 39 
 
 was appointed its first president at that time. 
 The Midrash in Bereshith Rabba (§ 65) 
 makes him one of the sixty Hassidim who 
 were treacherously murdered by Alcimus ; but 
 this is neither in the first book of the Maccabees 
 (chapter vii.) nor in Josephus,^ and must be 
 pronounced conjectural. It is impossible to 
 fix the exact date of Jose ben Joeser in the 
 Hasmonean period. Pirke Aboth leaves it 
 indefinite. Jonathan, Judas Maccabaeus's suc- 
 cessor, when writing to the Lacedaemonians, 
 speaks of the gertisia or senate as well as the 
 people of the Jews ; whence we learn that the 
 body existed as early as the time of Judas.^ 
 Again, Demetrius writes to Simon, as also to 
 the elders and natiojt of the Jews.^ After Jona- 
 than and Simon, it may have been suspended 
 for a while, in consequence of the persecution 
 
 ^ Antiq., xii. 10, i. 
 
 2 Josephus's Antiq., xiii. 5, 8 ; i Maccab., xii. 35. 
 
 I Maccab., xiii. 36. 
 
40 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 and anarchy prevailing in Judea ; till the great 
 Sanhedrim at Jerusalem succeeded it, under 
 Hyrcanus I. Though the traces of a senate 
 in the Maccabaean epoch are slight, the Talmud 
 countenances its existence.^ We believe that 
 it was earlier than Judas Maccabaeus. Of its 
 constitution nothing is known ; but it was pro- 
 bably aristocratic. The Hasmonean- prince 
 would naturally exert a commanding influence 
 over it. The great synagogue had been a kind 
 of democratic council, consisting of scribes, 
 doctors or teachers, and priests.^ Like their 
 predecessors of the great synagogue, the Has- 
 monaean elders revised the text freely, putting 
 into it explanatory or corrective additions, 
 which were not always improvements. The 
 way in which they used the book of Esther, 
 employing it as a medium of Halachite pre- 
 scription, shews a treatment involving little 
 
 » Sota, 24 a. >» D^mO, Nehemiah viii. 3. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 41 
 
 idea of sacredness attaching to the Hagio- 
 grapha. 
 
 We are aware that the existence of this body- 
 is liable to doubt, and that the expressions 
 belonging to it in Jewish books, whether elders 
 or gerusia, have been applied to the great 
 synagogue or to the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, 
 or even to the elders of any little town or 
 hamlet; but it is difficult to explain all on 
 that hypothesis, without attributing confusion 
 to the places where they occur. If the body 
 in question be not allowed, an interval of about 
 sixty years elapsed between the great syna- 
 gogue and the Sanhedrim, during which the 
 hagiographical writings were comparatively 
 neglected, though literary activity did not 
 cease. No authoritative association, at least, 
 dealt with them. This is improbable. It is 
 true that we read of no distinguished teachers 
 in the interval, except Antigonus of Socho, 
 disciple of Simon the Just ; but the silence can 
 
42 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 hardly weigh against a reasonable presumption. 
 One thing is clear, viz., that Antigonus did not 
 reach down to the time of the first pair that 
 presided over the Sanhedrim. 
 
 The contents of the third canon, i.e.y Psalms, 
 Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Esther, 
 Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, the for- 
 mation of which we assign to the Hasmonaean 
 genisia, were multifarious, differing widely from 
 one another in age, character, and value — poeti- 
 cal, prophetic, didactic, historical. Such as 
 seemed worthy of preservation, though they 
 had not been included in the second canon, 
 were gathered together during the space of an 
 hundred and fifty years. The oldest part con- 
 sisted of psalms supposed to belong to David. 
 The first psalm, which contains within itself 
 traces of late authorship, was prefixed as an in- 
 troduction to the whole collection now put into 
 the third canon. Next to the Psalms were 
 Proverbs, Job, Canticles, which, though non- 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 43 
 
 prophetic and probably excluded on that 
 account from the second canon, must have 
 existed before the exile. Enriched with the 
 latest additions, they survived the national 
 disasters, and claimed a place next to the 
 Psalms. They were but a portion of the 
 literature current in and after the 5 th century 
 B.C., as may be inferred from the epilogue to 
 Ecclesiastes, and the Wisdom of Sirach. The 
 historical work compiled by the chronicle- 
 writer was separated, Ezra being put first 
 as the most important part and referring also 
 to the church of the 6th and 5th centuries 
 whose history had not been written. The 
 Chronicles themselves were placed last, being 
 considered of less value than the first part, 
 as they contained the summary of a period 
 already described, though with numerous 
 adaptations to post-exile times. The youngest 
 portion consisted of the book of Daniel, not 
 written till the Maccabean period (between 170 
 
44 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 and 1 60 B.C.);^ and probably of several 
 Psalms (44, 60, 74, 75, ^6, 79, 80, 83, 89, no, 
 118) which were inserted in different places 
 of the collection to make the whole number 
 150. These late odes savour of the Maccabean 
 time; and are fitly illustrated by the history 
 given in the first book of Maccabees. The list 
 continued open ; dominated by no stringent 
 principle of selection, and with a character 
 somewhat indefinite. It was called dtiibim, 
 
 ^ Talmudic tradition, which attributes the redaction of the 
 book to the men of the great synagogue who are said to have 
 acted under the influence of the divine spirit, separates the 
 three apocryphal pieces from the rest ; but this arose from the 
 desire of discountenancing the idea that the work consists of 
 romance and legend. Such later tradition took curious ways of 
 justifying the canonicity of Daniel and the redaction of it by 
 the great synagogue, ex gr., the assumption that the second 
 part arose out of a series of unconnected MegUoth which were 
 not reduced to chronological order. Still the Midrash main- 
 tains that Daniel, or the person writing in his name, was no 
 prophet, like Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, but a man of 
 visions, an apocalyptist. It was a general belief, that visiom 
 had come into the place of prophecy when the book appeared. 
 The Greek translation could not have been long after the 
 original, because it is used in the First Book of Maccabees. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 45 
 
 i.e.^ writings ; ^ a general epithet suited to the 
 contents. 
 
 Several books put into the third canon, — as 
 Job, Proverbs, the greater number of the Psalms, 
 &c., — existed when the second was made. But 
 the latter collection was pre-eminently /;'^//^^//^/ 
 and it was that idea of the origin and contents 
 of the books in it which regulated its extent. 
 Bloch's supposition that the parts of the third 
 collection then existing were not looked upon as 
 
 The interval between the Hebrew and the Greek was incon- 
 siderable. The translator not only departed from, but added 
 to, the original, inserting such important pieces as the Prayer 
 of Azarias, the Song of the Three Children, the History of 
 Susanna, and that of Bel and the Dragon. Whether any of 
 these had been written before is uncertain. Most of the tradi- 
 tions they embody were probably reduced to writing by the 
 translator, and presented in his peculiar style. The assertion, 
 that Josephus was unacquainted with these additions is hazard- 
 ous, since the way in which he speaks of Daniel's fame (Antiq. 
 X. 1 1, 7)> and especially of the books he wrote (rd ^i^Xia), sup- 
 poses some relation to them. Elsewhere he speaks of ofie book 
 (x. 10, 4 ; xi. 8, 5), where he may have thought of the canoni- 
 cal part. 
 
 ^ D''Ilin3j translated by the Greek ayt.bypa(l>a, hagiographa. 
 
46 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 holy, but merely as productions embodying 
 human wisdom, and were therefore excluded, 
 is improbable. We do not think that an alter- 
 ation of opinion about them in the course of a 
 century or more, by which they became divine 
 and holy instead of human, is a satisfactory 
 explanation. The Psalms of David and the 
 book of Job must have been as highly esteemed 
 in the period of the great synagogue's existence 
 as they were at a later time. Other considera- 
 tions besides the divinity and holiness of books 
 contributed to their introduction into a canon. 
 Ecclesiastes was taken into the third collection 
 because it was attributed to Solomon. The 
 Song of Songs was understood allegorically, — 
 a fact which, in addition to its supposed Solo- 
 monic authorship, determined its adoption. 
 And even after their canonical reception, 
 whether by the great synagogue or another 
 body, the character of books was canvassed. 
 It was so with Ecclesiastes, in spite of the 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 47 
 
 supposed sanction it got from the great syna- 
 gogue contained in the epilogue, added, as 
 some think, by that body to attest the sacred- 
 ness of the book.^ 
 
 While the third canon was being made, the 
 soferim, as the successors of the prophets, were 
 active as before ; and though interpretation was 
 their chief duty, they must have revised and 
 corrected the sacred books to some extent. 
 We need not hesitate to allow that they some- 
 times arranged parts, and even added matter 
 of their own. In the time of the canon's 
 entire preparation, they and the priests, with 
 writers and scholars generally, redacted the 
 national literature, excluding or sanctioning 
 such portions of it as they thought fit. 
 
 1 It has been thought that the phrase DISDi^ v^S i^ the 
 ninth verse alludes to the great council or synagogue. This 
 conjecture is plausible on various grounds. The reasons for 
 attributing the epilogue to a later time than the writer of the 
 book appear to be stronger than those assigning it to the 
 original author. The 13th and 14th verses in particular, are 
 unlike Coheleth. 
 
48 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 At this time appeared the present five-fold 
 partition of the Psalms, preceded as it had been 
 by other divisions, the last of which was very- 
 similar to the one that became final. Several 
 inscriptions and historical notices were prefixed. 
 The inscriptions, however, belong to ver>^ dif- 
 ferent times, their historical parts being usually 
 older than the musical ; and date from the first 
 collection to the period of the Hasmonean 
 college, when the final redaction of the entire 
 Psalter took place. Those in the first three 
 books existed at the time when the latter were 
 made up ; those in the last two were prefixed 
 partly at the time when the collections them- 
 selves were made, and partly in the Maccabean 
 age. How often they are out of harmony with 
 the poems themselves, needs no remark. They 
 are both traditional and conjectural. 
 
 The earliest attestation of the third canon is 
 that of the prologue to Jesus Sirach (130 B.C.), 
 where not only the law and the prophets are 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 49 
 
 specified, but "the other books of the fathers," 
 or " the rest of the books.''^ No information is 
 given as to its extent, or the particular books 
 included. They may have been for the most 
 part the same as the present ones. The passage 
 does not show that the third list was closed. The 
 better writings of the fathers, such as tended to 
 learning and wisdom, are not excluded by the 
 definite article. In like manner, neither Philo 
 nor the New Testament gives exact information 
 as to the contents of the division in question. 
 Indeed, several books. Canticles, Esther, Ecclesi- 
 astes, are unnoticed in the latter. The argu- 
 ment drawn from Matthew xxiii. 35, that the 
 Chronicles were then the last book of the canon, 
 is inconclusive ; as the Zecharlah there named 
 was probably different from the Zechariah in 
 
 •^ TO. &X\a Trdrpia ^i^Xia ; to. \onra tQiv ^t^Xiuy. The younger 
 Sirach does not use ypacpal, which would have been a proper 
 translation of c'tubim. Does not this dXXa imply the non-appli- 
 cation of the specific title c'tubim to the hagiographa at that 
 time, and therefore the idea that the third canon was still open ? 
 D 
 
so THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 2 Chronicles xxiv. None of these witnesses 
 proves that the third canon was finally closed. 
 
 A more definite testimony respecting the 
 canon is given by Josephus towards the end of 
 the first century A.D. "For we have not an 
 innumerable multitude of books among us, 
 . . . . but only twenty-two books, which 
 contain the records of all the past times ; 
 which are justly believed to be divine. And 
 
 of them five belong to Moses But as 
 
 to the time from the death of Moses till the 
 reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, the pro- 
 phets who were after Moses wrote down what 
 was done in their times in thirteen books. 
 The remaining four books contain hymns to 
 God and precepts for the conduct of human 
 life. It is true our history has been written 
 since Artaxerxes very particularly, but has not 
 been esteemed of the like authority with the 
 former by our forefathers, because there has not 
 been an exact succession of prophets since that 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 51 
 
 time : and how firmly we have given credit to 
 these books of our own nation is evident by 
 what we do ; for during so many ages as have 
 already passed, no one has been so bold as 
 either to add anything to them, to take any- 
 thing from them, or to make any change in 
 them ; but it has become natural to all Jews 
 immediately and from their very birth, to 
 esteem these books to contain divine doctrines, 
 and to persist in them, and if occasion be, 
 willingly to die for them."^ This list agrees 
 with our present canon, showing that the 
 Palestinian Jews were tolerably unanimous as 
 to the extent of the collection. The thirteen 
 prophets include Job ; the four lyric and moral 
 books are Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and 
 Canticles. 
 
 It is not likely that the Hasmonaean senate 
 had a long existence. It was replaced by the 
 Sanhedrim, a more definite and state institution, 
 
 ^ Contra Apion, i. 8, 
 
52 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 intended as a counter-balance to the influence 
 of the Hasmonaean princes. The notices of the 
 latter reach no further back than Hyrcanus I., 
 i.e.y about 135 B.C.^ Josephus speaks of it under 
 Hyrcanus II.^ It cannot be referred to an 
 earlier period than Hyrcanus I. Frankel ^ in- 
 deed finds a notice of it in 2 Chronicles xix. 
 8, 1 1 ; but the account there is indistinct, and 
 refers to the great synagogue. The compiler 
 having no certain information about what was 
 long past, transfers the origin of the court he 
 speaks of to Jehoshaphat, in order to glorify 
 the house of David. It is impossible to date 
 the Sanhedrim, with Frankel, in the Grecian 
 era, in which case it must have been dissolved 
 during the Maccabean insurrection, and after- 
 
 ' In Maaser Sheni, Sola 24. i, the duumvirate or suggoth, 
 consisting of the president, Nasi, and vice-president, Ab-beth- 
 din, are referred to Hyrcanus's creation. Zunz affirms that it 
 originated in the time of Simon, son of Mattathias, 142 B.C. 
 
 " Antiq., xiv., 9. 
 
 • Der gerUhtlkJu Beweis^ p. 68. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 53 
 
 wards reconstructed ; it was not constituted till 
 about 130 B.C. Whether it was modelled after 
 the great synagogue or the Hasmonaean senate, 
 is uncertain. The idea of it may have been 
 suggested by the latter rather than the former, 
 for its basis was aristocratic. The Hasmonaean 
 genisia must have been less formal and definite 
 than the Sanhedrim ; though the latter arose 
 before the family ceased to be in power, and 
 differed materially from its predecessor. It 
 continued from 130 B.C. till A.D. 180, surviving 
 the terrible disasters of the nation.^ 
 
 The closing of the third canon cannot be 
 assigned, with Bloch, to the great synagogue. 
 If the college ceased with or before Simon, i.e.^ 
 about 200-192, and the work of Daniel did not 
 appear till about 170 B.C., twenty years at 
 
 1 The ^zx^^^xvax properly so called ceased under R. Judah I., 
 Ha-Nasi, when the council of seventy members which sat at 
 Sepphoris before his patriarchate, transferred its privileges to 
 him, on his removal to that place. The court was then merged 
 in the patriarch. 
 
54 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 least intervened between the extinction of the 
 great synagogue and Daniel's book. This holds 
 good, whether we assume, with Krochmal, the 
 synagogue's redaction of the work, — more cor- 
 rectly the putting together of the independent 
 parts of which it is said to be composed ; or 
 equally so, if the taking of it into the canon as 
 a book already completed be attributed to the 
 same body. But we are unable to see that 
 Krochmal's reasoning about the synagogue put- 
 ting Daniel's work together and one of the 
 members writing the book of Esther is pro- 
 bable. 
 
 In like manner, Maccabean psalms are ad- 
 verse to the hypothesis that the great syna- 
 gogue completed the third canon. In conse- 
 quence of these late productions, it is impossible 
 to assert that the men of the synagogue were 
 the redactors of the Psalter as it is. It is 
 true that the collection was made before the 
 Chronicles and many other books of the hagio- 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 55 
 
 graphical canon ; but the complete Psalter did 
 not appear till the Maccabean period. The 
 canon, however, was not considered to be fin- 
 ally closed in the first century before and the 
 next after Christ. There were doubts about 
 some portions. The book of Ezekiel gave 
 offence, because some of its statements seemed 
 to contradict the law. Doubts about others 
 were of a more serious nature ; about Ecclesi- 
 astes, the Canticles, Esther, and the Proverbs. 
 The first was impugned because it had contra- 
 dictory passages and a heretical tendency ; the 
 second, because of its worldly and sensual tone ; 
 Esther for its want of religiousness ; and Pro- 
 verbs on account of inconsistencies. This 
 scepticism went far to procure the exclusion 
 of the suspected works from the canon, and 
 their relegation to the class of the geimzim> 
 But it did not prevail. Hananiah, son of 
 
 1 DH^22 literally concealed^ ivithdrawn from public use. 
 
56 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 Hezekiah, son of Garon, about 32 B.C., is said to 
 have reconciled the contradictions and quieted 
 the doubts.^ But these traces of resistance to 
 the fixity of the canon were not the last. They 
 reappeared about A.D. 65, as we learn from the 
 Talmud,^ when the controversy turned mainly 
 upon the canonicity of Ecclesiastes, which the 
 school of Shammai, who had the majority, 
 opposed ; so that the book was probably ex- 
 cluded.^ The question emerged again at a 
 later synod at Jabneh or Jamnia, when R. 
 Eleasar ben Asaria was chosen patriarch, and 
 Gamaliel the second deposed. Here it was 
 decided, not unanimously however, but by a 
 majority of Hillelites, that Ecclesiastes and the 
 Song of Songs " pollute the hands," i.e., belong 
 properly to the Hagiographa.* This was about 
 
 ' See Fiirst's Der Kanon des alien Testaments, u.s.7v. pp. 147, 
 148. ' Tract. Sabbat, ch. i. 
 
 ' Because of its profane spirit and Epicurean ideas ; see 
 Adoyot V. 3. * Yadayim v. 3. 
 
7 HE OLD TESTAMENT. 57 
 
 90 A.D.i Thus the question of the canonicity 
 of certain books was discussed at two 
 synods. 
 
 Passages in the Talmud have been adduced 
 to shew that the Shammaite objections to the 
 canonicity of Ecclesiastes " were overruled by 
 the positive declaration from the 72 elders, 
 being a testimony anterior to the Christian era 
 that Coheleth is canonical ; " but they do not 
 support the opinion.^ " The sages " referred 
 to in the treatise Sabbat and elsewhere is a 
 vague expression, resting apparently on no 
 historic tradition — a mere opinion of compara- 
 tively late date. If it refer to the Jerusalem 
 
 ' See Graetz's Kohelet^ pp. 162, 163. 
 
 2 The sages wished to pronounce Coheleth apocryphal, be- 
 cause its statements are contradictory. And why have they not 
 declared it apocryphal ? Because it begins with words of the 
 law, and ends with words of the law, for it opens with the words 
 "What advantage has man in all his labour wherewith he 
 labours under the sun?" &c., &c. — Sabbat. 30b. 
 
 So also in the Midrash : "The sages wished to pronounce 
 Coheleth apocryphal," &c,, &c.— Vayyikra rabba 161 b. 
 
58 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 synod A.D. 65, the Hillelites were simply 
 outnumbered there by the Shammaites. The 
 matter was debated hastily, and determined for 
 the time by a majority. But the synod at 
 Jamnia consisted of 72 persons ; and a passage 
 in the treatise Yadayim refers to it.^ The 
 testimony of the 72 elders to whom R. Simeon 
 ben Asai here alludes, so far from belonging to 
 an ante-christian era, belongs to a date about 
 90 iV.D. And the fact that the synod at Jamnia 
 took up again a question already debated at 
 Jerusalem a.d. 65, proves that no final settle- 
 ment of the canon had taken place before. 
 The canon was virtually settled at Jamnia, 
 where was confirmed what R. Akiba said of the 
 Canticles in his usual extravagant way : " No 
 day in the whole history of the world is of so 
 
 * R. Simeon ben Asai said, ** I have received it from the 
 mouth of the 72 elders in the day that R. Eleasar ben Asaria 
 was appointed elder, that the Song of Songs and Coheleth 
 pollute the hands." — Yadayim v. 3. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 59 
 
 much worth as the one in which the Song of 
 Songs was given to Israel ; for all the Scriptures 
 are holy ; but the Song of Songs is most holy.''^ 
 As the Hagiographa were not read in public, 
 with the exception of Esther, opinions of the 
 Jewish rabbins might still differ about Canticles 
 and Ecclesiastes, even after the synod of Jamnia. 
 In opposition to these remarks, it is stren- 
 uously argued by Bloch that neither the pas- 
 sage in the Mishnic treatise Yadayim, nor any 
 other, refers to the canonical character of the 
 books to which Jewish elders raised several 
 objections. But his arguments are more vehe- 
 ment than valid. Anxious to assign the final 
 settlement of the entire canon to an authorita- 
 tive body like the great synagogue, he affirms 
 that all parties were united in opinion about 
 
 ^ This language was based on a figurative interpretation of the 
 Song. One who said, " Whoever reads such writings as Sirach 
 and the later books loses all part in everlasting hfe," can have 
 no weight. He outheroded the Palestinian tradition respecting 
 the Jewish productions of later origin, which merely affirms that 
 they "do not pollute the hands." — {^Toss. Yadayim^ c 2.) 
 
6o THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 the time of Christ, — Assiim, Perushim, and 
 Zeddukim ; Shammaites and Hillelites. But 
 it requires more than his ingenuity to explain 
 away the meaning of Yadayim 3, 5, Adoyot v. 
 3, Sabbat I. To what did such diversity of 
 opinion relate, if not to the canonical character 
 of the books ? A specific answer to the ques- 
 tion is not given by the learned writer,^ who is 
 too eager in his endeavour to attribute the 
 settlement of the third canon to the great 
 synagogue, and to smooth away all diversities 
 of opinion about several books, after that time, 
 as if none could afterwards question the autho- 
 ritative settlement by that body. He will not 
 even allow a wider canon to the Alexandrian 
 Jews than that of their Palestinian brethren, 
 though he cannot but admit that the former 
 read and highly esteemed various apocryphal 
 books because of their theocratic character. 
 Surely the practical use of writings is an evi- 
 
 ' Siudien zur GeschichU^ u, s. 7v., p. 150, &c. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 6i 
 
 dence of their canonicity as strong as theoretical 
 opinions. 
 
 The doubts about several books to which we 
 have alluded, some of which Hananiah is said 
 to have resolved in his old age, imply a diligent 
 study of the national literature, if not a revision 
 of the text ; and the Tannaite college at Jabneh 
 must have cared for the same things, as it had to 
 deal with similar objections. After the last canon 
 was made more than a century anterior to the 
 Christian era, the text was not considered 
 inviolate by the learned Jews; it received 
 subsequent modifications and interpolations. 
 The process of redaction had not ceased before 
 the time of Christ. This was owing, among 
 other causes, to the state of parties among the 
 Jews, as well as the intrusion of Greek 
 literature and culture, whose influence the 
 Palestinian Jews themselves were not able al- 
 together to withstand. When Jeremiah accused 
 the Scribes of falsifying the law by their lying 
 
62 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 pen (viii. 8), it may be inferred that the same 
 process took place afterwards ; that offensive 
 things were removed, and alterations made 
 continuously down to the close of the canon, 
 and even after. The corrections consisted of 
 additions and changes of letters, being indicated 
 in part by the most ancient versions and the 
 traditions of the Jews themselves who often 
 knew what stood in the text at first, and why 
 it was altered. They are also indicated by the 
 nature of the passage itself viewed in the light 
 of the state of religion at the time. Here 
 sober judgment must guard against unnecessary 
 conjectures. Some changes are apparent, as 
 the plural oaks in Genesis xiii. i8, xiv. 13, 
 xviii. I, Deuteronomy xi. 30, for the singular 
 oak ; and the plural gods in Exodus xxxii. 4 
 for the singular god. So 2 Sam. vii. 23, (comp. 
 I Chron. xvii. 21, and LXX.) \^ and Deuterono- 
 
 » Geiger's Urschrifi, p. 288. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 63 
 
 my xxxii. 8,^ have been altered. Popper and 
 Geiger have probably assumed too much cor- 
 rection on the part of the Scribes and others ; 
 though they have drawn attention to the 
 subject in the spirit of original criticism. 
 
 Jewish literature began to degenerate after 
 the captivity, and it continued to do so. It 
 leant upon the past more and more, having an 
 external and formal character with little of the 
 living soul. The independence of their reli- 
 gious literature disappeared with the national 
 independence of the Jews ; and the genius of 
 the people was too exclusive to receive much 
 expansion from the spirit of nations with whom 
 they came in contact. In such circumstances, 
 amid the general consciousness of present 
 misfortune which the hope of a brighter future 
 could not dispel, and regretful retrospects of 
 the past tinged with ideal splendour, the exact 
 
 ^ See De Goeje in the Theologisch Tijdschriff Jaargang IL 
 (1868) p. 179, &c. 
 
64 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 time of drawing a line between books that 
 might be included in the third division of the 
 canon must have been arbitrary. In the 
 absence of a normal principle to determine 
 selection, the productions were arbitrarily separ- 
 ated. Not that they were badly adjusted. 
 On the contrary, the canon as a whole was 
 settled wisely. Yet the critical spirit of learned 
 Jews in the future could not be extinguished 
 by anticipation. The canon was not really 
 settled for all time by a synodical gathering at 
 Jamnia ; for Sirach was added to the Hagio- 
 grapha by some rabbins about the beginning 
 of the 4th century;^ while Baruch circulated 
 long in Hebrew, and was publicly read on the 
 day of atonement in the third century, accord- 
 ing to the Apostolic constitutions.^ These two 
 books were in high repute for a considerable 
 time, possessing a kind of canonical credit 
 
 * Zunz's Dit gottesdienstlichen Vortragty pp. loi, 102. 
 ' V. 20, p. 124, ed. Ucllzcn. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 65 
 
 even among the learned Jews of Palestine. 
 Rab, Jochanan, Elasar, Rabba bar Mare, 
 occasionally refer to Sirach in the way in 
 which the c'tubim were quoted ; the writer of 
 Daniel used Baruch ; and the translator of 
 Jeremiah put it into Greek. 
 
 If it be asked on what principle books were 
 admitted into the canon, a single answer does 
 not suffice. One and the same criterion did not 
 determine the process at all times. The lead- 
 ing principle with which the first canon-makers 
 set out was to collect all the documents of 
 Hebrew antiquity. This seems to have guided 
 Ezra, if not the great synagogue after him. 
 The nation, early imbued with the theocratic 
 spirit and believing itself the chosen of God, 
 was favourably inclined towards documents in 
 which that standpoint was assumed. The legal 
 and ethical were specially valued. The pro- 
 phetic claimed a divine origin ; the lyric or 
 
 poetic touched and elevated the ideal faculty 
 E 
 
66 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 on which religion acts. But the leading prin- 
 ciple which actuated Ezra and the great syna- 
 gogue was gradually modified, amid the growing 
 compass of the national literature and the con- 
 sciousness that prophecy ceased with Malachi. 
 When the latest part of the canon had to 
 be selected from a literature almost contem- 
 poraneous, regard was had to such produc- 
 tions as resembled the old in spirit. Ortho- 
 doxy of contents was the dominant criterion. 
 But this was a difficult thing, for various works 
 really anonymous, though wearing the garb of 
 old names and histories, were in existence, so 
 that the boundary of the third part became 
 uncertain and fluctuating. 
 
 The principle that actuated Ezra in making 
 the first canon was a religious and patriotic one. 
 From his treatment of the oldest law books we 
 infer that he did not look upon them as inviol- 
 able. Venerable they were, and so far sacred ; 
 but neither perfect nor complete for all time. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 67 
 
 In his view they were not unconditionally- 
 authoritative. Doubtless they had a high value 
 as the productions of inspired lawgivers and 
 men of a prophetic spirit ; but the redaction 
 to which he submitted them shows no super- 
 stitious reverence. With him canonical and 
 holy were not identical. Nor does the idea of 
 an immediate, divine authority appear to have 
 dominated the mind of the great synagogue 
 in the selection of books. Like Ezra, these 
 scholars reverenced the productions of the 
 prophets, poets, and historians to whom their 
 countrymen were indebted in the past for re- 
 ligious or political progress ; but they did not 
 look upon them as the offspring of unerring 
 wisdom. How could they, while witnessing 
 repetitions and minor contradictions in the 
 books collected ? 
 
 The same remarks apply to the third canon. 
 Direct divinity of origin was not the criterion 
 which determined the reception of a book into 
 
68 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 it; but the character and authorship of the 
 book. Did it breathe the old spirit, or 
 proceed from one venerated for his wisdom ? 
 Was it like the old orthodox productions ; or 
 did it bear the name of one renowned for his 
 piety and knowledge of divine things ? The 
 stamp of antiquity was necessary in a certain 
 sense ; but the theocratic spirit was the leading 
 consideration. Ecclesiastes was admitted be- 
 cause it bore the name of Solomon ; and 
 Daniel's apocalyptic writings, because veiled 
 under the name of an old prophet. New 
 psalms were taken in because of their asso- 
 ciation with much older ones in the temple 
 service. Yet the first book of Maccabees 
 was excluded, though written in Hebrew. It 
 is still more remarkable that Sirach was put 
 among the external productions ; but this was 
 owing not so much to its recent origin, for it is 
 older than the book of Daniel, as to its being an 
 apparent echo of the Proverbs, and therefore 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 69 
 
 unnecessary. Yet it was long after assigned to 
 the Hagiographa, and quoted as such by several 
 rabbis. Baruch was also left out, though it is 
 as old as Daniel, if not older; and professes 
 to have been written by Jeremiah's friend, in 
 Babylon. 
 
 That redactors dealt freely with the text of 
 the second and third canons especially, without 
 a superstitious belief in its sacredness, is appar- 
 ent from the double recension which existed 
 when the Egyptian Jews translated the books 
 into Greek. If the one that formed the basis 
 of the Alexandrian version be less correct than 
 the Palestinian in the majority of instances, it is 
 still superior in many. The differences between 
 them, often remarkable, prove that those who 
 had most to do with the books did not guard 
 them as they would have done had they thought 
 them infallibly inspired. Palestinians and Alex- 
 andrians subjected the text to redaction ; or had 
 suffered it to fall into a state inconsistent with 
 
70 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 the assumption of its supernatural origin. At a 
 much later period, the Masoretes reduced to one 
 type all existing copies of their Scriptures, in- 
 troducing an uniformity imperatively demanded 
 in their opinion by multiplied discrepancies. 
 
 Whatever divine character the reflecting at- 
 tributed to the canonical books, it must have 
 amounted to the same thing as that assigned 
 to human attributes and physical phenomena — 
 a divinity resulting from the over-leaping of 
 second causes, in the absence of inductive 
 philosophy. Here the imperfection conditioned 
 by the nature of the created cannot be hid. 
 Yet the books may be truly said to have con- 
 tained the word of God. 
 
 Of the three divisions, the Law or Pentateuch 
 was most highly venerated by the Jews. It 
 was the first translated into Greek; and in 
 Philo's view was inspired in a way peculiar to 
 itself. The Prophets^ or second division, occu- 
 pied a somewhat lower place in their estimation. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 71 
 
 but were read in the public services as the law- 
 had been before. The c'ttibim, or third 
 division, was not looked upon as equal to the 
 Prophets in importance : only the five Megiloth 
 were publicly read. The three parts of the 
 collection present the three gradations of 
 sanctity which the books assumed successively 
 in Israelite estimation. A certain reverence 
 was attached to all as soon as they were made 
 canonical ; but the reverence was not of equal 
 height, and the supposed authority was pro- 
 portionally varied.^ The consciousness of pro- 
 phetism being extinct soon after the return 
 from Babylon, was a genuine instinct. With 
 the extinction of the Jewish state the religious 
 spirit almost evaporated. The idealism which 
 the old prophets proclaimed in contrast with 
 the symbolic religion of the state gave place to 
 forms and an attachment to the written law. 
 
 ^ Dillmann, in the yahrbucher fur deutsche Theologie, drittcr 
 Band, p. 422. 
 
72 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Religion came to be a thing of the understand- 
 ing, the subject of learned treatment; and its 
 essence was reduced to dogmas or precepts. 
 Thus it ceased to be a spiritual element in 
 which the heart had free scope for its highest 
 aspirations. In addition to all, a foreign meta- 
 physical theology, the Persian doctrine of spirits, 
 was introduced, which seemed to enlarge the 
 sphere of speculation, but really retarded the 
 free exercise of the mind. As the external 
 side of religion had been previously directed to 
 the performance of good works, this externality 
 was now determined by a written law. Even 
 the prophetism that appeared after the restora- 
 tion was little more than an echo of the past, 
 falling in with an outward and written legalism. 
 The literature of the people deteriorated in 
 quality, and prophecy became apocalypse. In 
 such circumstances the advent of a new man 
 was needed to restore the free life of religion in 
 higher power. Christ appeared in the fulness 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 73 
 
 of time to do this effectually by proclaiming- the 
 divine Fatherhood, and founding a worship in 
 spirit and hi truth. Rising above the symbolic 
 wrappings of the Mosaic religion, and relying 
 upon the native power of the spirit itself, he 
 shewed how man may mount up to the throne 
 of God, adoring the Supreme without the inter- 
 vention of temple, sacrifice, or ceremony. 
 
 When the three divisions were united, the 
 ecclesiastical respect which had gathered round 
 the law and the prophets from ancient times 
 began to be transferred to the dtubim. A 
 belief in their sanctity increased apace in the 
 1st century before the Christian era, so that 
 sacredness and canonicity were almost identical. 
 The doubts of individuals, it is true, were still 
 expressed respecting certain books of the 
 c'tubim, but they had no perceptible effect 
 upon the current opinion. The sanctity attach- 
 ing to the last division as well as the others did 
 not permit the total displacement of any part. 
 
74 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 The passage in Josephus already quoted 
 shows the state of the canon about A.D. loo. 
 According to it, he considered it to have been 
 closed at the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus, 
 whom he identifies with the Ahasuerus of 
 Esther, 464-424 B.C. The books were divine, 
 so that none dared to add to, substract from, 
 or alter them. To him the canon was some- 
 thing belonging to the venerable past, and 
 inviolable. In other words, all the books were 
 peculiarly sacred. Although we can scarcely 
 think this to be his private opinion merely, 
 it is probably expressed in exaggerated terms, 
 and hardly tallies with his use of the third 
 Esdras in preference to the canonical texts.^ 
 His authority, however, is small. Bloch*s 
 estimate of it is too high. It is utterly impro- 
 bable that Josephus's opinion was universally 
 held by the Jews in his day. His division of 
 the books is peculiar: five Mosaic, thirteen 
 
 * In his Antiq,^ x. 4, 5, and xi. 1-5. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 75 
 
 historical, four containing religious songs and 
 rules of life. It appears, indeed, that as he had 
 the same twenty- two books we now have, Ruth 
 was still attached to Judges, and Lamentations 
 to Jeremiah ; but his credit is not on a par with 
 that of a Jew who adhered to his countrymen 
 in the time of their calamity. He wrote for the 
 Romans. One who believed that Esther was 
 the youngest book in the canon, who looked 
 upon Ecclesiastes as Solomon's, and Daniel as 
 an exile production, cannot be a competent 
 judge. In his time the historical sense of the 
 book of Daniel was misapprehended ; for after 
 the Grecian dynasty had fallen without the 
 fulfilment of the Messianic prophecy connected 
 with it, the Roman empire was put into its 
 place. Hence various allusions in The History 
 of the Jewish Wars.^ The passage in the 
 Antiquities,^ about Alexander the Great and 
 
 ' iv. 6, sec. 3, and vi, 2, sec. i. 
 ^ xi. 8, sec. $. 
 
76 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 the priests in the Temple at Jerusalem is apoc- 
 ryphal. In any case, Josephus does not furnish 
 a genuine list of the canonical books any more 
 than Philo. The Pharisaic view of his time is 
 undoubtedly given, that the canon was then 
 complete and sacred. The decision proceeded 
 from that part of the nation who ruled both 
 over school and people, and regained supremacy 
 after the destruction of the temple ; i.e., from 
 the Pharisee-sect to which Josephus belonged. 
 It was a conclusion of orthodox Judaism. 
 With true critical instinct, Spinoza says that 
 the canon was the work of the Pharisees. The 
 third collection was undoubtedly made under 
 their influence. 
 
 The origin of the threefold division of the 
 canon is not, as Oehler supposes,^ a reflection 
 of the different stages of religious development 
 
 * Article "Kanon" in Herzog's Encyklopadie, vol. vii., p. 
 253; and the same author's Prolegomena zur Theologie des alt. 
 Test., pp. 91, 92. 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 77 
 
 through which the nation passed, as if the 
 foundation were the Law, the ulterior tendency 
 in its objective aspect the Prophets, and its 
 subjective aspect the Hagiographa. The 
 books of Chronicles and others refute this 
 arbitrary conception. The triplicity lies in 
 the manner in which the books were collected. 
 Men who belonged to different periods and 
 possessed different degrees of culture worked 
 successively in the formation of the canon; 
 which arose out of the circumstances of the 
 times, and the subjective ideas of those who 
 made it. 
 
 The places of the separate books within the 
 first division or Torah, were determined by 
 the succession of the historical events narrated. 
 The second division naturally begins with 
 Moses's successor, Joshua. Judges, Samuel, 
 and Kings follow according to the regular 
 chronology. To the former prophets, as Joshua 
 — Kings were called, the latter were attached. 
 
78 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel ; succeeded by 
 the twelve minor prophets, arranged for the 
 most part according to their times, though 
 the length of individual prophecies and simi- 
 larity of contents also influenced their position. 
 The arrangement of books in the third division 
 depended on their age, character, and authors. 
 The Psalms were put first, because David was 
 supposed to be the author of many, and on 
 account of their intrinsic value in promoting 
 the religious life of the people. After the 
 Psalms came the three poetical works attri- 
 buted to Solomon, with the book of Job among 
 them, — Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ecclesiastes. 
 The book of Esther followed, since it was in- 
 tended to further the observance of the Purim 
 feast ; with the late book of Daniel. The 
 position of Daniel among the ciubim arises 
 solely from the fact of its posterior origin to 
 the prophetic writings, not excepting the book 
 of Jonah itself ; and the attempt to account for 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 79 
 
 its place in the third division on the ground of 
 its predominant subjectivity is based on the 
 unfounded assumption that the objective state 
 of religion is represented in the second division 
 and the subjective in the third. Had the book 
 existed before 400 B.C., it would doubtless have 
 stood in the second division. But the contents 
 themselves demonstrate its date ; contemporary 
 history being wrapped in a prophetic form. 
 Having some affinity to Esther as regards 
 heathenism and Greek life, the book was put 
 next to the latter. To Ezra and Nehemiah, 
 which were adopted before the other part of 
 the Chronicle-book and separated from it, 
 were added the so-called Chronicles. Such 
 was the original succession of the third division 
 or dtubim; but it did not remain unaltered. 
 For the use of the synagogue the five Megiloth 
 were put together; so that Ruth, which was 
 originally appended to Judges, and the 
 Lamentations affixed at first to Jeremiah's 
 
8o THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 prophecies, were taken out of the second 
 and put into the third canon. This caused 
 a separation of Canticles and Ecclesiastes. 
 The new arrangement was made for liturgical 
 purposes. 
 
CHAPTER HI. 
 
 THE SAMARITAN AND ALEXANDRIAN 
 CANONS. 
 
 The Samaritan canon consists of the 
 Pentateuch alone. This restricted collection 
 is owing to the fact, that when the Samaritans 
 separated from the Jews and began their 
 worship on Gerizim, no more than the Mosaic 
 writings had been invested by Ezra with 
 canonical dignity. The hostile feeling be- 
 tween the rivals hindered the reception of 
 books subsequently canonized. The idea of 
 their having the oldest and most sacred part 
 in its entirety satisfied their spiritual wants. 
 Some have thought that the Sadducees, who 
 already existed as a party before the Maccabean 
 
 period, agreed with the Samaritans in rejecting 
 F 
 
82 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 all but the Pentateuch ; yet this is doubtful. It 
 is true that the Samaritans themselves say so ;^ 
 and that some of the church fathers, Crigen, 
 Jerome, and others agree; but little reliance 
 can be put on the statement. The latter, 
 perhaps, confounded the Samaritans and Sad- 
 ducees. It is also noteworthy that Christ in 
 refuting the Sadducees appeals to the Penta- 
 teuch alone ; yet the conclusion, that he did so 
 because of their admitting no more than that 
 portion does not follow. 
 
 The Alexandrian canon differed from the 
 Palestinian. The Greek translation commonly 
 called the Septuagint contains some later pro- 
 ductions which the Palestinian Jews did not 
 adopt, not only from their aversion to Greek 
 literature generally, but also from the recent 
 origin of the books, perhaps also their want of 
 prophetic sanction. The closing line of the third 
 part in the Alexandrian canon was more or less 
 
 ' See Abulfatach's Annal, Samar.^ p. 102, 9, &c. 
 
SAMARITAN &- ALEXANDRIAN CANONS. 83 
 
 fluctuating — capable of admitting recent writ- 
 ings appearing under the garb of old names and 
 histories, or embracing religious subjects ; while 
 the Palestinian collection was pretty well 
 determined, and all but finally settled. The 
 judgment of the Alexandrians was freer than 
 that of their brethren in the mother country. 
 They had even separated in a measure from 
 the latter, by erecting a temple at Leontopolis ; 
 and their enlargement of the canon was 
 another step of divergence. Nor had they the 
 criterion of language for the separation of 
 canonical and uncanonical ; both classes were 
 before them in the same tongue. The enlarged 
 canon was not formally sanctioned ; it had not 
 the approval of the Sanhedrim ; yet it was to 
 the Alexandrians what the Palestinian one was 
 to the Palestinians. If Jews who were not well 
 acquainted with Hebrew used the apocryphal 
 and canonical books alike, it was a matter of 
 feeling and custom ; and if those who knew the 
 
84 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 old language better adhered to the canonical 
 more closely, it was a matter of tradition 
 and language. The former set little value on 
 the prevalent consciousness of the race that the 
 spirit of prophecy was extinct; their view of 
 the Spirit's operation was larger. The latter 
 clung to the past with all the more tenacity 
 that the old life of the nation had degenerated. 
 The Alexandrian Jews opened their minds to 
 Greek culture and philosophy, appropriating 
 new ideas, and explaining their Scriptures in 
 accordance with wider conceptions of the divine 
 presence ; though such adaptation turned aside 
 the original sense. Consciously or unconsciously 
 they were preparing Judaism in some degree to 
 be the religion of humanity. But the Rabbins 
 shut out those enlarging influences, confinihg 
 their religion within the narrow traditions of 
 one people. The process by which they con- 
 served the old belief helped to quench its spirit, 
 so that it became an antique skeleton, powerless 
 
SAMARITAN &- ALEXANDRIAN CANONS. 85 
 
 beside the new civilisation which had followed 
 the wake of Alexander's conquests. Rabbinical 
 Judaism proved its incapacity for regenerating 
 the world ; having no affinity for the philosophy 
 of second causes, or for the exercise of reason 
 beneath the love of a Father who sees with equal 
 eye as God of all. Its isolation nourished a 
 sectarian tendency. Tradition, having no crea- 
 tive power like revelation, had taken the place 
 of it ; and it could not ward off the senility of 
 Judaism ; for its creations are but feeble echoes 
 of prophetic utterances, weak imitations of poetic 
 inspiration or of fresh wisdom. They are of the 
 understanding rather than the reason. The tra- 
 dition which Geiger describes as the life-giving 
 soul of Judaism — the daughter of revelation, 
 enjoying the same rights with her mother — a 
 spiritual power that continues ever to work — an 
 emanation from the divine Spirit — is not, indeed, 
 the thing which has stiffened Judaism into Rab- 
 binism ; but neither is it tradition proper ; it is 
 
86 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 reason working upon revelation, and moulding 
 it into a new system. Such traditio7t serves but 
 to show the inability of genuine Judaism to 
 assimilate philosophic thought. Rationalising 
 should not be styled the operation of tradition. 
 The truth of these remarks is evident from a 
 comparison of two books, exemplifying Alexan- 
 drian and Palestinian Judaism respectively. 
 The Wisdom of Solomon shows the enlarging 
 effect of Greek philosophy. Overpassing Jew- 
 ish particularism, it often approaches Christi- 
 anity in doctrine and spirit, so that some^ have 
 even assumed a Christian origin for it. The 
 Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach has not the doc- 
 trine of immortality. Death is there an eternal 
 sleep, and retribution takes place in this life. The 
 Jewish theocracy is the centre of history ; Israel 
 the elect people ; and all wisdom is embodied in 
 the law. The writer is shut up within the old 
 national ideas, and leans upon the writings in 
 Kirschbaum, Weisse, and Noack. 
 
SAMARITAN ^ ALEXANDRIAN CANONS. 87 
 
 which they are expressed. Thus the H agio- 
 graphical canon of Judea, conservative as it is, 
 and purer in a sense, presents a narrower type 
 than the best specimens of the Alexandrian one. 
 The genial breath of Aryan culture had not ex- 
 panded its Semitism. 
 
 The identity of the Palestinian and Alexan- 
 drian canons must be abandoned, notwithstand- 
 ing the contrary arguments of Eichhorn and 
 Movers. It is said, indeed, that Philo neither 
 mentions nor quotes the Greek additions; but 
 neither does he quote several canonical books. 
 According to Eichhorn, no fewer than eight 
 of the latter are unnoticed by him.^ Besides, 
 he had peculiar views of inspiration, and quoted 
 loosely from memory. Believing as he did in 
 the inspiration of the Greek version as a 
 whole, it is difficult to think that he made 
 a distinction between the different parts of 
 it. In one passage he refers to the sacred 
 
 1 Einleiiung in das alte Testament, vol. i. p. 133. 
 
THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 books of the Therapeutae, a fanatical sect of 
 Jews in Egypt, as ^^ laws^ oracles of prophets y 
 hymns and other books by which knowledge and 
 piety are increased and perfected,"^ but this 
 presents little information as to the canon of 
 the Egyptian Jews generally ; for it is precari- 
 ous argumentation to say with Herbst that they 
 prove a twofold canon. Even if the Alex- 
 andrian and Palestinian canons be identical, we 
 cannot be sure that the otiier books which the 
 Therapeutae read as holy besides the law, the 
 propliets and hymns, differed from the hagio- 
 grapha, and so constituted another canon than 
 the general Egyptian one. It is quite possible 
 that the hymns mean the Psalms ; and the 
 other books, the rest of the hagiographa. 
 The argument for the identity of the two 
 canons deduced from 4 Esdras xiv. 44, &c., 
 as if the twenty-four open books were dis- 
 tinguished from the other writings dictated to 
 1 De vita contemplativa, 0pp. Tom. ii., p. 475, ed. Mangey. 
 
SAMARITAN &= ALEXANDRIAN CANONS. 89 
 
 Ezra, is of no force, because verisimilitude 
 required that an Egyptian Jew himself must 
 make Ezra conform to the old Palestinian 
 canon. It is also alleged that the grandson of 
 Jesus Sirach, who translated his grandfather's 
 work during his abode in Egypt, knew no 
 difference between the Hebrew and Greek 
 canon, though he speaks of the Greek version ; 
 but he speaks as a Palestinian, without having 
 occasion to allude to the difference between the 
 canonical books of the Palestinian and Egyptian 
 Jews. The latter may have reckoned the 
 apocryphal writings in the third division ; and 
 therefore the translator of Jesus Sirach could 
 recognise them in the ordinary classification. 
 The mention of three classes is not opposed to 
 their presence in the third. The general use 
 of an enlarged canon in Egypt cannot be 
 denied, though it was somewhat loose, not re- 
 garded as a completed collection, and without 
 express rabbinical sanction. If they did not 
 
90 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 formally recognise a canon of their own, as De 
 Wette says of them, they had and used one 
 larger than the Palestinian, without troubling 
 themselves about a y^r;«^/ sanction for it by a 
 body of Rabbis at Jerusalem or elsewhere. 
 Their canon was not identical with that of the 
 Palestinians, and all the argumentation founded 
 upon Philo's non-quotation of the apocryphal 
 books fails to prove the contrary. The very way 
 in which apocryphal are inserted among canonical 
 books in the Alexandrian canon, shows the equal 
 rank assigned to both. Esdras first and second 
 succeed the Chronicles ; Tobit and Judith are 
 between Nehemiah and Esther ; the Wisdom of 
 Solomon and Sirach follow Canticles ; Baruch 
 succeeds Jeremiah ; Daniel is followed by Sus- 
 anna and other productions of the same class ; 
 and the whole closes with the three books of Mac- 
 cabees. Such is the order in the Vatican MS. 
 
 The threefold division of the canon, in- 
 dicating three stages in its formation, has 
 
SAMARITAN &- ALEXANDRIAN CANONS. gt 
 
 continued. Josephus, indeed, gives another, 
 based on the nature of the separate books, 
 not on MSS. We learn nothing from him 
 of its history, which is somewhat remark- 
 able, considering that he did not live two 
 centuries after the last work had been added. 
 The account of the canon's final arrangement 
 was evidently unknown to him. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 NUMBER AND ORDER OF THE SEPARATE 
 BOOKS. 
 
 The number of the books was variously es- 
 timated. Josephus gives twenty-two, which was 
 the usual number among Christian writers in the 
 second, third, and fourth centuries, having been 
 derived perhaps from the letters of the Hebrew 
 alphabet. Origen, Jerome, and others have it. 
 It continued longest among the teachers of the 
 Greek Church, and is even in Nicephorus's 
 stichometry.^ The enumeration in question 
 has Ruth with Judges, and Lamentations with 
 Jeremiah. In Epiphanius^ the number twenty- 
 seven is found, made by taking the alphabet 
 
 * See Credner's Zur Geschichte des Kanons^ p. 124. 
 
 * De mens, et pond.^ chapters 22, 23, vol. ii. p. 180, ed. 
 Petav. 
 
ORDER OF THE SEPARATE BOOKS. 93 
 
 enlarged with the five final letters, and dividing 
 Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles into two books 
 each. This is probably an ingenious combina- 
 tion belonging to the father himself. The 
 Talmud has twenty-four,^ a number which did 
 not originate in the Greek alphabet, else the 
 Palestinian Jews would not have adopted it. 
 The synagogue did not fix it officially. After the 
 Pentateuch and the former prophets, which are 
 in the usual order, it gives Jeremiah as the first of 
 the later, succeeded by Ezekiel and Isaiah with 
 the twelve minor prophets. The Talmud knows 
 no other reason for such an order than that it was 
 made according to the contents of the prophetic 
 books, not according to the times of the writers. 
 This solution is unsatisfactory. It is more 
 probable that chronology had to do with the 
 arrangement.2 After the anonymous collection 
 or second part of Isaiah had been joined to the 
 
 1 Baba Batkra, fol. 14, 2. 
 
 ^ See Furst, Der Kanon u. s. w. p. 14, &c. 
 
94 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 first or authentic prophecies, the lateness of 
 these oracles brought Isaiah into the third place 
 among the greater prophets. The Talmudic 
 order of the Hagiographa is Ruth, Psalms, Job, 
 Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Lamentations, 
 Daniel, Esther, Ezra, Chronicles. Here Ruth 
 precedes the Psalter, coming as near the former 
 prophets as possible ; for it properly belongs to 
 them, the contents associating it with the 
 Judges' time. The Talmudic order is that 
 usually adopted in German MSS. What is the 
 true estimate of it .-* Is it a proper Talmudic 
 regulation t Perhaps not, else the Hebrew MSS. 
 of the French and Spanish Jews would not so 
 readily have departed from it. Bloch supposes 
 that Baba Bathra, which gives the arrangement 
 of the books, is one of the apocryphal Boraithas 
 that proceeded from an individual teacher and 
 had no binding authority.^ 
 
 * Studien sur Geschuhte der alttestamentliche Literatur, u. s. 
 jv.t p. 1 8, etc. 
 
ORDER OF THE SEPARATE BOOKS. 95 
 
 The Masoretic arrangement differs from the 
 Talmudic in putting Isaiah before Jeremiah and 
 Ezekiel. The Hagiographa are, Psalms, Pro- 
 verbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, 
 Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra (with Nehe- 
 miah), Chronicles.^ This is usually adopted in 
 Spanish MSS. But MSS. often differ arbi- 
 trarily, because transcribers did not consider 
 themselves bound to any one arrangement.^ 
 According to some, a very old testimony to the 
 commencing and concluding books of the 
 third division is given by the New Testa- 
 ment (Luke xxiv. 44; Matthew xxiii. 35), 
 agreeably to which the Psalms were first 
 and the Chronicles last; but this is incon- 
 clusive. 
 
 The Alexandrian translators, as we have 
 seen already, placed the books differently from 
 
 ^ Hody, De Bibliorum iexiibus originalibuSf p. 644. 
 ^ Hody gives lists of the order in which the books stand in 
 some early printed editions and in a few MSS., p. 645. 
 
96 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 the Palestinian Jews. In their version Daniel 
 comes after Ezekiel, so that it is put beside the 
 greater prophets. Was this done by Jews or 
 Christians } Perhaps by the latter, who put it 
 between the greater and lesser prophets, or in 
 other words, out of the third into the second 
 division, because of dogmatic grounds, and so 
 effaced a trace of the correct chronology. 
 Little importance, however, can be attached to 
 the order of the books in the Septuagint ; 
 because the work was done at different times 
 by different persons. But whatever may have 
 been the arrangement of the parts when 
 the whole was complete, we know that it 
 was disturbed by Protestants separating the 
 apocryphal writings and putting them all 
 together. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BY THE FIRST 
 CHRISTIAN WRITERS, AND BY THE FATHERS 
 • TILL THE TIME OF ORIGEN. 
 
 The writings of the New Testament show 
 the authors' acquaintance with the apocryphal 
 books. They have expressions and ideas 
 derived from them. Stier collected one hundred 
 and two passages which bear some resemblance 
 to others in the Apocrypha;^ but they needed 
 sifting, and were cut down to a much smaller 
 number by Bleek. They are James i. 19, from 
 Sirach v. 11 and iv. 29; i Peter i. 6, 7, from 
 Wisdom iii. 3-7 ; Hebrews xi. 34, 35, from 
 2 Maccabees vi. 18 — vii. 42; Hebrews i. 3, from 
 Wisdom vii. 26, &c. ; Romans i. 20-32, from 
 
 ^ Die Apokryphen^ u. s. lu,, p. 14, &c. 
 G 
 
98 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Wisdom xiii.-xv. ; Romans ix. 21, from Wisdom 
 XV. 7; Eph. vi. 13-17, from Wisdom v. 18-20; 
 I Cor. ii. 10, &c., from Judith viii. 14. Others 
 are less probable.^ When Bishop Cosin says, 
 that " in all the New Testament we find not 
 any one passage of the apocryphal books to 
 have been alleged either by Christ or His 
 apostles for the confirmation of their doctrine,"^ 
 the argument, though based on fact, is scarcely 
 conclusive; else Esther, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, 
 and other works might be equally discredited. 
 Yet it is probable that the New Testament 
 writers, though quoting the Septuagint much 
 more than the original, were disinclined to the 
 additional parts of the Alexandrian canon. 
 They were Palestinian themselves, or had in 
 view Judaisers of a narrow creed. Prudential 
 motives, no less than a predisposition in favour 
 of the old national canon, may have hindered 
 
 » Siudtm und Kritiknt for 1853, p. 267, &c. 
 • A Scholasiicol History of lh( Canotty p. 22. 
 
CHRISTIAN USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 99 
 
 them from expressly citing any apocryphal 
 production. The apostle Paul and probably 
 the other writers of the New Testament, 
 believed in the literal inspiration of the 
 Biblical books, for he uses an argument in 
 the Galatian epistle which turns upon the 
 singular or plural of a noun.^ And as the 
 inspiration of the Septuagint translation was 
 commonly held by the Christians of the early 
 centuries, it may be that the apostles and 
 evangelists made no distinction between its 
 parts. Jude quotes Enoch, an apocryphal work 
 not in the Alexandrian canon ; so that he at 
 
 ^ See Rothe, Zur Doginatik, Studien u. Kritiken for i860, 
 p. 67, &c. The apostle's argument rests on the occurrence of 
 the singular {seed, <nripiia) in Genesis xvii. 8 (LXX.), not the 
 plural {seeds, o-jripixaTa) ; though the plural of the corresponding 
 Hebrew word could not have been used, because it has a dif- 
 ferent signification. Grammatical inaccuracy is made the basis 
 of a certain theological interpretation. Those who wish to see 
 a specimen of laboured ingenuity unsuccessfully applied to the 
 justification of St Paul's argument in this passage, may consult 
 Tholuck's Das alte Testament in neuem Testament, p. 63, etc, 
 Vierte Auflage. (Epist. to the GaUtians iii. 16.) 
 
loo THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 least had no rigid notions about the difference 
 of canonical and uncanonical writings. Still 
 we know that the compass of the Old Testa- 
 ment canon was somewhat unsettled to the 
 Christians of the first century, as it was to the 
 Hellenist Jews themselves. It is true that the 
 Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms were 
 universally recognized as authoritative; but 
 the extent of the third division was indefinite, 
 so that the non-citation of the three books 
 respecting which there was a difference of 
 opinion among the Jews may not have been 
 accidental. Inasmuch, however, as the Greek- 
 speaking Jews received more books than their 
 Palestinian brethren, the apostles and their 
 immediate successors were not wholly disin- 
 clined to the use of the apocryphal productions. 
 The undefined boundary of the canon facilitated 
 also the recognition of all primitive records of 
 the new Revelation. 
 
 The early fathers, who wrote in Greek, used the 
 
CHRISTIAN USE OF THRyet^D '-'f'^SJ:ji1!^FJjn X6i 
 
 Greek Bible, as almost all of them were ignorant 
 of Hebrew. Thus restricted, they naturally con- 
 sidered its parts alike, citing apocryphal and 
 canonical in the same way. Accordingly, Iren- 
 aeus^ quotes Baruch under the name of "Jere- 
 miah the prophet; "2 and the additions to 
 Daniel as " Daniel the prophet."^ Clement 
 of Alexandria^ uses the apocryphal books 
 like the canonical ones, for explanation 
 and proof indiscriminately. He is fond of 
 referring to Baruch, which he cites upwards of 
 twenty-four times in the second book of his 
 PcedagoguSy and in a manner to show that he 
 esteemed it as highly as many other parts of 
 the Old Testament. A passage from Baruch 
 is introduced by the phrase,^ "the divine 
 Scripture says ; " and another from Tobit 
 
 ^ t 202 A.D. 
 
 ^ Advers. Hares. ^ v. 35, referring to Barach iv. 36; and v. p. 
 335, ed. Massuet. 
 3 Ibid, iv., 26, referring to Daniel xiii. 20 in the Septuagint. 
 •* t 220 A.D. * Pixdagog. ii. 3. 
 
lik* : :•* ; l''TH£ 'CA^k^'QP ^^^ BIBLE. 
 
 by 1 " Scripture has briefly signified this, 
 saying." Assuming that Wisdom was written by 
 Solomon, he uses it as canonical and inspired, 
 designating it divine? Judith he cites with other 
 books of the Old Testament^ ; and the Song of 
 the three children in the furnace is used as 
 Scripture.4 Ecclesiasticus also is so treated.^ 
 Dionysius of Alexandria^ cites Ecclesiasticus 
 (xvi. 26), introducing the passage with "hear 
 divine oracles." '^ The same book is elsewhere 
 cited, chapters xliii. 29, 30® and i. 8. 9.^ So is 
 Wisdom, vii. 15^® and 25." Baruch (iii. 12-15) is 
 also quoted.^2 -p^g fathers who wrote in Latin 
 used some of the old Latin versions of which 
 Augustine speaks ; one of them, and that the 
 
 ' Stromata, ii. 23. * Stromata, iv. 16. ^ Ibid^ ii. 7. 
 
 * Ex Script, prophet, eclogae^ c. i. 
 
 ' Stromateis, ii. 15. • t 264 A. D. 
 
 ^ De Natura ; RoutH's Reliquicu Sacraey vol. iv. p. 356. 
 
 * Fragmtnt. Nicet.^ in Reliq. Sacrae^ vol. ii. p. 404. 
 
 » Ibid., p. 407. JO Ibid., p. 406. 
 
 *J Epiitola ad. Dionys. Roman^ in Reliq. Sacr.^ vol. iii. p. 195. 
 J*- Reliq. SJcr., vol. ii. p. 408. 
 
CHRISTIAN USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 103 
 
 oldest, probably dating soon after the middle of 
 the second century, being known to us as the 
 Itala. As this was made from the Septuagint, 
 it had the usual apocryphal books. Jerome's 
 critical revision or new version did not sup- 
 plant the old Latin till some time after his 
 death. Tertullian^ quotes the Wisdom of 
 Solomon expressly as Solomon's ;^ and intro- 
 duces Sirach by "as it is written."^ He cites 
 Baruch as Jeremiah.* He also believes in the 
 authenticity of the book of Enoch, and defends 
 it as Scripture at some length.^ Cyprian often 
 cites the Greek additions to the Palestinian 
 canon. He introduces Tobit with the words 
 "as it is written,"*^ or "divine Scripture teaches, 
 saying ;"^ and Wisdom with, " the Holy Spirit 
 shows by Solomon."^ Ecclesiasticus is intro- 
 
 ' t 220 A.D. 2 Advtrs. Valentinianos, ch. 2. 
 
 ^ De Exhortatione Castitatis^ ch. 2. 
 
 ■* Contra GnosHcos, ch. 8. ^ De Habitu Muliebri, ch. 3. 
 
 « Epist. 55, p. no, ed. Fell. "< De Orat. Domin., p. 153. 
 ^ De Exhortat. Martyrii, ch. 12, p. 182. 
 
104 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 duced with, " it is written;"^ and Baruch with, 
 " the Holy Spirit teaches by Jeremiah."^ i and 
 2 Maccabees are used as Scripture;^ as are the 
 additions to Daniel."^ The African fathers fol- 
 low the Alexandrian canon without scruple. 
 Hippolytus of Rome (about A.D. 220), who 
 wrote in Greek, quotes Baruch as Scripture;^ 
 and interprets the additions to Daniel, such as 
 Susanna, as Scripture likewise. 
 
 Melito of Sardis^ made it his special 
 business to inquire among the Palestinian 
 Jews about the number and names of their 
 canonical books; and the result was the 
 following list : — the five books of Moses, Joshua, 
 Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of 
 Chronicles, the Psalms of David, the Proverbs 
 of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, 
 Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the twelve in one book, 
 
 » De Mortal, p. i6i. ^ De Orat. Dovim., p. 141. 
 
 3 Testim. iii. 4, p. 62. ■* De Lapsis, p. 133, &c. 
 
 » Adv. Noet. V. « See Migne's edition, p. 689, &c. 
 ' t After 171. 
 
CHRISTIAN USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 105 
 
 Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra.^ Here Ezra includes 
 Nehemiah; and Esther is absent, because the 
 Jews whom he consulted did not consider it 
 canonical. 
 
 Origen's2 list does not differ much from the 
 Palestinian one. After the Pentateuch, Joshua, 
 Judges, Ruth, Kings first and second, Samuel, 
 Chronicles, come Ezra first and second. Psalms, 
 Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Isaiah, Jere- 
 miah with Lamentations and the epistle, Daniel, 
 Ezekiel, Job, Esther. Besides these there are 
 the Maccabees, which are inscribed Sar'beth 
 Sarbane el? The twelve prophets are omitted 
 in the Greek ; but the mistake is rectified in 
 Rufinus's Latin version, where they follow 
 Canticles, as in Hilary and Cyril of Jerusalem. 
 It is remarkable that Baruch is given, and why ? 
 Because Origen took it from the MSS. of the 
 Septuagint he had before him, in which the 
 
 ^ Ap. Euseb. H. E., lib. iv. ch. 26, - f 254 a.u. 
 
 3 Ap. Euseb. H. E., ]ib. vi. ch. 25. 
 
io6 THE CANON OP THE BIBLE. 
 
 epistle is attributed to Jeremiah. But the 
 catalogue had no influence upon his practice. 
 He followed the prevailing view of the extended 
 canon. Sirach is introduced by "for this also 
 is written'' ;^ the book of Wisdom is cited as a 
 divine word ;^ the writer is called a prophet ;^ 
 Christ is represented as speaking in it throtigh 
 Solomon;^ and Wisdom vii. 17 is adduced as 
 the words of Christ Himself > Tobit is cited as 
 Scripture!" His view of the additions to the 
 books of Daniel and Esther, as well as his 
 opinion about Tobit, are sufficiently expressed 
 in the epistle to Africanus, so that scattered 
 quotations from these parts of Scripture can 
 be properly estimated. Of the history of 
 Susanna he ventures to say that the Jews 
 
 * Comment, in ydann., torn, xxxii. ch. 14, ed. Huet. p. 409. 
 
 * Contra Cels. iii. 72 ; vol. i. p. 494, ed. Delarue. 
 ' In Exodus^ Horn. vi. i ; Levit. Horn. v. 2. 
 
 * In Levit. y Horn. xii. 4. 
 
 * In Lukam, Horn. 2 1 . 
 
 " De Oraiione^ ii. p. 215. 
 
CHRISTIAN USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 107 
 
 withdrew it on purpose from the people.^ He 
 seems to argue in favour of books used and 
 read in the churches, though they may be put 
 out of the canon by the Jews. As divine 
 Providence had preserved the sacred Scriptures, 
 no alteration should be made in the ecclesi- 
 astical tradition respecting books sanctioned by 
 the churches though they be external to the 
 Hebrew canon. 
 
 Most of the writings of Methodius Bishop of 
 Tyre^ are lost, so that we know little of his 
 opinions respecting the books of Scripture. 
 But it is certain that he employed the Apo- 
 crypha like the other writings of the Old Testa- 
 ment. Thus Sirach (xviii. 30 and xix. 2) is 
 quoted in the same way as the Proverbs.^ 
 Wisdom (iv. 1-3) is cited,^ and Baruch (iii. 14).^ 
 
 ^ 0pp. ed. Delarue, vol. i. p. 12. 
 
 = t3ii. 
 
 ^ Convivium decent vii'ginum, in Combefis's Auctarium bib- 
 liothecae Grsecorum patrum, p. 69. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 69. ^ Ibid., p. 109. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON IN THE FIRST 
 THREE CENTURIES. 
 
 The first Christians relied on the Old Testa- 
 ment as their chief religious book. To them it 
 was of divine origin and authority. The New 
 Testament writings came into gradual use, by 
 the side of the older Jewish documents, accord- 
 ing to the times in which they appeared and the 
 names of their reputed authors. The Epistles of 
 Paul were the earliest written ; after which came 
 the Apocalypse, the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 and other documents, all in the first century. 
 After the first gospel had undergone a process 
 of translation, re-writing, and interpolation, from 
 the Aramaic basis, the discoiirses^ of which 
 
 ^ tA X67£a. Ap. Euseb. II. E. iii. 39. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 109 
 
 Papias of Hierapolis speaks, until the traces of 
 another original than the Greek were all but 
 effaced ; it appeared in its present form early 
 in the second century. Soon after that of Luke 
 was composed, whose prevailing Pauline tend- 
 ency was not allowed to suppress various features 
 of a Jewish Essene type. The second gospel, 
 which bears evidences of its derivation from the 
 other synoptists, was followed by the fourth. 
 The last document was the so-called second 
 Epistle of Peter. It is manifest that tradition 
 assumed various forms after the death of Jesus; 
 that legend and myth speedily surrounded His 
 sacred person; that the unknown writers were 
 influenced by the peculiar circumstances in 
 which they stood with respect to Jewish and 
 Gentile Christianity ; and that their uncritical 
 age dealt considerably in the marvellous. That 
 the life of the great Founder should be overlaid 
 with extraneous materials, is special matter for 
 regret. However conscientious and truth-lov- 
 
no THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 ing they may have been, the reporters were un- 
 equal to their work. It is also remarkable that 
 so many of them should be unknown ; produc- 
 tions being attached to names of repute to give 
 them greater currency. 
 
 When Marcion came from Pontus to Rome 
 (144 A.D.,) he brought with him a Scripture- 
 collection consisting of ten Pauline epistles. 
 With true critical instinct he did not include 
 those addressed to Timothy and Titus, as also 
 the epistle to the Hebrews. The gospel of 
 Marcion was Luke's in an altered state. From 
 this and other facts we conclude that external 
 parties were the first who carried out the idea 
 of collecting Christian writings, and of putting 
 them either beside or over against the sacred 
 books of the Old Testament, in support of 
 their systems. As to Basilides (125 A.D.), his 
 supposed quotations from the New Testament 
 in Hippolytus are too precarious to be trusted.^ 
 
 ' Davidson's Introduction to the Study of the N, Testam.t vol, 
 X. p. 388. 
 
THE NE W TES TA ME NT CANON. 1 1 1 
 
 Testimonies to the "acknowledged" books of 
 the New Testament as Scripture have been 
 transferred from his followers to himself; so 
 that his early witness to the canon breaks 
 down. It is inferred from statements in Origen 
 and Jerome that he had a gospel of his 
 own somewhat like St Luke's, but extra - 
 canonical. His son Isidore and succeeding 
 disciples used Matthew's gospel. Jerome says 
 that Marcion and Basilides denied the Pauline 
 authorship of the epistle to the Hebrews 
 and the pastoral ones.^ It is also doubtful 
 whether Valentinus's (140-166 A.D.) alleged 
 citations from the New Testament can be relied 
 upon. The passages of this kind ascribed to 
 him by the fathers belong in a great measure 
 to his disciples. The fragment of a letter pre- 
 served by Clement of Alexandria in the second 
 book of tlie Stromata, has been thought to 
 contain references to the gospels of Matthew 
 
 ' Explanatio in Epist. ad Titum^ vol. iv. p. 407, ed. Benedict. 
 
112 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 and Luke; but the fact is doubtful. Nor has 
 Henrici proved that Valentinus used John's 
 gospel.^ But his followers, including Ptolemy 
 (180A.D.) and Heracleon (185-200 A.D.), quote 
 the Gospels and other portions of the New 
 Testament.^ From Hippolytus's account of 
 the Ophites, Peratae, and Sethians, we infer 
 that the Christian writings were much employed 
 by them. They rarely cite an apocryphal 
 work. More than one hundred and sixty 
 citations from the New Testament have been 
 gathered out of their writings.^ We may admit 
 that these Ophites and Peratae were of early 
 origin, the former being the oldest known of 
 the Gnostic parties ; but there is no proof that 
 the acquaintance with the New Testament 
 
 * Die Valentinianische Gnosis und die halite Schrift, p. 75. 
 
 • A good deal of manipulation has been needlessly employed 
 for the purpose of placing these heretics as early as possible ; 
 but nothing definite can be extracted from Irenceus's notices of 
 them. Hippolytus's use of the present tense, in speaking of them, 
 renders it probable that they were nearly his contemporaries. 
 
 ^ See the Indexes to Duncker and Schneidewin's edition. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 113 
 
 which Hippolytus attributes to them belongs 
 to the first rather than the second half of the 
 second century. The early existence of the 
 sect does not show an early citation of the 
 Christian books by it, especially of John's 
 gospel; unless its primary were its last stage. 
 Later and earlier Ophites are not distinguished 
 in the Philosophumena. Hence there is a pre- 
 sumption that the author had the former in 
 view, which is favoured by no mention of them 
 occurring in the " Adversus omnes Hsereses" 
 usually appended to Tertullian's PrcBscriptiones 
 Hcereticorum, and by Irenaeus's derivation of 
 their heresy from that of Valentinus. The 
 latter father does not even speak of the Peratae. 
 Clement of Alexandria is the first who alludes 
 to them. The early heretics were desirous of 
 confirming their peculiar opinions by the 
 writings current among Catholic Christians, so 
 that the formation of a canon by them began 
 
 soon after the commencement of the second 
 H 
 
114 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 century, and continued till the end of it ; con- 
 temporaneously with the development of a 
 Catholic Church and its necessary adjunct a 
 Catholic canon. 
 
 No New Testament canon, except a partial 
 and unauthoritative one, existed till the latter 
 half of the second century, that is, till the idea 
 of a Catholic church began to be entertained. 
 The living power of Christianity in its early 
 stages had no need of books for its nurture. 
 But in the development of a church organiza- 
 tion the internal rule of consciousness was 
 changed into an external one of faith. The 
 Ebionites or Jewish Christians had their 
 favourite Gospels and Acts. The gospel of 
 Matthew was highly prized by them, existing 
 as It did in various recensions, of which the 
 gospel according to the Hebrews was one. 
 Other documents, such as the Revelation of 
 John ; and the preaching of Peter, a Jewish- 
 Christian history subsequently re-written and 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 115 
 
 employed in the Clementine Recognitions and 
 Homilies, were also in esteem. Even so late 
 as 175-180 A.D., Hegesippus, a Jewish Christian, 
 does not seem to have had a canon consisting 
 of the four gospels and Paul's Epistles, but 
 appeals to " the law and the prophets and l/ic' 
 Lord!' so that his leading principle was, 
 the identity of Jesus's words with the Old 
 Testament ; agreeably to the tenets of the 
 party he belonged to. The source whence 
 he drew the words of Jesus was probably 
 the Gospel according to the Hebrews, a 
 document which we know he used, on the 
 authority of Eusebius. He does not refer to 
 Paul except by implication in a passage 
 given in Photius from Stephen Gobar,^ where 
 he says that such as used the words " Eye 
 hath not seen, nor ear heard," &c., falsi- 
 fied the Divine Scriptures and the Lord's 
 words, " Blessed are your eyes for they see," 
 
 ^ Bibliotheca, cod. 232. 
 
116 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 &c. As Paul quoted the condemned language, 
 he is blamed.^ Though he knew Paul's epistles, 
 he does not look upon them as authoritative. 
 He betrays no acquaintance with the fourth 
 gospel ; for the question, " What is the door 
 to Jesus ? " does not presuppose the knowledge 
 of John X. 2, 7, 9. Nosgen has failed to prove 
 Hegesippus's Jewish descent ; and Holtzmann's 
 mediating view of him is incorrect.2 
 
 ^ It is an unfounded assumption that Paul cited the passage 
 by ** mere accident " ; on the contrary, he gives it as canonical, 
 with "as it is written " (i Corinth, ii. 9). It may be that the 
 Gnostics are referred to as using the objectionable passage ; but 
 it is special pleading to limit it to them, when I'aul has ex- 
 pressly used the same, deriving it either from Isaiah Ixiv. 4, or 
 some unknown document ; just as it is special pleading to iden- 
 tify 6 KjJ/)io5 standing beside vbixo% koX Trpo<pT]Tai, with t/ie N^cw 
 Testament. The word excludes Paul's Epistles from the canon ; 
 nor is there any evidence to the contrary, as has been alleged, 
 in the two Syriac epistles attributed to Clement, which Wet- 
 stein published. Comp. Eusebius's H. E. iv. 22, Photius's 
 Bibliotheca^ 232. Apologists have laboured to prove Hegesip- 
 pus an orthodox Catholic Christian, like Irenaeus j but in vain. 
 He was a Jewish Christian of moderate type, holding inter- 
 course with Pauline Christians at the time when the Catholic 
 Church was being formed. 
 
 « Sec HilgenfeWs Zdtschrift for 1875-1878, 
 
THE NE W TESTAMENT CANON. 1 1 7 
 
 The Clementine Homilies (161-180 A.-D. 
 used the four canonical gospels even the 
 fourth (which is somewhat singular in a 
 writer who denies the deity of Christ), and 
 assigned it to the apostle John. The gospel 
 according to the Egyptians was also em- 
 ployed. Paul's epistles were rejected of course, 
 as well as the Acts ; since the apostle of 
 the Gentiles was pointed at in Simon Magus, 
 whom Peter refutes. It is, therefore, obvious 
 that a collection of the New Testament 
 writings could make little progress among the 
 Ebionites of the second century. Their rever- 
 ence for the law and the prophets hindered 
 another canon. Among the Gentile Christians 
 the formation of a canon took place more 
 rapidly, though Judaic influences retarded it 
 even there. After Paul's epistles were inter- 
 changed between churches a few of them would 
 soon be put together. A collection of this kind 
 is implied in 2 Peter iii. 16. The pastoral 
 
iiS THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 epistles, which show their dependence on the 
 authentic Pauline ones, with those of Peter, 
 presuppose a similar collection ; which, along 
 with the Synoptists, existed before the fourth 
 gospel. The Apocalypse and the epistle to the 
 Hebrews were obnoxious to the Pauline 
 churches, as Paul's letters were to the Jewish- 
 Christian ones. Hence the former were outside 
 the Pauline collections. 
 
 The apostolic fathers quote from the Old 
 Testament, which was sacred and inspired to 
 them. They have scarcely any express cita- 
 tions from the New Testament. Alhismis 
 occur, especially to the epistles. 
 
 The first Epistle of Clement to the Corin- 
 thians (about 120 A.D.), implies acquaintance 
 with several of the epistles, with those to the Cor- 
 inthians, Romans, Hebrews, and perhaps others. 
 Two passages have also been adduced as de- 
 rived from the gospels of Matthew and Luke, 
 viz.,' in chapters xiii. 2 and xlvi. 8 ; but pro- 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 119 
 
 bably some other source supplied them, such as 
 oral tradition. It has also been argued 
 that the quotation in the fifteenth chapter, 
 "The Scripture says somewhere, This people 
 honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is 
 far from me," comes from Mark vii. 6 in which 
 it varies from the Hebrew of Isaiah xxix. 13, 
 as well as the Septuagint version. Clement 
 therefore, so it is said, quotes the Old Testa- 
 ment through the medium of the gospels 
 (Matthew xv. 8, Mark vii. 6). But the argu- 
 ment is inconclusive because the words agree 
 closely enough with the Septuagint to render 
 the supposition very probable that they are a 
 memoriter citation from it. As they stand, 
 they coincide exactly neither with Mark nor 
 the Septuagint.^ Thus we dissent from the 
 opinion of Gebhardt and Harnack. Wher- 
 ever " Scripture " is cited, or the expres- 
 
 ^ There is SiTreaTLv instead of the Septuagint's and Mark's 
 (Tischend.) dfrex^i. 
 
120 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 sion "it is written" occurs, the Old Testa- 
 ment is meant. 
 
 Hermas (about 140 a.d.) seems to have used 
 the epistle to the Ephesians and perhaps that 
 to the Hebrews, as well as the epistle of James; 
 but there is great uncertainty about the matter, 
 for there is no express or certain quotation from 
 any part of the New Testament. The writer 
 often alludes to words of Jesus, found in 
 Matthew's gospel, so that he may have been 
 acquainted with it. Keim^ and others have dis- 
 covered ;-eferences to the fourth gospel; but they 
 are invalid. There is no allusion to the Acts in 
 vis. iv. 2, 4. The only Scripture cited is the 
 apocryphal book Eldat and Modat, now lost.^ 
 The writer seems to have known several Jewish 
 Apocalypses.3 
 
 » Gesckichte Jesu von Nazara, vol. i, p. 144. 
 
 =' See Vision 11. 3, 4, with the prolegomena of De Gebhardt 
 and Hamack, p. Ixxiii. 
 
 ' See Iloltzmann in Hilgenfeld's Zdtschrift for 1875, P- 40» 
 &c. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON 121 
 
 Barnabas (about 119 A.D.) has but one quota- 
 tion from the New Testament, if, indeed, it be 
 such. Apparently, Matthew xx. 16 or xxii. 
 14 is introduced by "as it is written," showing 
 that the gospel was considered Scriptiire> This 
 is the earliest trace of canonical authority being 
 transferred from the Old Testament to Christian 
 writings. But the citation is not certain. The 
 original may be 4 Esdras viii. 3 ; and even if 
 the writer took the words from Matthew's 
 gospel, it is possible that he used " it is 
 written " with reference to their prototype in 
 the Old Testament. Of such interchanges 
 examples occur in writers of the second 
 century ; and it is the more probable that this 
 is one, from the fact that 4 Esdras is elsewhere 
 considered a prophet and referred to in the same 
 way as Ezekiel.^ Barnabas's citation of a 
 gospel as canonical is wholly improbable, since 
 
 ^ Epist. ch. iv. 
 
 ^ Chapter xii. pp. 30, 31, ed. 2, Hilgenfeld. 
 
THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 even Justin, thirty years after, never quotes the 
 New Testament writings as Scripture. The 
 thing would be anomalous and opposed to the 
 history of the first half of the second centur>^ 
 When these post-apostolic productions appeared, 
 the New Testament writings did not stand on 
 the same level with the Old, and were not 
 yet esteemed sacred and inspired like the Jewish 
 Scriptures. The Holy Spirit was thought to 
 dwell in all Christians, without being confined 
 to a few writers ; and his influence was the 
 common heritage of believers. There are evi- 
 dences of Barnabas's acquaintance with the 
 Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians ; nor 
 is it improbable that he knew the canonical 
 gospel of Matthew, though one passage appears 
 to contradict Matthew xxviii. lo, &c., without 
 necessarily implying ignorance of what lies in 
 it, viz., that the ascension of Jesus took place on 
 the day of his resurrection.^ Strangely enough, 
 
 ^ .Sec Chapter xv. end, with Tlilgenfcld's note, Barnabac cpis- 
 
 tula ed. altera ^ pp. Ii8, 119. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON, 123 
 
 Keim thinks that the writer had John's gospel 
 before him ; but this opinion is refuted by the 
 end of Barnabas's fifth chapter.^ Holtzmann 
 has ably disposed of the considerations ad- 
 duced by Keim.^ Barnabas quotes the book 
 of Enoch as Scripture;'^ and an apocryphal 
 prophecy is introduced with, " another pro- 
 phet says." 4 
 
 As far as we can judge from Eusebius's account 
 of Papias ^ (about 150 A.D.), that writer knew noth- 
 ing of a New Testament canon. He speaks 
 
 ^ Epis. p. 13 ed. Hilgenfeld. 
 
 2 Zeitschrift fur wisscnschaftlichc Thcologic, 1871, p. 336, 
 etc. 
 
 3 Chapters xvi. and iv. In the former the reference is to 
 Enoch Ixxxix. 56, 66, 67, but the latter is not in the present 
 book of Enoch, though Hilgenfeld thinks he has discovered it 
 in Ixxxix. 61-64 and xc. 17. {Dillmann's Das Buck Henoch, pp. 
 61, 63). Was another apocryphal Jewish book current in the 
 time of Barnabas, under the name of Enoch ; or did he con- 
 found one document with another, misled by the Greek trans- 
 lation of an apocalyptic work which had fallen into discredit ? 
 See Hilgenfeld's Barnabae Epistula, ed. 2 pp. 77, 78. 
 
 '* Chapter xi. 
 
 5 Hist. Eccles. iii. 39. 
 
124 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 of Matthew and Mark ; but it is most pro- 
 bable that he had documents which either 
 formed the basis of our present Matthew and 
 Mark, or were taken into them and written 
 over/ According to Andreas of Caesarea he 
 was acquainted with the Apocalypse of John ; 
 while Eusebius testifies to his knowledge of 
 I Peter and i John. But he had no conception 
 of canonical authority attaching to any part of 
 the New Testament. His language implies 
 
 * A small body of literature originating in the fragment of 
 Papias preserved by Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. iii., 39, 1-4) has 
 appeared ; though it is difficult to obtain satisfactory conclusions. 
 Not only have Weiffenbach and Leimbach written treatises on 
 the subject, but other scholars have entered into it more or less 
 fully, — Zahn, Steitz, Riggenbach, Hilgenfeld, Lipsius, Keim, 
 Martens, Loman, Holtzmann, Hausrath, Tietz, and Lightfoot. 
 The fragment is not of great weight in settling the authenticity 
 of the four gospels. Indirectly indeed it throws some light on 
 the connection of two evangelists with written memoirs of the 
 life of Jesus ; but it rather suggests than solves various matters 
 of importance. It is tolerably clear that the gospels, if such they 
 may be called, of which he speaks as written by Matthew and 
 Mark, were not identical with the works now existing under the 
 names of these evangelists ; and that no safe conclusion can be 
 drawn from Papias's silence about John's and Luke's as not 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 125 
 
 the opposite, in that he prefers unwritten tra- 
 dition to the gospel he speaks of. He neither 
 felt the want nor knew the existence of inspired 
 gospels. 
 
 We need not notice the three short Syriac 
 epistles attributed to Ignatius, as we do not 
 believe them to be his, but of later origin. 
 Traces of later ideas about the canonicity of 
 the New Testament appear in the shorter Greek 
 recension of the Ignatian epistles (about 175 
 
 then in existence. Neither the present gospels nor any other 
 had been converted into Scripture ; since he regarded oral tradi- 
 tions as more credible than written memoirs. Those who hold 
 that the presbyter John was none other than the apostle, Euse- 
 bius having misunderstood the fragment and made a different 
 John from the apostle, as well as the critics who deduce from 
 the fragment the fact that John suffered martyrdom in Palestine, 
 have not established these conclusions. Papias refers to the 
 material he got for explaining the \oyia, rather than the source 
 whence they were drawn. But whether he learnt directly from 
 the elders, or indirectly as the preposition (Trapa) would seem 
 to indicate, and whether the sentence beginning with ' ' What 
 Andrew," &c., {rt 'Avdpiai k. t. X.) stands in apposition to the 
 "words of the elders," (roiis rCov Trpea^vTipuvXdyovs) or not, are 
 things uncertain. 
 
126 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 A.D.) There tJie Gospel and the Apostles are 
 recognized as the constituents of the book.^ 
 The writer also used the Gospel according to 
 the Hebrews, for there is a quotation from it in 
 the epistle to the Smyrnians.^ The second part 
 of the collection seems to have wanted the 
 epistle to the Ephesians.^ The two leading 
 parties, long antagonistic, had now become 
 united ; the apostles Peter and Paul being 
 mentioned together.-* In the Testaments of 
 the twelve patriarchs (about 170 AD.), Paul's 
 life is said to be described in " holy books," i.e., 
 his own epistles and the Acts.^ 
 
 Justin Martyr (150 A.D.) knew the first and 
 third of the synoptic gospels. His use of 
 Mark's does not appear. His knowledge of 
 
 ' Epist. ad Philadelph., ch. 5. See Hefele's note on the pas- 
 sage. The other well-known passage in chapter viii. is too 
 uncertain in reading and meaning to be adduced here. 
 
 * Chapter iii. * To the Ephesians, chapter xii. 
 
 ■• Epist. ad Romanosy iv. 
 
 ^ Testam. Bcnj. 11, p. 201, ed. Sinker. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 127 
 
 the fourth is denied by many, and zealously 
 defended by others. Thoma finds proofs 
 that Justin knew it well, and used it freely 
 as a text-book of gnosis, without recognizing 
 it as the historical work of an apostle ; an 
 hypothesis encumbered with difficulties.^ What- 
 ever be said about Justin's acquaintance with 
 this gospel ; its existence before 140 A.D. is 
 incapable either of decisive or probable proof ; 
 and this father's Logos-doctrine is less de- 
 veloped than the Johannine, because it is en- 
 cumbered with the notion of miraculous birth 
 by a virgin. The Johannine authorship has 
 receded before the tide of modern criticism ; 
 and though this tide is arbitrary at times, it is 
 here irresistible. Apologists should abstain 
 from strong assertions on a point so difficult, as 
 that each "gospel is distinctly recognized by 
 him ;" for the noted passage in the dialogue 
 
 ^ Zeitschfift fur wissenschafiliche Theologie, 1875, p. 490, 
 ft seq. 
 
128 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 with Trypho does not support them.^ It is 
 pretty certain that he employed an extra- 
 canonical gospel, the so-called gospel of the 
 Hebrews. This Petrine document may be re- 
 ferred to in a passage which is unfortunately 
 capable of a double interpretation.^ He had 
 also the older Acts of Pilate. Paul's epistles 
 are never mentioned, though he doubtless knew 
 them. Having little sympathy with Paulinism 
 he attached his belief much more to the primi- 
 tive apostles. The Apocalypse, i Peter, and 
 I John he esteemed highly ; the epistle to the 
 Hebrews and the Acts he treated in the same 
 
 ' 'Ev Toij &iroixvr}fxove{>ixa(Ti, & tp'OI^'' '^"'i tQv dToarSXujv airroO 
 Kal tQu iKeivois irapaKokovd-qadvTUiv <TvvT€TdxOai. Sec 1 03. 
 Here "the apostles" are not necessarily Matthew and John. 
 Apocryphal gospels then current bore the name of apostles or 
 their attendants, — of Peter, James, Nicodemus, Matthias, &c. 
 
 ' Kai t6 clireiv /xeTjupo/xaKivai airrbv U^rpop Kal yeypdtpOai 
 iu Toty dirOfjLi>TjfjLOueOjj.a(Ti avrou yeyevrjixhov Kal toOto, fierd toO 
 Kal, K.T.X. Dial, cum Tryph., 106. Here the pronoun airroG 
 probably refers to Peter. And the expression "his memoirs" 
 can hardly mean Mark's gospel, since Jerome is the first that 
 calls it such. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 129 
 
 way as the Pauline writings. Justin's canon, as 
 far as divine authority and inspiration are con- 
 cerned, was the Old Testament. He was 
 merely on the threshold of a divine canon 
 made up of primitive Christian writings, and 
 attributed no exclusive sanctity to those he used 
 because they were not to him the only source of 
 doctrine. Even of the Apocalypse he says, " A 
 man among us named John, &c., wrote it."^ In 
 his time none of the gospels had been canonized, 
 not even the synoptists, if, indeed, he knew 
 them all. Oral tradition was the chief fountain 
 of Christian knowledge, as it had been for a 
 century. In his opinion this tradition was 
 embodied in writing ; but the documents in 
 which he looked for all that related to Christ 
 were not the gospels alone. He used others 
 freely, not looking upon any as inspired; 
 for that idea could arise only when a selection 
 
 1 Dialogus, part ii., p. 315, ed. Thirlby. Comp, on Justin, 
 Tjeenk-Willink's yustinus Martyr in zijne Verhouding tot 
 Paulus, 
 
 I 
 
130 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 was made among the current documents. He 
 regarded them all as having been written down 
 from memory, and judged them by criteria of 
 evidence conformable to the Old Testament 
 Scriptures. Though lessons out of Gospels 
 (some of our present ones and others), as also 
 out of the prophets, were read in assemblies on 
 the first day of the week,^ the act of converting 
 the Christian writings into Scripture was pos- 
 terior ; for the mere reading of a gospel in 
 churches on Sunday does not prove that it was 
 considered divinely authoritative; and the use 
 of the epistles, which formed the second and 
 less valued part of the collection, must still 
 have been limited. 
 
 Justin's disciple, Tatian (i 60- 1 80 A.D.), wrote 
 a Diatessaron or harmony of the gospels, which 
 began, according to Ephrem Syrus, with John 
 i. I ; but our knowledge of it is uncertain. The 
 author omitted the genealogies of Jesus and 
 
 * Apolog, i. 97, cd. Thirlby. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 131 
 
 everything belonging to His Davidic descent. 
 He seems also to have put into it particu- 
 lars derived from extra-canonical sources such 
 as the Gospel according to the Hebrews. 
 Doubtless he was acquainted with Paul's 
 writings, as statements made in them are 
 quoted ; but he dealt freely with them ac- 
 cording to Eusebius, and even rejected 
 several epistles, probably first and second 
 Timothy.^ 
 
 In Polycarp's epistle (about 160 A.D.), which 
 is liable to strong suspicions of having been 
 written after the death of the bishop,^ there are 
 reminiscences of the synoptic gospels ; and 
 most of Paul's epistles as well as i Peter were 
 used by the writer. But the idea of canonical 
 authority, or a peculiar inspiration belonging to 
 these writings, is absent. 
 
 ^ Hieronymi Prooem. in Epist. ad Tiium. 
 
 2 Comp. chap, xii., where ypa(f}al is applied to the apostolic 
 epistles ; a title they did fnot receive so early as the age of 
 Polycarp. Zahn himself admits this. 
 
132 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 The author of the second Clementine epistle 
 (about 150-160) had not a New Testament canon 
 made up of the four gospels and epistles. His 
 Scripture was the Old Testament, to which is 
 applied the epithet "the Books" or "the Bible;" 
 and the words of Christ. " The Apostles " imme- 
 diately subjoined to " the Books," does not mean 
 the New Testament, or a special collection of the 
 apostolic epistles, as has been supposed.^ The 
 preacher employed a gospel or gospels as Scrip- 
 ture ; perhaps those of Matthew and Luke, not 
 the whole documents, but the parts containing 
 the words of Christ.^ He also used the Gospel 
 of the Egyptians as an authoritative document, 
 and quoted his sources freely. With the 
 Johannine writings he seems to have been 
 unacquainted.^ 
 
 Athenagoras of Athens wrote an apology 
 addressed to Marcus Aurelius (176 A.D.) In it 
 
 * Chapter xiv. 2. ' Chapter ii. 4. 
 
 • See dementis Romani ad Corinthios quae dicuntur epis- 
 tulacy ed, de CMardt (t Harnack 2., sec. 10, Prolegomena, 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON 133 
 
 he uses written and unwritten tradition, testing 
 all by the Old Testament which was his only- 
 authoritative canon. He makes no reference to 
 the Christian documents, but adduces words of 
 Jesus with the verb " he says." It is not clear 
 whether he quoted from the Synoptics ; perhaps 
 the passages which are parallel to Matthew v. 
 44, 45, 46,^ and Mark x. 6,^ were taken from 
 these ; but the matter is somewhat uncertain. 
 His treatise on the resurrection appeals to a 
 passage in one of Paul's epistles.^ 
 
 Dionysius of Corinth (170 A.D.) complains of 
 the falsification of his writings, but consoles 
 himself with the fact that the same is done to 
 the "Scriptures of the Lord," i.e., the gospels 
 containing the Lord's words ; or rather the two 
 parts of the early collection, " the gospel " and 
 " the apostle " together ; which agrees best with 
 the age and tenor of his letters.* If such be 
 
 ^ Legal, pro Christ. 11, 12. '^ Ibid. 33. 
 
 3 Chapter xviii. ^ Ap. Euseb. H.E., iv. 23. 
 
134 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 the meaning, the collection is put on a par with 
 the Old Testament, and regarded as inspired. 
 
 In the second epistle of Peter (about A.D. 170) 
 Paul's epistles are regarded as Scripture (iii. 16.) 
 This seems to be the earliest example of the 
 canonising of any New Testament portion. 
 Here a brotherly recognition of the Gentile 
 apostle and his productions takes the place of 
 former opposition. A false interpretation of 
 his epistles is even supposed to have induced 
 a departure from primitive apostolic Christianity. 
 
 The letter of the churches at Vienne and 
 Lyons (177 A.D.) has quotations from the epistles 
 to the Romans, Philippians, I Timothy, i Peter, 
 Acts, the gospels of Luke and John, the 
 Apocalypse. The last is expressly called 
 Scripture} This shows a fusion of the two 
 original tendencies, the Petrine and Pauline ; 
 and the formation of a Catholic church with a 
 common canon of authority. Accordingly, the 
 
 ' Ap. Euseb. H.E., v. i, p. 144, ed. Bright. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 135 
 
 two apostles, Peter and Paul, are mentioned 
 together. 
 
 Theophilus of Antioch (180 A.D.) was familiar 
 with the gospels and most of Paul's epistles, 
 as also the Apocalypse. Passages are cited 
 from Paul as " the divine word."^ He ascribes 
 the fourth gospel to John, calling him an inspired 
 man, like the Old Testament prophets.^ We 
 also learn from Jerome that he commented 
 on the gospels put together by way of 
 harmony.^ 
 
 The author of the epistle to Diognetus (about 
 200 A.D.) shows his acquaintance with the 
 gospels and Paul's epistles ; but he never cites 
 the New Testament by way of proof. Words 
 are introduced into his discourse, in passing and 
 from memory."* 
 
 ^ ^6105X6705. Ad Atitolycum, iii. 14, p. 1141, eel Migne. 
 
 2 Ibid., ii. 22. 3 Epist. 151, ad Algasiam. 
 
 ^ See Overbeck's Studien zur Geschichte der alien Kirche, 
 Abhandlung I., in which the date of the letter is brought down 
 till after Constantine. Sm^ely this is too late. 
 
136 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 The conception of a Catholic canon was 
 realized about the same time as that of a 
 Catholic church. One hundred and seventy 
 years from the coming of Christ elapsed before 
 the collection assumed a form that carried with 
 it the idea of holy and inspired} The way in 
 which it was done was by raising the apostolic 
 writings higher and higher till they were of 
 equal authority with the Old Testament, so 
 that the church might have a rule of appeal. 
 But by lifting the Christian productions up to 
 the level of the old Jewish ones, injury was 
 done to that living consciousness which feels 
 the opposition between spirit and letter; the 
 latter writings tacitly assuming or keeping the 
 character of a perfect rule even as to form. 
 The Old Testament was not brought down to 
 the New ; the New was raised to the Old. It 
 is clear that the earliest church fathers did not 
 
 ^ Davidson's Introduction to the Study of the New Testa- 
 ment, vol. ii. p. 508, &c. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 137 
 
 use the books of the New Testament as sacred 
 documents clothed with divine authority, but 
 followed for the most part, at least till the 
 middle of the second century, apostolic tradition 
 orally transmitted. They were not solicitous 
 about a canon circumscribed within certain 
 limits. 
 
 In the second half, then, of the second 
 century there was a canon of the New Testa- 
 ment consisting of two parts called the gospel^ 
 and the apostle? The first was complete, con- 
 taining the four gospels alone ; the second, which 
 was incomplete, contained the Acts of the 
 Apostles and epistles, i.e.y thirteen letters of Paul^ 
 one of Peter, one of John, and the Revelation. 
 How and where this canon originated is un- 
 certain. Its birthplace may have been Asia 
 Minor, like Marcion's; but it may have grown 
 about the same time in Asia Minor, Alexandria, 
 and Western Africa. At all events, Irenseus, 
 
138 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian agree 
 in recognizing its existence. 
 
 Irenaeus had a canon which he adopted as 
 apostolic. In his view it was of binding force 
 and authoritative. This contained the four 
 gospels, the Acts, thirteen epistles of Paul, the 
 first epistle of John, and the Revelation. He 
 had also a sort of appendix or deutero-canon, 
 which he highly esteemed without putting it 
 on a par with the received collection, consisting 
 of John's second epistle, the first of Peter, and 
 the Shepherd of Hermas. The last he calls 
 Scripture} The epistle to the Hebrews, that 
 of Jude, James's, second Peter, and third John 
 he ignored. 
 
 Clement's collection was more extended than 
 Irenaeus*. His appendix or deutero-canon 
 included the epistle to the Hebrews, 2 John, 
 Jude, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Shepherd 
 of Hermas, the Epistles of Clement and Barna- 
 
 ^ Advers. Hcres.y iv. 20, 2. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON 139 
 
 bas. He recognised no obligatory canon, dis- 
 tinct and of paramount authority. But he 
 separated the New Testament writings by their 
 traditionally apostolic character and the degree 
 of importance attached to them. He did not 
 attach the modern idea of canonical in opposi- 
 tion to non-canonical^ either to the four gospels 
 or any other part of the New Testament. 
 Barnabas is cited as an apostle.^ So is the 
 Roman Clement.^ The Shepherd of Hermas is 
 spoken of as divine? Thus the line of the Homo- 
 logoumena is not marked off even to the same 
 extent as in Irenaeus. 
 
 Tertullian's canon consisted of the gospels, 
 Acts, thirteen epistles of Paul, the Apocalypse, 
 and I John. As an appendix he had the 
 epistle to the Hebrews, that ofjude, the 
 Shepherd of Hermas, 2 Jolm probably, and i 
 Peter. This deutero-canon was not regarded 
 
 1 Stromateis, ii. 6, p. 965, ed. Migne. 
 
 - Ibid., iv. 17, p. 1 31 2. 3 Ibid., i. 29, p. 928. 
 
I40 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 as authoritative. No trace occurs in his works 
 of James' epistle, 2 Peter, and 3 John. He 
 used the Shepherd, calling it Scripture} without 
 implying, however, that he put it on a par 
 with the usually acknowledged canonical writ- 
 ings ; but after he became a Montanist, he re- 
 pudiated it as the apocryphal Shepherd of 
 adulterers, "put among the apocryphal and 
 false by every council of the churches." 2 It 
 was not J however, reckoned among the spurious 
 and false writings, either at Rome or Carthage, 
 in the time of Tertullian. It was merely placed 
 outside the universally received works by the 
 western churches of that day. 
 
 These three fathers did not fix the canon 
 absolutely. Its limits were still unsettled. 
 But they sanctioned most of the books now 
 accepted as divine, putting some extra-canonical 
 productions almost on the same level with the 
 rest, if not in theory at least in practice. 
 
 ^ Dc Oratioftf, cap. 12. * De Fudtcitia, cap. 10-20. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON 141 
 
 The canon of Muratori is a fragmentary list 
 which was made towards the end of the 2d 
 century (170 A.D.) Its birthplace is uncertain, 
 though there are traces of Roman origin. Its 
 translation from the Greek is assumed, but that 
 is uncertain. It begins with the four gospels in 
 the usual order, and proceeds to the Acts, 
 thirteen epistles of Paul, the epistles of John, 
 that of Jude, and the Apocalypse. The epistle 
 to the Hebrews, I and 2 Peter, i John and 
 James are not named. The Apocalypse of 
 Peter is also mentioned, but as not universally 
 received. Of the Shepherd of Hermas, it is 
 stated that it may be read in the Church. The 
 epistle " to the Laodiceans " may either be that 
 to the Ephesians, which had such superscription 
 in Marcion's canon, or less probably the sup- 
 posititious epistle mentioned in the codex Boer- 
 nerianus,^ after that to Philemon, and often re- 
 
 1 G. of St Paul's epistles, a MS, of the ninth century ac- 
 cording to Tischendorf. 
 
142 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 ferred to in the middle ages.^ That " to the 
 Alexandrians " is probably the epistle to the 
 Hebrews ; though this has been denied with- 
 out sufficient reason. According to the usual 
 punctuation, both are said to have been forged 
 in Paul's name, an opinion which may have 
 been entertained among Roman Christians 
 about 170 A.D. The Epistle to the Hebrews 
 was rejected in the west, and may have 
 been thought a supposititious work in the in- 
 terests of Paulinism, with some reason because 
 of its internal character,^ which is at least semi- 
 Pauline, though its Judaistic basis is apparent. 
 The story about the origin of the fourth gospel 
 with its apostolic and episcopal attestation, 
 evinces a desire to establish the authenticity of 
 
 ' See Anger's Ueber den Laodicener Brief, 1843. 
 
 ' Fertur etiavi ad Latuiecetices alia ad Alexandrinos Fault 
 mmitte fincte ad hesem Marcionis et alia plura gtta in Catholi- 
 cam ecclesiam recepi mn poteU. Perhaps a comma should be 
 put after nomine, and Jinde joined to what follows, to the alia 
 plura said to be forged in the interest of Marcion. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON 143 
 
 a work which had not obtained universal ac- 
 ceptance at the time.i It is difficult to make out 
 the meaning in various places; and there is con- 
 siderable diversity of opinion among expositors 
 of the document.2 In accord with these facts we 
 find Serapion bishop of the church at Rhossus, 
 in Cilicia,^ allowing the public use of the gospel 
 of Peter;* which shews that there was no ex- 
 clusive gospel-canon at the end of the second 
 century, at least in Syria. The present canon 
 had not then pervaded the churches in general. 
 What is the result of an examination 
 of the Christian literature belonging to the 
 
 ^ Quarti evangelioruvi yohannis ex discipiilis cohortantibus 
 condiscipulis et episcopis stiis dixit conjejutiate mihi odie triduo 
 et quid cuique fuerit revelatum alterutrum nobis ennarremus 
 eadem node revelatum Andrece ex apostolis ut recogniscentibus 
 cunctis Johannis suo nomine cuticta discriberet. 
 
 2 It is printed and largely commented on by Credner in his 
 Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanon edited by Volkmar, p. 
 141, &c., and by Westcott On the Canon, Appendix C, p. 466. 
 2d edition. Many others have explained it ; especially Hilgen- 
 feld. 
 
 3 About A.D. 190. < Euseb. H. E. vi. 12. 
 
144 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 second century ? Is it that a canon was then 
 fixed, separating some books from others by a 
 line so clear, that those on one side of it were 
 alone reckoned inspired, authoritative, of apos- 
 tolic origin or sanction ; while those on the other 
 were considered uninspired, unauthoritative, 
 without claim to apostolicity, unauthentic ? 
 Was the separation between them made on any 
 clear principle of demarcation ? It cannot be 
 said so. The century witnessed no such fact, 
 but merely the incipient efforts to bring it about. 
 The discriminating process was begun, not 
 completed. It was partly forced upon the 
 prominent advocates of a policy which sought 
 to consolidate the Jewish and Gentile-Christian 
 parties, after the decline of their mutual anta- 
 gonism, into a united church. They were glad 
 to transfer the current belief in the infallible 
 inspiration of the Old Testament, to selected 
 Christian writings, as an effective means of 
 defence against those whom they considered 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 145 
 
 outside a new organisation — the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 The stichometrical list of the Old and New 
 Testament Scriptures in the Latin of the 
 Clermont MS. (D), was that read in the African 
 Church in the 3rd century. It is peculiar. 
 After the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 
 and the historical books, follow Psalms, Proverbs, 
 Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, Sirach, the 
 twelve minor prophets, the four greater ; three 
 books of the Macabbees, Judith, Esdras, Esther, 
 Job, and Tobit. In the New Testament, the 
 four gospels, Matthew, John, Mark, Luke, are 
 succeeded by ten epistles of Paul, two of Peter, 
 the epistle of James, three of John, and that of 
 Jude. The epistle to the Hebrews (character- 
 ized as that of Barnabas), the Revelation of 
 John, Acts of the Apostles ; the Shepherd of 
 Hermas, the Acts of Paul, the Revelation of 
 Peter, follow. The last three constitute a sort 
 
 of appendix ; and the number of their verses is 
 K 
 
146 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 given. It IS possible that the carelessness of a 
 transcriber may have caused some of the 
 singularities observable in this list ; such as the 
 omission of the epistles to the Philippians and 
 Thessalonians ; but the end shows a freer idea of 
 books fit for reading than what was usual even 
 at that early time in the African Church.^ 
 
 In Syria a version of the New Testament for 
 the use of the church was made early in the 3d 
 century. This work, commonly called the Pe- 
 shito, wants 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the 
 Apocalypse. It has, however, all the other books, 
 including the epistle of James and that to the 
 Hebrews. The last two were received as apostolic. 
 
 Towards the middle of the 3rd century 
 Origen's^ testimony respecting the Canon is of 
 great value. He seems to have distinguished 
 three classes of books — authentic ones, whose 
 apostolic origin was generally admitted, those 
 
 » Tischendorf edited the Pauline epistles from this MS. 
 Lipsiae, 1852. «t254A.D. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 147 
 
 not authentic, and a middle-class not generally- 
 recognised or in regard to which his own 
 opinion wavered. The first contained those 
 already adopted at the beginning of the century 
 both in the East and West, with the Apocalypse, 
 and the epistle to the Hebrews so far as it 
 contains Pauline ideas ;^ to the second belongs 
 the Shepherd of Hermas, though he sometimes 
 hesitated a little about it,^ the epistle of Bar- 
 nabas, the Acts of Paul, the gospel according to 
 the Hebrews, the gospel of the Egyptians, and 
 the preaching of Peter ;^ to the third, the epistle 
 of James, that of Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John.* 
 The separation of the various writings is not 
 formally made, nor does Origen give a list of 
 them. His classification is gathered from his 
 works ; and though its application admitted of 
 considerable latitude, he is cautious enough, 
 
 ^ TO. ev Ty SiadriKTi §L^\la, ivdtddrjKa, b[x6\oyoifieva. 
 ^ In one place, however, he calls it very useful and divinely 
 inspired. Comment, in ep. ad Roman., xvi. 14. ^ pSda. 
 
 * Ap. Euseb. /fisl. Eccles., vi. 25 ; iii, 25, avTikeyhixeva. 
 
148 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 appealing to the tradition of the church, and 
 throwing in quahfying expressions.^ 
 
 The Canon of Eusebius^ is given at length in 
 his Ecclesiastical History? He divides the 
 books into three classes, containing those 
 writings getterally received,^ those controverted^ 
 and the heretical? The first has the four 
 gospels, the Acts, thirteen epistles of Paul, 
 I John, I Peter, the Apocalypse/ The second 
 class is subdivided into two, the first corre- 
 sponding to Origen's mixed^ or intermediate 
 
 * See Euseb., //. E.^ vi. 25. Comment, in Matth.y iii. p. 463 ; 
 Ibid.y p. 814; Comment, in ep. ad Roman, y iv. p. 683; in 
 Maitk.^ iii. p. 644; Homil. viii. in Numb.y \\. p. 294; Contra 
 Cels.y i. 63, p. 378 ; De Frincipiis prce/., i. p. 49. 0pp. ^ ed. 
 Delarue. 
 
 2t340A.D. 
 
 * Hist. Ecdes., iii. 25 ; also 31, 39 ; vi. 13, 14. 
 
 * bp.o\oyoifievay ivdiddrjKa, dvafXiplXcKTa, &vavTi^l)7]Ta. 
 
 * &vTi\ey6ixeva, yvupifia 5^ rots ttoWoU, iu irXeloTais iKKXtjcrlais 
 BedTj/Mcxricvfi^va, vbda, 
 
 * ironra irdvr-q koL 8v(r<r€^rj; 7ra»^e\wy p6da (iii. 31). 
 
 ' This last with the qualification etye <f>apelr}. In another 
 place he states that it was rejected by some, and therefore it is 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 149 
 
 writings, the second to his spurious^ ones. The 
 former subdivision contains the epistle of 
 James, 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John ; the latter, 
 the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd, the Revelation 
 of Peter, the epistle of Barnabas, the Doctrines 
 of the Apostles, the Apocalypse of John, the 
 gospel according to the Hebrews. The third;* 
 class has the gospels of Peter, of Thomas, the 
 traditions of Matthias, the Acts of Peter, 
 Andrew, and John. The subdivisions of the 
 second class are indefinite. The only distinc- 
 tion which Eusebius puts between them is that 
 of ecclesiastical use. Though he classes as 
 spurious the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd, the 
 Revelation of Peter, the epistle of Barnabas, the 
 doctrines of the Apostles, the Apocalypse of 
 John, the gospel according to the Hebrews, and 
 does not apply the epithet to the epistle of 
 James, the 2 of Peter, 2 and 3 John ; he uses of 
 James's in one place the verb to be counted spuri- 
 
 1 voBoL. 
 
ISO THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Otis} In like manner he speaks of the Apo- 
 calypse of Peter and the epistle of Barnabas as 
 C07ttr over ted. The mixed or spurious of Origen 
 are vaguely separated by Eusebius ; both come 
 under the general head of the controverted ; for 
 after specifying them separately he sums up, 
 " all these will belong to the class of the contro- 
 verted'^^ the very class already described as con- 
 taining " books well known and recognized by 
 most," implying also that they were read in the 
 churches.^ 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that Eusebius 
 does not mention the Epistle of Clement to the 
 Corinthians in this list. But he speaks of it in 
 another place as a production whose authen- 
 
 1 vodetjo/xai. Hist. Eccles.^ ii. 23. Christophorson, Schmid, 
 and Hug think that Eusebius gave the opinion of others in this 
 word ; but it is more likely that he gave his own, as Valesius 
 thinks. See the note in Schmid's Historia antiqua et vindicatio 
 Canonist &^c., p. 358. 
 
 ^ Hid., vi. 14. 
 
 * See Weber's Bdtrdge zur Geschichte des nmtestammtlichen 
 Kanons, p. 142, &c. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON ■ 151 
 
 ticity was generally acknowledged/ and of its 
 public use in most churches both formerly and 
 in his own time. This wide-spread reading of 
 it did not necessarily imply canonicity ; but the 
 mode in which Eusebius characterises it, and 
 its extensive use in public, favour the idea that 
 in many churches it was almost put on equality 
 with the productions commonly regarded as 
 authoritative. The canonical list was not fixed 
 immovably in the time of Eusebius. Opinions 
 about books varied, as they had done before. 
 
 The testimony of Eusebius regarding the 
 canon, important as it is, has less weight be- 
 cause of the historian's credulity. One who 
 believed in the authenticity of Abgar's letters 
 to Christ, and in the canon of the four gospels 
 at the time of Trajan, cannot take rank as a 
 judicious collector or sifter of facts. 
 
 About 332 A.D. the Emperor Constantine 
 entrusted Eusebius with the commission to 
 
 1 blxoKoyoviJiivq. Hist. Ecdes., iii. 16. 
 
152 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 make out a complete collection of the sacred 
 Christian writings for the use of the Catholic 
 Church. How this order was executed we are 
 not told. But Credner is probably correct in 
 saying that the code consisted of all that is now 
 in the New Testament except the Revelation. 
 The fifty copies which were made must have 
 supplied Constantinople and the Greek Church 
 for a considerable time with an authoritative 
 canon. 
 
 Eusebius's catalogue agrees in substance with 
 that of Origen. The historian followed eccles- 
 iastical tradition. He inquired diligently into 
 the prevailing opinions of the Christian churches 
 and writers, with the views held by others before 
 and contemporaneously with himself, but could 
 not attain to a decided result. His hesitation 
 stood in the way of a clear, firm, view of the 
 question. The tradition respecting certain 
 books was still wavering, and he was unable 
 to fix it. Authority fettered his independent 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 153 
 
 judgment. That he was inconsistent and con- 
 fused does not need to be shown. 
 
 The exact principles that guided the forma- 
 tion of a canon in the earliest centuries cannot 
 be discovered. Strictly speaking there were, 
 none. Definite grounds for the reception or 
 rejection of books were not apprehended. The 
 choice was determined by various circumstances, 
 of which apostolic origin was the chief, though 
 this itself was insufficiently attested ; for if it be 
 asked whether all the New Testament writings 
 proceeded from the authors whose names they 
 bear, criticism cannot reply in the affirmative. 
 The example and influence of churches to which 
 the writings had been first addressed must have 
 acted upon the reception of books. Above all, 
 individual teachers here and there saw the 
 necessity of meeting heretics with their own 
 weapons, in their own way, with apostolic records 
 instead of oral tradition. The circumstances in 
 which the orthodox were placed led to this 
 
154 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 step, effecting a bond of union whose need must 
 have been felt while each church was isolated 
 under its own bishop and the collective body 
 could not take measures in common. Writings 
 pf more recent origin would be received with 
 greater facility than such as had been in circula- 
 tion for many years, especially if they professed 
 to come from a prominent apostle. A code of 
 apostolic writings, divine and perfect like the 
 Old Testament, had to be presented as soon as 
 possible against Gnostic and Manichaean here- 
 tics whose doctrines were injurious to objective 
 Christianity; while the multiplication of apocry- 
 phal works threatened to overwhelm genuine 
 tradition with a heap of superstition. The 
 Petrine and Pauline Christians, now amalgam- 
 ated to a great extent, agreed in hastening 
 the canon-process. 
 
 The infancy of the canon was cradled in 
 an uncritical age, and rocked with traditional 
 ease. Conscientious care was not directed from 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 155 
 
 the first to the well-authenticated testimony of 
 eye-witnesses. Of the three fathers who con- 
 tributed most to its early growth, Irenseus was 
 credulous and blundering ; Tertullian passionate 
 and one-sided ; and Clement of Alexandria, 
 imbued with the treasures of Greek wisdom, 
 was mainly occupied with ecclesiastical ethics. 
 Irenaeus argues that the gospels should be four 
 in number, neither more nor less, because there 
 are four universal winds and four quarters of 
 the world. The Word or Architect of all things 
 gave the gospel in a fourfold shape. Accord- 
 ing to this father, the apostles were fully 
 informed concerning all things, and had a 
 perfect knowledge, after their Lord's ascension. 
 Matthew wrote his gospel while Peter and Paul 
 were preaching in Rome and founding the 
 church.^ Such assertions shew both ignorance 
 and exaggeration. 
 
 Tertullian affirms that the tradition of the 
 
 1 Adverms Hares ^ iii., 11, 8. 
 
156 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 apostolic churches guarantees the four gospels,^ 
 and refers his readers to the churches of 
 Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, &c., for the 
 authentic epistles of Paul.^ What is this but 
 the rhetoric of an enthusiast ? In like manner 
 he states that bishops were appointed by the 
 apostles, and that they existed from that 
 time downward, the succession originating so 
 early.3 
 
 Clement contradicts himself in making Peter 
 authorise Mark's gospel to be read in the 
 churches ; while in another place he says that 
 the apostle neither "forbad nor encouraged it."^ 
 
 The three fathers of whom we are speaking, 
 had neither the ability nor the inclination to 
 examine the genesis of documents surrounded 
 with an apostolic halo. No analysis of their 
 authenticity and genuineness was seriously 
 
 * Adv. Marc. iv. 5. - De pvirscript. hirret. c. 36. 
 ^ De praescript. hafrct. c. 32. 
 
 * Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccha. ii. 15 ami vi. 14. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 157 
 
 attempted either by them or by the men of 
 their time. In its absence custom, accident, 
 taste, practical needs directed the tendency of 
 tradition. All the rhetoric employed to throw 
 the value of their testimony as far back as 
 possible, even up to or at least very near the 
 apostle John is of the vaguest sort. Appeals 
 to the continuity of tradition and of church 
 doctrine, to the exceptional veneration of these 
 fathers for the gospels, to their opinions being 
 formed earlier than the composition of the 
 works in which they are expressed, possess no 
 force. The ends which the fathers in question 
 had in view, their polemic motives, their un- 
 critical, inconsistent assertions, their want of 
 sure data, detract from their testimony. Their 
 decisions were much more the result of pious 
 feeling biassed by the theological speculations 
 of the times, than the conclusions of a sound 
 judgment. The very arguments they use to 
 establish certain conclusions shew weakness of 
 
158 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 perception. What are the manifestations of 
 spiritual feeling, compared with the results of 
 logical reasoning? Are they more trustworthy 
 than the latter? Certainly not, at least in rela- 
 tion to questions of evidence. It is true that 
 their testimony has a value ; but it is one pro- 
 portionate to the degree of credibility attach- 
 ing to witnesses circumstanced as they were, 
 whose separation of canonical from uncanonical 
 gospels, or rather their canonising of certain 
 writings apart from others, and their claiming 
 of inspiration for the authors of the former, 
 must be judged by the reasonableness of the 
 thing itself, in connexion with men of their 
 type. The second century abounded in pseud- 
 onymous literature; and the early fathers, 
 as well as the churches, were occupied with 
 other things than the sifting of evidence con- 
 nected with writings considerably prior to their 
 own time. The increase of such apocryphal 
 productions, gospels, acts, and apocalypses 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 159 
 
 among the heretical parties stimulated the 
 orthodox bishops and churches to make an 
 authentic collection ; but it increased the diffi- 
 culties of the task. 
 
 Textual criticism has been employed to dis- 
 credit the true dates of the present gospels ; and 
 the most exaggerated descriptions have been 
 given of the frequent transcription of the text 
 and its great corruption in the second century. 
 The process of corruption in the course of 
 frequent transcription has been transferred even 
 to the first century. It is true that the gospels 
 at the end of that century exhibited a text 
 which bears marks of transcription, interpola- 
 tion, and addition ; but they were not the com- 
 plete works as we have them now, being then but 
 in progress, except the fourth. The assumption 
 that '* advanced corruption " existed in the pre- 
 sent text of the synoptists as early as the first 
 century is gratuitous ; unless the process by 
 which they were gradually built up is so called. 
 
i6o THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 No attempt to get a long history behind the 
 canonical gospels at the close of the first cen- 
 tury out of " advanced corruption " can be 
 successful. It is attested by no Christian 
 writer of the century ; and those in the first 
 half of the second, both heretical and orthodox, 
 did themselves treat the text in a manner 
 far short of its implied infallibility. The 
 various readings with which they had to do, 
 do not carry up the canonical gospels far into 
 the first century. The transcription, enlarge- 
 ment, and interpolation of the materials which 
 make up the body of them, must not be 
 identified with the corruption of their completed 
 textSy in order that the latter may be relegated 
 to an early period ; for the synoptists did not 
 come forth full-blown, each from the hand of a 
 single person. The old Latin version or 
 versions used by Tertullian and the interpreter 
 of Irenaeus, have been pressed into the same 
 service, but in vain. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON i6i 
 
 In like manner the Curetonian Syriac ver- 
 sion of the gospels has been put as early as 
 possible into the second century, though it can 
 hardly have been prior to the very close of 
 it, or rather to the beginning of the third. 
 Here the strong assertions of apologetic writers 
 have been freely scattered abroad. But the 
 evidence in favour of the authors tradition- 
 ally assigned to the gospels and some of the 
 epistles, is still uncertain. A wide gap inter- 
 venes between eye-witnesses of the apostles 
 or apostolic men that wrote the sacred books, 
 and the earliest fathers who assert such author- 
 ship. The traditional bridge between them is 
 a precarious one. As the chasm cannot be 
 filled by adequate external evidence, we are 
 thrown back on the internal character of the 
 works themselves. One thing appears from 
 the early corruption of the sacred records 
 spoken of by Irenseus, Origen, and others, that 
 
 they were not regarded with the veneration 
 
 I. 
 
1 62 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 necessarily attaching to infallible documents. 
 Their being freely handled excludes the idea 
 of rigid canonisation. The men who first 
 canonised them had no certain knowledge of 
 their authors. To them, that knowledge had 
 been obscured or lost ; though a sagacious 
 criticism might have arrived at the true state 
 of the question even in their day. 
 
 In the sub-apostolic age Ebionitism passed 
 into Catholicism, Jewish into Pauline Chris- 
 tianity, the mythical and marvellous into the 
 dogmatic, the traditional into the historic, the 
 legendary into the literary. The conflict 
 of parties within the sphere of Christianity 
 gave rise to productions of various tendencies 
 which reflected the circumstances out of which 
 they arose. These were accepted or rejected 
 by the churches according to the prevailing 
 opinions of the persons composing the churches. 
 Common usage led to the authorisation of 
 some ; others were neglected. The state of the 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 163 
 
 second century in its beliefs, credulity, idio- 
 syncracies of prominent teachers, antagonistic 
 opinions and mystic speculations, throws a 
 light upon the New Testament writings and 
 especially on the formation of the canon, which 
 explains their genesis. Two things stand out 
 most clearly, the comparatively late idea of a 
 canonical New Testament literature ; and the 
 absence of critical principles in determining it. 
 The former was not entertained till the latter 
 part of the second century. The conception of 
 canonicity and inspiration attaching to New 
 Testament books did not exist till the time 
 of Irenaeus. 
 
 When it is asked, to whom do we owe the 
 canon ? the usual answer is, to the Church. 
 This is true only in a sense. The unity 
 attributed to Christians before Irenaeus and 
 Tertullian, consisted in their religious con- 
 sciousness. It was subjective. The idea of 
 the church was that of inward fellowship — the 
 
i64 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 fellowship of the spirit rather than an outward 
 organism. The preservation of the early Chris- 
 tian writings was owing, in the first instance, to 
 the congregations to whom they were sent, and 
 the neighbouring ones with whom such con- 
 gregations had friendly connection. The care 
 of them devolved on the most influential 
 teachers, — on those who occupied leading 
 positions in the chief cities, or were most 
 interested in apostolic writings as a source 
 of instruction. The Christian books were 
 mostly in the hands of the bishops. In 
 process of time the canon was the care of 
 assemblies or councils. But it had been made 
 before the first general council by a few leading 
 fathers towards the end of the second century 
 in different countries. The formation of a 
 Catholic Church and of a canon was simul- 
 taneous. The circumstances in which the 
 collection originated were unfavourable to 
 the authenticity of its materials, for tradition 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 165 
 
 had been busy over them and their authors. 
 Instead of attributing the formation of the 
 canon to the Church, it would be more correct 
 to say that the important stage in it was due to 
 three teachers, each working separately and in 
 his own way, who were intent upon the creation 
 of a Christian society which did not appear in 
 the apostolic age, — a visible organisation united 
 in faith, — where the discordant opinions of 
 apostolic and sub-apostolic times should be 
 finally merged. The canon was not the work 
 of the Christian Church so much as of the men 
 who were striving to form that Church, and 
 could not get beyond the mould received by 
 primitive Christian literature. The first men- 
 tion of a Catholic Church occurs in The 
 Martyrdom of Polycarp^ an epistle that can- 
 not be dated earlier than 160 A.D., and may 
 perhaps be ten years later. But though the 
 idea is there, its established use is due to 
 Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian. The expres- 
 
i66 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 sion has a different and narrow sense in the 
 seven Ignatian epistles which we believe to be 
 supposititious and later than Justin. Neither the 
 three epistles published in Syriac by Cureton, 
 nor the seven Greek ones enumerated by 
 Eusebius are authentic ; though Zahn has tried 
 to prove the latter such, dating them A.D. 144. 
 His arguments, however, are far from convinc- 
 ing ; and the whole story of ^ Ignatius's martyr- 
 dom at Rome rather than Antioch is still 
 doubtful ; for the circumstances under which he 
 is said to have been dragged to Rome, and his 
 writing letters to the churches by the way, are 
 highly improbable. The testimony of Malalas 
 that Ignatius suffered at Antioch in December 
 115 in the presence of Trajan, may be quite as 
 good as that of Chrysostom and the Syriac 
 monthly calendar on which Zahn relies so con- 
 
 ' Ignatius von Antiochien, 1873 ; and Prolegomena to the 
 Patrttm Apostolicomvi opera^ by de Gebhardt, Harnack, and 
 Zahn, Fasciculus, ii. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 167 
 
 fidently. The fact of the priority of the last 
 two to Malalas is of little weight as evidence. 
 The main point is the locality in which Ignatius 
 suffered ; which Malalas, himself a native of 
 Antioch and a historian, ought to have known 
 better than Chrysostom, because he copied 
 preceding historians. 
 
 It is necessary to be precise on this sub- 
 ject because some speak of the church as 
 though it were contemporary with the apostles 
 themselves, or at least with their immediate 
 disciples ; and proceed to argue that dissensions 
 arose soon after "within the church " rendering 
 an appeal to the written word necessary. When 
 the authority of traditional teaching gave way to 
 that of a written rnle, a change came over the 
 condition of the church. Such a view tends to 
 mislead. There were dissensions among the 
 earliest Christians. The apostles themselves 
 were by no means unanimous. Important 
 differences of belief divided the Jewish and 
 
168 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 Gentile Christians from the beginning. The 
 types of Christian truth existing from the first 
 gradually coalesced about the middle of the 
 .second century; when heretics, especially the 
 Gnostics, appeared so formidable that a catholic 
 church was developed. Along with this process, 
 and as an important element in it, the writings 
 of apostles and apostolic men were uncritically 
 taken from tradition and elevated to the rank 
 of divine documents. It was not the rise of 
 new dissensions "within the church" which 
 led to the first formation of a Christian canon ; 
 rather did the new idea of " a catholic church " 
 require a standard of appeal in apostolic writ- 
 ings, which were now invested with an autho- 
 rity that did not belong to them from the 
 beginning. 
 
 Origen was the first who took a somewhat 
 scientific view of the relative value belonging 
 to the different parts of the biblical collection. 
 His examination of the canon was critical. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 169 
 
 Before him the leading books had been regarded 
 as divine and sacred, the source of doctrinal 
 and historic truth. From this stand-point he 
 did not depart. With him ecclesiastical tradi- 
 tion was a prevailing principle in the recognition 
 of books belonging of right to the New Testa- 
 ment collection. He was also guided by the 
 inspiration of the authors ; a criterion arbitrary 
 in its application, as his own statements show. 
 In his time, however, the collection was being 
 gradually enlarged ; his third class, i.e., the 
 mixedy approaching reception into the first. 
 But amid all the fluctuations of opinion to 
 which certain portions of the New Testament 
 were subject, and the unscientific procedure 
 both of fathers and churches in the matter, 
 though councils had not met to discuss it, and 
 vague tradition had strengthened with time, a 
 certain spiritual consciousness manifested itself 
 throughout the East and West in the matter 
 of the canon. Tolerable unanimity ensued. 
 
I70 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 The result was a remarkable one, and calls 
 for our gratitude, notwithstanding its defects. 
 Though the development was pervaded by no 
 critical or definite principle, it ended in a canon 
 which has maintained its validity for centuries. 
 
 It is sometimes said that the history of the 
 canon should be sought from definite cata- 
 logues, not from isolated quotations. The 
 latter are supposed to be of slight value, the 
 former to be the result of deliberate judgment. 
 This remark is more specious than solid. In 
 relation to the Old Testament, the catalogues 
 given by the fathers, as by Melito and Origen, 
 rest solely on the tradition of the Jews ; apart 
 from which they have no independent authority. 
 As none except Jerome and Origen knew 
 Hebrew, their lists of the Old Testament books 
 are simply a reflexion of what they learned 
 from others. If they deviate in practice from 
 their masters by quoting as Scripture other 
 than the canonical books, they show their 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 171 
 
 judgment over-riding an external theory. The 
 very men who give a list of the Jewish books 
 evince an inclination to the Christian and 
 enlarged canon. So Origen says, in his Epistle 
 to Africanus, that "the churches use Tobit." 
 In explaining the prophet Isaiah, Jerome 
 employs Sirach vi. 6, in proof of his view, 
 remarking that the apocryphal work is in the 
 Christian catalogue. In like manner Epipha- 
 nius, in a passage against Aetius, after referring 
 to the books of Scripture, adds, " as well as the 
 books of Wisdom, i.e.^ the Wisdom of Solomon 
 and of Jesus son of Sirach ; finally, all the other 
 books of Scripture." In another place he gives 
 the canon of the Jews historically, and ex- 
 cludes the apocryphal Greek books ; here he 
 includes some of the latter. We also learn 
 from Jerome that Judith was in the number of 
 the books reckoned up by the Nicene Council. 
 Thus the fathers who give catalogues of the 
 Old Testament shew the existence of a Jewish 
 
172 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 and a Christian canon in relation to the Old 
 Testament ; the latter wider than the former ; 
 their private opinion being more favourable to 
 the one, though the other was historically trans- 
 mitted. In relation to the New Testament, the 
 synods which drew up lists of the sacred books 
 show the view of some leading father like 
 Augustine, along with what custom had sanc- 
 tioned. In this department no member of the 
 synod exercised his critical faculty ; a number 
 together would decide such questions summarily. 
 Bishops proceed in the track of tradition or 
 authority. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE BIBLE CANON FROM THE FOURTH CEN- 
 TURY TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 It will now be convenient to treat of the two 
 Testaments together, i.e., the canon of the Bible. 
 The canons of both have been considered 
 separately to the end of the third century ; they 
 may be henceforward discussed together. We 
 proceed, therefore, to the Bible-canon of the 
 fourth* century, first in the Greek Church and 
 then in the Latin. The Council of Laodicea 
 (A.D. 363), at which there was a predominant 
 semiarian influence, forbad the reading of all 
 non-canonical books. The 59th canon enacts, 
 that "private psalms must not be read in the 
 Church, nor uncanonized books ; but only the 
 
174 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 canonical ones of the New and Old Testament." 
 The 6oth canon proceeds to give a list of such. 
 All the books of the Old Testament are 
 enumerated, but in a peculiar order, somewhat 
 like the Septuagint one. With Jeremiah is 
 specified Bartcch, then the Lamentations and 
 Epistle. The prophets are last ; first the minor, 
 next the major and Daniel. In the New 
 Testament list are the usual seven Catholic 
 epistles, and fourteen of Paul including that to 
 the Hebrews. The Apocalypse alone is wanting. 
 Credner has proved that this 6oth canon is 
 not original, and of much later date.^ 
 
 The Apostolic Constitutions give a kind of 
 canon like that in the 59th of Laodicea. After 
 speaking of the books of Moses, Joshua, Judges 
 Kings, Chronicles, those belonging to the 
 return from the captivity, those of Job, Solomon, 
 the sixteen prophets, and the Psalms of David ; 
 our Acts, the epistles of Paul, and the four 
 
 * Geschichte des neutest. Kanotty p. 217, &c. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 175 
 
 gospels are mentioned. It is remarkable that 
 the Catholic epistles are not given. That 
 they are indicated under Acts is altogether 
 improbable. The Antiochian Church of that 
 time doubted or denied the apostolicity of 
 these letters, as is seen from Theodore, Cosmas, 
 and others. Hence their absence from these 
 Constitutions, which are a collection belonging 
 to different times ; the oldest portion not earlier 
 perhaps than the third century.^ 
 
 Cyril of Jerusalem, who took part in the 
 Council of Laodicea,^ gives a list " of the divine 
 Scriptures." The books of the Old Testament 
 are twenty-two, and the arrangement is nearly 
 that which is in the English Bible. With 
 Jeremiah is associated "Baruch and the Epistle." 
 All the New Testament books are given except 
 the Apocalypse. The list agrees very nearly 
 with that of Eusebius, by taking the latter's 
 " controverted " writings into the class of the 
 
 ^ See Constit. Apostol.^ p. 67, ed. Ueltzen. ^ | ^86 A.D. 
 
176 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 " generally received."^ The writer insists on the 
 necessity of unity in the Church upon the sub- 
 ject, and forbids the reading of writings not 
 generally received. None but these are allowed. 
 Yet he refers to Baruch (iii. 36-38) as the pro- 
 phet ;'^ and in adducing the testimonies of the 
 prophets for the existence of the Holy Spirit, 
 the last he gives is Daniel xiii. 41, 45. Sirach 
 iii. 21, 22 is cited ;3 Wisdom is quoted as Solo- 
 mon's (xiii. 5);* the song of the three children 
 is used (verse 55)^ with verses 27, 29;^ and 
 Daniel (xiii. 22, 45) is quoted.^ 
 
 In Athanasius's festal epistle (365 A.D.) the 
 archbishop undertakes "to set forth in order 
 the books that are canonical and handed 
 down and believed to be divine." His list 
 of the Old Testament nearly agrees with 
 Cyril's, except that Esther is omitted and Ruth 
 
 ^ Catech., iv. 22, pp. 66, 67, ed. Milles. 
 " Ibid., xi. p. 142. * Ibid.y vi. p. 80. 
 
 * Ibid.^ ix. pp. 115, 122. * IHd.^ ix. p. 115. 
 
 « Ihid., ii. p. 31. 'Ibid., xvi. p. 239. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 177 
 
 counted separately, to make out the twenty-two 
 books. He adds, "there are other books not 
 canonical, designed by the fathers to be read 
 by those just joining us and wishing to be in- 
 structed in the doctrine of piety;" i.e., the 
 Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Sirach, 
 and Esther and Judith and Tobit, and the Doc- 
 trine of the Apostles so called, and the Shepherd ; 
 " those being canonical^ and these being read, let 
 there be no mention of apocryphal writings," &c. 
 The New Testament list is the same as Cyril's, 
 with the addition of the Apocalypse.^ He 
 quotes several of the apocryphal books in the 
 same way as he does the canonical. Thus he 
 introduces Judith (viii. 16) with "the Scripture 
 said; "2 and Baruch (iii. 12) is cited as if it were 
 Scripture.'^ Wisdom (vi. 26) has the epithet 
 Scripture applied to it.* Sirach (xv. 9) is intro- 
 
 ^ Athanasii 0pp. ed. Benedict, i. 2, pp. 962, 963. 
 " Orat. contra Arianos, ii. 35, vol. i. 503, ed. Benedicl. 
 3 Ibid., ii. 42, i. p. 510. ■* Ibid., ii. 79, i. p. 546. 
 
 M 
 
178 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 duced with "what is said by the Holy Spirit." 
 Baruch (iv. 20, 22) and Daniel (xiii. 42) are re- 
 ferred to in the same way as Isaiah.^ Tobit 
 (ii. 7) has " it is written " prefixed to it.^ Can- 
 onical and apocryphal are mentioned together ; 
 and similar language applied to them. 
 
 Eusebius of Caesarea cites Wisdom as a divine 
 oracle;^ and after adducing several passages from 
 Proverbs, subjoining to them others from the 
 same book with the introductory formula " these 
 are also said to be the same writers," he con- 
 cludes with " such is the scripture."'^ Sirach is 
 cited as Solomon's along with various passages 
 from Proverbs.^ After quoting Baruch, he says, 
 " there is no need to appeal to the divine voices, 
 which clearly confirm our proposition."^ The ad- 
 ditions to Daniel are also treated as Scripture." 
 
 » Epist. adepiscop. ^gypt., &c., i. I, p. 272. 
 ' Contra Arian.y i. 12, i. p. 416. 
 
 * Apolog. contra ArianoSy ii., vol. i. p. 133. 
 
 * Praepar. Evan., i. 9. ' Ibid., xi. 14. * Ibid., xii. 18. 
 'Ibid,, vi. II, * Demon. Evang., vi. 19, 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 179 
 
 Basil of Caesarea^ had a canon agreeing with 
 that of Athanasius. Along with the usual 
 books reckoned as belonging to the canon, he 
 used the apocryphal productions of the Old 
 Testament. Thus the book of Wisdom (i. 4)2 is 
 quoted by him. So are Sirach (xx. 2);3 Baruch, 
 (iii. 36)* called Jeremiah's; Judith (ix. 4) ;& 
 and Daniel (xiii. 50).^ 
 
 Gregory of Nazianzus'' puts his list into a 
 poetical form. In the Old Testament it agrees 
 with Athanasius's exactly, except that he men- 
 tions none but the canonical books. Like 
 Athanasius, he omits Esther. In the New Tes- 
 tament he deviates from Athanasius, by leaving 
 out the Apocalypse, which he puts among the 
 spurious.^ He does not ignore the apocryphal 
 
 ^ t 379 A.D. 
 
 ^ Homil. in princip. proverb. 0pp. ed. Gamier altera, vol. ii. 
 p. 140. ^ Constitutiones Monast.^ c. iii. 2. Ibid., p. 779. 
 
 * Adv. Eunom^ vol. i. p. 417. 
 ° De Spiritu Sancto, c. viii. vol. iii. p. 23. 
 ^ In Princip. Proverb, vol. ii. p. 152. '' f 389 A.D. 
 
 ^ 0pp. ed. Migne, vol. iii. pp. 473, 474. 
 
i8o THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 books of the Old Testament, but quotes Daniel 
 xiii. 5.^ 
 
 Amphilochius of Iconium^ gives a metri- 
 cal catalogue of the Biblical books. The 
 canon of the old Testament is the usual one, 
 except that he says of Esther at the end, "some 
 judge that Esther should be added to the fore- 
 going." He notices none of the apocryphal 
 books. His New Testament canon agrees with 
 the present, only he excludes the Apocalypse 
 as spurious ; which is given as the judgment of 
 the majority. He alludes to the doubts 
 that existed as to the epistle to the 
 Hebrews, but regards it as Pauline ; and to 
 the number of the catholic epistles (seven or 
 three).-^ The concluding words show that no 
 list was universally received at that time. 
 
 Epiphanius* follows Athanasius in his canon. 
 
 ' Grcgorii Nazianzeni, 0pp. ed. Migne, vol. iii. pp. 473, 474. 
 
 't39S A.D. 
 
 ' Iambi ad Seleucum ; in Gr^. Naz. 0pp. ii. p. 194. 
 
 <t403A.D. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. i8i 
 
 As to the number of the Old Testament books, 
 he hesitates between twenty-two and twenty- 
 seven ; but the contents are the same. At the 
 end of the twenty-seven books of the New 
 Testament, Wisdom and Sirach are mentioned 
 as " divine writings ; " elsewhere they are 
 characterized as "doubtful."^ His practice 
 shows his sentiments clearly enough, when 
 Sirach (vii. i) is introduced with " the Scrip- 
 ture " testifies^ ; vii. 9 is elsewhere quoted ^ ; 
 Wisdom (i. 4) is cited as Solomon's * ; Baruch 
 (iii. 36) is introduced with, "as the Scripture 
 says,^" and Daniel (xiii. 42) is quoted with, "as 
 it is written."^ He mentions the fact that the 
 epistles of Clement of Rome were read in the 
 churches.' 
 
 1 d/A0tX^/fTa. Adv, Hceres^ i. p. 19. See Hcsres, iii. torn. i. 
 p. 941. De ponder, et mensur. 23. 
 
 2 Advers. Hceres, lib. i., torn. 2 ed. Petav. Paris, 1662, p. 72. 
 ^ Ibid.y lib. ii. torn. ii. p. 781. * Ibid.^ lib. ii. torn. i. p. 580. 
 5 Ibid.y lib. ii. torn. i. p. 481. ^ Ibid.^ lib. i. torn. ii. p. 157. 
 " Hares, XXX. 15. 
 
i82 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Didymus of Alexandria^ speaks against 2 
 Peter that it is not in the canons.^ 
 
 Chrysostom^ does not speak of the canon; 
 but in the New Testament he never quotes 
 the last four catholic epistles or the Apocalypse. 
 All the other parts he uses throughout his 
 numerous works/ including the Apocrypha. 
 Thus he introduces Wisdom (xvi. 28) with 
 " Scripture says.^" He quotes Baruch (iii. 36, 
 38)8; and Sirach (iv. i)J 
 
 Didymus of Alexandria « cites Baruch (iii. 
 35) as Jeremiah,^ and treats it like the Psalms. ^*^ 
 
 *+392 A.D. 
 
 * Enarrat. in ep. S. Petri secundam, p. 1774 ed. Mignc 
 » t 407 A.D. 
 
 * See Montfaucon in his edition of Chrysostom's Works, vol. 
 vi. pp. 364, 365, ed. Paris, 1835. 
 
 * Expos, in Psalm cix. 7. See also xi. i in Genes, where 
 Wisdom xiv. 3 is cited. 
 
 * Expos, in Psalm xlix. 3. 
 
 ' De Lazaro, ii. 4. ^ t 392 A.D. 
 
 * De Triniiaie, iii. 2. p. 792 ed. Migne. 
 
 "^^ Fragmenta in Epist. 2 ad Corinthios, when Baruch, iii. 3, 
 is quoted like Psalm loi, p. 1697. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 183 
 
 Daniel (xiii. 45) is also quoted.^ He says of 
 Peter's Second Epistle that it is not in the canon. 
 
 Theodore of Mopsuestia^ was much freer 
 than his contemporaries in dealing with the 
 books of Scripture. It seems that he rejected 
 Job, Canticles, Chronicles, and the Psalm-inscrip- 
 tions ; in the New Testament the epistle of 
 James, and others of the catholic ones. But 
 Leontius's account of his opinions cannot be 
 adopted without suspicion.^ 
 
 The canon of Cyril of Alexandria * does not 
 differ from Athanasius's. Like other writers of 
 the Greek Church in his day he uses along with 
 the canonical the apocryphal books of the Old 
 Testament. He quotes i (iii.) Edras (iv. 36) 
 with " inspired Scripture says."^ Wisdom (vii. 
 6) is introduced with, " according to that which 
 
 1 De Spirit, sanct. i. p. 1033. 2 .j. ^28 a.d. 
 
 ^ See Leontius Byzantinus contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos, 
 lib. iii. in Gallandi Bibliotheca, xii. p. 690, Comp. Fritzsche De 
 Theodori Mopsiiesteni vita et scriptis, Halas, 1836. 
 
 ^ f 444 A.D. ^ Contra Julian, i. p. 541, ed. Migne. 
 
1 84 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 is written." ^ In another place it has the prefix 
 "for it is written" (i. 7) ;2 and is treated as 
 Scripture (ii. I2).3 Sirach (i. i) is cited.'' 
 Baruch also (iii. 35-37) is introduced with, 
 " another of the holy prophets said."* 
 
 The catalogues of the Old Testament con- 
 tained in the manuscripts B, C, and « need not 
 be given, as they are merely codices of the 
 Septuagint, and have or had the books canonical 
 and apocryphal belonging to that version. The 
 list of the New Testament books in B is like that 
 of Athanasius. Imperfect at the end, the MS. 
 must have had at first the Epistles to Timothy, 
 Titus, Philemon, and the Apocalypse. C (cod. 
 Ephraemi rescriptus) has fragments of the New 
 Testament, which show that it had originally 
 all the present books in the same order as 
 Athanasius's. &< or the Sinaitic manuscript has 
 
 » Ibid., p, 815. ^ Ibid., p. 921. 
 
 ' In Isaim, ed. Migne, p. 93. * P. 859, vol. i. 
 
 ® P. 910, vol. i., eel. Mignc. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY, 185 
 
 the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of 
 Hermas, in addition to the New Testament. 
 
 The progress made by the Greek Church of 
 the fourth and former part of the fifth century, 
 in its conception of the canon seems to be, that 
 the idea of ecclesiastical settlement, or public, 
 legal, definitive establishment was attached to 
 the original one. A writing was considered 
 canonical when a well-attested tradition put it 
 among those composed by inspired men, 
 apostles or others ; and it had on that account 
 a determining authority in matters of faith. 
 Books which served as a rule of faith and were 
 definitively set forth by the Church as divinely 
 authoritative, were now termed canonical. The 
 canon consisted of writings settled or determined 
 by ecclesiastical law.^ Such was the idea added 
 to the original acceptation of canon. To 
 canonical were opposed apocryphal writings, 
 i.e.^ heretical and fabricated ones ; while an 
 
1 86 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 intermediate class consisted of those read in 
 the churches, which were useful, but not de- 
 cisive in matters of belief. Another advance in 
 the matter of the canon at this period was the 
 general adoption of the Hebrew canon, with a 
 relegation of the Greek additions in the Septu- 
 agint to the class publicly read} Yet doubts 
 about the reception of Esther into the number 
 of the canonical books were still entertained, 
 though it was one of the Jewish canon ; doubt- 
 less on account of its want of harmony with 
 Christian consciousness. And the catholic 
 epistles which had been doubted before, Jude, 
 James, Second Peter, were now generally re- 
 ceived. But there was a division of opinion 
 about the Apocalypse. 
 
 We come to the period of the Latin corre- 
 sponding to that of the Greek Church which 
 has just been noticed. Augustine' gave great 
 attention to the subject, labouring to establish a 
 
 ^ /9tj9Xfa iivay iv(i}aK6^xiva. " +430 A.D. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 187 
 
 complete canon, the necessity of which was 
 generally felt. According to him the Scriptures 
 which were received and acknowledged by all 
 the churches of the day should be canonical, 
 Of those not universally adopted, such as are 
 received by the majority and the weightier of 
 the churches, should be preferred to those 
 received by the fewer and less important 
 churches. In his enumeration of the forty- 
 four books of the Old Testament, he gives, 
 after Chronicles, other histories " which are 
 neither connected with the order " specified in 
 the preceding context, " nor with one another," 
 i.e.y Job, Tobit, Esther, Judith, the two books of 
 the Maccabees, and Esdras. Wisdom and 
 Ecclesiasticus, he thinks, should be numbered 
 among the prophets, as deserving of authority 
 and having a certain likeness to Solomon's 
 writings.i He says of the Maccabees that this 
 
 1 The forty-four books are, 5 of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 
 4 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Job, Tobit, Esther, Judith, 2 Maccabees, 
 
i88 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 "Scripture has been received by the Church 
 not uselessly, if it be read or heard soberly."* 
 The famous passage in the treatise on Christian 
 doctrine, where he enumerates the whole 
 canon, is qualified by no other ; for though he 
 knew the distinction between the canonical 
 books of the Palestinian Jews and the so-called 
 apocryphal ones, as well as the fact of some 
 New Testament writings not being received 
 universally, he thought church-reception a 
 sufficient warrant for canonical authority. 
 Hence he considered the books of the Macca- 
 bees canonical, because so received by the 
 Church ; while he says of Wisdom and Sirach 
 that they merited authoritative reception and 
 numbering among the prophetic Scriptures.^ 
 Of the former in particular he speaks strongly 
 in one place, asserting that it is worthy to be 
 
 Ezra, Nehemiah, Psalms, 3 of Solomon, Wisdom, Ecclesiasti- 
 cus, 12 Prophets, 4 greater do. De Doctrina Christiana ii. 8. 
 
 1 Contra Gaudent. i. 38 ; 0pp. Paris, 1837, vol. ix. p. 1006. 
 
 - De Doctr. Christ, ii. 8. Civitat. Dei. xviii. 20, i. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 189 
 
 venerated by all Christians as of divine 
 authority.! But he afterwards retracted his 
 opinion of the canonical authority of Sirach.^ 
 He raises, not lowers, the authority of the so- 
 called apocryphal books which he mentions. 
 He enumerates all the New Testament books, 
 specifying the Pauline epistles as fourteen, and 
 so reckoning that to the Hebrews as the 
 apostle's ; but he speaks of it elsewhere as an 
 epistle about which some were uncertain, pro- 
 fessing that he was influenced to admit it as 
 canonical by the authority of the Oriental 
 churches.^ In various places he speaks hesita- 
 tingly about its Pauline authorship. 
 
 In 393 the African bishops held a council at 
 Hippo where the canon was discussed. The 
 list of the canonical Scriptures given includes, 
 besides the Palestinian one, Wisdom, Ecclesi- 
 asticus, Tobit, Judith, and the two books of 
 
 1 De Praedest. Sanct. i. 11. 2 Retractt. i. 10. 
 
 ' Depeccat. merit, i. 50; 0pp. vol. x. p. 137, ed. Migne. 
 
I90 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 Maccabees. The New Testament canon seems 
 to have agreed exactly with our present one.^ 
 The Council of Carthage (397) repeated the 
 statute of its predecessor, enumerating the same 
 books of the Bible as canonical.^ Augustine 
 was the animating spirit of both councils, so 
 that they may be taken as expressing his views 
 on the subject. 
 
 Jerome^ gives a list of the twenty- two 
 canonical books of the Old Testament, the 
 same as that of the Palestinian Jews, remarking 
 that some put Ruth and Lamentations among 
 the Hagiographa, so making twenty-four books. 
 All besides should be put among the Apoc- 
 rypha. Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, the 
 Shepherd are not in the canon. The two books 
 of Maccabees he regarded in the same light* 
 But though Jerome's words imply the apocry- 
 
 ^ Mansiy torn. iii. p. 924. * Ibid.y p. 891. 
 
 3 t420 A.D. 
 
 ^ Prologus galeatus in Libras Regum. Epist. ad Paulinum, 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY, 191 
 
 phal position of these extra-canonical books, 
 he allows of their being read in public for the 
 edification of the people, not to confirm the 
 authority of doctrines ; i.e.^ they belong to 
 " the ecclesiastical books " of Athanasius. His 
 idea of " apocryphal " is wider and milder than 
 that of some others in the Latin Church. It 
 has been conjectured by Welte,^ that the con- 
 clusions of the African councils in 393 and 397 
 influenced Jerome's views of the canon, so that 
 his later writings allude to the apocryphal 
 works in a more favourable manner than that 
 of the Prologns galeatus or the preface to 
 Solomon's books. One thing is clear, that he 
 quotes different passages from the Apocrypha 
 along with others from the Hebrew canon. 
 In his letter to Eustochius, Sirach iii. 33 (Latin) 
 comes between citations from Matthew and 
 Luke ; and is introduced by which is written, in 
 a letter to Pammachius ; and xxii. 6 has divine 
 
 '^ In Herbst's Einleit., astei- Theil, p, 37. 
 
192 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 Scripture applied to it.^ Ruth, Esther, and 
 Judith are spoken of as holy volumes. The 
 practice of Jerome differed from his theory ; 
 or rather he became less positive, and altered 
 his views somewhat with the progress of time 
 and knowledge. As to the New Testament, he 
 gives a catalogue of all that now belongs to it, 
 remarking of the epistle to the Hebrews and 
 of the Apocalypse that he adopts both on the 
 authority of ancient writers, not of present 
 custom. His opinion about them was not 
 decided.^ In another work he gives the Epistle 
 of Barnabas at the end of the canonical list. 
 He also states the doubts of many respecting 
 the Epistle to Philemon, and about 2 Peter, 
 Jude, 2 and 3 John. According to him the first 
 Epistle of Clement of Rome was publicly read 
 in some churches.^ 
 
 * 0pp. ed. Benedict., VoL IV., pp. 679, 584, 750. 
 ' Ep. ad Dardan. 0pp. vol. i. p. 1 103, ed. Migne. 
 
 * See Onomastka Sacra ; Comment, in Ep. ad Philem ; De 
 N'iris illustr. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 193 
 
 Hilary of Poitiers^ seems to have followed Ori- 
 gen's catalogue. He gives twenty-two books, 
 specifying "the epistle" of Jeremiah; and re- 
 marks that some added Tobit and Judith, mak- 
 ing twenty-four, after the letters of the Greek 
 alphabet. He cites Wisdom and Sirach as 
 "prophets." 2 In the New Testament he never 
 quotes James, Jude, 2 and 3 John, nor 2 Peter. 
 2 Maccabees (vii. 28) is introduced with "ac- 
 cording to the prophet;"^ Sirach (xxxi. i) is 
 introduced with "nor do they hear the Lord 
 saying;" 4 Wisdom is cited as Solomon's (viii. 
 2) \^ Judith (xvi. 3) is cited \^ so is Baruch (iii. 
 36) ; ' and Daniel xiii. 42.^ 
 
 Optatus of Mela^ has the usual canonical 
 books, but omits the epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 If 368 A. D. 
 
 2 Prolog, in Psalm., 0pp. ed. Migne, vol. i. p. 241. 
 ^ De Trinitate iv. 16. 
 
 * Ex. Op. Hist. Fragmentum, iii. vol. ii. p. 672, ed. Migne. 
 '^ In cxxvii. Psalm. ^ In Psalm cxxvi. 6. 
 
 ^ In Psalm Ixviii. 19, and De Trinitate, iv. 42. 
 8 Jbid.y iv. 8, ^ t About 370 A.D. 
 
 N 
 
194 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 He uses the apocrypha without scruple, in- 
 troducing Sirach (iii. 30) with "it is written;"^ 
 and Wisdom (i. 13) with "it is written in 
 Solomon." 2 
 
 Lucifer of Cagliari^ uses the apocrypha 
 equally with the canonical books. Thus i Mac- 
 cabees (i. 43) is quoted as " holy Scripture."* So 
 is 2 Maccab. (vi. i).^ Judith (ix. 2) is cited,^ as 
 are also Wisdom (xvii. i, 2)^; Tobit (iv. 6);^ 
 and Daniel (xiii. 20).^ 
 
 Ambrose of Milan ^^ had the same canon as 
 most of the Westerns in his time. With some 
 others, he considered the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews to have been written by St Paul. In 
 the Old Testament he used the apocryphal 
 books pretty freely. Wisdom (vii. 22) is cited 
 
 * De Schismate Donatist. iii. 3. 
 
 3 Ibid., ii. 25 » t about 370., A.D. 
 
 * De non parcetuio, &c., ed. Coleti, p. 190. 
 
 » Ibid., p. 236. • Ibid., p. 187. 
 
 ^ Pro Athanasio, lib. i. p. 98. * Ibid., p. 105. 
 
 » Ibid., lib. ii. pp. 1 27, 128. *« t 397 A.D. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. I95 
 
 as authoritative Scripture/ Sirach (xi. 30) is 
 also cited as Scripture.^ Baruch (iv. 19) is 
 quoted ;' Daniel (xiii. 44, 45) is treated as 
 Scripture and prophetic ; * and Tobit is ex- 
 pounded like any other book of Scripture.^ 
 
 Rufinus^ enumerates the books of the Old 
 and New Testaments which "are believed to 
 be inspired by the Holy Spirit itself, according 
 to the tradition of our ancestors, and have been 
 handed down by the Churches of Christ." All 
 the books of the Hebrew canon and of the New 
 Testament are specified. After the list he says, 
 " these are they which the fathers included in 
 the canon, by which they wished to establish 
 the assertion of our faith." He adds that there 
 are other books not canonical^ but ecclesiastical 
 — the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Tobit, 
 Judith, and the books of the Maccabees. 
 
 ^ De Spiritu Sancto iii. 18. ^ De bono 7)iortis viii. 
 
 ^ In Psalm cxviii., Sermo. 118, 2. 
 
 * De Spirit. Sanct. iii., vi. 39. 
 
 " Liber de Tobia. ^ +410 A.D. 
 
196 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 Besides the usual New Testament works, he 
 speaks of the Shepherd of Hernias, and the 
 " Judgment of Peter " as read in the churches, 
 but not as authoritative in matters of faith.^ 
 
 Philastrius^ of Brescia gives some account of 
 the Scriptures and their contents in his time. 
 The canonical Scriptures, which alone should 
 be read in the Catholic Church, are said to be 
 the law and the prophets, the gospels, Acts, 
 thirteen epistles of Paul, and seven others, i.e.^ 
 two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and 
 one of James. Of the Old Testament apocrypha 
 he asserts that they ought to be read for the 
 sake of morals by the perfect, but not by all. 
 He speaks of heretics who reject John's gospel 
 and the Apocalypse. Respecting the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews which is omitted in his canon, 
 he speaks at large, but not very decidedly, 
 affirming that some attributed its authorship to 
 
 * Expos, in Symbol. Apostol.^ pp. 373, 374, ed. Migne. 
 « tAbout 387 A.D. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 197 
 
 Barnabas, or Clement of Rome, or Luke. 
 " They wish to read the writings of the blessed 
 apostle, and not rightly perceiving some things 
 in the epistle, it is not therefore read by them 
 in the church. Though read by some, it is not 
 read to the people in the church ; nothing but 
 Paul's thirteen epistles, and that to the Hebrews 
 sometimes."^ The influence of the East upon 
 the West appears in the statements of this 
 father upon the subject. He had several 
 canonical lists before him ; one at least from 
 an Oriental-Arian source, which explains some 
 assertions, particularly his omission of the 
 Apocalypse. 
 
 Innocent I. of Rome wrote to Exsuperius 
 (405 A.D.), bishop of Toulouse, giving a list of 
 the canonical books. Besides the Hebrew canon, 
 he has Wisdom and Sirach ; Tobit, Judith, the 
 two Maccabees. The New Testament list is 
 identical with the present. He also refers to 
 
 ^ De Haeres. chs. 60 and 61, in Galland, vii. pp. 424, 425. 
 
I9S THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 pseudepigraphical writings which ought not only 
 to be rejected but condemned.^ 
 
 A canonical list appears in three different 
 forms bearing the names of Damasus (366-384), 
 Gelasius I. (492-496), and Hormisdas (514-523). 
 According to the first, the books of the Old 
 Testament are arranged in three orders. In 
 the first are the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, 
 Ruth, four Kings, two Chronicles, Psalms, 
 Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, and 
 Ecclesiasticus ; in the second, all the prophets, 
 including Baruch ; in the third. Job, Tobit, 
 Judith, Esther, Esdras, two Maccabees. The 
 New Testament books are the four gospels, 
 fourteen epistles of Paul, the Apocalypse, and 
 Acts, with seven Catholic epistles. 
 
 That which is called the Decree of Gelasius 
 
 is almost identical with the preceding. It 
 
 wants Baruch and Lamentations. It has also 
 
 two Esdrases instead of one. In the New 
 
 ^ Apud Mansi, iii. pp. 1040, 1041. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 199 
 
 Testament the epistle to the Hebrews is ab- 
 sent. 
 
 The Hormisdas-form has the Lamentations 
 of Jeremiah : and in the New Testament the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 The MSS. of these lists present some diver- 
 sity ; and Credner supposes the Damasus-list a 
 fiction. But Thiel has vindicated its authen- 
 ticity. It is possible that some interpolations 
 may exist in the last two ; the first, which is 
 the shortest, may well belong to the time of 
 Damasus.^ 
 
 In 419 A.D. another council at Carthage, at 
 which Augustine was present, repeated the 
 former list of books with a single alteration, 
 viz., fourteen epistles of Paul (instead of 
 (thirteen).^ 
 
 The preceding notices and catalogues show a 
 general desire in the Western Church to settle 
 
 1 Credner's Zur Geschichte des Kanoits, p. 151, &c., and 
 Thiel's Epistolce Romanorum Pontificum genuinae, torn. i. 
 ^ Mansi iv. p. 430. 
 
200 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 the canon. The two most influential men of 
 the period were Augustine and Jerome, who did 
 not entirely agree. Both were unfitted for a 
 critical examination of the topic. The former 
 was a gifted spiritual man, lacking learning and 
 independence. Tradition dominated all his 
 ideas about the difficult or disputed books. He 
 did not enter upon the question scientifically, 
 on the basis of certain principles ; but was 
 content to take refuge in authority — the 
 prevailing authority of leading churches. His 
 judgment was weak, his sagacity moderate, 
 and his want of many-sidedness hindered a 
 critical result. Jerome, again, was learned but 
 timid, lacking the courage to face the question 
 fairly or fundamentally ; and the independence 
 necessary to its right investigation. Belonging 
 as he did to both churches, he recommended the 
 practice of the one to the other. He, too, was 
 chiefly influenced by tradition ; by Jewish 
 teachers in respect to the Old Testament, and 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 201 
 
 by general custom as to the New. The question 
 was not susceptible of advancement under such 
 manipulation ; nor could it be settled on a 
 legitimate basis. Compared with the eastern 
 Church, the western accepted a wider canon of 
 the Old Testament, taking some books into the 
 class of the canonical which the former put 
 among those to be read. In regard to the New 
 Testament, all the Catholic epistles and even 
 the Apocalypse were received. The African 
 churches and councils generally adopted this 
 larger canon, because the old Latin version 
 or versions of the Bible current in Africa 
 were daughters of the Septuagint. If the 
 Latins apparently looked upon the Greek 
 as the original itself, the apocryphal books 
 would soon get rank with the canonical. Yet 
 the more learned fathers, Jerome, Rufinus and 
 others, favoured the Hebrew canon in dis- 
 tinguishing between canonical and ecclesiastical 
 books. The influence of the Eastern upon the 
 
202 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 Western Church is still visible, though it could 
 not extinguish the prevailing desire to include 
 the disputed books. The Greek view was to 
 receive nothing which had not apparently a 
 good attestation of divine origin and apostolic 
 authority ; the Latin was to exclude nothing 
 hallowed by descent and proved by custom. 
 The former Church looked more to the sources 
 of doctrine ; the latter to those of edification. 
 The one desired to contract those sources, so as 
 not to be too rich ; the other to enlarge the 
 springs of edification, not to be too poor. 
 Neither had the proper resources for the work, 
 nor a right perception of the way in which it 
 should be set about ; and therefore they were 
 not fortunate in their conclusions, differing as 
 they did in regard to points which afifect the 
 foundation of a satisfactory solution. 
 
 Notwithstanding the numerous endeavours 
 both in the East and West to settle the canon 
 during the 4th and 5th centuries, it was not 
 
I^ROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 203 
 
 finally closed. The doubts of individuals were 
 still expressed ; and succeeding ages testified to 
 the want of universal agreement respecting 
 several books. The question, however, was 
 practically determined. No material change 
 occurred again in the absolute rejection or 
 admission of books. With some fluctuations, 
 the canon remained very much as it was in 
 the 4th and 5th centuries. Tradition shaped 
 and established its character. General usage 
 gave it a permanency which it was not easy to 
 disturb. No definite principles guided the 
 course of its formation, or fixed its present 
 state. It was dominated first and last by cir- 
 cumstances and ideas which philosophy did 
 not actuate. Its history is mainly objective. 
 Uncritical at its commencement, it was equally 
 so in the two centuries which have just been 
 considered. 
 
 The history of the canon in the Syrian 
 church cannot be traced with much exactness. 
 
204 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 The Peshito version had only the Hebrew 
 canonical books at first ; most of the apocryphal 
 were rendered from the Greek and added in the 
 Nestorian recension. In the New Testament it 
 wanted four of the catholic epistles and the 
 Apocalypse. Ephrem (a.d. 378) uses all the 
 books in our canon, the apocryphal as well as 
 the canonical. The former are cited by him 
 in the same way as the latter. Sirach ii. i is 
 quoted with as the Scnpture saysp- and Wisdom 
 iv. 7 with it is writteii?- Daniel xiii. 9, belong- 
 ing to the Greek additions, is also cited with 
 as it is written^ It should be observed that 
 the quotations given are all from Ephrem's 
 Greek, not Syriac, works ; and that suspicions 
 have been raised about the former being 
 tampered with. The Syrian version of the 
 New Testament made by Polycarp at the re- 
 quest of Philoxenus of Mabug, had the four 
 
 1 0pp. Gricc, torn. ii. p. 327, ed. Rom. 1746. 
 
 * Ibid.y torn. i. p. loi ' Tom. iil p. 60. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 205 
 
 catholic epistles wanting in the Peshito. It 
 had also the two epistles of Clement to the 
 Corinthians, if we may judge by the Harclean 
 recension, A.D. 616 ; for a MS. in the Cambridge 
 University Library contains those epistles 
 immediately after the Catholic ones, and before 
 those of St Paul ; so that they are put on an 
 equality with the canonical writings. The 
 Apocalypse is wanting. Junilius, (though an 
 African bishop about 550 A.D.), says that he got 
 his knowledge from a Persian of the name of 
 Paulus who received his education in the school 
 of Nisibis. He may, therefore, be considered a 
 witness of the opinions of the Syrian church at 
 the beginning of the 6th century. Dividing 
 the biblical books into those of perfect, those 
 of intermediate, and those of no authority, he 
 makes the first the canonical ; the second, 
 those added to them by many (plures) ; the 
 third, all the rest. In the first list he puts 
 Ecclesiasticus. Among the second he puts 
 
2o6 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 I and 2 Chronicles, Job, Ezra and Nehemiah, 
 Judith, Esther, I and 2 Maccabees; and 
 in the New Testament, James, 2 Peter, 
 Jude, 2 and 3 John. He also says 
 that the Apocalypse of John is much doubted 
 by the Orientals. In the third list, i.e.^ books 
 of no authority added by some (quidam) to 
 the canonical, are put Wisdom and Canticles.^ 
 The catalogue is confused, and erroneous at 
 least in one respect, that Jerome is referred 
 to, as sanctioning the division given of the Old 
 Testament books ; for neither he nor the Jews 
 agree with it. 
 
 The canon of the Abyssinian church seems to 
 have had at first all the books in the Septu- 
 agint, canonical and apocryphal together, little 
 distinction being made between them. Along 
 with the contents of the Greek Bible there were 
 Enoch, 4 Esdras, the Ascension of Isaiah, the 
 Jubilees, Asseneth, &c. That of the New Testa- 
 
 * Galland, xii. p. 79, &c 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 207 
 
 ment agrees with the present Greek one. At a 
 later period in the Arabic age a list was made 
 and constituted the legal one for the use of the 
 church, having been derived from the Jacobite 
 canons of the apostles. This gives, in the Old 
 Testament, the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, 
 Ruth, Judith, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and 
 Nehemiah, Esther, Tobit, two books of 
 Maccabees, Job, Psalms, five books of 
 Solomon, minor and greater prophets. The 
 Wisdom of Sirach (for teaching children) and 
 the book of Joseph ben Gorion, i.e.^ that of the 
 Maccabees, are external. The new Testament 
 has four gospels, Acts, seven apostolic epistles, 
 fourteen of Paul, and the Revelation of John. 
 Later catalogues vary much, and are often 
 enlarged with the book of Enoch, 4 Esdras, 
 the Apocalypse of Isaiah, &c. The canon of 
 the Ethiopic church was fluctuating.^ 
 
 The canon of the Armenians had at first 
 
 ^ See Dillmann in Ewald's Jahrbixcher^ v. p. 144, &c. 
 
2o8 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 the Palestinian books of the Old Testament, 
 twenty-two in number, and the usual New 
 Testament ones, except the Apocalypse. It 
 was made from the Syriac in the fifth century 
 by Sahak and Mesrob. The deutero-canonical 
 books and additions were appended, after the 
 disciples of those two men who had been sent 
 by them into different places, brought back 
 authentic copies of the Greek Bible from the 
 patriarch Maximian, by which the version 
 already made was interpolated and corrected ; 
 as it was subsequently corrected by others 
 despatched to Alexandria and Athens, who, 
 however, did not return till their teachers 
 were dead. The MSS. of this version were 
 afterwards interpolated from the Vulgate ; Oskan 
 himself translating for his edition (which was 
 the first printed one, A.D. 1666), Sirach 4 
 Esdras and the Epistle of Jeremiah from the 
 Latin. The book of Revelation does not 
 seem to have been translated till the eighth 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 209 
 
 century. Zohrab's critical edition (1805) has 
 Judith, Tobit, the three books of Maccabees, 
 Wisdom, and the Epistle of Baruch among 
 the canonical books ; and in an appendix, 
 the fourth book of Esdras, the prayer of 
 Manasseh, the Epistle of the Corinthians to 
 Paul and his answer, the Rest (end) of the 
 apostle and evangelist John, the prayer of 
 Euthalius. Like the edition of Oskan, this 
 has all the deutero-canonical books, which 
 were derived from the Septuagint, and in- 
 corporated by the first translators with their 
 original version. Another edition published 
 at St Petersburgh (18 17), for the use of the 
 Jacobite Church, has the prayer of Manasses 
 and 4 Esdras after the Apocalypse. 
 
 The Georgian version consisted of the books 
 and additions in the Greek translation from 
 which it was made. The New Testament has 
 the canonical books in the usual order. Jesus 
 
 Sirach and two books of the Maccabees (2d 
 O 
 
2IO THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 and 3d) were not in the Georgian MS. used 
 by Prince Arcil for the edition of 1743, but 
 were rendered out of the Russian. The 
 Moscow Bible printed under the direction and 
 at the cost of Arcil, Bacchar and Wakuset, 
 is the authorised edition of the Georgian 
 Christians. 
 
 The Bible canon of the Eastern church in the 
 middle ages shows no real advance. Endea- 
 vours were made to remove the uncertainty 
 arising from the existence of numerous lists ; 
 but former decisions and decrees of councils 
 were repeated instead of a new, independent 
 canon. Here belongs the catalogue in the 
 Alexandrian MS., of the fifth century, which is 
 peculiar. After the prophets come Esther, 
 Tobit, Judith, Ezra and Nehemiah, 4 Mac- 
 cabees, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, 
 Canticles, the all-virtuous Wisdom, the Wisdom 
 of Jesus of Sirach. In the New Testament, the 
 Apocalypse is followed by two epistles of 
 
FROM THE FO UR TH CENTUR V. 211 
 
 Clement The list was probably made in 
 Egypt. That of Anastasius Sinaita/ patriarch 
 of Antioch, is similar to Nicephorus's Sticho- 
 metry, which we shall mention afterwards. 
 Baruch is among the canonical books ; Esther 
 among the antilegomena. The Apocalypse is 
 unnoticed. The 85th of the Apostolic canons 
 gives a list of the Old and New Testament 
 books, in which the usual canonical ones of the 
 former are supplemented by Judith and 3 Mac- 
 cabees ; those of the latter by the two epistles 
 of Clement, with the Apostolic constitutions. 
 This catalogue cannot be put earlier than the 
 fifth or sixth century, and is subject to the sus- 
 picion of having been interpolated. We have 
 also Nicephorus's Stichometry (806-815 ;)^ o^ 
 which we may remark that Baruch is among 
 the canonical books of the O. T. ; while the 
 Revelation is put with the Apocalypse of Peter, 
 
 1 t 599 A.D. 
 
 ' See Credner's Zur. Gesch, des Kanons, p. 97, &c. 
 
212 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 the epistle of Barnabas and the Gospel accord- 
 ing to the Hebrews, among the antilegomena 
 of the N. T. It is also surprising that the 
 Apocalypse of Peter and the Gospel according 
 to the Hebrews are not among the Apocrypha, 
 where Clement's epistles with the productions 
 of Ignatius, Polycarp, and Hermas appear. The 
 list is probably older than that of the Antioch 
 patriarch Anastasius Sinaita. Cosmas Indico- 
 pleustes (535) never mentions the seven Catholic 
 epistles of the New Testament or the Apo- 
 calypse. The Trullan council (A.D. 692) 
 adopts the eighty-five Apostolic canons, re- 
 jecting, however, the Apostolic Constitutions. 
 Photius, patriarch of Constantinople,^ follows 
 the eighty-fifth Apostolical canon of the 
 Trullan Council.^ But in his Bibliotheca^ he 
 speaks differently regarding the epistles of 
 
 1 1 891. 
 
 \^ NoinocanoHt Titulus I 11,^ cap. 2, vol. iv., pp. 1050, 
 1051 cd. Migne. ' See Codd. 113, 126. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. 21^ 
 
 Clement, and does not treat them as canonical. 
 Though the first was thought worthy to be read 
 in public, the second was rejected as spurious ; 
 and his own opinion was not altogether favour- 
 able to them. John of Damascus; ^ the second 
 Nicene council (ySy) ; the Synopsis divinae 
 Scripturae Vet. et Novi Test, (about 1000) ; 
 Zonaras (about 1 120) ; Alexius Aristenus (about 
 1 160); and Nicephorus Callistus (1330), call 
 for no remark. 
 
 In the Western church of the Middle Ages, 
 diversity of opinion respecting certain books 
 continued. Though the views of Augustine 
 were generally followed, the stricter ones of 
 Jerome found many adherents. The canon was 
 fluctuating, and the practice of the churches in 
 regard to it somewhat lax. Here belong 
 Cassiodorus (about 550) ; the list in the Codex 
 Amiatinus (about 550) ; Isidore of Seville^ who, 
 after enumerating three classes of Old Testa- 
 
 ^ +754 A.D. 2 ^636 A.D. 
 
214 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 ment books gives a fourth not in the Hebrew 
 canon. Here he specifies Wisdom, Ecclesi- 
 asticus, Tobit, Judith, i and 2 Maccabees, 
 saying that the church of Christ puts them 
 among the divine books, honours and highly 
 esteems them.^ There are also the fourth 
 council of Toledo (632); Gregory the Great ;^ 
 Notker Labeo ; ^ Ivo (about 1092) ; Bede ;* 
 Alcuin;^ Rabanus Maurusf Hugo de St Victor ; ^ 
 Peter of Clugny ;^ John of Salisbury ;^ Thomas 
 Aquinas;^^ Hugo de St Cher; ^^ Wycliffe;^^ Nico- 
 laus of Lyra,^^ &c., &c. Several of these, as Hugo 
 de St Victor, John of Salisbury, Hugo de St 
 Cher, and Nicolaus of Lyra, followed Jerome in 
 separating the canonical and apocryphal books 
 of the Old Testament.^* 
 
 The Reformers generally returned to the 
 
 • Etymolog. vi. i. ^ t6o4 a.d. * t9i2 a.1). 
 
 *t735A.D. » +804 A.D. »+856a.d. 
 
 '+II4IA.D. 8+II56A.D. »tll82A.D. 
 
 1<'I270A.D. "tl263A.D. " + 1384 A.D. 
 
 w 1 1340 A.D. 1* See Hody, p. 648, &c. 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY, 215 
 
 Hebrew canon, dividing off the additional 
 books of the Septuagint or those attached to 
 the Vulgate. These they called apocryphal^ 
 after Jerome's example. Though considered of 
 no authority in matters of doctrine, they were 
 pronounced useful and edifying. The principal 
 reason that weighed with the Reformers was, 
 that Christ and the apostles testified to none of 
 the Septuagint additions. 
 
 Besides the canonical books of the Old 
 Testament, Luther translated Judith, Wisdom, 
 Tobit, Sirach, Baruch, i and 2 Maccabees, the 
 Greek additions to Esther and Daniel, with the 
 Prayer of Manasseh. His judgment respecting 
 several of these is expressed in the prefaces to 
 them. With regard to I Maccabees he thinks 
 it almost equal to the other books of Holy 
 Scripture, and not unworthy to be reckoned 
 among them. Of Wisdom, he says, he was 
 long in doubt whether it should be numbered 
 among the canonical books ; and of Sirach that 
 
2i6 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 it is a right good book proceeding from a wise 
 man. But he speaks unfavourably of several 
 other apocryphal productions, as of Baruch and 
 2 Maccabees. It is evident, however, that he 
 considered all he translated of some use to the 
 Christian Church. He thought that the book 
 of Esther should not belong to the canon. 
 
 Luther's judgment respecting some of the 
 New Testament books was freer than most 
 Protestants now are disposed to approve. He 
 thought the epistle to the Hebrews was neither 
 Paul's nor an apostle's, but proceeded from an 
 excellent and learned man who may have been 
 the disciple of apostles. He did not put it on 
 an equality with the epistles written by apostles 
 themselves. The Apocalypse he considered 
 neither apostolic nor prophetic, but put it 
 almost on the same level with the 4th book of 
 Esdras, which he spoke elsewhere of tossing 
 into the Elbe. This judgment was afterwards 
 modified, not retracted. James's epistle he 
 
FROM THE FOURTH CENTURY, 217 
 
 pronounced unapostolic, " a right strawy epistle." 
 In like manner, he did not believe that Jude's 
 epistle proceeded from an apostle. Consider- 
 ing it to have been taken from 2 Peter, and not 
 well extracted either, he put it lower than the 
 supposed original. The Reformer, as also his 
 successors, made a distinction between the 
 books of the New Testament similar to that of 
 the Old ; Xh.^ generally r^^^zW^^f (homologoumena) 
 and controverted books (antilegomena) ; but the 
 Calvinists afterwards obliterated it, as the 
 Roman Catholics at the Council of Trent did 
 with the old Testament.^ The epistle to the 
 Hebrews, those of Jude and James, with the Apo- 
 calypse, belong to the latter class. The distinc- 
 tion in question proceeded from genuine critical 
 tact on the part of the early Lutheran Church 
 which had canonical and deutero - canonical 
 
 ^ Chemnitz calls seven books of the New Testament apocryphos^ 
 because of their uncertain authorship (see Examen Concilii 
 Tridentini, p. 45, &c.) 
 
2i8 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 writings even in the New Testament collection. 
 Nor did the Reformers consider it a dangerous 
 thing to bring the fact before the people. To 
 make it palpable, Luther attached continuous 
 numbers to the first twenty-three books of his 
 version, bringing the four antilegomena after 
 these, without numbers ; and this mode of 
 marking the difference continued till the middle 
 of the 17th century.i Luther was right in 
 assigning a greater or less value to the 
 separate writings of the New Testament, and 
 in leaving every one to do the same. He relied 
 on their internal value more than tradition ; 
 taking the word of God in a deeper and 
 wider sense than its coincidence with the Bible. 
 Bodenstein of Carlstad examined the question 
 of canonicity more thoroughly than any of his 
 contemporaries, and followed out the principle 
 of private judgment in regard to it. He divides 
 
 1 See Tholuck's Kommentar zum Briefe an die Hebrdtr^ 
 vweite Auflage^ pp. 55, 86. 
 
PROM THE FOURTH CENTURY. ±\^ 
 
 the biblical books into three classes — i. Books 
 of the highest dignity, viz., the Pentateuch and 
 the Gospels ; 2. Books of the second dignity, 
 i.e.^ the works termed prophetic by the Jews, 
 and the fifteen epistles universally received ; 3. 
 Books of the third and lowest authority, i.e.y the 
 Jewish Hagiographa and the seven Anti- 
 legomena epistles of the New Testament. 
 Among the Apocrypha he makes two classes — 
 sUch as are out of the canon to the Hebrews 
 yet hagiographical (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, 
 Judith, Tobit, the two Maccabees), and those 
 that are clearly apocryphal and to be rejected 
 (third and fourth Esdras, Baruch, Prayer of 
 Manasseh, a good part of the third chapter of 
 Daniel, and the last two chapters of Daniel.^ 
 
 Zwingli asserts that the Apocalypse is not a 
 biblical book.^ 
 
 ' Carlstadt's treatise is reprinted in Credner's Zur Geschichte 
 des Kanons. 
 
 2 Werke^ edited by Schuler and Schulthess, vol. ii. p. 169. 
 
220 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Oecolampadius says — " We do not despise 
 Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the last 
 two Esdras, the three Maccabees, the last two 
 chapters of Daniel, but we do not attribute to 
 them divine authority with those others."^ As 
 to the books of the New Testament he would 
 not compare the Apocalypse, James, Jude, 2 
 Peter, 2 and 3 John with the rest.^ 
 
 Calvin did not think that Paul was the author 
 of the epistle to the Hebrews, or that 2 Peter 
 was written by the apostle himself; but both in 
 his opinion are canonical. 
 
 ^ Ep. ad. Valdenses 1530, aptui Scidteti annal. evang. re- 
 no7>at decas secunda, pp. 313, 314. 
 2 Ibid. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ORDER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS. 
 
 I. The arrangement of the various parts com- 
 prising the New Testament was fluctuating in 
 the second century ; less so in the third. In 
 the fourth century the order which the books 
 had commonly assumed in Greek MSS. and 
 writers was : the Gospels, the Acts, the Catholic 
 Epistles, the Pauline, and the Apocalypse. 
 This sequence appears in the Vatican, Sinaitic, 
 Alexandrian and Ephrem (C) MSS.; Cyril of 
 Jerusalem, in the 6oth Canon of the Laodicean 
 Council, Athanasius, Leontius of Byzantium, 
 &c. 
 
 II. Another order prevailed in the Latin 
 Church, viz., the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles 
 of Paul, the Catholic Epistles, and the Apoca- 
 
222 7 HE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 lypse. This appears in Melito, Irenaeus, 
 Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Augustine, 
 Jerome, the Vulgate, the Councils of Carthage 
 held in A.D. 397 and 419 ; and is now the usual 
 arrangement. 
 
 Within the limits of the two general arrange- 
 ments just mentioned, there were many varia- 
 tions. Thus we find in relation to the gospels. 
 
 III. {a) Matthew, John, Luke, Mark ; in the 
 MSS. of the old Italic marked ^, 3, d, e, f, ff, 
 and in the cod. argenteus of Ulfila's Gothic 
 version. 
 
 {b) Matthew, John, Mark, Luke ; in the 
 council of Ephesus A.D. 431, Cyril of Alexan- 
 dria, Theodoret, the stichometry of the Cler- 
 mont MS. Such was the usual order in the 
 Greek Church of the fifth century. 
 
 {c) Mark is put first, followed by Matthew ; 
 in the fragment of a Bobbian MS. of the Itala 
 at Turin marked k. 
 
 {d) Matthew, Mark, John, Luke ; in the 
 
ORDER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS. 223 
 
 Curetonian Syriac gospels. They are men- 
 tioned in the same order in Origen's I. Homily 
 on Luke. 
 
 The reason of the order in {a) and {b) lies in 
 apostleship. The works of apostles precede 
 those of evangelists. The established sequence, 
 which is already sanctioned by Irenaeus and 
 Origen, has respect to the supposed dates of 
 the gospels. Clement of Alexandria says that 
 ancient tradition supposed those gospels having 
 the genealogies to have been written before the 
 others. 
 
 IV. As to the Acts of the Apostles ^ not only 
 is this work put immediately after the gospels, 
 which is the order in the Muratorian canon, 
 but we find it in other positions. 
 
 {a) Gospels, Pauline Epistles, Acts ; in the 
 Sinaitic MS., the Peshito,i Jerome,2 and Epi- 
 phanius. 
 
 1 Hug says that his copy of Widmanstad's edition had the 
 Acts immediately following the Gospels. 
 ' Epist. ad Paulinum. 
 
224 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 ip) Gospels, Pauline Epistles, Catholic Epis- 
 tles, Acts ; in Augustine, the third council of 
 Toledo, Isidore, Innocent I., Eugenius IV., and 
 the Spanish Church generally. 
 
 {c) Gospels, Pauline, Catholic Epistles, 
 Apocalypse, Acts ; in the stichometry of the 
 Clermont MS. 
 
 V. As to the Epistles of Paid, besides the 
 place they now occupy in our Bibles, they 
 sometimes follow the gospels immediately. 
 
 {a) Gospels, Pauline Epistles ; the Sinaitic 
 MS., Jerome, Epiphanius, Augustine, the third 
 council of Toledo, Isidore, Innocent I., Euge- 
 nius IV., the stichometry of the Clermont MS. 
 
 (p) The usual order of the Gfeek Church is, 
 Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline, &c., 
 as in Cyril of Jerusalem, the Laodicean Council 
 (60), Athanasius, Leontius of Byzantium, the 
 MSS. A. B., but not «. The critical Greek 
 Testaments of Lachmann and Tischendorf 
 adopt this order. 
 
ORDER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS. 225 
 
 (c) They are placed last of all in a homily 
 attributed to Origen, but this does not neces- 
 sarily shew that father's opinion.^ 
 
 {d) They stand first of all in a Gallican 
 Sacramentarium cited by Hody.^ 
 
 VI. With respect to the order of the indivi- 
 dual epistles, the current one has been thought 
 as old as Tertullian and Clement of Alex- 
 andria. But the proof of this is precarious. 
 It appears in the fourth century, and may 
 have been prior to that. It is in Epiphanius, 
 who supposes that the arrangement was the 
 apostle's own. Not only was it the prevalent 
 one in the Greek Church, but also in the Latin, 
 as we see from the codex Amiatinus, and the 
 Vulgate MSS. generally. It rests upon the 
 extent of the epistles and the relative impor- 
 tance of the localities in which the believers 
 addressed resided. 
 
 ^ Horn. vii. in Josua. 
 
 '^ De Bibliorum textibus originalibus, &c., p. 654. 
 P 
 
226 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 {a) Marcion had but ten Pauline epistles in 
 the following order : Galatians, i and 2 Corin- 
 thians, Romans, i and 2 Thessalonians, the 
 Laodiceans (Ephesians), Colossians, Philemon, 
 Philippians. 
 
 {b) I and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philip- 
 pians, Colossians, Galatians, I and 2 Thessa- 
 lonians, Romans, Philemon, Titus, I and 2 
 Timothy, to the Laodiceans, the Alexandrians 
 (the Epistle to the Hebrews); in the Muratorian 
 canon. 
 
 (c) Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephe- 
 sians, Philippians, Thessalonians, Colossians, 
 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews ; in 
 Augustine, and several MSS. of the Vulgate 
 in England.^ 
 
 {d) Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Thessa- 
 lonians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 
 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews; in the 
 so-called decree of Gelasius in the name of 
 
 » /bui., p. 664. 
 
ORDER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS. 227 
 
 Hormisdas, in Labbe's text. But here different 
 MSS. vary in regard to the position of the 
 Thessalonian epistles. 
 
 VI I. The Laodicean letter was inserted 
 either before the pastoral epistles, as in several 
 MSS. of the Vulgate in England ; or before 
 the Thessalonian epistles preceding them ; or 
 at the end of the Epistle to the Hebrews, as in 
 a MS. of the Latin Bible at Lambeth. Its 
 insertion in copies of the Vulgate was owing to 
 the authority of Gregory the Great, who looked 
 upon it as authentic. 
 
 VIII. The position of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews usually was either before the pastoral 
 epistles, i.e., immediately after those to the 
 Thessalonians ; or after the pastoral ones and 
 Philemon. The former method was generally 
 adopted in the Greek Church from the fourth 
 century. The latter prevailed in the Latin 
 Church from Augustine onward. 
 
 (a) Pauline epistles to churches (the last 
 
228 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 being the second to the Thessalonians), 
 Hebrews, Timothy, Titus, Philemon ; in the 
 MSS. N, A. B. C. H., Athanasius, Epip- 
 hanius, Euthalius,^ Theodoret. Jerome men- 
 tions it after the epistles of Paul to the 
 seven churches as an eighth excluded by the 
 majority, and proceeds to specify the pastoral 
 ones. But Amphilochius and Ebedjesu the 
 Syrian have the western order, viz., the follow- 
 ing—- 
 
 if)) Pauline Epistles, Hebrews (following im- 
 mediately that to Philemon) ; in Augustine and 
 the Vulgate version generally. It is so in the 
 canons of the councils at Hippo and Carthage 
 (A.D. 393 and 397), and in the MSS. D. and 
 G., in Isidore of Spain, and the council of Trent. 
 IX. With respect to the order of the Catholic 
 Epistles ^ which were not all adopted into the 
 canon till the end of the fourth century ; Euse- 
 
 * See Zacagni's Collectanea monumentorum veteruni Praefat^ 
 p. Ixxi., &.C. 
 
ORDER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS. 229 
 
 bius putting all except i John and i Peter 
 among the antilegomena ; while Jerome, and the 
 council of Carthage (a.d. 397) admit them 
 unreservedly ; the usual order, viz., James, i 
 and 2 Peter, John, Jude, prevailed in the 
 Eastern Church. It is in the Peshito or old 
 Syriac version, Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, 
 Epiphanius, the 60th of the Laodicean canons, 
 Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Amphi- 
 lochius, the stichometry of Nicephorus, the 
 MSS. K. A. B. C, and most Greek MS. But 
 the 76th of the Apostolic canons has Peter, 
 John, James and Jude. The canon, however, 
 is comparatively late. 
 
 ici) Peter, John, Jude, James ; in Philastrius 
 of Brescia. If we may rely on Cassiodorus's 
 account of Augustine, the African father 
 followed the same arrangement. 
 
 {p) Peter, James, Jude, John ; in Rufinus. 
 
 (c) Peter, John, James, Jude ; in the councils 
 of Carthage, A.D. 397, 419, Cassiodorus, and 
 
230 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 a Gallican Sacramentarium. The Vulgate and 
 council of Trent follow this arrangement. 
 
 {d) John, Peter, Jude, James ; in the list 
 given by Innocent L, and the third council 
 of Toledo. 
 
 The Eastern church naturally set the Epistle 
 of James, who was Bishop of Jerusalem, at the 
 head of the others ; while the Western put 
 Peter, the Bishop of Rome, in the same place. 
 
 X. The Revelation varied little in position. 
 
 {a) In the decree of Gelasius, according to 
 its three recensions, the Revelation follows 
 Paul's epistles, preceding those of John and 
 the other Catholic ones. 
 
 if)) In D or the Clermont MS. it follows the 
 Catholic epistles, and precedes the Acts ; which 
 last is thrown to the end of all the books, as if 
 it were an appendix to the writings of the 
 apostles.^ 
 
 1 See Volkmar's Anhang to Cred tier's Geschichte des N. T. 
 A'anoHy p. 341, &c. ; and Hody Dc Bibliorum textibus 
 originalibus, p. 644, &c. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 {a.) In relation to the Old Testament, the 
 prevailing tendency in the Greek Church was 
 to follow the Palestinian canon. Different lists 
 appeared from time to time in which the en- 
 deavour there to exclude apocryphal, 2>., spurious 
 works, was apparent. In addition to the 
 canonical, a class of ecclesiastical books was 
 judged fit for reading in the Church, — a 
 class intermediate between the canonical and 
 apocryphal. The distinction between the 
 canonical and ecclesiastical writings appears in 
 Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Epiphanius, &c. 
 The Latin Church showed a disposition to 
 elevate the ecclesiastical books of the Greek 
 Church to the rank of the canonical, making 
 
232 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 the line between the two indistinct ; as we see 
 from the acts of the councils at Hippo and 
 Carthage, in the end of the fourth and beginning 
 of the fifth century, where Augustine's influence 
 was predominant. But notwithstanding this 
 deviation froni the stricter method of the Greeks, 
 learned men like Jerome adhered to the Pales- 
 tinian canon, and even styled the ecclesias- 
 tical books apocryphal^ transferring the epithet 
 from one class to another. Hilary and Rufinus 
 also followed the Greek usage. 
 
 During the sixth and following centuries, it 
 cannot be said that the canon of the Greek 
 Church was definitely closed, notwithstanding 
 the decrees of councils and references to older 
 authorities. Opinions still varied about certain 
 books, such as Esther ; though the Palestinian 
 list was commonly followed. During the same 
 period, the enlarged canon of the Alexandrian 
 Jews, which went far to abolish the distinction 
 between the canonical and deutero-canonical 
 
. SUMMARY OF THE SUBJECT. 233 
 
 books, prevailed in the West, at least in practice ; 
 though some followed the shorter one, sanctioned 
 as it had been by Jerome. As both lists existed, 
 no complete or final settlement of the question 
 was reached in the Latin Church. Neither in 
 the East nor in the West was the canon of the 
 Old Testament really closed; for though the 
 stricter principle of separation prevailed in 
 theory, it was not carried out in practice con- 
 sistently or universally. The two men most 
 influential about the canon were Jerome and 
 Augustine; the one representing its Palestinian, 
 the other its Alexandrian type. After them no 
 legal or commanding voice fixed either, to the 
 absolute exclusion of its rival. 
 
 (^.) The charge of Constantine to Eusebius 
 to make out a list of writings for the use of the 
 Church and its performance may be considered 
 as that which first put the subject on a broad 
 and permanent basis. Its consequences were 
 important. If it cannot be called the completion 
 
234 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 or close of the New Testament canon, it de- 
 termined it largely. Eusebius made a Greek 
 Bible containing the usual books, except the 
 Revelation. Though the historian of the church 
 was not well fitted for the task, being deficient 
 in critical ability and trammelled by tradition, 
 he doubtless used his best judgment. Hence, 
 about the year 337, the Constantinian Church 
 received a Bible which had an influential origin. 
 No binding authority indeed attached to the 
 list of the Christian books it presented ; but it 
 had weight in the Greek Church. It did not 
 prevent different opinions, nor deter individuals 
 from dissent. Thus Athanasius, who disliked 
 Eusebius and his party, issued a list of the 
 sacred writings which included the Revelation. 
 The canon of the Laodicean Council (a.d. 363) 
 agreed with the Constantine one. 
 
 That variations still existed in the Eastern 
 Church is shewn by the lists which vied with 
 one another in precedence. The apostolic canons 
 
SUMMARY OF THE SUBJECT. 235 
 
 adopted the seven general epistles, while the 
 apostolic constitutions excluded them. The 
 Alexandrian MS. added to the ordinary books 
 of the New Testament Clement's two epistles ; 
 and Cosmas Indicopleustes omitted the general 
 epistles as well as the Apocalypse. At length 
 the Council of Constantinople, usually called 
 the Trullaii (a.d. 692), laid down positions that 
 fixed the canon for the Greek Church. The 
 endeavour in it was to attain to a conclusion 
 which should unite East and West. This 
 council did not enumerate the separate books, 
 but referred to older authorities, to the 
 eighty -five canons of the apostles, the de- 
 crees of the synods of Laodicea, Ephesus, 
 Carthage, and others; to Athanasius, Gregory 
 of Nazianzus, Amphliochius of Iconium, Cyril 
 of Alexandria, Gennadius, &c. After the 
 fourth century there was a general desire to 
 fall back on apostolic times, to appeal to 
 the Church, to ascertain the opinion of 
 
236 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 synods or assemblies ; in a word, to rely on 
 authority. 
 
 Less discrepancy and activity were manifested 
 about the canon in the Western Church. Here 
 the chief doubts were directed to the epistle to 
 the Hebrews and the seven general ones. The 
 former was early excluded, and continued to be 
 so even in the time of Jerome. The latter were 
 adopted much sooner. The impulse given by 
 Constantine to determine the books of Scripture 
 re-acted on the West, where the Church con- 
 sidered it its own privilege. Augustine's in- 
 fluence contributed much to the settlement of 
 the question. The synods of Hippo (A.D. 393) 
 and of Carthage (a.d. 397) received the epistle 
 to the Hebrews and the seven general ones, thus 
 fixing the New Testament canon as it now is. 
 In 419 the African bishops, in the presence of a 
 Papal delegate, repeated their former decision. 
 After the West Goths joined the Catholic 
 Church in the sixth century, the Romish and 
 
SUMMARY OF THE SUBJECT. 237 
 
 Spanish Churches gave prominence to the fact 
 of accepting both the Apocalypse and the epistle 
 to the Hebrews. The canon of the West was 
 now virtually closed ; the fourth Council of 
 Toledo (a.d. 632) at which Isidore was present, 
 agreeing with the Augustinian list, ratified as 
 that list had been by Innocent the First. The 
 reception of the epistle to the Hebrews was 
 facilitated by the objections of the Arians and 
 Semiarians; while opposition to the Priscil- 
 lianists in Spain strengthened adherence to the 
 traditional canon. Augustine and the Trullan 
 Council fixed the number of the New Testament 
 books as they are now. 
 
 With regard to the Bible canon in general, 
 we see that councils had weight when they 
 enumerated the sacred books ; that prominent 
 teachers delivered their opinion on the subject 
 with effect, and that tradition contributed to one 
 result ; but no general council closed the canon 
 once for all, till that of Trent promulgated its 
 
238 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 decrees. This body, however, could only settle 
 the subject for Romanists, since, while the right 
 of private judgment is exercised, no corporation 
 can declare some books inspired and others not, 
 some authoritative in matters of faith, others 
 not, without presumption. Though the present 
 Bible canon rests upon the judgment of good 
 and learned men of different times, it can never 
 be finally or infallibly settled, because the critical 
 powers of readers differ, and all do not accept 
 church authority with unhesitating assent. 
 
 It is the way of men to defer unduly to the 
 opinions expressed by synods and councils, 
 especially if they be propounded dogmatically ; 
 to acquiesce in their decisions with facility rather 
 than institute independent inquiry. This is ex- 
 emplified in the history of the canon, where the 
 fallibility of such bodies in determining canon- 
 icity is conspicuous. It is so in the general re- 
 ception of the book of Esther, while the old 
 poem, the Song of Songs, was called in question 
 
SUMMARY OF THE SUBJECT, 239 
 
 at the synod of Jamnia ; in the omission of the 
 Revelation from the canonical list by many be- 
 longing to the Greek Church, while the epistles 
 to Timothy and Titus were received as St Paul's 
 from the beginning almost universally. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CANON IN THE CONFESSIONS OF 
 DIFFERENT CHURCHES. 
 
 The second Helvetic Confession (A.D. 1566) 
 speaks of the apocryphal books of the Old 
 Testament as those which the ancients wished 
 to be read in the churches, but not as authorita- 
 tive in matters of faith.^ 
 
 The Gallic Confession (A.D. 1559) makes a 
 distinction between canonical and other books, 
 the former being the rule and norm of faith, 
 not only by the consent of the Church, but much 
 more by the testimony and intrinsic persuasion 
 of the Spirit, by whose suggestions we are taught 
 to distinguish them from other ecclesiastical 
 books which, though useful, are not of the kind 
 
 ^ Niemeyer, Colledio Con/essionum, p. 468. 
 
IN THE CONFESSIONS. 241 
 
 that any article of faith can be constituted by 
 them.^ 
 
 The Belgic Confession (A.D. 1561) niakes a 
 distinction between the sacred and apocryphal 
 books. The latter may be read by the Church, 
 but no doctrine can be derived from them. 
 In the list of New Testament books given there 
 diXQ fourteen epistles of Paul.^ 
 
 The canon of the Waldenses must have 
 coincided at first with that of the Roman 
 Church ; for the Dublin MS. containing the 
 New Testament has attached to it the Book 
 of Wisdom and the first twenty-three chapters 
 of Sirach ; while the Zurich codex of the New 
 Testament has marginal references to the Apoc- 
 rypha ; to Judith, Tobit, 4 Esdras, Wisdom, 
 Sirach, and Susanna. The Nobla Leyczo7i con- 
 taining a brief narration of the contents of the 
 Old and New Testaments confirms this opinion. 
 
 * Niemeyer's Collectio Confessionuniy p. 330. 
 2 Ibid., pp. 361, 362, 
 
 Q 
 
242 'IHE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 It opposes, however, the old law to the new, 
 making them antagonistic. The historical 
 document containing the articles of " The 
 Union of the Valleys," A.D. 1571, separates 
 indeed the canonical and apocryphal books, 
 purporting to be founded on a Confession of 
 Faith as old as A.D. 11 20; but the latter is 
 mythical, as appears from a comparison of it 
 with the epistle which the legates of the Wal- 
 densians gave to CEcolampadius. The articles 
 of that " Union " are copied from Morel's 
 account of his transactions with CEcolampadius 
 and Bucer in 1530. The literature of this 
 people was altered by Hussite influences and 
 the Reformation ; so that though differing 
 little from the Romanists at first except in 
 ecclesiastical discipline, they diverged widely 
 afterwards by adopting the Protestant canon 
 and doctrines.^ Hence the Confession issued 
 
 * See Herzog's Die Romanischen Waldenser^ p. 55, &c. ; and 
 his programm De originc et pristitio statu Waldcnsium^ &c., 
 pp. 17, 40, 41. 
 
IN THE CONFESSIONS. 243 
 
 in 1655 enumerates as Holy Scripture nothing 
 but the Jewish Palestinian canon, and the 
 usual books of the New Testament.^ 
 
 The canon of the Anglican Church (1562), 
 given in the sixth article of religion, defines 
 holy Scripture to be " those canonical books of 
 the Old and New Testament, of whose authority 
 was never any doubt in the Church." After 
 giving the names and number of the canonical 
 books, the article prefaces the apocryphal ones 
 with, " And the other books (as Hierome saith) 
 the Church doth read for example of life and 
 instruction of manners ; but yet doth it not 
 apply them to establish any doctrine. Such are 
 these following," &c., &c. At the end it is stated 
 that " all the books of the New Testament, as 
 they are commonly received, we do receive and 
 account them canonical." The article is ambi- 
 guous. If the canonical books enumerated are 
 those meant in the phrase " of whose authority 
 
 ^ Leger's Histoire des Egliscs Vaudoises^ vol. i., p. 112, &c. 
 
244 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 was never any doubt in the Church," the state- 
 ment is incorrect If a distinction is implied 
 between the canonical books and such canonical 
 ones as have never been doubted in the Church, 
 the meaning is obscure. In either case the 
 language is not explicit. 
 
 The Scottish or Westminster Confession of 
 Faith gives a list of all the books of the Old 
 and New Testaments as the Word of God 
 written; adding that those called the apoc- 
 rypha are not of divine inspiration, and no 
 part of the canon, — of no authority in the 
 Church, nor to be approved or made use of 
 otherwise than human writings. 
 
 The Roman Catholic canon was finally 
 determined at the Council of Trent (1546), 
 which adopted all the books in the Vulgate 
 as sacred and canonical, without distinction. 
 Third and fourth Esdras, third Maccabees, and 
 the prayer of Manasseh were not included ; 
 though the first and last appeared in the original 
 
IN THE CONFESSIONS. 245 
 
 Clementine edition of 1 592, but apart from the 
 canonical books. They are not in the Sixtine 
 edition of 1590.^ A council at Florence in 
 1441 had set the example which was followed 
 at Trent. But this stringent decree did not 
 prevent individual Catholics from making a 
 distinction between the books, in assuming 
 a first and second canon or proto- canonical 
 and deutero-canonical books ; as did Sixtus 
 Senensis, B. Lamy, Anton a matre Dei, Jahn, 
 and others ; though it is hardly consistent 
 with orthodox Catholicism or the view of those 
 who passed the decree. When the writings are 
 said to be of different authority — some more, 
 others less — the intent of the council is violated. 
 The Vatican council (1870) confirmed the 
 Tridentine decree respecting the canon. 
 
 The Greek Church, after several ineffectual 
 
 ^ The reason given for their being added as a separate 
 appendix is that they are cited by some fathers and found in 
 some Latin Bibles. 
 
246 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 attempts to uphold the old distinction between 
 the canonical and ecclesiastical books by Metro- 
 phanes Critopulus patriarch of Alexandria in 
 1625, and Cyril Lucaris patriarch of Constan- 
 tinople (1638 A.D.),^ came to the same decision 
 with the Romish, and canonized all the apoc- 
 rypha. This was done at a Jerusalem synod 
 under Dositheus in 1672. 
 
 1 Kimmel's Monumenta fidei eccles. orient y part i. p. 467. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE CANON FROM SEMLER TO THE PRESENT 
 TIME, WITH REFLECTIONS ON ITS READ- 
 JUSTMENT. 
 
 Semler ^ was the most conspicuous scholar 
 after the Reformation who undertook to correct 
 the prevailing ideas respecting the canon. 
 Acquainted with the works of Toland and 
 Morgan, he adopted some of their views, and 
 prosecuted his inquiries on their lines chiefly in 
 relation to the New Testament. He had no 
 definite principles to guide him, but judged 
 books chiefly by their christian value and use to 
 the Church. Though his views are sometimes 
 one-sided and his essays ill-digested, he placed 
 the subject in new lights, and rendered a service 
 
 ^ +I79I AD. 
 
248 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 to truth which bore abundant fruit in after years.^ 
 He dealt tradition severe blows, and freed 
 theolog>' from the yoke of the letter. He was 
 followed by his disciple Corrodi, by G. L. Oeder, 
 J. D. Michaelis, Herder, Lessing, and Eichhorn, 
 — most of whom recommended their views by 
 a freshness of style which Semler did not 
 command. The more recent works of Gesenius, 
 De Wette, Zunz, Ewald, Hitzig, Geiger and 
 Herzfeld have contributed to form a juster 
 opinion of the true position which the books of 
 the Bible occupy. 
 
 In the New Testament, the writings of F. C. 
 Baur have opened up a new method of investi- 
 gating the canon, which promises important 
 and lasting results. Proceeding in the track of 
 Semler, he prosecuted his researches into primi- 
 tive Christianity with great acuteness and 
 singular power of combination. Though his 
 
 * Abhandlung von frcier Untersuchung des Canon, 4 parts, 
 Halle, 1771-1775. 
 
SINCE SEMLER. 249 
 
 separation of Petrine and Pauline Christianity is 
 not new, he has applied it in ways which neither 
 Toland nor Morgan was competent to manage. 
 These writers perceived the difference between 
 the leading principle of the twelve and that of 
 Paul, they had some far-seeing glimpses of the 
 origin and differences of the New Testament 
 writings,^ but they propounded them in an un- 
 systematic way along with untenable conjec- 
 tures. It was reserved for the Tubingen pro- 
 fessor to elaborate the hypothesis of an Ebionite 
 or primitive Christianity in contra-distinction 
 from a Pauline, applying it to the origin and 
 constitution of christian literature; in a word, 
 to use a tendenz-kritik for opening up the 
 genius of the sacred writings as well as the 
 stages of early Christianity out of which they 
 arose. The head of the Tubingen school, it is 
 true, has carried out the antagonism between 
 
 1 See Toland's Nazarejtus, p. 25, &c., second edition ; and 
 Morgan's Moral Philosopher, vol. i. p. 56, &c. 
 
250 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 the Petrine and Pauline christians too rigorously, 
 and invaded the authenticity of the sacred 
 writings to excess ; for it is hazardous to make 
 a theory extremely stringent to the comparative 
 neglect of modifying circumstances, which, 
 though increasing the difficulty of criticism, 
 contribute to the security of its processes. Yet 
 he has properly emphasized internal evidence ; 
 and many of his conclusions about the books 
 will stand. He has thrown much light on the 
 original relations of parties immediately after 
 the origin of Christianity, and disturbed an 
 organic unity of the New Testament which had 
 been merely asstmted by traditionalists. The 
 best Introductions to the New Testament must 
 accept them to some extent. The chief char- 
 acteristic of the school is the application of 
 historic criticism to the genesis of the New 
 Testament writings, irrespective of tradition — 
 a striving to discover the circumstances or 
 tendencies out of which the books originated. 
 
SINCE SEMLER. 251 
 
 Baur's tendenz - principle judiciously applied 
 cannot but produce good results. 
 
 We have seen that sound critical considera- 
 tions did not regulate the formation of the 
 three collections which make up the entire 
 canon of the Old Testament. Had it been 
 so, the Pentateuch would not have been 
 attributed to Moses. Neither would a number 
 of latter prophecies have been accepted as 
 Isaiah's and incorporated with the prophet's 
 authentic productions. All the Proverbs, the 
 book of Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs 
 would not have been assigned to Solomon ; 
 Jonah would have been separated from the 
 prophets, and Daniel must have had a later 
 position in the Hagiographa. We cannot, 
 therefore, credit the collectors or editors of 
 the books with great critical sagacity. But 
 they did their best in the circumstances, pre- 
 serving invaluable records of the Hebrew 
 people. In like manner, it has appeared, that 
 
252 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 the ecclesiastics to whom we owe the New 
 Testament collection were not sharp-sighted 
 in the literature with which they had to do. 
 It is true that well-founded doubts were 
 entertained by the early Christians about 
 several portions, such as the second Epistle of 
 Peter, the Epistle to the Hebrews, &c., but 
 the Revelation was needlessly discredited. 
 They accepted without hesitation the pastoral 
 epistles as Pauline, but doubted some of the 
 Catholic Epistles, whch bear the impress of 
 authenticity more strongly, such as James. 
 It is therefore incorrect to say that 2 Peter, 
 2 and 3 John, James, Jude, Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, and the Apocalypse " have been 
 received into the canon on evidence less 
 complete " than that belonging to the 
 others. The very general admission of the 
 fourth gospel as the apostle John's, is a curious 
 example of facile traditionalism. Biblical criti- 
 cism, however, scarcely existed in the first three 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. 253 
 
 centuries. It is for us to set the subject in 
 another light, because our means of judging 
 are superior. If the resources of the early fathers 
 were inadequate to the proper sifting of a co- 
 pious literature, they should be mildly judged. 
 
 The question of the canon is not settled. It 
 is probably the work of successive inquirers to 
 set it on a right basis, and adjust the various 
 parts in a manner consistent with historic 
 criticism, sound reason, and religion. The 
 absolute and relative worth of books ; the 
 degrees in which they regulate ethics and 
 conduct ; their varying values at the times of 
 their first appearance and our own ; their places 
 in the general history of human progress — all 
 these must be determined before the documents 
 of Judaism and Christianity be classified aright. 
 Their present arrangement is external. Based 
 on no interior principle, it furnishes little help 
 toward a thorough investigation of the whole. 
 Those who look upon the question as historical 
 
254 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE 
 
 and literary take a one-sided view. It has a 
 theological character also. It needs the applica- 
 tion, not only of historic criticism, but the 
 immediate consciousness belonging to every 
 Christian. The two Testaments should be 
 separated, and their respective positions 
 assigned to each — the Old having been 
 preparatory to the New. Should it be said 
 bluntly, as it is in the 7th Article of the 
 Anglican Church, that the Old is not contrary 
 to the New Testament } Luther at least ex- 
 pressed his opinion of the difference between 
 them pretty clearly ; ^ though the theologians of 
 Germany after him evinced a desire to minimise 
 the difference.^ Should the general opinion of 
 
 ^ For example, "Moses is dead; his rule went out when 
 Christ came — he is of no further service here. . . . We 
 are willing to regard him as a teacher, but we will not regard 
 him as our lawgiver, unless he agree ivith the New Testament 
 and the law of nature." Sdmmtliche Schriften, ed. "Walch. 
 dritter Theil., pp. 7, 8. 
 
 ' Such as Calovius, Chemnitz, John Gerhard, W. Lyser, 
 Quenstedt, Brochmand, HoUaz, &c. Mclancthon also makes 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. 255 
 
 the Protestant Church that the authority of the 
 Old Testament is not subordinate to that of the 
 New be rigidly upheld? According to one aspect 
 of the former it may be so, viz., its prophetic 
 and theological aspect, that in which it is 
 brought into close union with the latter ; the 
 essence of the one being foreshadowed or 
 implied in the other, as Justin Martyr supposed. 
 And this view has never lost supporters, who 
 by the help of double senses, types, and 
 symbols, with assumed prediction of the definite 
 and distant future, transform the old dispensa- 
 tion into an outline picture of the new ; taking 
 into it a body of divinity which is alien from its 
 nature. According to another aspect, viz., the 
 moral and historical, the equality can scarcely 
 be allowed. Schleiermacher is right in saying 
 that the Old Testament seems to be nothing 
 but a superfluous authority for doctrine ; an 
 
 no important distinction between the two Testaments in his Loci 
 theologici. Calvin's theology was derived from the Old Testa- 
 ment more than the New. 
 
2S6 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 opinion coinciding with that of the early 
 Socinians, who held that it has a historical, not 
 a dogmatic, value. Only such of our pious 
 emotions as are of a general nature are accu- 
 rately reflected in the Old Testament ; and all 
 that is most decidedly Jewish is of least value 
 to christians. The alleged coincidence of the 
 Old Testament with the New must be modified 
 by the doctrine of development. It has been 
 fostered by types and prophecies supposed to 
 refer to christian times ; by the assumed dicta- 
 tion of all Scripture by the Holy Spirit; by 
 fancied references of the one dispensation to the 
 other; by the confounding of a Jewish Messiah 
 sketched in various prophets, with Jesus Christ, 
 as if the latter had not changed, exalted and 
 purified the Messianic idea to suit his sublime 
 purposes of human regeneration. The times 
 and circumstances in which the Old Testament 
 Scriptures appeared, the manners, usages, civil- 
 isation, intellectual and moral stage of the 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. 257 
 
 Semitic race combine to give them a lower 
 position than that of the New Testament books 
 which arose out of a more developed perception 
 of the relations between God and men. Spiri- 
 tual apprehension had got beyond Jewish par- 
 ticularism, especially in the case of the apostle 
 Paul, who gave the new religion a distinct 
 vitality by severing it from its Jewish pre- 
 decessor. 
 
 The agreement of the New Testament books 
 with themselves must be modified by the same 
 doctrine of development. Jewish and Pauline 
 Christianity appear in different works, necessarily 
 imparting a difference of views and expression ; 
 or they are blended in various degrees, as in the 
 epistles to the Hebrews and the first of Peter. 
 Hence absolute harmony cannot be looked for. 
 If the standpoints of the writers were so diverse, 
 how can their productions coincide.? The 
 alleged coincidence can only be intersected with 
 
 varieties proportioned to the measures in which 
 R 
 
2S8 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 the authors possessed the Spirit of God. These 
 varieties affect the matter as well as the manner 
 of the writings. It is therefore unphilosophical 
 to treat the Bible as a whole which was dictated 
 by the Spirit and directed to one end. Its 
 uniformity is chequered with variety; its har- 
 mony with disagreement. It is a bundle of 
 books ; a selection from a wider literature, 
 reflecting many diversities of religious appre- 
 hension. After the two Testaments have been 
 rightly estimated according to their respective 
 merits, the contents of each should be duly 
 apportioned — internal evidence being the test of 
 their relative importance, irrespective of a priori 
 assumptions. Their traditional origin and 
 authority must be subordinated to the inherent 
 value they bear, or the conformity of the ideas 
 to the will of God. The gradual formation of 
 both canons suggests an analysis of the classes 
 into which they came to be put ; for the same 
 canonical dignity was not attributed by the 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. ' 259 
 
 Jews to the books contained in the three 
 divisions ; and the controverted writings of 
 the New Testament found gradual recog- 
 nition very slowly. Luther made important 
 distinctions between the canonical books 1 ; and 
 Carlstadt put the Antilegomena of the New 
 Testament on a par with the Hagiographa of 
 the Old. 
 
 In the Old Testament the three classes or 
 canons have been generally estimated by the Jews 
 according to their respective antiquity ; though 
 the sacrificial worship enjoined in the Penta- 
 teuch never formed an essential part of the 
 Jewish religion ; the best prophets having set 
 small value upon it. The pure monotheistic 
 doctrine of these last writers, chiefly contained 
 in the second canon, lifts that class up to the 
 highest rank ; yet the Decalogue in the Penta- 
 
 ^ His full sayings are collected in Bretschneider's Luther an 
 unsere Zeity pp. 186-224 j and in Krause's Opuscula theologica, 
 pp. 205-241, 
 
26o THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 teuch is sufficient to stamp the first canon with 
 great worth. It must be confessed, however, that 
 the Mosaic law was meagre, in the domain of 
 pure ethics ; and that it promoted among the 
 people a slavish spirit of positivism by laying 
 more stress on acts than dispositions, and insist- 
 ing on small regulations. For this reason, the 
 prophets combated its narrow externality. The 
 three canons were regarded with a degree of 
 veneration corresponding to the order in which 
 they stand. To apportion their respective 
 values to the individual parts of them is a 
 difficult task. 
 
 As to the New Testament writings, we think 
 that some of them might conveniently occupy 
 the position of duetero-canonical, equivalent to 
 those of the Old Testament having that title. 
 We allude to 2 and 3 John, Jude, James, 2 
 Peter, the Revelation. It is true that a few of 
 these were prior in time to some of the univer- 
 sally-received gospels or epistles ; but time is 
 
riS READJUSTMENT. 261 
 
 not an important factor in a good classification. 
 Among the Pauline epistles themselves, classifi- 
 cation might be adopted ; for the pastoral 
 letters are undoubtedly post-Pauline, and in- 
 ferior to the authentic ones. In classifying the 
 New Testament writings, three things might be 
 considered — the reception they met with from the 
 first, their authenticity, above all, their internal 
 excellence. The subject is not easy, because 
 critics are not universally agreed about the 
 proper rank and authenticity of a few docu- 
 ments. The Epistle to the Colossians, for 
 example, creates perplexity ; that to the 
 Ephesians is less embarrassing, its post-Pauline 
 origin being tolerably clear. 
 
 What is wanted is a rational historic criti- 
 cism to moderate the theological hypotheses 
 with which the older Protestants set out, the 
 supernatural inspiration of the books, their 
 internal inseparability, and their direct reference 
 to the work'of salvation. It must be allowed that 
 
262 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 many points are independent of dogmatics ; 
 and that the right decision in things historical 
 may be reached apart from any ecclesiastical 
 standpoint. 
 
 Again, should the distinction between the 
 apocryphal and canonical books of the Old 
 Testament be emphasized as it is by many? 
 Should a sharp line be put between the two, 
 as though the one class, with the period it 
 belonged to, were characterized by the errors 
 and anachronisms of its history ; the other by 
 simplicity and accuracy ; the one, by books 
 written under fictitious names; the other, by 
 the power to distinguish truth from falsehood 
 or by honesty of purpose ? Should the one 
 be a sign of the want of truthfulness and 
 discernment ; the other, of religious simplicity ? 
 Can this aggregation of the Apocrypha over 
 against the Hagiographa, serve the purpose 
 of a just estimate ? Hardly so ; for some of 
 the latter, such as Esther and Ecclesiastes, 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. 263 
 
 cannot be put above Wisdom, ist Maccabees, 
 Judith, Baruch, or Ecclesiasticus. The doctrine 
 of immortahty, clearly expressed in the Book of 
 Wisdom, is not in Ecclesiastes ; neither is God 
 once named in the Book of Esther as author of 
 the marvellous deliverances which the chosen 
 people are said to have experienced. The his- 
 tory narrated in ist Maccabees is more credible 
 than that in Esther. It is therefore misleading 
 to mark off all the apocryphal works as human 
 and all the canonical ones as divine. The divine 
 and the human elements in man are too inti- 
 mately blended to admit of such separation. 
 The best which he produces partakes of both. 
 The human element still permeates them as 
 long as God speaks through man ; and He 
 neither dictates nor speaks otherwise. In the 
 attributes claimed for the canonical books no 
 rigid line can be drawn. It may be that 
 the inspiration of their authors differed in 
 degree; that the writer of Ecclesiastes, for 
 
264 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 example, was more philosophical than Jesus 
 son of Sirach ; but different degrees of in- 
 spiration belong to the canonical writers them- 
 selves. Undue exaltation of the Hebrew 
 canon does injustice to the wider Alexandrian 
 one. Yet some still speak of "the pure Hebrew 
 canon," identifying it with that of the Church 
 of England. We admit that history had be- 
 come legendary, that it was written in an ora- 
 torical style by the Alexandrian Jews, and was 
 used for didactic purposes as in Tobit and 
 Judith. Gnomic poetry had survived in the 
 book of Sirach ; prophecy, in Baruch and the 
 Epistle of Jeremiah, though here the language 
 is already prosaic. Imitation is too observable 
 in the matter and manner of the Apocrypha. 
 They have parallels, however, among the Hagio- 
 grapha, which originated in an age when the 
 genuine breath of prophetic inspiration had 
 ceased; when history and prophecy had degene- 
 rated ; so that the transition from Esther and 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. 265 
 
 Malachi to Judith and Baruch, as also from 
 Proverbs to Wisdom, is not great. 
 
 The Talnmdic canon is generally adopted 
 at the present day. It was not, however, 
 universally received even by the Jews; for 
 Esther was omitted out of it by those from 
 whom Melito got his catalogue in Palestine ; 
 while Sirach was annexed to it as late as the 
 beginning of the 4th century. Baruch was 
 also added in several Jewish circles, doubtless 
 on account of its supposed authorship. Thus 
 " the pure Hebrew canon " was not one and the 
 same among all Jews ; and therefore the phrase 
 is misleading. Neither is it correct to say that 
 it is the only canon distinctly recognized during 
 the first four centuries, unless the usage of the 
 early fathers be set over against their assumed 
 contrary judgment ; nor can all who followed 
 the Alexandrian canon be pronounced uncritical, 
 including Origen himself. A stereotyped canon 
 of the Old Testament, either among Jews or 
 
266 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Christians of the first four centuries, which 
 excluded all the apocryphal books and in- 
 cluded all the canonical ones, cannot be 
 shown. And in regard to "the critical judg- 
 ment " of Jews and Christians in that period 
 it is arbitrary to suppose that such as adopted 
 the present canonical books alone were more 
 discerning than others. They were more 
 traditional and conservative ; their discriminat- 
 ing faculty not corresponding to the degree of 
 their reliance on the past. 
 
 The aim of the inquirer should be to find 
 from competent witnesses — from contempor- 
 aneous or succeeding writers of trustworthy 
 character — the authors and ages of the biblical 
 books. When evidence of this kind is not 
 available as often happens, the only resource 
 is the internal. The external evidence in 
 favour of the canon is all but exhausted, and 
 nothing of importance can be added to it now. 
 Its strength has been brought out ; its weakness 
 
TTS READJUSTMENT. 267 
 
 has not been equally exhibited. The problem 
 resolves itself into an examination of internal 
 characteristics, which may be strong enough to 
 modify or counterbalance the external. The 
 latter have had an artificial preponderance in the 
 past; henceforward they must be regulated by the 
 internal. The main conclusion should be drawn 
 from the contents of the books themselves. 
 And the example of Jews and Christians, to 
 whom we owe the Bible canon, shows that 
 classification is necessary. This is admitted both 
 by Roman Catholic writers and orthodox Pro- 
 testants. A gloss-writer on what is usually 
 called the " decree of Gratian," i.e., the Bolog- 
 nese canonist of the 12th century, remarks 
 about the canonical books, "all may be received 
 but may not be held in the same estimation." 
 John Gerhard speaks of a second or der, containing 
 the books of the New Testament, about whose 
 authors there were some doubts in the Church;^ 
 
 1} Loci Theologici, Tom. i. pp. 186, 187, ed. Cotta, 1762. 
 
268 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 and Quenstedt similarly specifies proto-canonical 
 and deiitero-canonical New Testament books, or 
 those of the first and second order/ What are 
 degrees or kinds of inspiration assumed by 
 many, but a tacit acknowledgment of the fact 
 that books vary in intrinsic value as they 
 are more or less impregnated with divine 
 truth or differ in the proportion of the eter- 
 nal and temporal elements which commingle 
 in every revealed religion ? Doubtless the 
 authors from whom the separate books pro- 
 ceeded, if discoverable, should be regarded ; 
 the inspiration of an Isaiah is higher than that 
 of a Malachi, and an apostle is more authorita- 
 tive than an evangelist ; but the authors are 
 often unknown. Besides, the process of redaction 
 through which many of the writings passed 
 hinders an exact knowledge of authorship. 
 In these circumstances the books themselves 
 must determine the position they should occupy 
 
 ^ Theologia Didactico-polemica, p. 340. 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. 269 
 
 in the estimation of those who are looking at 
 records of the past to help their spiritual life. 
 And if it be asked, What principle should lie at 
 the basis of a thorough classification ? the 
 answer is, the normative element contained in the 
 sacred books. This is the characteristic which 
 should regulate classification. The time when 
 a book appeared, its author, the surrounding 
 circumstances that influenced him, are of less 
 consequence than its bearing upon the spiri- 
 tual education of mankind. The extent of 
 its adequacy to promote this end determines 
 the rank. Such books as embody the in- 
 destructible essence of religion with the fewest 
 accidents of time, place and nature — which 
 present conditions not easily disengaged from 
 the imperishable life of the soul, deserve 
 the first rank. Whatever Scriptures express 
 ideas consonant with the nature of God as 
 a holy, loving, just and good Being — as a bene- 
 volent Father not willing the destruction of any 
 
270 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 of his children ; the Scriptures presenting ideas 
 of Him consistent with pure reason and man's 
 highest instincts, besides such as set forth our 
 sense of dependence on the infinite ; the books, 
 in short, that contain a revelation from God with 
 least admixture of the human conditions under 
 which it is transmitted — these belong to the 
 highest class. If they lead the reader away 
 from opinion to practice, from dogma to life, 
 from non-doing to obedience to the law of moral 
 duty, from the notion that everything in salva- 
 tion has been done for him to the keeping of 
 the commandments, from particularist concep- 
 tions about the divine mercy to the widest 
 belief of its overshadowing presence — such 
 books of Scripture are in that same proportion 
 to be ranked among the best. In regard to the 
 Old Testament, conformity to Christ's teaching 
 will determine rank; or, which is tantamount, 
 conformity to that pure reason which is God's 
 natural revelation in man ; a criterion which 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT, 271 
 
 assigns various ranks to such Scriptures as ap- 
 peared among a Semite race at a certain stage 
 of its development. In the New Testament, the 
 words and precepts of Jesus have a character 
 of their own, though it is very difficult to select 
 them from the gospels. The supposition that 
 the apostles' productions possess a higher 
 authority than those of their disciples, is natural. 
 But the immediate followers of Christ did not 
 all stand on one platform. Differing from one 
 another even in important principles, it is 
 possible, if not certain, that some of their dis- 
 ciples' composition may be of higher value. 
 The spirit of God may have wrought within the 
 apostles generally with greater power and clear- 
 ness than in other teachers ; but its operation is 
 conditioned not merely by outward factors but 
 by individual idiosyncracy ; so that one who 
 had not seen the Lord and was therefore not an 
 apostle proper, may have apprehended his mind 
 better than an immediate disciple. Paul stood 
 
272 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 above the primitive apostles in the extent to 
 which he fathomed the pregnant sayings of 
 Jesus and developed their latent germs. Thus 
 the normative element — that which determines 
 the varying degrees of authority belonging to 
 the New Testament — does not lie in apostolic 
 authorship but internal worth ; in the clearness 
 and power with which the divine Spirit enabled 
 men to grasp the truth. By distinguishing the 
 temporal and the eternal in Christianity, the 
 writings necessarily rise or sink in proportion to 
 these elements. The eternal is the essence and 
 gem of revealed truth. Perfectibility belongs 
 only to the temporal ; it cannot be predicated of 
 the eternal. 
 
 The multitudinous collection of books con- 
 tained in the Bible is not pervaded by unity of 
 purpose or plan, so as to make a good classifica- 
 tion easy. Least of all is it dominated by such 
 substantial unity as has been connected with one 
 man ; for the conception of a Messiah was 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. 373 
 
 never the national belief of Judaism, but a notion 
 projected by prophets into the future to comfort 
 the people in times of disaster ; the forecasting 
 of aspirations doomed to disappointment. 
 From the collection presenting various degrees 
 of intellectual and moral development, it is 
 difficult to see a sufficient reason for some 
 being canonised to the exclusion of better 
 works which were relegated to the class of the 
 apocryphal. 
 
 Mr Jones's^ statement that the primitive 
 Christians are proper judges to determine what 
 book is canonical, requires great modification, 
 being too vague to be serviceable ; for " primi- 
 tive Christians" is a phrase that needs to be 
 defined. How far do they extend } How 
 much of the first and second centuries do they 
 cover.!* Were not the primitive Christians 
 
 ^ See Jones's new and full method of settling the canonical 
 authority of the New Testament, Vol. I., Part i., chap. 5, page 
 52, ed. 1736. 
 
 S 
 
274 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 divided in their beliefs ? Did the Jewish 
 and the Pauline ones unite in accepting the 
 same writings ? Not for a considerable time, 
 until the means of ascertaining the real authors 
 of the books and the ability to do so were 
 lacking. 
 
 As to the Old Testament, the Palestinian 
 Jews determined the canonical books by 
 gradually contracting the list and stopping it 
 at a time when their calamities throwing 
 them back on the past for springs of hope, had 
 stiffened them within a narrow traditionalism ; 
 but their brethren in Egypt, touched by 
 Alexandrian culture and Greek philosophy, 
 received later productions into their canon, 
 some of which at least are of equal value with 
 Palestinian ones. In any case, the degree of 
 authority attaching to the Biblical books grew 
 from"' less to greater, till it culminated in a 
 divine character, a sacredness rising even to in- 
 fallibility. Doubtless the Jews of Palestine dis- 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. . 275 
 
 tinguished the canonical from the apocryphal 
 or deutero-canonical books on grounds satis- 
 factory to themselves ; but their judgment was 
 not infallible. A senate of Rabbis under the 
 old dispensation might err, as easily as a synod 
 of priests under the new. Though they may 
 have been generally correct, it must not be 
 assumed that they were always so. Their dis- 
 cernment may be commended without being 
 magnified. The general feeling of leaning upon 
 the past was a sound one, for the best times of 
 Judaism had departed, and with them the most 
 original effusions ; yet the wave of Platonism 
 that passed over Alexandria could not but 
 quicken even the conservative mind of the Jew. 
 Greek thought blended with echoes of the past, 
 though in dulled form. Still a line had to be 
 drawn in the national literature; and it was 
 well drawn on the whole. The feeling existed 
 that the collection must be closed with works of 
 a certain period and a certain character ; and it 
 
276 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE : 
 
 was closed accordingly, without preventing 
 individuals from putting their private opinions 
 over against authority, and dissenting. 
 
 At the present day a new arrangement is 
 necessary ; but where is the ecclesiastical body 
 bold enough to undertake it ? And if it were 
 attempted or carried out by non-ecclesiastical 
 parties, would the churches approve or adopt 
 the proceeding? We venture to say, that if 
 some books be separated from the collection 
 and others put in their place — if the classifica- 
 tion of some be altered, and their authority 
 raised or lowered — good will be done ; the 
 Bible will have a fairer degree of normal power 
 in doctrine and morals, and continue to promote 
 spiritual life. Faith in Christ precedes faith in 
 books. Unless criticism be needlessly nega- 
 tive it cannot remove this time-honoured legacy 
 from the position it is entitled to, else the 
 spiritual consciousness of humanity will rebel. 
 While the subject is treated reverently, and the 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. 277 
 
 love of truth overrides dogmatic prejudices, 
 the canon will come forth in a different 
 form from that which it has had for cen- 
 turies — a form on which faith may rest with- 
 out misgiving. 
 
 The canon was a work of divine providence, 
 because history, in a religious view, necessarily 
 implies the fact. It was a work of inspiration, 
 because the agency of the Holy Spirit has 
 always been with the people of God as a 
 principle influencing their life. It was not, 
 however, the result of a special or peculiar act 
 of divine inspiration at any one time, but of a 
 gradual illuminating process, shaped by in- 
 fluences more or less active in the divine 
 economy. 
 
 The canonical authority of Scripture does 
 not depend on any church or council. The 
 early church may be cited as a witness for it ; 
 that is all. Canonical authority lies in Scripture 
 itself, and is inherent in the books so far as 
 
278 THE CANON OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 they contain a declaration of the divine will. 
 Hence there is truth in the statement of old 
 theologians that the authority of Scripture is 
 from God alone. It was the early church indeed 
 that made the canon, selecting the books which 
 appeared to have been written by apostles or 
 apostolic men, and carrying over to them 
 authority from alleged authenticity more than 
 internal value. But the latter is the real index 
 of authority ; and God is the fountain from 
 whom spiritual endowments proceed.^ The 
 canonicity of the books is a distinct question 
 
 ^ Ecclesia sua autoritate nullum librum facit canonicum, 
 quippe canonica scripturae autoritas est a solo Deo, &c. 
 Gerhard's Loci Theologici^ torn. i. p. 4, ed. Cotta. Autoritas 
 scripturae quoad nos nihil aliud est, quam manifestatio et 
 cognitio unicDe illius divinoe et summce autoritatis, quae scripturae 
 est interna et insita. Ecclesia igitur non confert scripturce 
 novam aliquam autoritatem quoad nos, sed testificatione sua ad 
 agnitionem illius veritatis nos deducit. Concedimus, ecclesiam 
 esse scripturae sacrae testem, custodevi, vindueniy praeconefn, et 
 interpretem ; sed negamus, ex eo efifici, quod autoritas scripturae 
 sive simpliciter sive quoad nos ab ecclesia pendeat et quidem 
 unice, pendeat.— /^V/., tomus secundus, p. 39, ed. Cotta. 
 
ITS READJUSTMENT. 279 
 
 from that of their authenticity. The latter is a 
 thing of historic criticism ; the former of 
 doctrinal belief Their ecclesiastical authority 
 rests on outward attestation ; their normal, on 
 faith and feeling. 
 
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