biblical literature

The Christian canon

The Christian Church received its Bible from Greek-speaking Jews and found the majority of its early converts in the Hellenistic world. The Greek Bible of Alexandria thus became the official Bible of the Christian community, and the overwhelming number of quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures in the New Testament are derived from it. Whatever the origin of the Apocryphal books in the canon of Alexandria, these became part of the Christian Scriptures, but there seems to have been no unanimity as to their exact canonical status. The New Testament itself does not cite the Apocryphal books directly, but occasional traces of a knowledge of them are to be found. The Apostolic Fathers (late 1st–early 2nd centuries) show extensive familiarity with this literature, but a list of the Old Testament books by Melito, bishop of Sardis in Asia Minor (2nd century), does not include the additional writings of the Greek Bible, and Origen (c. 185–c. 254) explicitly describes the Old Testament canon as comprising only 22 books.

From the time of Origen on, the Church Fathers who were familiar with Hebrew differentiated, theoretically at least, the Apocryphal books from those of the Old Testament, though they used them freely. In the Syrian East, until the 7th century the Church had only the books of the Hebrew canon with the addition of Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sira (but without Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah). It also incorporated the Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, and the additions to Daniel. The 6th-century manuscript of the Peshitta (Syriac version) known as Codex Ambrosianus also has III and IV Maccabees, II (sometimes IV) Esdras, and Josephus’ Wars VII.

Early councils of the African Church held at Hippo (393) and Carthage (397, 419) affirmed the use of the Apocryphal books as Scripture. In the 4th century also, Athanasius, chief theologian of Christian orthodoxy, differentiated “canonical books” from both “those that are read” by Christians only and the “Apocryphal books” rejected alike by Jews and Christians. In the preparation of a standard Latin version, the biblical scholar Jerome (c. 347–419/420) separated “canonical books” from “ecclesiastical books” (i.e., the Apocryphal writings), which he regarded as good for spiritual edification but not authoritative Scripture. A contrary view of Augustine (354–430), one of the greatest Western theologians, prevailed, however, and the works remained in the Latin Vulgate version. The Decretum Gelasianum, a Latin document of uncertain authorship but recognized as reflecting the views of the Roman Church at the beginning of the 6th century, includes Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and I and II Maccabees as biblical.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the Apocryphal books were generally regarded as Holy Scripture in the Roman and Greek churches, although theoretical doubts were raised from time to time. Thus, in 1333 Nicholas of Lyra, a French Franciscan theologian, had discussed the differences between the Latin Vulgate and the “Hebrew truth.” Christian-Jewish polemics, the increasing attention to Hebrew studies, and, finally, the Reformation kept the issue of the Christian canon alive. Protestants denied canonical status to all books not in the Hebrew Bible. The first modern vernacular Bible to segregate the disputed writings was a Dutch version by Jacob van Liesveldt (Antwerp, 1526). Luther’s German edition of 1534 did the same thing and entitled them “Apocrypha” for the first time, noting that while they were not in equal esteem with sacred Scriptures they were edifying.

In response to Protestant views, the Roman Catholic church made its position clear at the Council of Trent (1546) when it dogmatically affirmed that the entire Latin Vulgate enjoyed equal canonical status. This doctrine was confirmed by the Vatican Council of 1870. In the Greek Church, the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) had expressly designated as canonical several Apocryphal works. In the 19th century, however, Russian Orthodox theologians agreed to exclude these works from the Holy Scriptures.

The history of the Old Testament canon in the English Church has generally reflected a more restrictive viewpoint. Even though the Wycliffite Bible (14th century) included the Apocrypha, its preface made it clear that it accepted Jerome’s judgment. The translation made by the English bishop Miles Coverdale (1535) was the first English version to segregate these books, but it did place Baruch after Jeremiah. Article VI of the Thirty-nine Articles of religion of the Church of England (1562) explicitly denied their value for the establishment of doctrine, although it admitted that they should be read for their didactic worth. The first Bible in English to exclude the Apocrypha was the Geneva Bible of 1599. The King James Version of 1611 placed it between the Old and New Testaments. In 1615 Archbishop George Abbot forbade the issuance of Bibles without the Apocrypha, but editions of the King James Version from 1630 on often omitted it from the bound copies. The Geneva Bible edition of 1640 was probably the first to be intentionally printed in England without the Apocrypha, followed in 1642 by the King James Version. In 1644 the Long Parliament actually forbade the public reading of these books, and three years later the Westminster Confession of the Presbyterians decreed them to be no part of the canon. The British and Foreign Bible Society in 1827 resolved never to print or circulate copies containing the Apocrypha. Most English Protestant Bibles in the 20th century have omitted the disputed books or have them as a separate volume, except in library editions, in which they are included with the Old and New Testaments.

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