Adam and Eve

[Peter_Dawson]

The fathers agree that the apocrypha is non-canonical and should not be included in the canon. Melito of Sardis, (Eusebius – Lib. IV. Cap. 26.) testifies he knew the OT canon. He took great pains in research, as we are told by Eusebius, and comes to the exact number of books as the protestants and Jews do. Origen (Eus. Lib. VI c. 25) acknowledges the same books as the protestants as canonical., and says that the number of them are two and twenty according to the Hebrew alphabet. (Remembering the combination of 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, etc.) Athanasius says “Our whole scripture is divinely inspired and hath books not infinite in number, but finite and comprehended in a certain canon.” There was, therefore a certain canon by the late 300’s. He then enumerates this, “The canonical books of the OT are two and twenty. Equal to the number as the Hebrew alphabet.” Then he says, “But besides these, there are also other non canonical books of the OT which are only read to the catechumens.” Then he lists the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, the fragments of Esther, Judith, Tobit and the like. “These” he says “are the non-canonical books of the OT.” (Athanas. Opp. Ii. 126. sqq. Ed. Bened.) Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, says, “The law of the OT is considered as divided into twenty-two books, so as to correspond to the number of letters.” Nazianzen fixes the same number. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his 4th catechetical discourse says much, “Do thou learn carefully from the church what are the books of the OT, Read the divine Scriptures, the two and twenty books. (Cyril. Hiersol. Catech. IV. 33. p. 67. ed Tuttei.) Epiphanius counts twenty seven, or by the Hebrew doubling, twenty two, “delivered by God to the Jews.” And he says of the apocryphal books, “They are indeed useful books, but are not included in the canon, and were not deposited in the ark of the covenant.” Ruffinus, in his exposition of the Apostle’s Creed, says “But I should be known that there are other books also, which were called by the ancients not canonical but ecclesiastical, the Wisdom of Solomon and of Sirach, the book of Tobit, Judith, Macabees. These they would have to be read in the churches, but that nothing should be advanced from them for the confirming the authority of faith.” (Symb. Apost. In Appendix ad Cyprian. Ed. Fell. P. 26). (As with any good book.) Jerome plainly rejects all the apocryphal books from the canon. In his Prologus Galeatus he says “As there are twenty and two letters, so there are counted twenty and two books. Therefore the Wisdom of Solomon, and Jesus, and Judith, and Tobit, are not in the canon.” (See the introduction to the Vulgate in his own hand.) Gregory the Great, in his commentaries on Job, (Lib. XIX. Cap. 16.) expressly writes that the books of Macabees is not canonical, as well as the rest. Josephus also agrees. In his first book against Apion the grammaritan “We have not innumerable books, inconsistent and conflicting with each other, but two and twenty books alone, containing the series of our whole history, and justly deemed worthy of our highest credit.” (Contra Apion. L. I. C. 8.)

Because the Church Fathers varied in their opinions respecting the proper contents of the Biblical Canon, one can always find a Church Father which the Canon of our Protestant brothers and sisters happens to conform to.

I have read two versions of the Protestant Father’s decision to cut out the Deuterocanonicals. Neither involves the widely-varying Canon lists of the Church Fathers. One said that the Protestant Fathers merely eliminated from the Old Testament books which the rabbis of Palestine eliminated from the Septuagint around 100 A.D. (creating the Palestinian Canon which comprises the Canon of our Protestant Fathers and of the Haftorah section of the Hebrew Bible). The other said that the Palestinian Fathers established as their Criteria #1 whether Our Lord employed material from the particular Old Testament book under consideration.

Because our Jewish brothers and sisters were so repulsed by Graeco-Roman civilization, they excluded from the Septuagint Deuterocanonicals which they believed to be lacking in older Hebrew versions. Their decision making was badly flawed, however, insofar as a few of the excluded Deutero Greek texts contained what are called “Hebraisms” – Hebrew figures of speech which work only in the Hebrew tongue, so that the books must have been copied from a Hebrew source. Lo and behold, since the time of the Protestant Fathers Hebrew versions of part or all of some of the Deuteros have been located, or the same Church Fathers whose lists were cited by the Protestant Fathers would talk about Hebrew versions of the excluded Deuteros.

Additionally, in fact the Gospels have our Lord borrowing material from or conforming his behavior to two of the excluded Deuteros, on a massive basis, Wisdom and Sirach. In fact, Our Lord uses more material from Wisdom and Sirach than he does from NON-Deutero books. If Our Lord’s use of the material was truly their criteria, the Protestant Fathers messed up badly.