Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

ON THE SACRED AND CANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

The Apostolic Tradition concerning all the books of Scripture was declared by the Council of Trent.

« With the Catholic principles concerning divine Tradition supposed, the solemn definition of the Council of Trent, sess. IV, is of itself alone enough for all the books enumerated in the canon of that same synod to be demonstrated as handed down by the Apostles as belonging to Sacred Scripture and as divinely inspired; for it cannot be said with any show of truth — as someone has dared to assert — that, in the mind of the holy Council, a distinction can be supposed and admitted between the protocanonical books, as they are called, which are the same as inspired, and the deuterocanonical, which are ecclesiastical books of inferior authority. »

I. The demonstration of the first part of this thesis is contained, as we indicate in the very enunciation, in our whole Treatise on Tradition. We shall comprehend the recapitulation in a few words: in a general argument concerning handed-down doctrine, in which is included the doctrine defined by the Council concerning the inspired books, and in a special argument for the Tradition of this doctrine as defined by the Tridentine Fathers.

1°. The general argument is drawn from the established principles concerning Tradition. It has been demonstrated that the whole doctrine handed down by Christ and by the Apostles is preserved, by Christ's institution, by the apostolic succession; that therefore the infallible judgment, under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, both concerning the genuineness of Tradition and concerning the true sense of the handed-down doctrine, lies with that same apostolic succession; and finally, that the criterion of the assisting Holy Spirit, and hence of the consequent infallibility, is the agreement manifested either in another way or in a way clearer than the rest through a solemn judgment¹ (see on Tradition, especially th. V; VIII; XIV. n. I. 2°). But in the deposit of faith there is contained, as a part in the whole, also the divine testimony concerning the inspired books — how many and which they are (cf. on Tradition, th. XXI. n. II.). Therefore the custody of this testimony, and, once doubts have arisen, the infallible judgment concerning the genuineness of the Tradition by which it was transmitted, belongs to the function of the guardians and doctors of the faith in the apostolic succession under the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit; and accordingly, whether through agreement or through a solemn judgment — which is referred to that agreement as cause to effect — the divine testimony concerning the inspired books, and the genuineness of the Tradition by which it was transmitted, is infallibly manifested. But this solemn judgment was delivered in the Council of Trent; for that definition is not merely a disciplinary and changeable disposition, but an irreformable definition of faith, as is evidently established both from the nature of the matter and from the prefixed scope. Therefore, with the Catholic principles concerning Tradition now demonstrated, the Tridentine decree is of itself alone enough to lead us to the knowledge of the genuine Tradition concerning the inspired books.

2°. We can add the special argument. Although it was not always explored by all concerning all books whether they were really handed down by the Church as belonging to inspired Scripture, yet the very principle was always, everywhere, unshaken among all the sons of the Church: that from the Church herself must be learned which are the books of Scripture. « The true recognition is the doctrine of the Apostles ... which has come down to us through the successions of the bishops by the guileless guarding of the Scriptures. » « Every discourse will hold together for him, if he shall also have diligently read the Scriptures with those who are presbyters in the Church, with whom is the apostolic doctrine » — Irenaeus IV. ch. 32. n. 1; ch. 33. n. 8. See also Origen, Epistle to Africanus, n. 4.

Where Cyril of Jerusalem treats of the canonical books, he lays down the principle: « These alone (the books) meditate zealously, which we also read in the Church with certain persuasion ... thou, therefore, being a son of the Church, remove not the landmarks » (set by her) — Catecheses IV. n. 34. ff. Augustine declares it most expressly: « In the canonical Scriptures, he says, let (the keen inquirer) follow the authority of very many Catholic Churches, among which are indeed those which have merited to hold apostolic sees and to receive epistles. He will therefore hold this measure in the canonical Scriptures, that he prefer those which are received by all Catholic Churches to those which some do not receive, » etc. — On Christian Doctrine, bk. II. ch. 8. In general the Fathers lay down the criterion by which books certainly belonging to the inspired Scriptures are to be known and believed: that they are books acknowledged by all the Churches (ὁμολογούμενοι); whereas, on the contrary, so long as no solemn judgment of the Church had been pronounced, and hesitation still prevailed in some Churches concerning certain books, with inquiry by some Doctors, concerning these the matter was less settled, because the agreement was less manifest — and these were therefore called ἀμφιβαλλόμενοι, ἀντιλεγόμενοι, that is, books which are called into controversy or doubt by some². Origen in Eusebius VI. 25; Athanasius, Festal Epistle; Cyril of Jerusalem, l. c.; the Athanasian Synopsis; and expressly Eusebius III. 25. It is clear, therefore, that this was always the ratified principle: that the books of Scripture are to be learned from the agreement and judgment of the Church herself. Nothing else, then, did the Tridentine Fathers do but what was acknowledged in every age to belong first and foremost to the office and magisterium of the guardians of the faith under the charism of the Holy Spirit, when by a dogmatic definition they proposed the canon of the inspired books.

II. In the second part of the thesis we defend the true sense of the Tridentine decree against the false interpretation of Johann Jahn (Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament, vol. I, §. 30.). After narrating that some Fathers of the Council proposed that a twofold class of books be distinguished — the first, of those always received by all; the second, of those which had at some time been called into doubt — Jahn adds the following: « But the rest (of the Fathers of the Council) thought that the example of the ancient Councils should be followed, and the sacred books placed indiscriminately in one series; for they supposed the distinction between the twofold kind of books to be otherwise known, and consequently to be understood of itself in this decree no less than in the older Councils; whence all agreed to this opinion ... Therefore, by the very admission of the Tridentine Fathers, the distinction between the deuterocanonical and protocanonical books is not removed; nor could it be removed, as the Tridentine Fathers understood full well — just as neither could the fact itself on which that distinction is founded, namely, that the deuterocanonical books were not in antiquity received everywhere and by all. Hence Bernard Lamy concludes his treatment of this matter in his Biblical Apparatus, bk. II. ch. 5. p. 333. Lyon ed. 1723, with these words: therefore the books which are in the second canon, although joined with the rest of the first canon, are nevertheless not of the same authority »³. Thus Jahn, confidently appealing for the truth of his narrative to the History of Paolo Sarpi, bk. II, and of Cardinal Pallavicino, bk. VI.

But this whole narrative is composed of falsehoods, and the doctrine itself is evidently false. Both Pallavicino, bk. VI. ch. 11, and Sarpi himself, bk. II. pp. 149. 150. London ed. 1619, expressly testify⁴ that, among the opinions brought forward in the particular congregations, the opinion that prevailed, and was adopted in the general congregation and finally defined in the session, was that all the books without distinction should be held of the same authority. For which reason Sarpi, after his manner, constructs calumnies against the definition, as if it were contrary to the ancient doctrine; and Pallavicino says that the opinion which set up any distinction seemed to the Fathers of the Council not even probable, and was rejected. Indeed, let the Tridentine decree itself be inspected; for from it it is evidently established that the same character of Sacred Scripture and the same authority of the written word of God is asserted for all the books enumerated there.

1°. This is evidently established from what precedes the enumeration of the books. The synod says that it receives with equal piety and reverence all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament, as well as the Traditions themselves. To each object of the definition it adds the reason: for the Traditions, indeed, because they were dictated either by Christ or by the Holy Spirit and preserved in continuous succession; for all the books of the Old and New Testaments, because one God is the author of each Testament (cf. above, th. II.). Thus God is declared to be the author, not distinctly of some books and not of others, but without distinction of all the books.

2°. In the enumeration itself, the deuterocanonical books are intermingled with the protocanonical according to the order of matter or of time, without any distinction of dignity; then it is added: « but if anyone shall not receive these books themselves, with all their parts ... as sacred and canonical, let him be anathema. » Here it is altogether evident that the predicates by which the sacred and canonical books are defined neither have nor can have a different signification for different books — one always understood by all, the other, at least as regards the epithet canonical, never heard in the Church. Nay, if it were so, the whole definition would become void. For since the Council distinguishes in no way which books are canonical in the usual signification and which in that other supposed signification — namely, that they are books which, though not inspired, are yet useful for the edification of the faithful — by force of this definition doubt would not be excluded even concerning the individual protocanonical books, whether they are inspired; and thus the definition would at last come to this: that among all these books we believe some inspired and others only pious and useful, according as our erudition and our ingenuity may have persuaded us. Such a sense of a definition promulgated in an ecumenical Council cannot be supposed without enormous absurdity. 3°. The true sense of the decree appears, moreover, also from its scope. For the Fathers say in the decree itself that they wished to define Tradition, and Scripture as consisting of all the enumerated books, as principles of Christian knowledge and as channels by which the revelation long since promulgated has been derived down to us — and that they therefore prefixed this definition concerning Tradition and concerning all the books constituting canonical Scripture, so that « all may understand with which testimonies and guards before all (the holy synod) will make use in confirming dogmas and restoring morals in the Church. » By these words all the books without distinction are evidently constituted in the same authority of the infallible written word of God, and the testimonies from them all are declared irrefragable for the confirmation of dogmas. This very scope was declared by the first legate of the Pontiff in proposing the decree, that an enumeration of the individual books seemed necessary, so that Catholics might be rendered certain which books are divinely written and therefore the rule of faith⁵.

Without any doubt, therefore, it is proposed to be believed under pain of anathema that all the enumerated books are canonical, for the reason that they are divinely inspired books. Wherefore I confess that I do not understand how it seemed to Melchior Cano (On the Places, bk. II. ch. 9; bk. XII. ch. 7; Louvain ed. 1564. pp. 63. 718.) worthy of a less grave censure if one repudiates the book of Baruch than if one repudiates the other deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament — and again, if one denies that these Old Testament deuterocanonicals belong to the census of inspired Scriptures than if one denies it of the protocanonical or the deuterocanonical books of the New Testament. The sense of the Tridentine decree which we have stated has now been solemnly defined by the ecumenical Vatican Council in the Constitution Dei Filius, ch. II and can. IV.

Corollary. The distinction of the books of Scripture into protocanonical and deuterocanonical is quite convenient, and since the sixteenth century⁶ commonly employed by Catholic writers to indicate the history of the definition of the canon: namely, that there are some books concerning which no doubt ever arose in the Church that they belonged to the canon of the Scriptures, and others concerning which there was at some time doubt, and, after some hesitations, once the question was sifted, it began to be certainly established among all Catholics. But the same appellation and distinction becomes altogether false and intolerable if by it an interior distinction of the books and a diverse grade of authority is designated — so that a twofold canon is set up, the first in which the inspired books, the second in which other ecclesiastical books of inferior authority, are comprehended; to which signification we have seen those names to have been distorted by Johann Jahn and perhaps by Bernard Lamy.

The apostolic Tradition concerning the canon of the sacred books is demonstrated from the constant and universal use of the Church

« If, in order to vindicate the definition of the Tridentine Fathers and to understand it more distinctly in its foundations, inquiry is made into the manner in which ecclesiastical preaching concerning the canon of the sacred books bore itself in different ages, it is established by most certain arguments: 1st, that besides the Scriptures of the Hebrew reckoning, the remaining books of the Old Testament comprehended in the Tridentine canon were received in the Christian Churches by an ecclesiastical use and universal custom reaching back to the apostolic times themselves; 2nd, that the said ecclesiastical custom is distinguished by such marks as to demonstrate that all these books were handed down by the Apostles to the Church as belonging to sacred Scripture. »

We premise a fact historically indubitable, which dogmatically contains in itself the whole truth that we enunciate in the thesis. A distinct exposition of this fact will therefore constitute the very demonstration of the thesis. It is an indubitable historical fact that for the first three centuries the reckoning of the Scriptures among the Christian Churches was in many respects different from the reckoning as it stood among the Jews; this diversity concerned not only detached passages but also ampler parts of books and entire books, just as the same difference still exists now. This use of the Churches, moreover, by the force of the assistance with which God stands by His Church, was believed by the Christian teachers to stand out with such authority that it seemed absurd to them to wish to learn the genuine canon of the Scriptures from the Jews. You have these things disputed at greater length in Origen, in the epistle to Africanus. Since Africanus had raised a doubt concerning the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel, Origen confesses (n. 2–6) both that these parts of Daniel and others in the book of Esther are not found among the Hebrews, and that in many other respects our books differ from those which the Jews have; indeed he acknowledges (n. 13) that even entire books, such as Tobias and Judith, which the Church uses, are not admitted by the Jews. But with regard to Christians, he declares it unheard of and intolerable, indeed that it would be a crime against the very promises made to the Church bought with the blood of Christ, to wish on that account to doubt concerning these parts of our Scriptures. « It is time then, he exclaims, if these things are not hidden from us, to abrogate the copies current in the Churches, and to prescribe by law to the brethren that, casting away the sacred books which they have in their possession, and flattering the Jews, they persuade them to impart to us books that are pure and contain nothing fictitious. Or were those bought with a price, for whom Christ died, no concern to the providence which in the sacred Scriptures gave edification to all the Churches of Christ? » (n. 4). Moreover, for polemical use, he says, one must know the differences between each canon, and he himself investigated this by a diligent comparison, « so that when disputing with the Jews we do not bring forward what is lacking in their copies, but at the same time make use of what they have in their possession, though it be lacking in ours » (n. 5).

Justin too, in the middle of the second century, shortly after the apostolic age, mentions these differences between the collection of the Scriptures as it stood in the Church's possession and that of the Jews, in the dialogue with Trypho the Jew (n. 71–73). For although there he treats directly of particular texts corrupted or curtailed by the Jewish teachers — since it was not his purpose to dispute concerning the diverse canon itself of the Scriptures — he nevertheless complains that some Scriptures have been altogether removed by the Jews, which are found in the copies of the Christians. But as for those Scriptures which are in the possession of Christians and not also among the Jews, he promises not to use them for his polemical purpose, in the same way as we saw Origen after Justin's time recommend. « That (the Jewish teachers) have altogether removed many Scriptures ¹ from the translation made under Ptolemy by the elders... I wish you to know. But since I know that these are denied by all of your race, I shall not entangle myself in questions of this kind; I shall conduct my disputations from those which are admitted even among you » (n. 71). In this place the accusation of the removal of many Scriptures is so general that it extends not only to particular texts but also to entire books, which — not comprehended in the Jewish canon — we shall presently prove most clearly to have been in the possession of the Churches, and — a difference between each reckoning of which Justin was certainly not ignorant — although in what follows he then adduces by way of example only particular texts, which he complains were corrupted by the Jews as prophetic of Christ the Saviour.

Now if we investigate the use and currency, in the Christian Churches, of those books of the Old Testament which are lacking in the Hebrew canon, and which therefore (as I have already noted) we shall for brevity call deuterocanonical, it will easily appear that from apostolic times they were held in the register of the sacred Scriptures no less than the protocanonical books, and were employed as sacred Scriptures. We shall establish this by a threefold argument: 1st, from the manner in which all these books are cited by the holy doctors; 2nd, from the codices and versions; 3rd, from their public reading; from which, once demonstrated, 4th, it will follow of itself that in this universal ecclesiastical use nothing else is exhibited but the transmission and handing down of these same books from the Apostles to the Churches.

I. Down to the beginnings of the fourth century no controversy of any moment concerning these books appears ², but the deuterocanonical books are cited, just like the protocanonical, in exactly the same way without any distinction, so that it is manifest that all were held to be books of sacred Scripture and of one collection. For those ancient Fathers cite deuterocanonical texts intermingled with protocanonical ones, and cite them with the same solemn formulas: it is written, he says (φησι), according to that (κατα το), Scripture, sacred Scripture, divine Scripture, the Holy Spirit says in divine Scripture, prophecy says, the prophet says, the law says, God says.

a) The apostolic Fathers themselves, although in the few monuments that survive no abundance of citations can be expected, nevertheless adduce the deuterocanonical books no less than the protocanonical, enough for us to understand that these were equally in use and reckoned among the Scriptures — especially if we consider at the same time the solemn and most ample citations of the following age, of which we shall soon speak. Thus in Clement of Rome, ep. I to the Corinthians, are employed the deuterocanonical parts of Esther (n. 55); the book of Judith (ibid.); Wisdom (n. 27); then in ep. II to Virgins (n. 13), the book of Ecclesiasticus and the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel; in the ep. of Barnabas (n. 19), the book of Ecclesiasticus; in the ep. of Polycarp (n. 10), Tobias; in the Shepherd of Hermas, bk. III, similitude 9 (n. 23), Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus.

b) The most frequent and solemn citations of the deuterocanonical books in the manner described, without any distinction from the protocanonical books, will meet the eye in all writers of the close of the second century and of the third, whose ampler works survive. If some are found cited more frequently than others, this comes not from a diverse authority of the books but from the diverse matter, by which they were more or less suited to citations for the Fathers' purpose. This diversity of books is intelligible enough of itself, and occurs no less in citing even the protocanonical books. Hence we find cited most frequently the books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, less frequently the historical books of Tobias, Judith, Machabees — which (as we said) must be ascribed not to a diverse authority attributed to the books, but to diversity of subject-matter.

In the promiscuous manner indicated, all the deuterocanonical books occur cited in Clement of Alexandria: Wisdom more than twenty times, Ecclesiasticus fifty times and more, Baruch (under the name of Jeremias) four times ³, Tobias three times, Judith once, 2 Machabees once ⁴. In the same way the books are adduced in the Works of Origen (De la Rue ed.): Wisdom nearly twenty times, Ecclesiasticus more than seventy times, Baruch (under the name of Jeremias) five times, Tobias more than ten times, Judith three times, 1 Machabees once, 2 Machabees fifteen times. In both authors the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel and Esther are also cited together with the protocanonical books. Likewise citations of all the books occur in Tertullian (except Tob. and Esther); of all (except the book of Judith) in Cyprian; of all (except Ecclesiasticus and Esther) in the Works of Hippolytus (Fabricius ed. and in Gallandi's Library, vol. II). Cited are the books of Baruch, Tobias, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus by St. Melito (2nd cent.) in the Key to Sacred Scripture (if the work is genuine), first edited by Cardinal Pitra (Spicileg. Solesm., vol. III); the books of Wisdom, Baruch (under the name of Jeremias), the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel by St. Irenaeus; Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Tobias in the Works of Dionysius of Alexandria (de Magistris ed.); Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch (under the name of Jeremias) by Methodius; Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Tobias, Judith, the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel in the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions, which by recent critics are judged written in the third century; Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs; likewise Wisdom in the disputation of Archelaus with Manes; likewise Ecclesiasticus by the anonymous author against Novatian (Galland. III, p. 376), by Peter of Alexandria in the Fragment on Easter (n. 5) ⁵ and by Alexander of Alexandria in the ep. to Alexander of Constantinople (n. 5); likewise 1 Machabees in the Second Council of Carthage of the year 253 (Hard. I, p. 152); likewise Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (each under the name of Solomon), Baruch (under the name of Jeremias) by Lactantius (Divin. instit. IV, n. 8, 13, 16), etc.

c) This indiscriminate use of the sacred books continued altogether the same in the fourth and fifth centuries, after some hesitation had arisen concerning the books not received among the Hebrews. Indeed, the ampler the monuments of the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers surviving from this age, the more evidently is demonstrated the universal and constant authority of the deuterocanonical books as belonging to sacred Scripture, without any distinction having been made in public use between them and the protocanonical books. For it can safely be affirmed that, of all the Fathers whose writings survive in sufficient amplitude, there is none who did not employ the deuterocanonical books as sacred Scripture. Here we shall name only those Fathers who, as we shall see later, could be called into suspicion of a curtailed canon.

Athanasius cites the book of Tobias under the formula it is written together with protocanonical texts (Maur. ed., Paris 1698, vol. I, pp. 133, 305). Under the same formula — it is written, Scripture (ἡ γραφὴ) says — together with other protocanonical texts (pp. 11, 125), and to prove the divinity of the Holy Spirit (pp. 674, 675), he adduces the book of Wisdom. Then he cites Ecclesiasticus under the formula it was said by the Holy Spirit, according to that, sacred Scripture says (p. 183 ⁶ 272, 1204, 1210, 1214). To Baruch he appeals under the name of Jeremias (p. 188) and to the same text under the proper name of Baruch (p. 517); to the deutero parts of Dan. under the very name of Daniel (p. 417) and elsewhere.

Gregory of Nazianzus under one formula, Scripture says, adduces Wisdom together with a text of the Psalms (or. 28, al. 34, n. 8); under the formula he says (φησι) he cites Ecclesiasticus with Proverbs (or. 7, al. 10, n. 1); Baruch (ep. 102 to Cledonius, al. or. 51); the deuterocanonical parts of Dan. (or. 36, al. 27, n. 3).

Amphilochius cites Baruch under the name of prophet, and admits Ecclesiasticus as Scripture of the Old Testament (Galland. VI, p. 510).

Cyril of Jerusalem adduces Wisdom under the name of Solomon; by simple citation Ecclesiasticus and the deuterocanonical parts of Dan. (Catech. IX, n. 2; cf. n. 16; VI, n. 4; XVI, n. 31).

Epiphanius under the formulas divine Scripture (τὸ θεῖον γράμμα), Scripture, the Lord through Solomon, the most excellent of the prophets oft cites Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus; under the formula Scripture, the prophet says he several times adduces Baruch; of Judith he makes mention with other things and persons of Scripture, whose numbers he arranges there: « three women prophetesses: Mary, Deborah, Judith » (on the mystery of numbers, vol. II, p. 305).

Hilary cites Wisdom under the name of prophetic voice and prophet (in Ps. 135, n. 11; Trin. I, n. 7); under the formula he says (Scripture) and under the inscription of Solomon he adduces Ecclesiasticus (Prolog. in Pss., n. 20; in Ps. 140, n. 5); Baruch under the name of Jeremias (in Ps. 68, n. 19); Tob. (in Ps. 118, 2nd letter, n. 6; Ps. 129, n. 7); finally he cites the book of Judith as a book of the Law (in Ps. 125, n. 6); for there, promising testimony « from the Law and the Prophets and the Gospels and the Apostles, » from the Law he adduces no text but Judith XVI. 3.

Jerome is wont to create greater difficulty than all the other Fathers in this question, when, having the canon of the Jews before his eyes, he speaks of the books not received therein, as we shall see below. But the Tradition and custom of the Churches was firmer and more universal than that he himself could recede from it in the daily use of these books. Jerome therefore seems, with an eye to the Jewish canon, to have been privately less certain concerning the equal authority of the deuterocanonical books with the protocanonical; in use and practice, however, following the common custom of the Church, he makes no distinction between books of either order. And this itself is evident proof of the constant and universal custom of the Church, whatever may have been the private opinion of the holy doctor and his hesitation at a time when the matter had not yet been sifted on all sides and defined by the solemn judgment of the Church. It will therefore be worthwhile to have considered more diligently the manner in which the holy Father uses the deuterocanonical books.

First, he employs the book of Wisdom in his works at least 12 times, Ecclesiasticus at least 19 times, in those modes of citing which can be used only of books of sacred Scripture. For he cites each frequently under the formula it is written, together with texts from the protocanonical books, or after such texts under the formula in another place, or elsewhere it is said (ep. 66, n. 5, to Pammachius [Vallarsi ed.]; ep. 125, n. 19, to Rusticus; dialogue contra Pelag., bk. II, n. 11; in Ezech., vol. V, p. 207; in Is., vol. IV, pp. 27, 48) — and this to prove dogmas, just as, e.g., he proves the divinity of the Holy Spirit from the book of Wisdom equally as from other biblical texts (in Gal. III, vol. VII, p. 420). He cites Ecclesiasticus with Proverbs under one formula — we read in our books (in Is., vol. IV, p. 50); in the texts of this book he acknowledges a precept given to us (vol. III, p. 462; vol. IV, p. 55); indeed to the same Ecclesiasticus he appeals under the express appellation of holy Scripture and divine Scripture: « divine Scripture speaks » (ep. 118, n. 1, to Julian [vol. I, p. 786]); « with holy Scripture saying » (in Is., vol. IV, p. 57). Each book he adduces under the name of Solomon: Wisdom in ep. 58, n. 1, to Paulinus (« with Solomon testifying »), Ecclesiasticus on ch. X of Eccl. (vol. III, p. 472) ⁷.

The book of Judith he reckons as sacred together with the protocanonical Ruth and Esther: « Ruth and Esther and Judith are of such glory that they have given their names to sacred volumes » (ep. 65, n. 1, to Principia, vol. I, p. 372); he cites it again (ep. 79, n. 11, to Salvina, p. 504; and with some mark of doubt, ep. 54, n. 16, to Furia, p. 291; in Agg. I, vol. VI, p. 745). The book of Tobias he adduces (in Eccl. VIII, vol. III, p. 451); he testifies that it is in the Church's use, though it is not in the Jewish canon: « the book of Tobias, though it is not held in the canon, is yet employed by ecclesiastical men » (in Ion., vol. VI, p. 390). The deuterocanonical parts of Esther he uses no differently than the protocanonical (in Is., vol. IV, pp. 763, 774; in Ez., vol. V, p. 302; in Amos, vol. VI, p. 319); so too the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel (in Os., vol. VI, p. 75; in Nahum, ibid., p. 574). To the books of Machabees he appeals under the name of Scripture (in Is., vol. IV, p. 227; cf. in Dan., vol. V, p. 675).

Finally, in each preface to the books of Tobias and Judith he declares plainly enough the diversity of ecclesiastical custom and judgment from the Jewish canon concerning these books, which he himself had translated from Chaldaic into Latin at the bishops' request. « The studies of the Hebrews accuse us, he says in Tob., and impute it to us that these things are rendered for Latin ears against their canon. But judging it better to displease the judgment of the Pharisees and to serve the commands of the Bishops, I have done what I could. » And in Judith: « because this book is recorded to have been reckoned by the Nicene synod in the number of the holy Scriptures, I have assented to your request. » In the Apology against Rufinus he indignantly repels the accusation, as if he himself made little of the ancient edition of the Seventy interpreters — which had until then been read in the Churches — or rejected by name, in Daniel, what is not found in the Hebrew text (Apolog. contra Rufin., bk. II, n. 24, 33; vol. II, pp. 518, 527).

From all this it is clear that Jerome found these deuterocanonical books consecrated by the use and custom of the Church and received among the sacred Scriptures. Since, however, on the other hand he saw that they are not found in the Hebrew canon, hence arose some fluctuation in his private opinion, when the solemn judgment of the Church had not yet been passed. For confirmation of this explanation note that the 53rd epistle to Paulinus, dating from no later than 394, and the prefaces to the books of Kings (the galeate prologue), to the books of Solomon, to Esdras — from which places the greater difficulties are drawn — were published by Jerome before 393 (see the preface of the Benedictines to St. Jerome's Library, Vallarsi ed., vol. IX, p. 21). The doubts of the holy doctor, then, or at least his difficult modes of speaking concerning the deuterocanonical books, belong to the time when the canon comprehending all these books had not yet been issued by the Hippo Council of all Africa (393) and by Carthage (397), or had not yet come to Jerome's knowledge. But the magnificent commendations of these same books as belonging to sacred Scripture, which we have recited from Jerome, are found all or nearly all in books he wrote some time after that Council was held, when the proposed canon of the Scriptures could already have become known to him. For the epistles were given: to Paulinus (58th) in 395; to Pammachius and to Principia in 397; to Salvina in 399; to Julian in 406; to Rusticus in 411; the Commentaries on Is. were not finished before 410, after them the others on Ezech. were published; on Jonas he wrote in 397; on Osee in 406; against Rufinus in 402; against the Pelagians in 415.

We continue with the still remaining writers about whom doubt could be raised.

Of Rufinus few works written on his own account survive, but there survive renderings of many Works of Origen, in which the deuterocanonical Scriptures are held in the same register as the protocanonical. In his own Works he cites Ecclesiasticus under the formula « holy Scripture's sentence it is, » « Scripture says » (on the benediction of the patriarchs, pp. 38, 46, Vallarsi ed.). In the very exposition of the creed, from which difficulty is wont to be raised, he cites Baruch the prophet (n. 5), and a sentence compounded from Wisdom and the protocanonical Dan. under the formula: « the prophets preached » (n. 46). The deuterocanonical parts of Daniel he defends on set purpose as sacred Scripture (bk. II, n. 33, 35).

Leontius of Byzantium cites Ecclesiasticus — « as Scripture says, » — and Baruch under the name of Jeremias (Galland. XII, pp. 630, 664).

John Damascene in the Sacred Parallels enumerates most frequently, with the other books, as belonging « to the ancient Scripture of the sacred oracles » (vol. II, p. 279), the books of Wisdom (under the name of Solomon), Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the deutero parts of Daniel. Expressly as divine Scripture (ἡ θεῖα γραφή) are cited Wisdom (On the Orthodox Faith IV, ch. 15) and the books of Mach. (sermon on the departed, n. 3, vol. I, p. 585).

Among the other western and eastern Fathers of diverse Churches the use and citations of these books are still more frequent (cf. the celebrated Vincenzi, sess. IV, Trid. Conc. vindicata). It suffices us to have named those whom below we shall see to have raised a question concerning the canonical authority of these same books. Of the rest I adduce one more witness of the fourth century for the Syrian Church: St. Ephrem. In the Works which we have only in Greek and Latin, he oft cites, under the formula it is written, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, the deutero parts of Dan.

In paraenesis 39 (among the works edited by Vossius, vol. II, p. 175) he cites the book of Tobias. On Ezech. (vol. II of the Syr.-Lat. Works, p. 193) he introduces Judith. In his testament (Syr.-Lat. Works, vol. I, p. 401 — the passage stands more expressly in Assemani's Bibl. Orient., vol. I, p. 143), he employs 2 Machabees to prove the dogma of offering sacrifices and suffrages for the departed, and expressly testifies that these books are read among the Syrians among the Scriptures. He says to his Syrians: « if the sons of Mathathias, who celebrated feasts and commemorations only in figure, as you have read in the Scriptures (2 Mach. XII. 43) ⁸, expiated by oblations the debts of those who had fallen in battle... how much more shall the priests of the Son of God expiate the debts of the departed by their oblations? » Likewise he introduces 1 Mach. (Syr.-Lat. vol. II, p. 228); 2 Mach. (ibid., p. 308) ⁹. In the fourth century, therefore, the Syrians had in their ecclesiastical version not only those books which still now are found in the Peschito or so-called simple version ¹⁰, but also the deuterocanonical books, which the other Churches had and have.

II. The use of the deuterocanonical books, so constant and universal even at the time when some doubts seemed to be introduced, and among all those very teachers who record these doubts, already of itself manifestly demonstrates that these books were held, by the public custom of the Churches, with the other books in the collection of the sacred Scriptures, and reckoned among the Scriptures. The same is established by argument drawn from ecclesiastical codices and versions.

It is certain that the codices of the Scriptures were most diligently guarded by public authority in the Churches; hence are mentioned the archives ¹¹ of the Church by Ignatius (ep. to the Philadelphians, n. 8); the digests of the Church by Tertullian (cont. Marc. IV, ch. 3); the copies of the Church by Origen (ep. to Afric., n. 4); the apparatus of copies of the divine Scriptures, most necessary to the Church, by Constantine the Great (in Euseb., Life of Constantine, bk. IV, ch. 36); the libraries of the Churches by Jerome (ep. to Augustine, among the Augustinian epp. 75, n. 19). Now in these public and ecclesiastical collections of the sacred Scriptures, both of the east and of the west, were contained all the books which the Catholic Church still now preserves, and which it again defined at Trent and the Vatican as belonging to the inspired Scriptures. For besides the use and manner of citing of all the Fathers of which we have spoken, and besides the ecclesiastical catalogues or canons of the Scriptures of which we shall speak afterwards, this is established from monuments by which the very ecclesiastical edition of the Scriptures is immediately presented and its character and as it were face exhibited, such as it was from most ancient times.

Cassiodorus (Institut. divinar. litt., ch. 12–14) describes a threefold division of the books of Scripture. The third is « according to the ancient translation, » which among other codices he bequeathed to his monastery of Vivarium « in a larger codex... in which the translation of the Old Testament by the seventy Interpreters is contained in forty-four books; to which are subjoined twenty-six books of the New Testament, making together seventy books. » The order of the O.T. books according to this « ancient translation » he describes thus: « It is divided into Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Josue Nave, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two books of Paralipomenon, one book of the Psalter, five books of Solomon — that is, Proverbs, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastes, Canticle of Canticles — the Prophets, that is, Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel, Daniel, Osee, Amos, Micheas, Joel, Abdias, Jonas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sephonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, Malachias who is also Angel, Job, Tobias, Esther, Judith, two of Esdras, two of Machabees. » In the « ancient translation » and edition of Scripture, therefore, the deuterocanonical books were held not as merely appended by chance, but intermingled without any distinction with the protocanonical — the very thing observed in all the catalogues adduced below, and in the codices that still survive.

The Greek codices either present the collection of the whole of Scripture or are fragmentary, containing only some books. Among the former none exists that has only the protocanonical books; but all contain the deuterocanonical also, intermingled. The most ancient are Vaticanus (B among critics) and Alexandrinus (in London, A among critics), and Tischendorf's Sinaiticus, which all contain our books ¹², except that besides they have the apocryphal 3 Esdr. (there 1.

Esdr.), and Alexandrinus and Sinaiticus 3 and 4 Mach. In Vaticanus, however, just as at the beginning nearly the whole book of Genesis has perished through age, so at the end the books of Mach. are lacking. The fragmentary codices — among which the most ancient are the Parisian (called of Ephrem, C) and Tischendorf's Friderico-Augustanus — if they contain several books, join with the books of Solomon nearly always Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus; among the historical books they mingle with the protocanonical all or at least some of the deuterocanonical — Tob., Judith, and (mostly, unless mutilated) Mach.; among the Prophets they join Baruch with Jeremias.

Hence all the ancient ecclesiastical versions and editions of the Scriptures, which flowed from the Greek edition, contain in the same way the deuterocanonical books intermingled without distinction with the protocanonical; so the Ethiopic version (4th cent.) ¹³, the Armenian (5th cent.), the Syriac hexaplar ¹⁴, (derived from Origen's hexaplar edition), and the Slavonic too as preserved by the schismatics ¹⁵.

In the ecclesiastical Latin version, made « in the first times of the faith » (as Augustine says) from the Greek LXX, it is established that all the books existed without distinction of a double order; indeed this Latin version is called by the ancients (Jerome, Augustine, Cassiodorus) itself the version « of the Seventy interpreters, » from its exemplar, from which it had been rendered. From it those books which are not extant in Hebrew, and were therefore omitted by St. Jerome in his translation (Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, 1, 2 Machabees), were received into the Hieronymian Vulgate as soon as this began by common use to be the ecclesiastical edition.

Hence the codices containing the Hieronymian edition — both the most ancient before Alcuin's recension and those following that recension — have all our books, except that in some the book of Baruch is lacking. This ἀνομαλία, repugnant to the custom of the Fathers and the Greek codices, indeed of the whole Church, I know not how it can be explained, unless because the copyists held the book (like many Fathers) as part of Jeremias, which, since they did not find it in Jerome's holy library, they too omitted — what in the case of other books, integral and self-consistent, such as Wisd., Ecclus., Mach., they did not dare. The most ancient codices of all of this Latin edition are Amiatinus (in the Laurentian at Florence), written in the 6th century, Toletanus, Cavensis (of the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity of Cava in the Neapolitan kingdom), St. Paul's (on the Ostian Way), Vallicellanus. (See the celebrated P. Vercellone in the Biblical Apparatus to the various readings of the Vulgate, ch. 2, pp. 83 sqq.)

III. It is established that from the apostolic age itself books of the Old and New Testament were customarily read in the public assemblies of Christians (Justin, apol. I, n. 67; Tertull., apologetic., ch. 39; Apostolic Constitutions, bk. II, ch. 57; Galland. III, p. 76). Although other books too were read, such as acts of Martyrs, epistles of Pontiffs and of the holy Fathers (cf. Euseb., H. E., bk. IV, ch. 23, at the end), the reading of the books of Scripture was altogether distinct, so that such public reading must be held as a public acknowledgment and profession by which the Church declared that the books customarily so read were and were to be received among the sacred Scriptures. Thus already in the Muratorian fragment (n. 4) it is said of the Shepherd of Hermas: « it ought indeed to be read, *but it cannot be published in the Church to the people neither among the Prophets, complete in number, nor among the Apostles to the end of time » (Galland. II, p. 208). In the Council of Hippo of 393, in Carthage III of 397, and thence in the canons of the African Church, it is prescribed: « that besides the canonical Scriptures nothing be read in the Church under the name of divine Scriptures... It shall also be lawful for the passions of the Martyrs to be read, when their anniversaries are celebrated » (Hard. I, p. 968). Of this decree opportune mention is made in Augustine (ep. 64, al. 235, n. 3, to Quintianus the Bishop, written in 401): « Do you yourselves, he says, first not bring the Church into scandal by reading among the peoples Scriptures which the ecclesiastical canon has not received... I wonder at your prudence, that... you did not remember what was instituted in the Council, which are the canonical Scriptures which ought to be read among the people of God. » He then teaches that for the reading of the sacred Scriptures a proper order of ecclesiastical readers was appointed, to which those do not belong to whom is committed in the Church even the reading of other books that are not canonical. According to this principle he proves the canonical authority of the book of Wisdom by a double argument: from the use, namely, of the treatise-writers who were nearest to the times of the Apostles, and from the reading of this same book from the readers' step in the Church: « The sentence of the book of Wisdom ought not to have been repudiated, which merited in the Church of Christ to be recited from the step of the readers of the Church of Christ with so long an antiquity of years, and to be heard by all Christians, from the Bishops to the lowest ranks of faithful laity, penitents, catechumens, with veneration of the divine authority » (On the Predestination of the Saints, n. 27, 28).

Now the Councils and Fathers of the Church, especially of the west ¹⁶, enumerate among the books which they testify to have « received to be read from the Fathers » all and only those which the Council of Trent comprehended in its canon, as is plain from the cited decrees of the African Councils and from the other canons of which we shall speak presently.

From the manner, then, in which the Fathers and teachers appealed to the deuterocanonical books no less than to the protocanonical in every age, from the very complexion of the ecclesiastical editions as the codices and ancient versions exhibit them, and finally from the public reading of these books in the Church as belonging to the divine Scriptures, it is concluded that all these books from most ancient times were held among the sacred Scriptures by a constant use and custom in the universal Church.

IV. Moreover the marks of this custom are such as to demonstrate it to be derived from apostolic Tradition. For a) the use of these books as belonging to the Scriptures is not only that of private men, but the public use of the Church herself. b) It is a use perpetual in time, universal in place or extension, constant and uniform in frequency. For from apostolic times to the 4th century we see these books reckoned among the Scriptures with the other protocanonical books and employed as Scriptures, comprehended in codices intermingled with the other books, with no trace of controversy until that 4th-century time; then, when from external causes — of which we shall soon speak — some hesitation arose among particular teachers, the same public use perseveres, so that those very teachers neither wished nor were able to depart from the common and public custom. The same regard for the books we find, at least by moral estimation, in all the Latin, Greek, Syrian, Ethiopic, Armenian Churches. Finally, it is not a question of single acts alone but of a custom which from the very nature of the case manifested itself in continuous and daily exercise. c) It is a use which, unless it rested on apostolic Tradition, would have been some great and universal abuse and error concerning the very sources of divine revelation. For it is not such a thing as could have been instituted by the Church at a later time, but one which, once handed down by the Apostles, could and had to be guarded and preserved by their successors (cf. th. VII). Lastly, d) it is such a use as, when controversy arose, was not only not broken but confirmed, when, the state of the question being more lucidly perceived, the controversy itself at length issued in universal agreement and manifest preaching of the truth. And these are the very marks of apostolic Tradition. By this apostolic Tradition, therefore, the documents which exhibit the universal use of all these books as books of Scripture demonstrate that all the books we have in the canon were consigned to the Church. Cf. Treatise on Tradition, th. I, V, VIII, IX, XIV, XXIII, XXIV.

Scholion. That some books which are not in the canon of the Catholic Church — as 3 Esdras, 3 Machabees, 4 Esdras and 4 Machabees from the Old Testament ¹⁷; and from the New Testament the Shepherd of Hermas and the epistles of Barnabas and Clement — are commemorated by some Fathers as sacred books, or were even contained in some codices of sacred Scripture, is far different from that universal and constant use which we have demonstrated for the canonical books. For a) a universal custom of reckoning those mentioned books with the Scriptures never obtained, but it belonged to some particular teachers or some particular Churches. Hence in that canon which among the ancient canons is the fullest of all — in the canon, namely, of the western Church, where it was the mind of the Councils and Pontiffs to consign the very apostolic Tradition concerning the books of the sacred Scriptures, and in the ecclesiastical codex of the Latin version in use, as is gathered from those very canons, from the first times of the faith ¹⁸ — none of those books appears ¹⁹; in the eastern canons one or another sometimes has place among the ἀντιλεγομενους books, mostly among the ἀποκρυφους. b) In the progress of time, as questions concerning the canon of the sacred books were more and more sifted under the direction and assistance of the Holy Spirit, that opinion not only did not obtain the strength of universal custom, but was utterly extinguished in the Catholic Church; indeed it fell into desuetude even in the schismatic eastern Church, if you except the 3rd book of Machabees.

The canons and the express doctrine of Christian antiquity exhibit the apostolic Tradition concerning all the divine books of the Old Testament.

«The meaning of this constant usage, by which the Church has always preserved all the books of Scripture with faithful custody, was declared more expressly by express doctrine and ecclesiastical preaching after controversies had arisen.

To this declaration belong in particular the recorded indices of the sacred books, conspiring with practical custom itself, by which the pastors and doctors of the Church, especially of the West, set forth more distinctly the Tradition concerning the extent of the sacred code, vindicated it into clearer light from the obscurity that might have threatened, and at last from the same apostolic Tradition defined by solemn judgment the received canon of the Scriptures. »

I. Among the canons proposed in the Western Church the Old Latin edition of Scripture itself is deservedly to be counted, in which it is established that all and only the books of the Tridentine canon were comprehended, the deuterocanonicals mixed with the protocanonicals, both from the express description of Cassiodorus (see above p. 419) and from the citations of the Latin Fathers of the III century, Tertullian, Cyprian and others whom we cited in the preceding thesis, and from the subsequent canons of the Western Church, which must undoubtedly be said to have had as a preset norm the ecclesiastical edition received everywhere and its public use. If now from these catalogues it is manifest that in the IV century, in the codices of all the Churches wherever the Latin tongue and the Latin version of Scripture widely extended, the deuterocanonical books were held mixed with the protocanonicals without any sign of distinction, this arrangement of the Scriptures is surely to be referred immediately to the very origin of the version, and mediately to the apostolic age. For neither would whole books have been inserted only later into Scripture customarily read publicly in the Church daily and most well known to all, nor could so grave an innovation have been made in any way without both Bishops and faithful demanding some account of so great a matter. If a Bishop in Africa was compelled by a tumult of the people to resume the old edition, because in Jerome's version one or two words were placed otherwise than the people had been accustomed to hear (Aug. ep. 71. n. 5. to Jerome), how much less could whole books have been introduced without pastors and peoples at least seeking the cause of this matter? And yet neither of when these books were joined with the rest in the edition of the Churches and in public use, nor of any antecedent controversy, does any memory exist. Without doubt therefore they were translated into the Latin tongue together with the protocanonicals as pertaining to one divine Scripture and handed to the Latin Churches «in the first times of the faith.» This being posited, the canon publicly and everywhere received, comprehending all our books, reaches to those very «first times of the faith» in which the Latin edition of Scripture was made for the Latin Church.¹ Moreover how could books other than those extant in the Greek edition of the Churches, from which all know that old Latin one flowed, both have been rendered into the Latin tongue among the divine Scriptures and publicly received? The same books therefore were all extant in the Church in the Greek edition in the very apostolic times. And that the Apostles themselves used the Greek edition is most evident from their own writings, while on the other hand no one can doubt that the primitive Church received from the Apostles themselves, together with the preaching, also the sacred Scriptures. The very collection of the Scriptures therefore, approved, consecrated, handed to the Churches by the Apostles, the first promulgators of divine revelation and of the faith, constitutes the first and fundamental complete canon of all the sacred books, from which as from a fountain have flowed, and to which as testimonies of Tradition are referred all the citations, definitions, enacted canons of subsequent ages, and finally the universal use of the same books in the whole Church as sacred Scriptures.

Since this tradition and commendation of the whole collection of the Scriptures came from the Apostles to the Churches as it were in a complex proposition, which contained implicitly the doctrine of the inspiration of the individual books, and was proposed more by use and practice than by express and insistent preaching concerning the individual books, hence it could happen, and we know it did happen, that in later times within the very bounds of the Church, from external causes of which we shall speak below, certain hesitations and doubts arose concerning those books of the Old Testament which learned men warned were not found in the canon of the Jews. Thus from the first stage of ecclesiastical custom founded in simple faith a transition was made to a second stage of some controversy and obscurity. Recall what we said in the Treatise on Tradition, th. XXIII.

II. From this very danger of obscuration arose for the pastors and doctors of the Church the necessity, for the custody and explication of the deposit, now also to fortify by express doctrine and express decrees the Tradition received from the Apostles and from the antecedent Fathers, and to vindicate the value of ecclesiastical custom.

1°. Most celebrated is the Council of Hippo of all Africa held on the 8th day before the Ides of October in the year 393 (Hard. I. p. 882). A compendium of the canons of this synod was sent by the Bishops of the province of Byzacena to the III Council of Carthage (under Aurelius) in the year 397, in which they were read and again confirmed. In these Hippo statutes the XXXVIth decrees thus: « That besides the canonical Scriptures nothing be read in the Church under the name of divine Scriptures. » The canonical Scriptures are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Jesus Nave, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two books of Paralipomenon, Job, the Davidic Psalter, five books of Solomon, twelve books of the Prophets, Isaias, Jeremias, Daniel, Ezechiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, two books of Hesdras, two books of Machabees. Of the New Testament four books of the Gospels, one book of the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen epistles of Paul the Apostle, one of the same to the Hebrews, two of Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude, the Apocalypse of John. So that the Church across the sea be consulted concerning the confirmation of this canon. The passions of the martyrs may also be read, when their anniversaries are celebrated » (Works of Leo M. ed. Ballerini T. III. p. 98 and in Mansi's Collect. T. III. p. 924). In the III Council of Carthage in the editions it is the same canon XLVII (Mansi ib. 891). The same decree in the same order of books was repeated in canon XXIX in the Council of Carthage of the year 419 (commonly called the VI), celebrated by about 218 Bishops before the legates of the Roman See, Philip and Asellus priests. Only the conclusion was changed in this manner: « Let this also be made known to our brother and fellow priest Boniface, Bishop of the city of Rome, or to other Bishops of those parts, for confirming this canon, since from the Fathers we have so received it to be read in the Church » (Dionys. Exig.: «from the Fathers we have received these to be read in the Church») Works of Leo M. l.c. p. 643.

About the time of the III Council of Carthage in the year 397, St Augustine (On Christian Doctrine bk. II. c. 8)² recorded the very same books as canonical, though in a slightly different order. After numbering the books of the Octateuch, four of Kings and two of Paralip., there follow « Job and Tobias and Esther and Judith and two books of Machabees and two of Esdras.... then the Prophets, among whom David one book of Psalms, three of Solomon, Proverbs, Canticle of Canticles and Ecclesiastes. For those two books, one inscribed Wisdom and the other Ecclesiasticus, are said to be of a certain similitude of Solomon; for Jesus Sirah³ is most constantly reported to have composed them, yet since they have merited to be received into authority, they are to be numbered among the prophetical. » Last there follow the 12 minor Prophets and the 4 major.⁴

« By these forty-four books the authority of the Old Testament is terminated; of the New, by four books of the Gospel (the individual Evangelists are named), fourteen epistles of Paul the Apostle (each is reviewed), two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and one of James, one book of the Acts of the Apostles, and one book of the Apocalypse of John. In all these books those fearing God and meek in piety seek the will of God. »

2°. That the same canon flourished in the Roman Church, to which the African Fathers appealed, is established from the letter by which Innocent I in the year 405 answered the inquiries of Exsuperius of Toulouse. Thus reads ep. 6. c. 7 (ed. Coustant. p. 795): « Which books are received in the canon, the annexed brief (i. e. little index) shows: five books of Moses... five books of Solomon, the Psalter; likewise of histories, one book of Job, one book of Tobi, one of Esther, one of Judith, two of Machabees⁵, two of Esdras, two books of Paralipomenon. Likewise of the New Testament » etc. But as the African Bishops appealed to the Tradition handed down by the antecedent Fathers, so the Pontiff at the very beginning of the letter protested that he teaches what is to be followed as « the preserved series of times would show. »

Pope Gelasius in the Council of seventy Bishops in the year 496, in the decree on the books to be received, enumerates the same, with none taken away and none added. From the diversity of the inscription of the codices it seems most probably to be gathered that the same decree was again issued by Pope Hormisdas (year 514 to 523), to whom it is attributed in the most ancient Urgell and Jura codex, in which it bears this prefixed title: « Here begins the decretal issued in the city of Rome by Pope Hormisdas. » In the text: « Concerning the divine Scriptures, what the universal Catholic Church receives, or after these what it ought to shun. The order of the Old Testament, which the holy and catholic Roman Church receives and honors, is this: of Genesis bk. I » etc. Nevertheless in most codices that decree is attributed to Gelasius and the Roman synod of 70 or 72 Bishops, and under his name it was received in the canonical collections of Burchard and Gratian.⁶ See Mansi Conc. T. VIII. p. 151 and Supplem. Concil. T. I. p. 355 sqq.; Jos. Blanchinus in Lives of the RR. Pontiffs T. IV. p. LXI; Hefele Hist. of Councils T. II. p. 597.

3°. From the African Councils and the decrees of the Pontiffs the same catalogue of the Scriptures with the other statutes was received about the time of Pope Gelasius into those entitled « Constitutions of the Apostolic See » Works of St Leo ed. Baller. T. III. p. 98, and thence into other ancient collections of canons, of Dionysius Exiguus in saec. VI (Works of St Leo T. III. p. CLXXIV sq.), of Ferrandus of Carthage can. 228 likewise saec. VI; of Cresconius can. 299 at the end of saec. VII (Bibl. Max. PP. T. IX. p. 486. 494); then into the Spanish collection of saec. VII (Works of Leo p. CXCV sq.), of Burchard at the start of saec. XI, of Ivo in mid saec. XI, of Gratian in saec. XII. Since collections of this kind, especially the Dionysian and afterwards the Gratian, were widespread and at least to the Bishops and the whole Clergy most well known in the whole Western Church, it is plain that this very doctrine of the Councils and Pontiffs concerning the canon of the Scriptures was universal in the whole Church, at least the Latin of which we now speak. Hence in saec. VIII St Nicholas I the Pontiff appealed to the decree of Innocent I in such a way that, supposing it known everywhere and without controversy, from the very reception of the integral canon of the Scriptures through the whole Church commanded by Innocent, he drew an argument for the proof of another matter then at issue.⁷

4°. The Latin ecclesiastical writers who from saec. VI on in their exegetical, dogmatic, liturgical works recorded indices of the sacred books have the same full canon with no book taken away and none added, nor surely did they record anything but what in their time they found handed down in the Church by the forefathers. Thus catalogues of the sacred books were composed by Cassiodorus in saec. VI, divin. institut. cc. 1-9. 13. 14; Isidore of Seville in saec. VII, who thrice proposes the same, ed. Arevalo T. III. p. 241; T. V. p. 190; T. VI. p. 372; Ildephonsus of Toledo on the order of baptism c. 79 in Baluz's miscellany, T. VI. p. 57; Eugenius of Toledo (in Hodius l.c. p. 654).

Of saec. VIII is the decree of Leo III the Pontiff edited by Joseph Blanchinius in Vindic. canon. Script. p. CCCV: « All the divine Scripture of the holy canon is read from the beginning of the year to the end in the Church of St Peter in this order » etc. From mid October there are said to be read « the book of Solomon (by which were comprehended the five so-called sapiential books), and of Women (i. e. Ruth, Judith, Esther)⁸ and of Machabees and the book of Tobi until the Kalends of December ».⁹ Of the early IX century is the catalogue described in verses, and the codex of the Scriptures of Theodulf of Orleans in Works of Sirmond T. II. p. 1046. In the same century flourished Rhabanus Maurus, who bk. II. c. 53 on the instit. of Clerics testifies: « Lessons are pronounced in the Churches of Christ from the holy Scriptures.... These therefore are the books of the O.T. which the Princes of the Churches have handed down to be read and received for love of doctrine and piety. » There follows a catalogue comprehending all and only the books which we have in the Tridentine canon.

At the start of saec. XII Honorius of Autun in the Gem of the Soul bk. III. c. 118, Bibl. Max. PP. T. XX. p. 1128, recorded the books of Scripture to be read in the divine offices, which are the same all and only comprehended in the Tridentine canon. From the same century we have in the Scholastic History of Peter Comestor the narration of all the books of Scripture. Where he begins to narrate the book of Josue, he recalls from St Jerome the division of the Hebrew canon into three orders with this annotation: « Job, David, three books of Solomon, Daniel, Paralipomenon, Esdras, Esther (namely pertain to the third order of the Hebrews). Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobias Pastor¹⁰, of Machabees are apocryphal, since their author is unknown; but since there is no doubt of their truth, they are received by the Church. But if neither author nor truth were known, they would not be received, as the book of the Infancy of the Saviour and of the Assumption of the B. Virgin Mary » fol. 82 ed. Lyon 1542. Still more clearly he explains what he himself understands by the name apocryphal, at the start of the narration of the book of Tobias fol. 146. To his own remark that the book of Tobias is reckoned by the Jews among the apocrypha, by St Jerome among the hagiographa, he adds: « Recall what was said above at the start of Josue, that apocryphal is said either whose author is uncertain or whose matter is uncertain. But concerning the matter of this (book) it is plain and established. Hagiograph is interpreted holy Scripture, and thus any Scripture (i. e. any book pertaining to Scripture) can be called holy. »

Peter of Blois in this XII century enumerates first according to St Jerome the books of the Hebrew canon in the triple order of the Law, the Prophets and the hagiographa. But he warns of the fuller Christian canon: « The fourth order among us (Christians) of the O.T. is of those books which are not in the canon of the Hebrews. Of which the first is the book of Wisdom, the second Ecclesiasticus, the third Tobias, the fourth Judith, the fifth and sixth of Machabees, which though the Jews separate among the apocrypha, yet the Church of Christ both honors and preaches among the divine books. In the New Testament there are two orders » etc. On the division and writers of the sacred books (Bibl. Max. PP. T. XXIV. p. 1268). The same canon in saec. XIII Vincent of Beauvais (Specul. doctrin. bk. XVII. 33) and many others recorded down to the Council of Florence.

In this Council the Supreme Pontiff Eugene IV in the Bull or decree « Sing unto the Lord » declared to the Jacobites the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and among other heads there the most holy Roman Church is said to profess « one and the same God of the Old and New Testament, that is, the author of the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel, since by the same Holy Spirit inspiring the saints of both Testaments spoke, whose books it receives and venerates; which are contained under the following titles: Five of Moses » etc. There follows the enumeration of all the books in the same order as in the Tridentine Council¹¹ (Hard. IX. p. 1023).

5°. As regards the Greek Church, in saec. VII° the Trullan Council held by the Greeks as a continuation of the oecumenical V and VI received in can. 2°, with the statutes of other Councils and holy Fathers, also the one hundred thirty-five African canons, which thenceforth among the Greeks constitute part of the ecclesiastical law illustrated by the commentaries of their doctors Balsamon, Zonaras, Alexius Aristenus etc. Among those African canons the twenty-seventh puts that very decree of the Council of Carthage of the year 419 concerning the canonical Scriptures which we reported above (Beveridge's Pandects of the canons of the Greek Church T. I. p. 549). The Greeks therefore found the catalogue of the books of Scripture, in which there are enumerated all and only those still now comprehended in the Catholic canon,¹² in no way dissenting from the faith and practice of their Eastern Church. That in the same place in can. 2° there are also received the 85 apostolic canons and the 60th of Laodicea, in the 85th apostolic and 60th Laodicean of which another catalogue of the Scriptures is contained, is no contradiction, but only the explication or integration of one incomplete canon completed through another. Aptly to this matter Cassiodorus remarks in comparing canons of this kind with each other: the Fathers and Councils « said not contrary but diverse things, » since incomplete canons are not excluding but opportunely to be supplied (cf. Cassiod. instit. divin. litt. c. 14).

Certainly the Greek Church even schismatical still now keeps the same books all in its canon. Hence in saec. XVII we see Cyril Lucar, who by rejecting the deuterocanonical books wished to gratify the Protestants, condemned also for this error in synods convened by the schismatical patriarchs Parthenius of Constantinople, Dositheus of Jerusalem, Macarius of Antioch. The sentence of these synods was thus: « The Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, Tobias, the history of the dragon, the history of Susanna, the Machabees, the Wisdom of Sirach with the other genuine books of Holy Scripture we judge to be numbered as genuine parts of the same Scripture. Since what the Gospels..... ancient custom or rather the Catholic Church handed down, these too it undoubtedly handed down as parts of Holy Scripture » (Hard. XI. p. 258). See also the attestations in the work « Perpetuity of the Faith Defended » T. III. p. 462. 463. 464. 465. 547.

That the other nations of the East, long since sundered from the Catholic Church, are in the same mind can be proved, as far as the ignorance prevailing among those peoples permits. The Syrians and Chaldeans receive the deuterocanonical books (Assem. Bibl. Or. T. III. p. 5-7; IV. p. 236; Hard. Conc. T. X. p. 306; Perpetuit. of the faith defended T. III. p. 551; Hodius l.c. p. 650); the Ethiopians or Abyssinians (Ludolph. Histor. of Ethiopia bk. III. c. 4, which Fabricius in the book « Light of the Gospel » p. 717 and Hodius l.c. p. 650 likewise describe from Ludolf)¹³; the Armenians (Perpetuit. of the faith defended T. III. p. 560. 566, where are reported the testimonies of the Monophysite Bishops in Cilicia and in Persia).

III. If we now compare together what has been said in this and in the preceding thesis, the conclusion of the whole demonstration is evident. The so-called deuterocanonical books of the O.T. were all from the most ancient times and from the apostolic age itself not merely annexed as an appendix, but mixed without distinction with the protocanonical books of Scripture. In the whole Church both in the East and in the West, in every age there was a public, most ample, constant and daily use of these books as Holy Scripture without any discrimination from the protocanonical books. In the West this public custom and persuasion was confirmed expressly and by explicit declarations by the Pontiffs and Councils as Tradition propagated from the origin of the Christian thing and from the apostolic age; and this was done when somewhere a theory dissonant from that public use seemed to be introduced, and was done through declarations wholly agreeing with that universal and perpetual practice and persuasion. But as all these books were mixed with the rest in the editions of the Scriptures, so in the Western Church no controversy of any moment was ever moved concerning them. For St Jerome, Rufinus and Hilary in this matter, as I said elsewhere, look rather to the Eastern doctors. In the East some hesitation did arise in the IV century and held for some time afterwards; yet the public practice of the Eastern Church too persevered always the same, until from the evidence of the public use and from the necessity of reconciling doctrine with that public custom every doubt ceased in the Eastern Churches too. Now that books thus always held in the Church among the Scriptures and hence as divine books were, even if the argument be viewed historically alone, handed down by the Apostles is demonstrated as morally certain, because such a perpetual, universal and constant practice and persuasion can have its origin from nowhere else than apostolic Tradition. But if Tradition be viewed in the Catholic sense, namely the office of infallibly guarding the deposit of faith under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, it is absolutely repugnant that books preserved in this manner, held in veneration, used, declared divine in the universal Church, were not handed down by the Apostles as sacred Scripture. As to method therefore and the value of the demonstration, the Christian Tradition is well to be distinguished from the history of the canon of the books in the Old Testament among the Jews.

1°. It is demonstrated not from the history of the Jewish canon but from Christian Tradition that in the collection of the Scriptures which the Apostles consigned to the Churches as a complex of inspired books and as the written word of God, all those books were comprehended which the Church from the apostolic age has read among the Scriptures and which it still has defined in its canon. That very consignment and Tradition of Scripture through the Apostles contained the revelation of the Holy Spirit through His heralds that all these books are divinely inspired Scriptures and the written word of God. This apostolic revelation and Tradition does not necessarily suppose a revelation and Tradition already pre-existing among the Jews in the Old Testament. For since the Apostles were infallible not only in proposing and declaring revelation already made in the Old Testament, but through them Christ and the Holy Spirit also completed revelation, and thus they were also promulgators of new revelations which had not been made in the O.T., therefore from the doctrine that the Apostles handed down all these books as sacred Scripture it cannot be certainly inferred that already in the O.T. all these books had been proposed to the Jews as divine and believed by them as divine.

2°. Yet if we view not only the dogmatic foundation on which the Christian demonstration properly rests, but also examine historically in this doctrine what was the relation of the apostolic preaching in this head to the antecedent Tradition among the Synagogue, a) it is certain that the same deuterocanonical books were known to the Jews and among them in great authority, whereby a way was as it were prepared beforehand for the apostolic revelation concerning their inspiration. See above p. 319 the testimony of Josephus concerning the books written after Artaxerxes, and the honorific sentences of the Jews concerning each of these deuterocanonical books in Joseph de Voisin in the Observations on the Dagger of Faith ed. Paris 1651 p. 102-105. The holy Fathers too recall these books as known to the Jews and held in veneration. Thus Origen had found among the Jews the books of Machabees under the name Sarbat Sanbaneel¹⁴ (in Euseb. VI. 25); Epiphanius the books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus (haeres. VIII. n. 6. cf. Isidore on div. Offices bk. I. c. 12); Jerome the books of Tobias and Judith (Prolog. on those books, cf. Hilar. Prolog. on Pss. T. I. p. 10). The author of the Apost. Constitutions testifies that in his time the book of Baruch was customarily read in the synagogues (Constit. Apost. bk. V. c. 20, Coteler. T. I. p. 324). See Malou on the Reading of Scripture in the vulgar tongue T. II. p. 32-51.

b) Nay it is probable that all these books were held by the Hellenist Jews in the time of Christ and the Apostles among the Scriptures together with the other books, and hence were handed to them as divine. That the Hellenist Jews read the Scriptures in the Alexandrian Greek edition at least until the version instituted by Aquila in the II Christian century is not doubtful.¹⁵ And in this edition, as far as the monuments reach, the deuterocanonical books are found (as we have demonstrated) not merely added but intermixed with the protocanonical books. It must indeed be confessed that these monuments strictly prove only that intermixture in the editions of Christians, and so it may have proceeded from the Apostles or from Christians out of apostolic doctrine. Since however no vestige exists of an Alexandrian edition containing only the protocanonical books, and since the Christian Tradition itself is such as rather to persuade that the Apostles found all these books already contained in their copies, the probability of this view defended by several recent Catholics cannot be denied. If the Apostles handed to the Churches Greek copies with the deuterocanonical books already before intermixed as the codex of the books of Scripture, no other explicit and distinct doctrine of the Apostles concerning each of these books was necessary. Then too what we said above of this Tradition as in a way implicit and first preserved rather by use and practice is more easily understood, and thence of the controversy that followed in later time within the very bounds of the Church.

Though these things be so, yet that remains ratified and firm, that the demonstration of the canon of the Scriptures in no way depends on this historical hypothesis; and surely they are most gravely deceived who affirm that the books of the O.T. could have been handed to Christians only by the old Synagogue, and are to be received only from the tradition and sentence of the Synagogue.

Corollary 1. Far different was the condition of the doctrine concerning the deuterocanonical books in the Christian Church even in that stage in which full agreement did not obtain, than in the Old Testament before the preaching of Christ and the Apostles. In the O.T. the proposition of the divine testimony either did not exist, or certainly was to be completed and confirmed by a new revelation; in the N.T. the revelation already made and always preserved in the Church was only to be proposed more explicitly by the Church itself under the direction of the Holy Spirit and to be preached more insistently. See on Trad. th. XXII. n. II; th. XXIII. n. I; th. XXV.

Corollary 2. The Catholic doctrine concerning the inspiration of the deuterocanonical books is absurdly impugned by Protestants with testimonies of the Jews by which they contend to prove that prophecy and the Holy Spirit were withdrawn under the second temple.

For a) there is no dogmatic authority of these testimonies, as is evident of itself. We do not prove the inspiration of the deuterocanonical books by the authority of the old Synagogue, much less do we require testimonies of the Jews after they ceased to be the people of God; but from the perpetual Christian Tradition we demonstrate it to have been revealed by Christ or by the Holy Spirit through the Apostles. Those testimonies of the Jews concerning the cessation of prophecy, if they were to be understood of the cessation of the gift of inspiration, and if they merited historical faith concerning the sentences of Jewish antiquity, could only prove that the Synagogue of the O.T. was in this opinion, and hence that the inspiration of the books written under the second temple was not known to it; but in no way could they prove that inspiration did not exist or was not revealed to the Church by Christ and the Apostles.

b) The testimonies of the Jews, insofar as they merit historical faith, if rightly examined, prove the contrary; they demonstrate namely the persuasion of the Synagogue and the very fact of the charisms of prophecy and of continuous revelation enduring even under the second temple; nay the same is demonstrated by evangelical testimonies.

Josephus recalls altogether many who enjoyed the gift of prophecy and divine addresses. John Hyrcanus son of Simon is said to have obtained the three greatest things, « principate, high priesthood, and prophecy » on the War bk. I. c. 2. n. 8 (ed. Havercamp); the same is narrated to have received divine responses in the temple, Antiq. bk. XIII. c. 10. n. 3. In general such responses to priests are said to have ceased only two hundred years before Josephus wrote his history, therefore about a hundred years before Christ, Antiq. bk. III. c. 8. n. 9.¹⁶ Others distinguished by the gift of prophecy are recalled under the second temple, e.g. Judas the Essene, « who in his predictions never failed or lied » on the War bk. I. c. 3. n. 5; Samaia Antiq. bk. XV. c. 1. n. 1; Manahem ib. c. 10. n. 5; several of the Essenes (on the War bk. II. c. 8. n. 12), according to the persuasion of the people also the Pharisees Antiq. bk. XVII. c. 2. n. 4. Miracles and supernatural apparitions are narrated in the books of Machabees. Philo was so persuaded of the continuance of the charisms and namely of inspiration for writing that he even believed the LXX interpreters to have been inspired (see above p. 324). The Talmudic and Rabbinic writers themselves are unanimous in asserting the degree of prophecy and divine manifestation in the times of the second temple, which they call « the daughter of the voice »; cf. Treatise on Trad. p. 311 note, and Malou on the Reading of Scripture in the vulgar tongue T. II. p. 42 sq.

In the Gospel itself, to say nothing of Zachary and Elizabeth, Lk. I, there is recalled Simeon a just man, « and the Holy Spirit was in him... and he had received an answer from the Holy Spirit... and he came in the Spirit into the temple »; likewise « Anna the prophetess » Lk. II. 25. 36. Nay it is indicated that the extraordinary charism remained for certain junctures connected with the ordinary ministry of the priesthood, Jn. XI. 51.

c) Finally if there are any testimonies by which it is affirmed that no prophets were sent any more after Zachary, Aggeus and Malachy, they cannot be understood of the extraordinary charism of revelation, prophecy and inspiration taken generally, but must be understood of the public office divinely enjoined on those older prophets of admonishing, confirming, chastising and ruling the people of God with rewards and punishments foretold. In which sense not only did Josephus against Apion II. 8 say that « the succession of prophets after Artaxerxes was not patent and accurate, » but also 1 Mach. IX. 27 seems to indicate the same, where after the death of Judas and Jonathan it is said there was « a tribulation such as there was not from the day that no prophet was seen in Israel » (cf. Joseph. Antiq. bk. XIII. c. 1. n. 1). For the rest all those Protestants must confess that the charism of inspiration endured under the second temple who both concede that the protocanonical books are inspired and at the same time confess that some of the Psalms were written in this age and not before the Machabean times.

On the origin of the controversy concerning the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament.

« It is not to be denied that concerning some books of the Scripture of the Old Testament a controversy at some time existed even within the bounds of the Church; but we contend, 1°. that questions of any moment concerning the ecclesiastical canon of the Scriptures of the O. T. were not raised before the fourth century; 2°. that this controversy did not take its origin from the Tradition of our forefathers, but from the comparison instituted between the Scriptures of the Church and the Scriptures of the Hebrew canon, which was chiefly promoted after the widely diffused Hexaplar edition of Origen. »

We say two things in the thesis: that there was no controversy of any moment concerning the books called deuterocanonical before the fourth century; and then that the opposition took its rise not from Tradition but from the comparison of the Scriptures of the Church with the Hebrew Scriptures.¹. Or rather, we employ a twofold argument by which the later origin of the controversy is demonstrated: first a negative one from the silence of antiquity, then a positive one from the source of this controversy.

I. The question is one of ecclesiastical history, or more particularly of the history of dogmas: whether the controversy which we know to have existed to some extent in the fourth century and afterwards concerning some books of the Old Testament was derived from an earlier time, and consequently whether the same state of the question already obtained in the third and second centuries. Documents of the second and third centuries survive in sufficient number for the truth of the fact to be explored from them.

1°. It is established from the preceding theses X and XI that for the first three centuries all these books were among the Scriptures of the Churches and were held in the same reckoning as the protocanonical books; but no memory of controversy or doubt exists down to the beginnings of the fourth century. Yet with so frequent a citation of these books among the Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries — Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian and others (see th. X) — it is not credible that a controversy, if any had already existed, would never have been indicated; especially since the diversity between the books of the Church and the books among the Hebrews was very well known at least to some, and above all to Origen, and since they did not omit to note doubts concerning other books here and there numbered among the Scriptures, as Tertullian concerning the book of Enoch (On the Apparel of Women, bk. I, ch. 3.)²; the same Tertullian concerning the Shepherd of Hermas (On Modesty, chs. 10, 20), the Muratorian fragment (Galland, II, p. 208), and Origen (hom. 8 on Num., vol. II, p. 294; hom. 1 on Ps. 37, ibid., p. 681; on Matth., tract 30, ibid., p. 872), and from the third century on concerning the deuterocanonical books of the N. T. also, as Origen (in Eusebius, VI, 25). Nay, the very manner of the private doubt of Julius Africanus concerning the parts of Daniel and the manner of Origen's reply clearly indicates that as yet no controversy concerning the number of the sacred books arising from the diversity of the ecclesiastical and the Hebrew codex had been heard in the Church (see p. 409, note).

2°. I have said that no memory of controversy or doubt concerning these books exists down to the fourth century. For Melito in the 2nd century (Eusebius, IV, 26) and Origen in the 3rd (Eusebius, VI, 25, and in the Philocalia, ch. 5) did indeed set down a canon comprehending only the protocanonical books; but in it their purpose was not to enumerate the books received by the Church, but only to teach which and how many books were admitted even by the Jews.

As regards Origen the matter is perfectly clear from his express words. "It is not to be ignored that the books placed in the Testament (ἐνδιαθήκους), as the Hebrews have handed them down, are twenty-two, as many as is among them the number of the letters... but these twenty-two books according to the Hebrews are the following" etc. The same is then evident from the very manner of numbering; for not only does he studiously preserve the number of the Hebrew letters, and to this end — as is established was done among the Jews but by no means among Christians — joins several books into one; but he also indicates the titles solemn among the Hebrews for each: Genesis "among the Hebrews from the beginning of the book Bresith;.,. Judges, Ruth among them in one Sophetim; I and II Kings, among them one book Samuel" etc. Finally, that not this Hebrew canon but another ampler canon was acknowledged by Origen as obtaining among Christians, is established from his express doctrine in the epistle to Africanus and from the manner in which he uses all the books of Holy Scripture (above, p. 411.)³.

That the same was Melito's design — namely to designate the books admitted by the Jews — is gathered from the circumstances. For Onesimus the Bishop, for whom Melito composed both the catalogue and extracts from the books indicated in the catalogue, desired to learn how many and of what sort were the books among the Synagogue. Concerning the books of the Old Testament, I say, Onesimus inquired and Melito answered, neither of them concerned in any way with the books of the New Testament; and from the Law and the Prophets the former requested extracts "concerning the Saviour and our whole faith," and this from zeal for faith and doctrine for fighting on behalf of the Christian religion (περὶ τῆς αἰωνίου σωτηρίας ἀγωνιζόμενος). But Melito, "having set out to the East and to the very place in which these things (i.e. those things which Onesimus sought) were preached and done, diligently inquired into the books of the O. T. (nothing of the New Testament) and wrote out their index."

But a) so solicitous a zeal concerning the books of the Old Testament only, and to know accurately what things are in those books concerning the Saviour and the Christian religion, and the ardour for fighting on behalf of this eternal salvation, for which Onesimus is praised by Melito, plainly indicate the polemic scope of defending the Christian religion against the Jews, and of demonstrating its truth from the books admitted by the Jews themselves — as was done at the same age and in the same Asia Minor in an extensive work by Justin, who held the dialogue with Trypho at Ephesus, as Eusebius testifies, bk. IV, ch. 18. For this scope it was certainly requisite to have a clear view of the canon of the Jews, as Justin and afterwards Origen warned (cf. above, p. 408). b) That Melito set out to Palestine to know the books of the O. T. not by chance because thence the Christian religion and preaching took their beginning, but because there the revelation and history of the Old Covenant had been given and enacted, likewise persuades that he inquired into the canon of the Jews; for when he says that he set out to the place in which those things were preached and done, it is just as if he said that he approached the very people among whom that ancient preaching was first made. For concerning the number of the books he could learn something not from the place but from the people.⁴. The Christian canon Melito and Onesimus, Bishops of Asia Minor where the Apostles Peter, Paul and John had founded Churches, assuredly already had in clear view from elsewhere; nor was there need to visit the place where those ancient things had been preached and done, and there "diligently to learn the books of the Old Testament." c) In the Christian canon handed down from the Apostles Melito did not have only those books which he described in the canon received from the Jews, as far as is established from the manner in which in the "Key of Holy Scripture" he cites the deuterocanonical books without distinction equally with the protocanonical as parts of Holy Scripture (see above, p. 411). Finally d) who were the Christians of the mid-second century who admitted only the protocanonical books? Among the Churches of the Gentiles, or those constituted according to their rite, Melito would not have found any Scripture other than that everywhere handed down from the Apostles in the Greek Alexandrian edition; Judaizing Christians in Melito's time ⁵ there were none any longer except of the heretical sects. But among these he certainly did not seek the canon; and if that were contended, it would be all one to us whether he had taken the catalogue of the sacred books from these sects or from the Jews. Let it stand, therefore, as we have said, that Melito made a review of the Jewish and not the Christian canon. That Eusebius says Melito composed a catalogue of the books of the O. T. which are confessed among all, των ὁμολογουμενων, creates no difficulty; for that distinction into ὁμολογουμενους and ἀμφιβαλλομενους as regards the books of the O. T. is to be referred not to Melito's age but to Eusebius's.

The Muratorian fragment (Galland, II, p. 208) exhibits a catalogue not of the Old but of the New Testament. Concerning the books of the O. T. nothing else is found there, except that together with the books of the New Testament there is reckoned among the Scriptures "Wisdom written by the friends of Solomon in his honour."

That the singular doubt of Africanus contributes nothing to indicate a controversy already arisen at that time, but belongs rather to the opposite side, we have already demonstrated above.

In the Apostolic Constitutions, bk. II, ch. 57, the purpose is not to describe the complete canon of the Scriptures, but summarily to indicate the books to be read in the assembly. For how else is it that neither the protocanonical Ruth and Esther nor in the N. T. any of the Catholic epistles are named? For the rest, as far as that general manner of indication permits, all the deuterocanonical books of the O. T. can also be found comprehended there.⁶ For where it is said that the books to be read are those pertaining to the return from exile (τα της ἐπανοδου,) there can easily be understood not only the books of Esdras, but also all the histories written after Artaxerxes (cf. Josephus, Against Apion, II, ch. 8). That by the name of Solomon five books are comprehended (i.e. also Wisd. and Ecclus.) appears from the Constitutions themselves, bk. IV, ch. 11; VI, chs. 15, 30, etc., where Ecclus. and Wisd. together with Prov. are cited with the express name of Solomon also; that the book of Baruch is included under Jeremias in the usual manner is established from bk. V, ch. 20; VI, ch. 23.

The 85th apostolic canon does not belong here, since by the agreement of the critics it is far later than the third century.

No certain memory of any controversy, therefore, exists before the fourth century.

II. We think that the first occasion of the inquiry — for which the use and practice of the Churches in receiving all these books of the O. T. no longer seemed to suffice, whence doubts were excited among some teachers as to whether equal certainty held concerning the books not extant in the Hebrew canon — and thus the controversy in its beginning, is to be traced back to Origen's review and comparison of the Scriptures as they stood in the Greek and ecclesiastical edition, with the Hebrew text.

1°. This is proved from the synchronism of the rise of the controversy with the amplest diffusion of the Origenian review. From the end of the third century to the middle of the fourth, the Hexaplar edition of Origen — in which whatever was lacking in the Hebrew text was marked transfixed with obeli — had been propagated in such a way that not only was it "reserved in the books of the learned" (Jerome, to Sunnia and Fretela, ep. 106, n. 2), but it had occupied all the libraries of the Churches; and if anyone wished to abolish it, as St Jerome says, "he would be compelled to condemn all the libraries of the Churches; for scarcely one or another book was found which did not have them" (to Augustine, ep. 112, n. 19); and already "all the Churches of Christ, of the Greeks and Latins and Syrians and Egyptians alike, read this edition under asterisks and obeli" (Jerome, preface on Dan., vol. V, p. 622). But with so great a propagation of these copies with their obeli, there was at the same time set as it were a provocation to inquire more diligently by what right so many things were read in the ecclesiastical edition which were not acknowledged by the Hebrews. Yet at this very time was first heard the division of the books of the Old Testament into ὁμολογουμενους, which were confessed among all, and ἀντιλεγομενους, which were contradicted — which Eusebius, bk. VI, ch. 13, a man assiduous in the works of Origen, perhaps first explicitly declared. There is added that this controversy and distinction of the books kept itself within the limits of the Greek Church, where the Greek edition alone obtained, and was propagated with the Origenian signs in the libraries of the Churches. On the contrary in the West the ecclesiastical Latin edition, derived long before Origen's review from Greek copies still destitute of that furniture of signs, persevered in public use without the Origenian signs at least down to St Jerome.⁷. For what Jerome himself says concerning the Latin readers of the Origenian codices is to be understood of Greek codices propagated also among the Latins. Hence that same old Latin edition, containing the deuterocanonical books intermingled without any distinction with the protocanonical, by a happy and most strong rampart as it were kept off from the teachers of the Western Church the invasion of that controversy and hesitation. In fact we never see any dissension in the West except in St Jerome, who evidently rests on the comparison with the books of the Hebrews, and some indication of the controversy transferred from the Greeks in Hilary and Rufinus. Anyone already sees that both the condition of the Greek edition of the Scriptures at the time when the first trace of the controversy occurs, and the different state of the question in West and East conspiring with the very different state of the ecclesiastical edition in either part of the Church, is a vehement indication, if not a certain demonstration, that the controversy took its rise from the occasion we have named.⁸.

2°. To persuade the same origin of the controversy, let it be allowed to add an observation which may at least stand in place of a conjecture. It seems strange that quite a number of the Greek teachers do not reckon the book of Esther, which is without doubt in the Hebrew canon, with the canonical books, but with those which have been called into question (ἀντιλεγομενοι). So Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Amphilochius, the Athanasian Synopsis, Leontius, Nicephorus. On the contrary, the book of Baruch, which for a long time now is no longer extant among the Hebrew Scriptures, they place in their catalogues by express name among the books admitted by all — Athanasius, the 60th Laodicean canon, Cyril of Jerusalem, Nicephorus of Constantinople (among the Byzantine writers after the chronography of Syncellus, in Pithou, codex canonum, p. 348; in Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Coisliniana, p. 204); others comprehended Baruch under the name of Jeremias, as is established from the manner of the citations. In the same way they refer the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel among the books placed beyond doubt, as is clear both from the Pseudo-Athanasian Synopsis and Chrysostom (vol. VI, p. 389) and from the citations. Yet this whole very singular manner of placing one book which, except for a few chapters, is in the canon of the Hebrews, among those which are not among the Hebrews, and thus among the ἀντιλεγομενους; and conversely of numbering another book which is not extant in Hebrew, and the still further parts of a third book lacking in the Hebrew canon, with the books admitted among the Hebrews, and thus as ὁμολογουμενους — this whole manner of distribution, I say, finds its fullest explanation on the hypothesis that Origen's Hexaplar edition was the norm for those teachers in the appraisal of the canon; and with this hypothesis not admitted, it can scarcely be explained.

For Origen had found the book of Baruch translated into the Greek tongue by the LXX interpreters, and therefore applied signs to it not as to a book lacking but as to one extant in the Hebrew text. This is established from the celebrated Chisian codex, from which Simon de Magistris edited the book "Daniel according to the LXX." There, p. 112, after Jeremias stands the book of Baruch "according to the LXX."⁹. Now there the single lines are not transfixed with the obelus, as happens in books not found in Hebrew; but on the contrary only here and there in certain places is the difference of the LXX version from the Hebrew text indicated by obeli — a Hebrew text, therefore, which we rightly gather was still at Origen's disposal. So a learned man, prefect of the Chisian library, testified to me. "Obeli are found only here and there in certain places, lemnisci very rarely." Moreover, in the Syriac Hexaplar codex of the Ambrosian library there exist various readings of this same book of Baruch from Theodotion with Origenian signs added (Eichhorn, Repertorium, vol. III, p. 170). Theodotion therefore had made a Greek version, and consequently the Hebrew text must be said to have still survived in the second century. Thereto are added for confirmation the sayings of the ancients. By Origen himself in the catalogue which he describes as adopted from the Hebrews (Eusebius, VI, 25) is placed "Jeremias with the Lamentations and the epistle (i.e. with our ch. VI of Baruch) in one book"; in the Apostolic Constitutions, bk. V, ch. 20, it is affirmed that even at that time (the third century) Baruch was customarily read in the synagogues, and Epiphanius (perhaps from Origen) places Baruch among the books which the Jews returning from exile had (Haeres., VIII, n. 6).

Further, the parts of Daniel which no longer survive in Hebrew Origen found, no otherwise than the book of Baruch, translated by the LXX, and marked them not with obeli but partly with lemnisci, partly left them without sigla, that they might be designated as extant in the Hebrew text, as the same Chisian codex makes plain, from which Simon de Magistris edited the version of Daniel according to the LXX and according to Theodotion with the Origenian signs. That Theodotion translated those parts into Greek is otherwise established (for it is according to Theodotion that we have them in our Vulgate); but that there existed also a version of Aquila and Symmachus de Magistris gathers from the Chisian codex itself, in which to the first verses of ch. 13, i.e. the history of Susanna, are added lemnisci with the letters A. Σ. Θ., by which is signified that the three interpreters Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion agree in sense with the LXX (Daniel according to the LXX, pp. 77, 81).

In this state, therefore, of the Hexaplar edition ¹⁰. it is not strange that Baruch and the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel were placed among the books admitted by all by the teachers for whom that edition was the norm. But on the contrary the beginning of the book of Esther in the Hexaplar edition was the dream of Mardochai (in the Vulgate ch. XI) ¹¹, prefixed with obeli through the whole chapter, as still appears now in the Arundel codex edited by Ussher (Syntagma on the LXX version etc., London 1655, pp. 111–112). But the obeli signified that the passage was not extant in the Hebrew text. Hence it readily followed that, with that Hexaplar norm once set up, the same teachers should simply number the book of Esther among the ἀντιλεγομένους.

3°. Finally, with great agreement those teachers who indicate this controversy concerning the deuterocanonical books appeal to the number of the 22 Hebrew letters, and by this very manner of numbering show that they depend on the Hebrew reckoning. So number the books not only those who evidently exhibit the Hebrew canon, as Origen, Epiphanius, Hilary, whom Cassiodorus, Bede, Anastasius Sinaita the younger, Primasius and Agobard imitate; but the same numbering is insisted on also by others who treat of the books insofar as they are received among Christians by unanimous consent, as Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, the Athanasian Synopsis — and they indicate that joining together of several books into one which they had learned from Origen was observed in the reckoning of the Hebrews. Nay, they even expressly signify at times that the reason for placing a book among those admitted by all or among the controverted depends on whether that book is or is not in the Hebrew canon. Thus the author of the Athanasian Synopsis first places Esther among the books which are not reckoned in the canon, yet are read to the catechumens; then subjoins: "some of the ancients however have said that among the Hebrews Esther also is placed in the canon, but Ruth on the other hand is reckoned as one book with the book of Judges, and thus the number 22 of the books which are in the canon among them is again filled up." But whether any book is admitted in the canon of the Hebrews or otherwise, those same teachers understood chiefly from the Hexaplar signs of Origen. All things considered, therefore, the first occasion of the controversy seems to be wholly traceable to that edition of Origen.¹².

The Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries exhibit deficient catalogues of the books of Scripture not as closed canons but as calling to be supplemented.

« With regard to the books of the Old Testament which are not extant in the Hebrew reckoning, the state of the question in the fourth and fifth centuries was this: 1st, several Fathers of that age indicate that there was some controversy about these books among Catholic teachers themselves; yet 2nd, no Father by a considered judgment ever denied that those books are to be reckoned among the sacred Scriptures; whence the deficient canons of the fourth and fifth centuries do not belong to denial but to the stage of inquiry before a definitive judgment, and have as their scope to embrace only the books admitted by all without controversy as divine, to exclude the certainly non-divine, to designate the controverted — canons which before the sifting of the matter were not closed, but were afterwards, once the matter was sifted, to be supplemented. »

In this thesis we declare the genuine sense of those Fathers who exhibit deficient canons of the Scriptures. And first we shall describe their testimonies themselves, from which it will be manifest that the opinion of those theologians cannot be proved who affirm that all these Fathers wished to report nothing else than, in a merely historical way, the canon of the Hebrews; since the very words of the Fathers most clearly exhibit the controversy that existed among Christians. Then, in the second place, we shall establish certain principles for understanding the true sense of those canons.

I. There are some Fathers who in reality report not the opinion of Christians but only of the Jews concerning the number of the books of Scripture, and who therefore in no way pertain to the present question, nor can they create any difficulty concerning the canon of the Church. First of all, besides Melito and Origen (th. XII, n. I), Epiphanius is to be set apart from the register of Fathers who could create difficulty; he professes, in Haeres. VIII, n. 6 and in the book De ponder. ac mensur., nn. 4, 22, 23, that he is describing the canon as received by the Jews. But in Haeres. LXXVI, confut. 5, T. I, p. 941, he only summarily names the twenty-seven books of the Old Testament, and with them the books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, and then in confusion "all the divine Scriptures universally." Hilary too is to be set apart: he does not treat directly of the canon of the Scriptures, but of the mystical signification and fullness of the number 22 according to the Hebrew letters, and on that occasion describes the 22 books of the Hebrews, as he had received from Origen how they are numbered among them. So far is he from the opinion that this were a full numbering of all the divine books, that, if the number of the Greek and Latin letters be assumed, he notes that the two books of Tobias and Judith can be added to those 22 to complete the number 24 (Hilar., praefat. in Pss., n. 15, T. I, p. 10).

There remain those who are thought to create the chief difficulty, from the fourth and early fifth century: Athanasius, in the festal letter, T. I, p. 961, ed. Maur., Paris 1698; Gregory Nazianzen, carm. 12, al. 34, T. II, p. 259, ed. Maur.; Amphilochius, in the iambics to Seleucus, ibid., p. 1103; Cyril of Jerusalem, catech. IV, n. 33 ff.; the Synopsis attributed to Athanasius (among his Works, T. II, p. 126); Apostolic Canon 85 (al. 84 or 76; Coteler., PP. App., T. I, p. 448; Hard., Concil. I, p. 30); the Council of Laodicea, can. 60 (Hard. I, p. 791); Jerome, Preface to the books of Solomon (cf. the Prologus galeatus, the Prefaces to Esdras, Tobias, Judith, Paralipomenon, the Prologue to Jeremias); Rufinus, De Symbolo, nn. 37, 38.

Since it matters to have their very words before our eyes, I shall transcribe the principal testimonies.

Athanasius, in the place cited, speaks thus¹. « Since I fear lest some ... hereafter begin to stumble upon the books called apocryphal, deceived by the likeness of their titles to the genuine books, ... I write to admonish, for the necessity and profit of the Church ... I shall use the form of the Evangelist Luke, saying with him: since some have attempted to draw up for themselves the things called apocrypha, and to mix these with the divinely inspired Scripture, concerning which we have full persuasion, as they handed down to the Fathers, who from the beginning were themselves eyewitnesses and ministers of the word; it has seemed good to me also ... to set forth in order the books set in the canon, both handed down and believed divine ... There are therefore of the Old Testament 22 books in all; for that there are so many letters too among the Hebrews is traditionally said, as I have heard. In order and by name they are severally as follows. First Genesis ... Judges and after him Ruth; again in order the four books of Kings, of which the first and second are reckoned into one book, the third and fourth likewise into one ... The twelve Prophets (the minor) reckoned into one book; then Isaias, Jeremias and with him Baruch; the Lamentations, the Epistle ... Thus far the books of the Old Testament are set forth. » He numbers, that is, all the protocanonical books, the book of Esther excepted and the book of Baruch added. Then he sets down the catalogue of all the books of the New Testament and concludes: « These are the fountains of salvation, that he who thirsts may be filled with their utterances; in these alone the doctrine of piety is announced; let no one add to them, nor take anything away from them. Concerning these the Lord put the Sadducees to shame ... But for the sake of greater accuracy I necessarily add also in writing this: that there are also other books besides these, not indeed brought into the canon, but designated by the Fathers to be read by those newly approaching and wishing to be instructed in the doctrine of piety: the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobias, and the teaching called of the Apostles, and the Shepherd. But, beloved, while both those are in the canon and these are read, nowhere is mention made of the apocrypha; they are an invention of heretics ... that, by putting forward as it were ancient writings, they may have occasion to deceive the simple. »

The Athanasian Synopsis, in numbering the books, follows the genuine Athanasius himself. Some things, however, are to be observed severally concerning it. At the very outset it declares that the discourse is of the books of Scripture that are in the hands of Christians. « The whole Scripture of us Christians is divinely inspired; but it has not indefinite books; it has definite books, comprehended in a fixed canon. » It then numbers 22 books as Athanasius does, indicating the beginning of each, from which we see that the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel and Esther are not distinguished from the protocanonical parts; for the book of Daniel begins with the history of Susanna (Vulg., ch. XIII), the book of Esther with the dream of Mardochai (Vulg., ch. XI, v. 2); the former is placed wholly among the 22, the latter, as in Athanasius, wholly outside that number among the books « which are not indeed in the canon but are only read, » and « which are contradicted » (l. c., pp. 168, 201). There is nevertheless added the notice on p. 129 that « according to some of the ancients this book of Esther is reckoned among the canonical books among the Hebrews; » therefore, once it is admitted into the canon, the book of Ruth must be joined with the book of Judges, that the number 22 may remain. In the enumeration it does not name the book of Baruch, but in the analysis subjoined to the catalogue it reckons on p. 167, with Jeremias, « both Baruch and the Lamentations and the Epistle; » whence it becomes manifest that in the catalogue all these things are comprehended under the name of Jeremias.

After the books placed in the canon there follows a double further order, of both the Old and the New Testament: there are set down, namely, a) the books that are contradicted (ἀντιλεγόμενοι), b) the apocryphal.

To the controverted books, or ἀντιλεγομενους, belong « the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, and Tobias. With these are also numbered the following: the four books of Machabees, the Ptolemaics, the Psalms and Canticle of Solomon, Susanna. These are the controverted books of the Old Testament. » There follows the class of the apocrypha, among which are « the books falsely inscribed with the names of the prophet Sophonias, of Zacharias the father of John, of Baruch, of Habacuc, of Ezechiel, of Daniel » (ψευδεπιγραφα)².

Gregory Nazianzen and Amphilochius — if the poem to Seleucus is Amphilochius's and not itself Gregory's too — warn first of all, like Athanasius and the author of the Synopsis, that they are marking out the catalogue of the sacred books, that the faithful may be on guard against apocrypha: of those books, I say, which are now certainly known to be in the canon. Thus Gregory: « lest thou be deceived in mind by foreign books; for there are many corrupt figments under false titles; receive, friend, from me this number of books, which have been inserted by a definitive judgment » τον ἐγκριτον ἀριθμον. He numbers the same 22 as Athanasius, himself likewise omitting the book of Esther, and in the New Testament reckons all, the Apocalypse omitted. Then he concludes: « thou hast them all; if there is anything besides these, it is not among the genuine Scriptures » (οὐκ ἐν γνησιαις). In the poem to Seleucus there is the same numbering of the Scriptures; the book of Esther, however, is said to be placed by some in the canon as certain, τινες προσεγκρινουσι; among the books of the New Testament a controversy is indicated concerning the Epistles to the Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and concerning the Apocalypse; the Epistle of James, however, is numbered among the indubitable Scriptures. Conclusion: « this most certain canon shall have been of the divinely inspired Scriptures » οὕτος ἀψευδεστατος κανων ἂν εἴη των θεοπνευστων γραφων.

Cyril of Jerusalem, in exactly the same way as the Fathers hitherto commemorated, signifies these two things: namely, that in reckoning the catalogue of the sacred books he set before himself as scope to fortify the catechumens against apocrypha, and to number no others than the books admitted by the unanimous consensus of all. « Learn with diligence from the Church itself which are the books of the Old Testament and which of the New; and read nothing apocryphal. Thou who knowest not what is confessed among all, why dost thou labour in vain concerning doubtful things³? Read the divine Scriptures, those 22 books of the Old Testament translated by the Seventy-two interpreters ... Read these 22 books, but have nothing in common with apocrypha. These alone meditate with diligence, which we also read in the Church with full assurance (μετα παρρησίας). Much wiser and more religious than thou were the Apostles and the ancient Bishops, the rulers of the Church, who handed them down. Thou therefore, since thou art a son of the Church, remove not the landmarks. » There follows the reckoning of the books of the Old Testament according to the Hebrew mode of numbering; with Jeremias, however, he places as one book « Baruch and the Lamentations and the Epistle, » as we saw done by Athanasius. He numbers Esther among the 22 canonical books, and therefore, to preserve the number, joins Ruth with Judges into one. In the New Testament he places all except the Apocalypse. He concludes: « let all the rest stand outside in the second place, and what is not read in the Church, that read not even privately, as thou hast now heard. » Cyril indicates, that is, what other Fathers of that age distinctly teach: that there are three orders of books — in the first place the 22 from the Hebrew canon, in the second place the other books to be read, thirdly the apocrypha, which are not read in the Church and are not to be read even privately. What Touttée, the editor of Cyril's Works, says — that in the second place, ἐν δευτέρῳ, is the same as in no place — is both absurd of itself and in no way proved by the examples adduced by him, and is repugnant both to the doctrine of all the Fathers of that age and to the practice of all the Churches and to the opinion of Cyril himself, who in this very work of the catecheses uses the books placed outside the number 22 as sacred Scripture (see p. 412).

Jerome, in the Prologus galeatus, reckons only the books of the Old Testament that are still extant in the Hebrew text, all of which he had then already formed the plan of turning into Latin. « With these books, therefore, which survive in Hebrew, this prologue, » he says, « is as a helmeted beginning, that we may know that whatever is outside these is to be set among the apocrypha. Therefore the Wisdom commonly inscribed Solomon's, and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith and Tobias and the Shepherd⁴ are not in the canon. The first book of Machabees I found in Hebrew; the second is Greek, as can also be proved from its very style. These things being so, I beseech thee, reader, that thou deem not my labour a reproach of the ancients. » Those books, therefore, which are found among the Hebrew Scriptures, and in the reckoning even of the Hebrews, are said by St. Jerome to be in the canon; those, however, which are indeed in ecclesiastical use but outside that number, are said to be apocryphal — not absolutely, but by comparison with that canon, i.e., not comprehended in that number. That the name apocryphal must here be understood in this relative sense, with respect to the canon of the books that are admitted even by the Hebrews and nowhere called in doubt, is plain both from the context and from the added admonition, lest anyone deem this labour, in which he turns only the Hebrew books, a reproach of the ancients. For by these words it is sufficiently indicated that among Christians, from the earliest antiquity, this distinction among the books had not been acknowledged. The same is then plainly evident from the manner in which Jerome himself uses the books placed outside the Jewish canon (pp. 413 ff.), and finally from the express attestation by which the holy doctor himself confirms, in the prologue to the books of Solomon, that these books were in use in the Christian Church.

In this prologue to the books of Solomon he has at once before his eyes the canon of the Jews and the use of the Church, and tries to reconcile the discrepancy between the two. After indicating that the books of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom are not admitted among the Hebrew Scriptures, he subjoins the following. « As therefore the Church indeed reads the books of Judith and Tobias and of the Machabees, but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so too it reads these two volumes for the edification of the people, not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas. If for anyone the edition of the Seventy interpreters is more pleasing, he has it from us, once emended; for we forge nothing new so as to destroy the old. » These books, that is, the Church has them all in its reading, since it received them all as handed down to it in the Greek Alexandrian ecclesiastical edition; yet it did not receive them in that canon which embraces only the Hebrew Scriptures. Further, from this very defect of the books in the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures, questions arose at that time among some concerning their equal authority; whence Jerome (Prolog. in ll. Salom. iuxta LXX, T. X, p. 436) calls them doubtful books in comparison with the certain, such as the Hebrew Scriptures were. « In Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, » he says, « I have restrained my pen, desiring only to emend for you the canonical Scriptures, and to commend my zeal to the certain rather than to the doubtful. » Hence it came about that they could not everywhere and among all be adduced with equal confidence for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas. Augustine himself, who certainly held all these books in the canon of the African Church, nevertheless confesses, the question not yet being fully cleared, that « they are adduced against contradictors not with such firmness, which are not written in the canon of the Jews » (Civ. Dei XVII, ch. 20, n. 1); and he confesses this while at the same time attesting that the same books « merited to be received into authority from of old by the Church, especially the Western. »

From what has been said it is clear that the books are called apocryphal by Jerome in the Prologus galeatus in a far different sense than in several other places, where he plainly repudiates apocryphal Scriptures. When in the Prologue to Matthew (T. VII, p. 6) he calls « the dirges of the apocrypha, to be sung to dead heretics rather than to living churchmen, » he treats of the apocrypha of the Gospel; when in Is. LXIV, 4 (T. IV, p. 761) and against Rufinus, bk. II, n. 25 (T. II, p. 619), he commands: « let the dotings of the apocrypha be silent, » he has in view apocryphal books such as were the « Ascension of Isaias » and the « Apocalypse of Elias. »

In like manner he speaks of Pseudo-Esdras in the Prologue to Esdras and against Vigilantius, n. 7; of the Gospel of James against Helvidius, n. 8; of the apocryphal books inscribed with the names of Patriarchs and Prophets against Rufinus (T. II, p. 523), against Vigilantius in the place cited, in Eph. V, 30 (T. VII, p. 659). Plainly, therefore, he erred who said that all these reprehensions of the apocrypha pertain also to those things that are called apocryphal in the Prologus galeatus (Tübingen Quarterly, 1839, p. 291).

Thou seest that with St. Jerome, in nearly the same way as with the other Fathers of this age and opinion, three classes of books are distinguished: those that are in the Hebrew canon and certain to all; those that are read and are in ecclesiastical use, but are not in the Hebrew canon, and for this reason doubtful and, by comparison with the Hebrew canon, apocryphal; finally those that certainly do not pertain to the Scriptures, but are apocryphal to be repudiated.

Rufinus has the same things as the Greek Fathers cited a little before and as Jerome. First he says that he wishes to enumerate « the volumes of the New and Old Testament which, according to the Tradition of the forefathers, are believed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit himself and handed down to the Churches of Christ; » which assertion, prefixed to the enumeration of the double order of books handed down to the Church, seems to pertain altogether to each order. There follows the catalogue of the protocanonical books of the Old Testament, and, with none removed, of all the books of the New Testament, with the conclusion: « These are the things which the Fathers have concluded within the canon, and from which they wished the assertions of our faith to stand. » The Fathers here named cannot be others than those of the fourth century whom we have named. Rufinus proceeds: « It is to be known, however, that there are also other books which were called by our forefathers not canonical but ecclesiastical, that is, the Wisdom called Solomon's, and the other Wisdom called of the son of Sirach ... Of the same order is the little book of Tobias, and Judith, and the books of the Machabees ... All these they wished indeed to be read in the Churches, yet not to be brought forward for confirming the authority of the faith from them. But the rest of the writings they named apocryphal, which they did not wish to be read in the Churches. »

Where, before Rufinus, the controverted books were called « ecclesiastical » by our forefathers in this express name, by way of distinction from the canonical books set outside controversy, does not appear. Rufinus seems to have had before his eyes the distinction of Eusebius, a writer very well known to him, whose history he had turned into Latin; from Eusebius, therefore, the explanation of this appellation must be sought. He distinguishes the canonical Scriptures, which were never called into controversy, and the Scriptures concerning which there is doubt on the part of some, which nevertheless « are public in very many Churches, » « are approved by very many, » which « are known to very many ecclesiastical men » (Euseb., H. E., bk. III, chs. 25, 31). The distinction of Rufinus into canonical and ecclesiastical books thus comes back to that other one, into the ὁμολογουμενους books, concerning which there never was any doubt, and into the ἀντιλεγομενους books, which, though they were in public use as sacred Scripture, were nevertheless called into question by some.

There remain the two canons, the Laodicean 60th and the last among the apostolic. The Laodicean — whether it be genuine of this Council, celebrated after the middle of the fourth century, or be supposititious to it⁵ — differs in nothing from what we have adduced from the other Greek Fathers of this age. First, that is, the apocryphal books are severely proscribed; then are reckoned the books « which ought to be read of the Old Testament, » 22 according to the Hebrew numbering. It joins, however, as we saw done in Athanasius and Cyril, in one book with Jeremias « Baruch and the Threni and the Epistles. » In the New Testament, in agreement with Gregory Nazianzen and Cyril of Jerusalem, it reckons all except the Apocalypse.

The last among the so-called apostolic canons — and, as more recent scholars agree, added to the rest last even in time — is of no authority, whether regarded dogmatically or historically. It has no dogmatic authority: for in the first place these apostolic canons, if not by Gelasius, certainly by Pope Hormisdas (in the Decree concerning books to be received), were reckoned among the apocryphal books. Besides, although the first fifty, rendered into Latin by Dionysius Exiguus, were gradually received even in the Western Church, the latter thirty-five were never admitted. It is of no authority historically, at least if it be taken as a reckoning of the books of sacred Scripture, and much more if it be understood as a full reckoning. For in this canon there are many things altogether singular, never seen in any other catalogue of the sacred books, which must be attributed to the special circumstances or singular genius of its author, whoever he was. Of this sort are: that, although it omits the other deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, it yet sets down three books of Machabees, and according to some codices also Judith in the midst of the protocanonical books; that outside the number of the protocanonical books, where others set the deuterocanonical books among the books to be read, it mentions only the book of Ecclesiasticus, omitting even the book of Wisdom — an unheard-of licence. Most strange of all is that among the books of the New Testament, and that before the protocanonical book of Acts, it sets the two Epistles of Clement and the eight books of the Apostolic Constitutions.

For the rest, the Greeks themselves, who received this canon too in their Trullan Council as proceeding from the Apostles, seem to have understood it not as a reckoning of the books of divine Scripture alone, but as a catalogue of the books commended, whether from the books of Scripture or from others of the greatest authority, before the rest for reading; certainly they never held it as a full canon of the books of Scripture. For not only did they in the Trullan Council itself receive from the African synods the books passed over in this apostolic canon (above, p. 435); but they also expressly rejected the Apostolic Constitutions as interpolated by heretics, and neither these nor the Epistles of Clement did the Greek Church ever hold as parts of sacred Scripture.

II. With all the divergent catalogues of the books in the hands of the Eastern teachers of that time expounded — which catalogues neither agree among themselves, nor accord with the canon of the Western Church nor with the common use of the whole Church — now at last there arises for us the opportunity, indeed the necessity, of comparing these deficient canons with the constant practice of the whole Church, these teachers themselves not excepted, in the use of the sacred books, and likewise with the unanimous doctrine of the Western Church and with the subsequent universal consensus. For from this comparison there will follow certain principles, without which the true sense of those same divergent canons cannot be understood and vindicated.

1st Principle. By the name canon and by the name canonical books those Fathers understood the index of those books, and those 22 books of the Hebrews, which even then were confessed among all, and concerning which no question had been raised (ἔμολογούμενοι). Hence the books which had then begun to be called into controversy (ἀντιλεγόμενοι) were indeed to be set outside the canon in this understood sense; yet it was not therefore simply denied that they pertain to divine Scripture; but it was only indicated that a question had been raised concerning them, and consequently that they do not pertain to the books whose equal authority with the rest was established among all beyond controversy⁶.

This sense of the canons is proved in many ways. For a) Eusebius, who more expressly than the rest declared the sense of the division of the books into ὁμολογουμενους and ἀντιλεγομενους, and after whom the rest followed that division, holds these two as synonymous: that a book be canonical, or be confessed among all; and likewise that a book be outside the canon, and be indeed approved and acknowledged by many, but nevertheless called into controversy by some. Thus in bk. III, ch. 3, he promises the testimonies of the ancients « concerning the Scriptures that are canonical and confessed among all » (περι των ἐνδιαθηκων και ὁμολογουμενων γραφων); in the same place he says that the second Epistle of Peter is « not canonical, yet, as profitable, is frequented by many with the rest of the Scriptures; » in bk. III, ch. 25, he sets in mutual opposition « the Scriptures confessed among all, and other non-canonical ones that are contradicted, but which nevertheless are acknowledged by very many ecclesiastical men; » in the same place he mentions Scriptures « that are contradicted, but which nevertheless are approved by very many » (cf. ch. 31). On the contrary, the apocryphal books in the same place, ch. 3, are writings « which we know in no way to have been handed down among Catholics » οὐδ' ὅλως ἴσμεν ἐν καθολικοῖς παραδεδομένα.

b) That the names canon and canonical Scripture were customarily used even by the Latin Fathers of that age in the stricter signification, of the books that are in the Hebrew canon — without its therefore being understood that canonical authority among Christians was denied to the other books — is manifest from St. Augustine (Civ. Dei XVIII, ch. 36). « With the temple restored, » he says, « there were not kings but princes down to Aristobulus, the reckoning of whose times is found not in the holy Scriptures that are called canonical, but in others, among which are also the books of the Machabees, which not the Jews but the Church holds as canonical. »

c) Those same Eastern Fathers declare that in the first order — which, after the archetype of the Hebrew reckoning exhibited by Origen, they call the canon — they wished to comprehend only those books which had been called into question by no one: « concerning which there is full persuasion, » as Athanasius says; « which are confessed among all (ὁμολογούμενοι), » as is found in Cyril and in the Athanasian Synopsis; « which have been inserted by definitive judgment » (ἔγκριτοι)⁷, as in Nazianzen; « whose canon is most certain, » as in Amphilochius; books that are certain in opposition to the doubtful, as in Jerome.

d) The matter is set beyond all doubt by the manner in which all these Fathers used the books they set outside the canon, as pertaining to sacred Scripture by the common persuasion of the Church. See above, th. X. The 2nd Principle follows from the foregoing. Canons of this kind have indeed the purpose of excluding the apocryphal books from the register of the sacred Scriptures; but the books of the second order, the ἀντιλεγόμενους, the ecclesiastical and those read in the Church, they by no means exclude as by a certain and definitive judgment not pertaining to sacred Scripture. The excluding locutions added to the books comprehended in the solemn number of the twenty-two — when it is said that « in these alone is the doctrine of piety, » that « these alone are the genuine Scripture, » that « these alone are to be read by the faithful » — must therefore be understood in opposition to the apocryphal books, not to the books of the second class, which, the question not yet sifted, were doubtful⁸.

This is established a) from the very nature of the diversity between books certainly divine, books doubtful — or rather, held divine by common ecclesiastical custom, yet called in doubt by some — and books certainly not divine. It is established b) from the practice of these same Fathers, who most frequently used these books as divine Scriptures, no otherwise than the protocanonical. It is established c) from the express declaration of the Fathers in these very catalogues, in which they say that the scope set before themselves is to fortify the faithful against the apocryphal books thrust upon them on all sides by heretics.

Wherefore between the complete canon and those deficient canons there is no opposition of contradiction, but only of diversity — as between the perfect and what is to be perfected and in its own time to be supplemented. Thus Cassiodorus, having commemorated the diverse incomplete indices of Hilary, Epiphanius, Jerome, Rufinus on the one part, and the complete canon of the ecclesiastical codices and of Augustine on the other, most truly observes: « The Fathers said things not contrary but diverse, so that they seem not to impugn but rather to expound one another; » as also between the definitions of Councils there is diversity but no contradiction (Divin. institut., ch. 14). Likewise without contradiction could the Trullan Council receive, and the Greeks after it insert into their Corpus of Law, in one series, diverse canons — the incomplete one of the Council of Laodicea and the complete one of the African Councils (in the Nomocanon of Photius, in Mai, Spicil. Rom., T. III, P. II, p. 131) — namely, that the one might be supplemented by the other. The 3rd Principle likewise follows from the first. When some Fathers, as Jerome and Rufinus, say that these books of the second order are indeed read for the edification of the people, yet are not to be brought forward for confirming the authority of the faith, this must be understood as said not because their inferior authority already stood established, but because at that age it was not yet established to all that their authority was equal with the rest of the books of Scripture. Those books were therefore even then sufficiently confirmed by the universal practice of the Church that they could safely be brought forward to the faithful as sacred Scripture and utterances of God and oracles of the Holy Spirit; yet they were not among all so far outside controversy that they could polemicly be employed with the same firmness even against contradictors. This sense is plain both from the proper nature of a book that has been called into question whether it be certainly a book of inspired Scripture — and is therefore ἀντιλεγόμενος or controverted — and most evidently from the manner in which those same Fathers used these books even for confirming dogmas. Cf. above, pp. 412, 414, 417.

Hence it is no wonder that even those Fathers who themselves held these books without doubting among the Scriptures nevertheless commended some caution in their polemical use, so long as the matter was not yet everywhere cleared and no solemn judgment had been passed upon it. Thus Augustine confesses, as we saw a little before, that « what is not written in the canon of the Jews is adduced against contradictors not with such firmness » (Civ. Dei XVII, ch. 20, n. 1)⁹. In that very place (On Christian Doctrine, bk. II, ch. 8, n. 12), where he exhibits the canon of the sacred books according to the consensus of the Churches of Africa, indeed of the whole Latin Church, he at the same time indicates that the consensus concerning all the books is not everywhere equal, and therefore, so long as that state of the question remains, some discrimination is to be observed in the polemical and dogmatic use of the « canonical Scriptures »: that the diligent searcher « prefer those received by all Catholic Churches to those which some do not receive; but among those not received by all, prefer those which the more numerous and weightier receive, [and postpone] those held by fewer Churches and of lesser authority. »

St. Augustine by the name canonical Scripture never understood anything else than the divinely inspired books, and therefore of altogether divine authority, in which there cannot be degrees, so that one book of canonical Scripture be deemed of greater, another of lesser authority. God himself, he says, « founded the Scripture which is called canonical, of the most eminent authority » (Civ. Dei XI, 3). « Thus do all things agree among themselves in canonical authority, that they are believed, as uttered as it were with one mouth, with most just and most prudent piety » (against Faustus XI, chs. 5, 6; cf. ep. 82 [al. 19], n. 3, to Jerome).

When therefore, from the place cited (On Christian Doctrine II, ch. 8, nn. 12–14), the third difficulty is opposed — that Augustine among the very books he calls canonical discerns some of greater, some of lesser authority — the reply must be given by distinguishing. That he acknowledges a discrimination in the inherent authority of the canonical books, so as to have thought some of them to be of lesser authority and yet to be able to be called canonical books — I deny. The reason for the denial is established from what was said a little before. That he indicates a discrimination in the manner in which the canonical books become known — I subdistinguish: as though to Augustine himself all the canonical books he enumerates had not become sufficiently known as canonical, or the Tradition of the Churches of Africa and of the whole Western Church were not consentient and constant — I deny; that Augustine indicates, historically and for polemical use, a discrimination in the manner in which some books became known by the consensus of all, others not without the still then obtaining contradiction of some — I concede.

The reason for this denial and concession is plain from the very reading of Augustine's place. He admonishes first of all that the diligent searcher of the divine Scriptures read the whole Scriptures — « those at least which are called canonical. » He then sets forth the whole canon of the Scriptures, embracing all and only those books which we still have now in the canon of the Catholic Church. He concludes: « in all these books those who fear God and are meek in piety seek the will of God. » Augustine therefore testifies that all these books are set in the canon of the Church, that they are canonical Scriptures — which appellation is not ambiguous, but with a fixed and rated signification designates « Scriptures of the most eminent authority, » as is established from what was said. Nevertheless, because the holy teacher knew that doubts had been stirred up in places concerning some of these books, whether they be canonical Scriptures, he neither wished nor was able to condemn, as heretical, that hesitation and dissension so long as it was tolerated in the Church. Whence, in that state of the question, it had indeed to be confessed that the books elsewhere less certain « are adduced against contradictors not with such firmness. » On this matter the diligent searcher of the Scriptures had to be admonished and taught: « He will therefore hold this measure in the canonical Scriptures, that he prefer those received by all Catholic Churches to those which some do not receive, » etc.

From this context it is at the same time plain that in this place, as elsewhere (against the Epistle of Manichaeus, n. 6, and often against Faustus), there is established by Augustine the principle that the canonical Scriptures are to be known and received only by the authority of the Catholic Church. With this principle of Augustine and of the rest of the Fathers once admitted, every doubt concerning the deuterocanonical books was long ago removed and the case finished; would that error too might sometime be finished. Cf. th. IX, n. I.

Partly to indicate this ambiguity, which once existed among the Eastern teachers, partly in the sense in which Augustine in the place cited above set apart the books of Machabees from the canonical Scriptures, Gregory the Great could still (Moral., bk. XIX, ch. 21, n. 34), citing the deed of Eleazar from 1 Mach. VI. 46, distinguish the same books of Mach. from the canonical Scriptures, where he says: « we do not act out of order if from books, though not canonical, yet published for the edification of the Church, we bring forward testimony. » Certainly in the Roman Church, especially after the decrees of Innocent, Gelasius, Hormisdas, there could be doubt for no one that the books of Mach. are among the canonical books of the Church.¹⁰ Leontius indeed reckons all the books of the New Testament; but of the Old Testament only the 22 that are among the Hebrews, omitting with Athanasius, Nazianzen and others the book of Esther. But he sufficiently indicates his plan: to enumerate not all the Scriptures of the Christians, but in the Old Testament only the books admitted also by the Hebrews. For he reports this canon where he attacks the confutation of the Jews, thus concluding the reckoning: « These books of the Old Testament the Hebrews all receive. These things being so, it is fitting first to set forth the dogmas of the Hebrews, » etc.

Damascene nearly transcribes the words of Epiphanius, where the latter (De ponder. et mensur., n. 4) reckons the books which the Jews admitted into the ark — or, as Tertullian says, into their own bookcase. Likewise Nicephorus took the books of all three classes of the Old Testament — the κεκανονισμενους, ἀντιλεγομενους, ἀποκρυφους — from the Athanasian Synopsis; in the New Testament, however, he transcribed the catalogue of Nazianzen, of Cyril, and of the Laodicean Council, in which the Apocalypse is omitted. Neither Damascene, therefore, nor Nicephorus — who both wrote after the Trullan Council — can be deemed to exhibit the state of the question as it was in the Greek Church of the eighth and ninth centuries. But the one reckons from Epiphanius the books as they are among the Hebrews; the other historically reports the division of the books as it had been registered by those teachers in the fourth and fifth centuries. For who — to say nothing of other things — would persuade himself that still in the ninth century the Apocalypse was called in doubt, or rather was not even numbered among the doubtful books? Because, namely, Nicephorus did not find it in the deficient catalogues of the fourth century which he transcribes, he himself, a faithful historian, omits it too; as conversely in the Old Testament he describes all the books as he found them in his author marked as controverted or apocryphal — although among these there are some monsters of names, about which in the ninth century no one was any longer solicitous.

II. The manner of thinking and speaking of the older Scholastics and of the writers of the middle age, as regards this head of doctrine, demands some special explanation. That in general they clung to the universal use of the Church and to the explicit teaching, as it was explicitly proposed in the African Councils, by St. Augustine and other Fathers, and in the decrees of the Roman Pontiffs, we have already shown in thesis XI. Nevertheless it came about, chiefly by the authority of St. Jerome, that many followed his manner of speaking of the canon as the complex of only those books which had been admitted even by the Hebrews. But thenceforth some several masters, in their lucubrations and within the confines of the school — where they aimed at distinguishing what, strictly speaking, already pertained to the defined dogmas of the faith, and what, though common doctrine, did not reach this supreme grade — showed themselves hesitant concerning the very equal authority of these books with the canonical books of the first order, down almost to the times of the Council of Trent. But after the Tridentine decree, and still more after its solemn declaration in the definition of the Vatican Council (Const. I, ch. 2, can. 4), there can among Catholics no longer be any place for doubt.

Those writers of the middle age, therefore, who seem still to number outside the canon the books not admitted among the Hebrews, depend almost solely on the judgments of St. Jerome, to whose prologues most expressly appeal, where the holy teacher called these books apocryphal, not to be brought forward for confirming the dogmas of the faith. Those masters, however, can be divided into a double class.

1st. For the most part, what they read in St. Jerome they combined with the common doctrine and practice of the Church in such a way that by the name canon, according to the genuine sense of Jerome and of the other Fathers, they understood the canon of the books that are also in the hands of the Jews; whence they rightly taught that the other books, though not in the canon, had nevertheless been received by the Church among the sacred Scriptures.

Thus in the twelfth century Peter of Blois, cited above, p. 434.

Peter of Cluny, surnamed the Venerable, distinguishes indeed the manner of proving the books of the Scripture of the Old Testament: that those which were in the canon of the Jews are demonstrated not only by the Tradition of Christians but also by the codices and testimony of the Jews, while the others are demonstrated by the authority of the Church. The former « not only with Christians but with the very Jewish writings bearing witness ... are of equal authority ... There remain after these authentic [books] of the Church; yet they were not among the twenty-two in the Hebrew canon, » whence Gregory, still discharging the office of Apocrisiarius at Constantinople when he wrote these things, could have before his eyes the distinction of the Easterns, of Jerome and Rufinus, and use the name canonical book in the sense in which it had been used by them.

The difficulties that are usually drawn from writers of a later age are resolved.

« If any ecclesiastical writers from the sixth century on, and scholastic doctors before the Council of Trent, still seem to reckon the deuterocanonical books outside the canon, they either merely report in a historical way the opinions of more ancient men; or distinguish the canon of the Hebrews from the complex of the sacred Scriptures in the Church; or, moved by the opinions of some ancient doctor, indicate that before the definitive judgment it was not yet certainly established among all that these books have authority equal to the protocanonicals. In general, however, the character of this whole question in its threefold stage is such as to demonstrate indeed the necessity of the Church's infallibility in guarding the deposit, but not (as the enemies of the Church have said) the necessity of a new revelation for constituting the Tridentine canon. »

Now that the difficulties that could be raised from the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries (with Gregory the Great added) have been cleared away, it remains to add a few remarks concerning the ecclesiastical writers of a later age. For among them some are found who merely reproduce the catalogues they had read in Athanasius, Nazianzen, Epiphanius, Jerome. But this is a historical report of the state of the question as it had been in the fourth and fifth centuries, rather than testimony of a dissension still persisting in the time of these writers — although we admit that even then the question had not yet been settled by a definitive sentence necessarily to be held by the whole Church, or rather had not yet become known to all as settled; whence it comes that even in a still later age, almost down to the Council of Trent, some traces of the ancient hesitation could survive among some doctors.

I. To these whom we call historical reporters belong Junilius Africanus of the sixth century (On the Parts of the Divine Law, bk. I, ch. 3–7; Galland, T. XII, p. 79); Leontius of Byzantium of the seventh century (On Sects, Act. 2; Galland, ibid., p. 627); John Damascene of the eighth century (On the Orthodox Faith, bk. IV, ch. 17); Nicephorus of Constantinople of the ninth century (in the Stichometry published after the Chronography by Goar, Paris 1652, p. 419, and by Pithou in the Code of Canons, p. 348).

Junilius learned his own material at Constantinople from a certain Paul, a Persian by nation, of the school of Nisibis. In the generic division he agrees with St. Jerome and the other Fathers of the fourth century cited above. He distributes all the books, with respect to authority, into three classes. In the first class are the books « of perfect authority, » which are received by unanimous consent — and as regards the Old Testament even by the Hebrews — and are called canonical. In the second class are placed the books « of middling authority » ¹, which are joined with the canonical by most, but are not held by all in equal authority, « since among the Hebrews too they were received with this difference, as Jerome and the rest testify. » Finally, the apocryphal books are « of no authority. » But in the special distribution of the individual books Junilius is so singular, and manifestly wrong, that he dissents not only from his own African Church but from all other doctors as well, nor did anyone ever, either before or after him, say anything of the sort. He places among the books of middling authority, i.e. among the ἀντιλεγομενους, not only Judith ², Esther, the two of Machabees, Wisdom, but also the two Paralipomena, Job, the two Esdrases, the Canticle of Canticles — all of which latter are in the Hebrew canon and among the ὁμολογουμενους. On the contrary, he numbers Ecclesiasticus of Jesus son of Sirach among the canonicals of the first rank, which is equally repugnant to the other authors of this division. Junilius, then, can be a witness concerning the division of the books into three classes among some Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, to whom he appeals, and concerning the sense of this division, which for the rest we know sufficiently from elsewhere; but as regards the distribution of the individual books he is of no use. Six books of Holy Scripture are not to be passed over in silence: the books of Wisdom, of Jesus son of Sirach, of Tobias, of Judith, and each of the two books of Machabees, which, although they could not attain to that sublime dignity of the preceding books (as regards the testimonies by which they are proved), yet on account of their praiseworthy and most necessary doctrine deserved to be received by the Church... but if — as Christ said to the Jews concerning Moses — you do not believe this Church, how will you believe my words? » (Peter of Cluny, Against the Petrobrusians, Bibl. Max. PP., T. XXII, p. 1044).

Peter of Riga in the handwritten metrical Paraphrase of the Old and New Testaments (in Hody, p. 655) says: « but although excepted (from the canon), yet these are authenticated by the use of the Church, the rule of faith, the writings of the Fathers. » Similarly John Beleth in the Explanation of the Divine Offices, ch. 60, fol. 339 (Venice ed. 1577, with the Rationale of Durandus) first numbers 22 books, which are held « authentic » by the Jews too, among which he also reckons Judith. Then follows: « finally they enumerate four apocrypha, namely the book of Tobias, of Machabees, of Philo whose beginning is Love justice (i.e. the book of Wisdom), and of Jesus son of Sirach, which is also called Ecclesiasticus. But these four some do not receive; yet the Church approves them, since they have nearly the same subject-matter as the books of Solomon, even though she does not know their authors for certain and truly ³. We believe Esdras composed two others » ⁴.

In the same way others explain the name of apocrypha, which is read in the Helmeted Prologue of St. Jerome, e.g. Peter Comestor in the Scholastic History: « they are apocrypha because their author is unknown; but since there is no doubt concerning their truth, they are received by the Church. » See above, pp. 433, 434. The very words of Comestor are used in the thirteenth century by Hugh of St. Cher in the explanation of the Helmeted Prologue (at the beginning of the Postil on the books of Kings) and elsewhere, and with the same words by John of Genoa (in Hody, p. 657). From the manuscript Postil of Hugh on the book of Josue, Hody reports the lines: « These, since they are doubtful (in the explained sense as regards the name of the writer), are not numbered under the canon; but since they sing true things, the Church receives them. » In the same sense must be explained Hugh of St. Victor (twelfth century), who in the book On the Scriptures and Sacred Writers, ch. 6 (among the Works of Richard of St. Victor, T. I, fol. 156), simply recites the words of St. Jerome, but for the rest uses the deuterocanonical books without distinction as sacred Scripture.

2nd. It cannot be denied, however, that some of the scholastic masters, on account of St. Jerome's opinions, wavered in doubt before the definition of the Council of Trent, and seemed to attribute to these books a lower grade of authority than to those which are in the Hebrew canon: as in the twelfth century John of Salisbury, ep. 172 (Bibl. Max. PP., T. XXIII, p. 468); Ralph of Flavigny on Leviticus, bk. XIV, preface (ibid., T. XVII, p. 177), in many things closely following Junilius Africanus; in the fourteenth century Ockham in the Dialogue, Part III, Treatise I, bk. 3, ch. 16, in which in other respects there are many errors (in Goldast's Monarchy, T. II, p. 834). Lyra speaks ambiguously in the preface to Tobias, where however he seems capable of being explained thus, that he judged these books to have been written only under a lower grade of inspiration, as the Jews teach concerning the hagiographers. Equally difficult are the things still found in the fifteenth century in St. Antoninus in the Theological Summa, Part III, title 18, ch. 6, § 2. Tostatus in Matthew, preface, q. 2, denies indeed the irrefragable authority of the deuterocanonical books; elsewhere, however (on II Kings, preface, qq. 28, 29), where he expressly explains the Helmeted Prologue of St. Jerome, he hands on most clearly the sound doctrine. Finally Cajetan in the sixteenth century, shortly before the Council of Trent, at the end of the Commentary on the book of Esther has things which after the Council no Catholic would be permitted to hold or teach ⁵.

The sum, then, of the whole case is this. The medieval doctors held all these books among the Holy Scriptures, and saw them received without distinction in ecclesiastical use and in the very catalogues which they knew at least from Augustine and the collections of canons. But while the opinions of some Fathers, especially St. Jerome, concerning the difference of the Hebrew canon confronted them, some indeed, and they the majority, as the matter itself required, resolved the difficulty from the sufficiently manifested sense of the Church herself; to others, however, down to the solemn definition of the Church, it did not yet seem sufficiently certain that those books which they saw called outside the Hebrew canon and apocryphal by so great a doctor had authority equal to the protocanonicals. And indeed from the concession of even the gravest doctors of that age it appears that the matter had not yet been so clear and sufficiently proposed to all that it could not be called into doubt without risk to faith. Thus St. Thomas, I, q. 89, a. 8, ad 2, says that the apparition of Samuel (1 Kings XXVIII. 12 ff.) can be explained in the proper sense from divine operation and revelation, as appears from Ecclesiasticus XLVI. 23; « or that apparition, » he says, « was procured through demons, if however the authority of Ecclesiasticus is not received, for this reason, that it is not held among the canonical Scriptures with the Hebrews. » Cf. Augustine, On the Care to Be Taken for the Dead, ch. 15, n. 18.

III. From all that has been said in this and the preceding theses, the threefold stage is manifest which can be distinguished in the explication of the dogma concerning the divinity of the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament: a) of simple faith and reception of the books in the use and practice of the Church down to the beginnings of the fourth century; b) then, arising from the comparison of the Church's Scriptures with the Hebrew canon, of inquiry and hesitation among the doctors, especially in the Greek Church of the fourth and fifth centuries, which gradually — with the decrees of the African Councils and of Popes Innocent I and Gelasius added to the persevering use of the Church — issued indeed in a morally universal agreement, yet not so that in the Middle Ages there did not still remain traces of the earlier controversy; c) there follows finally the solemn definition and judgment by which every controversy is terminated and dissension among Catholics excluded. To this must be transferred entirely what we said, with Augustine going before, concerning the threefold stage in the explication of certain dogmas in the Treatise on Tradition, th. XXIII, n. IV.

From what has been demonstrated it is also sufficiently clear that no new revelation was needed for defining the divine inspiration and authority of these books; but that the judgment turned upon the apostolic Tradition, of which the indications, monuments, and documents stand forth in great number from the apostolic age or the age next to the Apostles. Nevertheless such is the ambiguity among some Catholic doctors through many centuries that, although the Protestants rejecting these books can be convicted of intolerable rashness even from the monuments of Tradition alone, yet our full security and the exclusion of every doubt rests upon the Church's infallibility in discerning the genuine apostolic Tradition.

In the theses of this whole chapter we have endeavored not only to establish the principles, but also to set forth the special declarations for the solution of all the difficulties which the Protestants, and above all Humphrey Hody (On the Original Texts of the Bible), have heaped together against the apostolic Tradition of the deuterocanonical books. It is strange, indeed, that Leibniz was not ashamed to refurbish the same things as demonstrations in ep. 31 to Bossuet (Works of Leibniz, Dutens ed., T. I, p. 626 ff.). A compendious reply of Bossuet may be seen in the same volume, ep. 37, p. 657 ff.