Samuel Davidson

“ Avhile an intermediate class consisted of those read in the churches, which were useful, but not decisive in matters of belief. Another advance in the matter of the canon at this period was the general adoption of the Hebrew canon, with a relegation of the Greek additions in the Septuagint to the class "publicly read." [119] Yet doubts about the reception of Esther into the number of the canonical books were still" entertained, though it was one of the Jewish canon. And the catholic epistles which had been doubted before Jude, James, Second Peter were now generally received. ”

“ It is true our history has been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but has not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time : and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by what we do ; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them ”

“ The independence of their reli gious literature disappeared with the national independence of the Jews ; and the genius of the people was too exclu sive to receive much expansion from the spirit of nations with whom they came in contact. In such circumstances, amid the general consciousness of present misfortune, which the hope of a brighter future could not dispel, and regretful retrospects of the past tinged with ideal splendour, the exact time of drawing a line between books that might be included in the third division of the canon must have been arbitrary. ”

“ The Christian books were mostly in the hands of the bishops. In process of time the canon was the care of assemblies or councils. But it had been made before the first general council by a few leading fathers towards the end of the second century in different countries. The formation of a Catholic Church and of a canon was simultaneous. The circumstances in which the collection originated were unfavourable to the authenticity of its materials, for tradition had been busy over them and their authors. ”

“ Others are less probable. [43] When Bishop Cosin says that "in all the New Testament we find not any one passage of the apocryphal books to have been alleged either by Christ or his apostles for the confirmation of their doctrine," [44] the argument, though based on a fact, is scarcely conclusive ; else Esther, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and other works might be equally discredited. Yet it is probable that the New Testament writers, though quoting the Septuagint much more than the original, were disinclined to the additional parts of the Alexandrian canon. ”

“ The Council was held in the year 363 A.D. The Apostolic Constitutions give a kind of canon like that in the 59th of Laodicea. After speaking of the books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Chronicles, those belonging to the return from the captivity, those of Job, Solomon, the sixteen prophets, and the Psalms of David, our Acts, the epistles of Paul, and the four gospels are mentioned. It is remarkable that the catholic epistles are not mentioned. That they are indicated under Acts is altogether improbable. ”

“ The progress made by the Greek Church of the fourth and former part of the fifth century, in its conception of the canon, seems to be that the idea of ecclesi astical settlement, or public, legal, definitive establishment, was attached to the original one. A writing was considered canonical when a well-attested tradition put it among those composed by inspired men, apostles or others ; and it had on that account a determining authority in matters of faith. Books which served as a rule of faith and were definitively set forth by the Church as divinely authoritative, were now termed canonical. ”

“ It is true that the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms were universally recognized as authoritative ; but the extent of the third division was indefinite, so that the non-citation of the three books re specting which there was a difference of opinion among the Jews may not have been accidental. Inasmuch, however, as the Greek -speaking Jews received more books than their Palestinian brethren, the apostles and their immediate suc cessors were not disinclined to the use of the apocryphal productions. ”

“ Hilary of Poitiers (+ 368) seems to have followed Origen's catalogue. He gives twenty-two books, specifying "the epistle" of Jeremiah, and remarks that some added Tobit and Judith, making twenty-four, after the letters of the Greek alphabet. Wisdom and Sirach he cites as "prophets." [129] In the New Testament he never quotes James, Jude, 2 and 3 John, nor 2 Peter.
Rufinus (t 410) enumerates the books of the Old and New Testaments which "are believed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit itself, according to the tradition of our ancestors, and have been handed down by the Churches of Christ." ”

“ Though the views of Augustine were generally followed, the stricter ones of Jerome found many adherents. The canon was fluctuating, and the practice of the churches in regard to it somewhat lax. Here belong Cassiodorus (about 550) ; the list in the Codex Amiatinus (about 550) ; and Isidore of Seville (t636) , who, after enumerating three classes of Old Testament books gives a fourth, not in the Hebrew canon. Here he specifies Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, saying that the Church of Christ puts them among the divine books,, honours and highly esteems them. ”

“ Of those not universally adopted, such as are received by the majority of the churches and the weightier should be preferred to those received by the fewer and less important churches. [120] In his enumeration of the forty-four books of the Old Testament, he gives, after Chronicles, other histories " which are neither connected with the order" specified in the preceding context "nor with one another," i.e., Job, Tobit, Esther, Judith, the two books of the Maccabees, and Esdras. ”

“ A more definite testimony respecting the canon is given by Josephus towards the end of the first century A.D. " For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, .... but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times ; which are justly believed to be divine. And of them five belong to Moses But as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, the prophets who were after Moses wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life. ”

“ The books of the Old Testament are twenty-two, and the arrangement is usually that which is in the English Bible. With Jeremiah are associated " Baruch and the Epistle." All the New Testament books are given except the Apocalypse. ”

“ The Apocalypse and second epistle to the Thessa- lonians were supposed to point at false doctrine and its leading representatives. In their zeal against such as did not belong to the same church as their own, ecclesiastics mistook the sense of the passages relating to the dreaded adversary of Christ. Thus Innocent III. (1215) declared the Saracens to be antichrist, and Mohammed the false prophet; and Gregory IX. (1234) pronounced the emperor Frederick II. to be the beast that rose up out of the sea with names of blasphemy on his head (Rev. xiii. 1-6) . ”

“ The Bible canon of the Eastern Church in the Middle Ages shows no material change. Endeavours were made to remove the uncertainty arising from the existence of nume rous lists ; but former decisions and decrees of councils were repeated instead of a new, independent canon. Here belongs the catalogue in the Alexandrian MS. of the 5th century, which is peculiar. After the prophets come Esther, Tobit, Judith, Ezra and Nehemiah, 4 Maccabees, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, the all-virt;i- ous Wisdom, the Wisdom of Jesus of Sirach. ”

“ The history of opinion respecting antichrist, or rather the interpretation of such Scriptures as present the idea, is by no means instructive. Conjectures too often supply the place of sound exegesis. Much error has arisen from mixing up portions of Daniel s vision with those of the Apocalypse, because they refer to different subjects. The apostle borrows characteristic features from Daniel s Anti- ochus Epiphanes to fill out his picture of Nero. The com bination of St Paul s man of sin with St John s antichristian Nero has also led to misapprehension. ”

“ Over against Christ as King is set a formidable foe, not an abstract principle, the latter being an incongruous or less worthy adversary in the view of many. Yet it is the very individualising of the antichrist idea which removes it from the sphere of actual realisation. Tho extension, indeed, of the divine kingdom will encounter opposition; and the reaction of the world may appear, if not become, stronger as that extension is more decided ”

“ These words, though somewhat ambiguous, and admitting different explanations, present an historical statement which should not be sum marily rejected, as it is by Graetz. " The Acts of the Kings" contained the two books of Kings (including those now called after Samuel) , with Joshua and Judges, of which last Ruth was the concluding part ; for Joshua was now separate from the Mosaic books, with which it was closely connected at first. This historical portion was the proper continuation of Ezra s canon. The " Prophets " comprehended the four greater and twelve minor ones. ”

“ From this and other facts we conclude that external parties were the first who carried out ths idea of collecting Christian writings, and of putting them either beside or over against the sacred books of the Old Testament, in support of their systems. As to Basilides (125 A.D.) , his supposed quotations from the New Testament in Hippolytus are too precarious to be trusted. [63] It is inferred from statements in Origen and Jerome that he had a gospel of his own some what like Luke s, but extra-canonical. His son Isidore and succeeding disciples used Matthew s gospel. ”

“ Books of the third and lowest authority, i.e., the Jewish Hagiographa and the seven antilegomena epistles of the New Testament. Among the Apocryphi he makes two classes such as are out of the canon of the Hebrews yet hagiographical (Wisdom, Ecclesi- asticus, Judith, Tobit, the two Maccabees) , and those that are clearly apocryphal and to be rejected (third and fourth Esdras, Baruch, Prayer of Manasseh, a good part of the third chapter of Daniel, and the last two chapters of Daniel) . [142]
Zwingli asserts that the Apocalypse is not a biblical book. ”

“ The names of men renowned for their piety, wisdom, or knowledge of divine things, which some books bore, ensured their admission. A variety of considerations contributed to the gradual formation of the canon ; and the best part of the national literature was incorporated.
Of the three divisions, " The Law " or Pentateuch was most highly venerated by the Jews. It was the first trans lated into Greek, and in Philo s view was inspired in a way peculiar to itself. " ”

“ It is also alleged that the grandson of Jesus Sirach, who translated his grandfather s work during his abode in Egypt, knew no difference between the Hebrew and Greek canon, though he speaks of the Greek version ; he speaks as a Palestinian, without having occasion to allude to the difference between the canonical books of the Palestinian and Egyptian Jews. The latter may have reckoned the apocryphal writings in the third division ”

“ Accord ingly, the two apostles, Peter and Paul, are mentioned together.
Theophilus of Antioch (180) was familiar with the gospels end most of Paul s epistles, as also the Apocalypse. He puts the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures on the same level, because they proceeded from men who had the same spirit. Passages are cited from Paul as "the divine word." [78]
The conception of a catholic canon was realized about the same time as that of a catholic church. ”

“ Suetonius, Nero, cap. 57, Dio Chrysostom, Or. xxi.) Such belief had then taken possession of the minds not only of the Jewish Christians in Palestine, but of the Jews themselves, who were in a state of feverish excitement because Jerusalem was besieged. Terror had seized all worshippers of the true God, because of the aspect which the empire assumed (Revelation xiii. 3-8, 18, xvii. 11) . The apocalyptist also states that false or antichristian prophetism was to unite with the healed beast, and cause men to worship him or be put to death (xiii. 14, 15) . ”

“ With tho extinction of the Jewish state the religious spirit almost evaporated. The idealism which the old prophets proclaimed in contrast with the symbolic religion of the state gave place to forms and an attachment to the written law. Religion came to be a thing of the understanding, the subject of learned treatment ”

“ The apocalyptic visions of Daniel exerted an important influence upon the Jews after the time of Antiochus, animating them with hopes of the near approach of a better day, preceded, it is true, by a fearful struggle, in which a powerful prince, the impersonation of heathenism in its fiercest hate, should persecute the chosen people. ”

“ Some were regulative in the department of the legal and ethical ; the prophetic claimed a divine origin ; the lyric or poetic touched and elevated the ideal faculty on which religion acts. The nation, early imbued with the theo cratic spirit, and believing itself the chosen of God, was favourably inclined toward documents in which that stand-point was assumed. ”

“ The literature of the people deteriorated in quality, and prophecy became apocalypse. When the three divisions were united, the ecclesiastical respect which had gathered round the law and the prophets from ancient times began to be transferred to the c thitbim. A belief in their sanctity increased apace in the 1st century before the Christian era, so that sacred-ness and canonicity were almost identical. The doubts of individuals, it is true, were still expressed respecting certain books of the c thubiin, but they had no perceptible effect upon the cur rent opinion. ”

“ The better writings of the fathers, such as tended to learn ing and wisdom, are not excluded by the definite article. In like manner, neither Philo nor the New Testament gives exact information as to the contents of the division in ques tion. Indeed, several books (Canticles, Esther, Ecclesi astes) , are unnoticed in the latter. The argument drawn from Matthew xxiii. 35, that the Chronicles were then the last book of the canon, is inconclusive, as the Zechariah there named was probably different from the Zechariah in 2 Chronicles xxiv. ”

“ The author of John s first epistle gave it a spiritual width, consistently with the pantheistic direction which he follows with feeble footsteps. In each case, how ever, the writers moved within their own times, their knowledge bounded by the necessary limits of the human intellect, so that their subjective views can hardly be accepted as the emanations of minds projecting them selves into the world s outer history with full intelligence of its details. ”

“ The three books of Maccabees follow the historical ones. In the New Testament the epistle to the Hebrews precedes those to Timothy and Titus ; while Sirach, a second recension of Daniel, Manasseh, 3 Corin thians, with the account of John s death, are relegated to an appendix behind the New Testament. ”