Question between Roman Catholics and Protestants, 157;

          decision of Christ the supreme authority; meaning of ca-

          nonical, 158; and apocryphal, 159, 160; catalogue of Melito,

          160, 161; Justin Martyr, Syriac version, 162; Origen, Ter-

          tullian, 163; Council of Laodicea, 164; fourth century

          catalogues, 165, 166; Augustin, Councils of Hippo and

          Carthage, 167-174; testimony of the first four centuries,

          175; the Greek Church; the Western Church, 176; Cardi-

          nals Ximenes and Cajetan, 177; Innocent L, Gelasius,

          178; Council at Florence; Council of Trent, 179; Apoc-

          rypha in popular usage, 180; included in early versions,

          181, 182; read in the churches, 183-185; quoted by the

          fathers, 185, 186; under the same titles as the canonical

          books, 187-189; attributed to prophets or inspired men, 189,

          190 ; proto-canonical, and deutero-canonical; doctrine of

          the Roman Catholic. Church; the Greek Church, 191; Prot-

          estant Churches, 192; the apocryphal controversy, 193, 194.

         

                                                XI.

THE APOCRYPHA CONDEMNED BY INTERNAL EVIDENCE           195

                Value of internal evidence; Tobit, Judith, 195,196; Wis-

          dom, Ecclesiasticus, 197, 198; Maccabees, 199; Additions

          to Esther and Daniel, 200.

 

                                                XII.

ORDER AND NUMBER OF THE CANONICAL BOOKS                     201

                Inferences from Eccles. xii. 12-14; Matt. xxiii. 35, 201;

          and Luke xxiv. 44, 202; Talmudic order of the prophets,

          202-205; of the hagiographa; greater and lesser k'thubhim,

          206; Massoretic arrangement; German manuscripts; Je-

          rome, 207; the Septuagint; varied enumeration, 208, 209.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                 TREATISES CONSULTED ON THE

                                          CANON

 

          THESE treatises are arranged in the order of their

publication, that their position in the discussion may be

seen at a glance.

 

BISHOP Costri: A. Scholastical History of the Canon, 1672.

J. D. MICHAELIS: Review of Oeder's Freye Untersuchung uber

          einige Bucher des Alten Testaments, in the Orientalische und

          Exegetische Bibliothek, No. 2, 1772.

J. D. MICHAELIS: Review of Semler's Abhandlung von freyer Unter-

          suchung des Canon, in the same, No. 3, 1772.

J. D. MICHAELIS: Review of Hornemann's Observationes ad illus-

          trationem doctrines de Canone Veteris Testamenti ex Philone, in

          the same, No. 9, 1775.

J. G. EICHHORN: Historische Untersuchung uber den Kanon des

          Alten Testaments, in the Repertorium fur Biblische und Morgen-

          landische Litteratur, No. 5, 1779.

J. G. EICHHORN: Review of Corrodi's Versuch einer Beleuchtung

          der Geschichte des Jfidischen und Christlichen Bibel-Kanons, in

          the Allgemeine Bibliothek der Biblischen Litteratur, Vol. 4,

          1792.

J. G. EICHHORN: Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 3d Ed., 1803;

          4th Ed., 1823.

G. L. BAUER: Einleitung in die Schriften des Alten Testaments, 3d

          Ed., 1806.

L. BERTHOLDT: Einleitung in das Alte und Neue Testament, 1812.

E. W. HENGSTENBERG: Die Authentie des Daniel, 1831.

H. A. C. HAVERNICK: Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1836.

J. G. HERBST: Einleitung in das Alte Testament, edited by B.

          Welte, 1840.

F. C. MOVERS: Loci quidam Historix Canonis Veteris Testamenti

          illustrati, 1842.

MOSES STUART: Critical History and Defence of the Old Testament

          Canon, 1845.

 

                                                  xv

xvi            TREATISES CONSULTED ON THE CANON

 

W. M. L. DE WETTE: Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 6th Ed.,

          1845; 8th Ed. by E. Schrader, 1869.

L. HERZFELD: Geschichte des Volkes Israel, Vol. I., 1847 ; Vol. III.,

          1863.

A. MCCLELLAND: Canon and Interpretation of the Holy Scriptures,

          1850.

A. ALEXANDER: The Canon of the Old and New Testaments, 1851.

P. F. KEERL: Die Apokryphen des Alten Testaments, 1852.

K. F. KEIL: Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1853; 2d Ed. trans-

          lated into English by G. C. M. Douglas, 1869.

H. EWALD: Ueber das suchen und finden sogenannter Makka-

          baischer Psalmen, in the Jahrbucher der Biblischen Wissen-

          schaf t, 1854.

H. EWALD: Ueber die Heiligkeit der Bibel, in the same, 1855.

B. WELTE: Bemerkungen uber die Entstehung des alttest. Canons,

          in the Theologische Quartalschrift, 1855.

P. DE JONG: Disquisitio de Psalmis Maccabaicis, 1857.

G. F. OEHLER: Kanon des Alten Testaments, in Herzog's Real-

          Encyklopadie, Vol. VII., 1857.

A. DILLMANN: Ueber die Bildung der Sammlung heiliger Schriften

          Alten Testaments, in the Jahrbucher fur Deutsche Theologie,

          Vol. III., 1858.

F. BLEEK: Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1860; 4th Ed. by J.

          Wellhausen, 1878.

B. F. WESTCOTT: The Canon of Scripture, in Smith's Dictionary of

          the Bible, 1860.

B. F. WESTCOTT: The Bible in the Church, 1866.

J. FURST: Der Kanon des Alten Testaments nach den Ueberliefer-

          ungen in Talmud und Midrasch, 1868.

L. DIESTEL: Geschichte des Alten Testamentes in der Christlichen

          Kirche, 1869.

C. EHRT: Abfassungszeit und Abschluss des Psalters, 1869.

J. DERENBOURG: L'Histoire et la Geographic de la Palestine d'aprês

          les Thalmuds et les autres Sources Rabbiniques, 1869.

H. STEINER: Kanon des Alten Testaments, in Schenkel's Bibel-

          Lexicon, 1871.

I. S. BLOCH: Geschichte der Sammlung der Althebraischen Litera-

          tur, 1876.

W. L. ALEXANDER: Canon, in Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical

          Literature, 1876.

L. STRACK: Kanon des Alten Testaments, in Herzog-Plitt's Real-

          Encyklopadie, Vol. VII., 1880.

S. DAVIDSON: The Canon of the Bible, 1880.

 

                 TREATISES CONSULTED ON THE CANON                            xvii

 

W. ROBERTSON SMITH: The Old Testament in the Jewish Church,

          1st Ed., 1881; 2d Ed., 1892.

G. A. MARX (DALMAN): Traditio Rabbinorum Veterrima de Li-

          brorum Veteris Testamenti Ordine atque Origine, 1884.

F. BUHL: Kanon and Text des Alten Testaments, 1891.

S. R. DRIVER: An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testa-

          ment, 1st Ed., 1891; 6th Ed., 1897.

H. E. RYLE: The Canon of the Old Testament, 1892.

E. KONIG:  Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1893.

G. WILDEBOER: The Origin of the Canon of the Old Testament.

          Translated by B. W. Bacon, edited by G. F. Moore, 1895.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      HISTORY OF INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD

                                 TESTAMENT¹

 

          INTRODUCTION, as a technical term, is of comparatively

modern date, and borrowed from the German. It was

introduced as a generic designation of those studies,

which are commonly regarded as preliminary to the

interpretation of the Scriptures. As a science or a

branch of systematic learning, Introduction is of mod-

ern growth. The early Christian writers were either

not sufficiently aware of its importance, or imperfectly

provided with the means of satisfactorily treating it.

Their attention was directed chiefly to the doctrinal

contents of Scripture, and it was only when the genu-

ineness or divine authority of some part or the whole

was called in question, that they seem to have con-

sidered these preliminary subjects as at all impor-

tant; as for instance, when the attack upon the Penta-

teuch by Celsus, and on Daniel by Porphyry, excited

Origen and others to defend them, an effect extending

only to the Evidences of Revealed Religion and the

Canon of Scripture. The most ancient writings that

can be described as general treatises upon this subject

are by the two most eminent Fathers of the fourth

century, Augustin and Jerome. The four books of the

 

          ¹ This brief sketch is extracted from an unpublished lecture of my

former friend, preceptor, and colleague, Dr. Joseph Addison Alex-

ander, for many years the ornament and pride of Princeton Theologi-

cal Seminary. It was written in 1843, and is here inserted as a

memento of a brilliant scholar and in humble acknowledgment of

indebtedness to his instructions.

 

2             HISTORY OF INTRODUCTION

 

former de Doctrina Christiana contain, according to his

own description, praecepta tractandarum Scripturarum,

and belong therefore chiefly to Hermeneutics. He was

ignorant of Hebrew, but his strength of intellect and in-

genuity enabled him to furnish many valuable maxims

of interpretation. Jerome's book was called "Libellus

de optimo interpretandi genere." It is chiefly contro-

versial and of much less value than Augustin's.

          The first work which appeared under the name of

Introduction was in Greek, the Ei]sagwgh> ei]j ta>j qei<aj

grafa<j of Adrian. Its date is doubtful, and its contents

restricted to the style and diction of the sacred writers.

An imperfect attempt to methodize the subject was

made by Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons, in the fifth cen-

tury; but the first important advance was made in the

sixth century by Cassiodorus, a Benedictine monk, in

his work "De Institutione Divinarum Scripturarum,"

which treats especially the subject of the Canon and of

Hermeneutics, and was the standard work in this de-

partment through the Middle Ages.

          The philological branches of the subject were first

treated in detail after the Reformation. The earliest

important works of this kind were the "Officina Biblica

of Walther" in 1636, and Bishop Walton's "Prolego-

mena to the London Polyglott" in 1657, which is par-

ticularly rich in reference to Biblical Philology and

Criticism. The insidious attacks on the divine author-

ity of Scripture by Hobbes and Spinoza, in the latter

part of the seventeenth century, called forth as its pro-

fessed defender Richard Simon, a Romish priest of

great ingenuity and considerable learning, but of un-

sound principles. His Critical Histories of the Old and

New Testaments provoked much censure, and gave oc-

casion to the first systematic Introduction to the Old

Testament, that of Carpzov, which appeared in 1721,

 

               HISTORY OF INTRODUCTION                                  3

 

and is chiefly occupied with the evidences of revealed

religion and with hermeneutics.

          In the eighteenth century, Introduction rose to great

importance, and the writers on it exercised great influ-

ence. The principles which Simon had obscurely rec-

ommended, were avowed and carried out by Semler

and his followers, who introduced a general scepticism

as to the canonical authority of some books and the in-

spiration of the whole. The Bible now began to be

studied and expounded as a classic, with reference

merely to the laws of taste. Upon this principle the

great work of Eichhorn was constructed, the first com-

plete Introduction to the books of the Old Testament,

the influence of which has been incalculably great in

giving an infidel character to modern German exegesis.

The counteracting influence of Jahn, a learned Roman

Catholic professor at Vienna, has been lessened by his

great inferiority to Eichhorn, both in taste and genius,

and his equal want of judgment as to some important

points. Another valuable work on Introduction from a

Roman Catholic source is that of Herbst, Professor in

Tubingen, edited after the author's death by his col-

league Welte in 1840, and greatly improved by his sound

conservative additions. Eichhorn's work, which first ap-

peared in 1780, and in a fourth edition more than forty

years after, is in several volumes; but the same general

principles of unbelief are taught in a compendious form

with great skill and talent by De Wette, one of the

most eminent of living German theologians.¹  His In-

troduction to the Old Testament, filling a moderate

octavo, is convenient as presenting a compendious view

of the whole subject, with minute and ample references

to the best authorities. His views, however, as to in-

 

          ¹ De Wette died 1849.

 

4          HISTORY OF INTRODUCTION

 

spiration are completely Hengstenberg, Profes-

sor at Berlin, a leading writer of the Christian or be-

lieving school, began a conservative reaction on the

Protestant side by publishing at intervals a series of

works upon detached parts of the subject; and one of

his pupils, Havernick of Rostock, with the same prin-

ciples as Hengstenberg, but less clear and judicious,

has just finished a systematic work upon the whole of it.

It may be proper to add that most of the works which

have been described or mentioned comprehend only a

part of Introduction in its widest sense, the application

of the name being different as to extent in different sys-

tems. Almost all the systematic works on Introduction

exclude Antiquities or Archaeology, as so extensive and

so unconnected with the others as to be treated more

conveniently apart. This is not the case, however, with

the only comprehensive work in English on the general

subject, that of Horne—a work which cannot be too highly

recommended for the soundness of its principles, its

Christian spirit, its methodical arrangement, and the

vast amount of valuable information which it certainly

contains. Its faults are that it is a compilation, and as

such contains opinions inconsistent with each other,

and in some cases even contradictory, and also that the

style is heavy, and the plan too formal and mechanically

systematic.

         

          Little need be added to this sketch, written more than

fifty years ago. The reaction begun by Hengstenberg,

was vigorously continued by Keil and Kurtz, and after

them by Noesgen. Bleek and Stahelin, who still be-

longed to the elder school of critics, were disposed to

take a moderate position, and to recede from some of the

more advanced conclusions of their predecessors. This

tendency was suddenly checked, however, by the rise

 

                       HISTORY OF INTRODUCTION                        5

 

of the extreme school of Reuss, Wellhausen, and Kue-

nen, which is now in the ascendant; so that even evan-

gelical scholars, like Strack and Konig, largely accept

their conclusions, and seek to reconcile them with faith

in the inspiration of the Scriptures. An able and de-

termined revolt against these destructive opinions has of

late been initiated by prominent university-bred pastors,

such as Adolph Zahn of Stuttgart, Edouard Rupprecht

of Bavaria, Hoedemaker of Amsterdam, and Stosch of

Berlin, who stand on thoroughly conservative ground.

          In Great Britain a tenth edition of Horne's Introduc-

tion was prepared by Dr. Samuel Davidson, and largely

rewritten by him with a large infusion of German learn-

ing and critical ideas, though still maintaining conser-

vative positions. Subsequently he published an Intro-

duction of his own, in which his former conservative

conclusions were completely reversed. It was, however,

the brilliant and eloquent Robertson Smith, Professor

at Aberdeen and then at Cambridge, who was chiefly

instrumental in introducing advanced critical opinions

among English readers. Dr. Driver's Introduction to

the Literature of the Old Testament has contributed

still further to spread these views, and give them that

measure of popularity to which they have attained. Yet

conservative views have not lacked stanch defenders, as

in "Isaiah One and his Book One," by Principal Douglas

of Glasgow, and "Lex Mosaica," edited by Dr. Valpy

French, with nearly a score of able collaborators.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE

                          OLD TESTAMENT

 

          INTRODUCTION to the Old Testament in the widest

sense of the term would include whatever is preliminary

or auxiliary to the exegetical study and correct under-

standing of this portion of the sacred volume. But the

subjects which would thus be embraced within it are

too numerous and of too heterogeneous a character to

be profitably pursued together, or to be classed under a

single name. It is accordingly in ordinary usage re-

stricted to a definite range of subjects, viz.: those which

concern the literary history and criticism of the Old

Testament. Other branches important to the interpre-

ter, such as Biblical Geography, Antiquities, and Nat-

ural History, Apologetics, and Hermeneutics can best

be treated separately.

          Introduction, in the limited and technical sense already

explained, is divided into General and Special. General

Introduction has to do with those topics which concern

the entire volume considered as a whole; Special Intro-

duction with those which relate to its several parts, or

to the individual books of which it consists, such as

the questions of date, authorship, integrity or freedom

from adulteration, the character of the composition,

etc.

          General Introduction to the Old Testament, which is

the subject of the present volume, is an inquiry into

          I. The Collection and Extent of the Canon.

          II. The History and Criticism of the Text.

          The history of the text must be traced both in respect

       

                                               7

 

8                    GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

to its external form and its internal substance. In

studying the former it is necessary to consider

          1. The original form of the text, or the Languages in

which it was written.

          2. The mode of its transmission, viz., by Manuscripts.

          3. The additional forms in which it exists, viz.,

Ancient Versions.

          This must be followed by an examination into

          4. The internal history of the substance of the text

and its present condition.

          The way is now prepared for

          5. The Criticism of the text, or a consideration of

the means available for the detection and correction of

any errors which may have crept into it, the proper

mode of their application and the result accomplished

by them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

 

 

                                              I

 

                                    THE CANON

 

          THE Old Testament consists of a number of separate

books or treatises, which were written by different

authors at various periods of time. The questions nat-

urally arise, Why have they all been united thus in one

volume? When and how did this take place? Are all

that it contains rightfully included in it? Does it con-

tain all the books that properly belong to it?

          This collection of books is naturally called the Canon

of the Old Testament. This term is derived from the

Greek word kanw<n, which originally denoted "any

straight rod," whence it was applied to a rod used in

measuring, as a carpenter's rule; and thence metaphori-

cally to any rule whatever, "anything that serves to reg-

ulate or determine other things," as the rules or canons

of grammar or of rhetoric; and the best Greek writers

were by the Alexandrian grammarians called "canons,"

as being models or standards of literary excellence.¹  It

occurs in two passages in the New Testament (Gal. vi.

16; 2 Cor. x. 13-16), in the sense of rule or measure. In

the writings of the Christian Fathers the expressions

"the canon of the church," "the canon of the truth,"

"the canon of the faith," are used to denote the body of

 

          ¹ Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, s.v.

 

                                      9

 

10                GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

Christian doctrine as forming the recognized rule of

belief. In like manner "the canon of Scripture," or "the

canonical Scriptures," became the accepted designation

of that body of writings which constitutes the inspired

rule of faith and practice.¹  The assertion of Semler,

Eichhorn, and others, that "canon" simply means list

in this connection, and that canonical or canonized books

denotes the list of books sanctioned by the Church to

be read in public worship, overlooks the primary and

proper signification of the term.

 

          ¹ The history and usage of this word is very carefully traced by K

A. Credner. Zur Geschichte des Kanons, pp. 1-68.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                       II

 

TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE IN REGARD TO THE

               FORMATION OF THE CANON

 

 

          WHILE the Bible does not profess to give a complete

history of the formation of the Canon, it contains impor-

tant statements concerning it, which must have their

place in any reliable account of the matter; otherwise

all will be left to vague conjecture and arbitrary theoriz-

ing. Express provision is said to have been made both

for the careful custody of the first completed portion of

the sacred canon, and for making the people acquainted

with its contents.  "And it came to pass, when Moses

had made an end of writing the words of this law in a

book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded

the Levites, who bare the ark of the covenant of Jeho-

vah, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it by the

side of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God,

that it may be there for a witness against thee" (Deut.

xxxi. 24-26). It was thus placed in the charge of the

priests to be kept by them along side of the most sacred

vessel of the sanctuary, and in its innermost and holiest

apartment. This was in accordance with the usage of

the principal nations of antiquity. The Romans, Greeks,

Phoenicians, Babylonians, and Egyptians had their

sacred writings, which were jealously preserved in

their temples, and entrusted to the care of officials spe-

cially designated for the purpose. Moses also com-

manded the priests and elders of the people "At the

end of every seven years, in the set time of the year of

 

                                         11

 

12              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is

come to appear before Jehovah thy God in the place

which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all

Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, the men

and the women and the little ones, and thy stranger that

is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they

may learn, and fear Jehovah your God, and observe to

do all the words of this law; and that their children,

which have not known, may hear, and learn to fear Jeho-

vah your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye

go over Jordan to possess it" (Deut. xxxi. 10-13). And

it was still further enjoined that the future king should

"write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that

which is before the priests the Levites; and it shall be

with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his

life; that he may learn to fear Jehovah his God, to keep

all the words of this law and these statutes to do them"

(Deut. xvii. 18, 19). And the following direction was

given to Joshua, the immediate successor of Moses in

the leadership of the people:  "This book of the law shall

not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate

therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do

according to all that is written therein" (Josh. i. 8).

          According to the uniform testimony of all the sacred

historians, the law of Moses, thus carefully guarded and

made obligatory upon the people and their rulers, was

ever after regarded as canonical and divinely authorita-

tive, and that even in the most degenerate times. The

punctilious obedience rendered to it by Joshua is re-

peatedly noticed in the course of his life (e.g., Josh. xi.

15). Canaanites were left in the land to prove Israel

"whether they would hearken unto the commandments

of Jehovah, which he commanded their fathers by the

hand of Moses" (Judg. iii. 4). Saul forfeited his king-

dom by failing to comply with a requirement of the law,

 

                  TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE                                13

 

which Samuel had charged him to execute (1 Sam. xv.).

David charged Solomon to obey the law of Moses (1

Kin. ii. 3). David is repeatedly commended for keep-

ing the law (1 Kin. iii. 14, ix. 4, xi. 34, 38). Solomon's

compliance with the law of Moses in the worship insti-

tuted in the temple is noted (2 Chron. viii. 13); and he

impressed upon the people their obligation to obey it

(1 Kin. viii. 56-58, 61). The prophet Ahijah denounced

Jeroboam for his disobedience to the commandments of

Jehovah (1 Kin. xiv. 7-16). King Asa commanded the

people to keep the law (2 Chron. xiv. 4). Jehoshaphat

sent a deputation throughout all the cities of Judah to

teach the people the book of the law (2 Chron. xvii. 9).

The law of Moses was observed under Joash (2 Chron.

xxiii. 18, xxiv. 6). Amaziah is said to have acted in ac-

cordance with the law of Moses (2 Kin. xiv. 6; 2 Chron.

xxv. 4). Hezekiah kept the commandments which Je-

hovah commanded Moses (2 Kin. xviii. 6; 2 Chron. xxx.

16). Manasseh's gross transgressions of the law of

Moses were denounced by the prophets (2 Kin. xxi. 2-

16). Josiah bound the people in solemn covenant to

obey the law of Moses (2 Kin. xxiii. 3, 24, 25; 2 Chron.

xxxi v. 14, 30-32). The exile of both Israel and Judah

is attributed to their infractions of the law of Moses (2

Kin. xvii. 7-23, xviii. 12; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 8; Dan. ix. 11,

13; Neh. i. 7-9, ix. 14-30). The first colony of returned

exiles recognized the authority of the law of Moses

(Ezra iii. 2, vi. 16-48). The book of the law was read

and expounded to the people by Ezra and the Levites

(Neh. viii. 1-8), and all solemnly pledged themselves to

obey it (Neh. x. 28, 29, xiii. 1-3).

          We read of an addition being made to the book of

the law in Josh. xxiv. 26:  "And Joshua wrote these

words in the book of the law of God." The reference

is to the covenant transaction at Shechem, in which

 

14              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

the people are reminded of what Jehovah had done for

their fathers and for themselves, and they in turn

pledged to him their faithful service. It was an ap-

propriate appendix to the law, recording God's gracious

leadings and the fulfilment of his promises, and the

engagement of the people to obey his requirements.

It would thus, like the law itself, be a witness against

the people in all time to come, if they forsook the

LORD.

          No mention is made of any subsequent addition to

the book of the law, but a fact is stated in 1 Sam. x.

25, which is of some consequence in this connection.

It is there said that upon the selection of Saul to

be king, "Samuel told the people the manner of the

kingdom," i.e., he expounded to them the regulations

belonging to this new form of government, the rights

and duties of both the king and his subjects, "and wrote

it in a book and laid it up before Jehovah." This im-

portant paper relating to the constitution of the mon-

archy in Israel was deposited for safe-keeping in the

sacred tabernacle. It is an act analogous to that of

Moses in making a similar disposition of the funda-

mental constitution of Israel as the people of God, and

so far confirmatory of it. It has sometimes been in-

ferred that what was thus done with a paper of national

importance, must a fortiori have been also done with

each fresh addition to the volume of God's revelation;

and as a complete canon of Scripture was preserved in

the second temple,¹ so the pre-exilic sanctuary must have

contained a standard copy, not merely of the law of

Moses, but of the whole word of God, as far as it was

written. There is, however, no historical confirmation

of this conjecture.

 

          ¹ Josephus, Ant., iii. 1, 7, v. 1, 17; Jewish War, vii. 5, 5; Life of

Josephus, § 75.

 

                  TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE                                   15

 

          When the temple of Solomon was built, the copy of

the law previously kept in the tabernacle was without

doubt transferred to it. The direction which placed it

in the custody of the priests was still in force, and the

change of the sanctuary made no alteration in the sacred-

ness of what had before been deposited in it. This is

not disproved, as has been alleged,¹ by 1 Kin. viii. 9

and the parallel passage 2 Chron. v. 10, where it is

declared that "there was nothing in the ark" when it

was removed to the temple "save the two tables of stone,

which Moses put there at Horeb." The book of the

law was put (dc.ami) "by the side of the ark," not within

it. Whether it was still put by the side of the ark, af-

ter this was deposited in the temple and was no longer

liable to be transported from place to place, cannot be

certainly known. But that it was kept somewhere in

the temple appears from the express mention of it in

2 Kin. xxii. 8. It is there stated that the book of the

law, explicitly identified with the law of Moses (xxiii.

24, 25), which had been neglected and lost sight of dur-

ing the ungodly reigns of Manasseh and Amon, was

found again in the temple in the reign of Josiah. This

was but a short time before the destruction of the city

and temple by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonish

captivity.

          In all probability the book of the law belonging to

the temple perished when the temple was burned (2

Kin. xxv. 9), but this did not involve the destruction of

the law itself, numerous copies of which must have

been in existence. Every king was required to have

one for his own use (Deut. xvii. 18). The kings of

Judah, who are commended for observing the law, must

have possessed it. And it is explicitly stated that in

the coronation of king Joash Jehoiada, the high priest,

 

          ¹ De Wette's Einleitung (6th edition), § 14, note f.

 

16                GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

gave him "the crown and the testimony." The testi-

mony can only mean here as elsewhere the law as an

authoritative declaration of the will of God (Ps. xix. 7,

lxxviii. 5; 1 Kin. 3; 2 Kin. xxiii. 3). The transaction

described was the formal presentation to a monarch,

upon his accession to the throne, of a copy of the law

to be the guide of his reign. The judges appointed by

Jehoshaphat were to decide questions arising under

the law (2 Chron. xix. 10), and must have been able to

make themselves familiar with its contents.  The com-

mission sent by him to visit the cities of Judah took a

copy of the law with them (2 Chron. xvii. 8, 9). Solo-

mon's urgent admonition to the people to walk in the

statutes of Jehovah and to keep his commandments as-

sumes their knowledge of what they were expected to

obey (1 Kin. viii. 61). The numerous allusions to the

law in all the subsequent books of the Old Testament¹

indicate familiarity with it on the part of the sacred

writers. Ps. i. 4² describes the pious by saying "his

delight is in the law of Jehovah, and in his law he doth

meditate day and night." The admiration and affection

for the law expressed in such passages as Ps. xix. 7-11,

xl. 7, 8,³ and the exhortations and rebukes of the proph-

ets based upon the requirements of the law imply an

acquaintance with it such as could only be produced by

its diffusion among the people. In the persecution of

Antiochus Epiphanes various persons were found to be

in possession of the sacred books;⁴ the same was

doubtless the case in the period now under review.

The returning exiles governed themselves by the direc-

 

          ¹ See my Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch, pp. 52-58.

          ² This Psalm is certainly older than Jeremiah, who makes use of

ver. 3 in xvii. 8.

          ³ These Psalms are ascribed to David in their titles, the correctness

of which there is no good reason for discrediting.

          ⁴ 1 Macc. i. 56, 57. Josephus, Ant., iii. 5, 4.

 

                     TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE                               17

 

lions of the law of Moses (Ezra iii. 2, vi. 18); and Ezra

came up from captivity with the law of God in his

hand (vii. 14), facts which sufficiently prove that the law

had neither perished nor lost its authority.

          But the law of Moses was not the only book that was

invested with divine authority. It will be sufficient

here to note the fact that the prophets were acknowl-

edged messengers of Jehovah, who spoke in his name

and at his bidding. What they uttered was the word

of Jehovah and the law of God (Isa. i. 10). The ca-

lamities which befel Israel and Judah are attributed to

their disobeying the law, both that which was com-

manded their fathers and that which was sent to them

by the prophets (2 Kin. xvii. 13; Neh. ix. 29, 30; Dan.

ix. 5, 6; Zech. vii. 12). The word of Jehovah by the

prophets had, of course, the same binding authority

when written as when orally delivered. Reference is

made (Isa. xxxiv. 16) to "the book of Jehovah," in

which the antecedent prophecy could be found and its

exact fulfilment noted. Daniel ix. 2 speaks of "the

books" in which a prophecy of Jeremiah, then on the

eve of fulfilment, was contained. The books of the

prophets from the time that they were first written

formed a component part of the revealed will of God,

and belonged of necessity to the canonical Scriptures.

          To this extent, then, the statements of the Bible are

explicit in regard to the formation of the canon. The

law written by Moses was by his direction deposited

in the sanctuary as the divinely obligatory standard of

duty for Israel. To this was added by Joshua a solemn

engagement on the part of the people to obey it.

Though this law was grossly transgressed at times by

the people and their rulers, its supreme authority found

repeated and emphatic recognition, and was attended

by divine sanctions culminating in the overthrow of

 

18                  GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

both the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The book of

the law, which was kept in the temple, probably per-

ished when the latter was burned. But other copies

escaped, and the law was still in the hands of the people

at the close of the exile. No intimation is given that

the books of the prophets were as yet united with the

law in the same volume, but they are classed with it as

emanating from the same divine source, being equally

the word and law of God, with a like claim to unfalter-

ing obedience.

 

 

 

 

 

                  

 

 

 

 

                                          III

 

THE CRITICAL THEORY OF THE FORMATION OF

                                 THE CANON

 

 

          EICHHOIRN,¹ who has been called the Father of Higher

Criticism, did not hesitate to admit that the laws of

Moses were deposited by his direction in the sanctuary

by the side of the ark, as a divinely given and authori-

tative code agreeably to the statement in Dent. xxxi. 25,

26. But as the Pentateuch was more and more discred-

ited, and belief in its Mosaic authorship was abandoned,

later critics changed their attitude accordingly. The

present critical position in this matter is well repre-

sented by Dillmann,² and may be briefly stated as fol-

lows: If Moses had written the Pentateuch or any book

of laws it would, as a matter of course, have been thence-

forward, in the proper and fullest sense of the word,

canonical. His work, however, was not writing, but

acting, establishing institutions, and enkindling a new

spiritual life. After his death, attempts were made,

from time to time, to reduce his statutes and ordinances

to writing for public or private use without producing a

body of laws universally accepted as authoritative, for

these collections were liable to be superseded by others

more complete or more perspicuous. The book of the

law found in the temple in the reign of Josiah (2 Kin.

xxii. 8) was the culmination of all attempts in this di-

rection, embodying both what was gained from the

 

          ¹ Einleitung, 4th edition, p. 20.

          ² Jahrbucher fur Deutsche Theologie, III., p. 432 ff.

 

                                         19

 

20                GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

experience of the past and the instructions of the proph-

ets with special adaptation to the needs of the present.

This was at once accepted by both king and people, who

solemnly bound themselves to obey its requirements.

This book was Deuteronomy,¹ and was the first written

law having canonical authority. During the exile the

Pentateuch was completed in its present form by the

addition of the priestly laws and other constituents.

This was brought to Jerusalem by Ezra when he came

up from the captivity, and, as is related in Neh. viii.–x.,

was read before the assembled people, who thereupon

pledged themselves to observe all that it commanded.

By this transaction the Pentateuch, which was thence-

forth denominated the law, or the law of Moses, was

made canonical, and was ever after accepted as su-

premely authoritative. This is not only the first divi-

sion of the canon, but the critics insist that it constituted

the first canon, and that it is all that was regarded as

canonical and authoritative in the time of Ezra. He

was a scribe of the law (Ezra vii. 6, 12, 21); he prepared

his heart to seek the law and do it and teach it to Is-

rael (ver. 10); he went to Jerusalem with the law of God

in his hand (ver. 14); he bound the people by a writ-

ten engagement (Neh. ix. 38) and a solemn oath (x. 29)

to obey the law in every particular. This alone, it is

urged, constituted at that time the publicly sanctioned

and authoritative divine canon.

          The books of the prophets, which stand next in the

 

          ¹ In 1858, when the article was written from which the preceding

statement has been condensed, Dillmann still held what was at that

time the common critical opinion, that the book of the law found in

the temple was the entire Pentateuch, which had recently been com-

pleted by the addition of Deuteronomy. The critical revolution intro-

duced by Graf and Wellhausen led to a sudden reversal of opinions in

this respect, and it is now claimed that the completion of the Penta-

teuch was the work of priests in or after the Babylonish exile.

 

                      THE CRITICAL THEORY                                     21

 

order of the Hebrew Bible, are, in the opinion of the

critics, not only a second division of the canon, but,

historically speaking, were a second canon additional

to the first, and incorporated with it at a later time.

These books, it is said, were privately circulated at first,

and were highly esteemed by the pious who possessed

them. But they had no public official authority until

they were formally united with the canon. This second

collection included what are called the former and the

latter prophets. The former prophets are the four his-

torical books according to the original enumeration,

Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, which trace the

history of the chosen people and of God's dealings with

them in a direct line from the death of Moses to the

Babylonish captivity. These follow immediately after

the Pentateuch, as they continue the history from the

point at which it closes. They are called the former

prophets because in the order of the canon they precede

the strictly prophetical books, which are accordingly

termed the latter prophets. Of these there are like-

wise four in the original enumeration, viz.: three major

prophets, so named because of their superior size, Isai-

ah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and twelve minor prophets,

whose writings, on account of their inferior size, are

classed together as one book. A considerable time after

the formation of the first canon by Ezra this second

canon of the books of the prophets was added to it, so

that the canon, as thus constituted, consisted of the law

and the prophets; and for a length of time these are all

that were reckoned canonical.

          At a still later period, however, a third canon was

formed of other books which were thought worthy of

being associated with the preceding collections. As

these were of a somewhat miscellaneous character and

incapable of being included under any more descriptive

 

22           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

designation, they were simply called by the general

name K’thubhim ¹ (MybiUtK;) writings, or by the Greek

equivalent, Hagiographa (a[gio<grafa), sacred writings.

These include the three large poetical books, Psalms

(Myl.hiT;), Proverbs (ylew;mi), and Job (bOy.xi), from whose

initials have been formed the memorial word tmx

truth; then the five small books called Megilloth, rolls,

because they were written on separate rolls for syna-

gogue use, viz.: the Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamenta-

tions, Ecclesiastes, Esther, and, finally, the three books,

as originally numbered, Daniel, Ezra (including Nehe-

miah), and Chronicles. Thus, by successive steps in

the course of time, the canon reached its final form, em-

bracing the Law, the Prophets, and the K'thubhim,² or

Hagiographa.

          The critics acknowledge that there is no historical

testimony to the existence of the successive stages,

which they profess to find, in the formation of the

canon.³ All the testimony in the case is, infact, directly

 

          ¹ Pronounced kethuvim.

          ² Bertholdt, Einleitung, p. 81, gives to this term the purely fanciful

definition, "books lately inserted in the canon," on the false assump-

tion that the root btaKA to write, has the sense "to inscribe in the

canon."  K'thubhim, as the technical name of the third division of the

canon, is not to be derived, as some have claimed, from bUtKA, it is

written, the common formula of citation from the Scriptures, nor

from btAK; in the sense of Scripture, as indicating that it is a part of

the sacred volume. It is properly the passive participle of btaKA, to

write, used as a noun, and meaning "Writings," not in a depreciating

sense, as Dillmann alleges (Jahrb. f. D. Theol., III., p. 430), "in con-

trast with the law and the prophets they were nothing but 'writings,'

to which no such distinguishing quality as Mosaic or prophetic be-

longs." Their association with the law and the prophets in the canon

sufficiently shows that they were equally regarded as the inspired word

and vested with divine authority. They are "writings" by way of

eminence, ranking above mere ordinary human productions. Com-

pare the Greek grafai< and the English "Bible."

 

          ³ Wildeboer, The Origin of the Canon, p. 114: "We have not at

 

 

                       THE CRITICAL THEORY                                    23

 

opposed to it. It is claimed, however, that there are

other proofs sufficient to establish it.

          1. It is alleged that there are several books in the

canon which were not yet in existence when the law was

made canonical by Ezra, nor at any time during his life.

Ezra, Chronicles, and Ecclesiastes are referred by crit-

ics to a time shortly before or after the downfall of the

Persian Empire, Esther to that of the Greek domina-

tion, and Daniel and several of the Psalms to the period

of the Maccabees, nearly three centuries after the can-

onization of the law.

          2. It is argued that the three-fold division of the

canon of itself affords a clue to the mode of its forma-

tion; it is of such a nature that it can only represent

three successive stages in the work of collection. There

is no consistent principle of classification such as we

would naturally expect to find if the canon had been

arranged at any one time by any man or body of men.

There are books in the third division which are homo-

geneous with those in the second, and which, if prop-

erly classed, would have been put in the second divi-

sion. And the only explanation of their standing where

they do is that the second division was already closed

when these books were added, so that there was no re-

source but to put them in the third and last division,

which must, accordingly, have been formed after the

second division was complete. Thus, while the prin-

cipal books containing the post-Mosaic history of the

chosen people are in the second division of the canon,

viz.: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, there are

 

our command for the history of the canonization of the second divi-

sion of the Old Testament books, any such historical testimony as we

have for those of the law." Page 136: Direct historical statements

about the third collection of the Old Testament Scriptures are want-

ing, as in the case of the second."

 

24                 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

other books continuing this same history and of like

character in the third division, such as Ezra and Nehe-

miah, and particularly Chronicles, which is parallel to

the history in Samuel and Kings, covering, to a con-

siderable extent, the same period, extracted in part

from the same sources, and in numerous sections or

paragraphs identical in language. Further, the book of

Daniel, instead of standing in the second division with

the rest of the books of the prophets, is put in the third

division along with books of quite a different descrip-

tion. It is claimed that the only satisfactory solution

of these facts is that these books only found admission

to the canon after the second division, with which they  

had affinity, was already regarded as complete and in-

capable of being reopened. They were, accordingly,

put at the end of the third, which was the only division

then remaining open.

          3. The Samaritans recognize the canonicity of the

Pentateuch, but of no other part of the Old Testament.

From this it is inferred that their reception of the Pen-

tateuch dates from a time when the law of Moses was all

that was canonical with the Jews; and that the subse-

quent hostility between them and the Samaritans has

prevented the latter from accepting the additions after-

ward made to the canon.

          4. The synagogue lessons were, in the first instance,

taken exclusively from the law; afterward, lessons from

the prophets were read in conjunction with it. The

K'thubhim are used only on special occasions, and not

in the regular sabbath reading of the Scriptures. This

is best explained by assuming that the law alone was

canonical at first, that the prophets were next added,

and the K'thubhim last of all.

          5. The term law is sometimes used, both in Jewish

writings and in the New Testament in a comprehensive

 

                 THE CRITICAL THEORY                                 25

 

sense, embracing the entire Old Testament. At other

times the law and the prophets are spoken of either as

the principal parts of the Old Testament or as compre-

hending the whole. This is again regarded as a remi-

niscence of the time when first the law, and afterward

the law and the prophets, constituted the entire canon,

so that it became natural to use these names to signify

the whole revealed word of God.

          6. There are said to be indications in the order of

the books in both the second and third divisions of the

canon that these were formed gradually in the course

of time and not by a single act.

          7. The canonicity of certain books, particularly the

Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, was long

disputed among the Jews, and the question was not fi-

nally decided in their favor until the council at Jamnia,

about A.D. 90, or, as some have maintained, even later.

The canon, in its present form and compass, could not,

it is said, have been definitely fixed until then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                         IV

 

THE DETERMINING PRINCIPLE IN THE FORMATION

                              OF THE CANON

 

          THE critical theory of the formation of the canon

rests upon a false notion regarding the real character

of the canon and the determining principle in its col-

lection. The fundamental error which underlies all the

arguments of the critics on this subject, and vitiates

their conclusion, is the assumption that the books of

the Old Testament were not written with the design of

being held sacred and divinely authoritative; but in the

course of time they came to be treated with a venera-

tion, which was not at first accorded to them. This is

explicitly avowed by Ewald:¹  "It lies in the original

nature of all sacred writings that they become sacred

without intending it, and without in human fashion being

planned to become so. . . . When the first active

life ceases, and men have to look back upon it as the

model, conform their lives to its regulations and pre-

scriptions, repeat its songs, and carefully consider its

whole history, then they look about eagerly for the best

writings which can be serviceable in this respect; and

for the most part these have already imperceptibly by

their own merit separated themselves from the less suit-

able, have already been gathered piecemeal, and it only

requires some superior oversight to combine them in an

enduring manner, and consecrate them more definitely

for their present purpose. In respect to a few of the

 

          ¹ Jahrbucher der Biblischen Wissenschaft, VII., pp. 77, 78.

 

                                           26

 

            THE DETERMINING PRINCIPLE                                   27

 

less necessary there may for a time be uncertainty and

strife; but the need of the time and their own intrinsic

value will long since have decided in respect to the

principal books. And so what was not itself intended

to be sacred, nevertheless becomes sacred as the vehicle

of sacred truths and spiritual forces."

          To the same purport Dillmann:¹  "For a certain class

of theologians the several books of the Old Testament

were from the first written with the view of being re-

vered and used by the church and handed down to

future generations as sacred; the canon was being

formed and enlarged by each new book that was added

in the course of centuries; so soon as the last book of

this sort had appeared, the canon was completed, and it

was now only necessary to collect these books which

had appeared one after another, combine them into one

whole, and bring them into the fine order in which they

now lie before us. This office was performed by some

public person or authority qualified for the same by

a special divine illumination. This conception of the

course of the matter is, to be sure, very simple, and in-

ferred with great logical exactness from certain precon-

ceived dogmatical ideas, but it is unhistorical and there-

fore untrue. How the canon was formed can only be

ascertained in a historical way. And history knows

nothing of the individual books having been designed

to be sacred from their origin; it also knows nothing of

an authority by which, or of a point of time at which,

all the writings of the Old Testament were at once united

and published as a collection of sacred writings forever

closed. On the contrary, all that has hitherto been as-

certained and laboriously enough investigated respect-

ing the origin of the books and the transmission of their

text forbids us to believe that these writings were from

 

          ¹ Jahrb. D. Theol., III., p. 420.

 

28              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

the first regarded sacred and inviolable, as they were in

the opinion of later generations. A historical survey

of these relations shows that these books bore indeed in

themselves from the first those characteristics, on ac-

count of which they were subsequently admitted into

the sacred collection, but yet always had first to pass

through a shorter or longer period of verification, and

make trial of the divine power resident within them

upon the hearts of the church before they were out-

wardly and formally acknowledged by it as divine

books."

          If now in the opinion of the critics the books of the

Old Testament were written with no intention of their

being held sacred, and they were not in actual fact so

regarded at first, what is the source of the sacredness

which was afterward attached to them? How did they

come to be regarded with that veneration which dis-

tinguished them from all other books, and led to their

being formed into a sacred canon? In other words,

what was the guiding principle in the formation of the

canon? To this question different answers have been

given.

          Some have held with Eichhorn¹ that the canon was

simply a collection of the early national literature. All

books written before a certain date were highly prized

because of their antiquity, and regarded with a venera-

tion which was not felt for more recent productions.

And as the gathering up of ancient writings would be a

 

          ¹ Einleitung, § 5:  "Soon after the end of the Babylonish exile

. . . and in order to give to the newly built second temple all the

advantages of the first, a library of its own was founded in it of the

remains of Hebrew literature, which we commonly call the Old Testa-

ment." Allgem. Bibliothek d. bibl. Litteratur, IV., p. 254: "Evi-

dently everything was collected, which they possessed from the times

before Artaxerxes, or which it was believed must be referred to so

high an antiquity."

 

                THE DETERMINING PRINCIPLE                     29

 

slow and laborious process, and a prolonged search

would be necessary and considerable time must elapse

before it could be certified that the collection was com-

plete, and no more books remained to be discovered, it

is contended that the canon could not have been gath-

ered at once, but must have been the work of time. All

this is, however, palpably at variance with the fact that

the books of Chronicles make mention of several writ-

ings then extant, to which readers are referred for

further information, and which must, therefore, have

been of earlier date than Chronicles; yet this latter was

admitted to the canon, while the former were not.

          Others have maintained with Hitzig¹ that the de-

termining feature was the language in which the books

were written. Those in the sacred Hebrew tongue were

accounted sacred, those in Greek were not. But this is

disproved by the same argument as the preceding. The

books referred to in Chronicles as historical authorities

were of course in Hebrew, yet were not admitted to the

canon. And some of the apocryphal books, which never

had a place in the canon, were written in Hebrew. This

was the case with Ecclesiasticus, the prologue to which

speaks of its having been translated out of Hebrew into

Greek, and so far from the Hebrew original having been

lost at the time of the collection of the canon, a frag-

ment of it is still in existence. Tobit also and 1 Mac-

cabees, according to Jerome, were written in Hebrew, and

 

          ¹ Die Psalmen, 1836, II., p. 118: "All Hebrew books originating in

the time before Christ are canonical, all canonical books are Hebrew,

while all written in Greek are reckoned as belonging to the apocrypha.

. . . Greek books were excluded from the collection of national

writings; no matter whether they had never existed in a Hebrew

original, or this was no longer extant." Thus he insists that the He-

brew originals of Ecclesiasticus and Baruch had already been lost

when the canon was collected, and they were then only extant in a

Greek translation.

 

30                   GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

he says that he had seen the Hebrew originals. As

Dillmann¹ truly says, "Wherever and however the al-

leged point of time may be fixed from the days of Ezra

down to those of Josephus, we always find, besides those

which became canonical, other books written in the

sacred tongue still extant, which did not come into the

canon, and which were not then lost, but subsequently

came to be lost after the final and complete close of the

canon, and for the reason that they had not been ad-

mitted to it."

          But their religious character is so prominent a feature

of these writings, and enters so essentially into the ex-

alted position assigned to them and the profound ven-

eration which has been felt for them, that the great

majority of critics have confessed that this must be

taken into the account in estimating the Old Testament;

and that it can neither be regarded as a mere collection

of ancient literature nor of writings in the sacred He-

brew tongue. The measure of influence assigned to

this pervading characteristic of the sacred writings va-

ries with the spirit of the individual critic all the way

from the shallow suggestion of Corrodi² that they con-

 

          ¹ Ubi supra, p. 422.

          ² The author of the Versuch einer Beleuchtung der Geschichte des

Judischen and Christlichen Bibelkanons, published anonymously in

1792. G. L. Bauer, Einleitung, 3d edition, page 33, claims that

there is no real difference in the various conceptions of the canon.

"The common opinion is: All the religious writings inspired of God.

Eichhorn says: All the fragments of Hebrew literature. Corrodi:

Only such writings as concerned national religion or history, and the

criterion of divinity and inspiration was introduced later from the

time of Sirach onward. In our opinion, all these views may be united.

All the fragments of the ancient Hebrew literature were collected, for

almost all had a religious form or concerned sacred history. And that

these books were written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit the old

world, according to their notions, had little doubt, since they even al-

lowed that a goldsmith and embroiderer was filled with the Spirit

 

                THE DETERMINING PRINCIPLE                              31

 

cern the national religion to the far more reverent atti-

tude of Ewald and Dillmann in the extracts before

quoted, who appeal to their normative character as pre-

senting the loftiest models and setting forth in their

purity the requirements of the religion of Israel, and

their spiritual power to nurture and elevate the religious

life; to which Robertson Smith adds that all the books

of the canon were in full accord with the law of Moses.

But even when this view is presented in its highest and

best form, it is seriously defective, and completely in-

verts the order of cause and effect. It is true, as the

apostle declares (2 Tim. iii. 16), that every Scripture is

profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for

instruction which is in righteousness, that the man of

God may be complete, furnished completely unto every

good work; but it is because it is inspired of God. It

is not the religious profit derived from these books

which led to their admission into the canon, but it is

their being inspired of God to guide the faith and

practice of the church—in other words, their canonic-

ity—which makes them profitable to the religious

life. They were included in the canon because they

were written by men inspired of God for this very

purpose.

          In order to ascertain the true import of the canoniza-

 

of God." To the same purport De Wette, Einleitung, 6th edition,

section 16:  "The two assumptions that the Old Testament was in-

tended to constitute a collection of national writings and that it was a

collection of sacred writings, are really one in view of the contents of

most of the Old Testament hooks and the theocratic spirit of Jewish

antiquity; for the truly national was also religious. In either case

the authors were regarded as inspired, and their writings as the fruit of

sacred inspiration."

          ¹ The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, 2d edition, page 181:

"The ultimate criterion by which every book was subjected lay in the

supreme standard of the law. Nothing was holy which did not agree

with the teaching of the Pentateuch."

 

32                    GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

tion of the Old Testament, we must examine (1) the

claims which its several books make for themselves, and

(2) the esteem in which they were held by the people.

In Ex. xx. 2, 3, Jehovah announces himself to Israel

as their God, who brought them out of the land of

Egypt, and bids them have no other god besides himself.

And the people solemnly engage to obey all his com-

mands (xix. 8), and enter into formal covenant with him

as his people (xxiv. 7, 8). At every subsequent period

of their history the people are reminded of their obli-

gation to Jehovah for delivering them from the bond-

age of Egypt, and their engagement to be his people

and to serve him as their God (Josh. xxiv. 16-18; Judg.

vi. 8-10; 1 Sam. xii. 6, 7; 2 Sam. vii. 23, 24; Hos. xii.

9, 4; Am. ii. 10, iii. 2). Nothing is plainer on the

very surface of the Old Testament from first to last than

the recognized fact that Jehovah was the God of Israel

and that Israel was his people. Now the law of Moses

claims in all its parts to be the law of Jehovah given

through Moses. The entire legislation of the Penta-

teuch asserts this for itself in the most positive way and

in the most unambiguous terms. The prophets through-

out claim to speak in the name of Jehovah and by his

authority, and to declare his will. What they utter is

affirmed to be the word of Jehovah; their standing for-

mula is, Thus saith Jehovah. To yield to their require-

ments is to obey Jehovah; to refuse submission to

them is to offend against Jehovah. Jehovah is further

the recognized king of Israel. He guides their history,

rewards their obedience, punishes their transgression.

The historical books reveal his hand in every turn of

their affairs; they authoritatively declare his will and

purposes, as they are manifested in his providential

dealings with them. The law, the prophetical books

and the historical books thus alike profess to give an

 

                 THE DETERMINING PRINCIPLE                       33

 

authoritative declaration of the will of Jehovah, the sov-

ereign God of Israel.

          The reception of these books into the canon was not

merely the acknowledgment of their superior excellence

and their uplifting spiritual power, but a recognition

of the rightfulness of their claim to be a revelation of

the will of God. We have already seen (p. 12) that

according to the uniform testimony of all the sacred

historians, the law of Moses was regarded as divinely

obligatory upon Israel at every period of their history.

Whatever extent of meaning be given to the expression,

"the law of Moses," it is manifest that there was a

body of law attributed to him, and believed to be from

a divine source which the people and their rulers were

bound to obey, and upon the faithful observance of

which the prosperity of the nation and its continued

existence were dependent. When Josiah and all the

people of Judah of all ranks and classes bound them-

selves by covenant to a steadfast adherence to the book

of the law found in the temple in all its requirements,

this was not the first sanction given to a law which had

never been considered obligatory before, but the recog-

nition of a law of long standing, that was not only bind-

ing upon them, but had been equally so upon their

fathers, who had incurred serious guilt by transgressing

it (2 Kin. xxii. 13), in fact the very law of Moses (xxiii.

25), which their duty to Jehovah required them to keep.

This was not the first step toward the formation of a

canon, but bowing to an authority coeval with the origin

of the nation itself.

          And the law which Ezra read to the assembled

people, and which by a written and sealed engagement,

ratified by an oath they promised to observe, was not,

in the intent of Ezra or of the people according to the

only record that we have of the transaction, a new book

 

34                   GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

of the law then for the first time accepted as sacred and

made canonical. It was (Neh. viii. 1) the book of the

law of Moses which Jehovah had commanded to Israel

(ix. 14, x. 29), God's law which was given by Moses the

servant of God, the trangression of which by former

generations had been the cause of all the calamities

which had befallen them (ix. 26, 29, 32-34).

          The prophets were recognized expounders of the will

of Jehovah, who were commissioned by him to deliv-

er his messages to the people. And, as we have seen

(p. 17), the prophets are in numerous passages associat-

ed with the law, as together constituting the divine stand-

ard obligatory upon the people, the disregard of which

brought upon them accumulated evils. Later prophets

also bear abundant testimony to the divine commission

of their predecessors by general statements, as Hos. vi.

5, Jer. vii. 25, by the repetition and enforcement of their

predictions, by citations of their language, or by evident

allusions to them. Thus Ewald:¹  "Even such old

prophets as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, like to build

upon the words and writings of older true prophets,

borrow many a passage from them, and many a striking

clause, and refer back to them without mentioning them

by name. Yet in Jeremiah's time appeal was made by

name to the book of Micah, a hundred years before (Jer.

xxvi. 17, 18)." Wildeboer² quotes from von Orelli with

approval:  "To judge from the citations of older proph-

ets, in younger authors, the writings of an Amos, an

Isaiah, etc., were regarded in a certain sense as holy

scriptures, as the word of God"; and adds,  "Of course

as the spoken words of the prophets were the word of

God; they were equally so when committed to writing."

It is evident that the writings of the prophets, as soon

 

          ¹ Jahrb. d. Bibl. Wiss., VII., p. 74.

          ² Canon of the Old Testament, p. 123.

 

               THE DETERMINING PRINCIPLE                            35

 

as they were issued, would have precisely the same

authority as their discourses orally delivered, and would

be accepted as in precisely the same sense the word of

God. No formal declaration of their canonicity was

needed to give them sanction. They were from the first

not only "eagerly read by the devout," but believed to

be divinely obligatory; and this without waiting until

there were no more living prophets, and a complete col-

lection could be made of all their writings. Each indi-

vidual book of an acknowledged prophet of Jehovah, or

of anyone accredited as inspired by him to make known

his will, was accepted as the word of God immediately

upon its appearance. It had its own independent author-

ity, derived from the source from which it came, irre-

spective of its being united in a collection with the

other books of the same character. And thus the canon

gradually grew, as such books were produced from time

to time, until the last was written, when consequently

the canon was complete.

          This view of the formation of the canon is not, as Dill-

mann supposed, a theological speculation, but a neces-

sary historical deduction. The question with which we

are at present concerned is not as to the reality of the

inspiration of the sacred writers, but as to the faith of

Israel on this subject. Those books, and those only,

were accepted as the divine standards of their faith

and regulative of their conduct which were written for

this definite purpose¹ by those whom they believed to

 

          ¹ Books written by inspired men with a different design, or only for

some temporary purpose, and with no claim to divine authority or

permanent obligation, could not, of course, be placed on a par with

their professed divine communications. Expressions in which prophets

simply utter their own thoughts are clearly distinguished from what

they say in the name of God (1 Sam. xvi. 6, 7; 2 Sam. vii. 3, 4, 17).

No record has been preserved of what Solomon spake on subjects of

natural history (1 Kin. iv. 33). Annals of the kingdom, if written by

 

36                 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

be inspired of God. It was this which made them

canonical. The spiritual profit found in them corre-

sponded with and confirmed the belief in their heavenly

origin. And the public official action, which further

attested, though it did not initiate, their canonicity, fol-

lowed in the wake of the popular recognition of their

divine authority.¹

 

prophets, would have their historical value, even though they might

not be in any sense the product of divine inspiration. The same may

probably be said of the historical sources referred to in the books of

Chronicles (1 Chron. xxix. 29, 30; 2 Chron. ix. 29, xii. 15), which are

no longer extant for the reason, doubtless, that they were not intended

to form part of the permanent rule of faith. See Alexander on the

Canon, pp. 84-93.

          ¹ "When the Jewish doctors first concerned themselves with the prep-

aration of an authoritative list of sacred books, most of the Old Testa-

ment books had already established themselves in the hearts of the

faithful with an authority that could neither be shaken nor confirmed

by the decision of the schools." Robertson Smith in the Old Testa-

ment in the Jewish Church, p. 163.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                           V

 

                THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON

 

          WE have explicit testimony respecting the time of

completing the canon from the Jewish historian Jo-

sephus, who was born at Jerusalem, A.D. 37, of priestly

descent. In his treatise against Apion, an Alexandrian

grammarian, hostile to the Jews, I., 8, he speaks in the

following manner of the sacred books:  "We have not

tens of thousands of books, discordant and conflicting,

but only twenty-two, containing the record of all time,

which have been justly believed [to be divine¹]. And

of these, five are the books of Moses, which embrace the

laws and the tradition from the creation of man until

his [Moses'] death. This period is a little short of

three thousand years. From the death of Moses to the

reign of Artaxerxes, the successor of Xerxes, king of

Persia, the prophets who succeeded Moses wrote what

was done in thirteen books. The remaining four books

embrace hymns to God and counsels for men for the

conduct of life. From Artaxerxes until our time every-

thing has been recorded, but has not been deemed

worthy of like credit with what preceded, because the

exact succession of the prophets ceased. But what faith

we have placed in our own writings is evident by our

conduct; for though so long a time has now passed, no

 

          ¹ Eichhorn (Repertorium f. Bib. u. Morg. Litt., V., p. 254) remarks,

"The word ' divine' was not in the old editions of Josephus; it has in

recent times been inserted from Eusebius." Later editors are inclined

to expunge it.

 

                                            37

 

38                 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

one has dared either to add anything to them, or to

take anything from them, or to alter anything in them.

But it is instinctive in all Jews at once from their very

birth to regard them as commands of God, and to abide

by them, and, if need be, willingly to die for them."

          According to Josephus, therefore, the period in which

the books esteemed sacred by the Jews were written,

extended from the time of Moses to the reign of Artax-

erxes I. of Persia; after which no additions of any sort

were made to the canon. Artaxerxes Longimanus, the

monarch here referred to, reigned forty years, from B.C.

465 to B.C. 425. In the seventh year of his reign Ezra

came up to Jerusalem from the captivity (Ezra vii. 1, 8);

and in the twentieth year of the same Nehemiah followed

him (Neh. ii. 1, 5, 6).

          Strenuous efforts have been made to discredit this

statement of Josephus, but without good reason. It has

been said that it is not based on reliable historical in-

formation, nor the general belief of his time, but is

merely a private opinion of his own. It is obvious,

however, that this cannot be the case. Josephus was a

man of considerable learning, and had every facility for

acquainting himself with the history of his own nation,

upon which he had written largely in his "Antiquities."

His priestly origin afforded him special opportunities

for becoming familiar with the religious opinions of his

countrymen. He is here arguing with a scholar of no

mean pretensions, which would naturally make him

cautious in his statements; and he gives no intimation

that what he here says is simply his own opinion. It is

stated as a certain and acknowledged fact. And we

have, besides, additional evidence that this was the cur-

rent belief of his contemporaries. Ryle gives utterance

to the common sentiment of scholars, when he says:¹

 

          ¹ The Canon of the Old Testament, pp. 162-164.

 

            THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                       39

 

"We must remember that Josephus writes as the spokes-

man of his people, in order to defend the accuracy and

sufficiency of their Scriptures, as compared with the

recent and contradictory histories by Greek writers. In

this controversy he defends the judgment of his people.

He does not merely express a personal opinion, he

claims to represent his countrymen. . . . In the

first century A.D. the impression prevailed that the books

of the canon were all ancient, that none were more

recent than Ahasuerus (Artaxerxes), and that all had

long been regarded as canonical."

          It is further urged that Josephus makes the mistake

of identifying the Artaxerxes of Ezra and Nehemiah

with Xerxes ("Antiq.," xi. 5, 1, 6), and the Ahasuerus of

Esther with Artaxerxes ("Antiq.," xi. 6, 1), whereas the

real fact is the reverse of this. The events related in the

book of Esther took place in the reign of Xerxes, and

Ezra and Nehemiah lived in the reign of Artaxerxes.

It is hence inferred that he regarded Esther as the latest

book of the Old Testament, and for this reason makes

the reign of Artaxerxes the limit of the canon in the

passage quoted above. But it is evident that this error

on the part of Josephus does not affect the correctness

of his general statement. Whether Esther was prior

to Ezra and Nehemiah, or they were prior to Esther,

one or the other lived under Artaxerxes, and after his

time no book was added to the canon. It is by no means

certain, however, that this was in his mind. As the

saying was common among the Jews that Malachi was

the latest prophet,¹ it is more probable that the time of

closing the canon was fixed by the date of his ministry,

particularly as the reason given by Josephus himself is

 

          ¹ Strack, in Herzog-Plitt Encycl., vii., p. 428, note, quotes from

the Talmudic treatise Sanhedrin, "After the latter prophets Haggai,

Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel."

 

40                  GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

because then the exact succession of the prophets ceased.

As the continuous line of the prophets terminated then,

no inspired book could be written afterward.

          It does not invalidate Josephus' testimony that he

finds sporadic instances of prophetic power at a later

time, such as he attributes to John Hyrcanus,¹ who be-

came high priest, B.C. 135, for he has no idea of placing

him on a par with the continuous line of prophets who

were the authors of the sacred books. He evidently

regards him as standing on a much lower plane.

          The most serious objection to the truth of Josephus'

statement, however, if it could be substantiated, is the

allegation that there are books in the Old Testament

which were not written until long after the time of Ar-

taxerxes. If this be so, of course it must be acknowl-

edged that Josephus was mistaken. This allegation

rests upon critical conclusions which are deduced en-

tirely from certain supposed criteria in the books them-

selves, but have no external historical support, and are

at variance with what has been the generally reputed

origin of the books in question. The testimony of Jo-

sephus and the common belief of the age in which he

lived create a strong presumption against these critical

positions, unless some very clear and decisive evidence

can be adduced in their favor. As Welte² truly says,

"The rise of the opinion that with Malachi the Holy

Spirit departed from Israel seems incomprehensible, if

books acknowledged to be inspired and universally re-

garded as sacred, which proceeded from a later time, are

found in the sacred collection."

 

          ^l Antiq., 161 10, 7, "He was esteemed by God worthy of the three

greatest privileges, the government of his nation, the dignity of the

high priesthood, and prophecy, for God was with him, and enabled

him to know futurities."

          ² Theologische Quartalschrift, 1855, p. 83.

 

 

 

 

                THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                              41

 

          It will not be possible here to enter upon a full dis-

cussion of the date of the books of Chronicles, Ezra,

Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes, Esther, and Daniel, which the

critics contend were not written until after the time of

Artaxerxes. It will be sufficient for our present pur-

pose to examine briefly the grounds upon which this

contention rests, as they are stated by Dr. Driver in his

"Literature of the Old Testament."

          Of Chronicles he says, p. 518: "The only positive

clue which the book contains as to the date at which it

was composed is the genealogy in 1 Chron. iii. 17-24,

which (if ver. 21 be rightly interpreted) is carried down

to the sixth generation after Zerubbabel. This would

imply a date not earlier than cir. 350 B.C.; iii. 21, is,

however, obscurely expressed; and it is doubtful if the

text is correct." And he adds in a note that if the ren-

dering of the LXX., Pesh., Vulg. be adopted, it will

bring down the genealogy to the eleventh generation

after Zerubbabel.

          The actual fact is that Zerubbabel's descendants are

traced in iii. 19-21a for two generations only, viz.: Zer-

ubbabel, Hananiah, Pelatiah. There are then added,

in a disconnected manner, four separate families, whose

origin and relation to the preceding are not stated, and

one of these families is traced through four generations;

but there is no intimation whatever that this family or

either of the others belonged in the line of descent

from Zerubbabel. They were, doubtless, families known

at the time who belonged, in a general way, among the

descendants of David, which is the subject of the entire

chapter. But their particular line of descent is not

indicated. That by gratuitously assuming them to be

sprung from Zerubbabel six generations can be counted,

or eleven by a conjectural alteration of the text in the

manner of the ancient versions, is no secure basis for

 

42                GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

the conclusion that the book belongs to a later date

than has always hitherto been believed.

          Dr. Driver tells us that "more conclusive evidence is

afforded by the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which cer-

tainly belong to the same age, and are commonly as-

sumed to be the work of the same compiler." As we

are not concerned at present about the internal consti-

tution of these books, but simply with the question

whether they are posterior in date to the reign of Ar-

taxerxes, we pass over the alleged "indications of their

compilatory character," and proceed to consider the

"marks of their having been compiled in an age long

subsequent to that of Ezra and Nehemiah," p. 545.

These are thus stated:

          a. "The phrase King of Persia" (Ezra i. 1, 2, 8, iii. 7,

iv. 2, 3, 7, 24, vii. 1); the addition would, during the

period of the Persian supremacy, be at once unneces-

sary and contrary to contemporary usage; the expres-

sion used by Ezra and Nehemiah, when speaking in

their own person (Ezra vii. 27 f., viii. 1, 22, 25, 36; Neh.

i. 11, ii. 1 ff., 18 f., v. 4, 14, vi. 7, xiii. 6), or in passages

extracted from sources written under the Persian rule

(Ezra iv. 8, 11, 17, 23, v. 6 f., 13 f., 17, vi. 1, 3, 13, 15,

vii. 7, 11, 21; Neh. xi. 23, 24) is simply the king.'"  In

a note on the next page it is added, "Persia was absorbed

and lost in the wider empire of which by Cyrus' con-

quest of Babylon the Achamenid became the heirs;

hence after that date their standing official title is not

‘King of Persia,’ but ‘King of Babylon,’ or more com-

monly the King, the great King, King of kings, King of

the lands, etc."

          But (1) the assumption that the Persian monarchs are

in the book of Ezra simply called "the King" by con-

temporaries, and that the phrase "King of Persia" in-

dicates a late compiler, will not account for the facts of

            THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                   43

 

the case. For both designations occur together in con-

texts incapable of division; thus "Cyrus the king," i. 7,

but "King of Persia," vs. 1, 2, 8, "Artaxerxes the king,"

vii. 7, but " King of Persia," ver. 1.¹

          (2) If i. 2 has preserved the language of Cyrus' edict,

he calls himself "King of Persia," as he is likewise en-

titled in the inscription of Nabuna'id, the last king of

Babylon. It is argued that its "Jewish phraseology

and Jewish point of view" disprove its "literal exact-

ness." But it is no more surprising that Cyrus should

ascribe his victories to Jehovah and promise to aid in

building his temple in a proclamation freeing the Jews,

than that he should seek to ingratiate himself with the

people upon his entry into Babylon by attributing his

successes and his universal empire to Merodach, the

patron-god of that city, and declaring himself his wor-

shipper, and inscribing his name on bricks as "builder

of Esakkil and Ezida," the temples of Merodach and

Nebo. It is true that of the few inscriptions of Cyrus

thus far discovered there is no one in which he styles

himself "King of Persia"; but this casts no suspicion

upon the accuracy of this record in Ezra. Darius twice

entitles himself "King of Persia," in his Behistun in-

scription, though this title has not yet been found upon

any other of his inscriptions. Why may not Cyrus have

done the same thing in this one instance? and for the

reason that while the title "King of Babylon" was in

the experience of the Jews associated only with oppres-

sion and injury, they were prepared to hail as their de-

liverer the "King of Persia," by whom their enemy was

overthrown.

         

          ¹ If vi. 13-15 is copied from a document written before the arrival

of Ezra, Dr. Driver is right in his contention that "Artaxerxes king

of Persia" is a subsequent addition; otherwise this is another ex-

ample of the combination of both phrases.

44                GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

(3) In the letters to Artaxerxes (iv. 8-23) and to and

from Darius (v. 6-vi. 13), these monarchs are simply

called "the king." Artaxerxes is called "the king" in

the Book of Nehemiah, and in that of Ezra after vii. 1.

But in the narrative prior to the coming of Ezra the

title "King of Persia" is repeatedly applied to Cyrus,

Darius, and Artaxerxes. Now it is said that after the

conquest of Babylon, Cyrus and his successors assumed

the title "King of Babylon," which is given them (Ezra

v. 13; Neh. xiii. 6; cf. Ezra vi. 22 "King of Assyria");

but the title "King of Persia" implies a writer subse-

quent to "the period of the Persian supremacy." This

seems to be a sweeping conclusion from very slender

premises. If Darius could call himself "King of Persia,"

as he does in his Behistun inscription, and Cyrus give

himself the same title, as is attested (Ezra i. 2), and there

is no good reason for discrediting, why might they not

be so called by others? It is said that after the fall of

the Persian empire its monarchs were called "kings of

Persia" in distinction from the Greek kings who suc-

ceeded them. A precisely similar reason applies to the

Jewish exiles on their first return to Jerusalem. It

was natural for them to speak of the "kings of Persia"

who had freed them from exile in distinction from the

kings of Babylon who had carried them into exile (Ezra

ii. 1); in distinction likewise from their own native

princes the kings of Israel (iii. 10). They were no

longer under kings reigning in Jerusalem, as their

fathers had been, but under foreign domination (Neh. ix.

36, 37), which was a distressing situation, even though

they were ruled by a friendly power, "the kings of Per-

sia," as Ezra himself calls them (ix. 9, see ver. 5), which

is of itself a sufficient refutation of the critical conten-

tion.

          b. "Neh. xii. 11, 22 Jaddua, three generations later

            THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                  45

 

than Eliashib, the contemporary of Nehemiah, high

priest B.C. 351-331, is mentioned."

          c. "Neh. xii. 22 ‘Darius the Persian’ must (from the

context) be Darius Codomannus, the last king of Persia,

B.C. 336-332; and the title ‘the Persian’ could only

have become a distinctive one after the Persian period

was past."

          As Jaddua was high priest at the time of the invasion

of Asia by Alexander the Great,¹ and his victory over

Darius Codomannus, it would appear as though these

verses indicate a date nearly or quite a century after

Artaxerxes Longimanus. From this the critics infer

that the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah must

all be referred to a compiler living at this late period.

But (1) this conclusion is much too broad for the

premise on which it is built. The Book of Nehemiah is

preceded (i. 1) by a title of its own referring it to him as

its author. And, as Keil remarks, its being counted

with Ezra as together forming one book in early lists

of the canon no more establishes unity of authorship

than the fact that the twelve Minor Prophets were reck-

oned one book in the same lists proves that they had a

common author. A conclusion with regard to the date

of Nehemiah, if well founded, would have no bearing

upon the determination of the age of the books of Ezra

and Chronicles.

          (2) It is further to be observed that the list of priests

and Levites in xii. 1-26 is a section complete in itself,

and with no very close connection either with what pre-

cedes or follows.² The utmost that the critical argu-

ment of date could prove, if its validity were confessed,

 

          ¹ Josephus, Ant., xi. 8, 4.

          ² It is not wholly unconnected, for the introduction of this list at this

place appears to be due to the prominent part taken by priests and Le-

vites in the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, vs. 27-43.

46                GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

would be that this section could not have been a pre-ex-

isting document, which Nehemiah inserted in the body

of his narrative, as he did the similar list in vii. 5b ff.

If xii. 1-26 really contained internal evidence of be-

longing to a century after the time of Nehemiah, this

would not invalidate his authorship of the rest of the

book, in which no indication of late date is to be found.

It would merely show that this section did not belong

to the book as originally written, but was a subsequent

interpolation.¹

          (3) If, however, xii. 1-26 be examined more closely, it

will be found that the condemnation of even this pas-

sage is more than the critical argument will justify.

The section begins (vs. 1-9) with "the priests and the

Levites that went up with Zerubbabel and Jeshua." It

proceeds (vs. 12-21) with the priests "in the days of

Joiakim" the son of Jeshua. Then follow (vs. 24, 25)

"the chiefs of the Levites," concluding with the words

(ver. 26), "these were in the days of Joiakim, the son of

Jeshua, and in the days of Nehemiah the governor, and

Ezra the priest the scribe." This is accordingly a

tabular statement of the priests and Levites, including

both those who came up with the first colony of exiles

under Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and those of a subse-

quent generation, who lived during the high priesthood

of Joiakim, the son of Jeshua, and were contemporaries

of Ezra and Nehemiah. This being the declared design

of this section, one of two things must follow, either vs.

10,11, and vs. 22,23 do not have the meaning attributed

to them by the critics, or else they are out of harmony

with the section in which they are found, and so are no

proper part of it. Each of these alternatives has had its

advocates.

 

          ¹ This is maintained among others by Bertholdt, Einleitung, III., p.

1031, and Prideaux, The Old and New Testament Connected, i., p. 252.

              THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                  47

 

          (1.) Havernick ¹ endeavors to show without much suc-

cess that Nehemiah might have lived until Jaddua be-

came High Priest. Keil relieves the matter by remark-

ing that ver. 11 merely traces the line of descent to

Jaddua, without attributing to him any official position;

and even ver. 22, "Levites in the days of Eliashib,

Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua," need not be intended to

embrace four distinct bodies of Levites, living severally

under one or other of four different high priests, but a

single body of men with whom these four generations

of sacerdotal rank were contemporaries, Eliashib in ad-

vanced age, his great-grandson Jaddua in early youth.

According to xiii. 28, Nehemiah expelled a grandson of

Eliashib, who had married a daughter of Sanballat. It

is, therefore, quite supposable that he lived to see Jad-

dua, the great-grandchild of Eliashib. The adjustment

of this hypothesis to other known facts only requires

that Nehemiah, who came to Jerusalem B.C. 444, when

perhaps twenty years of age, and Jaddua, who lived

until the visit of Alexander, B.C. 332, could have been

contemporaries for say eighteen years. If each of them

attained the age of seventy-five, which is surely no vio-

lent supposition, the period is covered.²

 

          ¹ Einleitung, II., i., pp. 320-322.

          ² There is much uncertainty in regard to the terms of office of the

high priests after the return from exile in consequence of the conflict-

ing statements of authorities. See Herzfeld, Geschichte, II., Excursus

xi., p. 368. Keil needlessly infers from Neh. xiii. 4, 7, that Eliashib

died between Nehemiah's return to the king in the thirty-second year of

Artaxerxes, B.C. 433, and his second visit to Jerusalem. Then suppos-

ing Jaddua to be ten years old at the time of his great-grandfather's

death, he would have been one hundred and ten when Alexander came

to Jerusalem, to which he compares Jehoiada, high priest under king

Joash, living to the age of one hundred and thirty (2 Chron. xxiv. 15).

But if with Prideaux, p. 321, the death of Eliashib is put twenty

years later, B.C. 413, Jaddua would on the same supposition have been

ninety when he met Alexander.

48                   GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

          The inference "from the context" that the Darius

of Neh. xii. 22b is Darius Codomannus, is based on

the assumption that in ver. 22a Jaddua is spoken of

as high priest. If, on the other hand, his boyhood

is intended, Darius Nothus, B.C. 424-405, would be

meant. The assertion that "the title 'the Persian'

could only have become a distinctive one after the Per-

sian period was past," is contradicted by the Nakshi-

Rustan inscription of Darius Hystaspes, which in re-

cording his foreign possessions calls him "a Persian,

son of a Persian," and speaks of him as the "Persian

man who fought battles far from his land Persia." The

significance of the title lies in his bearing rule over non-

Persian lands, not in distinguishing him from a non-

Persian successor.

          (2.) If, however, in vs. 10, 11, 22, 23, Jaddua is re-

garded as high priest, and Darius Codomannus is in-

tended, these verses cannot properly belong in a list,

which limits itself to "the priests and Levites that went

up with Zerubbabel and Jeshua," and those who were

“in the days of Joiakim, Nehemiah, and Ezra.” They

must have been added at a later time to extend the list

beyond its original dimensions. Eichhorn¹ truly says:

"That these are a foreign addition by a later hand can

not only be made probable, but as rigidly proved as can

ever be expected in regard to books so ancient and with

critical aids so recent. The contents of these verses

destroys the unity of the entire chapter, and presents

something that the author did not mean to give. They

give a genealogy of the high priests from Jeshua on-

ward; and no other passage in this chapter is genea-

logical." Dr. Driver refers in a footnote to this ready

reply to the alleged indication of late date, but adds

even supposing this to have been the case, the other

 

          ¹ Einleitung, 4th edition. III.. p. 631,

          THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                    49

 

marks of late composition which the books contain

would still remain." We shall see whether there is any

more force in "the other marks" than in this which he

seems willing to surrender.

          d. "Neh. xii. 26, 47, the 'days of Nehemiah' are

spoken of in terms clearly implying that the writer

looked back upon them as past."

          "The days of Nehemiah" is manifestly an expression

that could be used indifferently by a contemporary of

Nehemiah, or by one who lived subsequent to his time.

There is nothing in the expression itself or in the con-

nection in which it stands to give the preference to the

latter alternative. The famous men and the remarkable

events that have added lustre to the reign of Queen

Victoria can be spoken of without implying that her

beneficent reign is ended.

          e. "Other indications of the same fact will appear

below; e.g., the position of Ezra iv. 6-23 (which refer-

ring, as it does, to what happened under Xerxes and

Artaxerxes, could not possibly have been placed where

it now stands by Ezra, a contemporary of the latter), the

contents and character of vii. 1-10," etc.

          First as to iv. 6-23. Ch. iv. 1-5 opens with an ac-

count of the vexatious conduct of the Samaritans, who,

when their proffered aid was declined in building the

temple, obstructed the work in every possible way dur-

ing the entire reign of Cyrus, and until the reign of Da-

rius Hystaspes, who held their hostility in check for a

time. Before explaining the action of Darius in this

matter the author proceeds to tell how this hostility

broke out afresh in the beginning of the very next reign,

that of Ahasuerus (=Xerxes, ver. 6), and in the following

reign succeeded in obtaining from Artaxerxes an edict

forbidding the construction of the city walls (vs. 7-23).

The writer then reverts to the first stage of this hostility

50                  GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

(ver. 5), the stoppage of the work upon the temple, and

relates in detail how the favor of Darius was secured,

and how effectually he thwarted the designs of the

Samaritans (iv. 24–vi. 15), an intimation being given (vi.

14) of an edict of Artaxerxes of a different tenor from

that first issued, without explaining how it was brought

about. The way is now prepared for the mission of

Ezra and his reformatory labors (Ezra vii.–x.) and for

that of Nehemiah, to whom it was left to explain how

the favor of Artaxerxes was obtained, and how he was

induced to give orders for the rebuilding of the walls

(Neh.  ii.).

          Opinions may differ as to the wisdom of the plan

which the writer has seen fit to adopt. I agree with

those who think it carefully considered and well carried

out. Dr. Driver and others are utterly dissatisfied with

it. They complain that "the notice of the letter to

Ahasuerus and the correspondence with Artaxerxes re-

late to a different and subsequent period, and is out of

place, as they relate to the interruptions to the project

of rebuilding, not the temple, but the city walls, occur-

rences some eighty years later than the period he was

describing." The writer might, indeed, if he had so

chosen, upon the mention of the interruptions to the

rebuilding of the temple, have proceeded at once to say

how these were overcome and when the temple was

completed, and have reserved the obstruction to the re-

building of the walls to a later point in his narrative.

But it was equally consistent with good style to group

together the successive acts of hostility which the Jews

experienced from their neighbors, and let the progress

of the history show how the temple and the walls of

Jerusalem were finally built in spite of all that their

enemies could do to prevent it. In this there is no

overleaping a period of "eighty years." The trouble is

            THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                51

 

traced through each successive reign: in ver. 5, Cyrus

to Darius; then ver. 6, Xerxes; then ver. 7, Artaxerxes

There is no good reason for the charge that this is a

method which could only mislead and confuse the

reader." And the mistake attributed to the writer of

referring "to troubles connected with the restoration

of the temple what related in fact to the restoration of

the city walls" really belongs to those interpreters who,

disregarding the plain sense of the language used, en-

deavored to force it into correspondence with precon-

ceived notions of their own.

          Secondly, as to vii. 1-10. It is claimed on very trivial

grounds that this "is certainly not Ezra's work," but

none of the objections which are raised have the sem-

blance of implying a later date than the time of Ezra.

Notice is taken of "the omission of Ezra's immediate

ancestors (for Seraiah was contemporary with Zedekiah,

2 Kin. xxv. 18-21), one hundred and thirty years pre-

viously to Ezra's time." The only inference which can

be drawn from this is that Ezra preferred to link himself

with his distinguished ancestors before the exile rather

than with those since of less note. He was sprung

from the line of high priests extending from Aaron to

Seraiah, but not including Jehozadak, Seraiah's succes-

sor (1 Chron. vi. 14, 15), the probability being that he

was descended from a younger son of Seraiah, so that

the family was thenceforward of lower rank.

          "Vs. 7-9 anticipate cli. viii." In introducing him-

self to his readers Ezra first gives his pedigree (vs. 1-5),

then states very briefly and in general terms the fact,

the purpose, and the time of his coming to Jerusalem

with a fresh colony of exiles (vs. 6-10), as preliminary

to a detailed account of his commission from the king

(vs. 11-28), the persons who accompanied him (viii.

1-14), and the particulars of the expedition (vs. 15-31)

52            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

and its arrival (vs. 32-36). It is difficult to see why

the same person might not write all this continu-

ously.

          "The expressions of the compiler in ver. 10," the

evidence of which is found in their correspondence

with expressions in the Books of Chronicles. But what

if the compiler was Ezra himself, who has very gener-

ally been supposed to be the author of Chronicles?

And Dr. Driver admits that he uses one of Ezra's ex-

pressions at the end of vs. 6, 9. Whether, however,

Ezra wrote the book which bears his name, or it was

compiled by another, is of little moment so far as our

present inquiry is concerned, unless it can be shown

that the compilation was made after Ezra's own

time.

          Thirdly. One more argument remains:  "There are

long periods on which the narrative is silent; in one

case especially (Ezra vi. 22-vii. 1), an interval of sixty

years, immediately before Ezra's own time, being passed

over by the words  'After these things' in a manner

not creditable if the writer were Ezra himself, but per-

fectly natural if the writer lived in an age to which the

period, B.C. 516-458, was visible only in a distant per-

spective." It should be remembered, however, that the

book does not profess to be an annalistic record of all

that took place. It deals with the early condition and

prospects of the infant colony and the progress made

in re-establishing the worship of God, and in freeing the

people from heathenish contamination; and periods in

which there was nothing to record which was germane

to the purpose of the writer are, of course, passed over

slightly.  "After these things" (vii. 1) refers not only

to the dedication of the temple fifty-eight years before,

as described in the immediately preceding verses, but

to all that had been previously recorded, including (iv.

          THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                   53

 

6-23) the embarrassments which had arisen in the reign

of Xerxes and Artaxerxes almost at the very time of

Ezra's coming.

          The arguments adduced to prove that the books of

Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah belong to "a date

shortly after B.C. 333," when the Persian empire was

overthrown by Alexander the Great, have now been ex-

amined, and it is fair to say that so far from establish-

ing the date alleged, they point to nothing later than

the age of Ezra and Nehemiah, or the close of the reign

of Artaxerxes, B.C. 425.

          The only data for ascertaining the age of the Book of

Ecclesiastes are its reflections upon governmental abuses

and the character of its language; and these are of too

vague and general a nature to lead to a determinate re-

sult. Dr. Driver says ("Lit. 0. T.," p. 471):  "Its pages

reflect the depression produced by the corruption of an

Oriental despotism, with its injustice (iii. 16, iv. 1, v. 8,

viii. 9), its capriciousness (x. 5f.), its revolutions (x. 7),

its system of spies (x. 20), its hopelessness of reform.

Its author must have lived when the Jews had lost their

national independence and formed but a province of

the Persian empire, perhaps even later when they had

passed under the rule of the Greeks (3d cent. B.C.)."

And (p. 475f.)  "The precise date of Ecclesiastes cannot

be determined, our knowledge of the history not enab-

ling us to interpret with any confidence the allusions to

concrete events which it seems to contain. But the

general political condition which it presupposes, and

the language, make it decidedly probable that it is not

earlier than the latter years of the Persian rule, which

ended B.C. 333, and it is quite possible that it is later."

How inconclusive this argument is in Dr. Driver's own

esteem is apparent from the use made of "perhaps,"

"probable," and "possible" in the course of it. Doubt-

54              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

less any Oriental despotism, Babylonish, Persian, or

Grecian, at any period of its history, would afford abun-

dant materials for just such reflections as are to be

found in Ecclesiastes. And for all that appears they

could be indulged in the first century of the Persian

domination, B.C. 536-436, as well as afterward.

          Dr. Driver further says (p. 473):  "Linguistically,

Ecclesiastes stands by itself in the Old Testament. The

Hebrew in which it is written has numerous features in

common with the latest parts of the Old Testament,

Ezra and Nehemiah, Chronicles, Esther, but it has in

addition many not met with in these books, but found

first in the Mishnah (which includes, no doubt, older

elements, but received its present form cir. 200 A.D.).

The characteristic of the Hebrew in which these latest

parts of the Old Testament are written is that while

many of the old classical words and expressions still

continue in use, and, in fact, still preponderate, the syn-

tax is deteriorated, the structure of sentences is cum-

brous and inelegant, and there is a very decided admix-

ture of words and idioms not found before, having

usually affinities with the Aramaic, or being such as are

in constant and regular use in the Hebrew of post-

Christian times (the Mishnah, etc.). And this latter

element is decidedly larger and more prominent in

Ecclesiastes than in either Esther or Ezra, Nehemiah,

Chronicles." And (p. 476) some "place it cir. 200 B.C.

on the ground of language, which favors, even though

our knowledge is not sufficient to enable us to say that

it requires, a date later than" the latter years of the Per-

sian rule.

          But in the chaotic condition of the Hebrew language

after the exile, and its rapid deterioration from constant

contact with the Aramean, from which it had already re-

ceived a large infusion, and which was in familiar use

         THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                  55

 

along with it, as is shown by the Aramean sections of

the Book of Ezra, the measure of its degeneracy in any

particular writing cannot afford a certain criterion of its

relative date. The critics certainly do not feel them-

selves bound by any such rule. The purity of Joel's

style does not prevent them from attempting to prove

him postexilic. They do not hesitate to place Isaiah

xl.—lxvi., notwithstanding its classic elegance, later than

Ezekiel with his abundant Aramaisms and anomalous

forms. The Hebrew original of the Book of Sirach or

Ecclesiasticus is, in the judgment of Dr. Driver (p. 474

note), predominantly classical, "and in syntax and

general style stands upon a much higher level than Ec-

clesiastes or Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles," all of

which he places a century or more before it. In our

ignorance of the extent to which the popular language

had been corrupted by Aramaisms in the first century

after the exile, or how far the language of certain books

written at that time may have been affected by the imi-

tation of earlier models, it cannot with any show of rea-

son be affirmed that such a book as Ecclesiastes could

not have been produced then.

          The attempt to establish a late date for the book by

the supposed detection of Sadducean sentiments or of

the influence of certain forms of Greek philosophy has

still less to recommend it.

          In regard to Esther, Dr. Driver says (p. 484):  "Ma-

terials do not exist for fixing otherwise than approxi-

mately the date at which the Book of Esther was com-

posed. Xerxes is described (i. 1 f.) in terms which im-

ply that his reign lay in a somewhat distant past when

the author wrote. By the majority of critics the book

is assigned either to the early years of the Greek period

(which began B.C. 332), or to the third century B.C.

With such a date the diction would well agree, which,

56              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

though superior to that of the Chronicler, and more ac-

commodated to the model of the earlier historical books,

contains many late words and idioms, and exhibits much

deterioration in syntax."

          No protracted period after the reign of Xerxes is re-

quired to account for the manner in which he is spoken

of (i. 1 f.). The language used would be entirely appro-

priate under his immediate successor Artaxerxes Longi-

manus. And the character of the Hebrew of the Book

of Esther finds an adequate explanation then as well as

at a later time. The critical opinion, which would place

it one or two centuries later, is due to a disposition

to discredit the history, which accords admirably with

what is known from other sources of the life and char-

acter of Xerxes, and of Persian customs, and is con-

firmed by the feast of Purim, established in commemo-

ration of the deliverance here recorded, and which,

according to Josephus,¹ the Jews have observed ever

since.

          Of all the revolutionary conclusions of the critics there

is no one that is affirmed with greater positiveness or

with an air of more assured confidence than that the

Book of Daniel is a product of the Maccabean period.

And yet Delitzsch,² before lie had himself yielded to

the prevailing current, correctly describes it as a book,

"which has been of the most commanding and most

effective influence on the New Testament writings, which

belongs to the most essential presuppositions of the

Apocalypse of John, and to the predictions of which The

who is the way, the truth, and the life for science also,

attaches an emphatic Nota Bene (let him that readeth

understand Mat. xxiv. 15); a book, the genuineness of

which had no other opposer for almost two thousand

years than the heathen scoffer Porphyry in his Words

 

          ¹ Ant., xi. 6, 12.     

          ² Herzog's Encyklopaedie, III., p. 271.

             THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                     57

 

against Christians,' but whose spuriousness has in

Germany, since Semler and Eichhorn, become step by

step a more and more indubitable fact to the Biblical

Criticism which proceeds from rationalistic presuppo-

sitions. . . . The principal ground of modern Crit-

icism against its genuineness, as it makes no conceal-

ment whatever itself, lies in the miracles and predictions

of the book." With almost unbroken uniformity the

critics unhesitatingly determine the date of the book by

what they consider the limit of its professed predictions,

which in their esteem are merely history in the garb of

prophecy.

          Dr. Driver indeed makes a show of separating the

literary from the dogmatic grounds on which it is

claimed that the book is not "the work of Daniel him-

self." According to Dr. Driver, "Internal evidence

shows, with a cogency that cannot be resisted, that it

must have been written not earlier than circ. 300 B.C.,

and in Palestine; and it is at least probable that it was

composed under the persecution of Antiochus Epipha-

nes, 168 or 167 B.C.

          "1. The following are facts of a historical nature,

which point more or less decisively to an author later

than Daniel himself:

          "a. The position of the book in the Jewish Canon,

not among the prophets, but in the miscellaneous col-

lection of writings called the Hagiographa, and among

the latest of these, in proximity to Esther. Though

little definite is known respecting the formation of the

Canon, the division known as the 'Prophets,' was doubt-

less formed prior to the Hagiographa; and had the

Book of Daniel existed at the time, it is reasonable to

suppose that it would have ranked as the work of a

prophet, and have been included among the former."

          The fact is that its being included in the Canon is a

58              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

serious obstacle to the critical hypothesis of its late

date. And as will be shown, when we come to consider

the threefold division of the Canon, it has its proper

place, and that not in conflict with but confirmatory of

the date which it claims for itself and which has until

recent times been uniformly attributed to it.

          "b. Jesus, the son of Sirach (writing circ. 200 B.C.),

in his enumeration of Israelitish worthies, ch. xliv.-1.,

though he mentions Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and (col-

lectively) the twelve Minor Prophets, is silent as to

Daniel."

          So, too, though he mentions Zerubbabel, Jeshua the

son of Jozadak, and Nehemiah, he is silent as to Ezra.

Are we, therefore, to infer that there was no such per-

son as Ezra, or that he was not associated with Nehe-

miah, or that he was of so little consequence that the

son of Sirach had never heard of him? And shall the

silence of the son of Sirach outweigh the express men-

tion of Daniel by his contemporary Ezekiel (xiv. 14,

20, xxviii. 3)?¹

          "c. That Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and

 

          ¹ Dr. Driver says, p. 510 note:  "Whether he is alluded to in Ezek.

xiv. 14, 20, xxviii. 3 is uncertain: the terms in which Ezekiel speaks

in ch. xiv., seem to suggest a patriarch of antiquity, rather than a

younger contemporary of his own." The remark is gratuitous and

without the slightest foundation. "Noah, Daniel, and Job" are grouped

together, with no reference to the age in which they lived, as signal

instances of those who had delivered others by their righteousness;

Noah, whose family were saved with himself from the flood; Daniel,

who by his prevailing prayer rescued the wise men of Babylon from

being slain by the frenzied order of the king (Dan. ii. 18-24); and

Job, whose three friends were spared at his intercession (Job xlii.

7-9). If Grant, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great were mentioned

together as three famous generals, would the fact that one was mod-

ern and the others ancient make the identity of the first named un-

certain? The Daniel of the captivity precisely answers to Ezekiel's de-

scription, and there is no other that does.

         THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                          59

 

carried away some of the sacred vessels in the third

year of Jelioiakim' (Dan. i. 1 f.), though it cannot,

strictly speaking, be disproved, is highly improbable;

not only is the Book of Kings silent, but Jeremiah, in

the following year (ch. xxv., etc.; see ver. 1), speaks of

the Chaldeans in a manner which appears distinctly to

imply that their arms had not yet been seen in Judah."

          The solution of this imaginary difficulty is very

simple. It is only necessary to remember that a mili-

tary expedition is not always finished in the same year

in which it is undertaken. Nebuchadnezzar began his

march in the third year of Jehoiakim. His advance was

disputed by Pharaoh-neco; the decisive battle of Car-

chemish, which broke the power of Egypt, was fought

in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer. xlvi. 1). The way

was now clear for Nebuchadnezzar to continue his

march and lay siege to Jerusalem. The Hebrew verb in

Dan. i. 1 does not require us to understand that Nebu-

chadnezzar arrived in Jerusalem in the third year of

Jehoiakim, much less that he finished his siege and

carried off his booty in that year. It is the same verb

that is used of the vessel, in which Jonah took passage

(Jon. i. 3), which was not then arriving in Tarshish,

but "going to Tarshish," i.e., setting out on its voyage

to that place.

          "d. The Chaldeans' are synonymous in Dan. i. 4,

ii. 2, etc., with the caste of wise men. This sense ‘is

unknown in the Ass.-Bab. language, has, wherever it

occurs, formed itself after the end of the Babylonian

empire, and is thus an indication of the post-exilic com-

position of the book’ (Schrader, Keilinschriften and d.

A. Test., Ed. 2, p. 429). It dates, namely, from a time

when practically the only Chaldeans’ known belonged

to the caste in question."

          One might naturally suppose from the positive man-

60              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

ner in which this assertion is made, that all the senses

which the word "Chaldeans" had or could have in

the language of Babylon were well known, and that it

was an ascertained fact that a meaning is attributed to

it in the Book of Daniel which was entirely foreign to

Babylonish usage. And yet Schrader himself says (p.

133 of the very volume from which the above assertion

is taken), "that the name Chaldeans has thus far only

been found in Assyrian monuments," and that "hither-

to we possess accounts about the Chaldeans only from

Assyrian sources"; so that, while it is conjectured that

the Babylonish pronunciation of the word has been pre-

served in the Hebrew, as the Assyrian has in the Greek,

even this is as yet without monumental verification. It

would appear, therefore, that he had no monumental

authority whatever for saying that the word" Chal-

deans" was not applied in Babylon, as it is in the Book

of Daniel, to one of the classes of wise men.

          "c. Belshazzar is represented as king of Babylon; and

Nebuchadnezzar is spoken of throughout ch. v. (vs. 2,

11, 13, 18, 22) as his father. In point of fact Nabonidus

(Nabunahid) was the last king of Babylon; he was a

usurper, not related to Nebuchadnezzar, and one Bel-

sharuzur is mentioned as his son."

          It is surprising that this notable proof of the writer's

familiarity with affairs in Babylon should be urged as

an objection to Daniel's authorship. No ancient writer,

native or foreign, has preserved the name of Belshazzar,

or given any hint of his existence, except the Book of

Daniel. Daniel's Belshazzar was accordingly a puzzle

to believers in the authenticity of the book, and a butt

of ridicule to unbelievers, like Isaiah's casual mention of

Sargon (xx. 1), who is similarly unknown to any other

ancient writer. But the first Assyrian mound excavated

by Botta proved to be the palace of Sargon, and Isaiah

           THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                      61

 

was vindicated. Nabuna'id's Sippara inscription solved

the mystery of Belshazzar, of whom he speaks as "his

eldest son, the offspring of his heart." "Belshazzar the

king's son" is likewise spoken of in several contract

tablets in connection with his household arrangements

and business transactions in which he was concerned.

From the annalistic inscription of Nabuna'id, which re-

cords his movements in each successive year of his reign,

it appears that Belshazzar was in command of the troops

in northern Babylonia, while Nabuna'id himself re-

mained in Tema, a suburb of Babylon, from his seventh

to his eleventh year. There is then an unfortunate

break in the inscription until Nabuna'id's last year, his

seventeenth, when he is stated to have been himself at

the head of the troops in northern Babylonia to resist

the advance of Cyrus, and was defeated by him. This

creates the presumption that Belshazzar may have been

on duty elsewhere, perhaps in charge of the capital,

which would be in accord with Dan. v.

          But Dr. Driver insists that "the inscriptions lend no

support to the hypothesis that Belsharuzur was his

father's viceroy, or was entitled to be spoken of as

'king'; he was called 'the king's son' to the day of

his death." According to the inscriptions Belshazzar

was the king's son, his first born, his dearly beloved

son, and in command of the army; what is there in this

to discredit the additional statement of the Book of

Daniel that he was addressed as "king"? or to forbid

the assumption that he may have been formally raised

to the dignity of participation with his father in the

kingdom, perhaps in those later years of his reign, the

record of which in the annalistic inscription has been

unfortunately obliterated? In the first edition of his

"Literature of the Old Testament " Dr. Driver says,

in a. footnote, "In respect of vii. 1, viii. 1, if they stood

62                 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

alone, association with his father on the throne would be

conceivable. But in T. 28, 30 he seems to be described

as sole king." The statement in the first sentence covers

the entire case. The affirmation in the second sentence

is a most extraordinary one, inasmuch as v. 29 makes it

evident that Belshazzar was not sole king. Why was

Daniel promoted to be the third ruler in the kingdom?

Why not second, as in the case of Joseph, who was ad-

vanced to be next to Pharaoh? This was never under-

stood until the position of Belshazzar was cleared up

by the monuments. Daniel was third because next to

Nabuna'id and Belshazzar. Dr. Driver's suggestion,

p. 490, that Daniel was "made one of the three chief

ministers in the kingdom," like the marginal rendering

of the English Revisers, "rule as one of three," is a

simple evasion and a departure from the plain meaning

of the original word.

          But how could Nebuchadnezzar be the father of Bel-

shazzar, when his real father was Nabuna'id, "a usurper,

not related to Nebuchadnezzar"? Here Dr. Driver

makes the reluctant admission:  "There remains the pos-

sibility that Nabu-nahid may have sought to strengthen

his position by marrying a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar,

in which case the latter might be spoken of as Belshaz-

zar's father (= grandfather, by Hebrew usage). The

terms of ch. v., however, produce certainly the impression

that, in the view of the writer, Belshazzar was actually

Neb.'s son." It might as well be said that when Jesus

is called "the son of David," the view of the writer

must have been that he was David's immediate descend-

ant. These words might be so interpreted by one who

did not know from other sources that this could not be

their meaning. We have, it is true, no positive infor-

mation that Nabuna'id was thus allied with the family

of Nebuchadnezzar; but there are corroborating cir-

             THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                      63

 

cumstances, which, to say the least, heighten the "pos-

sibility" into a very strong probability. This supposi-

tion is commended by its perfectly reconciling all the

statements in the case; such a marriage may have

inflamed his ambition and led to his usurpation after

the example of Neriglissar, the successful conspirator

against his brother-in-law Evil-merodach, the son of

Nebuchadnezzar; this, too, explains the fact, attested

by the Behistun inscription, that Nabuna'id had a son

Nebuchadnezzar, who was twice personated by impostors

in the reign of Darius Hystaspes. My colleague, Dr.

Davis, has called my attention to an unpublished coro-

nation inscription¹ of Nabuna'id, in which he says: "Of

Nebuchadnezzar and Neriglissar the kings my prede-

cessors their mighty descendant I am he." This ex-

plicit claim on the part of Nabuna'id, however he may

have justified it, is direct monumental evidence that he,

and by consequence also his son Belshazzar, considered

themselves descendants of Nebuchadnezzar.

          One mutilated passage in the annalistic inscription,

which is understood by Sayce, Schrader, and Winckler to

record the death of "the king's wife," has more recently

been translated by Hagen, with the approval of Pinches

and Frederick Delitzsch, "On the night of the eleventh

of Marchesvan Gobryas attacked and killed the son (?)

of the king."  Upon which Dr. Driver remarks:  "When

the Persians (as the same inscription shows) had been

in peaceable possession of Babylon for four months, how

could Belshazzar, even supposing (what is not in itself

inconceivable) that he still held out in the palace, and

was slain afterward in attempting to defend it, promise

and dispense (v. 7, 16, 29) honors in his kingdom, and

what need could there be for the solemn announcement

 

          ¹ Translated in part by Boscawen, Biblical and Oriental Record,

September, 1896.

64               GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

(v. 25-28), as of something new and unexpected, that his

(or his father's) kingdom was to be given to the Medes

and Persians, when it must have been patent to every-

one that they were already in possession of it?"

          It is scarcely necessary to take any special pains to

defend the accuracy of the Book of Daniel against this

hypothetical rendering, of which Hagen himself says:

"It is greatly to be regretted that the words which give

account of the death which took place in the night of

the eleventh of Marchesvan, have come down to us so

mutilated and defaced. . . . Before a decisive ut-

terance can be made on a point so unusually important

historically, it is necessary to wait for a duplicate of the

text, which shall leave no doubt whatever as to the

characters in question." But supposing the case to be

precisely as Dr. Driver puts it, it will be observed that

the inscription so understood confirms the account of

Daniel in at least three important particulars, viz., that

Belshazzar met a violent death, in the night, and on the

final collapse of the Babylonish power. The difficulties

suggested by Dr. Driver will be dispelled, if Belshazzar

and his lords believed the palace impregnable, and cher-

ished the expectation that their armies might yet be

rallied and the intruder expelled. It has its parallels in

Jeremiah's purchase of a field in Anathoth at the very

time that Jerusalem was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar

and the captivity was imminent (Jer. xxxii. 8-12); and in

the public sale by Romans of the land on which Hanni-

bal was encamped, while he was thundering at the gates

of their city with every prospect of accomplishing its

overthrow.

          Dr. Driver sums up the whole situation, as he regards

it, in the words, "The historical presuppositions of

Dan. v. are inconsistent with the evidence of the con-

temporary monuments." On the contrary, a careful exam-

           THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                     65

 

ination of all that he has adduced justifies the assertion

that he has failed to point out a single inconsistency

between Dan. v. and the monuments. Now is it con-

ceivable that a nameless Jew of a later age, whom the

critics, in order to make out their case, are obliged to

charge with gross ignorance of some very conspicuous

facts of the intervening history, is the author of a narra-

tive detailing particulars respecting the last day of the

Babylonish empire, which have escaped the notice of

all ancient writers, but are signally confirmed by native

and contemporary inscriptions brought to light within

the last few years, in which he states that there was a Bel-

shazzar; that he was in Babylon and in high authority

at the time of its final surrender; that he was descended

from Nebuchadnezzar (in spite of the fact that his

father was a usurper and not of royal blood); that the

queen is distinguished (ver. 10) from the wives of Bel-

shazzar (ver. 3); that she was living at the fall of the

city (if Schrader reads correctly); that she was familiar

with facts in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, of which Bel-

shazzar appears to have been ignorant; that she was a

superior person, calculated to win universal respect, as

shown by her calm and dignified demeanor in the midst

of a terror-stricken assemblage. In the statement of

these minute circumstances, otherwise unknown, there

is abundant opportunity for anyone to trip who was

not perfectly familiar with the facts with which he was

dealing. And yet the writer of this book has threaded

his way through them all without being convicted of a

single blunder. And it may be added that the inscrip-

tion of Cyrus, which declares that his army entered

Babylon without opposition, has falsified the statements

of other historians on the subject, but Daniel remains

uncontradicted. He speaks of no siege and no strata-

gem to gain admission to the walls.  He simply says

66            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

that Belshazzar was slain, and that the kingdom was

transferred to the Medes and Persians. Here is another

chance for a blunder. Nabuna'id survived the fall of

Babylon, but, if Hagen reads correctly, there is monu-

mental evidence that Belshazzar did not. Can we fail

to see in all this the hand of one present at the scene,

and who knows whereof he affirms?

          f. "Darius, son of Ahasuerus—elsewhere the Hebrew

form of Xerxes—a Mede, after the death of Belshazzar,

is 'made king over the realm of the Chaldeans' (v. 31,

vi. 1 ff., ix. 1, xi. 1). There seems to be no room for such

a ruler. According to all other authorities, Cyrus is the

immediate successor of Nabu-nahid, and the ruler of

the entire Persian empire."

          But Sargon and Belshazzar admonish us not to be too

hasty in imagining that the explicit statement of a sa-

cred writer is in every case outweighed by the silence

of other historians. Perhaps Darius the Mede may be

the Cyaxares¹ of Xenophon, or he may be some noble

of Median birth, to whom Cyrus found it convenient to

commit the government of Babylon for a brief term.

We can afford, in this instance, to wait for further light.

The inscription of Cyrus records his entry into the city

and the submission of its inhabitants and of the sur-

rounding region, but beyond the appointment of some

subordinate officials says nothing of the arrangements

for its government. So far then from there being "no

room for such a ruler," the way is entirely open for any

ruler whom Cyrus might see fit to place in authority

over this conquered kingdom. Dr. Driver gratuitously

utters the groundless suspicion that the writer has here

confused distinct persons, and that Darius the Mede is

"a reflection into the past of Darius Hystaspes," though

in his first edition he acknowledged that "the circum-

 

          ¹ So Josephus, Ant., x. 11, 4.

       THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                67

 

stances are not, perhaps, such as to be absolutely in-

consistent with either the existence or the office of

Darius the Mede; and a cautious criticism will not

build too much on the silence of the inscriptions, where

many certainly remain yet to be brought to light."

          "In ix. 2 it is stated that Daniel ‘understood by

the books' the number of years for which, according to

Jeremiah, Jerusalem should lie waste. The expression

used implies that the prophecies of Jeremiah formed

part of a collection of sacred books which, nevertheless,

it may safely be affirmed, was not formed in 536 B. C."

          It is difficult to see with what propriety such an af-

firmation can be made, or what there was to prevent

Daniel from having in his possession the inspired books,

so far as they had then been written, and among them

the prophecies of Jeremiah.

          h. "Other indications adduced to show that the book

is not the work of a contemporary are such as the fol-

lowing:  The improbability that Daniel, a strict Jew,

should have suffered himself to be initiated into the

class of Chaldean ‘wise men,’ or should have been ad-

mitted by the wise men themselves (ch. i; cf. ii. 13);

Nebuchadnezzar's seven years' insanity (lycanthropy),

with his edict respecting it; the absolute terms in which

both he and Darius (iv. 1-3, 34-37, vi. 25-27), while

retaining, so far as appears, their idolatry, recognize the

supremacy of the God of Daniel, and command homage

to be done to Him."

          It is surely not worth while to waste time and space

in giving a serious answer to frivolous objections of

this nature, which might be multiplied to any extent.

It is sufficient to quote Dr. Driver's own words in re-

gard to them:  "The circumstances alleged will appear

improbable or not improbable, according as the critic,

upon independent grounds, has satisfied himself that

68             GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

the book is the work of a later author or written by

Daniel himself."

          In the opinion of Dr. Driver, the arguments above re-

cited "tend to show that this book reflects the tradi-

tions and historical impressions of an age considerably

later than that of Daniel himself." There seems to be

nothing to justify this conclusion. On the contrary,

the accuracy of its statements, even in minute particu-

lars, wherever it is possible to test them by comparison

with other trustworthy sources, its acquaintance with

facts mentioned by no other historian, but recently con-

firmed by contemporary monuments, and its general

correspondence with all that is known of the situation

assumed, show a familiarity on the part of the writer

with the scenes described such as could not be expected

in a Jew residing in Palestine two or more centuries

later, but which agrees exactly with the claim which it

makes for itself of being the work of Daniel, a high

official in the court of Babylon.

          In regard to the language of the Book of Daniel, Dr.

Driver says:  "The Persian words presuppose a period

after the Persian empire had been well established;

the Greek words demand, the Hebrew supports, and the

Aramaic permits, a date after the conquest of Palestine

by Alexander the Great, B.C. 332."

          This is a sweeping conclusion from very slender and

precarious premises. Like Persian words occur in

Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Chronicles. Why might

they not be used also by Daniel, who was brought into

immediate contact with Persian monarchs and offi-

cers? And who can assure us that Arian words, which

can now be best explained from the Persian, had not

wandered into the popular speech of the great me-

tropolis of Babylon before its conquest by Cyrus, even

though they have not yet been found in the inscrip-

       THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON               69

 

Lions? The Greek words, of which earlier critics had

scraped together a formidable list, have now been re-

duced to three names of musical instruments. One of

these is a Homeric word, which, Dr. Driver admits,

might have travelled into the East. And though the

other two do not chance to appear in this sense in

Greek literature until a later time, this does not dis-

prove their existence in ordinary speech, nor the pos-

sibility of their being carried to Babylon. Delitzsch¹

says on this subject, "Why should not three Greek in-

struments have been known in Babylon, the 'city of

merchants,' as Ezekiel calls it, in the pre-seleucid pe-

riod? A recent philologist² says, without having the

Book of Daniel in mind, and, therefore, quite unbiassed

in his judgment: ‘The extended trade of the Greek

colonies must not seldom have brought Greek merchants

into Assyrian countries. They even penetrated beyond

the Volga far into the inhospitable steppes of Russia on

the Don. But the intercourse with the Assyrian prov-

inces of Asia Minor must have been most considerable.

That Greeks came as merchants even to Assyria itself

is and must remain only a supposition, but it is certain

that Greek soldiers accompanied Esarhaddon in his ex-

peditions through Asia, and that, generally speaking, the

West took part to a greater extent in the revolutions of

the East than one would believe is shown by the frag-

ment of a poetical letter of Almus to his brother An-

timenides, who had won glory and stipend under the

standard of Nebuchadnezzar.’ Accordingly, acquaint-

ance with three Greek instruments would not be sur-

prising nor inexplicable even in Nineveh, not to say in

Babylon under the later Chaldean dominion."

          Dr. Driver alleges that "the Aramaic of Daniel,

 

          ¹ Herzog Encyk., 1st edition, III., p. 274.

          ² John Brandis, Allgem. Monatsschrift, 1854, 2.

70           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

(which is all but identical with that of Ezra) is a West-

ern Aramaic dialect, of the type spoken in and about

Palestine." Delitzsch¹ was of a different opinion:  "Af-

finity with the Palestine Aramaic is lacking entirely;

it is with the Aramaic of the Book of Ezra the oldest

East Aramaic monument preserved to us." And the

interchange of Hebrew and Aramean is precisely sim-

ilar to that in Ezra. The Hebrew of the book has fewer

anomalies than that of Ezekiel, and corresponds with

that of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The critics

arbitrarily assign these books to the close of the Persian

or beginning of the Greek period, and undertake to sup-

port this position by the unwarranted assertion that the

common character of their language is indicative of

this late date; but this is a figment used to bolster up

a foregone critical conclusion. These books belong to

the period of Ezra and Nehemiah, and determine the

language of their time. And the agreement of Daniel

with them in this respect points to a period not far

removed from them. In the words of Delitzsch,²  "In

short, the total impression of the form of the language

corresponds to the time of composition claimed by the

Book of Daniel." And this is not discredited by the

fact that Zechariah adhered somewhat more closely to

the Hebrew of earlier books.

          As the historical and linguistic objections are insuffi-

cient to disprove Daniel's authorship, it remains to be

seen whether the dogmatic objections are any more de-

cisive. If the atheistic or pantheistic position is taken,

that miracles and predictive prophecy are impossible,

and that doctrinal development can be no other than a

purely natural growth, the question is settled; Daniel

cannot have been the author of the book. But to those

 

          ¹ Herzog-Plitt Encyk., III., p. 471.

          ² Herzog Encyk., III., p. 274.

          THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                  71

 

who are theists, and who believe that God has made a

revelation to men, authenticated by immediate mani-

festations of His presence and power, the advanced

teachings of this book, the miracles which it records,

and the clear prevision of the future here displayed,

cannot be accepted as proofs that it is not what it claims

to be, what it has traditionally been believed to be,

and what, according to our Lord's teaching, it is.

          Dr. Driver infers that this book belongs to "a later

age than that of the exile," because "the doctrines of

the Messiah, of angels, of the resurrection, and of a

judgment on the world, are taught with greater distinct-

ness, and in a more developed form, than elsewhere in

the Old Testament." But it is difficult to see why fresh

revelations on these subjects might not be made to

Daniel, as well as to one in the period of the Maccabees.

The inspired writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews be-

lieved that there were those who, through faith, had

"stopped the mouths of lions, and quenched the vio-

lence of fire"; why may we not believe it, too?

          But it is chiefly to the predictions that Dr. Driver

objects:

          1. "That the revelations respecting Antiochus Epi-

phanes should be given to Daniel, in Babylon, nearly

four centuries previously."

          2. "The minuteness of the predictions, embracing

even special events in the distant future."

          3. "While down to the period of Antiochus' persecu-

tion the actual events are described with surprising dis-

tinctness, after this point the distinctness ceases: the

prophecy either breaks off altogether, or merges in an

ideal representation of the Messianic future."

          But (1) the Bible contains numerous predictions of

the remote future, and these often relating to specific

events, which are exactly stated or more or less minutely

72          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

described. It was revealed to Abraham that a great

nation should descend from him (Gen. xii. 2), which

should possess the land of Canaan (ver. 7), but should

first be in bondage in a foreign land four hundred years,

on which judgments should be inflicted, and then they

should come out with great substance (xv. 13, 14). To

Isaac, that Esau's descendants should serve Jacob, but

should ultimately throw off his yoke (xxvii. 40). To

Jacob, many particulars respecting the settlement of the

tribes in Canaan, including the sceptre in Judah (ch.

xlix.). To Balaam, the sceptre that should rise out of

Israel and smite surrounding lands, the triumphs of

Assyria, and its overthrow (Num. xxiv.). To Moses,

that Israel should suffer from distant invaders, and be

carried into exile (Deut. xxviii.). To Isaiah, at the very

outset of his ministry, the desolation and captivity of

Judah (v. 13, 26-30, vi. 11, 12); at the beginning of the

reign of Ahaz, the Assyrian invasion and its inglorious

issue (vii. 17 ff., viii. 7-10), which he continued to reiter-

ate until Sennacherib's disastrous overthrow; when

Hezekiah vaingloriously displayed his treasures to mes-

sengers from Babylon, that these should be carried

thither into captivity (xxxix. 6, 7), but that Babylon

itself should fall and be reduced to utter desolation

(chs. xiv.), and Judah's exiles be released by Cyrus

(xliv. 26, 28). To Micah, that Zion should be ploughed

as a field, and its people exiled to Babylon, and there

delivered (iii. 12, iv. 10). To Jeremiah, the precise du-

ration of the captivity (xxv. 11, 12), the utter desolation

of Edom (xlix. 17), and the fall of Babylon (chs. li., lii.).

To Zechariah, the victory of Zion over the Grecian army

of Antiochus Epiphanes (ix. 13). If there is any truth

in the representations of Scripture on this subject, there

have been numberless predictions of specific events in

the distant future. Those who deny the possibility of

       THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                 73

 

predictive prophecy, act consistently in unsparingly ap-

plying the last resource of the critics, and sweeping

away every vestige of clear and remote predictions by

summarily setting aside their genuineness, if they can-

not rid themselves of them in any other way. But it is

surely very inconsistent in those who admit the reality

of a divinely inspired foresight of the future, to prescribe

in advance the limits and bounds within which alone

this may be exercised, and to refuse to acknowledge the

genuineness of any prophecy which exceeds the restric-

tions that they have arbitrarily imposed upon it.

          (2.) The specific predictions of Daniel do not termi-

nate with Antiochus Epiphanes. The four empires of

chs. ii. and vii. are the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek,

and Roman. The attempts to find four empires answer-

ing to these visions without including the Roman are

manifest evasions. The Medo-Persian cannot be divided

into two. The Medes and Persians were under one

sovereignty, and so are uniformly combined in the Book

of Daniel (v. 28, vi. 8, 12, 15, viii. 20), in Esther (i. 3,

14, 18, 19), and repeatedly in the Behistun inscription

of Darius Hystaspes. Besides, the Persian cannot be

the third of Daniel's empires, since it does not corre-

spond with the third beast of his vision, which had four

heads (vii. 6), indicating its fourfold division, which was

true of the Greek empire (viii. 8, 22), but not of the

Persian. Nor can the Greek empire be divided by

counting the empire of Alexander the third, and that of

his successors, and particularly the Syrian branch, from

which Antiochus Epiphanes sprang, the fourth. For

the third beast with its four heads must symbolize an

empire broken into four parts, and must, therefore, in-

clude the empire of Alexander's successors along with

that of Alexander himself. The fourth empire is repre-

sented as stronger and more terrible than any that had

74            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

preceded it, but it is expressly said that the power of

Alexander's successors would not equal his own (viii. 22,

xi. 4). And no satisfactory account can be given of the

ten horns or ten kingdoms to arise out of the fourth

beast, if this be the empire of Alexander's successors.

The only plausible argument in favor of making the

fourth beast represent the Greek empire is the assumed

identity of the little horn in vii. 8, 24, 25, and that in

viii. 9-12, 23-25, which are described in somewhat sim-

ilar terms: That in ch. viii. is undoubtedly Antiochus

Epiphanes; but that in ch. vii. is his counterpart, who

was to arise at a much later time, the Antichrist of the

New Testament (2 Thes. ii. 3, 4, 8-10; 1 John, ii. 18;

Rev. xiii. 5-7).

          The prophecy of the seventy weeks (ix. 24-27) was ful-

filled in the ministry and vicarious death of Jesus Christ

at the predicted time, and in the destruction of Jerusa-

lem by the Romans (cf. Matt. xxiv. 15, 16). The at-

tempt to apply this to Antiochus Epiphanes both re-

quires a wresting of its terms, and assumes a strange

ignorance of chronology on the part of the supposed

Maccabean writer.

          (3.) It is quite in accordance with the analogy of

prophecy, when Daniel clearly predicts the struggle of

the Maccabees against Antiochus, and blends with the

deliverances of that period the blessings of Messiah's

reign. Messiah is ordinarily the background of every

prophetic picture. It is so with Isaiah, Jeremiah, and

the prophets generally. Zechariah predicts the contest

with the Syro-Macedonian empire, and then, precisely

as Daniel does, hurries away from it to the coming of

Christ (ix. 8, 9; cf. ver. 13). Nevertheless the predic-

tion that the Greek empire would be followed by the

Roman, shows that Daniel did not expect the resurrec-

tion and final judgment to follow immediately after the

         TIIE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                    75

 

deliverance from the persecutions of Antiochus, and thus

corrects the false inferences drawn from the transition

in xii. 1, 2. Moreover, if the Book of Daniel were a

spurious production, first written and published B.C.

165, and contained the extravagant and fanatical expec-

tations which have been imputed to it respecting the

miraculous death of Antiochus in Palestine, to be fol-

lowed at once by the coming of the Messiah and the res-

urrection — expectations which were falsified by the

event within two years—must it not have been discred-

ited at once? How could it ever have gained credit as

the genuine work of a true prophet of God, and even

have been attributed to one who lived nearly four cen-

turies before, though now heard of for the first time?

And especially how could it have gained such speedy and

acknowledged influence as to have been at once inserted

in the sacred canon, and that the Book of Maccabees, in

recording the history of these times, adopts its very lan-

guage and borrows its forms of expression? Not to add

that there is strong reason to believe that the Septua-

gint version of the Book of Daniel was in existence be-

fore the date assigned by the critics for its composition.

(4.) The attempts which have been made to compro-

mise by accepting the critical conclusions adverse to the

genuineness of the Book of Daniel, and at the same

time holding to its inspired character as a product of

divine revelation, are as futile here as in regard to other

books of the Old Testament which have been similarly

treated. They only, result in retaining all the difficulties

which have been thought to encumber the traditional

belief as to its authorship, and in introducing others of

a far more formidable character.

          Dr. Driver thinks that the author was "a prophet liv-

ing in the time of the trouble itself," who wrote "not

after the persecutions were ended, but at their begin-

76          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

ning," and "thus uttered genuine predictions."  "Gen-

uine predictions," as distinguished from mere lucky

conjectures or shrewd calculations from existing causes,

which involve a real prevision of what lay beyond the

reach of the human faculties, are the essence of the dif-

ficulty to those who would explain everything from nat-

ural causes. This is not relieved by reducing their

number, or by shortening the time prior to their fulfil-

ment. And "the distinctness of the prophecy merging

in an ideal representation of the Messianic future," to

which Dr. Driver objects, remains equally upon his own

view of the case. But if the author of the book is a

true prophet, and utters "genuine prophecies," why

does he not come forward in his real character, and ut-

ter them in his own name as a messenger sent from

God, as every other prophet does, and as an honest man

must do, instead of falsely ascribing to a prophet of a

former age what he never uttered?

          Dr. Driver tells us, further, that "the book rests upon

a traditional basis. Daniel, it cannot be doubted, was

a historical person, one of the Jewish exiles in Baby-

lon who, with his three companions, was noted for his

stanch adherence to the principles of his religion, who

attained a position of influence at the court of Babylon,

who interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, and foretold

as a seer something of the future fate of the Chaldean

and Persian empires. Perhaps written materials were

at the disposal of the author. . . . The nar-

ratives in chs. i.-vi. are thus adapted to supply motives

for the encouragement, and models for the imitation, of

those suffering under the persecution of Antiochus. In

chs. vii.-xii. definiteness and distinctness are given to

Daniel's visions of the future." We must confess that

our confidence in the truth of the facts above recited

rests upon the testimony of Daniel himself, rather than

         THE COMPLETION OF THE CANON                  77

 

the amiable assurance given by Dr. Driver, who has

found them "mingled with much that is unhistorical."

And, after all, he gives no hint whether the miraculous

interferences on behalf of God's servants in chs. i.–vi. are

facts or fictions. If the former, why might not Daniel

have recorded them ? If the latter, they would be falla-

cious grounds of "encouragement" or "imitation." And

so far as "definiteness and distinctness are given to

Daniel's visions of the future " in chs. vii.–xii. by the

author of the book in its present form, he has falsified

them. He has attributed to Daniel definite and distinct

predictions, which in fact he did not make. Such a de-

fence, involving moral obliquity, is more to be depre-

cated than open assault.

          The existence of Maccabean Psalms is a vexed ques-

tion, in regard to which there is the widest possible di-

versity of opinion among critics. Justus Olshausen,

von Lengerke, Reuss, and Cheyne find a large number,

scattered through every part of the Book of Psalms,

which they attribute to this period. According to Hit-

zig, Pss. i., ii., lxxiii.-cl. are Maccabeam. Others of more

moderate views, like Delitzsch and Perowne, are content

with referring Pss. xliv., lxxiv., lxxix. to that date. Rob-

ertson Smith, who had included these three Psalms

among those of Maccabean origin in the first edition of

his "Old Testament in the Jewish Church," no longer

regarded them as such in his second edition, but assigns

Pss. cxviii., cxlix., and a few others in the latter part of

the collection to the early years of Maccabee sovereignty.

On the other hand, such critics as Gesenius, Maurer, De

Wette, Bleek, Ewald, Hengstenberg, Havernick, Keil,

Dillmann, and many others deny that any Psalms belong

to the Maccabean period, and insist that those which

have been so referred with any plausibility find their

true explanation in the ravages of the Chaldeans when

78            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, or the

troubles succeeding the return from the exile. The fact

is, as Dr. Driver says, p. 388, "The grounds upon which

specific dates can be assigned to individual Psalms are

often exceedingly slender." The criteria urged for the

reference of particular Psalms to the Maccabean period

are of that general and indefinite sort that will apply

equally well, and often much better, to other and earlier

times of oppression and trial.

          We have now examined with some care the reasons

adduced to show that Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ec-

clesiastes, Esther, and Daniel belong to a later date than

the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, and have found

them unsatisfactory. The divergence among critics in

respect to Maccabean Psalms is such, and the grounds

urged in their favor are so vague and inconclusive, that

their existence must be considered very problematical.

The statement of the historian Josephus that no addition

was made to the canon after the reign of Artaxerxes

Longimanus, and the current belief of the nation of the

Jews that Malachi was the last of the prophets, and that

after him the Holy- Spirit departed from Israel, thus re-

main uncontradicted, except by critical theories which

rest on no solid foundation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                           VI

 

         THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE CANON

 

          THE first notice that we have of the canon of the Old

Testament after its completion is in the prologue to the

Book of Ecclesiasticus. The writer, by whom this work

of his grandfather, Jesus the son of Sirach, was trans-

lated into Greek, speaks of the sacred books as "the

law, and the prophets, and the others that followed after

them"; then of his grandfather giving himself largely

to the reading of "the law and the prophets and the

other books of the fathers"; and still further, by way

of apology for the inferiority of his translation to the

original work, that this is the case even with "the law

and the prophets and the rest of the books," as rendered

from the Hebrew into another tongue. The proximate

date of this prologue, as appears from a statement con-

tained in it, is the thirty-eighth year of Ptolemy Euer-

getes, king of Egypt. As the first of that name did not

reign so long, this must be Ptolemy Euergetes II., com-

monly called Physcon, whose thirty-eighth year would

correspond with B.C. 130. Accordingly at that time, and

also in the time of the writer's grandfather, fifty or more

years earlier, the sacred books formed a definite and

well-known collection, arranged in three divisions, sev-

erally denominated "the law and the prophets and the

other books," or "the rest of the books." This is the

same division that existed ever afterward, and is now

found in the Hebrew Bible. It has been alleged that

the third division was then only in the process of forma-

 

                                        79

80                GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

tion, and did not yet contain all the books which subse-

quently belonged to it. But the terms in which it is

described are as definite and explicit as those applied to

the other two divisions. There is no more reason to re-

gard it as open to later additions than there is in the case

of the law and the prophets. That it does not receive an

equally descriptive designation is due to the somewhat

miscellaneous character of its contents. The designa-

tions here used correspond precisely to those of later

times—law, prophets, and k'thubhim (writings) or hagi-

ographa (sacred writings).

          This division differs in form and in its determining

principle from the fourfold division, adopted in all

modern versions from the Greek Septuagint, into the

law, the historical, the poetical, and the prophetical

books, based upon the distinctive character of these dif-

ferent classes of sacred writings.

          The threefold division of the Hebrew canon rests, not

upon the nature of the contents of the several books, but

upon the personality of the writers. And here the dis-

tinction lies not in the various grade of their inspiration,

as was maintained by Maimonides and the rabbins of

the Middle Ages, who held that the law stood first, be-

cause Moses, its author, spake with God face to face;

that the prophets, who came next, were inspired by the

Spirit of prophecy, while the writers of the k'thubhim

had a lower grade of inspiration, viz.: that of the Holy

Spirit. The real ground of the division is the official

status of the sacred writers. Moses, as the great legis-

lator and founder of the Old Testament dispensation,

occupied a unique position, and his books appropriately

stand by themselves in the first place.

          Then follow in the second place the prophets, a dis-

tinct order of men, universally recognized as such, the

immediate messengers of God to the people to declare

THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE CANON                81

 

his will and purposes to them for their guidance, in-

struction, and admonition. Their writings are of two

kinds, historical and prophetical. In the former they

trace the hand of God in his past dealings; in the latter

they deliver the messages with which they have been

charged. Their historical writings are called the former

prophets, and their prophetical writings the latter

prophets, from the order in which they stand in the

canon.

          Finally, the third division comprises the writings of

inspired men, who were not prophets in the technical

and official sense. David was gifted with divine inspir-

ation, and the Psalms composed by him contain Mes-

sianic predictions; but he held the office of a king, not

of a prophet. So with Solomon. Asaph and the sons

of Korah were inspired singers, whose function was to

lead the devotional worship of the temple; they were

not officially prophets. Consequently the writings of

David, Solomon, Asaph and the sons of Korah properly

stand not among those of the prophets, but with the

k'thubhim.

          The principle upon which the classification is made

is thus a clear and obvious one; the three divisions con-

tain respectively the writings of Moses, of the prophets,

and of inspired men not prophets.

          Dillmann¹ says "It is very easily understood why the

prophets are separated from the law, and again the

books of the poets from the prophets; also why the his-

torical books are put together with the books of the

prophets in one division. . . . From these are

rightly distinguished the books of the men of God, who

without having the official and public position of the

prophets are yet filled with the spirit of wisdom and

knowledge, and impelled by the forces of a divine life

 

          ¹ Jahrb. f. D. Theol., III., p. 425.

82          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

within them, have left the Church written monuments of

their inner spiritual life. So far the division is quite

clear and transparent, and likewise of the kind that it

could without scruple be derived from one primal and

original collector of these three parts." If, then, the

three divisions of the canon had contained severally the

law, the prophets (including both the historical and the

prophetical books), and the books of the poets, they

might, according to Dillmann, have been referred to a

single collector, who arranged them thus at one time.

He is, however, disturbed by the fact that the third

division is not restricted to poetical books. Hence he

goes on to say, "But besides the books of the poets

there are also found in the third portion of the canon

some historical books, Chronicles with Ezra (including

Nehemiah) and Esther, and a prophetical book, Daniel;

books, therefore, which according to the above principle

of division one would expect to be in the second portion,

or in the canon of the prophets."

          Moses Stuart claims that as originally arranged the

third division of the canon merely contained the poetical

books.¹ He appeals in proof to the son of Sirach, who

in his praise of famous men speaks of prophecies,

Ecclus. xliv. 3, poems, ver. 5, and the law of Moses

(xlv. 5); to Philo,² who says of the Therapeutre that

"they receive only the laws, and the oracles uttered by

the prophets, and the hymns and other books by which

knowledge and piety are augmented and perfected," the

"other books" being immediately after described as

"the writings of ancient men, the leaders of their sect";

to Luke, xxiv. 44 "the law of Moses and the prophets

and the Psalms," Psalms being here supposed to

 

          ¹ Old Testament Canon, pp. 248 ff., 292.

          ² De Vita Contemplativa; this treatise is now believed not to be by

Philo, but of later date.

THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE CANON           83

 

be used in a wide sense to embrace all the poetical

books; to Josephus, who after speaking of the first and

second divisions of the canon describes the third by say-

ing, "the other four books contain hymns to God and

maxims of life for men"; and to the catalogues of the

early Christian fathers, which in enumerating the books

of Scripture put all the poetical books together. Where-

upon he concludes "that the son of Sirach, Philo, the

New Testament, Josephus, and all the earlier Christian

writers down to the middle of the fourth century testify

in favor of an arrangement of the Hebrew Scriptures,

which classed four books together that are of like com-

position and matter in some important respects, and re-

gards only these as belonging to the Hagiographa. All

that differs from this is later."¹

          But the Christian catalogues are more or less gov-

erned by the fourfold classification of the Septuagint,

and shed no light upon the triple division of the He-

brew canon. Josephus classifies the books for a pur-

pose of his own without designing to give the arrange-

ment in the canon. In Luke, xxiv. 44 "Psalms" simply

means the book so called, and is not intended to be

descriptive of a particular division of the canon. And

the passages cited from Ecclesiasticus and that relating

to the Therapeutfe simply speak of hymns and poems

among the sacred books without implying anything as

to the order of their arrangement in the collection.

          The real explanation of the whole matter is, as above

stated, that in constituting the Hebrew canon the books

were not classified by the nature of their contents, nor

as poetry and prose, but by the official status of their

writers. The books of Moses stand in the first division,

 

          ¹ The same position substantially was taken previously by Storr in

Paulus's Neues Repertorium, II , pp. 226 ff., as mentioned by Dill-

mann.

84               GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

those of prophets in the second, those of inspired men

not prophets in the third.

          The books of Ezra and Nehemiah contain histories of

an important period in the life of the chosen people, but

they were written by the eminent men whose names they

bear. Ezra was a scribe, Nehemiah was a governor, but

neither of them were prophets. Their books conse-

quently could not be classed with the other historical

books, which were written by prophets, but with the

books of inspired men who were not prophets. The

same is the case with Chronicles. Though the history

which it contains is closely related with that found in

Samuel and Kings, the authorship was different. Sam-

uel and Kings were, or were believed to be, the work of

prophets, and are, therefore, classed as books of proph-

ets. Chronicles, it is commonly believed, is from the

same pen as the Book of Ezra, by an inspired man,

but not by a prophet, and its proper place is accord-

ingly in the third division.

          The Book of Daniel appears at first sight to create

some difficulty, and to be at variance with the principle

of classification, which has determined the disposition

of books in the sacred canon. Daniel is distinctly

called a prophet in the New Testament (Matt. xxiv. 15;

Mark xiii. 14), prophetic visions were granted to him,

and his book contains some of the most remarkable

predictions in the Bible. Why then is not this book

classed with the books of the prophets in the second

division of the canon, instead of being ranked with

those of inspired men not prophets in the third and

last division?¹  The reason is, because this is its

 

          ¹ Theodoret censures the Jews for having improperly removed Dan-

iel from among the prophets, Bloch, Studien, p. 11. Ryle, p. 212,

quotes Leusden, Philologus liebrus, and John Smith, Discourse of

Prophecy, as of the same mind in modern times.

THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE CANON            85

 

proper place. This is not a departure from the prin-

ciple previously announced, but a rigorous carrying out

of that principle. A distinction must here be made be-

tween the donum propheticum or the prophetic gift and

the munus propheticum or the prophetic office. Daniel

had the prophetic gift in a most extraordinary degree,

but he did not hold the prophetic office.¹  He did not

belong to the prophetic order like his fellow-captive and

contemporary Ezekiel, who dwelt among the exiles and

labored with them for their spiritual good. He had a

different office to perform on behalf of the people at the

court of Babylon, where he was ranked with the wise

men, and was advanced to a high political station.

Officially he was not a prophet, but occupied a lofty

position in the Babylonian and subsequently in the

Persian empire. He is called a prophet in the New

Testament in the same general sense in which that term

is applied to David (Acts ii. 29, 30).

          Ryle² calls this explanation of the position of Daniel

in the canon "fanciful trifling" and "almost absurd in

its obvious inadequacy," without saying why he so re-

gards it. Wildeboer³ and Buhl⁴ allege that "Amos

(vii. 12 ff.) overthrows the whole theory; for according to

it his book ought to stand among the K'thubhim."

Amos there says that he was no prophet, nor the son

of a prophet; but Jehovah took him as he followed the

flock and said unto him, Go, prophesy unto my people

Israel. This call of Jehovah surely made him a prophet,

though he was not one before.

          Dillmann⁵ objects:  "Did Daniel then receive his rev-

 

          ¹ So Witsius, Hengstenberg, Havernick, Keil, Oehler, Delitzsch,

and others.

          ² Canon of the Old Testament, pp. 122, 211 note.

          ³ Canon of 0. T., p. 18.                ⁴ Kanon and Text d. A. T., p. 37.

          ⁵ Jahrb. f. D. Th. III., p. 427.

86               GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

elations for himself alone, and not rather for the Church,

even though that of the future? Was not the duty and the

office of publication in writing likewise obligatory upon

him? And is then the office of publication in writing so

entirely different from that by oral delivery?  Is not this

rather a wholly external distinction, which does not touch

the essence of the matter?  "But this is entirely aside

from the question at issue. Whether it does or does not

agree with modern notions to make this distinction is of

small consequence. As Dillmann himself says in discuss-

ing another aspect of this question, "The Old Testament

canon was fixed by the Jewish Church . . . so that

the only thing of consequence is, what idea did the

Jewish Church connect with this division?  "Now it is

unquestionable that while the term "prophet" was fre-

quently used in a broad and general sense, and applied

to any who were divinely inspired, the Jews did recog-

nize a distinct body of men as prophets in the strict,

official sense, with prerogatives and functions peculiarly

their own. And it was the writings of this class of men,

as distinguished from all others, who, though truly in-

spired, were not intrusted with these functions, that

were placed in the second division of the canon. The

Book of Daniel makes revelations of great importance

to his own as well as future ages, but does not occupy

itself with rebukes of sin or inculcations of duty, as is

usual in the prophets, or as might be expected if he

were directly charged with laboring for their spiritual

welfare.

          Driver (p. 509) calls attention to this peculiarity of

the book:  "It is remarkable also," he says, "that Daniel

—so unlike the prophets generally—should display no

interest in the welfare or prospects of his contempora-

ries." From this he draws the erroneous conclusion that

the book does not belong to the period when it claims

 

THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE CANON          87

 

to have been written. It did serve an important pur-

pose for that time in letting the people know that the

glories of the Messianic period were not to follow im-

mediately upon the return from the exile, and giving

them an intimation of what lay still before them prior

to its arrival. But the marked difference between this

book and those of the prophets generally is due to the

fact that the function assigned to Daniel differed from

that of the prophets.

          The Book of Lamentations is in the present arrange-

ment of the Hebrew Bible put in the Hagiographa, but

there is good reason to believe that it originally stood

in the second division of the canon. We learn from the

testimony of Origen, Jerome, and other early writers

that Ruth and Lamentations were sometimes reckoned

as separate books, and sometimes regarded simply as

appendices to other books, Ruth being attached to

Judges, and Lamentations to Jeremiah. The books

were so combined that when Ruth and Lamentations

were counted as separate books, the whole number

was made out to be twenty-four, the number of letters

in the Greek alphabet; and when they were left un-

counted, being regarded as included in other books, the

whole number was twenty-two, the number of letters in

the Hebrew alphabet.¹ It is natural to suppose that

the latter mode of reckoning was the primitive one

 

          ¹ Cosin (Scholastical History of the Canon, p. 12, note i.) quotes from

Sixtus Senensis:  "As with the Hebrews there are 22 letters, in which

all that can be said and written are comprehended, so there are 22

books in which are contained all that can be known and uttered of di-

vine things." Jerome expresses himself similarly in his Prologue

Galeatus:  "As there are 22 elements by which we write in Hebrew

all that we speak, and in them the human voice is primarily embraced,

so there are reckoned 22 books in which as in letters and rudiments

the tender infancy of the just man is instructed iu the doctrine of

God."

88           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

among the Jews; and this is the common opinion of

scholars. And if this be so, the original place of the

Lamentations of Jeremiah is where we should expect to

find it, in the second division of the canon, among the

productions of the prophets.

          To this Strack¹ objects (1) that Ruth and Lamenta-

tions are not contained in the Targum of Jonathan on

the Prophets, and consequently they could not have

been in the second division of the canon when it was

prepared; (2) that there is no trace in the tradition,

whether of Palestinian or Babylonish Jews, of Ruth

having ever been attached to Judges or Lamentations

to Jeremiah; (3) that according to the testimony of the

Talmud (a Baraitha² in Berachoth) Psalms, Proverbs,

and Job were called the three greater K'thubhim, and

the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations

the three smaller K'thubhim; (4) that twenty-four as

the number of the sacred books is suggested by 4 Esdras

(E. V. 2 Esdras) xiv. 44-46, and is uniformly found in

all Jewish tradition, so far as it is not influenced by the

Alexandrians, there not being the slightest trace of the

number twenty-two in either the Talmud or any Midrash.

 

          ¹ Herzog-Plitt Encyk., VII., pp. 433 ff.

          ² Baraitha means outside; this term is applied to sections of the Tal-

mud, which were not admitted to the Mishnah, though attributed to the

Tannaim (i.e. Repeaters) or Jewish doctors from the time of the de-

struction of Jerusalem by Titus down to and including R. Judah the

Holy, who reduced the Mishnah (i.e. Repetition, viz., of the Oral

Law traditionally preserved) to writing in its present form about the

end of the second century A.D. The Baraithas are collectively called

hosaphtah, addition. These, with the Mishnah, constitute the text of

the Talmud, the comments upon which are called Gemara, supplement,

and make up the remainder of that storehouse of Jewish traditions.

The Gemara is in two forms, that of the Jerusalem Talmud, dating

from about A.D. 425, and that of the Babylonish Talmud, about A.D.

500, and is the work of the doctors after the closing of the Mish-

nah, who are called Amoraim Expounders.

THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE CANON          89

 

Strack's attempt to explain how the number twenty-

two came into vogue in Alexandria does not seem to be

successful. He thinks that the books of the Hebrew

canon were there counted in the order in which they

appear in the Septuagint translation, Ruth being next

to Judges, and Lamentations to Jeremiah; these small

books were hence considered as parts of the larger ones,

and so the total was made twenty-two. But while in the

Hebrew, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles are each regard-

ed as constituting one book, in the LXX. each of them

is reckoned as two books; and Ezra and Nehemiah form

together one book in Hebrew, but each is counted sepa-

rately in the LXX; so that the total would be spoiled.

Septuagint influence cannot, therefore, account for the

facts.

          It appears to be much simpler to trace the number

twenty-two to the current Jewish tradition attested by

the Talmud (a Baraitha in Baba Bathra), that Ruth was

written by the author of Judges, and Lamentations by

Jeremiah. They might thus be readily attached to the

books which were thought to have proceeded from the

same pen. That this was the case in Palestine as well

as Alexandria is evidenced by Josephus, Melito, and

Jerome on the one hand, and by Origen on the other.

          Furst¹ gives the following account of the matter:

"Besides this division [i.e., into twenty-four books],

which was sanctioned in Talmudic Judaism, a division

into twenty-two books, parallel to the twenty-two letters

of the alphabet, was in use in Palestine and Alexandria.

. . . The division into twenty-four seems to have

arisen in Babylonia, and as in all matters of Judaism,

only that which was in use in the Babylonish schools

established itself among the Jews."

 

          ¹ Der Kanon des Alten Testaments nach der Ueberlieferungen in Tal-

mud and Midrasch, p. 4.

90           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

Bloch¹ truly says:  "Without Ruth the historical part

of the canon of the prophets would be incomplete and

defective. It lacks the genealogy of the most powerful

race of kings, with whose fortunes also the changeful

past of the people and its glorious future, so eagerly

and surely expected, was intimately interwoven—that of

the house of Jesse. Ewald's assertion that such a

genealogy had been contained in the Book of Samuel,

and was only omitted in closing the canon of the proph-

ets on account of Ruth iv., is so devoid of any scien-

tific and tenable basis that we may properly decline

to enter more particularly upon it, and the more as

this assertion has as its presupposition the recep-

tion of Ruth into the canon of the prophets. . . .

Its transfer to the Hagiographa did not take place

until the Talmudic period, and then only for liturgical

reasons."

          Wildeboer (p. 141) holds that, in the first instance,

"Ruth was probably generally placed after Judges and

Lamentations after Jeremiah"; and that this arrange-

ment was perpetuated in many "copies of the Prophets,

which were more likely to be in the possession of private

individuals than copies of the Kethubhim." The "offi-

cial theory" of the scribes, however, was at variance

with this popular usage, and classed them with the

K'thubhim.

          Bleek² states, perhaps in too positive a form, the

probable facts in the case:  "Ruth and Lamentations

had this position [i.e., after Judges and Jeremiah] even

in Hebrew manuscripts in early times, and the Hebrew

Jews subsequently, after the second century A.D., put

them among the books of the third class with the other

 

          ¹ Studien zur Geschichte der Sammlung der althebraischen Litera-

tur, p. 25.

          ² Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1860, p. 35.

 

 

 

THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE CANON 91

 

Megilloth with reference to their use in public wor-

ship."¹

          The three divisions of the canon, accordingly, contain

no indication of their having been formed at widely

separated periods. There is no imperfection in the

classification which requires such an explanation.

There are no books in the third division which ought

properly to be in the second, and which must be as-

sumed to have been placed where they are, because the

second division was already closed, and could not be re-

opened for their reception. Such an assumption is too

precarious and improbable to build a theory upon in

any event. There is no very intelligible reason why

the collection of the prophets should at any time be

considered closed, except because there was no other

book entitled to be included in it. If at any time a

book should be discovered or produced, which right-

fully belonged in that collection, the collection is thus

shown to be incomplete without this book, and why

should it not be placed there? If, for instance, the

critical theory of the Book of Daniel were correct, and

this book, though actually produced in the time of the

Maccabees, was inserted in the canon because believed

to be the genuine production of Daniel, the contempo-

rary of Ezekiel, and the proper place for such a book

from such an author was among the prophets, why was

it not placed alongside of Ezekiel, as it is in the Sep-

tuagint, where the classification was upon a principle

which required it? It is just because the Hebrew canon

 

          ¹ In German Hebrew MSS. and in ordinary Hebrew Bibles the five

Megilloth follow each other in the order in which they are appointed

to be read in the service of the Synagogue, viz.: the Song of Solomon

at the Passover; Ruth at Pentecost; Lamentations at the fast of the

ninth of the month Ab; Ecclesiastes at the feast of Tabernacles;

Esther at Purim.

92             GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

was accurately classified upon a principle of its own

that the book stands where it does, in the K'thubhim

and not among the prophets. And the same is the case

with the other books, in which critics claim that this

principle has been violated. It cannot be shown to

have been departed from in a single instance. The

classification is such as bears the marks of a single

mind, and has been interfered with by no disturbing

cause.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                          VII

 

              WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED

 

          THE authority of the books constituting the canon

does not depend upon their being gathered together in

a single volume, or being arranged in a particular way.

Each book would have the same divine authority,

whether circulating separately or combined with others

of like character. It was of great importance, however,

in order to guard the sacred books from the danger of

being lost or overlooked, or from the intrusion of books

not entitled to be so regarded, that they should be visi-

bly sundered from all others by being brought together

in one collection, sanctioned by general acceptance at a

time when their claims could be properly scrutinized,

and thus certified to future ages as the duly attested

writings of men inspired of God, and prepared by them

for the benefit of his people in all time to come.

          When and by whom was this collection made? Ac-

cording to Elias Levita, a distinguished rabbi of the

time of the Reformation, this was the work of Ezra

and the Great Synagogue, a body of one hundred and

twenty men, assembled to assist him in the conduct of

public affairs.¹ This was repeated after him by several

Lutheran and Reformed theologians, by whom it was

regarded as an incontrovertible fact, based on an ancient

and uniform tradition. The only passage, however, in

early Jewish literature, which connects Ezra and the

 

          ¹ Strack (p. 416) points out that substantially the same view was

previously held by David Kimchi.

 

                                       93

94              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

Great Synagogue in any way with the formation of

the canon is the following from the Talmudic treatise,

Baba Bathra:

          "Moses wrote his book, and the section about Balaam

and Job; Joshua wrote his book and eight verses in the

law; Samuel wrote his book and Judges and Ruth;

David wrote the Book of Psalms at the hands of the

ancients, Adam the first, Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses,

Heman, Jeduthun, Asaph and the three sons of Korah;

Jeremiah wrote his book and the Book of Kings and

Lamentations; Hezekiah and his associates wrote Isaiah,

Proverbs, the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes. The

men of the Great Synagogue wrote Ezekiel, the Twelve

[Minor Prophets], Daniel and the Book of Esther.

Ezra wrote his book and the genealogies of Chronicles

to his time."

          This singular passage has been variously interpreted

and variously estimated. The word "wrote" has been

understood to mean "composed" as an author, "tran-

scribed" what had been previously written, "reduced

to writing" what had been orally delivered, or "inserted

in the canon."  Havernick (p. 41) gives it throughout

the last of these senses, which was invented by

Bertholdt (pp. 81, 86), but is wholly supposititious.

Herzfeld¹ finds the four different senses in different

clauses of this paragraph.

          The most satisfactory explanation of this passage is

given by Marx ² (Dalman), who finds in it the views of

Jewish doctors of the second century A.D. respecting the

origin of the books of the Old Testament which are

mere fanciful conjectures and of no value whatever.

Jeremiah is the only one of the latter prophets to whom

writings are attributed, since he is repeatedly said to

 

          ¹ Geschichte, III., p. 94.

          ² Traditio Rabbinorum Veterrima, pp. 41 ff.

       WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED                95

 

have written his prophecies by divine direction (xxx. 2,

xxxvi. 2, 4, 28, 32, xlv. 1). As no similar statement is

made in the case of the other prophets, the Book of

Isaiah is ascribed to the associates of his contemporary

Hezekiah; the same who are said (Prov. xxv. 1) to have

completed the Book of Proverbs, to which the Song of

Solomon and Ecclesiastes are here added. Ezekiel, the

Twelve, and Daniel, together with Esther are similarly

attributed to the men of the Great Synagogue; the idea

probably being that these books were preserved orally,

until by the authority and under the direction of these

two bodies they were put in writing.

          Furst (p. 131) argues that the "associates of Heze-

kiah" or, as he denominates them, the "college of

Hezekiah," in order to do what is here attributed to

them, must have been a permanent body and continued

in existence for 280 years, from B.C. 724 to 444. But

the Jewish doctors had no such thought. They did not

entertain the modern critical notions of the composite

character of the Book of Isaiah, and Proverbs, Canticles

and Ecclesiastes were believed by them to be Solomon's.

It is no prolonged task, therefore, which is assigned to

them. Furst also maintains, what many others have

likewise held, that the Great Synagogue was an organi-

zation which lasted for two centuries and a half, from

B.C. 444 to 196. There is nothing in Jewish tradition

to favor this opinion except the fact that Simon

the Just is said to have been one of its members. But

according to Jewish ideas the Great Synagogue did

not last more than forty years, and did not extend be-

yond the time of Ezra. Their chronology makes

Simon the Just a contemporary of Alexander the Great,

and Alexander the immediate successor of Darius Hys-

taspes.

          It is quite supposable that Ezra might have had a

96           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

body of men to aid him in regulating the affairs of the

nation, but there seems to be no clear evidence that such

a body ever existed. Kuenen^l maintains with great plaus-

ibility that the only historical basis for it is the assem-

bly of the people (Neh. viii.-x.), gathered to hear the

law and pledge themselves to obey it, and that this was

transformed by the Talmudic doctors into an authori-

tative council. Whether this is so or not, there is no

reason for attributing the collection of the canon to the

Men of the Great Synagogue.

          According to the theory of modern critics the process

of canonization began in a preliminary way, B.C. 621,

when Josiah bound the people to obey the book of the

law found in the temple (which they identify with

Deuteronomy exclusively), and more effectively when

Ezra, B.C. 444, engaged the returned exiles to yield com-

pliance to all the requirements of the entire Pentateuch

(Neh. viii.-x.). The Pentateuch, and that only, was

thenceforward canonical. After a long interval the

prophets were added to the canon, somewhere between

B.C. 300 and 200, as the limits are fixed by Ryle (pp.

108, 109). Later still a third division of the canon was

formed, containing the K'thubhim. Its commencement

is dated by Ryle (p. 173), in the beginning of the era of

the Maccabean ascendency, B.C. 160 to 140, and its final

ratification about A.D. 90, although "all the books in-

cluded in the third group of the canon had obtained

some measure of recognition, either complete and un-

disputed, or partial and disputed" before the death of

John Hyrcanus II., B.C. 105. Wildeboer (p. 146) brings

down the time of the final decision as to the contents of

the canon to A.D. 200.

          But it is an entirely false conception that Reuter-

 

          ¹ Gesammelte Abhandlungen, no. 4, Ueber die Manner der Grossen

Synagoge.

         WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED                   97

 

onomy was first made canonical by Josiah, and the Pen-

tateuch by Ezra. The transactions referred to were

simply the solemn and formal recognition of a divine

authority inherent in these books from their first publi-

cation. And the exclusive mention of the law in these

public transactions does not prove that canonical and

divine authority was vested in it alone. The contrary

is explicitly declared by Deuteronomy itself (xviii. 18,

19), which ascribes to the prophets an authority like that

of Moses. The law and the prophets are joined together

(2 Kin. xvii. 13 ff.), as alike binding upon Judah and

Israel, who were both exiled from their land because

they did not obey them. Ezra, in the very passage re-

cording the covenant engagement of the people to obey

the law, traces all the calamities that had befallen them

to their neglect of the law and their maltreatment of the

prophets (Neh. ix. 26 ff.). The Prophet Zechariah does

the same (i. 4, 6, vii. 7, 12). These passages leave no

doubt that the utterances of the prophets were believed

to have the same divine sanction as the statutes of the

law, and a like divine penalty followed the transgression

of the one as of the other.

          It is not sufficient, therefore, to say with Wildeboer

(p. 119) that "before the exile writings of the prophets

were eagerly read by the devout," as well as "in and

after the exile"; if at the same time it is maintained

that these books were not then possessed of canonical

authority. The reason why they were prized by pious

people was because they accepted them as the word of

God communicated through his servants the prophets.

Dillmann's statement (p. 441) is much nearer the truth:

"We can scarcely doubt that the higher reverence,

which is due to the word of God, would be paid also to

the written discourses of a prophet by the believers

among his contemporaries, at least from the time that

 

98                 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

he had by his work gained recognition as a prophet of

God, or his words had been divinely confirmed by the

issue. And here, if anywhere, it must come to pass that

the canonical validity of a writing would be coincident

with its first appearance."

          This is precisely what took place. The books of the

prophets were received as the word of God by those

who put faith in their divine messages orally delivered.

The suggestion that the number of believers was at

times very small and rarely included the mass of the

people, and that false prophets abounded in the later

years of the kingdom, in consequence of which the in-

fluence of the true prophets declined in the popular

estimation, does not alter the significance of the fact

already adverted to. It is to the true worshippers of

Jehovah that we are to look for the willing reception

and faithful transmission of his word. The books of the

prophets had, from the first, canonical authority among

them, which is not invalidated by the disregard of the

unbelieving multitude. And when the twofold sifting

of the exile and of the return from captivity had oc-

curred, and a people obedient to the word of the Lord

had replaced the degenerate race that perished in the

destruction of the city, there can be no question in

what esteem the books of the prophets were held, their

divine authority being confirmed, as it was, by the fulfil-

ment of their predictions alike of desolation and of re-

turning favor.

          1. Why then did Ezra only bind the people to obey

the law?¹ Because the meeting was held, not to define

the full extent of their obligations, but for a particular

 

          ¹ It is the law which is exclusively spoken of by 1 Maccabees as ad-

hered to by the faithful and forsaken by the godless (i. 52, ii. 21, 26,

27, etc.). Yet no one imagines on this account that there were no

other books in the canon when 1 Maccabees was written.

          WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED               99

 

practical purpose, which was best met by directing

their attention to the specific requirements of the law.

The obligations assumed (Neh. x. 29 ff.) concern the

removal of certain evils which had made their appear-

ance in this infant community, viz., inter-marriage with

aliens, disregard of the sabbath and inadequate pro-

vision for the temple worship. There were definite

legal statutes bearing on these matters which covered

the whole case. The more general and spiritual in-

structions of the prophets would not so precisely have

answered the end in view.¹

          2. As the Samaritans possess the Pentateuch, but no

other book of the Old Testament, it has been argued

that nothing but the Pentateuch could have been canon-

ical among the Jews at the time that it was obtained

by the Samaritans. It is commonly supposed to have

been taken to them by the renegade priest, who was

expelled by Nehemiah (Neh. xiii. 28), and eagerly ac-

cepted by them to substantiate their claim of being

kindred to the Jews (Ezra iv. 2); a claim, which would

have been strengthened by accepting all the books that

were then regarded as sacred. But the mutilated canon

of the Samaritans had a similar origin with those of

early heretical sects in the Christian Church. They ac-

cepted what suited their own peculiar views, and arbi-

trarily rejected all the rest. They had their temple on

Mount Gerizim, and altered the text of Deut. xxvii. 4 to

give it sanction, claiming that this was the place where

men ought to worship. No book which spoke approv-

ingly of worship at Shiloh or Jerusalem could be ac-

 

          ¹ This is recognized by Wildeboer (p. 119), though colored by a

wrong idea of the design of this solemn covenant, when he traces the

omission of the prophets in this sacred engagement "chiefly to the

fact that they have not the same immediate importance for the estab-

lishment of Ezra's theocracy as the priestly law."

100           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

cepted by them. They were thus necessarily limited to

the Pentateuch, irrespective of the extent of the Jewish

canon at the time.

          3. The Scripture lessons of the Synagogue were orig-

inally taken exclusively from the Pentateuch, which is

divided into sections that are read in course on succes-

sive sabbaths; at a later time selections from the proph-

ets were read along with the law (Luke iv. 16, 17, Acts

xiii. 15, 27); but a like use is not made of the K'thu-

bhim in the regular sabbath lessons. This has been urged

as confirmatory of the critical hypothesis that the three

divisions of the canon mark three successive stages in

its formation. It is alleged that the Scripture reading

was in the first instance confined to the law, because it

alone was canonical. Afterward, when the prophets

were admitted to the canon, lessons were taken from

them likewise; and the selection was limited to the

prophets, because the K'thubhim had not yet been made

canonical.

          This, however, is not the real explanation. Nor is it

to be sought in an imagined difference in the sacredness

and authority of the three portions of the canon. The

idea of three successive grades of inspiration, and

the comparison of the law to the holy of holies, of the

prophets to the holy place, and the K'thubhim to the

outer court, are figments of later times.¹

          As Jehovah's covenant relation with Israel rested upon

the basis of the law, and was conditioned upon its faith-

ful observance, it is natural that from the very first in-

stitution of synagogue worship it should have a place in

the service. It would not be long, however, before the

 

          ¹"Their equal sanctity and dignity was expressly maintained with

great emphasis with particular reference to those heretics who did not

regard the Prophets and Hagiographa as Thora or canonical." Furst,

Kanon, pp. 51, 69.

          WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED                 101

 

need would be felt of enforcing the lessons of the law

by the teachings of the prophets. Their historical books

record the experience of the people in former ages, show-

ing the blessing that attended obedience and the penalty

that followed transgression. Their books of prophecy

insist upon adherence to the true worship of Jehovah, il-

lustrate and expound the spiritual intent of the law, and

hold up to view the final issue to which it tends. We

are imperfectly informed as to the use made of the

K'thubhim in the service of the Synagogue in early

times. Their employment, to some extent at least, for

this purpose, is suggested by the fact that a Targum on

Job is spoken of which was of equal age with that of

Jonathan on the prophets. In general, however, the

books of the K'thubhim were less adapted for Synagogue

use or were appropriated to special services. The psalms

were sung in the temple (Ps. xcii. according to its title

on the sabbath; and Pss. xxiv., xlviii., xciv., xciii. ac-

cording to the LXX. were appointed for different days of

the week). The five Megilloth were assigned to festival

days. Selections from the Hagiographa, from Job,

Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Daniel, Proverbs, etc., were

read throughout the entire night before the day of

atonement,¹ and in connection with the smaller Penta-

teuch sections on Mondays and Thursdays and at the

vesper service on the sabbath.² The Synagogue lessons

are readily accounted for, therefore, without resorting

to the critical hypothesis.

          4. The terms "the law" (John x. 34, xii. 34, xv. 25;

1 Cor. xiv. 21), or "the law and the prophets" (2 Macc.

xv. 9; Matt. v. 17, vii. 12, xxii. 40; Luke xvi. 16, 29, 31;

Acts xxviii. 23; Rom. iii. 21), are sometimes used to de-

 

          ¹ Bloch, Studien, p. 10; Furst, Kanon, p. 52; Buhl, Kanon and

Text, p. 15.

          ² Furst, p. 82.

102           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

note the entire Old Testament. It is claimed that this

is a reminiscence of the time when first "the law" and

afterward "the law and the prophets" comprised the

entire canon. But the simple reason of this usage is

that all the Scriptures may, with propriety, be called

"the law" since they constitute the revealed and author-

itative will of God. And "the law and the prophets"

may either be put for the entire Old Testament by syn-

ecdoche, a principal part standing for the whole, or the

prophets may be used in a wide sense for all the writ-

ings of inspired men, as in Mat. xiii. 35 a Psalm of

Asaph, Ps. lxxviii. 2, is quoted "as spoken by the

prophet."¹ Cf. Heb. 1. Moses is also called a prophet

(Hos. xii. 13), and an enactment of the law is attributed

to the prophets (Ezra ix. 11, 12).

          Accordingly, Bloch (pp. 8, 15) modifies the critical

argument, and as the entire Scriptures may be called in-

differently "law" or "prophets" or "sacred writings," he

infers that these titles are not in themselves distinctive,

and could not have been employed as designations of

the three several portions of the canon, if this division

had been made at any one time. It was only because

"law" had acquired a technical sense by a long and ex-

clusive application to the books of Moses, that subse-

quent additions to the canon could be called "prophets";

and this term was long applied to a definite number of

books before it acquired its special sense, so that others

subsequently introduced could distinctively be called

"k'thubhim" or "sacred writings." But this form of the

argument is no more valid than the other. Although

these terms admit of a wider application, it is plain that

"law" and "prophets" in their strict sense are properly

 

          ¹ In Jewish writings the Hagiographa are frequently referred to

prophets in this wide sense, Herzfeld, Geschichte, III., pp. 98, 99;

Bloch, Studien, p. 12; Buhl, Kanon and Text, p. 37.

          WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED               103

 

descriptive of those portions of the canon to which they

are applied, while K'thubhim, as a distinct title, nat-

urally denotes those sacred writings which fall under

neither of the above categories.

          5. Some additional arguments in defence of the posi-

tion that the prophets were not admitted to the canon

until long after the public recognition of the law in the

time of Ezra, are built upon unsound critical conclu-

sions. Thus (1), it has been inferred from apparent dis-

crepancies between Samuel and Kings, on the one hand,

and Chronicles on the other, that the former could not

yet have been regarded as canonical circ. 300 B.C., when

it is alleged that Chronicles was written.¹  But the in-

ference is futile for two reasons: Chronicles does not

discredit Samuel and Kings, as is here assumed, nor

does it belong to so late a date, as has been before

shown. The differences referred to arise from the differ-

ence in the aim and scope of these histories respectively.

Chronicles, which was probably written by Ezra, though

referred by critics without reason to a century or more

after his time, is largely occupied with matters con-

nected with the ritual service, which was then being re-

stored, but to which the earlier histories paid much less

attention. These additional facts are drawn from other

reliable authorities, and the seeming discrepancies can

be satisfactorily explained.

          (2.) The Book of Isaiah is, in the opinion of the

critics, a composite production. A considerable por-

tion of chs. i.–xxxv. is assigned to Isaiah, but interspersed

with several sections of varying length, which are at-

tributed to the later years of the Babylonish exile or

shortly after it. Then follow four historical chapters,

chs. xxxvi.–xxxix.; and finally, chs. xl.–lxvi., which are al-

 

          ¹ Ryle, Callon, p. 108; Konig, Einleitung, p. 448.

104          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

leged to belong to near the close of the exile. Here

Ryle concludes (p. 104) that the compilation of chs.

i.–xxxix. took place a short time "before the period of

Nehemiah" ("Le. 444), but that xl.–lxvi., though not

of so late a date as some of the preceding chap-

ters, could only have been added a century and a

half later (see p. 113), "when the recollection of the

authorship of this section having been forgotten, it

could, not unnaturally, be appended to the writings of

Isaiah." So the critics first dissect Isaiah, and then

find it impossible to get the disjointed pieces together

again without putting the collection of the canon at a

date at variance with historical testimony and every re-

liable indication bearing on the subject. It is, indeed,

a puzzling question which the critics have to solve, and

to which no satisfactory answer can be given, how it

came to pass that this prince of prophets, living, as we

are told, near the end of the exile, whose predictions of

the coming deliverance and the rebuilding of Jerusalem

and the temple were so strikingly fulfilled, and who must

have stirred the souls of the exiles to an unwonted de-

gree with his own glowing enthusiasm, could be so utter-

ly unknown, and not only his name, but his very exist-

ence so entirely forgotten, that his prophecies were

attributed to another, who lived at a different period

of time, and under entirely different circumstances.

But if the exigencies of the critical hypothesis de-

mand a long interval to account for this complete

oblivion, does it follow that the recognition of the di-

vine authority of this magnificent prophecy was so

delayed?

          (3.) It has been claimed¹ that Zech. ix.–xiv. was not

 

          ¹ Dillmann, p. 450 ; Ryle, p. 106, who nevertheless, p. 101, quotes

Zech. xiii. 3 as the language of Zechariah. Strack, Real-Encyk., vii.,

p. 422.

        WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED             105

 

written by Zechariah, but by some unknown prophet,

and was placed at the end of the Minor Prophets before

Malachi had been added to the collection. It would

thus stand immediately after Zechariah, and so came ul-

timately to be attached to that book. This is urged as

showing that the canon was formed by a gradual process.

But if all this were so, it would only prove that the

canon was formed and the collection of Minor Prophets

made before Malachi was written, to which, of course,

it was then immediately added; and it effectually dis-

poses of those critical conjectures which would put Joel,

Jonah or Zech. ix.-xiv. after the time of Malachi.

          (4.) The critics fix the final closing of the collection

of the prophets by their notion of the time when the

Book of Daniel was written. Thus Wildeboer (p. 116):

"At what time the division of the prophets was closed

we are not informed. But on account of Dan. ix. 2, whose

author, living about 165 B.C., seems to know 'the books'

as a collection with definite limits, and because the

Book of Daniel itself was unable to obtain a place in

the second section, we fix as a terminus ad quem about

200 B.C."¹  But we have already seen that the Book of

Daniel has its rightful place in the third division of the

canon, uninfluenced by the question whether at the time

of its insertion the second division was open or closed;

and that the date, which the critics assign to the book,

is determined by presuppositions in regard to miracles

and prophecy, which we do not share; and that apart

from these presuppositions there is no valid reason for

discrediting the claim which it makes for itself, con-

firmed by the belief of all past ages and by the testi-

mony of our Lord, that its author was no other than

Daniel himself.

          (5.) Wildeboer tells us (p. 123):  "When the conscious-

 

          ¹ So Ryle, p. 112.

106          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

ness had become general that no more prophets would

appear, the prophetic writings were collected and added

to the collection of the Nebiim [historical books of the

prophets], which had been in existence since the days of

Nehemiah. It is quite possible that the memory of the

interval between the canonization of the historical

books and of the prophetic writings proper is perpetu-

ated by the order of the two groups of books and by

the appellation based upon it, Former and Latter

Prophets." This idea that prophetic writings were not

regarded as canonical, until there were no longer any

prophets among the people, is as arbitrary and un-

founded as the opposite opinion, which figures so

largely in the reasonings of the critics that "the incor-

poration of recent or almost contemporary work iu the

same collection with the older prophets" would not

have been approved.¹  The living prophet did not su-

persede his predecessor of a former age, nor did the

older prophets diminish the authority or destroy the

value of those of recent date. The question was one of

divine commission and authority, not of antiquity, nor

of the form of delivery, whether oral or written.

          We have now reviewed all the considerations of any

moment, that are urged by the critics in defence of their

position, that the books of the prophets were not ad-

mitted to the canon until long after the public recogni-

tion of the binding obligation of the law in the time of

Ezra. And we have found nothing to militate against

the belief that the writings of the prophets, delivered

to the people as a declaration of the divine will, pos-

sessed canonical authority from the moment of their

appearance. Thus the canon grew with each successive

issue, until the last was published, when the canon was

complete. The second division of the canon was ac-

 

          ¹ Ryle, Canon, p. 106.

          WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED           107

 

cordingly completed by Malachi, the last of the proph-

ets who was a contemporary of Nehemiah.

          How was it with the K'thubhim? It has been main-

tained (1) that no steps were taken toward the forma-

tion of a third division, and none of the books found in

it were admitted to the canon until the second division

had first been closed. And this, it is alleged, could not

have taken place until a considerable time after Malachi,

when the general conviction had been reached that

prophecy had altogether ceased, and no more prophets

were to be expected. This is argued on the ground that

Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles would have been put

in the same division with the other historical books

such as Samuel and Kings, and Daniel with Isaiah,

Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, if that division had not been al-

ready closed, when they were accepted as canonical.

But it has already been shown that in the Hebrew

canon the books are not classified according to the char-

acter of their contents, but by the official status of their

authors. Books written by prophets stand in the sec-

ond division; those written by inspired men, not belong-

 

          ¹ So Bertholdt, p. 81; DeWette, § 13; Robertson Smith, p. 179.

Dillmann, pp. 455, 469, distinguishes between the older K'thubhim, as

Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and the Song of Solomon, and the more recent,

as Chronicles with Ezra, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Daniel. The

former were, in his opinion, held in very high esteem from the early

period after the exile, but were not yet in the full sense of the word

canonical. Bleek (pp. 666-668) holds this same view with regard to the

Psalms, but is more doubtful about Proverbs, Job, and the Song of Solo-

mon, although he believes that they were then undoubtedly in existence.

Ryle (p. 121) thinks that some of the K'thubliim were "an informal

appendix to the canon of the law and the prophets" prior to their own

canonization. Wildeboer says (p. 138): "Probably most of the Ke-

thubhim were already in existence when the prophets were canonized,"

and "many of them were originally united with prophetic books.

When the earlier scribes secured canonical authority for the prophets,

‘the rest of the books’ remained as a group of indefinite extent."

108            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

ing to the prophetic order in its strict and proper

sense, were assigned to the third division. There is no

need, therefore, for assuming that the prophets were

closed and could not be reopened, when these books

were introduced into the canon, in order to account for

the position which they occupy.

          (2.) It is asserted that several of the K'thubhim are of

much later date than the time of Ezra, and particularly

that the Book of Daniel was not written until B.C. 168

or 167.¹ It has already been shown that this assertion

is unfounded. The time allowed for a book to gain

credence, which first made its appearance in the period

of the Maccabees, but claimed to be the work of the

Prophet Daniel, who lived three centuries and a half

before, is remarkably short. Mattathias, who died B.C.

167, encouraged his sons by examples drawn from this

book, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah in the fiery fur-

nace and Daniel in the den of lions (1 Macc. ii. 59, 60).

There is also a plain reference to Dan. ix. 27, xii. 11

in 1 Macc. i. 54. And in B.C. 130, as attested by the

Prologue to Ecclesiasticus, all the books of the canon

had been translated into Greek, and Daniel, of course,

among them. And according to the uniform admission

of all the critics, this book would not have found ad-

mission to the canon if it had not been believed to be

the genuine work of the Prophet Daniel.

          (3.) In the order of books in the Hebrew Bible Chron-

icles² stands last, and is preceded by Ezra and Nehe-

miah. As Ezra is supposed, not without reason, to

have been a continuation of Chronicles, it is argued that

Ezra must have been separated and admitted to the

 

          ¹ So Driver; Ryle, p. 112, and Wildeboer, pp. 27, 143, say B.C. 165.

          ² In the Massoretie arrangement Chronicles is the first book of the

K'thubbim.

     WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED              109

 

canon before Chronicles was received.¹  But there is

no reason to suppose that the order of these books in-

dicates the order of their reception into the canon. If

that had been so, Daniel should have stood last accord-

ing to the critical hypothesis of its origin. In the

K'thubhim the three large books, Psalms, Proverbs, Job,

stand first, then the five Megilloth, then Daniel, Ezra,

Nehemiah in chronological order, and finally Chroni-

cles as a sort of historical appendix, reviewing the en-

tire period from the creation to the end of the exile.

          (4.) Dillmann (p. 483) argues that the additions to

Esther and Daniel in the Greek, and the recasting of

Chronicles and Ezra in the apocryphal Esdras show that

these books were not regarded as inviolable as the law

and the prophets. But the legends connected with the

law in the later Targums prove that its canonical author-

ity was no bar to imaginative additions suited to the

popular taste. And it is not strange that histories so

remarkable as those of Esther and Daniel should be

particularly alluring to those who were given to flights

of fancy.

          There is nothing in all this to support the contention

of the critics that the three divisions of the canon repre-

sent three distinct collections made at widely separated

periods; and nothing to weaken the evidence afforded

by the orderly distribution of books into classes, that

the arrangement was made at some one time and upon

a definite plan.

          It must be remembered that the canonization of books

is not to be confounded with their collection. Books

were not made canonical by the act of some public

authority, such as a decision rendered in their favor by

an assembly of scribes or doctors or a general council

 

          ¹ This notion is distinctly rejected by Buhl, Kanon and Text, p. 39.

110         GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

of the nation. This would be to attribute to the Jewish

Church in its organized capacity a power which even

Bellarmin,¹ disposed as he was to magnify ecclesiastical

prerogatives to the utmost, did not venture to claim for

the Christian Church. The canon does not derive its

authority from the Church, whether Jewish or Christian;

the office of the Church is merely that of a custodian

and a witness. The collection of the canon is simply

bringing together into one volume those books whose

sacred character has already secured general acknowl-

edgment. And the universal acceptance of the collec-

tion at the time, and subsequently, shows that it truly

represents the current belief of the Jewish people,

formed when they were still under prophetic guidance.²

 

          ¹ "Ecclesiam nullo modo posse facere librum canonicum de non

canonico, nec contra, sed tantum declarare, quis sit habendus canoni-

cus, et hoc non temere, nec pro arbitratu, sed ex veterum testimoniis

et similitudine librorum, de quibus ambigitur, cum illis de quibus non

ambigitur, ac demun ex communi sensu et quasi gustu populi Chris-

tiani."—Bellarmin, De Verbo Dei, Lib. I., c. 10, n. 16.

          ² Wildeboer (p. 165) concludes his dissertation by what seems like a

claim of orthodox endorsement of the modern critical theory of the

canon:  "As long ago as the beginning of the eighteenth century, a

learned and pious German theologian, and a champion of orthodoxy

too, wrote these true words:  'Canon non uno, quod dicunt, actu ab

hominibus, sed paulatim a Deo, animorum temporumque rectore, pro-

ductus est.'"  This same passage had been before quoted by Strack,

and from him adopted by Driver, p. x, and by Ryle conspicuously

placed opposite the title-page as the motto of his volume. It is an ab-

solute perversion of Loescher's meaning to represent his words as in

any way sanctioning the critical theory that the books of the Old Testa-

ment only attained canonical authority by slow degrees centuries after

they were written, and that this was first given to them by some public

official act, successively performed for each of the divisions of the

canon. The entire passage, from which the words above cited are

taken, reads as follows (Neil's Introduction, 2d Ed., Eng. Trans., II.,

p. 152):  "There existed from the age of Moses canonical books, from

their internal light and dignity esteemed as divine from their first ap-

pearance, which were laid up in the former temple in the ark of the

            WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED                  111

 

          We have no positive information when or by whom

the sacred books were collected and arranged. The

canon was completed by Malachi, the last of the

prophets, probably about 425 B.C. The first authentic

statement on the subject after this time is found in the

Prologue to Ecclesiasticus, which was written about 132

B.C.¹ It is there spoken of as a definite and well-known

 

covenant. To these others, recognized as divine from the time that they

were written and publicly read, were gradually added, not by the judg-

ment of Ezra or the Synagogue, or by decrees of Council or Synod

(Sanhedrim), but by the universal acceptance and usage of the whole

Church, until by the Book of Malachi the canon was closed. For

prophets ceased at that time, the use of the sacred tongue ceased, in

place of which the language of the Targums, the Greek, and the Rab-

binical were substituted. Hence the ancient Jewish Church acknowl-

edged none of the books written afterward as divine and belonging to

the Mikdash (Sanctuary); and so the canon itself was produced, not by

one act of men, so to speak, but gradually by God, who controls minds

and seasons."

          ¹ The date assigned to this Prologue and to the Book of Ecclesias-

ticus, to which it is prefixed, depends upon the statement in the Prologue

that the writer of it came into Egypt "in the thirty-eighth year in the reign

of Euergetes." There were two kings of this name in Egypt, Ptolemy

Euergetes I., who reigned twenty-five years, B.C. 246-221, and Ptol-

emy Physcon, who also gave himself the cognomen of Euergetes

II., and who reigned twenty-nine years, B.C. 145-116. A clew has also

been sought in what is said of "Simon, the high-priest, the son of

Onias " (Ecclus. 1). Singularly enough there were also two of this name

who filled the office of high-priest, Simon I., B.C. 300-287, and Simon

II., B. c. 226-198. Two different views have accordingly been taken of

the date of the Prologue. One, that Euergetes I. is intended, and the

thirty-eighth year of the writer's life, so that the Prologue must have

been written somewhere between B.C. 246 and 221, and the Book of

Ecclesiasticus about fifty years earlier. The other and more com-

monly received view is based on the fact that Euergetes II. was for a

time associated in the kingdom with his brother Ptolemy Philometor.

If his reign is reckoned from B.C. 170, the beginning of this joint

sovereignty, his thirty-eighth year will be B.C. 132. The form of ex-

pression employed to denote the thirty-eighth year of Euergetes,

though unusual, has analogies in Hag. i. 1; Zech. i. 7, vii. 1; 1 Macc.

xiv. 27.

112              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

body of writings in three divisions, severally denomi-

nated "the law and the prophets and the rest of the

books."  When and by whom they were collected the

writer does not state, but it must have been before the

time of his grandfather, Jesus, the son of Sirach, circ.

B.C. 180, who was the author of the book, and of whom

he speaks as a diligent reader of "the law and the

prophets and the other books of the fathers."

          The critics are at great pains to weaken the force of

this testimony to the third division of the canon. Thus

Dillmann (p. 478):  "At that time a third series of highly

prized writings had already been formed, which about

corresponds with our third canon. But that this series

contained only and entirely the same books, which

stand in our third canon, can never be proved from these

expressions, and therefore the passage cannot avail as a

witness for a closed canon." Ryle (p. 143):  "The vague-

ness of the writer's words in designating the third di-

vision stands in sharp contrast to the precision with

which he describes the first two divisions by the very

names that have traditionally been attached to them."

Wildeboer (p. 33):  "He cannot have meant an indefinite

number. But though he may have been well aware

what books were included in it, he has not told us, and

so has left us in uncertainty." There is no more "vague-

ness" in the expression employed to denote the third

division than in the other two; and no more reason for

"uncertainty" as to the number of books contained in

it, than those contained in the law or the prophets. Ac-

cording to the testimony of Josephus, nothing had been

added to the sacred books or taken from them since the

reign of Artaxerxes. The uniform belief of the Jews

was that the Holy Spirit had departed from Israel after

Malachi. The statement in the Prologue is precisely in

accord with this. The language is just what might be

           WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED              113

 

expected if the canon had been definitely settled for

three centuries; and there is nothing to suggest the sus-

picion that the third division was still in the process of

formation. Of this there is no proof whatever. The

long interval between Malachi and the son of Sirach

affords the critics a chance for endless theorizing and

confident assertions, which are, after all, purely conject-

ural and destitute of any real foundation.

          Beyond the statements now considered we have noth-

ing but legends and uncertain traditions in relation to

the process by which, the time when, or the persons by

whom the sacred books were put together as we already

find them in the time of the son of Sirach. Whatever

interest may attach to this question, it is plain that it

does not in any measure affect the authority of the

sacred writings. This is in nowise dependent upon

their being gathered together. A book inspired of God

is just as authoritative in its separate state as it is when

united with other books of like character. And a book

not inspired of God has no more right to control our

faith, when mingled with books really inspired, than if

it stood alone.

          In 2 Esdras, an apocryphal book full of fables, and

dating probably from the close of the first century of

the Christian era, it is said (xiv. 21 ff.) that the law (by

which is meant the entire Scriptures) was burned at the

time that the temple was destroyed, but Ezra was enabled

by divine inspiration to restore it. In the course of forty

days he dictated ninety-four¹ books; seventy of which

were to be delivered only to the wise, and the others

were to be published openly for all to read. As twenty-

four is the number of the canonical books, as commonly

reckoned by the Jews, it is evident that these are the

 

          ¹ So the Ethiopic Version, and this is probably the true reading; the

Vulgate has 204, and some copies 904.

114          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

books to be given to the public. The same legend,

shorn of some of its particulars, is found in quite a num-

ber of the early Christian fathers, as Clemens Alexan-

drinus, Tertullian, Irenaeus¹ and others, who relate that

the Scriptures perished in the destruction of Jerusalem

by Nebuchadnezzar, but Ezra was divinely inspired to

restore them perfectly, and did so without the slightest

loss or alteration. This fabulous story is, of course, en-

titled to no credence. It is not unlikely, however, that

it may be so far founded on fact as that Ezra took a

prominent part in the collection and arrangement of the

sacred books after the exile, and in multiplying copies

for general circulation.

          Another tradition relating to this subject is found in

2 Macc. ii. 13. Critics have been greatly divided in

opinion as to the degree of credit to be attached to this

passage. Some treat it as entirely trustworthy, others

as undeserving of attention. It is in a spurious letter

purporting to be written by Jews in Jerusalem and in

Judea to those in Egypt, and is professedly based on

"writings and memorabilia of Nehemiah," of which

nothing whatever is known. It says that "Nehemiah

founding a library, gathered together the books concern-

ing the kings and prophets, and those of David, and let-

ters of kings concerning consecrated gifts." No mention

is here made of the law, which had been spoken of in

ver. 2 as given by Jeremiah to those who were carried

into exile. To this Nehemiah added "the [books] con-

cerning the kings and the prophets," by which are

obviously meant the historical and prophetical books,

 

          ¹ Havernick, Einleitung, p. 44, and Keil, Einleitung, p. 544, claim

that the testimony of Irenmus adv. Haer., III., 21, is independent of 2

Esdras, and simply attributes to Ezra the collection of the canon;

but Oehler, p. 246, and Strack, p. 415, have shown, from a considera-

tion of the entire passage, that this is a mistake.

         WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED            115

 

here classed together as forming the second division

of the canon. Finally certain prominent parts of the

third and last division, which may or may not be put

for the whole, viz., "the [writings] of David," i.e., the

Psalms and "letters of kings concerning consecrated

gifts," which can only refer to the letters of the Persian

monarchs contained in the Book of Ezra.¹

          In ver. 14 it is added, "In like manner also Judas"

Maccabeus, who is represented (i. 10) as uniting with

others in sending this letter, "gathered together all

those things that were lost by reason of the war." It is

known from other sources that Antiochus Epiphanes

made a desperate attempt to destroy the sacred books.²

These were carefully regathered by Judas in the same

manner as before. This letter further contains the

legend of the miraculous preservation of the sacred fire

(i. 18 ff.) and of the tabernacle, the ark, and the altar of

incense (ii. 4 ff.). This curious compound of truth

and fable attributes to Nehemiah an agency in collect-

ing the sacred writings which, in itself considered, is

altogether credible.

          These intimations from legendary sources acquire

greater significance from the fact that they are corrobo-

rated by other and independent considerations. Thus:

          1. Ezra is repeatedly and with emphasis called "the

scribe" (Neh. viii. 1, 4, 9, 13, xii. 26, 36);  "a ready

scribe in the law of Moses" (Ezra vii. 6); "a scribe of the

words of the commandments of Jehovah, and of his stat-

 

          ¹ Wildeboer, p. 117, limits "the books concerning the kings and

prophets" to "the prophetico-historical" to the exclusion of the pro-

phetical books; Movers, p. 15, applies this expression to Chronicles.

Bertholdt, I., p. 76, understands "the books of David" to mean the

Books of Samuel. Wildeboer, p. 39, overlooks entirely the sacred

character of the collection, and says that Nehemiah "as a lover of

books founded a library."

          ² 1 Macc. i. 56, 57; Josephus, Ant., xii. 5, 4.

116            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

utes to Israel" (ver. 11); "a scribe of the law of the God

of heaven" (vs. 12, 22), a character in which he was

known, as appears from the passages last cited, before

he went up from the captivity. It hence appears that

his professional occupation was with the Scriptures, as

a student and interpreter, and engaged probably in the

preparation of copies for the use of the people and in

certifying their correctness. From Ezra dates the origin

of that race of scribes so distinguished subsequently,

and so frequently alluded to in the New Testament as

men learned in the law, the custodians and conservators

of the sacred text.

          2. The period immediately succeeding the exile was

devoted to the single task of restoring everything after

the model of former times. It is well known how ac-

tively and earnestly Ezra was engaged in the reinstitu-

tion of the temple service and in reviving the old ar-

rangements of the theocracy in accordance with the

prescriptions of Moses, David, and Solomon, and what

pains he took to have the people made acquainted with

the law of Moses and in general with all the ancient

regulations and statutes of divine authority. The

thoughts of all dwelt upon the glories of Israel in the

past, and their highest hope was to have them repro-

duced in their own experience. The history of God's

dealings with their fathers and the revelations made to

them were prominently before their minds, and formed

the burden of their supplications (Neh. ix.). It is just

what might be expected from the needs and longings of

the time, and. from the nature of the work to which Ezra

so energetically addressed himself, that the sacred writ-

ings would then be carefully gathered for the guidance

and instruction of the people, and for their own more

secure preservation and transmission.

          3. Private and partial collections of these writings had

            WHEN AND BY WHOM COLLECTED                  117

 

already been formed, and were in the possession of indi-

viduals. This is apparent from the frequent references

made by the prophets, such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel, to

the language of their predecessors or to the former his-

tory of the nation, from the explicit mention of a pre-

diction of Micah, delivered a century before, by the

elders in addressing the people (Jer. xxvi. 17-19), and

from "the books" of which Daniel (ix. 2) speaks at the

close of the captivity, and in which the prophecies of

Jeremiah must have been included. These would natu-

rally suggest the formation of a public and complete

collection, and would prepare the way for it.

          4. All the books of the Old Testament were already

written in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, so that there

was nothing to prevent their collection of them. The

last addition to the canon was made by Malachi, a con-

temporary of Nehemiah. That a large proportion of the

books of the canon were then in existence is universally

acknowledged. The law and the prophets and several

of the K'thubhim, it is generally admitted, were already

written. No one disputes this with regard to the great

majority of the Psalms; and there is no good reason

why all may not have been written by the end of the

first century after the exile. It has been plausibly ar-

gued from 1 Chron. xvi. 35, 36, where the doxology is

inserted, which marks the conclusion of the fourth Book

of the Psalter (Ps. cvi. 48), that the Psalms must have

been completed and arranged as at present before

Chronicles was written. Proverbs, as is expressly stated

(xxv. 1), was completed in the reign of Hezekiah. And

in regard to those books, which the critics assign to a

late postexilic date, it has already been shown that they

do so on insufficient grounds.

          5. The cessation of prophecy seems to be foreshad-

owed by Zechariah (xiii. 2-5), who speaks of the time as

118         GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

coming when the assumption of the office of a prophet

shall be evidence of deception. And perhaps by Mala-

chi (iv. 5), who only looks forward to the coming of Elijah

before the personal appearance of the Lord. That suc-

ceeding generations were fully aware that there was no

prophet among them is plain from 1 Macc. iv. 46, ix. 27,

xiv. 41, which speak of the perplexity arising from the

absence of a prophet, and the postponement of questions

for decision by one, if any should arise. This shows

how clearly the divine was discriminated from what was

purely human, and creates a presumption that the in-

spired writings were not only sundered from all unin-

spired productions, as they have been from the beginning,

but were regarded as a complete whole to which no fur-

ther addition could be made. Their collection could

scarcely have been delayed beyond the time when it was

felt that the line of prophets was coming to an end.

          These considerations, taken in connection with the

legends and traditions previously recited, whose exist-

ence is to be accounted for, and can thus be most satis-

factorily explained, make it highly probable that the

canon was collected by Ezra and Nehemiah, or in their

time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                         VIII

 

THE EXTENT OF THE CANON--THE CANON OF THE

                                        JEWS

 

          WE have now considered the formation and collec-

tion of the Old Testament canon. Our next inquiry

concerns its compass or extent. What books belong to

this canon? And how can they be identified and dis-

tinguished from all others? This topic will be treated

under three heads, and in the following order:

          1. The canon of the Jews.

          2. The canon of Christ and his Apostles.

          3. The canon of the Christian Church.

          The Jews in all parts of the world accept the same

canon, which is found without variation in all copies of

the Hebrew Bible. This unanimity is found to exist as

far back as the constituents of the Old Testament can

be traced.

          The Talmudic tract Baba Bathra, which is attributed

to Judas Hakkadosh in the second century A.D., contains

a catalogue of the sacred books. They are there classed

in three divisions as in our modern Hebrew Bibles, viz.,

five books of the law, eight of the prophets, and eleven

of the K'thubhim, making a total of twenty-four. In

this enumeration the whole of Samuel is counted one

book, so is Kings, and so is Chronicles. The twelve

Minor Prophets are also reckoned one, and Nehemiah

is included under Ezra as forming with it one book.

Under the last two divisions the books are arranged in

 

                                         119

120               GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

the following order, which differs somewhat from that

which is customary in the Hebrew Bible:

The Prophets: 1, Joshua; 2, Judges; 3, Samuel;

4, Kings; 5, Jeremiah; 6, Ezekiel; 7, Isaiah; 8, The

Twelve.

          The K'thubhim: 1, Ruth; 2, Psalms; 3, Job; 4, Prov-

erbs; 5, Ecclesiastes; 6, Song of Songs; 7, Lamen-

tations; 8, Daniel; 9, Esther; 10, Ezra; 11, Chroni-

cles.

          Another native testimony, a century earlier, is found

in a passage already quoted (p. 37) from the histor-

ian Josephus, "Against Apion," i. 8. His statement

respecting the sacred books is not so explicit as that of

the Talmud, since he does not mention them by name;

but he gives their number, and describes them so that

it can without difficulty be determined which they were.

He gives both a different total and a different classifica-

tion from that of the Talmud; the difference, however,

lies not in the contents of the canon, but in the mode

of enumeration. We have before seen (p. 87) that

the books of the canon were reckoned 24 if Ruth and

Lamentations were counted as separate books, but 22

if Ruth was attached to Judges and Lamentations to

Jeremiah. The Talmud adopts the former reckoning,

Josephus the latter. These 22 books he divides into

three classes: 1, five books of Moses; 2, thirteen

books of the prophets, who wrote what was done in

their times from the death of Moses to the reign of Ar-

taxerxes, the successor of Xerxes, king of Persia; 3,

four books containing hymns to God and counsels for

men for the conduct of life. The five books of Moses

are easily recognized. The other books are readily

made out by comparison of the catalogue already given

from the Talmud. The four containing hymns to God

and counsels for men are unquestionably 1, Psalms; 2,

 

             THE CANON OF THE JEWS                    121

 

Proverbs; 3, Ecclesiastes; 4, The Song of Solomon.

The thirteen books of the prophets must then be

1. Joshua.                         8. Job.

2. Judges, including Ruth.           9. Isaiah.

3. Samuel.                        10. Jeremiah and Lamenta-

4. Kings.                                   tions.

5. Chronicles.                   11. Ezekiel.

6. Ezra, with Nehemiah.    12. Daniel.

7. Esther.                          13. The Minor Prophets.¹

          It will be observed that Josephus here departs from

the current classification, and adopts one of his own,

suited to his immediate purpose. He is defending the

historical trustworthiness of the books of his nation, and

accordingly arranges them from a historical point of

view: the books of Moses, containing the history from

the creation to his own death; then the other books hav-

ing any historical material, which he refers to prophets

in the wide sense of men divinely inspired; and finally

those which are not historical in their character, but

contain hymns and wise counsels.

          The canon of Josephus might also, without the aid of

the Talmud, be constructed almost entirely out of his

own writings. In the course of his writings he men-

tions nearly every book in the Old Testament, either

 

          ¹ J. D. Michaelis contended that the four books of the third division

were Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, and that the Song of

Solomon was not included in the canon of Josephus, Or. u. Ex. Bib.,

III., p. 47. Oeder excluded Esther, Ezra with Nehemiah, and Chron-

icles from the list, and made up the number by separating Ruth from

Judges, and counting the two books of Samuel and the two of Kings

separately, Or. u. Ex. Bib., II., p. 2t. Haneberg did the same, Theol.

Quartalschrift for 1855, p. 69. Movers, Canon, pp. 27, 31, excludes

Esther and counts Ezra and Nehemiah separately. Graetz rejects

Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon and counts in Ruth and Lamen-

tations, Kohelet, p. 169. These fanciful suggestions are of no ac-

count, and it is now generally admitted that the canon of Josephus

is identical with that of the Hebrew Bible.

122            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

explicitly ranking them among the sacred books, or

quoting and making use of them in such a way as shows

that they belong to the number above described.¹ The

only books which he does not thus mention or make use

of are Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon's Song.

The reason why these are not quoted by him in the

same manner as the rest, is not because he did not rate

them as of equal authority, but simply because they did

not furnish any materials which he had occasion to use

in his histories. Job was outside of the line of the

chosen people, and had no connection, therefore, with

the ancient history of the Jews. And the other three

books are not of a historical character. But that he ac-

cepted them as canonical is evident from the fact that

they are needed to make up the number 22, which he

assigns to the sacred books.

          This concurrent testimony of the Talmud and Jose-

phus with regard to the Jewish canon might, if it were

necessary, be confirmed by statements of early Chris-

tian fathers, who made special inquiry into this matter,

and have left catalogues of the books esteemed sacred

by the Jews. The native authorities already examined

are, however, sufficient to determine this point; and the

statements of the fathers will more naturally find their

place in an account of the canon of the Old Testament

as it has been received and held in the Christian

Church.

          The question has here been raised whether the canon

attested by Josephus and the Talmud was universally

acknowledged by the Jews. The Samaritans, as has

been before stated, accepted only the books of Moses.²

 

          ¹ Eichhorn shows this in detail, pointing out the passages in which

each book is referred to or made use of, and the manner in which it is

spoken of.—Rep. fur Morg. Litt., V., pp. 260-270.

          ² The modern Samaritans are also in possession of a chronicle called

                THE CANON OF THE JEWS                         123

 

They had a temple of their own on Mount Gerizim, and

refused to acknowledge any book of the Old Testament

which sanctioned any other place of worship. Some of

the early Christian fathers alleged that the Sadducees

admitted no other sacred books than those of Moses.

This is, however, a mistake into which they may have

been betrayed by confounding the Sadducees with the

Samaritans, with whom they had no connection what-

ever. The proofs adduced of so restricted a canon of

the Sadducees are devoid of force. Some passages in

Josephus have been appealed to ("Antiq.," xiii. 10, 6,

xviii. 1, 4), which, however, speak not of their rejection

of any of the books of Scripture, but only of the traditions

of the Pharisees. Their denial of a resurrection (Acts

xxiii. 8) does not prove their rejection of those Script-

ures in which it is taught (e.g., Dan. xii. 2), any more

than their disbelief in the existence of angels disproves

their acceptance of the Pentateuch. They doubtless

managed to put some different interpretation upon

passages whose obvious sense they were reluctant to ac-

cept. Nor does the fact that our Lord proves the doc-

trine of the resurrection against them by a citation from

the Book of Exodus (Mat. xxii. 23-32), when clearer

proofs could have been found in later portions of the

Old Testament, sanction the view that they acknowl-

edged only the inspiration and authority of the Pen-

tateuch.¹  In this case our Lord would more likely

 

the book of Joshua, which has hut a slight connection with the genuine

book of that name, and professes to give the history from the time of

Joshua to that of the Roman emperors.

          ¹ Lightfoot, Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations on John iv. 25,

adduces a passage from the Talmud in which R. Gamaliel argues

with a Sadducee for the resurrection from the law, the prophets and

the K'thubhim, quoting in proof Isaiah and the Song of Solomon.

"The books themselves out of which these proofs were brought were

not excepted against, but the places quoted had another sense put upon

124           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

have rebuked them for their rejection of so large a

portion of the word of God, as on other occasions he

condemns the Pharisees for making it void by their

traditions. And our Saviour's urging the passage from

Exodus in preference to others may have been both to

show that this doctrine pervaded the Scriptures even

from the earliest periods, and also to bring the authority

of the great legislator upon the case, who stood in a

unique position among the inspired men of the former

economy from the peculiar intimacy to which he was

admitted by Jehovah, and the lofty rank belonging to

him as the founder of that dispensation. Just as special

stress might be laid upon the words of Jesus in some

matter of faith or duty without at all implying that the

canon of the New Testament was limited to the Gospels,

or that the writings of the apostles were not of binding

authority.

          There is also reason to believe that the peculiar sects

of contemplative ascetics or mystics, the Essenes and the

Therapeutae, accepted the same canon as the people at

large, though they also had other books written by mem-

bers of their own sect which were held in high esteem.¹

          It was confidently affirmed by Semler and Corrodi,

and has been maintained by others since, that the

Alexandrian Jews had a more comprehensive canon than

the Jews of Palestine; and appeal is made to the Sep-

tuagint Version, which contained books not in the He-

brew Bible, and to the esteem in which these books

were held by some of the early Christians. But there

is satisfactory evidence that these supernumerary books

were no more regarded as belonging to the canon in the

one place than they were in the other.

 

them." A Sadducee is also mentioned, who quotes the prophet Amos.

See also Herzfeld, III., p. 104.

          ¹ Havernick, Einleitung, I., pp. 75, 76.

           THE CANON OF THE JEWS                      125

 

          1. There is a strong antecedent presumption against

a difference of canon in the two places. To alter the

canon would be to change the very basis of their relig-

ion. Such an act on the part of the Egyptian Jews

would create a breach between them and their co-re-

ligionists in the Holy Land. And there are abundant

indications that they were solicitous to cement their

intercourse with them, and to maintain their standing

as orthodox Jews. Jerusalem was the centre to which

the Jews resorted from every quarter. It set the stand-

ard which was everywhere followed. Philo speaks of

his having been commissioned by his brethren in Egypt

to offer in their name and on their behalf in the Temple

at Jerusalem; and this was most probably in accordance

with a usual custom.

          2. The translator of the Book of Ecclesiasticus into

Greek, in the Prologue before spoken of, makes mention

both of the sacred books which his grandfather had

studied in Palestine, and of those which he himself

found in Egypt translated into Greek; and he uses pre-

cisely the same expressions in regard to both, naming

both under the same threefold division of "the law, the

prophets and the rest of the books," and without in-

timating that there was any difference between them.

          3. The account of the sacred books given by Josephus

is found in a treatise written by him against Apion, a

grammarian of Alexandria. And if the canon received

by Jews resident in Egypt was different from that of

Palestine, it is unaccountable that he should have made

no allusion to that circumstance.

          4. Philo (flor. A.D. 41) was an Alexandrian Jew of

great eminence, and the only one whose writings have

been preserved. He makes repeated reference to the

books of the Old Testament and comments largely upon

particular portions of them. Unfortunately he has no-

126              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

where left a list of the books esteemed sacred by his

countrymen, nor has he even furnished such a general

description of them as is found in Josephus. But the

incidental allusions and references to individual books

and the statements regarding them in different parts of

his writings have been carefully collected, and from

them the canon of Philo can be pretty well made out,

and shown to be identical with that of Josephus and

the Talmud. According to the detailed account given

by Eichhorn¹ all the books of the Old Testament are

either expressly spoken of as inspired, or else quoted

or distinctly mentioned, except Esther, Ezekiel, Daniel,

Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.²  He does not

happen to have made any allusion to these books, as he

had no occasion to do so; but their canonicity in Alex-

andria as well as elsewhere is sufficiently established by

other testimonies. At the same time it is to be observed

that Philo never quotes nor mentions any one of the

apocryphal books, though there are indications that he

was acquainted with them. So total a silence on his

part is not consistent with his classing them among the

sacred books. As Eichhorn remarks, "He does not

even show them the respect which he shows to Plato,

Philolaus, Solon, Hippocrates, Heraclitus and others,

from whose writings he often adduces passages."

 

          ¹ In the Rep. Bib. u. Morg. Litt., V., pp. 238-250, based upon

Hornemann, Observationes ad illustrationem doctrines de canone V.

T. ex Philone, 1775.

          ² Hornemann includes Chronicles among the books omitted by Philo,

but Buhl (Canon, p. 17) and Pick (Journal of the Exegetical Society,

1884, p. 129) show that it is cited by him. Only two of the Minor

Prophets, Hosea and Zechariah, are quoted; but as The Twelve were

in all ancient catalogues reckoned one book, the citation of any part

shows the esteem in which the whole was held. So Ruth was reckoned

part of Judges, Lamentations of Jeremiah, and Nehemiah of Ezra;

and though they are not separately mentioned, their canonicity is

implied.

               THE CANON OF THE JEWS                       127

 

It is urged, however, that the presence of several

books in the Septuagint Version which are not in the

Hebrew Bible, proves that these books were esteemed a

part of the canon in Egypt, where this version was pre-

pared. This is the most plausible argument that can

be advanced in favor of a more comprehensive canon in

Alexandria than in Palestine; and yet it is after all only

an argument addressed to our ignorance. For,

          I. The origin and early history of the Septuagint

Version, and even its original compass, are involved in

great obscurity. It is evident from the various merit

and ability with which different parts of it are executed,

that it was not all prepared at one time nor by one

body of translators. No one can tell when the entire

translation was finished and put together, nor when

and how these other writings came to be associated

with it.¹

          2. As is correctly stated by Wildeboer, p. 35, "All the

manuscripts of the LXX. which we possess are of

Christian origin, so that in some even the Magnificat of

Mary appears among the hymns. On this account we

cannot always say positively whether we have before us

the views of the Alexandrians. . . . In the various

manuscripts the number of apocryphal books varies,

hence no established list existed."²

 

          ¹ Cosin, p. 54, quotes Cyril of Jerusalem, "Read the divine Script-

ures, namely the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, which the

seventy-two interpreters translated." According to Cyril, therefore,

the Septuagint Version proper contained only the twenty-two books

of the Hebrew canon.

          ² To the same purport, Ryle, p. 169: "The manuscripts of the LXX.

are, all of them, of Christian origin; and moreover differ from one

another in the arrangement as well as in the selection of the books.

There is no uniform Alexandrian list. The Christian Church derived

their Old Testament Scriptures from the Jews; but whether they found

the books of the Apocrypha in Jewish copies, or added them after-

wards, we have no means of judging."

128             GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

          3. The connection of these books with the Septua-

gint must, of course, be explained in conformity with the

proofs already given of the identity of the canon in

Alexandria and Jerusalem. It seems most probable

that these books were gradually attached to the Greek

Bible as a sort of supplement or appendix, which,

though not of canonical authority, stood in an intimate

relation to the Scriptures, as connected with the later

history of the chosen people, or as suggestive of devout

meditations, and thus widely separated from all profane

or merely secular writings. As late as the second cen-

tury A.D. it was customary in Palestine to write each of

the books of the Old Testament on a separate manu-

script, instead of combining all or a number of them in

the same volume. If a similar practice prevailed in

Alexandria, it is easy to see how these related though

uncanonical books might at first have been laid along-

side of the sacred books for safe keeping; and ultimate-

ly, when the practice arose of including several books in

the same volume, these extraneous books might have

been copied along with the rest, and joined to those to

which they seemed to be most nearly related.

          It is further urged that the apocryphal books found

in the Septuagint were accepted by Christian fathers as

of divine authority, which could only be because they

derived them from the Jews. And as the Jews of Pal-

estine did not receive them, it must have been from the

Jews of Alexandria that the fathers learned to hold

them in such high esteem. This can only receive a sat-

isfactory reply when the history of the canon in the

Christian Church is under consideration. It will then

appear that, however unadvisedly some of the fathers

may have expressed themselves in this matter, these

books were not placed on a par with the Hebrew Script-

ures in the early church.

             THE CANON OF THE JEWS                      129

 

          An argument has also been drawn from an obviously

erroneous reading in the prologues of Jerome to Tobit

and Judith, in which he is made to say that these books

were ranked by the Jews among the Hagiographa; and

as these books were not canonical in Palestine, it has

been inferred that he must have had reference to the

Jews of Alexandria. But Jerome elsewhere explicitly

asserts that these books formed no part of the canon of

the Jews; the best authorities are, therefore, agreed

that "Hagiographa" is an error in transcription, and

the true reading is "Apocrypha."

          Wildeboer maintains that there was no strictly defined

canon in Alexandria. He says, p. 33:  "The addition

of apocryphal pieces, and even whole books, which are

in no way distinguished from the other writings, shows

that the Alexandrians knew no fixed canon." And, p.

35:  "It must not be assumed that the existence of an

official Palestinian canon was known in Alexandria.

The Law was translated first and most faith-

fully. . . . The translation of the Prophets was of

later origin, and is already freer; that of the Hagio-

grapha is the freest of all. From this it may reasonably

be inferred that the Alexandrian translators themselves

held the Prophets and Hagiographa in less exalted an

esteem than the Law." And, pp. 36, 37:  "Philo en-

tertained such a conception of divine inspiration as to

exclude the idea that lie accepted an officially defined

inspired canon. . . . Inspiration, according to

him, is by no means confined to the Sacred Scriptures.

He regards it as obtainable by any one that practises

virtue."

          It has already been shown how the existence of ad-

ditional books in the Septuagint can be explained con-

sistently with the acknowledgment of a more limited

canon by the Jews of Alexandria. What is said of the

130           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

Law being more exactly translated than the Prophets,

and the Prophets than the Hagiographa, is just as true

of the Palestinian Targums as of the Alexandrian Sep-

tuagint; and if it disproves a fixed and definite canon

in Alexandria, it does the same in Palestine. A stricter

regard for the letter of the Law than of the Prophets is

quite conceivable without disparagement to the canon-

icity of the latter. And Philo's loose views of inspiration

cannot be declared irreconcilable with the acceptance

of a fixed canon, unless it is first shown that he places

others whom he thinks inspired on a level with the

writers of Scripture. This he never does. And the

sharp discrimination which he makes is evidenced by

the fact that his recognition of sacred books is limited,

as has been shown above, to the strict Hebrew canon.

And the supreme authority accorded to it by Philo and

his Jewish countrymen is apparent from his language,

as reported by Eusebius,¹ "They have not changed so

much as a single word in them. They would rather die

a thousand deaths than detract anything from these laws

and statutes."

          Movers, p. 21 f., argues that all the books in the Sep-

tuagint must have been regarded as canonical by the

Alexandrian Jews, and as they maintained a close con-

nection with their brethren in Palestine in all religious

matters, and derived their canon from them, these books

must have been canonical likewise in Palestine, and

were only excluded from the canon in both places at a

later time, viz., the second century A.D., when the opin-

ion became prevalent that inspiration had ceased after

Malachi (p. 31 f.). This extraordinary opinion is suffi-

ciently refuted by the proofs already given, that the

canon, both in Palestine and Alexandria, coincided pre-

cisely with the books now found in the Hebrew Bible.

 

          ¹ De Prep. Evang., lib. viii., quoted by Cosin, p. 16.

               THE CANON OF THE JEWS                      131

 

          Movers seems to have been the first to direct atten-

tion to certain expressions in the Talmud, from which

he drew the inference that the limits of the canon were

not finally settled until the second century A.D. Great

stress has since been laid by critics upon these passages

as showing that the canon, and particularly the third

division of the canon, was long in an unsettled and fluct-

uating condition.

          Two technical expressions are found in the passages

in question. One is zng, ganaz, to withdraw from sacred

use. This was applied to manuscripts of the sacred

books which, on account of errors of transcription,

were pronounced unfit for synagogue use; also to

manuscripts which were old and worn out, and were,

in consequence, buried in a spot called Gheniza, to

protect them from profanation; also to portions of the

sacred books which were not considered suitable for

reading in the public worship of the synagogue. To

ganaz a book is, accordingly, to forbid its use in the

synagogue worship, which is practically equivalent to

excluding it from the canon.

          The other technical expression is to "defile the

hands."  "Books of Scripture were said to defile the

hands. To say that a given book defiled the hands is

to declare that it belongs to the sacred canon; to say

that it does not defile the hands is to deny it a place in

the canon. This singular dictum of the rabbis has

been differently understood. The most natural ex-

planation of it would seem to be that the sacred volume

is so holy that no one must touch it without first wash-

ing his hands. Hands which are clean enough for or-

dinary purposes become unclean in the presence of this

holy book, and thus the Scriptures defile the hands,

causing them to be considered unclean, and needing to

be cleansed before they can be suffered to come into

132             GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

contact with what is so pure."¹  The rabbis themselves

give a different account of it. They explain it as an

arbitrary regulation invented to guard the sacred books

from injury. Lest the rolls containing them might be

damaged by being suffered to lie near the grain of the

first-fruits and other offerings, and thus be exposed to

the danger of being gnawed by the mice which this

grain would attract, it was enacted that these rolls

would defile the heave-offerings, and would defile the

hands of him who touched them, so that he could not

handle those offerings.²

          Questionings are said to have arisen respecting Eze-

kiel and Proverbs which were set at rest after prolonged

investigation. It is mentioned that certain rabbis of

the school of Shammai denied that Ecclesiastes defiled

the hands, while those of the rival school of Hillel af-

firmed that it did. Others are spoken of as doubting

whether the Song of Solomon defiled the hands, and a

like doubt was expressed about Esther. But the in-

spiration of Esther was affirmed, and at a great assem-

bly held at Jamnia, near the close of the first century

A.D.,³ the seventy-two elders resolved that the Song of

Solomon and Ecclesiastes do defile the hands.⁴

 

          ¹ Furst, Kanon, p. 83.

          ² Herzfeld, Geschichte, III., p. 97; Delitzsch in Luth. Zeitschrift

for 1854, p. 280, quotes from the Talmudic Tract, Sabbath, "Because

they used to lay the heave-offering beside the book of the Law and

thought: This is holy and that is holy. But when they saw that the

books of the Law were thus exposed to the risk of injury, the Rabbis

resolved that the Holy Scriptures should be regarded as unclean."

          ³ Robertson Smith, p. 185, dates it cir. 90 A.D. Delitzsch, ubi

supra, p. 282, A. D. 118.

          ⁴ Bloch, p. 152, insists that "defiling the hands" or "not defiling

the hands" has nothing to do with the canonicity of the books to

which these expressions are applied. He says:  "It is decidedly an

error if that prophylactic regulation that certain sacred books (pre-

eminently those of Moses) cause Levitical defilement is put in relation

              THE CANON OF THE JEWS                     133

 

          Robertson Smith, pp. 176 ff., alleges on this ground

that only a certain portion of the Old Testament was

fixed and incontestable among the Jews, and that the

canonical authority of other parts was disputed and

long stood in doubt. While there never has been any

dispute of the canonicity of the Law, the Prophets, and

three large Poetical books, which stand first in the

Hagiographa, viz., the Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, the

books which follow are a later addition, and some of the

Jews themselves questioned whether certain of them,

particularly the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and

Esther belonged to the canon; and this strife was not

finally concluded in their favor until nearly one hundred

years after the beginning of the Christian era.¹

          In regard to these disputations it is to be observed,

          1. That the question in every case was not whether a

book should or should not be admitted to the canon, as

though this had never before been decided; but whether

a book, which had long before been received into the can-

on, was rightfully there or ought to be excluded from it.

 

to the collection of the canon or to the canonical character of a book.

Besides Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon, there were other ac-

knowledged canonical books to which that ordinance was not extended;

and the Shammaites, the alleged opposers of Ecclesiastes, have, as

can be shown, never doubted its canonical character." "It is de-

clared (Kelim, xiv. 6) that those ordinances, according to which the

Pentateuch and other sacred writings cause Levitical defilement, do

not apply to the high-priest's copy of the Pentateuch, which was kept

in the temple. Here we see clearly that the entire regulation stands

in no relation to the canonical character of the books." He refers to

his treatise on Ecclesiastes for a statement of the real reason of the

order that certain books of Scripture produce Levitical defilement.

This treatise I have not seen. Of course, if Bloch can establish his

contention, this whole matter becomes irrelevant. It is here discussed

on the assumption that the phrase has the meaning which scholars

generally put upon it.

          ¹ Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine, pp. 295 ff., makes the num-

ber of antilegomena still greater.

134          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

          2. The grounds of objection did not affect the au-

thorship or genuineness of the books, but rest upon ex-

ceptions taken to the contents of the books themselves,

implying a high and well-established standard of ca-

nonical fitness, to which every book included in the

canon must be expected to conform. The Song of

Solomon, considered as a mere song of worldly love, and

Ecclesiastes in its commendation of worldly enjoyment,

were thought to fall below this standard. Some of the

objections are frivolous and trivial, and seem to have

been made for the sake of refuting them by a display of

subtlety. And none of them were of such a character

as to lead to the omission of any of these books from

the canon. When submitted to the assembly of elders

the objections were overruled, and the books retained.

And the Talmud in other passages abundantly testifies

to the canonical authority of the disputed books. In-

stead of proving that the canon was still unsettled,

these objections were directed against a canon already

firmly established, and left it in the same condition in

which they found it. The questionings of individual

rabbis are of no account against the universal sentiment

of the Jewish Church.¹

 

          ¹ Strack, p. 429, speaks very decidedly on this point:  "Seriously

meant contradictions against the canon of the twenty-four sacred books

were never raised in ancient Jewry; books once received were neither

seriously contested, nor was any book, that is spoken of in the pre-

ceding discussion as not received, ever subsequently admitted, or at-

tempts made to admit it. In all the Talmudic disputations the question

was not of the reception of new books, nor of the enlargement of the

canon, nor of the exclusion of a book on the ground of any critical

doubts, but only that individual scholars adduced reasons taken from

the contents for the exclusion of one book or another long since re-

ceived, without in a single instance practical effect being given to these

discussions. The debates often make the impression that the doubts

were only raised in order to be contradicted; in other words, on the

one hand as an exercise of acuteness, and on the other to demonstrate

               THE CANON OF THE JEWS                      135

 

          3. These objections were not limited to what Robert-

son Smith regards as the disputed portion of the canon;

but, such as they were, they were directed against what

he considers the unquestioned portion as well, e.g.,

against Proverbs and the Book of Ezekiel.

          4. The idea of an unsettled canon in the first century

of the Christian era is absolutely inadmissible in the

 

the authority of the sacred books as absolutely assured. There is no

passage from which it follows that there ever was any wavering in the

religious consciousness of the people as to the canonicity of any one of

the twenty-four books."

          Herzfeld, Geschichte, III., p. 97, says to the same purport:  "The

question was not of newly receiving books, but of exscinding those

that had long been received for important reasons. . . . But I

doubt whether a book already admitted to the canon was ever actually

removed in consequence. When it is said, in Aboth R. Nathan, ch. i.,

that Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes were actually

made apocryphal, until the Great Synagogue explained what was

strange in them and put an end to their exclusion, it may be affirmed

that so recent an account deserves no faith, as opposed to those older

ones which differ from it."

          So, too, Buhl, Kanon and Text, p. 25:  "Such attacks upon books of

the Bible do not exclude an earlier fixed canon, since the criticism of

particular writings of the Old Testament were not altogether silenced

after the Synod of Jamnia, nor even after the decision of the Mishnah.

Further, the very attacks referred to, more carefully considered, actu-

ally presuppose a canon of Scripture. The question was not of the

genuineness or age of the writings impugned, but only of doubts and

scruples which were called forth by a definitely developed, dogmatic

conception of Scripture; since from the notion of a strictly limited

Scripture, sundered from all other literature, they felt entitled to insti-

tute certain demands of the harmonious unity and moral and religious

purity of this Scripture. Josephus boasts in the passage above ad-

duced that the sacred literature of the Jews did not consist, like that of

other nations, of discordant and conflicting books. The very offence

which was taken at that time at the writings in question, and which

compelled the defenders of them to resort to all sorts of strange, forced

interpretations, that were ultimately approved by all Jews, is the most

convincing proof that they felt very strongly bound to take these ac-

cused books under their protection, which can only be properly ex-

plained on the aforesaid presupposition."

136              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

face of the explicit testimony of Josephus. However

the critics may try to persuade themselves that he was

mistaken in fixing the time of the completion of the

canon as far back as the reign of Artaxerxes Longima-

nus, he certainly knew in what esteem the sacred books

were held in his own day, and the convictions of his

countrymen in regard to them. And he could not pos-

sibly have said that nothing had been added to them or

taken from them, or altered in them, in all the time that

had elapsed since Artaxerxes, if the true limits of the

canon were still in doubt, or certain books had found a

place in it within a decennium.

          Wildeboer claims that the number of books in the

K'thubhim were not fixed, nor the Old Testament canon

closed, till the middle of the second century, when, he

says (p. 146), "we may reckon that all scribes were

agreed upon the subject." And yet he adds (p. 150):

"The notices in the Gemara prove that the objections

were not forgotten. That they were still felt is shown

by Megilla (fol. 7a), where the objection against Esther

is brought up by R. Samuel, who lived in the third cen-

tury A.D." If individual doubts prove an unsettled

canon, consistency would have required him to say that

it was not yet closed in the third century. But he sub-

stantially yields the whole case by the admission (p.

147):  "Josephus proves most clearly that the number

was virtually fixed about 100 A.D. Public opinion was

really already settled. But it awaited its sanction from

the schools." And (p. 46),  "A general settled persua-

sion in regard to canonicity preceded the decision of

the schools. In the days of Josephus the schools still

had their doubts about certain books of the third divis-

ion. But among the people there existed in his days

such a reverence for precisely the books which still con-

stitute our canon (as the number given by Josephus

          THE CANON OF THE JEWS                      137

 

proves) that, if need be, they would gladly die for

them.'" Such a universal conviction on the part of the

mass of the people is not set aside by the questionings

of a few individual doctors. "The decision of the

schools " has not the power to make or unmake the

canon, whether in the days of Josephus or in our own.

And if the statement of Josephus proves anything, it

proves that the canon was not only settled at the mo-

ment of his writing, but that it had been settled for a

very long period before that.

          It has further been represented that the books of

Baruch and Ecclesiasticus are accorded canonical au-

thority in certain passages of the Talmud. But this is

an utter mistake. Strack, who is an authority in post-

biblical Jewish literature, declares that not a single

proof can be adduced from the entire range of Jewish

writings, whether of Palestine or Babylonia, that Baruch

was held in such high esteem. He also affirms that the

like statement regarding Ecclesiasticus is unfounded.

In a few instances this book seems to be cited with the

same formulas that are used in quoting Holy Scripture,

e.g., with the phrase, "it is written."  But in some of

these passages it can be shown that the correct text

reads, "it is written in the Book of Sirach" or Eccle-

siasticus, which of course conveys no implication of

canonicity, and the context is directly opposed to such

an implication. In a very few other passages it would

seem as though the citation were made from memory,

and the similarity of its style to the canonical writings

of Solomon had betrayed the writer into the mistake

of supposing that the verse cited was from the Bible.

But that this must have arisen from inadvertence is

plain, since in no place in the Talmud or in any Jew-

ish writer, ancient or modern, is Ecclesiasticus reck-

oned among the books of Scripture; on the contrary,

138           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

it is over and over again expressly excluded from the

canon.

          This book of the son of Sirach, with its moral and

religious tone, its apparent claim of inspiration (xxiv.

32-34, xxxiii. 16-18), and written in Hebrew, was ex-

cluded from the canon, as the critics aver, solely on

account of its recent origin. And yet the Book of

Daniel, which they confidently assert was written at a

still later date, was nevertheless admitted to the canon

with such unquestioning unanimity, that not a whisper

of objection of any sort is made to it in any Jewish

writing, though doubts were expressed respecting other

books of acknowledged antiquity. This has occasioned

them much perplexity. They say it is because it was

attributed to Daniel, though really written in the time

of the Maccabees. But how such an origin could have

been unhesitatingly ascribed by the contemporary gen-

eration to a book produced in their own time, and such

implicit faith reposed in its unaccredited contents, is a

puzzle.

          The following passages from the Talmud are adduced

as indicating doubts respecting the canonicity of certain

books of the Old Testament:

 

          "Remember that man for good, Hananiah, son of Hezekiah, by

name [a younger contemporary of Hillel at the time of the birth of

Christ], since but for him the Book of Ezekiel would have been with-

drawn (ganaz), because its words contradict the words of the law.

What did he do? They brought up to him 300 measures of oil, and

he sat in an upper room and explained them." Sabbath 13b, Hagiga

13a, Menahoth 45a (Furst, Kanon, p. 24).

          "The wise men desired to withdraw (ganaz) the Book of Ecclesias-

tes because its language was often self-contradictory and contradicted

the utterances of David. Why did they not withdraw it? Because

the beginning and the end of it consist of words of the law." Sabbath

30b (after Ryle, pp. 195, 197).

          "Some desired also to withdraw (ganaz) the Book of Proverbs, be-

cause it contained internal contradictions (e.g., xxvi. 4, 5), but the at-

                     THE CANON OF THE JEWS               139

 

tempt was abandoned because the wise men declared, We have ex-

amined more deeply into the Book of Ecclesiastes, and have discovered

the solution of the difficulty; here also we wish to inquire more

deeply." Sabbath 30b (Ryle, p. 194 f.).

          "At first they said that Proverbs, Canticles, and Ecclesiastes are

apocryphal (genuzim). They said they were parabolic writings and

not of the Hagiographa . . . till the men of the Great Synagogue

came and explained them." Aboth of R. Nathan, c. i. (Robertson

Smith, p. 181.)

          "All the Holy Scriptures defile the hands; the Song of Solomon and

Ecclesiastes defile the hands. R. Judah says, The Song of Solomon

defiles the hands, and Ecclesiastes is disputed. R. Jose says, Ecclesi-

astes does not defile the hands, and the Song of Solomon is disputed.

R. Simon says, Ecclesiastes belongs to the light things of the School

of Shammai, and the heavy things of the school of Hillel [i.e., the usu-

ally rigorous school of Shammai here departs from the accepted view

that Ecclesiastes defiles the hands, while that of Hillel adheres to it].

R. Simeon, son of Azzai says, I received it as a tradition from the sev-

enty-two elders on the day when they enthroned R. Eliezer, son of

Azariah [as President of the Beth Din at Jamnia, which became the

seat of the heads of the Scribes after the fall of Jerusalem], that the

Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes defile the hands. R. Akiba said,

Silence and Peace! No one in Israel has ever doubted that the Song

of Solomon defiles the hands. For no day in the history of the world

is worth the day when the Song of Solomon was given to Israel. For

all the Hagiographa are holy, but the Song of Solomon is a holy of

holies. If there has been any dispute, it referred only to Ecclesiastes.

. . So they disputed, and so they decided." Yadaim, iii. 5 (Rob-

ertson Smith, p. 186).

          "Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands according to the school of

Shammai, but does so according to the school of Hillel." Eduyoth,

v. 3 (ibid., p. 186).

          "According to R. Judah, Samuel said: Esther does not defile the

hands. Are we then to say that, in the opinion of Samuel, Esther was

not spoken under the influence of the Holy Spirit. It was spoken to

be read, and was not spoken to be written. . . R. Simeon says:

Ruth, Song of Solomon and Esther defile the hands. In opposition to

Simeon, Samuel agrees with Joshua that Esther was only intended to

be read, not to he written. According to a Baraitha, R. Simeon ben

Manasya said: Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands, because it con-

tains Solomon's own wisdom. He was answered: Is Ecclesiastes the

only thing that Solomon spake? Does not the Scripture say that he

spake three thousand proverbs (1 Kin. iv. 32)? Yet this Solomon says

140                      GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

(Prov. xxx. 6): Add not to his words. What is the force of this proof ?

You might think: He spake much; if he wished, it was written down;

if he wished, it was not written down. But this idea is contradicted by

Add not to his words." [The meaning is, Solomon made no addition to

the words of God. Ecclesiastes, therefore, is not Solomon's own wis-

dom, which might or might not be written, as he pleased, but a divine

book.] Megilla, i. 7a. (Delitzsch, ibid., p. 283.)

          Delitzsch understands this obscure passage to mean that, while

Esther was inspired, it was intended only to be orally preserved, and

not committed to writing, and consequently did not defile the hands.

According to Furst, p. 57, though it was admitted to have been written

under the influence of the Holy Spirit, the contention was that it should

only be regarded as history, and not as belonging to the K'thubhim,

until finally the wise approved of its reception.

          The Jerusalem Talmud says, Megilloth, fol. 70, 74, that 85 elders,

among whom were more than 30 prophets, ridiculed the introduction of

the feast of Purim by Esther and Mordecai as an innovation upon the

law. Bleek, Einleitung, p. 404.

          Some expressions of Jerome are also appealed to as reflecting Jew-

ish disputes respecting canonical books.

          "The beginning and end of Ezekiel are involved in obscurities, and

among the Hebrews these parts, and the exordium of Genesis, must

not be read by a man under thirty." Epistle to Paulinus (from Rob-

ertson Smith, p. 176).

          "The Hebrews say, when it seemed as though this book should be

obliterated along with other writings of Solomon which are antiquated

and have not been kept in memory, because it asserts that the creat-

ures of God are vanity, and that all amounts to nothing, and prefers

eating and drinking and transient pleasures to all besides; on account

of this one paragraph it was deservedly authorized to be put in the

number of divine books, because it concluded the whole disputation

and the entire account in this summing up, as it were, and said the end

of the discourses was one most suitable to be heard and had nothing

difficult in it, to wit, that we should fear God and keep his command-

ments." Comment on Ecclesiastes, xii. 13, 14 (from Ryle, p. 197).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                           IX

 

  THE CANON OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES

 

          THE history of the formation and the collection of the

canon among the Jews has now been traced, and the ex-

tent of the canon received by them has been considered.

The next point to be considered is, What books were

recognized as belonging to the Old Testament by the

Lord Jesus Christ and the inspired writers of the New

Testament? They have not left us a list of these books,

but they have clearly indicated their mind in this matter,

so that we need be under no mistake as to their mean-

ing. They give their infallible and authoritative sanction

to the canon as it existed among the Jews. This is done

both negatively and positively. They sanction the in-

tegrity of the Scriptures of the Jews negatively, in that

they never charge them with mutilating or corrupting

the word of God. Our Lord repeatedly rebukes them

for making void the word of God by their traditions. At

various times he corrects their false glosses and errone-

ous interpretations of Scripture. But while censuring

them for this, he could not have passed it over in silence,

if they had been guilty of excluding whole books from

the canon which properly belonged there, or inserting

that which was not really inspired of God.

          The positive sanction which they give to the Jewish

canon is afforded:

          1. By express statements, as in Rom. iii. 2, "Unto

them [the Jews] were committed the oracles of God," or

 

                                          141

 

142             GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

as rendered in the R. V., "They were intrusted with the

oracles of God." 2 Tim. iii. 16, "All Scripture [the body

of writings so called by the Jews] is given by inspira-

tion of God," or more emphatically still in the R. V.,

"Every Scripture inspired of God," i.e., every part of

that collection of writings known as Scripture is here

not merely affirmed but assumed to be inspired of God,

and this assumption is made the basis of the declara-

tion as to its profitable character. The spiritual profit

derived from it is not here made the test of inspiration,

but its acknowledged inspiration is the credential which

gives assurance that the man of God will be by it fur-

nished completely unto every good work.

          2. By general references to the sacred books by their

familiar designations, either those which describe them

as a whole, as the Scriptures, Mat. xxii. 29, "Ye do err,

not knowing the Scriptures," John v. 39, "Search the

Scriptures," x. 35, "The Scripture cannot be broken,"

Luke xxiv. 45, Acts xvii. 11, Rom. iv. 3, x. 11; Holy

Scriptures, Rom. i. 2, 2 Tim. iii. 15; or which speak of

them under their commonly recognized divisions, as the

law and the prophets, Mat. v. 17, vii. 12, xi. 13, xxii. 40,

Luke xvi. 16, 29, 31, John i. 45, Acts xxiv. 14, xxviii.

23, Rom. iii. 21, these prominent portions being put for

the whole, or "prophets" being used in a wide sense so

as to embrace all the inspired writers after Moses, cf.

Heb. i. 1; or with allusion to the threefold division of

the canon, Luke xxiv. 44, "the law of Moses, and the

prophets, and the Psalms." In this last passage "the

Psalms" has sometimes been understood as denoting

the entire Hagiographa, of which it is the first and lead-

ing book. But it is doubtless used, in its strict and

proper sense, to designate the book so called, which

is here singled out from the rest of the third division

of the canon as that which specially testifies of Christ.

 

THE CANON OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES         143

 

All the books without exception are, however, spoken

of in the same connection, verse 27, "And beginning

from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted

to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning

himself."

          3. By the abundant citation of passages from the Old

Testament as the word of God, as the language of the

Holy Ghost, or as the utterance of inspired men.

Nearly every book in the Old Testament is thus quoted.

With the exception of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Eccle-

siastes, and the Song of Solomon, they are all quoted

in the New Testament.¹

          Every such quotation sanctions, of course, the canon-

icity of the book that is thus cited. If a few books are

not quoted, this does not justify the suspicion that they

were excluded from the canon; it is simply because the

inspired writers of the New Testament had no occasion

to make citations from them. Their citations are made

as appropriate passages offer themselves for the illus-

tration or enforcement of their particular theme, with

no preconceived purpose of making use in this manner

of every book which they esteemed canonical. And it

may be fairly claimed that their citations are of such

a nature as to extend their sanction not only over the

books which are explicitly quoted, but over the entire

collection in which they are found. They take the col-

lection of sacred books commonly received among the

Jews, and quote from it freely, as they find occasion.

 

          ¹ Three of the briefest of the Minor Prophets, Obadiah, Nahum,

and Zephaniah are not separately quoted; these are not to be reckoned

exceptions, however, as the Twelve were anciently regarded as one

book; and the canonicity of the others being established, that of these

follows of course. It has been claimed that Eccles. vii. 20 is cited in

Rom. iii. 10; Eccles. v. 14 in 1 Tim. vi. 7; Esth. ix. 22 in Rev. xi. 10,

and Solomon's Song v. 2 in Rev. iii. 20. If these allusions are allowed,

the number of books not cited will be correspondingly reduced.

 

144          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

And every passage which they adduce is put forth as

possessing divine authority. They could in no way

more significantly show that they regarded the entire

collection, with all that it contained, as the inspired

word of God.

          To those who reverently accept the authority of

Christ and his apostles, the sanction thus given to the

canon of the Jews is the highest possible proof of its

correctness.¹ It contains just those books which were

designed of God to form the rule of faith and life for

the Jewish Church, and to be transmitted by them to

the Church of all time. In reply to this, however, it

has been said that the writers of the New Testament

 

          ¹ Moses Stuart, the father of Hebrew learning in this country, says,

Old Testament Canon, p. 316:  "While I am not fond of applying

harsh and ungrateful epithets to any man or body of men whatever, I

know not how to call the denying or the designed evading of the

authority or the decision of Christ and of his apostles respecting the

books of the Old Testament, anything less than unbelief." Wildeboer

allows himself to use the following most extraordinary language, p.

153:  "It was impossible that Jesus should acknowledge the Old Testa-

ment Canon as such, although in His days about the same books were,

no doubt, accounted to belong to the Holy Scriptures as are found in

our own Old Testament. But what a misconception of Jesus' person

and teaching comes out in the idea that the Saviour felt himself bound

to a Canon! . . . Did he need for this the sanction of synagogue

and scribes? . . . The notion that the Prophet, the Revelation of

God by pre-eminence, deemed Himself bound by a Canon can only

arise in a heart so ignorant of the whole nature of scientific criticism,

and, therefore, so afraid of it, that it will rather admit a gross incon-

sistency in its conception of the Saviour than let go its cherished tradi-

tion." Christ's recognition of the Jewish canon as the unadulterated

word of God, and his frequently repeated appeal to it as such, is not

subjecting himself to the authority of the synagogue and the scribes.

It is, on the contrary, his affirmation on his own independent authority

that, in this particular, they have made no mistake. The imputation

of such a view to those who cannot accept the groundless conclusions

of the critics respecting the formation of the canon, is a gross and

gratuitous misrepresentation.

 

THE CANON OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES           145

 

made use of the Septuagint version in quoting from the

Old Testament, and hence must be regarded as sanc-

tioning the canonicity of all the books which that ver-

sion contained.

          1. In making use of the Septuagint, as the New Tes-

tament writers frequently do, they by no means sanction

its inaccuracies of text or of translation, nor the spurious

additions made to the canon, even if it be admitted that

the apocryphal books were then already incorporated

with this version, of which there is no certain proof.¹

They employ its familiar words, so far as they are

adapted to the purpose which they have in view, with-

out pedantically correcting unessential departures from

the Hebrew original which do not affect their argument

or their line of remark. In all this they are responsible

only for the inherent truthfulness of each passage in the

form which they actually adopt.

          2. The apostles were not liable to be misunderstood

in this matter. Unless they made explicit declarations

to the contrary, they would as a matter of course be re-

garded as accepting the canon currently received among

the Jews. And, as has already been shown, the Jews

admitted just those books to be canonical which are

now found in the Hebrew Bible, and no others.

          3. While the New Testament writers quote freely and

abundantly from the canonical books, they never quote

from any of the Apocrypha, much less do they ascribe

to them inspiration or canonicity. Attempts have in-

deed been made to point out quotations from the Apoc-

rypha, but without success, as is evident from the

detailed examination of the passages in question by

 

          ¹ "It must be remembered that scarcely anyone in those days pos-

sessed a complete collection of the Holy Scriptures; most of the syna-

gogues even were not so rich. And if anyone had them all, the rolls

were all separate." Wildeboer, p. 50.

 

146        GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

Bishop Cosin¹ and Dr. Thornwell.² In every instance

of alleged citation it appears upon inspection, either (1)

that the resemblance is not so close as to show that one

passage has borrowed from the other, or to preclude the

idea that both have been independently conceived, par-

ticularly if the thought expressed is some ordinary truth

of biblical faith or morals. Or else (2) the apocryphal

passage is itself conformed to one in the canonical

books of the Old Testament; and it is the latter, not the

former, which the New Testament writer had in mind.

          Bleek, in his elaborate article written to justify the

retention of the Apocrypha as an appendix to the Old

Testament,³ freely admits that there are no citations,

properly speaking, of these books in the New Testa-

ment, but claims (p. 336) that "most of the New Tes-

tament writings exhibit more or less certain traces of an

acquaintance with our Apocrypha, and reminiscences

from them," and (p. 349) "unmistakable allusions to

their contents, and manifest traces of their influence on

the conceptions, mode of expression and language of the

New Testament writers." Of this he admits that there

is no "convincing proof," only a high degree of "prob-

ability." The passages to which he refers as illustrative

of his position contain some coincidences in thought

and expression, e.g., James i. 19, Ecclus v. 11; Rom. ix.

 

          ¹ Scholastical History of the Canon, pp. 23-28. The following are

alleged as parallels: Wisd. ix. 13, Rom. xi. 34 (Isa. xl. 13); Wisd. vii.

26, Heb. i. 3; Wisd. iv. 10, Heb. xi. 5 (Gen. v. 24); Wisd. vi. 3,

Horn. xiii. 1 (Prov. viii. 15, 16); Wisd. vi. 7, Rom. ii. 11 (Deut. x. 17);

Ecclus. xiv. 17, James i. 10, 1 Pet. i. 24 (Isa. xl. 6, 7); Tobit iv. 7,

Luke xi. 41; Tob. iv. 12, 1 Thess. iv. 3; Tob. iv. 15, Mat. vii. 12;

Baruch iv. 7, 1 Cor. x. 20 (Dent. xxxii. 17); and others like them.

          ² Arguments of Romanists Discussed and Refuted, pp. 162-174.

          ³ Ueber die Stellung der Apokryphen des alten Testamentes im

Christlichen Kanon, in the Studien and Kritiken for 1853, pp. 267-

354.

 

THE CANON OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES          147

 

21, Wisdom xv. 7 (cf. Jer. xviii. 6); Eph. vi. 13-17,

Wisd. v. 17-20; John vi. 35, Ecclus. xxiv. 21, which may

be purely accidental, or may betray an acquaintance

with these writings that has consciously or unconsciously

affected the form of statement. But if all for which

Bleek contends were conceded, it would amount to

nothing more than that the sacred writers were aware

of the existence of some of the apocryphal books and

approved certain sentiments expressed in them. And

this is very far from ascribing to them divine authority

or canonical standing. Stier, who goes far beyond

Bleek in tracing a supposed connection between the

New Testament writers and the Apocrypha, neverthe-

less remarks, "It is unconditionally limited to bare

allusion, and never passes over to actual citation."¹

          In Heb. xi. 35b, "Others were tortured, not ac-

cepting their deliverance; that they might obtain a

better resurrection," there is prominent though not ex-

clusive reference to the martyrdom of Eleazar and the

mother with her seven sons, of which an account is

given in 2 Macc. vi. 18-vii. 42. This is a recognition

of the historical truth of the facts thus referred to, but

does not imply the canonicity of the book in which they

are recorded.

          "They were sawn asunder" (ver. 37), may allude in

part at least to the martyrdom of Isaiah, if he was in-

deed put to death in this manner by Manasseh, agree-

ably to Jewish tradition. But the sacred writer surely

does not canonize hereby any fabulous account of the

transaction.

          It is further claimed that there are several direct

quotations from Pseudepigrapha in the New Testament,

made in the same manner as those which are taken

from the canonical books. The most noted of these is

 

          ¹ Quoted by Oehler, Herzog Encyk., VII., p. 257.

 

148         GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

Jude vs. 14, 15. "And to these also Enoch, the sev-

enth from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord

came with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute

judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all

their works of ungodliness which they have ungodly

wrought, and of all the hard things which ungodly

sinners have spoken against him." This appears to be

taken from the Book of Enoch, ch. ii. It is to be ob-

served, however, that this is, after all, nothing more than

a natural inference from what is recorded of Enoch in

the Book of Genesis. A man who walked with God and

was specially favored by him, in the midst of abound-

ing wickedness could not do otherwise than rebuke his

contemporaries for their ungodliness, and warn them of

the coming judgment of a holy God. In accepting this

legitimate conclusion from the sacred narrative, Jude

gives no sanction to the fabulous contents of the book

whose language he has in this single instance seen fit to

adopt; much less does he, as Bleek affirms, recognize

it "as a genuine production and an authentic source for

divine revelation." He does not do this any more than

the Apostle Paul in citing a single sentence from each

of the Greek poets, Aratus, Menander, and Epimenides,

thereby endorses all that they have written, or attributes

to them any sacred character.

          Clement of Alexandria and Origen found in Jude ver.

9, "Michael, the archangel, when contending with the

devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not

bring against him a railing judgment, but said The

Lord rebuke thee," a quotation from the Assumption of

Moses. This suggestion cannot be verified, as the book

is not now in existence, and its origin is unknown. But

Jude's language finds a ready explanation in Zech. iii.

1, 2, where the angel of the Lord, contending with Satan

on behalf of the people (figuratively styled the body of

 

THE CANON OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES         149

 

Moses, after the analogy of the Church as the body of

Christ), says to him, The Lord rebuke thee.

          James iv. 6 in the A. V. reads, "Do ye think that

the Scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in

us lusteth to envy?"  This rendering has given rise to

the conjecture, on the one hand, that the second clause

of the verse gives the substance of some passage in the

Old Testament, like Gen. vi. 5, viii. 21; Num. xi. 4, 29,

or Prov. xxi. 10, and, on the other, that it is borrowed

from some writing now lost and otherwise unknown.

But when the passage is correctly rendered, as in the

R. V. (see marg.), the need of these conjectures disap-

pears:  "Or think ye that the Scripture speaketh in

vain? That Spirit, which he made to dwell in us,

yearneth for us even unto jealous envy." The second

clause of the verse is the Apostle James' own language,

not a citation from some earlier Scripture. And his

meaning is, that the jealous longing which God's Spirit

has for the undivided love of men shows it to be no

vain or unmeaning utterance when the Scriptures rep-

resent the love of the world as incompatible with the

love of God.

          1 Cor. ii. 9, "As it is written, Things which eye saw

not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the

heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared for them

that love him," is a slightly modified citation of Isa.

lxiv. 4, "Men have not heard, nor perceived by the

ear, neither hath the eye seen, a God beside thee who

worketh for him that waiteth for him." It was so

understood by Jerome, and before him by Clement of

Rome, who, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, repeats

these words of Paul, only bringing them into closer

accord with Isaiah by substituting "them that wait for

him" for "them that love him." There is no occasion,

therefore, for Origen's conjecture, repeated by some in

 

150          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

modern times, that it is borrowed from the lost Apoca-

lypse of Elias.

          Eph. v. 14, "Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that

sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall

shine upon thee," is simply a paraphrase of Isa. lii. 1,

"Awake, awake, 0 Zion," combined with lx. 1, "Arise,

shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord

is risen upon thee." The call "awake" is impliedly

addressed to a sleeper, and "arise" to one that is dead,

and the shining comes from the light and glory of the

Lord. It is just such an adaptation as is made of Ps.

lxviii. 18 in iv. 8 of the same Epistle, where "ascend-

ing on high" is said to imply previous "descent into

the lower parts of the earth." It is of small moment

whether this paraphrase of Isaiah was made by the

apostle himself, or, as some have supposed, by an

early Christian poet, whose language Paul borrows. In

either case there is no occasion for the conjecture of

Epiphanius, and those who have followed him in mod-

ern times, that it is taken from the lost Apocalypse of

Elias.

          John vii. 38, "He that believeth on me, as the Script-

ure hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living

water." These precise words are not found elsewhere.

The thought expressed is the familiar biblical truth

that the true believer shall be blessed and be a bless-

ing. And the emblem employed to represent this

blessing and its ever-widening influence, that of peren-

nial streams of living water, is one of frequent occur-

rence in the Old Testament. In Isa. lviii. 11, "Thou

shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of

water, whose waters fail not," the same thought and

emblem are combined with only a change in the form

of expression, cf. Isa. xliv. 3; Zech. xiv. 8. It has been

conjectured that the Saviour borrowed these words

 

THE CANON OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES            151

 

from some writing otherwise unknown, which he here

dignifies by the name of "Scripture." But the con-

jecture has no confirmation from any quarter whatever.

There is no intimation from any source that such a

writing ever existed. And the conjecture is wholly

uncalled for, since the Saviour's language can be ade-

quately explained without it.

          Luke xi. 49, "Therefore, also, said the wisdom of

God, I will send unto them prophets and apostles; and

some of them they shall kill and persecute." What

God in his wisdom is here said to have resolved to do to

the Jewish people is in the parallel passage (Mat. xxiii.

34) introduced as the language of Christ himself to his

immediate hearers and the people of his time. There

is no inconsistency between these statements. What

God had purposed and done in the past, and was con-

tinuing to do in the present, is identical with what

Christ was now actually doing. He was in this simply

putting into effect the will of his Father. The refer-

ence in Luke is not to some particular passage in

which these precise words occur, but to the whole

course of God's dealings with this people, in which his

purpose in this matter was exhibited. The assumption

that Christ quotes these words from some writing now

lost is altogether groundless.

          In 2 Tim. iii. 8, the magicians of Egypt who with-

stood Moses are called " Jannes and Jambres."

Whether these names were actually borne by them or

not, these were their familiar designations among the

Jews, as appears from the use made of them in the

Targum of Jonathan. Paul employs these names com-

monly given to them as sufficient to identify the per-

sons to whom he referred. There is no necessity,

therefore, to suppose that he is here quoting "a lost

book on the times of Moses."

 

152          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

          Whatever explanation be adopted of the occurrence

of "Jeremiah," in Mat. xxvii. 9, where "Zechariah "

might have been expected, there is no need of resort-

ing for a solution to Jerome's statement in his com-

mentary on this passage, "Legi nuper in quodam

Hebraico volumine, quod Nazarenae sectae mihi Hebraeus

obtulit, Jeremim apocryphum, in quo lime ad verbum

scripta reperi." The probability is that this passage

was inserted in the apocryphal Jeremiah from the Gos-

pel of Matthew. There is not the slightest reason for

believing that the evangelist borrowed it from this

source, of whose origin and history nothing is known.

          From this review of the whole case, it will appear with

how little reason Wildeboer asserts (p. 51), "A number of

reminiscences and quotations from apocryphal writings

prove very certainly that the New Testament writers

recognized no canon of the Old Testament agreeing

with ours." And (p. 53), "Many passages from apocry-

phal writings were present to the mind of the N. T.

authors, which they often accorded equal weight with

texts from the 0. T. The apocrypha in question are

not even those of the LXX.; for precisely in the actual

quotations writings are used which are not found in the

manuscripts of the LXX. It is manifest from this that

most of the N. T. writers gave to the notion of  'Sacred

Scripture' an even wider range than most of the Alex-

andrians." And (p. 56),  "All the facts are explained by

the hypothesis that in Jesus' days the competent au-

thorities had not yet defined the canon; that only the

Law and the Prophets enjoyed undisputed authority;

that beside the Psalms, Daniel, and other books of the

kethubhim, many apocryphal writings also were freely

read; but that over against this the schools were be-

ginning to restrict and regulate their use. To this au-

thority of the schools the Lord and his disciples would

 

 

 

THE CANON OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES           153

 

readily submit, and, if questioned, would have given an

answer not very different from the later Jewish enu-

meration."

          It has been shown that our Lord and the writers of the

New Testament recognize the divine authority of the

books esteemed sacred by the Jews abundantly and ex-

plicitly. They appeal to them as the word of God and

the standard of truth and duty, as they never do to any

other writings whatever. It may be that their language

exhibits acquaintance with the Apocrypha, but they

never quote them, nor make any such use of them as

implies that they regarded them as divinely authorita-

tive, or placed them in this respect on a level with the

books of the Old Testament. The Epistle to the He-

brews refers to martyrdoms related in Maccabees, and

adds them to a series of illustrations of the power of

faith drawn from the Scriptures; but it does not on this

account rank Maccabees with the Scriptures. Histor-

ical facts may be attested by profane as well as by sacred

sources. Jude, without vouching either for the genuine-

ness or the divine authority of the Book of Enoch,

makes use of its language to state a truth which may be

plainly inferred from the record in Genesis. Other

quotations are alleged from Pseudepigrapha, but it has

been shown by an examination of each case in particu-

lar that there is not the slightest evidence on which to

base such an assertion. Wildeboer indeed says (p. 51),

"The fact that the N. T. writers quote from apocryphal

books [it is plain from the connection that this term is

here used in the sense of pseudepigraphical] can only be

denied by dogmatic prejudice." But he forgets that

what he is pleased to call "dogmatic prejudice," viz.,

a firm persuasion that the books of the Old Testament

were specifically different from other Jewish writings,

was shared by the Jews generally and by the New Tes-

 

154              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

tament writers as well; so that the absence of such a

"dogmatic prejudice" cannot be essential to an un-

biassed and sympathetic judgment of matters in which

they are concerned. The submission of "the Lord and

his disciples" "to the authority of the schools," which

he here so naïvely asserts, is repelled with a display of

pious fervor and holy indignation on pp. 153 f., where

he falsely imputes it to those who are not content to

follow the critics blindly in their baseless theories re-

specting the canon. See p. 144, note.

          It is further urged that the limits of the canon were

not yet definitely fixed in the time of our Lord, and

that consequently his recognition of the acknowledged

Jewish Scriptures cannot cover books which were then

in dispute. Thus Robertson Smith (p. 187): "It is

matter of fact that the position of several books was

still subject of controversy in the apostolic age, and was

not finally determined till after the fall of the Temple

and the Jewish state. Before that date the Hagiographa

did not form a closed collection, with an undisputed list

of contents, and therefore the general testimony of Christ

and the apostles to the Old Testament Scriptures cannot

be used as certainly including books like Esther, Can-

ticles, and Ecclesiastes, which were still disputed among

the orthodox Jews in the apostolic age, and to which

the New Testament never makes reference." But the

Talmudic disputations hero referred to do not disprove

the existence of a definitely determined canon of long

standing. They are the expression of individual doubts

concerning particular books, based on a wrong view of

their contents as inconsistent with the position accorded

to them, and which were corrected by giving them a

proper interpretation. They are of no more weight,

accordingly, than like doubts, on similar grounds, which

have been entertained in modern times. Nothing that

 

 

 

THE CANON OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES        155

 

has been advanced to the contrary can annul the

evident fact that Christ and his apostles did give their

attestation to the canon commonly received among the

Jews. They distinguished, indeed, between the tem-

porary form and the enduring substance of the Old

Testament. It was an inchoate revelation, and, as such,

had the imperfection which attaches to an unfinished

structure. There was much in it which was designed

to answer a transient purpose, and when that purpose

was accomplished the obligation ceased, Acts xv. 24;

Gal. iii. 24, 25. Some things were tolerated for a sea-

son because their "hardness of heart" unfitted the

people to receive anything better, Mat. xix. 8. Some

things were justifiable in saints of the former dispensa-

tion which were not to be imitated by the disciples of

Christ, with the fuller disclosures made to them of the

love and grace of God and the true spirit of the Gospel,

Luke ix. 54-56. The teachings of the Old Testament

were feeble and elementary, as compared with the more

advanced lessons of the New, Gal. iv. 9; Heb. x. 1.

Nevertheless, the Old Testament was the word of God

for the time then present. It was divinely adapted to

its special end of preparing the way for the coming and

the work of Christ. It was the foundation upon which

the Gospel was built, and was precisely fitted for the

superstructure to be erected upon it. Christ himself

said, "Think not that I came to destroy the law or the

prophets; I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For

verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away,

one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all

things be accomplished," Mat. v. 17, 18. The Apostle

Paul declares of himself that he "believed all things

which are according to the law and which are written in

the prophets," Acts xxiv. 14, and that he "said nothing

but what the prophets and Moses did say should come,"

 

156                GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

xxvi. 22. And he was careful to show that the doctrines

upon which he insisted were "witnessed by the law and

the prophets," Rom. iii. 21. In its true intent and the

real essence of its teaching the Old Testament is of per-

petual validity. Its temporary institutions are no longer

binding. But the types and prophecies of the coming

Saviour still point to him as unerringly as ever. The

elementary lessons of the early time have been supple-

mented by later and higher instructions, but are not

superseded by them. The partial and the relative still

maintains its place, and fits into the absolute and the

perfect which has since been revealed. Truth imper-

fectly disclosed is still true to the full extent to which

it goes, and is not annulled but absorbed when the full

truth is made known. This is a necessary incident to

any course of instruction or training which is wisely

adapted to the growing capacities of the pupil. The

Old Testament had its peculiar mission to the chosen

people before Christ came. It has its mission still as

"living oracles" of God, Acts vii. 38, to all the world

through all time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                        X

 

  THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

 

          THE canon of the Old Testament sanctioned by the

Lord Jesus and his apostles must, beyond all doubt

or question, be accepted as the true one by those who

acknowledge their divine authority. Even Bellarmin¹

acknowledges that no books are canonical but those

which the apostles approved and delivered to the

Church.

          A question here arises between Roman Catholics and

Protestants as to the true extent of the Christian canon.

The former contend that in addition to those which are

contained in the Hebrew Bible, there are seven books

and parts of two others which rightfully have a place

in the canon of the Church. The books in dispute,

commonly denominated the Apocrypha, are Tobit,

Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus or Sirach, Baruch, 1st

and 2d Maccabees, together with certain chapters added

to Esther and Daniel in the Greek and Latin Bibles,

which are not in the Hebrew.²

 

          ¹ De Verbo Dei, I., 20. Other Romanist authorities, however, have

admitted that the apocryphal books have no express New Testament

sanction. Thus Catherinus, one of the leading spirits in the Council

of Trent, in his Opusc. de Script. Canonicis, says, "There are many

books of the Old Testament, so called, and which are truly regarded

as such, of which no testimony exists, as is evident enough, that they

were approved by the apostles." And Stapleton, De Autorit. S. Script.,

II., 4, 14, "Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, and other books of

the Old Testament were not confirmed in the times of the Apostles."

Quoted by Cosin, p. 23.

          ² The Apocrypha of the English Bible contains, in addition, 1st and

 

                                         157

 

158             GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

          It has been claimed that the apostolic sanction of

these books must be presumed, inasmuch as they were

accepted as the inspired word of God by the Christian

Church, which would not have been the case unless by

the direction and authority of the apostles. This brings

us to inquire into the history of the canon in the Chris-

tian Church, and we shall find there, too, when the evi-

dence is properly sifted and correctly explained, that

the same books, and no others, were received as in the

proper sense inspired and authoritative which had been

accepted by the Jews and acknowledged by our Lord

and his apostles. But if it were otherwise, this should

not disturb our conclusion already reached. If it should

prove to be the case that the Church had fallen into er-

ror with regard to the canon, as it has done in regard to

other matters, its departures from the infallible and au-

thoritative teaching of our Lord and his apostles would

be no more binding in one case than in the other.

          Before entering upon the inquiry into the belief and

practice of the Christian Church in this matter, it will be

necessary to say a few words respecting the meaning of

the terms "canonical" and "apocryphal," which are

constantly met with in the discussion of this subject.

These words are used by Christian writers of the early

ages in different senses; and it is important to know

this in order to understand their meaning correctly.

"Canonical books" in ordinary usage then, as now,

denoted books inspired of God, which were given to the

Church as her rule of faith and life. But sometimes

books were called "canonical" in a looser or wider

sense, including together with the inspired books others

which were denominated "ecclesiastical," because ap-

proved by the Church as useful and profitable religious

 

2d Esdras (= 3d and 4th Esdras of the Vulgate) and the Prayer of

Manasseh, which are not accounted canonical by Romanists.

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH          159

 

books, and commended to Christian people. In the

former sense, the term "canonical" stands opposed to

all uninspired productions. In the latter sense it in-

cludes certain books which were confessedly uninspired,

and not properly speaking authoritative, but stands

opposed to such as were pernicious and heretical. When

cases occur in which the word is used in this latter

sense, the proof will be furnished that such is actually

the meaning intended.

          Gieseler¹ instituted a careful inquiry into the meaning

of "apocryphal" in the early Church, the result of

which Bleek² sums up as follows:  "Originally this

designation seems not to have been used in a bad sense,

and to have been opposed not to canonical, but to open

or public, in reference to such writings as were assumed

or asserted to have been preserved and perpetuated

from early times by the way of secret transmission.

The word appears to have been especially in use in this

sense among the Gnostics for writings on which they

chiefly relied for their doctrine, and which they attrib-

uted to distinguished men of former ages. So Clement

of Alexandria says (‘Strom.,’ i. 15, 60) that the adher-

ents of Prodicus boasted that they possessed apocryphal

books of Zoroaster. But the greater the stress which

the heretics laid upon these writings, the more they

were suspected for this very reason by the teachers of

the orthodox Church. They regarded them without

hesitation—and in general, correctly--as late, counter-

feit, patched-up productions of heretical contents, so

that with them the notion of counterfeit was naturally

associated with apocryphal. Thus Tremens (‘Adv. Haer.’

i. 20), ‘apocryphal and spurious writings.’ Apostolical,

Constitutions (vi. 16), ‘Apocryphal books of Moses, and

 

          ¹ Was heisst apokryphisch? in the Studien and Kritiken for 1829.

Studien und Kritiken for 1853, pp. 267 ff.

 

160         GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

Enoch, and Adam, Isaiah and David and Elijah and

the three patriarchs, destructive and hostile to the

truth.' In the first centuries this designation is never

used in reference to those writings, or any of them,

which we understand by the Apocrypha of the Old Tes-

tament. Hence these books, such as Wisdom, Eccle-

siasticus, etc., are expressly distinguished both by Ath-

anasius and by Ruffin from the canonical books of the

Old Testament, but quite as expressly from apocryphal

writings, and treated as a middle class—in Athanasius,

books that are read;' in Ruffin, 'ecclesiastical books.'

          "It is different with Jerome, who embraces under

Apocrypha all those writings which, by their title or

by partial recognition in the Church, make a claim to

be put on a par with the canonical books, to which they

are not rightfully entitled; and he does this irrespective

of the contents of these writings, whether they are

wholly objectionable or at least partially to be recom-

mended for reading. Thus, he says, whatever is addi-

tional to these books translated from the Hebrew is to

be placed among the Apocrypha."

          Of the various ways by which the early Church ren-

ders its testimony to the canon of the Old Testament,

the most explicit and satisfactory is the catalogues of

the sacred books. Several of these catalogues have

been preserved from individual writers of eminence

and from councils; the latter have the advantage of

being the joint testimony of considerable numbers,

representing an entire province, or a still larger district

of country.

          The oldest catalogue of the books of the Old Testa-

ment, now extant, is that of Melito,¹ Bishop of Sardis

(after A.D. 171), and this is the only catalogue dating

from the second century. Melito informs us that he

 

          ¹ Preserved by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, IV., 26.

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH         161

 

had travelled into Judea, and made diligent inquiries

there in order to arrive at certainty upon the subject.

His list of books is the following:  "Five of Moses,

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy;

Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four of Kingdoms,¹ two of Chron-

icles, Psalms of David, Proverbs of Solomon, which is

also Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job; the

Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Twelve in one book,

Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra." After the Proverbs of Solo-

mon occur the words h[ kai> sofi<a, from which the

attempt has been made to draw an argument for the

apocryphal Book of Wisdom. But the words will bear

no other translation than "the Proverbs of Solomon,

which is also Wisdom," i.e., this is another name given

to the Book of Proverbs. Lamentations does not occur

in this list, as that was reckoned a part of Jeremiah.

Nehemiah also is not separately mentioned, as it was

included in Ezra. There is more diversity of opinion

about another omission, that of Esther. Some have

thought that this was from inadvertence, either on

the part of Melito or of some subsequent transcriber.

This is not likely, however, as the same book is want-

ing in some other catalogues. Others think that it was

included with Ezra and Nehemiah, which belong to the

same period of the history; but this lacks confirma-

tion. Others find an explanation in the disputes among

the Jews as to the canonicity of this book. Although

those who lay most stress upon these disputations must

acknowledge that at this time Esther was included in

 

          ¹ Four books of Kingdoms in the LXX. correspond to Samuel and

Kings in the Hebrew. Westcott (p. 124) remarks:  "It is evident

from the names, the number, and the order of the books, that it was

not taken directly from the Hebrew, but from the LXX. revised by

the Hebrew." From this he infers that " the Palestinian LXX., the

Greek Bible which was used by our Lord and the Apostles," contained

simply the books which are found in this catalogue.

 

162            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

the Hebrew canon, it is possible that the suspicions thus

engendered may have found a partial echo in the Chris-

tian Church; or, what is quite as probable, Melito may

have been betrayed into the error of rejecting the

entire book from the circumstance that the Greek

Esther begins with an apocryphal section, which is not

in the canon of the Jews. The list of Melito numbers

22, if reckoned according to the Jewish mode of enu-

meration. In common with some other catalogues,

which adhere to this number, the place of Esther is sup-

plied by counting Ruth separately instead of combining

it with Judges. Apart from its omission of the Book of

Esther, Melito's catalogue corresponds precisely with

the books of the Old Testament as Protestants acknowl-

edge them; and it does not contain a single one of

those books which Romanists have added to the canon.

          While this is the only list of the books of the Old

Testament which has been preserved from the second

century, other evidences are not wanting that the same

canon prevailed in other parts of the Eastern Church at

that time. Justin Martyr, so called because he suf-

fered martyrdom for his faith A.D. 164, was born in

Palestine, and after his conversion resided chiefly in

Rome, travelled extensively, and wrote largely. He

quotes freely from the canonical books, but never makes

any use of the Apocrypha. And in a controversy which

he had with Trypho, a Jew in Ephesus, and in which

the differences between Jews and Christians are dis-

cussed at length, no allusion is made to any difference

in their canon. And the old Syriac version, which, ac-

cording to the opinion of the ablest critics, was made in

this century, originally contained only the canonical,

none of the apocryphal, books of the Old Testament.

          Passing to the third century, we find another cata-

logue from Origen, the most learned of the Greek

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH           163

 

fathers, who was educated in Alexandria and died at

Tyre, A.D. 254, at the age of 68. His catalogue, like

that of Melito, is preserved by Eusebius in his "Eccle-

siastical History" (VI., 25). He reckons the number of

the books 22, as was done by Josephus. Having

given the Hebrew and Greek names in full of those

books which he esteems canonical, he adds at the close,

"And apart from these" (i.e., not forming a part of

the canon) "are the Books of Maccabees." In this

catalogue of Origen, as we now have it, the Minor Proph-

ets are omitted. This is evidently, however, not an

omission of Origen himself, but has arisen from inac-

curate transcription, for the number stated is 22, and

then 21 are named, showing that one has been left out.

And in the ancient Latin translation of this passage by

Ruffin, the Minor Prophets are mentioned in their proper

place. The catalogue of Origen, thus corrected, agrees

again precisely with the canon which we possess, ex-

cept in one remarkable addition, viz., that he includes

in the Book of Jeremiah Lamentations and his Epistle.

Some have supposed that Origen here intends the

Epistle of Jeremiah addressed to the captives at Baby-

lon, which is found in chaps. xxvii.-xxix. of the canon-

ical book, and, of course, does belong to the canon. It

is more probable, however, that he means an apocry-

phal epistle, bearing his name, which is found in the

Vulgate as the last chapter of the Book of Baruch; and

in this case he has been betrayed into the belief that

this forged letter was a genuine production of the

prophet. This is a mistake, however, which is easily

corrected; for Origen, like Melito, professedly follows

the Hebrew canon, and this apocryphal letter never had

a place in that canon.

          We have no other catalogue from this century, but

we have what is equivalent to one in Tertullian, the

 

164          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

first of the Latin fathers whose writings have been

preserved. He says that the books of the Old Testa-

ment number 24, and finds a symbolical allusion to

them in the 24 elders round about the throne and the

24 wings of the four living creatures spoken of in the

Revelation. This is the number of the sacred books as

stated in the Talmud, and in many other ancient cata-

logues which correspond with the Jewish canon. There

can be no doubt of its identity with that canon, and it

leaves no room for the admission of the Apocrypha.

We thus have in the second and third centuries testi-

monies from the Eastern Church in Melito and the old

Syriac version, from the Greek Church in Origen, and

from the Latin Church in Tertullian; and all combine

to sanction the Protestant canon and to exclude the

Apocrypha.

          Proceeding to the fourth century, where testimonies

are more abundant, we shall find the same thing cor-

roborated from all parts of the Church. In regard to

the so-called canon of Laodicea, Westcott says (p. 170):

"A decree was made upon the sacred books at the

Synod of Laodicea, a small gathering of clergy from

parts of Lydia and Phrygia, which was held about A.D.

363. After other disciplinary ordinances the last canon

runs:  ‘Psalms composed by private men must not be

read in the Church, nor books not admitted into the

canon, but only the canonical books of the New and

Old Testaments.' To this decree, in the printed edi-

tions of the canons and in most MSS., a list of the holy

Scriptures is added which is absolutely identical with

Cyril's, except as to the position of Esther and Job, and

adding Baruch and the Letter to Jeremiah. But this

list is, without doubt, a later addition. It is omitted in

good Greek MSS., in two distinct Syriac versions pre-

served in MSS. of the sixth or seventh century, in one

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH        165

 

of the two complete Latin versions, and in the oldest

digests of the canons."

          There are, however, catalogues of unquestioned gen-

uineness from five individual fathers belonging to the

Greek or Oriental Church, viz., from Athanasius of

Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius of Sala-

mine in Cyprus, Amphilochius of Iconium in Asia

Minor, and Gregory Nazianzen of Cappadocia, for a

short time resident in Constantinople and appointed

Patriarch of that city. To these may be added Basil

the Great of Cappadocia and Chrysostom, the distin-

guished preacher and Patriarch of Constantinople; for

though they have not left formal catalogues, they have

made statements which may be considered equivalent,

and which render sufficiently manifest what canon they

adopted. For the former says¹ that the number of the

books of the Old Testament was 22, as they are reck-

oned by Josephus and by Origen; and the latter² says:

"All the books of the Old Testament were originally

written in Hebrew, as all among us confess," which

makes it plain that he followed the Jewish canon.

          To these testimonies from the Greek and Oriental

Church may be added three from the Latin Church,

Hilary of Poitiers in France, Ruffin of Aquileia in Italy,

and Jerome, the most learned man of his time, all of

whom have left catalogues of the Old Testament books.

          Two of these catalogues, those of Gregory Nazianzen

and Athanasius, omit the Book of Esther, as was done

by Melito; and the omission may be explained in the

same way. Athanasius even includes Esther among

the non-canonical books, adding that "it begins with

Mordecai's dream," which is the beginning of the apoc-

ryphal additions. He further states that "Esther is

 

          ¹ Philocalia, ch. iii. See Cosin, p. 66.

          ² Homil. iv. in Gen. See Cosin, p. 70.

 

166             GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

canonical among the Hebrews; and as Ruth is reckoned

as one book with Judges, so Esther with some other

book."¹ If he is here to be understood as intimating

his own agreement with what he attributes to the

Hebrews, he may simply mean that the Greek additions

to Esther are apocryphal, and that the remainder of the

book is canonical, and considered as included in some

other constituent of the canon. Or else he has been

betrayed into the mistake of rejecting the entire book

because of these spurious additions—a mistake which

finds ample correction in other sources, which prove

beyond a doubt that Esther, freed from these spurious

chapters, rightfully belongs to the canon.

          Hilary inserts in his catalogue, instead of the simple

name of Jeremiah, Jeremiah and the Epistle, which is to

be accounted for as the same addition in the catalogue

of Origen. And so must the addition found in two

others, those of Athanasius and Cyril: Jeremiah, Baruch

and the Epistle. Some have thought that parts of the

canonical Book of Jeremiah are so called, those in which

mention is made of Baruch, the personal attendant and

helper of the prophet, and in which the letter is re-

corded which Jeremiah wrote to the captives in Baby-

lon. It is more probable, however, that they meant the

apocryphal Book of Baruch and the apocryphal Epistle

of Jeremiah; and in this case they have unwittingly

given their sanction to a forgery, being misled by their

veneration for the names attached to it to give credit to

what they never wrote.

          With these easily explained exceptions all the cat-

alogues above mentioned sustain the Protestant canon.

The Church of the first four centuries, Greek and Latin,

Eastern and. Western, in Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine,

Alexandria, Cyprus, Constantinople, Carthage, Italy,

 

          ¹ Cosin, p. 49.

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH          167

 

and France, testifies in favor of the same canon which

prevailed among the Jews, and which received the in-

fallible sanction of our Lord and his apostles, and

which Protestants now embrace.

          It is a mere evasion to say that these fathers did not

design to give the Christian, but the Jewish canon.

These catalogues were intended for Christian readers, to

inform them in regard to the books which properly be-

longed to the Old Testament. They do in fact give the

Jewish canon, but only because that was likewise bind-

ing on the Christian Church.

          It has also been said¹ that these fathers were mistaken,

but excusable, because the Church had not as yet made

any formal decision in regard to the extent of the canon

by a general council. But this is a question which the

Church has no inherent right to determine. Her only

function is to hand down faithfully what was delivered

to her.

          There are some testimonies near the close of the

fourth century upon which great stress has been laid,

as though they sanctioned the canonicity of the Apocry-

pha. But plausible as this may appear at first view,

they do not when carefully examined lend any real sup-

port to the Romish canon, nor do they teach any-

thing at variance with the testimony already gathered

from so many witnesses. The authorities referred to are

Augustin, one of the most distinguished and influential

of the fathers as a theologian, but of very little ability

as a critic, and the councils of Hippo and Carthage.

Westcott (p. 185) says of them: "The first discussion

on the canon in which Augustin took part was at a

council at Hippo, in A.D. 393. The decision which was

then made is lost, but the statutes of the council were

revised and confirmed by the council of Carthage, in

 

          ¹ Bellarmin, De Verbo Dei, I., :10.

 

168        GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

A.D. 397. In the meantime Augustin wrote his essay

'On Christian Doctrine,' in which he treats of the

books of Scripture." These catalogues of the canonical

books are of a uniform tenor, containing the names

not only of those in the Hebrew canon, but in addition

most of those that are reckoned canonical by Roman-

ists.¹ In regard to these catalogues it is to be ob-

served:

          1. They do not coincide precisely with the canon of

Rome, either in what they admit or in what they exclude.

The Book of Baruch is not found in these lists, although

Romanists regard it as canonical. On the other hand,

 

          ¹ Augustin's catalogue is as follows (De Doctrina Christiana, II., 8):

"Five of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deu-

teronomy, one book of Joshua, one of Judges, one little book which

is called Ruth, which seems rather to belong to the beginning of Kings,

then four of Kings and two of Chronicles, not following, but joined

as it were alongside and going along together. This is the history

which, connected throughout, contains the times and order of things.

There are others, as if of a different series, which are neither connected

with this series nor among themselves, as Job, and Tobit, and Esther,

and Judith, and two books of Maccabees, and two of Esdras, which

seem rather to follow that well-arranged history ending with Kings

and Chronicles. Then the Prophets, among which are one book of

David, the Psalms, and three of Solomon, Proverbs, Song of Songs,

and Ecclesiastes; for those two books, one of which is entitled Wis-

dom and another Ecclesiasticus, are from a certain resemblance said

to be Solomon's, but Jesus, the son of Sirach, is by an unbroken tra-

dition declared to have written them [this mistake as to the authorship

of Wisdom is corrected by Augustin in the second book of his Re-

tractationes]. Since, however, they deserved to be received into au-

thority, they are to be numbered among the prophetical books. The

remainder are books which are properly called prophets—twelve indi-

vidual books of prophets which, being connected together, since they

are never separated, are regarded as one—the names of which prophets

are these:  Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Obadiah,

Jonah, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Then there are four

prophets of larger volume: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. With

these forty-four books the authority of the Old Testament is ended."

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH           169

 

these lists make mention of two books of Esdras. The

first, according to the uniform mode of enumeration

among the ancients, must embrace the books of Ezra

and Nehemiah. By the second Book of Esdras in

these catalogues must accordingly be intended that

which in the Vulgate is numbered 3Esdras, or in the

English Apocrypha lEsdras; and this Romanists do

not account canonical.

          2. These are not three independent testimonies. It

should be remembered that Augustin was bishop of Hip-

po, and Hippo lay in the vicinity of Carthage; and Au-

gustin's influence was controlling in both these councils.

3. It is not reasonable to suppose that a different

canon prevailed in Carthage and its vicinity from that

which, as we have seen, was found in all the rest of the

Church, and in Carthage itself at an earlier date. If,

then, these catalogues can with any fairness be inter-

preted in a manner which shall bring them into accord

with the general voice of the Church in this and preced-

ing centuries, it certainly should be preferred to an

interpretation which assumes an irreconcilable conflict

between them.

          4. Such an interpretation is not only possible, but it

readily offers itself, and is in fact absolutely required

by the language of these catalogues themselves. There

is good reason to believe that by canonical books both

Augustin and these councils intended, not the canon in

its strict sense, as limited to those books which are in-

spired and divinely authoritative, but in a more lax and

wider sense, as including along with these other books

which, though not inspired, were sanctioned and com-

mended by the Church as profitable and edifying relig-

ious books, and suitable both for private perusal and

for public reading in the churches. That Augustin un-

derstands canonical in this lax sense is apparent.

 

170        GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

          a. As Westcott (p. 185) says:  "Augustin's attention

seems to have been directed toward the attainment of a

conciliar determination of the contents of the Bible soon

after his conversion. His former connection with the

Manichees, who were especially addicted to the use of

apocryphal Gospels and Acts, probably impressed him

keenly with the necessity of some such decision. The

wide circulation of the Manichean books had already

moved Cyril of Jerusalem to write upon the subject,

and afterward led the Spanish bishops to seek the as-

sistance of the Roman Church in checking their spread.

The fact is important, for it explains the motive which

may have led Augustin to hold the distinction between

the 'controverted' and the 'acknowledged' books of

the Old Testament as of comparatively little moment.

It might have seemed well to him if both could be

placed in a position wholly and forever separate from

the pernicious writings which had been turned to heret-

ical uses."

          b. Augustin prefaces his catalogue in the following

manner:¹  "He will be the wisest student of the divine

Scriptures who shall have first read and learned . . .

those which are called canonical. For he will read the

rest with greater security when furnished with faith in

the truth, lest they preoccupy a mind as yet unstable,

and instil some ideas contrary to sound understanding

by perilous fictions and fancies. In regard to the canon-

ical Scriptures let him follow the authority of as many

Catholic Churches as possible, among which assuredly

are those which were deemed worthy to be apostolical

sees, and to have epistles addressed to them. He will,

therefore, hold this course in regard to the canonical

Scriptures, that he prefer those which are received by

 

          ¹ Cosin, p. 102. I have adopted Westcott's translation of this pas-

sage.

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH       171

 

all Catholic Churches to those which some do not re-

ceive; of those again which are not received by all,

those which more and more influential Churches receive

to those which are held by Churches fewer in number or

inferior in authority. If, however, he find some writings

maintained by more Churches, others by more influen-

tial Churches, though this case can hardly be realized,

I fancy that they must be held to be of equal authority."

It will be perceived that Augustin divides divine Script-

ures into those which are canonical and those which

contain perilous fictions and fancies. And he makes

distinctions among canonical Scriptures, some being

universally received, and others being ranked according

to the number and influence of the Churches that do

receive them. It is evident that what he calls canonical

books are not all of the same grade in his esteem.

He could not speak thus if he regarded them all as alike

inspired of God.

          c. Elsewhere in his writings Augustin uses expres-

sions which show that he ranked the Hebrew canon

above the books which in his catalogue are associated

with it. Thus he says:¹  "After Malachi, Haggai, Zech-

ariah, and Ezra, they had no prophets until the advent

of the Saviour; wherefore the Lord himself says, The

law and the prophets were until John." As the apocry-

phal books were written after prophecy had ceased, he

could not regard them as inspired. He says further:²

"Those things which are not written in the canon of

the Jews cannot be adduced with so much confidence

against opposers." Again he says:³  "All those books

which prophesy of Christ are with the Jews. We bring

forward documents from the Jews to confound other

enemies. The Jew carries the document whence the

 

          ¹ De Civitate Dei, XVII., last chapter.

          ² Ibid., ch. 20.                  

          ³ On Psalm xlvi.

 

172          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

Christian derives his faith; they are made our libra-

rians." Again:¹ "What is written in the Book of Judith

the Jews are truly said not to have received into the

canon of Scripture." And speaking of other books of

the same class:²  "They are not found in the canon which

the people of God received, because it is one thing to be

able to write as men with the diligence of historians,

and another as prophets with divine inspiration; the

former pertained to the increase of knowledge, the

latter to authority in religion, in which authority the

canon is kept."

          d. Augustin's mind in this matter is most clearly and  

unambiguously shown in what he says of the books of

Maccabees:³  "The Jews do not have this Scripture

which is called Maccabees, as they do the law and the

prophets, to which the Lord bears testimony as to his

witnesses. But it is received by the Church not with-

out advantage, if it be read and heard soberly, espe-

cially for the sake of the history of the Maccabees, who

suffered so much from the hand of persecutors for the

sake of the law of God." Augustin is here arguing

against the Circumcelliones, so called from their living

in cells, which they erected in various parts of the coun-

try. These were a fanatical sect, who held it to be

right to commit self-murder, and appealed in justifica-

tion to 2 Macc. xiv. 42 ff., where Razis is commended

for destroying his own life to prevent his falling into

the hands of his enemies. Augustin says, in reply:⁴

"They are in great straits for authorities, having only

this one passage to which they can appeal in all the

books sanctioned by the Church;" and this in a book

 

          ¹ De Civitate Dei, XVIII., ch. 26.

          ² Ibid., ch. 38.

          ³ Contra Epistolam Gaudentii Donatisae, ch. 23.

          ⁴ Epistola 61, ad Dulcitium.

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH          173

 

which the Jews do not receive, to which the Lord does

not bear testimony, as he does to the law and the

prophets, and which the Church receives, not as in-

spired and infallibly authoritative, but because it re-

cords the history of men who suffered nobly for the

cause of God; and it must "be read and heard soberly,"

i.e., everything that it contains must not be accepted

with implicit faith, but caution must be exercised, and

Christian discretion and an enlightened conscience are

necessary to distinguish what in it is right from what is

wrong. Self-murder, though approved by the Book of

Maccabees, is not to be justified. Augustin also expresses

himself to the same purport elsewhere:¹  "The account

of the times since the restoration of the Temple is not

found in the holy Scriptures which are called canon-

ical, but in others, among which are also the books of

the Maccabees, which the Jews do not, but which the

Church does, esteem canonical on account of the violent

and extraordinary sufferings of certain martyrs." Ac-

cording to this passage, it appears that in one sense of

the term the Maccabees were not canonical, in another

they were; and the Church reckoned them canonical,

not because of their inspiration, but because of their

recording examples of heroic martyrdom, such as would

tend to nerve others to unfaltering constancy, and

would be particularly useful in times of persecution.

In other words, if canonical meant inspired, the Macca-

bees were not canonical; if it meant books that were

adapted to make a salutary religious impression, they

were. Augustin being the judge, then, these catalogues

do not conflict with the general voice of the Church in

this and preceding centuries regarding the canon of the

Old Testament.

          5. That the Council of Carthage did not design to cut

 

          ¹ De Civitate Dei, XVIII., ch. 36.

 

174          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

itself off from the rest of the Church in this matter is

plain from its giving direction that the Church beyond

the sea be consulted in respect to the confirmation of its

canon. Another council was held in Carthage A.D. 419,

and presided over by Augustin, which renewed the de-

cree concerning the canon, and added, "Let this also

be notified to our brother and fellow priest, Boniface,

Bishop of Rome, or to other bishops of those parts, for

the purpose of confirming this canon," which is de-

scribed, not as inspired books, but as books "which

by a usage derived from our fathers are to be read in

the Church."

          6. That the canon of the Old Testament, as it was

received and understood in Carthage and in that region

of Africa, did not really differ from that of the rest of

the Church, and from that which Protestants now

accept, is plain from the testimony of Tertullian of

Carthage in the preceding century, who, as we have

already seen, recognized only 24 books as belonging to

the Old Testament, when its canon is understood in a

strict and proper sense as limited to the books inspired

of God. It is apparent, likewise, from the testimony

of Primasius and Junilius, bishops in that region of

Africa in the succeeding century, circ. A.D. 550. Pri-

masius, commenting on the Apocalypse (ch. iv.), reckons

24 books of the Old Testament, corresponding in num-

ber to the elders and the wings of the living creatures

round about the throne. Junilius divides divine books

into three classes:  "Some are of perfect authority,

some of medium authority, and some of no authority."

His third class answers to what Augustin calls the non-

canonical divine Scriptures, with their "perilous fictions

and fancies." The canonical books of Augustin and

the Council of Carthage are divided between the other

two classes, showing that these catalogues were not

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH         175

 

understood to mean that they were all of the same

grade.¹

          The explicit testimonies to the canon of the Old

Testament in the catalogues of Christian councils and

Christian fathers of the first four centuries have now

been examined. And it has been found that, with the

exception of three catalogues at the close of the fourth

or the beginning of the fifth century, all the remainder,

with slight and unimportant variations, unanimously

and unambiguously sustain the Protestant canon. And

the other three emanate from one region, and were

issued under one influence; so that they are virtually

one testimony, and this demanding an explanation

which brings it, too, into harmony with the united

testimony of the rest of the catalogues. There was a

strict canon, limited to books inspired of God, which is

witnessed to from all parts of the Church during these

early ages, and is identical with the canon of Jews and

with that of Protestants. But the term canon was also

used in a more lax and wider sense by Augustin and

the councils in his region, who embraced in it not only

the inspired word, but in addition certain books which

had gained a measure of sanctity in their eyes from

their connection with the Greek and Latin Bible, and

from their having been admitted to be read in the

churches on account of their devotional character and

 

          ¹ The division which Junilius makes is somewhat arbitrary, and in-

dicative of the confusion which had arisen from indiscriminately com-

bining in these catalogues books of different character. He includes

Ecclesiasticus among those of perfect authority, to which some join

Wisdom and the Song of Songs. Those of medium authority are two

books of Chronicles, Job, Ezra (including Nehemiah), Judith, Esther,

and two books of Maccabees. That he, nevertheless, intends to give

the Hebrew canon is apparent from the reason which he assigns for

this partition, “Because they are received among the Hebrews with

this difference, as Jerome and others testify.”

 

176               GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

the noble examples of martyrdom which they recorded.

These supplementary volumes, however, were not put

upon a level with the canon strictly so-called in point

of authority. They were to be read and heard soberly

in the exercise of Christian discretion, and with this

caution they were commended to Christian people.

          From the fourth century onward the leading author-

ities of the Greek Church, like their predecessors, in

their lists of the books of the Old Testament reject the

Apocrypha. Thus Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch

(A.D. 560), and Leontius of Byzantium (A.D. 580), make

the number of the sacred books 22. And "John of

Damascus, the last of the great Greek fathers, whose

writings are still regarded with the deepest reverence

in the Eastern Church . . . transcribes almost ver-

bally one of the lists of Epiphanius, which gives only the

books of the Hebrew canon as of primary authority. To

these Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom are subjoined as an

appendix, 'being noble and good books, though not

prophetical.'"¹

          In the Western or Latin Church sentiment was di-

vided, some following the strict canon of Jerome, others

the more enlarged canon of Augustin. And Augustin's

list, being taken without note of the cautions which he

connected with it, led ultimately to a result which he

had not intended, the effacing of the distinction between

inspired and uninspired, and ranking all upon the same

level. Cassiodorus, in his Institutes (A.D. 556), places

the lists of Jerome and Augustin side by side without

deciding between them; Isidore of Seville (A.D. 636) does

the same. Among the advocates of the strict canon is

one Bishop of Rome, Gregory the Great (+ 604), who in

quoting a passage from 1 Maccabees says:  "We adduce

a testimony from books, though not canonical, yet pub-

 

          ¹ Westcott, p. 222.

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH          177

 

lished for the edification of the Church." And other

distinguished men in the Western Church, forming a

continuous chain of witnesses from the fourth century

down to the very time of the Council of Trent, in Italy,

Spain, France, England, and Germany, have given their

suffrages in favor of the Hebrew canon and against the

Apocrypha.¹ Even in the sixteenth century, shortly be-

fore the assembling of the Council of Trent, Cardinal

Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo in Spain, in the preface

to his Complutensian Polyglott, dedicated to Pope

Leo X., and approved by him, states that the books of

the Old Testament there printed in Greek only, viz.,

Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and the

Maccabees, with the additions to Esther and Daniel,

were not in the canon, but were received by the Church

rather for the edification of the people than for confirm-

ing the authority of ecclesiastical doctrines. And

Cardinal Cajetan at Rome (+ 1534), a theologian of

great eminence, who it has been thought would have

been chosen Pope if he had outlived Clement VII., was

of the same mind. In the preface to his commentary

on the Epistle to the Hebrews he says:  "We have

chosen the rule of Jerome that we may not err in dis-

tinguishing the canonical books; for those which he

delivered as canonical we hold to be canonical, and

those which he separated from the canonical books we

hold to be out of the canon." In dedicating his Com-

mentary on the Historical Books of the Old Testament to

Clement VII. he writes:  "The whole Latin Church is

very greatly indebted to St. Jerome for distinguishing

the canonical from the non-canonical books, since he

has freed us from the reproach of the Hebrews that we

frame for ourselves books or parts of books of the old

 

          ¹ These are discussed at length in Cosin's Scholastical History of the

Canon.

 

178           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

canon which they lack entirely. For Judith, Tobit, and

the Maccabees are reckoned by Jerome to be outside of

the canonical books and placed among the Apocrypha,

along with the Book of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus.

These are not canonical books, that is, they do not be-

long to the rule for confirming those things which are

of faith; yet they can be called canonical, that is, be-

longing to the rule for the edification of believers. With

this distinction what is said by Augustin and written by

the Council of Carthage can be rightly apprehended."

          In all this interval of more than a thousand years

there are few genuine catalogues which contain the

Apocrypha. Two catalogues are attributed to Bishops

of Rome, Innocent I. (A.D. 405), and Gelasius (A.D. 492-

496), of which Westcott says (p. 195):  "Both these lists

are open to the gravest suspicion. . . . They were

unknown to Cassiodorus, who carefully collected the dif-

ferent lists of Holy Scripture current in his time, and at

a still later time to Isidore of Seville; the text of the

Gelasian list varies considerably in different copies, and

in such a way as to indicate that the variations were

not derived from one original. The earliest historical

traces of the decretals of which they form a part are

found in the eighth century. The letter of Innocent

was sent to Charlemagne in A.D. 774 by Hadrian I., in

the Code of Ecclesiastical Law, and from that time it

exercised some influence upon the judgment of the

Church. The list of the canonical books in the decree

of Gelasius does not distinctly appear till about the

tenth century, and even in later times was compara-

tively little known. . . . Both lists simply repeat

the decision at Carthage and determine the ecclesiasti-

cal canon, the books, that is, which might be publicly

used in the Church services."¹

 

          ¹ See also Cosin, pp. 118-128.

 

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH           179

 

          The council at Florence (A.D. 1439), which was chiefly

occupied with settling the disputes between the Eastern

and Western Churches, is also said to have issued a

catalogue corresponding with that at Carthage. But

the reality of this is likewise disputed.¹

          The Council of Trent, which Roman Catholics regard

as an oecumenical council, and consequently authorita-

tive in all its decrees, in its fourth session, April 8, 1546,

adopted the following:  "The Synod doth receive and

venerate all the books as well of the Old as of the New

Testament, since one God is the author of both, also

the unwritten traditions pertaining to faith and morals,

as proceeding from the mouth of Christ or dictated by

the Holy Spirit, with an equal feeling of piety and rev-

erence." The list of the sacred books is then given,

including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Ba-

ruch, and two books of Maccabees. The decree con-

cludes:  "If any one does not receive these books entire,

with all their parts,² as they are accustomed to be read

in the Catholic Church, and knowingly and intelligently

despises the traditions aforesaid, let him be anathema."

The novel features of this decree are: That the apocry-

phal books and unwritten traditions are here affirmed

to be upon a par with the strictly canonical books, and

that an anathema is pronounced upon those who hold a

contrary view. There was a great diversity of opinion

in the council as to the best method of dealing with the

subject of the canon. Some proposed simply to make a

list of books sanctioned by the Church, as was done at

Carthage, without pronouncing upon their relative

value; others desired to follow the example of Jerome

and make two lists, one belonging strictly to the canon

 

          ¹ Westcott, p. 199; Cosin, pp. 180-188.

          ² This is intended to cover the apocryphal portions of Esther and

Daniel.

 

180              GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

and the other of books commended as edifying, but not

to be used in proof of doctrines; a third class insisted

upon the course which finally prevailed. The decision

turned at last not upon a thorough examination of the

question upon its merits, but upon the existing usage of

the Church of Rome, which had selected its lessons

from the Apocrypha as well as from the canonical Script-

ures, and upon a desire to make an issue with the Prot-

estants, who had planted themselves upon the Hebrew

canon as sanctioned by the Lord and his apostles.

          The formal and explicit testimony of the Church on

the subject of the canon, as given in its catalogues and

express statements, has now been reviewed from the

beginning to the time of the Council of Trent, with its

evidence unequivocally in favor of the strict Protestant

view. But alongside of this deliberate testimony for-

mally given to the sharp distinction between the apoc-

ryphal and canonical books, there grew up in popular

usage a sort of indiscriminate treatment of them as alike

promotive of piety and conducive to spiritual edification.

The Apocrypha were more or less permeated with the

spirit of the Old Testament, dealt with the fortunes of

the chosen people and God's gracious care exercised

over them, inculcated devotion toward God and stead-

fast adherence to his service, as well as integrity and

uprightness in the affairs of life, and were at a vast re-

move from the pagan and polytheistic literature which

abounded everywhere. It is not strange, therefore, that

they came to be classed with sacred religious literature

as opposed to pagan and heretical productions, and

that in ordinary usage the distinction between them and

the strictly canonical books seems to be sometimes

obscured; though when the question of their relative

value is raised, this distinction is always clearly marked.

Advantage has been taken of this popular usage, and

 

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH            181

 

the attempt made to show that it reflects a belief on

the part of the early Church in the canonicity and

inspiration of the Apocrypha, which, it is urged, must

nullify or materially modify the direct and positive as-

sertions already produced of a contrary belief. Three

particulars are here alleged as justifying this conclusion,

viz.:

          1. The Apocrypha were included in the early versions

of the Scriptures.

          2. They were read in the churches in public worship.

          3. They were quoted by the fathers as divinely

authoritative.

          In regard to the first allegation, that the Apocrypha

were included in the early versions of the Scriptures,

and must, therefore, have been regarded as a part of the

word of God, it is obvious to remark:

          (1.) The Apocrypha were not included in all the early

versions. It was not in the Syriac Peshitto. It was

not Jerome's original intention to translate any of these

books in his Latin version, though he was subsequently

persuaded to change his mind in respect to Tobit and

Judith, while not esteeming them canonical. The rest

of the Apocrypha as found in the Latin Vulgate is taken

from an earlier version known as the Itala.

          (2.) It has already been shown that, though these

books came to be included in the Septuagint at some

date now unknown, they were there only as an append-

age to the inspired books, and not as equal to them

in inspiration and authority; for the Alexandrian Jews,

amongst whom that version circulated and for whom it

was prepared, never admitted them to the canon. Now

since the earlier translations were for the most part

made from the Greek rather than the Hebrew, it is nat-

ural that all that was in the Greek version should be

translated. If they were allowed to be connected with

 

182          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

the Septuagint without being thought to be inspired,

why might they not be retained in translations made

from that version without an assertion of their canon-

icity? They were not reckoned a part of the infallible

word, but they were revered and valued, and possessed

a sort of sacredness from their resemblance to and their

association with the Holy Scriptures.

          (3.) The Romish argument inverts the real order of

the facts, and makes that the cause which was rather the

effect. It is not the canonicity of these books which

led to their insertion in the Septuagint and other ver-

sions, but their incorporation with these versions which

led in certain quarters to their admission to the canon,

when this was understood in a lax and improper sense.

And it may easily have led in some cases to their being

regarded with a consideration to which they were not

entitled. The fathers reading Greek and Latin, but

being unacquainted with Hebrew, might, on finding

these books in the Greek and Latin Bible, and not

being aware of their exclusion from the Hebrew canon,

ignorantly attribute to them an authority which they do

not possess.

          (4.) The analogy of modern versions of the Scriptures

also shows that the Apocrypha may be included in them

without being regarded as a part of the inspired Word of

God. In Luther's translation of the Bible the Apocrypha

are added as an appendix to the Old Testament, with the

heading, "These are books which are not esteemed

like the Holy Scriptures, and yet are useful and good

to read." The Apocrypha were similarly inserted in

King James's translation of the English Bible, though

the translators did not consider them a part of the canon.

          (5.) If this argument is urged, it will prove more than

Romanists themselves are willing to admit. Books

which they reject as uncanonical and uninspired, and

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH           183

 

which in fact no one has ever dreamed of including in

the canon, are contained in ancient versions. The

Septuagint contains 3d Esdras (E. V. 1st Esdras) and

3d Maccabees. In the Vulgate itself, which the Council

of Trent pronounced authentic, are 3d and 4th Esdras

and the Prayer of Manasseh. And the old Ethiopic ver-

sion contains the Book of Enoch, the Ascension of Isaiah,

the Book of Jubilees, and others which are similarly

destitute of authority.¹  Why are not these in the canon,

if existence in an ancient version is sufficient to prove

that it is entitled to a place there?

          As to the allegation that the Apocrypha were read in

the churches along with the canonical books of Script-

ure, it is to be observed :

          (1.) While the fact is to a certain extent admitted, the

argument based upon it is unsound. All depends upon

the meaning and intention with which this was done.

This is not to be judged by modern ideas and practice,

but by the ideas and practice of the early Church in

this respect.

          (2.) That a clear distinction was made between canon-

ical books and books which were read in the churches

appears from the most explicit testimony. Thus Jerome

says:²  "As therefore the Church reads the books of

Judith, Tobit, and Maccabees, but does not receive them

among the canonical Scriptures, so it also reads these

two volumes [Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus] for the edifi-

cation of the people, but not for authority to prove the

 

          ¹ Westcott, p. 238, mentions an Ethiopic catalogue of the Old Tes-

tament in the British Museum which, in-addition to the canonical books

and the Greek Apocrypha, has "the apocryphal story of Asenath, the

wife of Joseph, the Book of Jubilees, a strange Judaic commentary on

Genesis, and an unknown apocryphal writing, Ozias."

          ² Cosin, p. 46. Thornwell, Arguments of Romanists Discussed and

Refuted, p. 299.

 

184           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

doctrines of religion."  Ruffin, a contemporary of Je-

rome, says:¹  "It should, however, be known that there

are other books which were called by our forefathers

not canonical, but ecclesiastical, as the Wisdom of Sol-

omon and another so-called Wisdom of the Son of

Sirach. . . . Of the same rank is the Book of Tobit,

and Judith, and the Books of the Maccabees. . . .

All which they would have read in the Church, but not

adduced for confirming the authority of the faith. Other

writings they named apocryphal,² which they would not

have read in the Church. These things, as I have said,

have been delivered to us from the fathers." To the

same purport is the language of Athanasius:³  "All the

Scripture of us Christians is divinely inspired. It con-

tains books that are not indefinite, but comprised in a

fixed canon." Then, after enumerating the books in de-

tail, he proceeds:  "But besides these books there are

also some others of the Old Testament not indeed re-

ceived into the canon, but which are only read before

the catechumens. These are Wisdom, Sirach or Eccle-

siasticus, Esther, Judith, and Tobit. These are not

canonical." Augustin is quoted by Cosin, p. 106, as

saying that the Book of Wisdom was deemed fit to read

from the reader's desk, but not from that of the bishops

or the pulpit. These explicit testimonies, and others of

like tenor which might be adduced if necessary, make it

certain that there were books approved as suitable to

be read in the churches which yet were not regarded

as canonical.

 

          ¹ In Symbol. Apostol., 36. Cosin, p. 88. Thornwell, ubi supra.

          ² Ruffin uses "apocryphal" in the sense of heretical and pernicious,

as opposed not merely to canonical, but also to ecclesiastical, which

latter corresponds to "apocryphal" as commonly used in the discus-

sion of the canon.

          ³ Synopsis Sac. Script. Cosin, pp. 48, 49. Thornwell, p. 321.

 

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH          185

 

          (3.) The present practice of the Church of England

in this matter sufficiently shows that to direct to be

read in the churches and to esteem canonical are not

necessarily convertible expressions. The Apocrypha

are enjoined to be read in public worship "for example

of life and instruction of manners," but at the same

time expressly declared not to be a part of the canon.

Lessons are accordingly selected from these as well as

from the canonical books; only they are read upon

other days than the Sabbath.

          (4.) This argument, also, if valid, will prove too

much, for books such as Esdras and Hermas were ad-

mitted to be read in ancient churches which Rome does

not account canonical.

          It is alleged still further that the apocryphal books

are quoted and referred to by the early fathers in a

manner which shows that they were esteemed canon-

ical. This is the most plausible ground that can be

urged, for these books are cited loosely in a way which,

if we had not convincing evidence to the contrary,

might lead us to suppose that they were esteemed to be

a part of the inspired Word of God. It must first be

ascertained whether what is alleged as a quotation

from the Apocrypha is really such, for many pretended

citations turn out upon examination to be no citations

at all, but have only that remote resemblance which

might attach to the expressions of different writers in-

dependently conceived. And, if it be a real quotation,

it must be ascertained whether it is cited in such a

manner as to show that the writer esteemed it to be the

inspired Word of God; otherwise he may have quoted it

as lie would quote any human production.

          In regard to the writings of the Christians of the first

century, or, as they are commonly called, the Apostoli-

cal Fathers, Westcott sums up the case thus:  "Clement

 

186            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

uses the narrative of Judith in exactly the same man-

ner as that of Esther; and Barnabas, as might have

been expected from an Alexandrian writer, appears to

have been familiar with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus,

and he quotes the second Book of Esdras (4th Esdras)

as the work of a prophet. The reference of Clement to

Wisdom and of Polycarp to Tobit are very doubtful."

These fathers may have been acquainted with some

books of the Apocrypha, and have believed that Judith

was a true history; but it does not follow that they put

them on a par with the inspired writings. If Barnabas

thought that 2d Esdras, a book which is not in the

Roman Catholic canon, was written by Ezra, he was

mistaken.

          By the fathers from the second century onward the

Apocrypha are freely quoted, but so are the books of

uninspired and heathen writers, as Homer, Virgil,

Cicero, etc. A bare citation shows nothing more than

that the book was known and contained something per-

tinent to the subject in hand. It gives no information

respecting the authority accorded to it and the esteem

in which it was held.

          Another large class of citations is quite as little to

our present purpose, viz., those in which these books

are spoken of with respect, the sentiments which they

contain are quoted with approbation or their histories

appealed to as true. There is a very wide difference

between holding that a book contains much that is ex-

cellent and worthy of regard, or that it records historical

facts, and accepting it as the inspired Word of God.

Unless there is something in the mode of citation

which implies the inspiration or divine authority of the

volume quoted, it proves nothing to the purpose. It

is urged, however, that this is repeatedly done by the

fathers.

 

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH           187

 

          1. They make use of the same formulas in quoting

from the Apocrypha that they do in quoting from the

canonical books, and they frequently apply to the

former names and epithets which are appropriate to

the latter.

          2. They speak of the writers of these books in the

same terms which they employ in relation to the in-

spired writers.

          Citations from the Apocrypha are introduced by the

words, "It is written," which is the common formula in

the New Testament in quoting from the Old, and which

became the established phrase in citing from the in-

spired writings. And such titles as Scripture, sacred

Scripture, holy Scripture, divine Scripture, are repeat-

edly applied to the Apocrypha as to the canonical writ-

ings. But in regard to this it should be remembered

          (1.) Although the word Scripture from long and famil-

iar usage suggests at once to our minds the inspired vol-

ume, it is in its original import a general term, grafh<,

scriptura, denoting writing, and applicable to any com-

position whatever. And in this sense it was very gen-

erally employed; thus Eusebius speaks of the Scripture

of Josephus and the Scripture of Aristeas. So, too,

the expression sacred or divine Scripture, need mean

no more than a writing upon sacred or divine subjects

—in other words, a religious book. And the fathers,

in giving such titles to these books, may have meant no

more than to designate them as belonging to the cate-

gory of sacred in contrast with profane literature, or

books upon secular subjects. And there was the more

reason for using these titles in application to books

which were associated with the sacred volume in the

versions in most common use, and which had a sort of

ecclesiastical sanction in their being allowed to be read

in conjunction with the inspired books in public wor-

 

188         GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

ship. It was to be expected that they would, in con-

sequence, be regarded with a respect and veneration

which was not felt for other human productions. And

if even the term "canonical" could be applied to them

in a loose and improper sense, as we have already seen,

it is not surprising if a like extension was given to

other terms descriptive of the sacred books.

          (2.) That these terms are applied to the Apocrypha

in the general sense suggested by their etymology, or

else in the loose and improper sense just spoken of, is

convincingly shown by the fact that the same writers

who in their works distinctly exclude these books from

the canon, yet cite them under these very titles. Ter-

tullian acknowledges but 24 books of Scripture—in

other words, the Hebrew canon—and yet he quotes

from Baruch, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus. Origen, in

his catalogue of the canon, leaves out the Apocrypha,

yet he quotes the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus,

Tobit, Judith, and Maccabees under the name of Script-

ure or the divine word. The canon of Jerome, in all

three of his catalogues, is identical with that of the

Hebrew Bible; yet he quotes Maccabees as Scripture,

and in one place Ecclesiasticus as Holy Scripture.

Chrysostom received only the Hebrew canon, yet he

quotes Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, and Wisdom as divine

Scripture. Athanasius adheres to the Hebrew canon

in his catalogue, and yet cites the Book of Wisdom as

Scripture, and Ecclesiasticus in one place as Holy

Scripture and in another with the formula, "As the

Holy Ghost saith."  These loose, popular citations,

made perhaps in some instances without distinctly

remembering in what books they were to be found,

should not be held to prove a belief in the inspiration

of books which in their formal statements they ex-

pressly disavow and repudiate. It is much more rea-

 

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH          189

 

sonable to receive their formal statements on this sub-

ject as explanatory of the sense in which they designed

their less explicit expressions to be understood.

          (3.) The wide sense in which such terms as divine

books were popularly used is apparent from expressions

already quoted from Augustin, who includes among

divine books those which contain "perilous fictions

and fancies;" and from Junilius, who speaks of some

divine books as having no authority at all. Cyprian

quotes a passage from the Apocrypha as Scripture, and

then proceeds to prove the correctness of its statement

by what he calls "the testimony of truth," adducing

for that purpose the Acts of the Apostles. It is plain

that these are not put by him upon the same level.

          (4.) An analogy in modern times may be found in

the fact that the Homilies of the Church of England

cite the Book of Wisdom as Scripture and as the Word

of God; and yet this book forms no part of the canon

of that Church.

          (5.) Books are cited under these names which none

esteem and none ever have esteemed canonical. These

same epithets are found applied to the so-called Apos-

tolical Constitutions, the writings of Ignatius and of

Augustin, the decrees of the Council of Nice, the Sybil-

line verses, etc.

          The remaining class of citations which is urged as

decisive of the point at issue comprises those in which

the writers of these books are called by some title ap-

propriate to inspired men, such as "prophet," or in

which the authorship of these books is ascribed to

some writer of known inspiration. Thus the Wisdom

of Solomon is frequently quoted with the formula,

"Solomon says," or "The prophet says." And mention

is made of "five books of Solomon." But

          (1.) These expressions are employed in a loose and

 

 

190           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

popular sense. This is distinctly declared by Augustin,

who says:  "Solomon prophesied in his books, three

of which are received into canonical authority—Prov-

erbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. But two

others, one of which is called Wisdom and the other

Ecclesiasticus, have come to be commonly called Sol-

omon's on account of some similarity of style. Yet

the more learned do not doubt that they are not his."

So when the apocryphal additions to the Book of

Daniel are cited under the name of Daniel, this is

merely giving to a book the name popularly attrib-

uted to it. And when the Book of Baruch is cited

under the name of Jeremiah, this is because Baruch

was regarded as a sort of appendix to the canonical

book.

          (2.) If, however, the letter of these expressions is

pressed, the only consequence will be not to establish

the canonicity of these books, but to prove that the

fathers were mistaken; for it is capable of satisfactory

demonstration that Solomon was not the author of

Wisdom, nor Daniel of the apocryphal chapters that

are found only in the Greek, and Ecclesiasticus ex-

pressly claims to have been written by another than

Solomon, and Baruch by another than Jeremiah.

          (3.) That the more intelligent of the fathers did not

seriously mean by these loose citations to sanction

these books as the work of inspired men appears from

their elsewhere declaring in a more formal way pre-

cisely the reverse. Those who were not well informed

may, under the circumstances, easily have been be-

trayed into error in this matter.

          (4.) Baruch is called a prophet in the Homilies of

the Church of England, although that Church does not

accept Baruch as canonical.

          (5.) Books are quoted similarly which are not in the

 

 

 

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH              191

 

canon of the Council of Trent, e.g., 3d and 4th Esdras,

under the name of the Prophet Esdras or Ezra.

          The history of the canon in the Christian Church

since the Council of Trent can be briefly stated. As

Roman Catholics acknowledge the authority of that

council, the canonicity of the Apocrypha has ever since

been an established dogma in that communion. It was

not to be expected, therefore, that the line of witnesses

against their inspiration, which reached down to the

very assembling of this council, would be continued

further in that Church. Yet a few learned Romanists,

such as Dupin, Jahn, and Bernard Lamy, sought to rec-

oncile the terms of its decree with the sentiments of the

primitive Church, and, while in form assenting to the

former, still to maintain their accordance with the latter

by making a distinction between the proto-canonical

and the deutero-canonical, books. The Hebrew canon

was called proto-canonical, or the first canon, and was re-

garded as in the fullest sense inspired and authoritative.

The second canon consisted of the books added by the

Council of Trent, which were held to be inferior in

authority to the first, possessing a sacredness and

entitled to veneration from the esteem with which they

were anciently regarded and the measure of ecclesiasti-

cal sanction which they enjoyed, being read for edifica-

tion in public worship, but not alleged in proof of doc-

trines. This, however, does not accord with the

language of the decree, which puts these books on a

par with the rest of the Old Testament. Accordingly,

the doctrine now universally accepted in the Church of

Rome assigns equal authority to the Apocrypha with

the other books of the canon.

          In the Greek Church the Confession of Faith by

Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, issued in 1631,

sanctions the Hebrew canon. With this agree the Con-

 

192          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

fession of his friend Metrophanes Critopulus, the

Orthodox Teaching of Platon, Metropolitan of Moscow,

A.D. 1836, and the authorized Russian Catechism. On

the other hand, the Confession of Dositheus, Patriarch

of Jerusalem, prepared under Romish influence in 1672,

and in opposition to the views of Lucar, sanctioned the

Apocrypha.

          The Protestant churches have from the first been

unanimous in adhering to the Hebrew canon, which is

the canon of Christ and the writers of the New Testa-

ment, and the canon of the early Church. There has,

however, been some diversity among them in regard to

the esteem in which they were disposed to hold the

Apocrypha. This may be represented by the articles

of the Church of England on the one hand, and the

Westminster Confession on the other. The former

repeat with approval the language of Jerome: "The

Church doth read "the Apocrypha" for example of life

and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply

them to establish any doctrine."  The Westminster

Confession, ch. i., § 3, says:  "The books commonly

called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are

no part of the canon of Scripture; and therefore are of

no authority in the Church of God, nor to be otherwise

approved or made use of than other human writings."

The former of these views naturally led to their reten-

tion in the volume of the Old Testament, if not mingled

indiscriminately with the canonical books, as in the

Vulgate and Romish Bibles generally, yet separated

from them and brought together in a sort of appendix

at the end. The view of the Westminster Confession

would logically banish them from the volume of Holy

Scripture altogether, and treat them precisely as all

other uninspired productions.

          The antagonism of these two sets of opinions culmi-

 

THE CANON OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH           193

 

nated in the famous apocryphal controversy which for

several years agitated the British and Foreign Bible

Society. In circulating the Bible in Germany, the

Society at first purchased and made use of the Canstein

Bible, which contained Luther's version of the Apocry-

pha as well as the canonical books. This fact being

brought to the attention of the Society in 1811, it was

resolved that its auxiliaries upon the Continent should

be requested to leave out the Apocrypha. The oppo-

sition which this met with led to the rescinding of this

order in 1813. The strife thus begun became more ar-

dent in 1819, when the Society undertook the printing

of Catholic Bibles in Italian, Spanish, and. Portuguese.

The apocryphal books were in these not merely printed

as such at the end of the Old Testament, but were min-

gled indiscriminately with the other books, as though

they were equally part of the canon. Still, it was con-

tended that the Society would forego all opportunity of

distributing the Scriptures in the Catholic countries of

Europe if it did not retain the Apocrypha. In 1822

the compromise was proposed and carried that the

money of the Society should only be used for printing

the canonical Scriptures, and that such auxiliaries as

chose to publish the Apocrypha should do so at their

own expense. In September, 1824, Leander Van Ess,

publisher of the Vulgate, asked the aid of the Society

in issuing an edition of the Latin Bible, promising that

he would bear the whole cost of the Apocrypha. The

sum of £500 was voted for this purpose. But in the

following December the resolution was reconsidered

and the grant withdrawn, and the Society resolved that

in future it would only aid in printing those Bibles in

which the Apocrypha was kept distinct from the canon-

ical books. Still, these half-way measures could not

satisfy those whose consciences were offended by the

 

 

194          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

intrusion of human and uninspired productions in the

volume of God's Word. The agitation was accordingly

continued, until finally, on May 3, 1827, it was resolved

"that no association or individual circulating the apoc-

ryphal books should receive aid from the Society; that

none but bound books should be distributed to the aux-

iliaries, and that the auxiliaries should circulate them as

received; and that all societies printing the apocryphal

books should place the amount granted them for Bibles

at the disposal of the parent Society."¹

 

          ¹ Abridged from the article entitled "Bible Societies," in Appleton's

Cyclopaedia, which was chiefly based upon the account given in Hert-

zog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                            XI

 

        THE APOCRYPHA CONDEMNED BY INTERNAL

                                     EVIDENCE

 

          THE limits of the canon must be determined mainly

by external evidence; for it is a historical question:

What books were committed to the Church and received

by her as her rule of faith and life? To undertake to

settle the canon by internal evidence exclusively would

end in making it insecure, and subjecting it to capri-

cious and arbitrary treatment. Historical questions can

only be determined by historical evidence.

          But while this is so, a negative value attaches to in-

ternal evidence, which may be of such a nature as to be

quite decisive. A book which contains what is false in

fact or erroneous in doctrine, or which is unworthy of

God, cannot have been inspired by him. If these books

be tried by this evident test, they will be found wanting.¹

          The books of Tobit and Judith abound in geograph-

ical, chronological, and historical mistakes, so as not

only to vitiate the truth of the narratives which they

contain, but to make it doubtful whether they even rest

upon a basis of fact. They tend to promote supersti-

tion; they justify deception and falsehood; they make

salvation and the pardon of sin to depend upon meri-

torious deeds, which may be purely formal and external.

          It is said to have been in the youth of Tobit that the

ten tribes revolted from Judah under Jeroboam, Tobit

i. 4, 5; this would make him two hundred and seventy

years old at the time of the Assyrian captivity. But

 

          ¹ Keerl die Apokryphen, from which the following is largely drawn.

 

                                          195

 

 

196               GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

according to xiv. 11 he was only one hundred and fifty-

eight years old when he died, and according to the Latin

text only one hundred and two. Contrary to all analogy

of angels' visits, which are always brief as recorded in

Scripture, an angel is made to journey on foot with To-

bias three hundred miles. He also tells a falsehood

about himself, professing (v. 12) to be one Azarias, a son

of one of Tobit's acquaintances, and (vii. 3) one of the

captives of the tribe of Naphtali. He afterward makes

himself known as the angel Raphael (xii. 15), and teaches

a doctrine which has no support elsewhere in Script-

ure, and which conflicts with the mediatorial office of

the Lord Jesus Christ, that there are seven holy angels

which present the prayers of the saints and which go in

and out before the glory of the Holy One (comp. ver.

12). This notion is in all likelihood borrowed from the

seven Amshaspands of the Persian superstition. An

evil spirit is fantastically represented as in love with a

woman, and so jealous as to murder whoever marries

her (vi. 14); but the smoking heart and liver of a fish

have such magical virtue as to drive this demon away

(vi. 7, 17). Ch. xii. 9 ascribes to almsgiving such virtue

as to deliver from death and to purge away all sin; so

also iv. 10, xiv. 10, 11.

          Bethulia, the scene of the Book of Judith vi. 10, 11,

is a place of whose existence there is no other evidence;

its significant name, meaning virgin, suggests that the

whole story may be an allegory or romance. And no

time can be found in Jewish history for the events

which it records, or the protracted peace which is said

to have followed. The march imputed to Holofernes

is a most extraordinary zigzag. Nebuchadnezzar is

said to have reigned in Nineveh (i. 1), whereas Babylon

was his capital; and Joiakim is said to have been the

contemporary high priest (iv. 6, xv. 8), whereas there

 

        THE APOCRYPHA SELF-CONDEMNED                 197

 

was no high priest of this name until after the exile, and

then Nebuchadnezzar and Nineveh and the kingdom of

the Medes (i. 1) had all passed away. Judith's language

and conduct is a continued course of falsehood and

deception, and yet it is represented as approved of God,

and she is divinely assisted in it. She even prays to

God to aid her in her deception (ix. 10, 13). The crime

of Simeon, which is condemned in Gen. xlix. 5 ff., is ap-

plauded (ix. 2). And with all these offences against the

moral law, a breach of the ceremonial, even for the sake

of preserving human life, is represented as a deadly sin

(xi. 10 ff.).

          The Wisdom of Solomon and the Book of Ecclesias-

ticus contain many excellent maxims, and yet the moral-

ity which they inculcate is defective and is based mainly

on expediency, without a due regard to the holiness of

God or the requirements of his law. The wisdom which

they contain is not that of Solomon, but of the Alexan-

drian philosophy. The doctrine of emanation seems to

be taught (Wisd. vii. 25) ; and the pre-existence of souls,

whose mortal destiny is determined by their character

prior to their birth into this world (viii. 19, 20); and the

creation of the world, not from nothing, but out of pre-

existent matter (xi. 17). The material body is spoken of

as a weight and clog upon the soul (ix. 15), a doctrine

which has no countenance in Scripture. Israel is repre-

sented as a righteous person, and all God's favors in

their past history as a reward of their goodness (x. 15-

20), whereas in the Scriptures these are always spoken of

as undeserved mercies, bestowed in spite of their unfaith-

fulness. The miracles are exaggerated in a way that

has no sanction in the inspired narrative of them, from

a mere love of the marvellous. Thus the manna is said

(xvi. 20, 21) to have agreed to every taste, and to have

tempered itself to every man's liking; and the plagues

 

198             GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

of Egypt are related (ch. xvi., xvii.) with a number of

embellishments existing only in the imagination of the

writer. A false explanation is given of the symbolical

meaning of the high priest's dress (xviii. 24, 25), and a

virtue attributed to it which was due only to his office

and his official mediation. Cain's murder of Abel is

said to have been the cause of the flood (x. 4), and a very

superficial account is given of the origin of idolatry,

which is traced (xiv. 15) to fathers making images of

their deceased children, entirely overlooking the great

moral causes which the apostle points out in Rom. i.

21-23—the alienation of the heart from God so dark-

ening the understanding that men changed the glory

of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to

corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts

and creeping things. The Book of Wisdom, more-

over, claims to have been written by Solomon (ch. vii.,

ix. 7, 8), and yet the people of God are spoken of as

in subjection to their enemies (xv. 14), which never

occurred in Solomon's days; and the book was, as

is evident, originally written not in Hebrew, but in

Greek.

          Ecclesiasticus, with much that is commendable, con-

tains also quite a number of passages that are at variance

with the spirit and teachings of the inspired word. Thus

it says that almsgiving makes atonement for sin (iii. 30).

Generosity to the wicked is prohibited (xii. 4-7), cruelty

to slaves is justified (xxxiii. 26, 28, xlii. 5), and hatred

to the Samaritans (1. 25, 26). Expediency is substituted.

for right as the ground of obligation, and exhortations

given to do what will gain the favor of men in place of

a single regard to what is acceptable in the sight of

God. Thus, xxxviii. 17, "Weep bitterly for the dead for

a day or two, lest thou be evil spoken of."

          Baruch purports to have been written by Baruch,

 

        THE APOCRYPHA SELF-CONDEMNED              199

 

the helper of Jeremiah, though it was probably written

in the Greek language in whole or in part. It contains

passages imitated or quoted from Daniel and Nehe-

miah, who lived later. According to i. 14 this book

was required to be read in the house of the Lord on

feasts and solemn days; but there is no trace of such a

custom having ever been observed by the Jews Baruch

is said to have been in Babylon, though he went with

Jeremiah into Egypt after the capture of Jerusalem by

Nebuchadnezzar. The Temple is spoken of as standing,

and offerings said to be made in Jerusalem (i. 7-10),

though the Temple was burned when the city was taken.

The vessels of the Temple are said to have been sent

back from Babylon in the time of Jeremiah (i. 8), though

they were not in fact returned until after the exile was

over (Ezra i. 7). God is spoken of as hearing the pray-

ers of the dead (iii. 4), which, like 2 Macc. xv. 14,

where Jeremiah prays for the people after his death,

has been used as a proof-text for soliciting the prayers

of departed saints. The epistle of Jeremiah, which now

appears as the last chapter of the Book of Baruch, is

probably older than this book and by a different author.

It conflicts with the genuine writings of Jeremiah in

declaring that the captivity was to last seven generations,

instead of seventy years, ver. 3.

          1 Maccabees contains historical and geographical er-

rors, which it is not worth while to detail here, but is

much more reliable than 2 Maccabees, which abounds in

legends and fables, as that of the miraculous preserva-

tion of the sacred fire (i. 19 ff.), Jeremiah's hiding the

Tabernacle with the ark and altar of incense in Mount

Nebo (ii. 4 ff.), the apparition which prevented Heli-

odorus from invading the sanctity of the Temple (iii.

25), etc. It justifies suicide (xiv. 41-46), and prayers

and offerings for the dead (xii. 41-45). And the writer

 

200            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

does not claim inspiration, but only to have written ac-

cording to his ability (xv. 38, 39).

          The genuine Book of Esther is written in Hebrew

and found in the Hebrew canon, but the additions are

only in the Greek and in the old Latin version. Some

writer appears, as is remarked by Jerome, to have un-

dertaken to add what might have been said by the vari-

ous persons mentioned in the book under the circum-

stances there described. But in so doing he interrupts

the connection, contradicts the genuine chapters in vari-

ous particulars, and adds others which are exceedingly

improbable or evidently untrue.

          The additions to the Book of Daniel consist of three

parts:  1. The prayer of the three children, Shadrach,

Meshach and Abednego, in the fiery furnace, which is

a devout meditation, but without any special adapta-

tion to the occasion or their situation; and it contains

(vs. 23-27) some particulars not warranted by the gen-

uine narrative. 2. The story of Susannah, which con-

tains a play upon words, showing that it must have

been written in Greek. 3. The legend of Bel and the

Dragon, which is an absurd and ridiculous fiction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                           XII

 

ORDER AND NUMBER OF THE CANONICAL BOOKS

 

          BLOCH, p. 137, infers from the concluding verses of

Ecclesiastes that this book stood last in the original

arrangement of the canon. Following a conjecture of

Krochmal and Graetz, he regards Eccl. xii. 12-14 as no

part of the book itself, but a note appended to the

completed canon by its collectors, certifying that it

the endless multitude of other books as only wearisome,

regard to his duty and his destiny, and warning against

sufficiently sets forth all that man requires to know in

without being able to give a satisfactory response to

these great questions. As there is no good reason for

attributing these verses to the collectors of the canon,

or understanding them as anything else than a fitting

conclusion to the book itself, the inference as to its po-

sition in the canon falls of course.

          An opinion much more widely entertained is that

certain passages in the New Testament show that in the

time of our Lord the books were arranged as they are

in Hebrew Bibles at present. Thus, Mat. xxiii. 35,

Luke xi. 51, in speaking of "all the righteous blood

shed upon the earth," our Lord particularizes "from

the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacha-

riah, son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the

sanctuary and the altar" (cf. 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, 21).

From this it has been inferred that Chronicles must

have been then, as now, the last book in the Hebrew

canon, since one example is taken from Genesis and the

 

                                         201

 

202          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

other from Chronicles, to represent all that are record-

ed in the Bible from first to last. And this, though

the murder of a prophet later in point of time might

have been found in that of Uriah, the contemporary of

Jeremiah (Jer. xxvi. 23). Plausible as this argument

seems, it can scarcely be called convincing, for two

reasons:  1. From Genesis to Chronicles, considered as

the earliest and the latest of the historical books, would

be equally comprehensive, irrespective of the position

of the latter in the arrangement of the canon. And 2.

It is perhaps not absolutely certain that Zachariah, the

son of Barachiah, of Matthew, is the same as Zachariah,

the son of Jehoiada, in Chronicles.

          Our Lord's words (Luke xxiv. 44) "All things must

needs be fulfilled which were written in the law of Mo-

ses, and the prophets, and the psalms concerning me,"

have been thought to indicate that the Psalms then,

as now, was the first book in the third division of the

canon, and as such is here used to denote all that is

included in that division. But the Psalms in this pass-

age mean simply the particular book so called, which is

singled out from the rest of the Hagiographa as making

the fullest disclosures respecting Christ; so that nothing

can be inferred from it respecting the arrangement of

the books in that division of the canon.

          The books of Moses and the Former Prophets, or the

historical books from Joshua to Kings, preserve one un-

varying order in all the early lists of the canon, which is

determined by their chronological succession. The Lat-

ter Prophets, or the strictly prophetical books and the

Hagiographa, are variously arranged. The order of the

Latter Prophets in the Talmudic tract Baba Bathra is

Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, the Twelve; and that of the

Hagiographa, Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,

Song of Songs, Lamentations, Esther, Ezra, Chronicles.

 

 

 

ORDER AND NUMBER OF CANONICAL BOOBS        203

 

Various reasons have been assigned for the position

here accorded to Isaiah:

          1. The explanation offered in the Talmud is that the

Books of Kings end in desolation, Jeremiah is all deso-

lation, Ezekiel begins in desolation and ends in conso-

lation, Isaiah is all consolation. Hence like is joined

with like, desolation with desolation, and consolation

with consolation.

          2. Modern critics from the time of Eichhorn¹ have

sought to find in it a confirmation of their views respect-

ing the composite character of the Book of Isaiah, as

partly the genuine production of the prophet, and partly

belonging to the later years of the Babylonish exile. But

that the authors of this passage had no such meaning is

apparent from their statement that "Hezekiah and his

associates wrote the Book of Isaiah," see p. 94, showing

that they attributed it to the lifetime of Hezekiah and

consequently of the prophet himself. And nearly four

centuries previously the author of the Book of Ecclesi-

asticus (xlviii. 24, 25; cf. Isa. xl. 1, xlii. 9) makes it evi-

dent that Isa. xl.-lxvi was at that time regarded as the

work of the prophet Isaiah; and he names the prophets

in the following order: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and

the Twelve (xlix. 6-10).

          3. Herzfeld (III. p. 103) thinks that the books of the

Prophets are arranged according to their respective

length: Jeremiah as the longest stands first, Ezekiel

next, Isaiah next, and the Minor Prophets, constituting

one book, which is shorter still, stand last. The treatises

 

          ¹ Einleitung, 4th Edition, p. 50; Dillmann, p. 452, note; Strack, p.

433; Davidson, Canon of the Bible, pp. 93, 94; Furst, p. 16, who, while

professedly tracing early Jewish tradition, everywhere mingles with it

his own critical notions, proposes to alter the text of the passage under

consideration into accordance with them, claiming that its original form

may have been "Isaiah (I.), Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah (II.)."

 

 

 

204          GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

in the several divisions of the Mishnah are arranged on

this principle.¹

          4. Konig (Einleitung, p. 459, note) seeks a reason

for this arrangement of the Prophets in the respective

distances to which they were enabled to penetrate the

future.

          5. Marx (p. 36) proposes the explanation that the

Book of Jeremiah was placed before the other prophets

that it might stand next to Kings, of which, according

to Baba Bathra, he was the author; Ezekiel follows as

his junior contemporary; Isaiah is thus brought into

conjunction with Hosea, the first of the Minor Prophets,

who (Isa. i. 1; Hos. i. 1) prophesied under the same

four kings.²

          While it may be a matter of curious speculation what

led to this particular arrangement of the Prophets,

it is of no especial moment, as it was neither ancient

nor authoritative. The passage in Baba Bathra, with

which we are now concerned, is preceded by inquiries,³

 

          ¹ Strack (p. 433) gives Geiger the credit of having established this

fact.

          ² So also Buhl, p. 38; Ryle, p. 228.

          ³ Marx (p. 28) extracts the following from the tract Baba Bathra,

fol. 13b:  "Our Rabbis taught, It is not forbidden to write the law,

prophets and hagiographa in one volume: these are the words of R.

Meir (an eminent doctor of the second century A.D., a pupil of R.

Akiba). R. Judah (either Ben-Hai, a contemporary of R. Meir, or

Ben-Bethera of the first century) says:  The law ought to be written by

itself, the prophets by themselves, and the hagiographa by themselves.

Other scholars say: Each book should be written separately. R. Judah

defends his opinion by relating that Boethus ben-Zonin had the eight

prophets written together in one volume, and this was approved by

Eleazar ben-Azariah (President of the Synod along with the Patriarch

Gamaliel of the first century). But some say that the Prophets of Boe-

thus were each written separately. The Rabbi (Judah ha-Kadosh,

writer of the Mishnah in the second century) said: They brought us the

law, prophets, and hagiographa combined in one volume, and we pro-

nounced it all right."

 

ORDER AND NUMBER OF CANONICAL BOOKS         205

 

"whether it is allowable to combine the law with the

prophets and hagiographa in one volume; and in an-

other place (Megillah, fol. 27a) the question is asked

whether it is proper to lay books of the prophets on the

volume of the law. These two questions show that at

that time the Jews were not in the habit of writing all

the sacred books in one volume. For, if they were, it

would have been stated that they had very many books

containing the entire Scriptures or all the prophets or

all the hagiographa. Among these there certainly would

have been several approved by distinguished Rabbis,

and not merely a single volume of the prophets and one

of the entire Old Testament of which mention is made.

Synagogues also and schools would have been supplied

with copies venerable from age, so that no one could have

asked whether it was allowable to have copies of this

sort. . . . We have tried in vain to discover a passage

in the Talmud which speaks of a book of the prophets

or a book of the hagiographa as a unit. Rabbis often

mention old books which contained the whole law, but

never books containing either all the prophets or all the

hagiographa, except in that one passage of the tract Baba

Bathra cited in the preceding note. . . . When now

the question arose, what order should be adopted if all

the sacred books were to be written in one volume, it is

not surprising if some would think one order best and

others another. We cannot consequently expect to find

in the Talmud a legally required and anciently estab-

lished order, but only what certain doctors thought true

and right."¹

          It is evident from these considerations, as stated

by Marx, that no more weight can be attributed to

this order prescribed for the books of the prophets

than to the speculations contained in the same para-

 

          ¹ Marx, pp. 29, 30, 33.

 

 

 

206           GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

graph concerning the origin of the several books, see

p. 94.

          In the Talmudic order of the Hagiographa Ruth

stands first. The question is asked why Job, whom

they referred to the time of Moses, did not have the first

place; and the answer is given that it was not suitable

to begin with calamity. The real reason for prefixing

Ruth to the Psalms probably is that it records the ances-

try of David, by whom so many of the Psalms were writ-

ten. As some of the Psalms were attributed to Adam,

Melchizedek and Abraham (though committed to writing

by David), the Psalter is put before Job. Then follow

the three books ascribed to Solomon, Proverbs, Eccle-

siastes and Song of Songs; then, in chronological order,

the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and

finally Chronicles, which was attributed to Ezra.

          Another Baraitha¹ speaks of the Psalms, Proverbs,

and Job as the three greater K'thubhim, and the Song

of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations as the lesser

K'thubhim. Furst (pp. 57, 60), without any reason, con-

verts this into a distinction of older and more recent

K'thubhim, and hence infers the gradual formation of

this part of the canon; that the Song of Songs and Ec-

clesiastes were a comparatively late addition, and that

Esther had not yet been advanced to canonical dignity

when this phraseology became current. But no such

consequences follow from the use of this simple phrase.

In the Talmudic arrangement the six poetical books

stand together and spontaneously divide themselves into

three of larger and three of smaller size.

          The Talmudic arrangement of the books is only fol-

lowed in a very limited number of Hebrew manuscripts,

which are specified in detail by Strack (p. 441). The

Massoretic arrangement, which according to Elias Levita

 

          ¹ Berachoth, fol. 57b.

 

ORDER AND NUMBER OF CANONICAL BOOKS         207

 

is followed chiefly by the Spanish manuscripts, is in the

Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Twelve; and

in the Hagiographa: Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs,

Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther,

Daniel, Ezra. In this order Isaiah is restored to its

proper chronological place. Chronicles leads the Hagi-

ographa because its genealogies begin with Adam;

Ruth is transposed so as to stand with the smaller

K'thubhim, and Esther is transposed with Daniel for a

like reason.

          The German manuscripts, followed by the printed

editions of the Hebrew Bible, adopt a different order

still in the Hagiographa. The three large poetical books

stand first, Proverbs as the work of Solomon being

transposed with Job, so as to stand next to the Psalms

of David; then the five small books called Megilloth in

the order of the festivals upon which they are read in

the Synagogues; then Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah,

chronologically disposed; and finally Chronicles, which

with its genealogies and its history, extending from

Adam to the end of the Babylonish exile, forms a

suitable appendix to the entire volume of Scripture.

The Jewish authorities, whom Jerome followed in his

Prologus Galeatus (his helmed prologue, intended as a

defence against the intrusion of apocryphal books into

the canon), joined Ruth with Judges, Lamentations with

Jeremiah, and arranged the Hagiographa thus: Job,

Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Daniel,

Chronicles, Ezra with Nehemiah, and Esther. Job is

probably put before the Psalms on the assumption that

it was written by Moses or in his time; Chronicles be-

fore Ezra as the proper historical order; and Esther

last on the supposition shared by Josephus that Ezra

and Nehemiah lived under Xerxes, and that Ahasuerus

was his son Artaxerxes.

 

 

208            GENERAL INTRODUCTION

 

          In the Septuagint the threefold division of the canon

is abandoned, and the fourfold classification into the

Law of Moses, the Historical, Poetical, and Prophetical

Books substituted in its stead. It is not worth while

here to detail the various arrangements of the books,

which are found in early Christian catalogues and in the

manuscripts of the Greek and Latin Bibles.¹

          There was a great diversity likewise in ancient cata-

logues in their enumeration of the books of the Old Tes-

tament, though without any real difference in the extent

of the canon. The difference lay merely in the various

modes of grouping and counting the very same books.

We have already seen that it was usual to reckon Sam-

uel, Kings, the twelve Minor Prophets and Chronicles

as each one book, and to count Ezra and Nehemiah as

together constituting one. Then (p. 87) if Ruth was

joined to Judges, and Lamentations to Jeremiah, the

total was 22; if Ruth and Lamentations were each

counted separately, it was 24. The 22 books were

sometimes divided into four Pentateuchs or groups of

five:  1. The five books of Moses.  2. Five historical

books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.

3. Five poetical books, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesi-

astes, and Song of Solomon. 4. Five prophetical books,

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Proph-

ets. Ezra and Esther were supernumeraries.

          Epiphanius and Jerome mention that they were some-

times reckoned 27, or equal to the Hebrew alphabet with

the five final letters added. Thus Jerome says:  "As

there are five letters with double forms in the alphabet,

so there are five double books in the canon, viz.: Samuel,

Kings, Chronicles, Ezra with Nehemiah, and Jeremiah

 

          ¹ Several of these are given in Ryle (pp. 213-218), and Excursus C

(pp. 281, 282). And a much more detailed list may be found in Hody,

De Bibliorum Textibus Originalibus (pp. 644-664).

 

ORDER AND NUMBER OF CANONICAL BOOKS          209

 

with Lamentations." If each of the books thus paired

together be counted separately, the whole number will

be 27. Then if in addition Ruth be separated from

Judges, the number will be 28.¹

          Again they have been counted 33, which, with the

27 books of the New Testament, makes 60 in the entire

Bible, a number which was associated with the 60

queens of the Song of Solomon (vi. 8). This is made

out by uniting the books as in counting 22, only reck-

oning the Minor Prophets as twelve instead of one.

Finally, if all the books are counted separately, the

number will be 39, as in the English Bible.

 

          ¹ So reckoned by John Ferus (A.D. 1540), as stated by Cosin, p. 202.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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