sary, and either could not at all or could not easily be known by the light of natural discourse; all things which are necessary to be known that we may be saved; but known with presupposal of knowledge concerning certain principles whereof it receiveth us already persuaded, and then instructeth us in all the residue that are necessary. In the number of these principles one is the sacred authority of Scripture. Being therefore persuaded by other means that these Scriptures are the oracles of God, themselves do then teach us the rest, and lay before us all the duties which God requireth at our hands as necessary to salvation.” In other words, while Holy Scripture contains everything essential that is a matter of revelation, in order to discover in what books this revelation is contained we have recourse to ordinary historical evidence, and inquire what books have been accepted without doubt by the Church.

" 1

(c) The question at issue between England and Rome concerning the canon of the Old Testament. Of the canonical books of the Old Testament, the Article gives a complete list. There is, therefore, no room for doubt what is the mind of the Church of England on this point. For the view taken by the Roman Church, the decree of the Council of Trent is equally explicit. After the passage with regard to the authority of Scripture and tradition already cited, the decree proceeds to say that "it has been thought meet that a catalogue of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest doubt should arise in anyone's mind as to which are the books received by the Synod." [Then follows the list, including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, First and Second Maccabees.] "But if anyone receive not, as sacred and canonical, these same books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition, and knowingly 1 Ecclesiastical Polity, bk. I. ch. xiv. § 1.

and deliberately despise the traditions aforesaid, let him be anathema." The words placed in italics show us that we are intended to add to the books counted as canonical by the Church of Rome those additions to the books of Esther and Daniel which are found in the Septuagint and Vulgate, but which, as having no place in the Hebrew text, are relegated to a position in the Apocrypha by the Church of England, under the titles of The Rest of the Book of Esther, Bel and the Dragon, The Story of Susanna, and the Song of the Three Children.

Here, then, is a clear and decided difference between England and Rome, the latter counting as canonical almost all those books which the Church of England uses "for example of life and instruction of manners," but refuses to "apply them to establish any doctrine."

The origin of this difference lies far back, and must be sought in the Greek version of the Scriptures of the Old Covenant, to which were appended various books (some translations from the Hebrew, others originally written in Greek), which were certainly not regarded as sacred by the Jews of Palestine, and probably not even by those of the dispersion. That the Jewish Church has never admitted into the canon those books to which we refuse a place in it, may be proved with abundant evidence. Josephus (A.D. 70), who is our earliest direct witness on the subject, reckons up the "two and twenty books which are justly believed to be divine; five books of Moses, thirteen of the prophets extending to the reign of Artaxerxes, and four which contain hymns and directions of life"; while of later books he says that they are not esteemed worthy of the same credit, "because the accurate succession of the prophets was not preserved." The witness of the Talmud (AD. 500) is to the same

1 Contra Apion. 1, § 8. The thirteen prophets must be Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra with Nehemiah, Esther, Job,

effect, while Philo supplies indirect evidence that the Jews of the dispersion agreed with their brethren in Palestine in this matter.2 In the New Testament, though there are occasionally striking coincidences of language and thought with some of the books of the Apocrypha, yet there is not a single direct and acknowledged quotation from any one of them, while quotations from, and references to, almost all the books of the Hebrew canon abound.3 Against this there is nothing to be set on the other side, and so we may conclude that there can be no reasonable doubt that at the beginning of the Christian era the Jewish canon contained the same books which it does at the present day, namely, those enumerated as canonical in our Articles, and none others.

In the Christian Church our earliest witnesses all point to this list, and to this alone, as formally and distinctly recognised. But at the same time it needs very little Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the minor prophets. The four others are Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles, and Ecclesiastes. Other Jewish authorities generally reckon those in italics not among the prophets, but among the "Hagiographa," the third class of Josephus.

1 Baba Bathra, fol. 14b.

2"His language shows that he was acquainted with the Apocryphal books, and yet he does not make a single quotation from them, though they offered much that was favourable to his views. On the other hand, in addition to the law, he quotes all the books of 'the prophets,' and the Psalms and Proverbs from the Hagiographa, and several of them with clear assertions of their 'prophetic' or inspired character. Of the remaining Hagiographa (Nehemiah, Ruth, Lamentations, First and Second Chronicles, Daniel, Ecclesiastes, Canticles) he makes no mention, but the first three may have been attached, as often in Hebrew usage, to other books (Ezra, Judges, Jeremiah), so that four writings alone are unattested by him."-Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i. p. 504 (Ed. 2).

The only books of the Old Testament to which the New gives no direct attestation are Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah.

For the history of the gradual growth of the Jewish canon, and of the doubts which existed in early days among Jewish doctors as to the canonicity of a few of the books, namely, Esther, Canticles, and Ecclesiastes, reference may be made to Professor Ryle's History of the Canon of the Old Testament. Cf. also the Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i. p. 503.

research to discover that quotations from the Apocrypha are abundant in the writings of the Fathers, from the earliest days. This, however, is easily accounted for. The Fathers were, with scarcely an exception, ignorant of Hebrew, and dependent on the Septuagint Version for their knowledge of the Scriptures of the Old Covenant. In this version, as we have seen, the books of the Apocrypha found a place. It was, therefore, only natural that the Fathers should fall into the habit of employing and quoting all the books in the collection with which they were familiar, and thus should gradually lose their sense of the distinction between the books of the Hebrew canon and the additions of the Septuagint. The "old Latin version" was made from the Septuagint, and consequently included the additional books. Hence the confusion passed over into the Western Church. But in spite of this growing recognition of the books of the Apocrypha, and the popular use of them, it remains that during the first four centuries every Father who gives a deliberate judgment on the subject, and has the slightest claim to occupy a representative position, accepts the Hebrew canon alone. In its behalf may be quoted the testimony of the Syriac (Peschito) version which is limited to the books of the Hebrew canon; the witness of Melito of Sardis (A.D. 180), who made the number of the books of the canon a subject of special inquiry;1 Origen (220); Cyril of Jerusalem (348);3

1 See Eusebius, H. E. IV. xxvi. Melito does not mention Esther separately, but the suggestion has been made that it may have been reckoned with Ezra, as Nehemiah almost certainly was. See Routh, Reliquiæ Sacræ, vol. i. p. 136.

2 See Eusebius, H. E. IV. xxv. Origen gives the Hebrew canon exactly as we have it.

⚫ Catech. iv. § 35. Cyril includes Baruch in the canon, taking it as an appendix to Jeremiah; otherwise his list of the Old Testament coin cides exactly with our own.

Athanasius (367);1 Gregory Nazianzen (390) in the East; and of Hilary of Poictiers (368); Rufinus (390) and Jerome (430) 5 in the West. Especially important is the testimony of the last-mentioned writer. He gives a complete and accurate list exactly coinciding with our own, and ends by saying, "Whatever is without the number of these must be placed among the Apocrypha." Contemporary with Jerome was Augustine, and it is to his varying and uncertain language that the claim of the Apocrypha to be ranked as canonical must be traced. Not only does he freely quote (as others had done before him) books of the Apocrypha as Scripture, but (as others had not done before him) when formally enumerating the books contained in the canon of Scripture he ineludes these books among them without drawing any clear distinction between them," although else

1 Festal Epistles, No. xxxix. Like Cyril, Athanasius includes Baruch, but he expressly excludes Esther from a place among the canonical books. 2 Carmina, xii. 13. Esther is not mentioned in this list.

3 Prologus in Psalmos, § 15. Hilary's list is identical with our own, though he mentions that some added to it the books of Tobit and Judith. In Symbolum Apostolorum, § 37. The list is exactly the same as ours, and expressly says that Tobit, Judith, etc., are not canonical, but ecclesiastical."

5 Prologus Galeatus.

"No reference is made in the text to the Fifty-ninth canon of the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 363), which is often quoted as determining the canon of Scripture; because there appear to be very strong grounds for questioning the genuineness of that part of the decree which contains the list of the books. See Westcott On the Canon, p. 498. Hefele, however, accepts it as genuine (History of the Councils, vol. ii. p. 322 seq., English translation). The list given in it is, however, exactly the same as our own. It ought to be added that many of the authorities quoted in the previous notes as accepting the Hebrew canon rather than the enlarged one of the Septuagint as authoritative, yet make use of the other books, and cite them from time to time as Scripture. This was under the circumstances only natural, and the same thing is equally true of our reformers. Habit and custom were often too strong for them. Hence the Apocrypha is freely quoted as 'Scripture" and "the word of God" in the Homilies, and yet distinctly separated off from the canonical books of Scripture in the article. De Doctrina Christiana II. viii. Totus autem Canon Scripturarum