be thrown on that period from other trustworthy sources.

2. Value of the books called Apocrypha as throwing light on that interval.-The books which in the Authorized Version are designated as "the books called Apocrypha," and which form the subject of the present volumes, include the most authentic and most valuable remains of Jewish literature belonging to the period between the prophesying of Malachi and the birth of our Lord. These books, then, present sources of information which evidently cannot be neglected by any one who desires to study the history of the preparation which God made, through the religious training of the Jewish nation, for the reception of the revelation which His Son was to communicate to the world. The use of the books from this point of view is so obvious that they could scarcely have fallen into so much neglect as they now generally have done among English-speaking Christians, if it were not for a reaction against extravagant claims that have been made for them. The Council of Trent set the whole collection, with three exceptions (viz. the two books of Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses), on a level of complete equality with the books of the Hebrew Bible and of the New Testament. This decision was so much at variance with learned opinion in the earlier Church, that the framers of the Thirty-nine Articles had no difficulty in producing the authority of the most learned of the Western Fathers, St. Jerome, in support of their assertion that the Church reads the Apocryphal books for example of life and instruction of manners, but does not apply them to establish any doctrine.

3. Prevalent neglect of these books. These books were not only for the reasons just mentioned retained in the public reading of the English Church, but were commended in the authorized editions of the Holy Bible to the private study of her members. But in the earlier part of the present century, objections which had been heard of before, against the circulation of the Apocrypha as part of the sacred volume, took formidable shape. It was urged that the circulation

of the Apocrypha, bound up with the canonical books in the same volume, if it did not amount to an acknowledgment of the Romish claims for the Apocrypha, at least would induce the less learned to accept all the books so presented to them as possessing like authority. It is not necessary to enter here into the history of the controversy that ensued; but the practical outcome of it has been that for the greater part of the present century the Bibles in common use no longer contain the Apocrypha; and so these books have come to be really "hidden away," and are practically unknown to the bulk of our people.

In order to judge dispassionately what the claims of these books really are, we must study the history of their reception in the Christian Church; nor can that history be understood without going further back, and studying the history of the Greek Bible.

§ II. HISTORY OF THE GREEK BIBLE.

4. Jewish use of the Greek language.— If it were proposed to compare the books of the Old and of the New Testament with the view of ascertaining what changes had passed on the nation during the interval between the two dispensations, the first thing that presents itself at the outset of the inquiry is the difference of the language in which the two collections of books are written. This difference corresponds to a fundamental difference between the two dispensations. As long as Judaism was but the religion of a single nation, which, content with admitting some casual proselytes, made no systematic effort at extending itself beyond the borders of its own land, so long the Hebrew language could well suffice for its needs. But out of Judaism was developed a religion which aimed at nothing less than making a conquest of the whole world. It would have been, humanly speaking, impossible to gain this victory through the instrumentality of Hebrew, which was barely known by name to the most cultured peoples of the time, as one of the languages spoken by those whom they called barbarians. Greek, on the other hand, was universally spread over

the eastern part of the Roman world, where it afforded the means of communication between the ruling nation and its subjects. In the West also Grecian traders had established settlements. Greek cities had been founded in the South of Italy; and one of the most interesting Christian remains of the second century1 affords evidence that Greek-speaking settlers had made their way up the Rhone from Marseilles to Lyons. Besides the use of the language for the purposes of business, its noble literature made acquaintance with it a necessity to every man of culture and education. When the Jews looked outside the boundaries of their own nation, it seemed to them as if all else were Greeks. In the New Testament the antithesis "the Jew and the Greek" is of frequent occurrence, exhibiting the feeling that all who were not Jews might be roughly described as Greeks. If, then, Jewish missionaries were to go forth, converting the other nations of the world to own that He whom the Jews worshipped was the only God, it seems a necessary condition for their success that they should be able to use the instrumentality of the Greek language.

5. Providential result of the calamities of the Jewish nation.-But how did it happen that Jews were found in considerable numbers possessing this accomplishment, and how indeed did they come to take such interest in foreign nations as to be anxious to labour for their conversion? We find that it was the temporal calamities of the Jewish people, though to the eye of men they seemed certain to crush out their national existence, which really in the providence of God were made the means of training them to become the teachers of the world. Had their sovereign continued to retain his independence, sitting at Jerusalem on the throne of David, they would have had little inducement to acquire a mastery of foreign languages, and it is likely that they would have cared as little as in former times to propagate their faith in distant lands. But their capital was taken, their king slain, all their leading men The story of the martyrs of Lyons (Euseb. H. E. v. 1).

carried off to foreign captivity. The policy of the conquerors of those days included extensive deportations of the conquered peoples. No cruelty was intended: the involuntary exiles were assured the move would be for their good. "Make an agreement with me," said Rabshakeh, "and come out to me, until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards." (Isaiah xxxvi. 17.) That these were no delusive promises may be gathered from Jeremiah's subsequent letter to the Babylonian exiles, counselling them to settle down contentedly in the land of their captivity. "Build ye houses, and dwell in them; plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; take wives, and beget sons and daughters; take wives to your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters, that ye may be increased there and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried captive, and pray unto the Lord for it, for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace." (Jer. xxix. 5-7.) These counsels were so acted on that, when seventy years afterwards the decree went forth that the exiles might return to their own land, only a fraction of them cared to remove, and Babylonia continued for centuries to include a large Jewish population.

6. Pressure of Hellenism on Judaism. -But Nebuchadnezzar was far indeed from being the last of the conquerors of the Jewish nation. Those who returned from the Babylonian exile found successive waves of foreign conquest to pass over their land, the same policy of deportation being persisted in. For example, the city of Alexandria is said to have had its first population provided for it by a forced migration of many thousand Jews. It is needless to trace minutely the history of these compulsory removals, because they were rapidly succeeded by voluntary migrations, as the intelligence which Jews at home received from their brethren abroad made them acquainted with greater facilities for commercial enterprise enjoyed in other countries. Thus, in one way or the other, so many of the people removed

that there came to be more Jews outside Palestine than within it. Meanwhile the victories of Alexander had made Grecian influence potent in Palestine, as in other parts of what had been the Persian Empire; so that not merely did Jews go largely out into the heathen world, but the heathen world pressed in upon Judæa. Those who were zealous for their own law grieved at the difficulty of maintaining Jewish exclusiveness under the increasing pressure of Hellenism. But God's providence ordained that the throwing down the barriers which had hedged in the Jew from contact with foreign nations should result, not, as had been feared, in the swamping of Judaism by heathenism, but in spreading reverence for the law of Moses over every part of the civilized world.

7. The Greek Old Testament. - We have now to speak of one of the chief means used in spreading this reverence for the Mosaic Law. It is a piece of theological information so elementary as to be possessed by every educated person, that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek: but not every one who knows so much as this knows, or at least often happens to think, that between the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament there was a connecting link; namely, the Greek Old Testament. In fact we have a Greek New Testament because there had been a Greek Old Testament. And yet this commonly forgotten Greek Old Testament has left very distinct traces on our English Bible. On first opening it, we find the several books designated by Greek titles, Genesis, Exodus, and so on. These names tell a story. They tell that the Old Testament was originally translated into Latin, not out of Hebrew, but out of Greek, so that the Greek titles of the books passed into the Latin; and again that it was first translated into the modern languages of Europe, not out of Hebrew, but out of Latin, so that the same Greek names have passed into our current use. This remark lies on the surface; but when the student of our English Bible goes deeper, he finds other phenomena which would perplex him if the explanation were not at hand that the New Testament writers

used a Greek Old Testament. To take one of the most striking examples: any one who compares with the Old Testament the quotation from the 40th Psalm in Heb. x. 5, must be struck with the difference; the words "mine ears hast thou opened," in our translation of the Psalm, being replaced by "a body hast thou prepared me" in the quotation in the New. The former represents correctly the reading of the Hebrew text; the latter gives the rendering of the old Greek translation. There are several other passages where a careful reader even of the English Bible may discover traces of the influence of the old Greek version, and it need scarcely be said that the theological student who desires to trace the influence of the Old Testament on the New is bound to keep his eye constantly on the Greek Old Testament.

8. Read by heathen. Mention has already been made of the preparation which in God's providence was made for the propagation among other nations of the religious truths which the Hebrews had preserved. In consequence of the captivity and dispersion of the Jewish nation, it came to pass that the first Christian missionaries found, in every city which they visited, a Jewish colony, which had already taught many of the thoughtful of the surrounding Gentiles to scorn the follies of the popular polytheism and to admire the purity and simplicity of the Hebrew faith. The agency through which had been effected this leavening of the Gentile world by Jewish doctrines was the Greek Bible, which has been truly described as the first Apostle that went out from Judaism to the Gentile world. The Jews boasted that their nation had records reaching back to an antiquity far superior to any historical documents the Greeks could shew, and laws of greater excellence than the legislation of any other state. Thus they were proud to impart their sacred books to any whose curiosity they had been able to excite, and the extent to which the Jewish books were read is proved by the prominence that the argument from prophecy presents in the early Christian apologies. Justin Martyr, for example, had been educated

in Grecian philosophy: though born and bred in Palestine, he shews no knowledge of the Hebrew Bible, and does not even seem to have had a very accurate copy of the Greek version on which he is entirely dependent. But that book seems to have saturated his thoughts and to have furnished him with all the conceptions of the Messiah which he found fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth.

9. The medium through which the Christian Church generally knew the Old Testament. We might expect to find more knowledge of Hebrew in an Epistle ascribed to the Apostle Barnabas; yet in this work the writer discovers mysteries in the letters by which a numeral is expressed in the Greek translation of an Old Testament text; and he seems never to have reflected that the Greek was not the original, or to have suspected that on going back to the Hebrew the grounds for his exposition would completely disappear. In later Fathers, it is an exceptional thing to find one with any knowledge of the Hebrew Bible. And, as has been already said, it was from the Greek Old Testament that the Latin versions were made, so that it was through the Greek book, known either directly or indirectly, that the Christian Church for centuries obtained its knowledge of the Old Testament.

10. Differences between the Greek and Hebrew Bibles.-After a time, however, it came to pass that some who, either through intercourse with Jews or from acquaintance with Hebrew, had the means of comparison, became aware of a difference between the Greek Bible which they used and the Bible of the Jews. And this difference did not merely affect the meaning of single texts, but there were large passages and whole books contained in the one volume which were absent from the other. In particular the Canon of the Jews did not include the books which we know as 'Apocrypha,' and which found extensive reception in the Christian Church, because they had come to be included in the Greek collection of sacred books. This is why a history of the reception of the Apocrypha must include a history of the Greek Bible.

§ III. PALESTINIAN CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

II. Melito.-The earliest indication we find of uncertainty in the Christian Church as to the Old Testament Canon is contained in an interesting extract preserved by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. iv. 26) from the Preface to a work of Melito of Sardis, who died somewhere about A.D. 180. It appears hence that Melito's book had been written in compliance with the request of a friend named Onesimus, who had frequently asked him to make selections from the Law and the Prophets, of passages concerning our Saviour and concerning all our faith. Onesimus had also asked Melito to give him accurate information concerning "the old Books;" how many their number and what their order.

12. Conception of a closed Canon of Scripture.-We may remark here in passing that this question of Onesimus shews that the idea of a definite closed Canon of Scripture had then become familiar to the mind of the Church. It will be readily understood that when the books of the New Testament were first written, each of them separately might be venerated by those who became acquainted with it and who acknowledged its apostolic authority; but that the formation of a definite collection of sacred books, admitted to be superior in authority to all other books, could not take place until each of the books, though it may be originally intended for local use, had become the property of the universal Church. clear that in the mind of Onesimus, his Old Testament ought to consist of a definite collection of books arranged in a definite order; and he wished to be assured what those books were and what their order. It may reasonably be inferred that he who asked this question about "the old Books" had already obtained similar information about "the new."

It is

13. The list of Melito.-In answer to Onesimus, Melito, praising the pious motives which had prompted the request, declares that he had been earnest to comply with it, and states that he had travelled up to the East and had arrived at the place where the things

had been preached and done; and that he had there accurately learned the books of the Old Testament. And then he gives their names as follows: Five books of Moses, - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,1 Deuteronomy; Joshua the son of Nave, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Chronicles; the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon also called Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job; the Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Twelve in one book, Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras. This list pretty nearly agrees with the Canon of our Church; for Jeremiah no doubt included Lamentations, and Esdras the Book of Nehemiah, so that the only point of difference is that there is no mention of Esther. The Old Testament books are here called by their Greek names, and the order is not the same as the Jewish order. We have therefore no reason to think that Melito made his lists from personal knowledge of the Hebrew Bible, or from consulting with those who used it. But, as his narrative implies, his list gives the contents of the Greek Old Testament which he found in use in the Christian churches of Palestine at the time of his visit.

14. Josephus.-This list of Melito furnishes proof that, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, the Canon of the Christian Church in Palestine agreed with that of their Jewish brethren. Concerning the Canon of the Jews of Palestine towards the end of the first century, we have information in a passage of Josephus, which, though it has been frequently quoted, cannot be omitted from this account. The passage is taken from the treatise against Apion, on the antiquity of the Jews, in which Josephus undertakes to prove that the Jewish records are more ancient and more trustworthy than those of the Greeks. And one of the points he urges is, that among the Greeks the composition of histories was taken up by every man who felt inclined to it by one man in order to shew off his literary skill, by another with the view of writing a panegyric on some kings or cities, or of throwing discredit upon others; but that among the Jews

:

1 Some very ancient authorities for the text transpose Leviticus and Numbers.

the framing of historical records was no volunteer work, but was the special business of the priests and prophets, and the faithful preservation of the truth their only object. And he goes on to say, "For we have not thousands of books discordant and conflicting, but only twenty-two, containing the record of all time, which have justly been believed to be divine. And of these, five are the books of Moses, which embrace the laws and the tradition of the creation of man, reaching to the death of Moses. This period is little short of three thousand years. And from the death of Moses down to the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who succeeded Xerxes, the prophets who came after Moses related the things done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and practical directions for men. From the time of Artaxerxes to our own time, each event has been recorded, but the records have not been deemed worthy of the same credit as those of earlier date, because the exact succession of the prophets was not continued. But what faith we have placed in our own writings is seen from our conduct; for though so long a time has now passed, no one has dared either to add anything to them or to take anything from them, or to alter anything. But it grows up with Jews from their very birth, to regard them as decrees of God, and to abide by them, and if need be gladly to die for them." 1 He goes on to say how often Jews had given their lives in defence of their sacred books; and he asks what Greek would die, or even submit to a trifling loss, in defence of any book of his; nay, even of his whole literature. And in fact there was no reason why he should. He knew that the authors of his books wrote each on his own mere motion, and there was no reason to think the ancient writers more trustworthy than the modern, who notoriously wrote books recklessly, about things they had neither witnessed themselves nor knew from authentic information.

15. Means of identifying the twenty1 Cont. Apion., i. 8; Westcott, Bible in the Church, p. 26.