. Luther translated Judith, Wisdom, Tobit, Sirach, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel, with the Prayer of Manasseh. His judgment respect ing several of these is expressed in the prefaces to them. With regard to 1 Maccabees he thinks it almost equal to the other books of Holy Scripture, and not unworthy to be reckoned among them. Of Wisdom, he says, he was long in doubt whether it should be numbered among the canoni cal books ; and of Sirach, that it is a right good book pro ceeding from a wise man. But he speaks unfavourably of several other apocryphal productions, as of Baruch and 2 Maccabees. It is evident, however, that he considered all he translated of some use to the Christian Church. He thought that the book of Esther should not belong to the
canon.Luther s judgment respecting some of the New Testa ment books was freer than most Protestants now are dis posed to approve. He thought the epistle to the Hebrews wus neither Paul s nor an apostle s, but proceeded from an excellent and learned man who may have been the disciple of apostles. He did not put it on an equality with the epistles written by apostles themselves. The Apocalypse he considered neither apostolic nor prophetic, but put it almost on the same level with the 4th book of Esdras, which he spoke elsewhere of tossing into the Elbe. This judgment was afterwards modified, not retracted. James s epistle he pronounced unapostolic. It was quite an epistle of straw. In like manner, he did not believe that Jude s epistle proceeded from an apostle. Considering it to have been taken from 2 Peter, and not well extracted either, he put it lower than the supposed original. The Reformer, as also his successors, made a distinction between the books of the New Testament similar to that of the Old, the generally received (homologoumena) and controverted books (antilegomena) ; but the Calvinists afterwards obliterated it, as the Roman Catholics at the Council of Trsnt did with the Old Testament. The epistle to the Hebrews, those of Jude and James, with the Apocalypse, belong to the latter class. Luther assigned a greater or less value to the separate writings of the New Testament, and left every one to do the same. He relied on their internal value more than tradition, taking the " Word of God " in a deeper and wider sense than its coincidence with the Bible.
Bodenstein of Carlstadt examined the question of canonicity more thoroughly than any of his contemporaries, and followed out the principle of private judgment in regard to it. He divides the biblical books into three classes 1. Books of the highest dignity, viz., the Pentateuch and the Gospels ; 2. Books of the second dignity, i.e., the works termed prophetic by the Jews, and the fifteen epistles universally received; 3. Books of the third and lowest authority, i.e., the Jewish Hagiographa and the seven antilegomena epistles of the New Testament. Among the Apocryphi he makes two classes such as are out of the canon of the Hebrews yet hagiographical (Wisdom, Ecclesi- asticus, Judith, Tobit, the two Maccabees), and those that are clearly apocryphal and to be rejected (third and fourth Esdras, Baruch, Prayer of Manasseh, a good part of the third chapter of Daniel, and the last two chapters of Daniel).[1]
Zwingli asserts that the Apocalypse is not a biblical book.[2]
OEcolampadius says " We do not despise Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the last two Esdras, the three Maccabees, the last two chapters of Daniel, but we do not attribute to them divine authority with those others."[3] As to the books of the New Testament he would not com pare the Apocalypse, James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John with the rest.[4]
Calvin did not think Paul to be the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, nor 2 Peter to have been written by Peter ; but both in his opinion are canonical.
The later Helvetic Confession speaks of the Apocryphal books as read in the churches, but not used as authorita tive in matters of faith.[5]
The Gallic Confession makes a distinction between canoni cal and other books, the former being the rule and norm of faith, not only by the consent of the Church, but much more by the testimony and intrinsic persuasion of the Spirit, by whose suggestions we are taught to distinguish them from other ecclesiastical books which, though use ful, are not of the kind that any article of faith can be constituted by them.[6]
The Belgic Confession makes a distinction between the sacred and apocryphal books. The former may be read by the Church, but no doctrine can be derived from them. In the list of New Testament books given there are four teen epistles of Paul.[7]
The Waldensian canon, in which the canonical are care fully separated from the apocryphal books, is not of the date 1120, but is a later document derived from or made by a Protestant after 1532. It is not genuine.
The canon of the Anglican Church (1562), given in the sixth Article of Religion, defines holy Scripture to be "those canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church." After giving the names and number of the canonical books, the article prefaces the apocryphal ones with, " And the other books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners ; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine. Such are these following," &c., <fcc. At the end it is stated that " all the books of the New Testament, as they are commonly re ceived, we do receive and account them canonical. The Article is ambiguous. If the canonical books enumerated are those meant in the phrase " of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church," the statement is incorrect. If a distinction is implied between the canonical books and such canonical ones as have never been doubted in the Church, the meaning is obscure. In either case the language is not explicit.
The Westminster Confession of Faith gives a list of all the books of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God written, adding that those called the Apocrypha are not of divine inspiration, and no part of the canon, of no authority in the Church, nor to be approved or made use of otherwise than human writings.
the Council of Trent (1546), which adopted all the books in the Vulgate as sacred and canonical without distinction. But 3 and 4 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, and the Prayer of Manasseh were not included, though the first and last appeared in the original Clementine edition of 1592, not however in the preceding one of Sixtus (1590). A council at Florence in 1441 had set the example, which was followed at Trent. But this stringent decree did not pre vent individual Catholics from making a distinction be tween the books, in assuming a first and second canon, or proto-canonical and deutero-canonical books, as did Sixtus Senensis, B. Lamy, Anton a matre Dei, Jahn, and others, though it is hardly consistent with orthodox
Catholicism or the view of those who passed the decree.
