The substance of the present work was written toward the close of the year 1875 for the new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica . Having been abridged and mutilated, contrary to the author's wishes, before its publication there, he resolved to print it entire. With that view it has undergone repeated revision with enlargement in different parts, and been made as complete as the limits of an essay appeared to allow. As nothing of importance has been knowingly omitted, the writer hopes it will

It is true that the word canon was employed by Greek writers in the sense of a mere list ; but when it was transferred to the Scripture books, it included the idea of a regulative and normal power—a list of books forming a rule or law, because the newly-formed Catholic Church required a standard of appeal in opposition to the Gnostics with their arbitrary use of sacred writings. There is a lack of evidence on behalf of its use before the books of the New Testament had been paralleled with those

The state of the nation after Rehoboam was unfavorable to literature. When the people were threatened and attacked by other nations, divided among themselves in worship and all higher interests, rent by conflicting parties, the theocratic principle which was the true bond of union could not assert itself with effect. The people were corrupt; their religious life debased. The example of the kings was usually prejudicial to political healthiness. Contact with foreigners as well as with the older i

The truth of these remarks is evident from a comparison of two books, exemplifying Alexandrian and Palestinian Judaism respectively. The Wisdom of Solomon shows the enlarging effect of Greek philosophy. Overpassing Jewish particularism, it often approaches Christianity in doctrine and spirit, so that some 80 have even assumed a Christian origin for it. The Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach has not the doctrine of immortality. Death is there an eternal sleep, and retribution takes place in this life

The Masoretic arrangement differs from the Talmudic in putting Isaiah before Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The Hagiographa are, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra (with Nehemiah), Chronicles. 88 This is usually adopted in Spanish MSS. But MSS. often differ arbitrarily, because transcribers did not consider themselves bound to any one arrangement. 89 According to some, a very old testimony to the commencing and concluding books of the third division i

The early fathers, who wrote in Greek, used the Greek Bible, as almost all of them were ignorant of Hebrew. Thus restricted; they naturally considered its parts alike, citing apocryphal and canonical in the same way. Accordingly, Irenæus 94 quotes Baruch under the name of “Jeremiah the prophet;” 95 and the additions to Daniel as “Daniel the prophet.” 96 Clement of Alexandria 97 uses the apocryphal books like the canonical ones, for explanation and proof indiscriminately. He is fond of referring

No New Testament canon, except a partial and unauthoritative one, existed till the latter half of the second century, that is, till the idea of a Catholic church began to be entertained. The living power of Christianity in its early stages had no need of books for its nurture. But in the development of a church organization the internal rule of consciousness was changed into an external one of faith. The Ebionites or Jewish Christians had their favorite Gospels and Acts. The gospel of Matthew wa

The Apostolic Constitutions give a kind of canon like that in the 59th of Laodicea. After speaking of the books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Chronicles, those belonging to the return from the captivity, those of Job, Solomon, the sixteen prophets, and the Psalms of David; our Acts, the epistles of Paul, and the four gospels are mentioned. It is remarkable that the Catholic epistles are not given. That they are indicated under Acts is altogether improbable. The Antiochian Church of that time

( b ) Matthew, John, Mark, Luke; in the council of Ephesus a.d. 431, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, the stichometry of the Clermont MS. Such was the usual order in the Greek Church of the fifth century. ( c ) Mark is put first, followed by Matthew; in the fragment of a Bobbian MS. of the Itala at Turin marked k . ( d ) Matthew, Mark, John, Luke; in the Curetonian Syriac gospels. They are mentioned in the same order in Origen's I. Homily on Luke. The reason of the order in, ( a ) and ( b ) lies

During the sixth and following centuries, it cannot be said that the canon of the Greek Church was definitely closed, notwithstanding the decrees of councils and references to older authorities. Opinions still varied about certain books, such as Esther; though the Palestinian list was commonly followed. During the same period, the enlarged canon of the Alexandrian Jews, which went far to abolish the distinction between the canonical and deutero-canonical books, prevailed in the West, at least in

The Belgic Confession ( a.d. 1561) makes a distinction between the sacred and apocryphal books. The latter may be read by the Church, but no doctrine can be derived from them. In the list of New Testament books given there are fourteen epistles of Paul. 377 The canon of the Waldenses must have coincided at first with that of the Roman Church; for the Dublin MS. containing the New Testament has attached to it the Book of Wisdom and the first twenty-three chapters of Sirach; while the Zurich codex

We have seen that sound critical considerations did not regulate the formation of the three collections which made up the entire canon of the Old Testament. Had it been so, the Pentateuch would not have been attributed to Moses. Neither would a number of latter prophecies have been accepted as Isaiah's and incorporated with the prophet's authentic productions. All the Proverbs, the book of Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs would not have been assigned to Solomon; Jonah would have been separate