on the other hand, from their origin to the present day, runs parallel with that of the Bible itself. In a large part of the Christian Church they have always been accorded a respect scarcely inferior to that paid to the acknowledged Scriptures; have been bound up and circulated with them; have become incorporated by citation, reference, or general coloring with treasured liturgical forms and the entire body of religious literature. It is not an uncommon thing in Europe even at the present day, and in Protestant churches, to hear sermons preached from texts taken from these books, particularly from Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. One of the most familiar hymns in the German Church is founded on Ecclus. 1. 23 (“Nun danket alle Gott "), and the words of pseudo-Solomon, "The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God," etc. (Wisd. iii. 1), furnish a favorite theme for funeral orations over the graves of the departed. On the authority of Ebrard, who wrote in 1851, the use of the Bible without the Apocrypha in the Protestant schools of Bavaria, was forbidden by the ecclesiastical authority.2 In England and America, however, the Old Testament Apocrypha have been strangely neglected. But it is to be expected that the great attention devoted to them in Germany, especially since the beginning of the present century, will also ultimately bear fruit among us.

Their outward form.

With respect to outward form the Old Testament Apocrypha may be divided into historical works, as the books of the Maccabees and the larger portion of 1 Esdras; moral fictions, as Tobit, Judith, the Additions to Esther and Daniel; poetic and quasi-prophetic works, as Baruch, the Epistle of Jeremiah, and the Prayer of Manasses; and finally, philosophical and didactic compositions, as Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom. Of these a part were doubtless written in the Hebrew language, although the originals have long since perished, and the proofs of such origin are necessarily circumstantial. These are Ecclesiasticus, 1 Maccabees, Judith, and a part of Baruch (i.-iii. 8). The remaining works, with the possible exception of Tobit, were composed in Greek. Only one of them, Ecclesiasticus, has furnished us with the name of its actual author, the most of the others having adopted pseudonyms, for the evident purpose of gaining thereby the greater currency and repute. They differ greatly from one another in literary and moral worth, a part of them, in the estimation of some modern critics, taking rank with the best specimens of Hebrew literature, while others merit attention only on account of their age and their association with the Bible.

In what re

ble.

As histories they sup

The question of the canonicity of the Old Testament Apocryphal books may indeed be readily settled. But as ancient literary productions, originating with one of the most remarkable peoples of antiquity, although in many respects, no doubt, fall- spects valua ing below similar works of the Greeks and Romans which are so sedulously studied in our schools, they still deserve particular interest and examination. ply important links in the scanty annals of a most interesting period. So, too, from a philosophical point of view they can, by no means, be set aside as worthless. Some of them witness in a marked degree to the influence of the leaders of the Greek philosophy in the countries where they were written, and exhibit the peculiar product resulting from the contact of such philosophy with the sacred learning of the Jews. But their chief value is unquestionably theological. They show how the Old Testament was interpreted and applied by the Jews themselves during the period stretching nearly from the close of the canon to the coming of Christ; what progress was made in the apprehension and development of important truths, especially those relating to the unseen world and the future state, and serve as well by their exaggerations and mistakes as by their statement, or reflection of facts, to prepare the way for Him who spoke with authority and not as the scribes. Hence, it will not be out of place to give, at this point, a brief review of the theological and moral teaching of the Old Testament Apocrypha in its relation both to the canonical books that preceded and those that followed them.3

Attitude

with respect to the Scrip

As the oldest extant remains of the extensive Hebrew literature that sprang up subsequent to the close of the canon, the apocryphal books are of no little importance as witnesses for it and as showing the estimation in which the Holy Scriptures were held at that period. In the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, for example, we find the first allusion to the canonical Scriptures as a whole, under the general title, “the law, the prophets, and the other books." This general designation, in one form or another, 1 Cf. Nitzsch in the Deutsche Zeitschrift, 1850, No. 47, p. 369.

8 Cf Bretschneider, Systemat. Darstell.; and Cramer, Die Moral der Apokryphen.

tures.

2 Zeugnisse gegen die Apok., p. 20.

the translator applies to the canonical books several times, showing that it was in common use as such at that period. There is in the passage, moreover, every evidence that the Son of Sirach did not regard his own work as on a level with those which are thus alluded to, but rather the contrary. The same author, also, in another place (xlix. 10), after mentioning Jeremiah and Ezekiel, speaks of the twelve minor prophets, concerning whom he expresses the wish that their "bones may revive again from the grave." In the First Book of Maccabees, too, there is clear testimony to the high estimation in which the Scriptures were held. As a sort of apology to the Lacedæmonians for seeking an alliance with them, as though their own sources of strength had become exhausted, the remark is made, "albeit, we need none of these things, seeing that we have the holy books in our hands to comfort us." Again in 2 Maccabees (ii. 13), it is said of Nehemiah, on the authority of some unknown, extra-canonical work, that he made a collection of books, "the histories of the kings and the prophets, and of David, and the Epistles of the kings," i. e. the proclamations of the Persian kings, as found in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra. This passage, notwithstanding the obscurity that rests upon the sources from which the information given is said to be derived, and the generally untrustworthy character of the book in which it is found, is not without considerable value as a witness to the canon and its origin. What is really due to Ezra and others, including Nehemiah, is, indeed, by the author, ascribed exclusively to the latter, but it is not the only instance in his work where important names are thus exchanged (cf. i. 18). The different parts of the canon are clearly distinguished, the Pentateuch being omitted, simply because there was no occasion for mentioning it in this place. The writer refers only to such works as, in addition to the law which had been previously cared for (ver. 2), were in danger of being lost, and must therefore be collected together. The word émiovýyaye (ver. 13), indeed, would seem to indicate that the works gathered were to be added to a collection already begun. Besides these general allusions, there are, also, in the Apocrypha a great number of more or less direct citations from the canonical Scriptures, in which the three divisions of the canon are plainly, if not equally recognized, and an acquaintance with most of the books of which they are composed made evident.

tures.

A peculiar authority, moreover, is imputed in the Apocrypha to the canonical writings. They are held to be distinct from all other books, and given of God for human Inspiration of the Scrip- guidance, through prophets inspired for the purpose. They are called holy books" (1 Macc. xii. 9), and their writers are represented to have been under the influence of the Holy Spirit (1 Esd. i. 28; vi. 1; Ecclus. xlviii. 24). It is distinctly said of Jeremiah in one place (Ecclus. xlix. 7), that he was a prophet "sanctified from the mother's womb." So in Baruch (ii. 21) a passage is cited from this prophet with the formula: "Thus saith the Lord." The common division of the Scriptures into law and prophets, too, shows that the authors of the several canonical books were looked upon as prophets, that is, as inspired men. And what was true of the canonical books, in general, had special force as applied to the five books of Moses. No epithets were thought extravagant, no praise too high to be bestowed on him, the greatest of the prophets, and his divinely prompted, divinely acknowledged work. He was like the glorious angels and beloved of God and men (Ecclus. xlix. 2). The Mosaic Code was the law of the Highest (Ecclus. xlix. 4), holy, and Godgiven (2 Macc. vi. 23). It was the sum total of all wisdom. "All these things," said the son of Sirach," are [true of] the book of the covenant of the most high God, the law which Moses commanded for an heritage to the congregations of Jacob. It gives fullness of wisdom as Pison, and as Tigris in the time of the new fruits. It maketh the understanding to abound like Euphrates, and as Jordan in the time of harvest. It maketh the doctrine of knowledge appear as the light and as Gihon [i. e. the Nile] in the time of vintage" (Ecclus. xxiv. 23– 27). The fundamental idea of the divine Being, which we find in the canonical books of the Old Testament, that he is the one self-existing Creator and Preserver of all things, the omnipotent Ruler, to whom all creatures and all events are completely subject, is cerning God. also retained in the Apocrypha, while, at the same time, this idea is philosophically not a little developed in certain directions in some of these writings, and a particular emphasis laid on attributes which in the canonical books are less strongly marked. Nature itself proves the existence of God (Ecclus. xliii. 2; cf. xlii. 15), and they are fools who cannot out of the "good things that are seen know him that is," and "who while considering the 1 Cf. Jos., Contra Ap., i. 7.

Representations con

work do not recognize the Master" (Wisd. xiii. 1; cf. Song of Three Child., ver. 39, ff.). There is only one God (Ecclus. xxxiii. 5; Bar. iii. 35; Wisd. xii. 13; Song of Three Child., ver. 23), and his power over his creatures is unlimited (Jud. xvi. 13, 14; 2 Macc. viii. 18; xvi. 35; Prayer of Man., ver. 3-5). He is all-wise (Ecclus. xxiii. 19, 20; Jud. ix. 5, 6), holy, hating and punishing sin (Ecclus. xii. 6; Wisd. xiv. 9), righteous (Tob. iii. 2; Ecclus. xvi. 12-14; 3 Macc. ii. 3), kind and pitiful (2 Macc. i. 24; Song of Three Child., ver. 66; Wisd. xv. 1; Jud. ix. 11), and ready to forgive (Ecclus. ii. 11; v. 4-8; Tob. xiii. 6). Anthropopathic and anthropomorphic representations, especially the latter, as might have been expected, are less frequent in the Apocrypha than in the older books, and in some of them, as for instance in Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, the idea of the divine Being as pure spirit, is at least approached. The Son of Sirach declares that no man has seen God (xliii. 31), and pseudo-Solomon speaks of his holy spirit (τd åylov σov πveûμa, ix. 17); and elsewhere says that his incorruptible spirit is in all things and "filleth the world" (i. 7; xiii. 1). On the other hand, in some of the apocryphal books the notion of God is exceedingly limited, and He is set forth as scarcely more than a national deity as over against the idols of the heathen. This is especially true of the books of Judith and Baruch (Jud. viii. 18-20; xiii. 4, 5, 7; Bar. iii. 1 ff.; iv. 6); while in Tobit the propitiation of Him through prayers and almsgiving takes, as in idolatrous sacrifices, the form of an opus operatum (cf. xii. 8-13).

Creation and
Providence.

The teaching of the Old Testament, for the most part, respecting creation as the work of God, remains unchanged in the Apocrypha, but pseudo-Solomon (xi. 17; cf. 2 Mace. vii. 28), in harmony with the philosophy of his time, seems to have held that it was on the basis of an original formless material (¿ àμóppov üλŋs), and not, as is represented in Genesis, a creation from nothing. The same Being who made, also upholds and governs (Wisd. vi. 9; viii. 1; xi. 25; Ecclus. i. 2; xlii. 23; Bar. iii. 32). His government, moreover, is a providence (póvoia; Wisd. xiv. 3), itself being guided by wisdom and love (Wisd. xvi. 13; Tob. iv. 19; Jud. viii. 14; Ecclus. x. 4); the evils with which the world is afflicted, war, famine, pestilence, according to the books of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, are for the punishment of human wickedness, while serving, in the case of the godly, as means of discipline and spiritual culture (Ecclus. xl. 9, 10; Wisd. vi. 8). Death entered the world through the envy of the devil. God created man for immortality (Wisd. ii. 24)、 In both of the latter compositions, also, the wisdom (σopía) of God personified is represented as having the principal part in the works of creation and providence; and in that of pseudoSolomon the representation is carried so far as to leave the impression on some minds that he actually hypostasized it and recognized a second divine Person under that name (vii. 22, et passim). This seems, however, to be due to the natural tendency to exaggeration which we find in all these works, there being no particular in which they are more clearly distinguished from the canonical books than in their want of simplicity and accuracy, the rhetorical figures, moreover, forming one of the best illustrations of this defect.1

The existence of both good and evil angels is recognized in the apocryphal books. They are spiritual beings and capable of assuming human forms. The good angels Angelology. surround the throne of God in heaven, and serve not only as his messengers in general, but as mediators in the providential government of the world. Satan (diάBoλos), as the first great deceiver, is alluded to in the Book of Wisdom (ii. 24), and also, as it would seem, in Ecclesiasticus (xxi. 27). In the books of the Maccabees (2 Macc. iii. 26; x. 29; 3 Macc. vi. 18), angels are represented as appearing for the defense of the harassed Jews and the punishment of their oppressors. In Tobit, as we show in the introduction to that book, the matter of angelic interposition in human affairs is given abnormal prominence, in fact, assumes a form that is both incredible and absurd. It is represented, for instance, that among the good angels there are seven presence-angels who present the prayers of the saints before God. One of them, Raphael, serves as guide to Tobias on a long journey, and prescribes, like a physician, for physical ailments. Among the evil angels, a certain Asmodæus acts an extraordinary part: has power to take human life, is also capable of sexual lust, but may be exorcised by means of certain medicaments which, being burned, make a stench that to him is unendurable (iii. 17; vi. 7, 16). It is not necessary to say that such views could not have been derived from any legitimate interpretation of the teachings of the canonical books of the Old Testament on this subject.

1 Cf. Bruch, Weisheitslehre der Hebräer; Oehler, Grundzüge der A. T. Weisheit; Langen, Judenthum, etc., p. 25 ff.; Herzog's Real-Encyk. and Schenkel's Bib. Lex., art. "Weisheit;" also, Dillmann, Das Buch Henoch, Einleit., x. ff., p. 152, 1.

Anthropology. Man's origi nal endowments and fall.

Moral duties.

With respect to man the representations of the Apocrypha deserve particular attention as illustrating the influence of the then philosophy in the development of doctrines concerning human nature and destiny. Man was created by God and is composed of body and soul, the latter being sometimes designated by veûua and sometimes by ux, the distinction between them being nowhere closely marked (cf. Wisd. ix. 15). He was made in the image of his Creator, endowed with reason, the power of distinguishing between right and wrong, and a free will, and was placed on earth to be its ruler (Ecclus. xv. 14 ff., xvii. 1-8; Wisd. ix. 2, 3). The image of God in which man was created consists, according to the Son of Sirach, in the superiority, in general, in which he stands with respect to the creation (xvii. 3), according to pseudo-Solomon (ii. 23) in his immortality. The latter work, moreover, clearly teaches the preexistence of the soul, and more than intimates that it was its connection with a body which was the occasion of its fall and is the ground of its continued sunken moral condition (viii. 19, 20; ix. 15). That the author is in this respect inconsistent, inasmuch as elsewhere (ii. 23, 24), he represents the fall as having been brought about through the envy of the devil, and so recognizes the historical validity of the account in Genesis (iii. 1-6), may be ascribed to his unsuccessful efforts to mediate between the current philosophical axioms and the Scriptures. The principle by which one, according to the Apocrypha, was to be governed in the matter of moral obligations and duties, was that he, in all that he did, should have reference to the will of his Maker as expressed in the Mosaic law, and, at the same time, to his own happiness. The will of God as set forth in the various precepts of the Mosaic code was, properly, to be the goal of his striving, while the motive to the same was the personal advantages to be derived from such a course. It would not seem that the apocryphal books place the chief end of man in the love and service of God, in themselves considered, but regard these simply as a means by which the highest good, individual happiness, was to be attained. In the most of these books such a reward of right doing was set forth as attainable in this world; in some of them, as to be expected only in the life to come, or at least, in connection with the future Messianic kingdom (Tob. xiii. 14; Wisd. i. 15; iii. 1; vi. 18; Ecclus. iii. 18; Bar. v. 2 ff.). The apocryphal writers, moreover, conceived of sin, so far as they considered the matter at all, as something appertaining to the outward conduct, a transgression of the acknowledged standards, and seem rarely, if ever, to have reached the more radical conception of it as being a want of inward conformity to the divine will. The underlying motive, the governing purpose of the heart, being, for the most part, left out of account, and the consequences of one's conduct being thought of simply in their relation to individual happiness, it was possible for such philosophers as the Son of Sirach and pseudo-Solomon to set forth a gradation in virtue and vice, and to speak of cardinal virtues, as self-control, temperance, prudence, righteousness, fortitude, and cardinal sins like idolatry, etc. (Ecclus. xviii. 30 ff.; Wisd. viii. 7), than which nothing could be regarded as more injurious than the one, and nothing as more profitable to men in life (~» χρησιμώτερον οὐδέν ἐστιν ἐν βίῳ ἀνθρώποις) than the other. At the same time, too, as might have been expected on the basis of this low moral plane, while the mint, anise, and cummin were carefully tithed, the weightier matters of the law were depreciated or ignored. A Razis was justified in committing suicide if, persecuted for righteousness' sake, he were in danger of falling into the hands of his enemies; and a Judith might invoke the blessing of God on her deceptions and prostitute her person' for the weal of her fatherland. Minute directions are given how one is to behave in society, how to eat to excess without evil consequences (Ecclus. xxxi. 21), and to preserve the health through the avoidance of melancholy (xxxviii. 18); but love to God in any other sense than veneration or reverence (Ecclus. vii. 30) seems scarcely to have been thought of. He was the happy man who lived to see the death of his enemies, (Ecclus. xxv. 7), and by his good deeds, especially the giving of alms, had purchased from heaven the forgiveness of his sins and won a permanent place in the memories of men (Ecclus. iii. 30; xxix. 12; Tob. iv. 10; xii. 9; xiv. 11).

In only two of the apocryphal books, 2 Maccabees and Wisdom, is to be found anything worthy of special attention on the subject of eschatology. In the rest, the point Eschatology.1 of view is much the same as that in the Old Testament Scriptures generally, with the exception of Ecclesiasticus, where a less advanced position is taken than in some of the

1 See my article in the Bibliotheca Sacra for April, 1879, on the "Eschatology of the O. T. Apocrypha," and the authorities there cited.

canonical books, and 1 Maccabees, where an apparently intentional omission of all allusion to the future state seems to betray a Sadducæan origin. In 2 Maccabees, on the other hand, the belief in a bodily resurrection is set forth with a fullness, clearness, and emphasis, that are almost startling, leading to the inference, that, as over against its earlier and historically more trustworthy namesake, it was written with a partisan purpose and under direct Pharisaic influence (cf. vii. passim, and xiv. 46, ff.). This conclusion is confirmed, moreover, by what is said by the author of Judas Maccabæus' praying for the dead, "in that he was mindful of the resurrection" (xii. 43-45). The Book of Wisdom, on the other hand, while led by its philosophy to reject the opinion that the body would rise again from the dead (i. 13; ii. 23; viii. 20; ix. 15), clearly teaches the conscious, personal, unending existence of the soul after death both of the good and of the evil (iii. 1–4; iv. 8–10; v. 15; vi. 19), the former in happiness with God (vi. 20), the latter in misery (i. 12, 16, et passim). Pseudo-Solomon seems, also, to have held to a judgment-day following the present state of probation, at which time the wicked, both living and dead, would be judged and cast into hell (i. 9; iii. 7, 13, 18; iv. 18– 20), while the righteous would descend to reign in the everlasting kingdom which God would set up. It is not to be denied, however, that on this point whether the judgment was regarded as taking place during life and at death or after death there is a want of clearness in his representations. Still, there might be a reason for this, not simply in the writer's own mind, but also in the nature of the subject itself. In an important sense, to the incorrigible, every act of God with respect to them might be considered an act of judgment, without how- . ever excluding, but rather requiring a final summing up at the Last Day.

The Messianic hope.1

It is a significant fact, in view of the claim that is made in some quarters for the books before us, that the traces of the Messianic hope which they contain are only of the faintest character. This hope, moreover, seems in no case to have centered clearly in the coming of a personal Messiah, but to have developed itself rather in longings for, and descriptions of a certain future kingdom, such as had been the subject of the later prophecies. In addition to the expectation of the return of the dispersed Israelites and the reawakening of the spirit of prophecy which we find in Baruch and 2 Maccabees (Bar. iv. 36, 37; v. 5–9; 2 Macc. ii. 18), the conversion of the heathen is predicted in Tobit (xiii. 11-18; xiv. 6, 7), the eternal existence of the Jewish people as such in Ecclesiasticus (xxxvii. 25; xliv. 13), and elsewhere, the fact that this continued existence is somehow to be connected with the family of David (Ecclus. xlvii. 11; 1 Macc. ii. 57). The Son of Sirach also speaks in one place (xlviii. 10, 11) of the return of Elijah in the form foretold by Malachi, and adds: "we, also, shall surely live," i. e., at his coming we shall be alive. And in the Book of Wisdom (iii. 7; v. 1 ff.), as we have said, a day of final judgment seems to be taught, following which an eternal kingdom of the saints will be set up in which the Lord will be their king.

Reasons for

the disap pearance of

such hope.

Various efforts have been made to explain this remarkable absence of allusion to the Messiah in the apocryphal books. Schürer, for instance, ascribes it to the fact that their contents are, for the most part, historical or didactic and not prophetic. But this did not prevent references from being made to the expected universal and eternal kingdom of Israel. Why should it shut out the idea of the Messiah if it was still entertained? Hengstenberg held that it was due to a fear, on the part of the apocryphal writers, of giving offense to the heathen among whom they dwelt. This view, however, is wholly inconsistent with the attitude which some of these books assume as over against the oppression and idolatry of the heathen. It is more reasonable to suppose with Grimm, Oehler, and others that the Jews, at the time when the present books were written, had ceased to feel the need of the coming of a personal Messiah. The Messianic hope in the Old Testament is always united with that of deliverance. As deliverance in a political sense this would not have been desired for a long time subsequent to the Maccabæan struggle. And as far as it referred to a deliverance from sin the later Jews seem to have lost all consciousness of the want of it. The law in its two parts, as written and oral, was looked upon as sufficient for all needs, the complete revelation of God not only for the Jews but for the whole world. With the Captivity the worship of idols was given up in order to make an idol of their own institutions, particularly of the Mosaic Code. This is especially seen to be the case

1 Cf. particularly, Oehler, in Herzog's Real-Encyk., art. "Messias; " Langen, Das Judenthum, etc., pp. 391–461; Schenkel, Bib. Lex., art. "Messias;" Schürer, pp. 563-599; and Drummond, The Jewish Messiah.

2 Ev. Kirchen-Zeitung, 1853, p. 567.