Although the issues surrounding the scholarly study of the Septuagint and the Apocrypha are not identical, many of the issues are closely related. To be sure, those who oppose the Septuagint ordinarily do so based in part upon the presence of the Apocrypha within its corpus. What this document makes clear is that opposition to the Apocrypha itself has not been historically as uniform as some modern authors would lead one to believe. What Septuagint opponents need to keep in mind is that the Septuagint contains the full canonical Old Testament as well as these "less official" books.
A point not mentioned in the document below is that "official" editions of the King James Version (AKA "Authorized Version") contained the books of the Apocrypha until they were expunged in 1796.
The word "apocrypha" is used in a variety of ways that can be confusing to the general reader. Confusion arises partly from the ambiguity of the ancient usage of the word, and partly from the modern application of the term to different groups of books. Etymologically the word means "things that are hidden," but why it was chosen to describe certain books is not clear. Some have suggested that the books were "hidden" or withdrawn from common use because they were deemed to contain mysterious or esoteric lore, too profound to be communicated to any except the initiated (compare 2 Esd 14.45-46). Others have suggested that the term was employed by those who held that such books deserved to be "hidden" because they were spurious or heretical. Thus it appears that in antiquity the term had an honorable significance as well as a derogatory one, depending upon the point of view of those who made use of the word.
According to traditional usage "Apocrypha" has been the designation applied to the fifteen books, or portions of books, listed below. (in many earlier editions of the Apocrypha, the Letter of Jeremiah is incorporated as the final chapter of the Book of Baruch; hence in these editions there are fourteen books.)
Tobit
Judith
The Additions to the Book of Esther (contained in the Greek version of Esther)
The Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach
Baruch
The Letter of Jeremiah
The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
1 Esdras
The Prayer of Manasseh
2 Esdras
In addition, the present expanded edition includes the following three texts that are of special interest to Eastern Orthodox readers (see p. iv AP):
3 Maccabees
4 Maccabees
Psalm 151
None of these books is included in the Hebrew canon of Holy Scripture. All of them, however, with the exception of 2 Esdras, are present in copies of the Greek version of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint. The Old Latin translations of the Old Testament, made from the Septuagint, also include them, along with 2 Esdras. As a consequence, many of the early Church Fathers quoted most of these books as authoritative Scripture (see p. vi AP).
At the end of the fourth century Pope Damasus commissioned Jerome, the most learned biblical scholar of his day, to prepare a standard Latin version of the Scriptures (the Latin Vulgate). In the Old Testament Jerome followed the Hebrew canon and by means of prefaces called the reader's attention to the separate category of the apocryphal books. Subsequent copyists of the Latin Bible, however, were not always careful to transmit Jerome's prefaces, and during the medieval period the Western Church generally regarded these books as part of the holy Scriptures. In 1546 the Council of Trent decreed that the canon of the Old Testament includes them (except the Prayer of Manasseh and 1 and 2 Esdras). Subsequent editions of the Latin Vulgate text, officially approved by the Roman Catholic Church, contain these books incorporated within the sequence of the Old Testament books. Thus Tobit and Judith stand after Nehemiah; the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus stand after the Song of Solomon; Baruch (with the Letter of Jeremiah as chapter 6) stands after Lamentations; and 1 and 2 Maccabees conclude the books of the Old Testament. An appendix after the New Testament contains the Prayer of Manasseh and 1 and 2 Esdras, without implying canonical status.
Editions of the Bible prepared by Protestants have followed the Hebrew canon. The disputed books have generally been placed in a separate section, usually bound between the Old and New Testaments, but occasionally placed after the close of the New Testament.
Modern Roman Catholic scholars commonly employ a distinction introduced by Sixtus of Sienna in 1566 to designate the two groups of books. The terms "protocanonical" and "deuterocanonical" are used to signify respectively those books of Scripture that were received by the entire Church from the beginning as inspired, and those whose inspiration came to be recognized later, after the matter had been disputed by certain Fathers and local churches. Thus Roman Catholics accept as fully canonical those books and parts of books that Protestants call the Apocrypha (except the Prayer of Manasseh and 1 and 2 Esdras, which both groups regard as apocryphal). In short, as a popular Roman Catholic Catechism puts it, "Deuterocanonical does not mean Apocryphal, but simply 'later added to the canon.' "
The Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize several other books as authoritative. Editions of the Old Testament approved by the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church contain, besides the Deuterocanonical books, 1 Esdras, Psalm 151, the Prayer of Manasseh, and 3 Maccabees, while 4 Maccabees stands in an appendix. Slavonic Bibles approved by the Russian Orthodox Church contain, besides the Deuterocanonical books, I and 2 Esdras (called 2 and 3 Esdras), Psalm 151, and 3 Maccabees.
Besides the books that are included in the present edition, many other Jewish and Jewish-Christian works have survived from the period between about 200 B.C. to about A.D. 200. Since most of these profess to have been written by ancient worthies of Israel, who lived long before the books were actually composed, they are generally called "pseudepigrapha," meaning writings "falsely ascribed." (For a description of several of the more noteworthy pseudepigrapha, see pp. xi-xii AP.)
The apocryphal/deuterocanonical books represent several different literary genres, including the historical, novelistic, didactic, devotional, epistolary, and apocalyptic types. Though several of the books combine material belonging to more than one of these genres, most of the books can be classified as predominantly of one type or another. Thus 1 Esdras, 1 Maccabees, and, in a certain sense, 2 Maccabees belong to the genre of historical writing. Second Maccabees, which
is characterized by bombastic rhetoric, fiery arguments, exaggerated numbers, and superabundant use of invectives against the enemies of Jewish orthodoxy, falls more precisely into the category, then so popular in the Hellenistic world, known as "pathetic history" -- a type of literature that uses all possible means to strike the imagination and move the emotions of the reader.
Ostensibly historical but actually quite imaginative are the books of Tobit, Judith, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon, which may be called moralistic novels. In fact, the last two are noteworthy as ancient examples of the detective story.
Of a serious and didactic nature are the two treatises on wisdom, the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach. The latter shows particularly close connections with the style and content of the Old Testament book of Proverbs, from which it is a natural development.
The Prayer of Manasseh takes its place with devotional literature of a relatively high order. The psalmody of the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews is of a decidedly liturgical cast.
The Old Testament contains no books that are in the form of a letter, but twenty-one of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament are in epistolary form. The Letter of Jeremiah, which dates from inter-testamental times, may have provided later writers with an example of how this literary form could be used for religious purposes, a form that offers the possibility of combining profound theological content with a direct personal approach to the reader.
Finally, 2 Esdras, a book that purports to reveal the future, is a specimen of the type of literature called apocalyptic (see "Apocalyptic Literature," pp. 362-363 NT). An apocalypse is literally "an unveiling." Like the last six chapters of Daniel in the Old Testament and the book of Revelation in the New Testament, which also are apocalypses, 2 Esdras includes many symbols involving mysterious numbers, strange beasts, and the disclosure of hitherto hidden truths through angelic visitants.
Despite the diversities of literary form, most of which are parallel to, or developments from, similar genres in the Old Testament, the attentive reader of the Apocrypha will be struck by the absence of the prophetic element. From first to last these books bear testimony to the assertion of the Jewish historian Josephus (Against Apion, i. 8), that "the exact succession of the prophets" had been broken after the close of the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament. Sometimes there is a direct confession that the gift of prophecy had departed (1 Macc 9.27); at other times a hope is expressed that it might one day return (1 Macc 4.46; 14.41). When a writer imitates the prophetic character, as in the book of Baruch, he repeats with slight modifications the language of the older prophets. But the introductory phrase, "Thus says the LORD," which occurs so frequently in the Old Testament, is conspicuous by its absence from the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books.
Ecclesiastical opinions concerning the nature and worth of the books of the Apocrypha have varied with age and place.
None of the authors of the books of the New Testament makes a direct quotation from any of the fifteen books of the Apocrypha, though frequent quotations occur from most of the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament. On the other hand, several New Testament writers make occasional allusions to one or more apocryphal books. For example, what seem to be literary echoes from the Wisdom of Solomon are present in Paul's Letter to the Romans (compare Rom 1.20-29 with Wis 13.5,8; 14.24,27; and Rom 9.20-23 with Wis 12.12,20; 15.7) and in his correspondence with the Corinthians (compare 2 Cor 5.1,4 with Wis 9.15). The short Letter of James, a typical bit of "wisdom literature" in the New Testament, contains allusions not only to the Old Testament book of Proverbs but to gnomic sayings in Sirach as well (compare Jas 1. 19 with Sir 5. 11; and Jas 1. 13 with Sir 15.11-12).
During the early Christian centuries most Greek and Latin Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian (none of whom knew any Hebrew), quoted passages from the Greek text of apocryphal / deuterocanonical books as "Scripture," "divine Scripture," "inspired," and the like. In this period only an occasional Father made an effort to learn the limits of the Palestinian Jewish canon (as Melito of Sardis) or to distinguish between the Hebrew text of Daniel and the addition of the story of Susanna in the Greek version (as Africanus).
In the fourth century many Greek Fathers (including Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus, Amphilochius, and Epiphanius) came to recognize a distinction between the books in the Hebrew canon and the rest, though the latter were still customarily cited as Scripture. During the following centuries usage fluctuated in the East, but at the important Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 the books of Tobit, Judith, Ecclesiasticus, and Wisdom were expressly designated as canonical.
In the Latin Church, on the other hand, though opinion has not been unanimous, a generally high regard for these books has prevailed. More than one local synodical council (e.g. Hippo, A.D. 393, and Carthage, 397 and 419) justified and authorized their use as Scripture. The so-called Decretum Gelasianum, a Latin document handed down most frequently under the name of Pope Gelasius (A.D. 492-496), but in some manuscripts as the work of Damasus (366-384) or Hormisdas (514-523), contains, among other material, lists of the books to be read as divine Scripture and of books to be avoided as apocryphal. The former list, which is not present in all the manuscripts, includes among the biblical books Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. Irrespective of the problem of its authorship (many scholars today believe it to be the work of a cleric who lived in south Gaul), the list without doubt reflects the views of the Roman Church at the beginning of the sixth century.
There were, however, occasional voices raised to question the legitimacy of regarding the disputed books as Scripture. At the close of the fourth century, Jerome spoke out decidedly for the Hebrew canon, declaring unreservedly that books that were outside that canon should be classed as apocryphal. When he prepared his celebrated revision of the Latin Bible, the Vulgate, he scrupulously separated the apocryphal Additions to Daniel and Esther, marking them with prefatory notes as absent from the original Hebrew. But, as was remarked above, subsequent scribes were not always careful to transmit Jerome's explanatory material, and during the Middle Ages most readers of the Latin Bible made no distinction between the two classes of books. It is noteworthy, however, that throughout these centuries more than one highly respected ecclesiastical writer (such as Gregory the Great, Walafrid Strabo, Hugh of St. Victor, Hugh of St. Cher, and Nicholas of Lyra), being influenced by the great authority of Jerome, raised theoretical doubts about the disputed books.
Toward the close of the fourteenth century John Wyclif ("the father of English prose") and his disciples, Nicholas of Hereford and John Purvey, produced the first English version of the Bible (see "English Versions of the Bible," pp. 400-406). This translation, having been rendered from the Latin Vulgate, included all of the disputed books, with the exception of 2 Esdras. In the Prologue to the Old Testament, however, a distinction is made between the books of the Hebrew canon, which are thereupon enumerated, and the others which, the writer says, "shal be set among apocrifa, that is, with outen autorite of bileue." In the case of the books of Esther and Daniel, the translators included a rendering of Jerome's notes calling the reader's attention to the additions.
In the controversies that arose at the time of the Reformation, Protestant leaders soon recognized the need to distinguish between books that were authoritative for the establishment of doctrine and those that were not. Thus, disputes over the doctrines of Purgatory and of the efficacy of prayers and Masses for the dead inevitably involved discussion concerning the authority of 2 Maccabees, which contains what was held to be scriptural warrant for them (12.43-45).
The first extensive discussion of the canon from the Protestant point of view was a treatise in Latin, De Canonicis Scripturis Libellus, published at Wittenberg in 1520 by Andreas Bodenstein, who is commonly known as Carlstadt, the name of his birthplace. Besides distinguishing the canonical books of the Hebrew Old Testament from the books of the Apocrypha, Carlstadt classified the latter into two divisions. Of one group, containing Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, and 1 and 2 Maccabees, he says, "These are Apocrypha, that is, are outside the Hebrew canon; yet they are holy writings" (sect. 114). In explaining his view of the status and worth of such books as Tobit, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus, he writes:
What they contain is not to be despised at once; still it is not right that Christians should relieve, much less slake, their thirst with them.... Before all things the best books must be read, that is, those that are canonical beyond all controversy; afterwards, if one has the time, it is allowed to peruse the controverted books, provided that you have the set purpose of comparing and collating the non-canonical books with those which are truly canonical (sect. 118).
The second group of apocryphal books, namely 1 and 2 Esdras, Baruch, Prayer of Manasseh, and the Additions to Daniel, Carlstadt declared to be filled with ridiculous puerilities worthy of the censor's ban, and therefore to be contemptuously discarded.
The first Bible in a modern vernacular to segregate the apocryphal books from the others was the Dutch Bible published by Jacob van Liesveldt in 1526 at Antwerp. After Malachi there follows a section embodying the Apocrypha, which is entitled, "The books which are not in the canon, that is to say, which one does not find among the Jews in the Hebrew."
The first edition of the Swiss-German Bible, prepared by ministers of the Church in Zurich, was published in six volumes (Zurich, 1527-29), the fifth of which contains the Apocrypha. The title page of this volume states, "These are the books which are not reckoned as biblical by the ancients, nor are found among the Hebrews." A one-volume edition of the Zurich Bible, which appeared in 1530, contains the apocryphal books grouped together after the New Testament. In commenting on the attitude of Protestants respecting the disputed books, OEcolampadius, perhaps on the whole the best representative of the Swiss Reformers, declared in a formal statement issued in 1530: "We do not despise Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the last two books of Esdras, the three books of Maccabees, the Additions to Daniel; but we do not allow them divine authority with the others."
In reaction to Protestant criticism of the disputed books, on April 8, 1546, the Council of Trent gave what is regarded by Roman Catholics as the first infallible and effectually promulgated declaration on the canon of the Holy Scriptures. After enumerating the books, which in the Old Testament include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and the two books of Maccabees, the decree pronounces an anathema upon anyone who "does not accept as sacred and canonical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate Edition" (trans. by Father H. J. Schroeder). The reference to "books in their entirety and with all their parts" is intended to cover the Letter of Jeremiah as chapter 6 of Baruch, the Additions to Esther, and the chapters in Daniel concerning the Song of the Three Jews, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon. It is noteworthy, however, that the Prayer of Manasseh and 1 and 2 Esdras, though included in some manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate, were denied canonical status by the Council. In the official edition of the Vulgate, published in 1592, these three are printed as an appendix after the New Testament, "lest they should perish altogether."
In England, though Protestants were unanimous in declaring that the apocryphal books were not to be used to establish any doctrine, differences arose as to the proper use and place of non-canonical books. The milder view prevailed in the Church of England, and the lectionary attached to the Book of Common Prayer, from 1549 onward, has always contained prescribed lessons from the Apocrypha. In reply to those who urged the discontinuance of reading lessons from apocryphal books, as being inconsistent with the sufficiency of Scripture, the bishops at the Savoy Conference, held in 1661, replied that the same objection could be raised against the preaching of sermons, and that it was much to be desired that all sermons should give as useful instruction as did the chapters selected from the Apocrypha.
A more strict point of view was taken by the Puritans, who felt uneasy that there should be any books included within the covers of the Bible besides those that they regarded as authoritative. In time this aversion to associating merely human books with those acknowledged as the only sacred and canonical ones found a natural expression in the publication of editions of the Bible from which the section devoted to the Apocrypha was omitted. The earliest copies of the English Bible that excluded the Apocrypha are certain Geneva Bibles printed in 1599 mainly in the Low Countries. The omission of the sheets containing the Apocrypha was presumably due to those responsible for binding the copies, for the titles of the apocryphal books occur in the table of contents at the beginning of the edition.
It would seem that the practice of issuing copies of the Bible without the Apocrypha continued, for in 1615 George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been one of the translators of the King James Version of 1611, directed public notices to be given that no Bibles were to be bound up and sold without the Apocrypha on pain of a whole year's imprisonment. Despite the severe penalty, however, not a few printings of the King James Version appeared in London and Cambridge without the Apocrypha; copies lacking the disputed books are dated 1616, 1618, 1620, 1622, 1626, 1627, 1629, 1630, and 1633. Like the copies of the Geneva Bible of 1599, these seem to have been the work of publishers who wished to satisfy a growing demand for less bulky and less expensive editions of the Bible.
During subsequent centuries the editions of Bibles that lacked the books of the Apocrypha came to outnumber by far those that included them, and soon it became difficult to obtain ordinary editions of the King James Version containing the Apocrypha.
Most readers will probably be surprised to learn how pervasive the influence of the Apocrypha has been over the centuries. Not only have these books inspired homilies, meditations, and liturgical forms, but poets, dramatists, composers, and artists have drawn freely upon them for subject matter. Common proverbs and familiar names are derived from their pages. Even the discovery of the New World was due in part to the influence of a passage in 2 Esdras upon Christopher Columbus. In what follows the reader will find a representative selection of such examples, most of them chosen from An Introduction to the Apocrypha by B. M. Metzger (Oxford University Press), and arranged under the headings of (a) English Literature, (b) Music, © Art, and (d) Miscellaneous.
(a) English Literature. Sometime during the ninth or the tenth century an unknown poet, using the West-Saxon dialect, turned the story of Judith into an Old English epic of twelve cantos, transforming at the same time the heroine into a Christian. It is thought that the poem was written to celebrate the prowess of AEthelflaed, "The Lady of the Mercians," who, like the indomitable Judith, delivered her people from the fury of invaders, the heathen Northmen.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a poem called "The Pistill [i.e. Epistle] of Swete Susan" circulated in Scotland. Written in stanzas of thirteen lines and characterized by an unusual combination of alliteration and rhyme, the ancient apocryphal story was adorned with many imaginative details by the author, thought to have been a certain Huchown (Hugh) of Ayrshire in western Scotland.
How conversant Shakespeare was with the contents of the Bible is a question that, like many another concerning the bard of Avon, has been keenly debated. In any case, it is a fact that two of the poet's daughters bore the names of two of the chief heroines of the Apocrypha -- Susanna and Judith -- and, what is of greater significance, allusions to about eighty passages from eleven books of the Apocrypha have been identified in his plays.
Noteworthy among American writers who have drawn upon the Apocrypha for themes as well as subject matter is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His New England Tragedies contains references to 1 and 2 Maccabees, and the chief episodes of the courageous Maccabean uprising are included in his poetic dramatization, Judas Maccabaeus.
(b) Music. More than one hymn writer has drawn inspiration, as well as, in some cases, the words themselves, from the Apocrypha. For example, the exalted hymn of thanksgiving, "Nun danket alle Gott," written by Pastor Martin Rinkart about 1636 when the devastating Thirty Years War was nearing its end, is dependent upon Luther's translation of Sir 50.22-24. Two stanzas of the hymn, as translated by Catherine Winkworth, will show the amount of borrowing (here printed in italics):
Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices;
Who, from our mother's arms,
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God
Through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts
And blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace,
And guide us when perplexed,
And free us from all ills
In this world and the next.
Strange though it may seem, ideas included in the Christmas hymn, "It Came upon the Midnight Clear," are traceable to the Old Testament Apocrypha. In the New Testament accounts of the Nativity, nothing is said of the exact time of Jesus' birth. The subsequent identification of the hour of his birth as midnight is doubtless due to the influence of a remarkable passage in the Wisdom of Solomon. At an early century in the Christian era the imagination of more than one Church Father was caught by pseudo-Solomon's vivid reference to the time when God's "all-powerful word [the Logos] leaped from heaven, from the royal throne," namely when "night in its swift course was now half gone" (Wis 18.14-15). Despite the context of the passage, which speaks of the destruction of the first-born Egyptians at the time of the Exodus, the words were interpreted as referring to the Incarnation of the eternal Word of God, Jesus Christ. Thus by a curious, not to say ironical, twist of fortune, a passage that tells of a stern warrior with a sharp sword filling a doomed land with death has had a share in fixing popular traditions concerning the time and circumstances of the birth of the Prince of Peace.
The influence of the Apocrypha can also be traced in many an anthem, cantata, oratorio, and opera. Handel's oratorios Susanna and Judas Maccabaeus, as well as his Alexander Balus, an historical sequel to the latter, will occur at once to music lovers. At an early date in operatic history the stirring story of Judith was found to lend itself admirably to dramatic presentation. Italian and German operas on this theme were written by Andrea Salvadori, Marco da Gagliano, Martin Opitz, and Joachim Beccau. In the nineteenth century the noted Russian pianist and composer, Anton Rubenstein, published The Maccabees, an opera of monumental proportions, the libretto of which was written by one of his collaborators, Dr. H. S. von Mosenthal.
(c) Art. During the Renaissance and later, many painters chose subjects from the deuterocanonical books. Almost every large gallery in Europe and America has one or more works of the old masters depicting Judith, Tobit, or Susanna, who were the three most popular subjects from these books.
Besides paintings, down through the ages artists in almost every other medium have chosen themes from the Apocrypha. Were space available here for an inventory, examples could be cited from such divergent types of objets d'art as mosaics, frescoes, gems, ivories, sarcophagi, enameled plaques, terra cottas, stained glass, manuscript illumination, sculpture, and tapestries.
(d) Miscellaneous. The influence of the Apocrypha in everyday life can be observed in the currency of such names as Edna, Susanna (or one of its many derivatives, such as Susan, Suzanne, and Sue), Judith (or Judy), Raphael, and Tobias (or Toby).
The word "macabre," according to the opinion of several lexicographers, may be derived ultimately from "Maccabee, " alluding to the grisly and gruesome tortures inflicted upon the Jewish martyrs.
Some of the most common expressions and proverbs have come from the Apocrypha. The sententious sayings, "A good name endures forever" and "You can't touch pitch without being defiled," are derived from Sir 41.13 and 13.1. The noble affirmation in 1 Esd 4.41, "Great is Truth, and mighty above all things" (King James Version), or its Latin form, Magna est veritas et praevalet, has been used frequently as a motto or maxim in a wide variety of contexts.
A passage from the Apocrypha encouraged Christopher Columbus in the enterprise that resulted in his discovery of the New World. To be sure, the verse in 2 Esdras is an erroneous comment upon the Genesis narrative of creation, and Columbus was mistaken in attributing its authority to the "prophet Ezra" of the Old Testament, but -- for all that -- it played a significant part in pushing back the earth's horizons, both figuratively and literally. The words of 2 Esd 6.42 concerning God's work of creation ("On the third day you commanded the waters to be gathered together in a seventh part of the earth; six parts you dried up and kept so that some of them might be planted and cultivated and be of service before you") led Columbus to reason that, if only one-seventh of the earth's surface is covered with water, the ocean between the west coast of Europe and the east coast of Asia could be no great width and might be navigated in a few days with a fair wind. It was partly by quoting this verse from what was regarded as an authoritative book that Columbus managed to persuade Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to provide the necessary financial support for his voyage.
Besides the fifteen books or parts of books that are traditionally called the Apocrypha, there are many other Jewish or Jewish-Christian works, dating from the centuries immediately before and after the beginning of the Christian era, which for a time were popular among certain groups of Jews and in early Eastern Churches. It is customary (though not entirely appropriate) to classify these writings as Palestinian pseudepigrapha (those composed in Hebrew or Aramaic) and Alexandrian pseudepigrapha (those composed in Greek). Of the scores of such documents that are known to have circulated more or less widely, the following have been chosen as representative examples. (For a definition of pseudepigrapha, see p. iv AP.)
(a) Palestinian pseudepigrapha. The Book of Jubilees is a legendary expansion of Gen 1.1 - Ex 12.47, written in Hebrew not long before 100 B.C. by an unknown author of nationalist and rigoristic outlook, who deplored contemporary laxity. It attempts to show that the Mosaic law, with its prescriptions about festivals, the Sabbath offerings, abstinence from blood and from fornication (which for the writer includes intermarriage with Gentiles), was promulgated in patriarchal times, and indeed existed eternally with God in heaven. Events recorded in Genesis are dated exactly (but fictitiously) according to the jubilee (every forty-nine years) and its subdivisions. The book has been transmitted in its entirety in an Ethiopic translation, and portions of the text survive in Greek, Latin, and Syriac versions. At about the middle of the present century five fragmentary manuscripts of Jubilees, written in a good style of Hebrew, were discovered at Qumran by the Dead Sea. These manuscripts, which preserve portions of fifteen of the fifty chapters of the book, show that the Latin and Ethiopic versions are faithful translations of the original.
In addition to the 150 psalms comprising the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, during the inter-testamental period other psalms were composed in Hebrew and in other languages. One of these, which celebrates the prowess of young David in slaying Goliath, is appended (as Ps 151) to the Psalter in Greek manuscripts. Part of this psalm (see pp. 283-284 AP) came to be incorporated in the Ethiopian coronation ritual.
The Psalms of Solomon is a collection of eighteen songs of generally exalted sentiments, composed in Hebrew during the last century B.C. They are extant today in Greek and Syriac. The author, who is usually thought to reflect Pharisaic polemic against Sadducean dominance in the religious ceremonial of his day, looked forward to the time when the Messiah would reign as king at Jerusalem. According to an extended description of the coming Messiah (chs 17-18), he is to be sinless, strong through the spirit of holiness, gaining his wisdom from God, shepherding the flock of the Lord with fidelity and righteousness, and conquering the entire heathen world without warfare, "by the word of his mouth."
The book of Enoch, also called 1 Enoch or Ethiopic Enoch, is a heterogeneous collection of apocalypses and other material written by several authors in Aramaic (or Hebrew) during the last two centuries B.C. It embodies a series of revelations, of which Enoch is the professed recipient, on such matters as the origin of evil, the angels and their destinies, the nature of Gehenna and Paradise, and the pre-existent Messiah. Interspersed throughout the lengthy and rambling work are sections that have been called "the book of celestial physics." These sections, which are one of the curiosities of ancient pseudo-scientific literature, set forth contemporary speculations concerning such meteorological and astronomical phenomena as lightning, hail, snow, the twelve winds, the heavenly luminaries, and the like. The entire work is preserved in an Ethiopic translation, which includes what have been thought to be Christian interpolations in chs 37-71, where the Messiah is called the Son of Man. Portions of the book are extant in Greek and Latin; recently eight manuscripts of part of the work (but not chs 37-71) have turned up in Aramaic at Qumran. It is of interest that a quotation from the book of Enoch (1.9) occurs in the New Testament letter of Jude (vv. 14-15).
(b) Alexandrian pseudepigrapha. Third Maccabees is a religious novel written in Greek by an Alexandrian Jew sometime between 100 B. c. and A.D. 70. The title is a misnomer, for the book has nothing to do with the Maccabees. With many legendary embellishments the author recounts three stories of conflict between Ptolemy IV (221-203 B.C.) and the Jews of Egypt. The most dramatic section describes how the Jews were herded into the hippodrome near Alexandria, to be trampled under the feet of intoxicated elephants. After the king's purpose had been several times providentially delayed, it was finally foiled by a vision of angels which turned the elephants upon the persecutors.
Fourth Maccabees is a Greek philosophical treatise addressed to Jews on the supremacy of devout reason over the passions of body and soul. In the form of a Stoic diatribe, or popular address, the author begins with a philosophical exposition of his theme, which he then illustrates with examples drawn from 2 Maccabees. He describes at length the gruesome tortures that tested the fortitude of Eleazar, the seven brothers, and their mother, all of whom preferred death to committing apostasy. The book was probably written by a Hellenistic Jew of Alexandria at some time later than 2 Maccabees and before A.D. 70. In early Christianity the Maccabean martyrs were eventually canonized and accorded a yearly festival in the ecclesiastical calendar (August 1).
From what has been said above the reader will be able to form some opinion of the importance of apocryphal and pseudepigraphical literature, both for its own sake as well as for the information it supplies concerning the development of Jewish life and thought just prior to the beginning of the Christian era. The stirring political fortunes of the Jews in the time of the Maccabees; the rise of what has been called normative Judaism, and the emergence of the sects of the Pharisees and the Sadducees; the lush growth of popular belief in the activities of angels and demons, and the use of apotropaic magic to avert the malevolent influence of the latter; the growing preoccupation concerning original sin and its relation to the "evil inclination" present in every person; the blossoming of apocalyptic hopes relating to the coming Messiah, the resurrection of the body, and the vindication of the righteous -- all these and many other topics receive welcome light from the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books.
[This document is excerpted from the introduction to the New Revised Standard Version of the Apocrypha ©1991 Oxford University Press, Inc. ]
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Annotation
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Further information on the Apocrypha may be found here.
