(5) Church of England. The books specified as canonical in the Sixth Article of the Church of England. and the First of the Confession of the Church of Scotland, are received as such by the majority of Protestants. Tn these the Church of Rome adds, as part of the Old Testament, ten other hooks, or parts of books, which Protestants reject as Apocryphal (see APOCRYPHA). For the evidence in support of the genuineness and Divine authority of those books universally regarded by Christians as canonical, taken individually, we would refer here to the articles in this work under the titles of these hooks respectively. The re mainder of the present article shall be devoted to a sketch of the formation and history of the Canon, first of the Old Testament and then of the New.
(6) Formation of Old Testament Canon. By this is meant the collection into one whole of all those books whose Divine. authority was recog nized by the Jews and which now form the Old Testament, as that is received by the Protestant churches. The question is, At what time and by whom was this done? In answer to this, a very steadfast tradition of the Jews ascribes the completion of the Old Testa ment Canon to Ezra, and certain other persons who, after the rebuilding of the Temple, formed with him, and under his auspices, what has been called the Great Synagogue. Without pretending to be able to give full demonstration of the ac curacy of this traditionary opinion, it seems to us one which may by evidence, both direct and cir cumstantial, be rendered so extremely probable that to call it in question would be to exhibit a degree of scepticism such as, in all other questions of a similar kind, would be thought highly unrea sonable and absurd (1) In the first place, there is the testimony of the tradition itself. It occurs in one of the oldest books of the Talmud, the Pirke Aboth, and is repeated, with greater minute ness, in the Babylonian Gemarah (Tr. Baba Bathra, fol. Q. 2). See the passages in Buxtorf's Tiberias, lib. i. c. to). The substance of it is that, after Moses and the elders, the sacred books were watched over by the prophets, and that the Canon was completed by Ezra, Nehemiah, and the men of the Great Synagogue.
An effort has been made to discredit this tradi tion by adducing the circumstance that Simon the Just, who lived long after Ezra, is said, in the Pirke Aboth, to have been one of the members of the Great Synagogue; but to this much weight cannot be allowed. partly because Simon is, in the passage referred to, said to have been one of the remnants of the Great Synagogue, which indi cates his having outlived it, and principally be cause the same body of tradition which states this opinion makes him the successor of Ezra, so that either the whole is a mistake or the Simon re ferred to must have been a different person from the Simon who is commonly known by the title of 'Just' (Cf. Othonis. Lex. Rabbis. Pirilol. p. 6°4.
Gen. 1675; liavernick's Einleitung in das A. 7'. Th. i. Abt. t, s. 43) ; or we may adopt the opinion of I lartmann (Die Inge l'erbindung des Alt. Test. 'nit d.Neuen, s. 127), that the college of men learned in the law, which gathered round Ezra and Nehemiah, and which properly was the syna gogue, continued to receive accessions for many years after their death, by means of which it existed till the time of the Maccabees, without our being required to suppose that what is affirmed concerning its doings in the time of Ezra is meant to refer to it during the entire period of its exist ence. Suspicions have also been cast upon this tradition from the multitude of extravagant won ders narrated by the Jews respecting the Great Synagogue. But such are found in almost every traditionary record attaching to persons or bodies which possess a nationally heroic character. (II) The part of this tradition which ascribes the for mation of the Canon, before the Exile, to Moses and the prophets, is sufficiently supported by tho of Scripture itself. When Moses had finished the writing of the Law 'he delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, and unto the elders of Israel' (Dent. xxxi:0) ; and the hook was then taken and put in the side of the ark, in the most holy place (vet. 26). Towards the close of the honk of Joshua it is said that 'he wrote these words in the book of the law of God,' which Le Clem with considerable probability, explains as meaning that he agglutinated the membrane on which his words were written to the volume of Moses which had been deposited in the side of the ark (Comment in Inc.) At a later period we find that Samuel, when he had told the people the manner (the jus public's's!) of the kingdom, wrote it in the hook and laid it up before the Lord (t Sam. x:25). Hilkiah, at a still later date, is said to 'have found the book of the Law in the House of the Lord' (2 Kings xxii :8). Isaiah. in calling attention to his own prophecies, says: 'Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read; no one of these shall fail' (xxxiv :16); a passage on which Gesenius says (Comment. i. 920, 'The poet seems to have before his mind the placing of his oracle in a collection of oracles and sacred writings, whereby future generations might judge of the truth of his predictions.' And Daniel in forms us that he 'understood, by the books, the number of the years of the captivity' (ix:2), an expression which seems to describe the sacred Canon so far as it then was complete.