is impossible to tell their story here even in bare outline; only some salient points may be noted. From the first they seem to have enjoyed a popularity not wholly un merited. Though never rising quite to the highest summit of the canonized Scriptures, in many parts they attain very respectable ele vation, distinctly above a very large portion of the canonics themselves. They are written in general with considerable literary skill and have often a good share of human interest Their content is various, as is also their lit erary form. In Baruch the elder prophecy of Israel reappears like an Indian summer; in the Book of Wisdom we find the Faith of the Fathers tempered with Alexandrine philoso phy; in Bar Sirach, proverbial philosophy tempered with religion; in the Odes of Solo mon the hopes and enthusiasms of the early Gnostics glow with poetic ardor; in IV Mac cabees the Jew has learned the ways of the Stoic and the tongue of philosophic Athens; in Enoch, IV Ezra* and othcrs, the apocalyptic imagination burns at white heat; in I Macca bees, Judith and Tobit the narrative faculty of the Jew is displayed to high advantage; in I Esdras pure literature comes to its own in the story of the three Youths, while in Ahikar the walls of nationalism seem to fall away and disclose the wider horizon of universal interest,— all these and many moret in the 30 oBooks Outside,)) the Chitzunim or Apocrypha. Some of them won the honor of occasional citation by the Rabbis, Ben Sirach oftener than all the others put together, and Baruch is said even to have been read in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement.
In the New Testament—But their chief recognition came not from Jews but from Christians. Since the proto-Christian move ment found its start not in Judea but in the Dispersion, it is not strange to find Apocrypha frequently quoted in the New Testament, as Matt. xxvii, 9 ((Jeremiah the Prophet) the passage is not in the canonic Jeremiah), Luke xi, 49 (Wisdom of Godp), Jude 9 (gAs sumption of Moses”, Jude 14ff C(Enoth3), 1 Cor. ii, 9 and Eph. v, 14 (KApocalypse of Elijah”, Heb. xi, 37 C(Martyrdom of Isa iale). How many are the points of lighter contact may be seen from Dittmar's 13 pages of references ((Vet. Test. in Nov.,' 149-162).
When the triumphant Chris tian Propaganda had organized itself into a church, and, indeed, during the process of organization, the question of standards, of authoritative scriptures, arose, and the first most obvious answer, since the propaganda issued from Jewry in contact with Hellenism, was that the standard books of the Jews should be also the standard books of the Chris tians; and, accordingly, we find them quoted from the start as authoritative. Since the Greeks had no such standard (even in Ho mer), there was, of course, none to be taken over into their new faith by the Gentile con verts. Naturally, diversities of view with re spect to the canon that were current in Jewry passed over into the ranks of the Christians, with the difference already noted, that the new religionist tended toward a more liberal view than that of the stricter orthodox Jews, rep resented so forcefully by Rabbi Aqiba. Ac
cordingly, not only were the Apocrypha from the first used freely by the Christians, but many were finally received into the Catholic canon.
Early history of these Deutero canonics (sometimes so called to indicate their secondary position) is both interesting and instructive. The free use of them in the New Testament has already been noted. Except, perhaps, Baruch, 1 Maccabees, and the addi tions to Daniel, they seem all to enter into the religious consciousness of the Apostolic Fa thers, though the allusions are, as a rule? loose and implicit, as is generally the case with the Fathers. Next we find nearly all attested by this or that apologist, as Baruch by Athenag oras and Irenmus, the latter also noting that the stories of Bel and the Dragon were ascribed to Daniel. Justin Martyr is the first to hint at the ability of the Church to form its own Canon, regardless of Jews, though the Church itself came only slowly to this convktion. Melito, bishoy of Sardis, gave (170 A.D.) the first list of ewish canonics, omitting Esther. Origen mentions Maccabees at the foot of his list (Eus. H. E. iii, 11), but writing to Julius Africanus he defends Judith and Tobias and the Danielic additions, agreeing with the Mar tyr that the Church is empowered to decide, and introducing all the Deuteros in his HUI. apla. The Codex Claromontanus, itself of the 6th century, contains, immediately before the Epistle to Hebrews (with which it ends), a table, ((Versus Scribturarum Sacrarum," re ferred by such opposing critics as Harnack and Zahn to Alexandria and the time of Origen, in which are found the two 'Wisdoms) (of Solomon and Ban Sirach), 1, 2, 4 Maccabees, Judith and Tobias (along with the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and the Revelation of Peter). Bishop Hippolytus cites (Wisdom) as Solomon's, uses Maccabees and Baruch as Scripture and treats of the incident of Susanna. In Africa, Cy prian, as well as Tertullian, is said to employ all the Deutero-canonics but Judith and Tobit. This is, indeed, by no means certain. On looking up the scores of *citations° the reader will find that nearly all are more or less faint resemblances and prove nothing whatever; however, in writing °Against Valentinians,* Tertullian does declare (c. 2), *The Face of God is awaited of whoso seeketh Him in sim plicity, as teacheth (Wisdom' itself, not of Valentinus, but of Solomon,° with ntanifest allusion to Wisdom i, 1. He also refers to the Maccabees as fighting on the Sabbath, but does not cite the books.