EVER, probably, has the collection of books known as the Old Testament Apocrypha attracted more attention from Englishspeaking people than during the past three months. The Revision has awakened new interest in the books; and many persons who have hitherto neglected them, have been led by curiosity, and by the reviews, to compare the old version with the new; much, we may say at once, to the advantage of the latter. The result, we may trust, will be to lead to the further and deeper study of this small, but unique mass of literature. In truth, the general ignorance of the Apocrypha, even among devoted Bible readers, has been the result of exaggerated claims made on its behalf. Had the books never been put forward as divine, they would have been eagerly read and prized. As it is, their rejection in that character has led by a somewhat unreasonable reaction to their entire neglect.

It is true that they are no part of Scripture. Elders among us can recall the echoes of a great controversy, in which the harmony of the British and Foreign Bible Society was for years very seriously imperilled-whether the apocryphal books should be inserted in any of their foreign versions.1 The discussion culminated in Scotland, in 1825; nor was it settled till two years later, when the rule of exclusion was finally adopted by the society. Since that dispute, there has been little disposition in any quarter to publish the Apocrypha in a separate form. This is greatly to be regretted, as in these relics of Jewish literature we have the clearest and most authentic representation of the national mind during the four centuries preceding the advent of the Messiah. The questions, to what manner of people He came, what modes of religious thought prevailed among them, what forms of teaching had succeeded those of the inspired prophets; to what extent, in fact, the Jews of the Persian and Grecian eras were prepared for the coming of the Christ, must be to every intelligent Christian of deep and exhaustless interest. Then, as to the hope of immortality, so prominent in many of these books-under what influences and teachings did it become a definite and assured element in Jewish faith? Not that the Apocryphal books answer these questions fully. They form, in fact, a very miscellaneous collection. It is not even easy, in most cases, to assign their dates within a century or so. With regard to those written in Hebrew, it is often uncertain how far, in the Greek form in which they have come to us, we have a faithful transcript of the original; but notwithstanding such drawbacks, they are, if studied with discrimination, of unquestionable

1 The Bible Society has never, we believe, issued the English Apocrypha.

interest and value; and no true Bible student can afford to disregard them.

Their strange variety, if anything, enhances their value. The Wisdom, so called, of Solomon, although, of course, without any claim to so illustrious an authorship, contains the best thoughts of those Alexandrian Jewish teachers who were held to possess the spirit of the wisest of men: Eclesiasticus, or The Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach," translated from a lost Hebrew original, is in a similar vein, although with inferior power and frequent tediousness. Various supplements to Old Testament history and prophecy show to us how the Jewish mind had assimilated the inspired literature of their nation, although these productions stand out from that literature in wonderful contrast; as in the First (or Third1) Book of Esdras (a poor compilation), the Prayer of Manasseh, Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremy, the legendary History of Susanna, of Bel and the Dragon, the Additions to the Book of Esther, and the Song of the Three Children; which last, known. to Christian assemblies as the "Benedicite," is in itself a beautiful Canticle, whatever its connexion with the "burning fiery furnace." Then, in the story of Tobit, probably dating from the Persian period of Jewish history, and in that of Judith, belonging to the Maccabean era, we have specimens of Jewish romance, enabling us in some measure to understand the religious and patriotic tone of the people. The two Books of Maccabees are valuable records, from independent sources, of the great national crisis in the second century before Christ; the former being written originally in Hebrew, the latter in Greek (an abridgment of a larger work). The First Book, in particular, abounds in stirring pictures of Jewish fidelity and heroism. The Second (or Fourth) Book of Esdras, again, which has come to us chiefly in its Latin form, is in the main a succession of apocalyptic visions, dating most probably from the first century of the Christian era, and is of little use, therefore, in illustrating the preceding period.

Strictly speaking, "Apocrypha" means only "Hidden Things or Books, but, by successive modifications in meaning, the word came to imply what was lacking in genuineness and authority, of unknown authorship and without evidence of inspiration. The Council of Trent calls the apocryphal books (excepting 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh) "deutero-canonical," a second but still authoritative canon. On the other hand, one of the writers ingenuously confesses, "If I have written well and to the point in my story, this is what I myself desired; but if meanly and

1 The Third Book, counting the canonical books of Ezra and Nehemiah as First and Second. "Esdras" is the Greek form of "Ezra."

indifferently, this is all I could attain unto." 1 How great a descent from the "Thus saith the LORD" of the Hebrew prophets !

George Eliot's hero, Adam Bede, not inaptly illustrates the mood of mind in which a simple-hearted Bible-reader might take up the Apocrypha :

"Over the New Testament, a very solemn look would come upon his face, and he would every now and then shake his head in serious assent, or just lift up his hand and let it fall again; and on some mornings, when he read in the Apocrypha, of which he was very fond, the Son of Sirach's keen-edged words would bring a delighted smile, though he also enjoyed the freedom of occasionally differing from an Apocryphal writer. For Adam knew the Articles quite well, as became a good Churchman." (Adam Bede, ch. li.)

The reference is, of course, to the Sixth Article, in which Jerome is quoted as commending the Apocryphal books "for example of life and instruction of manners, but yet the Church doth not apply them to establish any doctrine." This, no doubt, is the right position to take, although Jewish Rabbis have spoken more severely: “He who studies the uncanonical books will have no portion in the world to come !"

It is interesting to notice how, after all, the words of the Apocrypha have become blended with the religious thoughts and utterances of Christians everywhere. The grand German hymn, Nun danket alle G tt, "Now thank we all our God," is an evident paraphrase of Ecclesiasticus 1. 22-24 :

"And now bless ye the God of all,

Which everywhere doeth great things,
Which exalteth our days from the womb,

And dealeth with us according to His mercy.

May He grant us joyfulness of heart,

And that peace may be in our days in Israel for the days of Eternity:

To intrust His mercy with us,

And let Him deliver us in His time!"

The

Perhaps, also, the well-known hymn from Bernard of Clairvaux: Jesu, dulcis memoria, "Jesu, the very thought of Thee," was an imitation of Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 20, "My memorial is sweeter than honey, and mine inheritance than the honeycomb." Some current quotations, again, owe their origin to the Apocrypha. Thus Shakespeare's "A Daniel come to judgment" is an evident reminiscence of the History of Susanna; and Milton's "affable archangel "-a description of Raphaelcarries us back to the romance of Tobit. aphorism, "Truth is great and will prevail," most probably owes its origin to the young men's discussion recorded in the fourth chapter of 1 Esdras: "Truth abideth and is strong for ever; she liveth and conquereth for evermore," ver. 38. satirical description of dull bucolic souls-" whose talk is of bullocks "-is from the Son of Sirach (Ecclus. xxxviii. 25); less tersely, if more literally translated in the Revision, "whose discourse is of the stock of bulls." And that noble expression, a "hope full of immortality," is continually used 1 2 Maccabees xv. 38.

The

by preachers, unaware that they are quoting the apocryphal Book of Wisdom (iii. 4), from a grand passage beginning, "The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God."

The Apocrypha, too, has its records in Christian literature and experience. We all know how Bishop Butler takes for a motto to his Ana'ogy the words of Ecclesiasticus, "All things are double one against another, and He hath made nothing imperfect." The Son of Sirach also was the means of bringing comfort to John Bunyan at a dark period in his early spiritual history. "One day," writes Bunyan, in Grace Abounding, "after I had been many weeks oppressed and cast down, as I was now quite giving up the ghost of all my hopes of ever attaining life, that sentence fell with weight upon my spirit: Look at the generations of old and see; did ever any trust in the Lord and was confounded?" Bunyan searched the Scriptures for a while in vain to discover these words of comfort; at last he found them in the second chapter of Ecclesiasticus, verse 10. "This," he adds, "at the first did somewhat daunt me but because by this time I had got more experience of the love and kindness of God, it troubled me the less; especially when I considered that though it was not in those texts which we call holy and canonical, yet forasmuch as this sentence was the sum and substance of many of the promises, it was my duty to take the comfort of it." Whether canonical or not, the words were true; and Bunyan was not the first to learn that the spirit was more than the letter.

Were the Apocryphal Books known to the writers of the New Testament? It could hardly have been otherwise, at least with regard to many of these books, which formed a part of the Greek Scriptures in the hands of the Evangelists and Apostles. Yet the books are nowhere expressly quoted by them. "It is written," is never prefixed to a sentence from the Apocrypha. And yet there are many coincidences in phrase and expression, which together go to prove irresistibly that certain of the books, notably that of Wisdom, were known to the apostolic writers. A few instances of the kind, indeed, would not be conclusive; but the number of them is too large to be accounted for in any other way. A few of the most striking resemblances may here be cited. The fine expression in the First chapter of Hebrews, brightness (R.V., effulgence) of the Father's glory," is in the original expressed by a word only elsewhere found in the Book of Wisdom (vii. 26): "She (Wisdom) is an effulgence from Everlasting Light" and the phrase, "place of repentance (Wisd. iii. 5), is also peculiar to Wisdom and Hebrews. More than one passage, again, in the New Testament, runs parallel with the teaching of the Book of Wisdom :

:

"Having borne a little chastening, they shall receive great good;

Because God made trial of them, and found them worthy of Himself.

As gold in the furnace He proved them,
And as a whole burnt-offering He accepted them.
And in the time of their visitation they shall shine
forth." (Wisd. iii. 5-7.)

Several such coincidences may be traced between the Book of Ecclesiasticus and the Epistle of James. Thus, the notion of upbraiding by a benefactor is peculiar to the two. "After thou hast given, upbraid not," Ecclus. xli. 22; God "giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not," James i. 5. Take again the following words from the former book: "Say not thou, It is through the Lord that I fell away"; in James, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God." The former, again, has, "Be swift to hear, and with patience make thine answer"; the latter, "Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak." The well-known words of St. James regarding the tongue are anticipated, although with greater amplification, in Ecclesiasticus xxviii.

St. Paul, when he wrote of the Potter and the Clay, probably had before him not only the passage from Jeremiah xviii., but the following from the Book of Wisdom, with which his language has a closer affinity—

"For a potter, kneading soft earth,

Laboriously mouldeth each several vessel for our service, Nay, out of the same clay doth he fashion

Both the vessels that minister to clean uses, and those of a contrary sort,

And all things confusedly are filled with blood and murder, theft and deceit.

Corruption, faithlessness, tumult, perjury, turmoil,
Ingratitude for benefits received,

Defiling of souls, confusion of sex,

Disorder in marriage, adultery and wantonness.
For the worship of those nameless idols

Is a beginning and cause and end of every evil."

As in all the citations from the Apocrypha in the present paper, the passages here quoted are from the Revision; and a comparison with the Authorised Version will show how great is the improvement, effected by slight changes, but adding so greatly to the lucidity and force of the text that no reader can henceforth hesitate between them. We may, indeed, say of the Apocrypha, what certainly cannot be said of either the Old or the New

Testaments, that henceforth the former Translation is obsolete.

A transcript of the passage just quoted, according to the Authorised Version, will make this improvement plain to the English reader. The contrast between the two is shown for the most part by minute touches, and happy turns of expression; while a comparison with the original would show the superiority of the Revised Version in exactness of rendering as well as in grace of style.

Wisd. xiii. 1: "Surely vain are all men by nature, who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things that are seen know Him that is: neither by considering the works did they acknowledge the Workmaster."

Ver. 10: "But miserable are they, and in dead things is their hope, who called them gods, which are the work of men's hands, gold and silver, to show art in, and resemblances of beasts, or a stone good for nothing, the work of an ancient hand.”

Ch. xiv. 25-27: "So that there reigned in all men without exception blood, manslaughter, theft, and dissimulation, corruption, unfaithfulness, tumults, perjury, disquieting of good men, forgetfulness of good turns, defiling of souls, changing of kind, disorder in marriages, adultery, and shameless uncleanness. For the worshipping of idols not to be named is the beginning, the cause, and the end of all evil.”

To go a step further; there are passages in which the apocryphal books anticipate the teachings of our Lord Himself. Thus in Ecclesiasticus vii. 14:

"Prate not in the multitude of elders;

And repeat not thy words in thy prayer" there is a foreshadowing of the injunction," When ye pray, use not vain repetitions": while in Tobit iv. 15, the charge of the Jewish father to his son Tobias, "What thou thyself hatest do to no man," is a faint prelude of the Saviour's Golden Rule. Then, when Jesus said "He that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst," may He not have had in mind the profound words of the Son of Sirach respecting Wisdom:

:

They that eat me shall yet be hungry,
And they that drink me shall yet be thirsty"?
(Ch. xxiv. 21.)

As much as to say, that all human knowledge does but create and stimulate a desire which it can never fill, but that He Himself will fill the soul in all its longings and capacities; "a Well of water springing up unto eternal life.” How striking, again, the reference in the Book of Wisdom to the serpent lifted up in the wilderness!

"For even when terrible raging of wild beasts came upon Thy people,

And they were perishing by the bites of crooked serpents, Thy wrath continued not to the uttermost;

But for admonition were they troubled for a short space, Having a token of salvation,

To put them in remembrance of the commandment of Thy law:

For he that turned toward it was not saved because of that which was beheld,

But because of Thee, the Saviour of all." (Ch. xvi. 5–7.)

The coincidences between the Second Book of Esdras and the New Testament writings are of a diferent kind, and point to the origin of the former as later than the Christian era. The Introduction prefixed to it, chs. i., ii., was evidently written by a Christian, dwelling as it does on the rejection of the Jews.

"I gathered you together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings; but now, what shall I do unto you?"

And again :

"I will give these the everlasting tabernacles (see Luke xvi. 9) which I have prepared for them."

"Ask and ye shall receive; pray for few days unto you, that they may be shortened; the kingdom is already prepared for you: watch."

"As for the servants whom I have given thee, these shall not one of them perish."

"I Esdras saw upon the mount Sion a great people, whom I could not number, and they all praised the Lord with songs. . . . So I asked the angel, and said, What are these, my lord? He answered and said unto me, These be they that have put off the mortal clothing, and have put on the immortal, and have confessed the name of God: now are they crowned, and receive palms." (Ch. i. 30; ii. 13, 26, 42, 44, 45.)

These passages and others are plainly copies from the New Testament, not anticipations, like the texts previously quoted.

A passage yet more remarkable occurs in ch. vii.

"The Bride shall appear, even the city coming forth, and she shall be seen that now is withdrawn from the earth. And whosoever is delivered from the foresaid evils, the same shall see My wonders. For My Son Jesus shall be revealed with those that be with Him, and shall rejoice them that remain four hundred years. After these years shall My Son Christ die, and all that have the breath of life." (Vers. 26-29.)

Such passages clearly attest a post-Christian origin, whatever their interpretation may be. This Book of Esdras is, in fact, a kind of Apocalypse; a collection of visions of the future; throwing light upon early Christian thought only half-emancipated from Judaism, and setting up the name of Esdras (Ezra) as if to show that the Revelation to St. John had been anticipated in pre-Christian times.

With regard to the more ancient apocryphal books, it is an interesting question how far they recognise the hope of the Messiah. It might have been thought that as the fulness of the times drew near there would have been a deepening of expectation, a more glowing utterance of longing and of hope. Nothing of the kind, however, appears. There is instead a melancholy confession that the spirit of prophecy had ceased. "The time that no prophet appeared" is marked off as a definite era, introductory to a period of disaster and sorrow. Of Simon the Maccabee it is said that "The Jews

and the priests were well pleased that Simon should be their leader and high priest for ever, until there should arise a faithful prophet; "1 and when the altar of burnt offerings was pulled down by the restorers of the Temple because the heathen had profaned it, the stones were laid up in the Temple mountain "until there should come a prophet to give an answer concerning them." But this is all. There was a recognised possibility, even an expectancy, but no passion of longing. Nor was there in this anticipation any yearning for redemption. The hope of a Saviour seems to have died out of the nation's heart. The brilliant summary of famous men and their deeds which occupies seven of the closing chapters of Ecclesiasticus ends with this Simon, and his exploits as a reformer, but does not in any way lift the soul, after the manner of inspired Old Testament prophecy, to the coming Christ.

One passage at least there is, in which the thought of persecuted and suffering goodness is presented with such detail as irresistibly to lead the Christian reader to the contemplation of the Man of Sorrows. A few couplets may be quoted. The enemies of the good are speaking:

"He professeth to have knowledge of God,
And nameth himself Servant of the Lord;
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts,
He is grievous unto us even to behold,
Because his life is unlike other men's,
And his paths are of strange fashion.

The latter end of the righteous he calleth happy;
And he vaunteth that God is his Father.

Let us see if his words be true,

And let us try what shall befall in the ending of his life.

For if the righteous man be God's Son, He will uphold him.

And He will deliver him out of the hands of his adversaries.

With outrage and torture let us put him to the test,
That we may learn his gentleness,
And may prove his patience under wrong.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
For he shall be visited according to his words."
(Wisdom ii. 13-20.)

But remarkable as this is, it is not prophecy. A similar passage might be quoted from Plato. The conflict of malice with probity is indeed no unusual theme with moralists. Christian revelation and inspired prophecy add the thought of atonement and of resurrection. In the "Wise Man's" words we look in vain for the declarations: "Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin," and "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied."

On the whole, while we have in these books no part of the Bible, nothing God-inspired and therefore profitable, much profit of another kind is to be gleaned from their pages. They abound in side-lights on the Old Testament and the New; while the erroneous doctrinal teaching which they contain and the mistakes and legends here and

1 1 Macc. iv. 46; ix. 27; xiv. 41.