The Novelty of Popery Opposed to the Antiquity of True Christianity, Book 1 · Chapter 60
CHAP. 60. Of Canonical and Apocryphal books. Proofs by Gods word that Tobit, Judith, the Maccabes, &c. are not Canonical.
IN this queſtion, more then in any other, our Adverſaries are at a loſs;M. du Perron handleth this queſtion in the firſt book ch. 50. p. 439, & ſeq. Rom. 3.2. for they have no leſs againſt them then the word of God, reaſon, and the teſtimony of Antiquity.
As for the word of God, every one confeſſeth that the Church of the Jews to which the oracles of God had been committed, did not acknowledge the books of Tobit, Judith, Eccleſiaſticus, Wiſdome, Suſanna, and Maccabes for Canonical. This is known by the teſtimony of Joſephus book 1. againſt Appion, where he reckons but two and twenty books of the Old Teſtament,foreign. and ſaith that the books written ſince the time of Artaxerxes are not ſo worthy of evidence as the precedent. Indeed Joſephus is poſterior in time unto Chriſt: His birth meets almoſt with the time of Chriſts death. And when he writ, the Jews were fallen already from Gods Covenant; but making an enumeration of the ſacred books, he ſheweth what books have been received by the Jews; not only in his time, but alſo in the ages that went before him.
Auſtin ſaith that the Jews hold not theſe books for Canonical.Aug. l. 18. de Civitate Dei cap. 36. & contra ſecundam Epiſt. Gaudent. cap. 23. Wherefore Jeſus Chriſt and his Apoſtles never alledge theſe books. And if ſometimes they mention ſome hiſtory written in the Apocrypha, as the Feaſt of the dedication, John 10.22. they mention alſo, not ſeldom, hiſtories atteſted by the Pagans and by the unbelieving Jews.
The book of Maccabees is is held Canonical by the Roman Church. Yet there mention is made of Alexander the Great and of his victories,Du Perron chap. 30. l. 1. p. 440, & ſeq. which many Pagans had already written before the book of Maccabees was made. St. Paul alledgeth texts out of Menander, Aratus, Epimenides, &c. and that in a point of doctrine. As that which he brings (Acts 17.) out of Aratus, that in God we live and move and have our being. As then the allegation of a book in the New Teſtament is not a proof that the book is Canonical; ſo on the other ſide it is an evident ſign that the books in queſtion are not Canonical, that of ſo great a number of books not one is alledged in the New Teſtament. And if the Apoſtles have uſed ſome word or expreſſion which is found alſo in ſome Apocrypha, it followeth not that the Apoſtles alledge that book; For the ſame word ſhall be be found alſo in Pagan authors.
There is no reaſon then why the books of Judith and Maccabees, &c. having never been divine nor Canonical under the Old Teſtament, ſhould become holy and Canonical under the New, as if they had altered their nature. Neither can we receive the books of the Old Teſtament but from the Church of the Old Teſtament; nor have the books of the Old Teſtament in other eſteem then the Church of the Old Teſtament had them.
The ſame is evident in that theſe books are not found in Hebrew. Now how unlike is it that the book of Wiſdome, if it was made in Hebrew by Solomon, be not extant in Hebrew, and that ill verſions have been preſerved, ſeeing that the divine works of Solomon were ſo precious unto the Jews? And that the Jewiſh Church, which then was the true Church, hath carefully preſerved in their natural language the book of Heſter, and the Prophecies of Jeremiah and Daniel, but ſuffered ſome chapters to be loſt, and not been carefull to preſerve the whole books in their proper tongue? Muſt we ſay that the ſacred books were more perfect among the Grecians then among the Jews, and in the verſions then in the original tongues? Which chapters added to Jeremiah and Daniel whoſo will compare with the chapters that go before, ſhall eaſily perceive that not only they have no connexion with the precedent, but alſo that they contradict them, and that the ſtyle of both is as different as day and night.