What About the Apocrypha (Part 2)

Last time we began a series of posts considering the Apocrypha, and whether they should be considered as part of the canon. In this post, we will look at how these books were used in the early church.

In the last post, I noted that the Apocryphal books were included in many copies of the Septuagint. This is important because the Septuagint was the Bible used by many early Christians. This was because most early Christians did not speak or read Hebrew, but they did know Greek. This was even true of some early Jewish believers, especially those who did not live in the Holy Land. But it was almost universally true for Gentiles who came to the faith. We can even see evidence of this in the New Testament itself, as many Old Testament quotes seem to come from the Septuagint.

Since many Christians used the Septuagint, and since it contained these books of the Apocrypha, it is not surprising to see early Christians quoting from the Apocrypha, and for some to even consider them as authoritative and part of the canon. To add to this, as animosity developed between the early Church and Judaism, it caused some to want to oppose whatever position Jewish leaders espoused. Therefore, since they rejected the Apocrypha as canonical, there was a tendency to want to take the opposite position and view them as canonical. 

Thus, it is not surprising to see some early leaders of the Church including at least some of the Apocrypha as canonical. For example, Tertullian seems to have accepted the Apocrypha as canonical, and possibly some other books as well. The great father Augustine thought the Old Testament was comprised of 44 books, and he included much of the Apocrypha in this list. Finally, these books were used and read in many churches, and they were also translated into Latin and Greek translations done by early Christians.

All of this is part of why Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox churches included the Apocrypha as part of their canon. However, as we will see in the next post, there were also many early church leaders who did not accept the Apocrypha as part of the Old Testament canon.

In Christ,

Bret