LECTURE IX.

THE CANON OF INSPIRATION.

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JEREMIAH XXIII. 35.

What hath the Lord spoken?

NEXT in point of importance and interest to the LECT. IX. fact that the sacred writers were inspired, are the questions: What are those books, on behalf of which the claim of Divine Inspiration is advanced? And what is the evidence on which we believe, that a certain specific number are exclusively entitled to this distinction? It is notorious, that nothing like unanimity respecting these points prevails. Not only have they been keenly agitated among theologians of different periods, but collections of books, differing more or less in point of size and number, yet all comprehended under the general name of "the Holy Bible," have obtained in several of the churches in Christendom. The Scriptures, as generally received by us, differ from those in accredited circulation among the Lutherans; the books, to which inspiration is ascribed by that body, are

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LECT. IX. not numerically the same with those for which it is claimed by the Roman Catholics: the catalogues of sacred writings sanctioned in the Romish and Greek churches also differ from each other; while the Armenian Bible contains more books than are to be found in any other. With respect indeed to the books which are commonly circulated in this empire as Divine, and which accord with those composing the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament, there exists no disagreement in the creeds of the different churches. In all and each of these creeds, the claims of the whole Scripture, to the extent in which it is approved by us, are unhesitatingly admitted. But most of the foreign churches have appended to them, intermixed with them, or sanctioned, by promoting their joint circulation, other books or portions, which possess no claim to inspiration. On the other hand, the demands made on our religious regard by some of the books of the Old and New Testament have been called in question both in ancient and modern times.

Origin of the term, Canon.

The term canon, which may be considered as now possessing classical authority in reference to the present division of our subject, is, like many other ecclesiastical words, originally Greek; but for the sake of convenience, it has been adopted into all the languages of modern Europe, just as it was anciently into the Latin, and into the Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Armenian, Slavonic,

and other languages in use in the Oriental LECT. IX. churches.

acceptations

Canon and

In ecclesiastical usage, kavov was anciently Different employed to designate a book or catalogue; a of the terms book containing a list of the different persons Canonical. belonging to any church, particularly those who officiated at the public services; the liturgical writings used on such occasions; and whatever else appertained to the edifice. It was also taken in the sense of a publicly approved catalogue of all the books, which might be read in the public assemblies of the Christians; and in that of a collection of writings divinely inspired. Finally, in application to one of the great ends of such writings, according to its original and literal signification, it was used to denote such writings viewed in the light of an infallible RULE of faith and practice. In the last acceptation the word is repeatedly employed by Irenæus, Tertullian, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Isidore of Pelusium :-a circumstance of no small moment, as furnishing us with an idea of the paramount importance attached by these fathers to the sacred Scriptures, but which appears to have been entirely lost sight of by many of those who have treated on the subject. In modern usage, canonical and inspired are, for the most part, convertible terms: and, indeed, with many of the ancients, those books alone were considered to be canonical, κανονικά, κανονιζόμενα, which were recognised as divine, and to which they

LECT. IX. gave the character of ἐνδιάθηκοι, ἐνδιάθετοι, διαθηκόγραφα, γνησία, ὁμολογούμενα, writings found or entered in the Testaments, genuine, and universally acknowledged to be of divine authority. But as the word was frequently used, in the third and following centuries, in reference to all books that were read in the churches (and other writings besides those which were inspired had this honour conferred upon them), a considerable degree of vagueness came to be attached to it, in consequence of which no small difficulty has attended the attempts that have been made definitely to separate the one class from the other in the works of the Fathers. To the books which have been universally received, Roman Catholic writers give the name of Proto-canonical; and to those which have not been thus received, that of Deutero-canonical:-a distinction, however, which is not allowed by Protestants, who consider those only to be entitled to a place in the canon, which can be proved to have been divinely inspired.

History of the Canon.

The canonicity of the books of Scripture has more or less occupied the attention of all who have applied themselves to the study of their history. It was treated on more or less fully in the ancient church by Melito, Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Jerome, Augustine, and others; and since the Reformation, it has generally occupied one or more sections in the leading bodies of divinity which have appeared in the Roman

Catholic and Protestant churches: besides having LECT. IX. been discussed in separate works, of which those by Cosins, Jones, and Alexander, possess distinguished merit. Since the publication of Semler's Free Inquiry respecting some of the books of the Old Testament in 1771, in which he advanced sentiments that went completely to unsettle the grounds on which the question had been placed, and the appearance of a work on the same subject, and leading to the same results by Corrodi, it has been much agitated in Germany, and numerous attempts have been made to subvert the entire canon of the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as to exclude as spurious whole books of the New Testament. A powerful reaction, however, was produced by the portions of Eichhorn's Introduction,* in which the subject is handled with consummate historical ability; and ever since, there has been a gradual abandonment of the hypothetical reasonings, which had been advanced respecting it, and on the whole an approximation to the views which were entertained, prior to the time of Semler, is now visible in most of the works in which it comes under review.

Owing to the absence of minute historical data, the history of the canon, so far as its formation and completion are concerned, is involved in considerable obscurity. In this respect, little difference exists between that of * § 15 to § 57.