350
CANON
CAPERNAUil
pass to a later age. With Cyril of Jerus. in his catethetical lectures, delivereil circ. A.D. 340, the chusM of books ' openly read in the church ' is colerriiinous with that of those ' acknowledjjed among all,' and is the opposite of ' apocrjphiil ' ; and he knows no third division (Catech. iv. ce. 33, 3."i). Athanasius, on the other hand, writing not long afteiwards, but representing the usages of another Church, distinguishes between ' canonical books,' ' books that are read,' and ' apocryphal books' (Ej>. Fest. 3'J, i. TUS, ed. liened.). And Kulinus at the end of the cent, distinguishes in the same way, and gives the name of ' Church books,' Ecdesiasiici tibri, to the second class {De Symb. zc. 37, 38).
We shall now be in a position to estimate rightly the amount of signilicance to be attached to tlie introduction of the words Canon, canonical, and canonised with reference to the books of Scripture ; b>it we must first determine which of them was so used earliest, and when ? Some have supposed that the em|iloyment of the adjective in this connexion preceded that of the substantive, and tha' it is to be traced back to Origen, on the ground that the epithets cnnonici and regulares are applied to the books of Scripture in portions of his works which we possess only in Kutinus' tr. No reliance can, however, be placed upon this argumeat, since the.se would be the most con- venient'renderings for such a word as ivSLaSriKoi., which, as we have seen, certainly belonged to Origen's terminology. Moreover, Rutinus so renders this very word in passages of Eusebius, where we have both the original and his translation. The earliest instance which can be adduced of the occurrence of either Kavihv or a derivative in the sense now under consideration is in the Festal Epistle of Athanasius above referred to, written in A.D. 3()7. The participle Kapovit^i^fva is there used of the books of Holy Scripture. It seems, however, improbable that the verb Kat'ovl^ay, or its parts, should have been so applied before the term Kapiif had been used of the books collectively. And a little later Amphilochius, the eminent bishop of Iconium, concludes a catalogue of them, which he gives in his Jnnibi ad Seleucum with the words oCroj a.\p€v5^(rra.To^ )s.av^v Si/ fly} Tuiv BeoTrpevaraii^ ypaip/jitf. The word, which originally meant a rod, and thence a measure, had been already applied in the sense of a rule or norm, and that variously, both in classical and ecclesiastical usage. It wiU suffice here to notice the phrase 6 Kaxux ttjs aXriffelas, for the Church's creed, which had long been familiar. It h.as been questioned wliether, when the word Kavuiv was first u.seil in conne.xion with the Scriptures, the primary intention was to express the thought that they form the rule of faith and life for the Christian, or to denote the list whereby the con- tents of the Scriptures is correctly defined. The latter seems to be the true view. It is the simplest ; and, moreover, it would be hard other- wise to explain the use of the verb Kayoyliav, which is applied both to jiarticidar books and to the bot)ks collectively, "rhe other idea would, however, also be readily suggested to the mind by the a.ssociations of the word Kaviiiv. And accordingly we find Isidore of Pelusium, in the earlier half of the .'ith cent., expressing himself thus : ' the Canon of the truth, I mean the Divine Scriptures' (Ep. 114).
It mil be perceived, then, that no essentially new point of view was implied in the use of the term Canon and its derivatives in connexion with Holy Scripture. At the same time it is noteworthy that they began to be employed at a time when special efi'orts were being made in dillerent quarters to remove ambiguities with respect to, and to codify, the contents of the Scriptures.
For further illustrations of some of the points here touched upon, and for the considerations which determined the inclusion or exclusion of particular books, or groups of books, the readei must consult the arts. Apochypha, Old Testa- ment Canon, and New Testament Canon.
V. H. Stanton.
CANOPY {KuvoTreToi', from kui'w^/ (Mt 23-*), gnat, moscjuito). — Originally a mosquito-net. The c.mopy of the bed of Holofcrnes, 'which was of purple, and gold, an<l emerald, and precious stone? inwoven,' was taken by Jiidith 'from the pillars ' as a trophy, and given by her ' for a gift (ifaSri/jxi) unto the Lord' (.Ith 10-' 13»" 16'"). 'Canopy' occurs also in RV at Is 4° 'Over all the glory shall be spread a canopy' (AV 'defence'). The Heb. is n^r^, which here only has the sense of a canopy for protection ; elsewliere it means a bridegroom s (Pi 19') or a bride's (Jl 2'") chamber. F. C. PoRTER.
CANTICLES See Song of Sonos.
CAPER-BERRY (.xV?!* 'abiyydnah, xdinrapn, Ec 12'). The authority of the LXX and of some of the Rabbis is in favour of the tr. ' caper-berry ' KV, instead of 'desire' AV. — This is the fruit of Capparis spinosa, L., a perennial shmb, rooted in the clefts of rocks and walls, with straggling, more or less pendulous, branches, and orbicular to ovate leaves, 1 to 2 inches in length, and white llowers 2 to 3 inches bro.ad. It grows in all the Mediterranean basin. The ripe berry is oblong to obovate-oblong, and 2 to 2^ inches long. The young berries have a pungent flavour, and are pickled as a condiment. The Arabs of the Sin. desert call it el-Asdf, while the peojile of Pal. and Syria know it by the name kabar, which is mani- festly a modification of /cdTrirapis. Like all pungent plants, it is stimulating to the erotic instinct. The idea of those who tr. 'dbiyyonah ' caper-berry ' is that even this stimulant shall fail to excite desire. The principal Rabbi of Beirftt assures me that the tr. of AV ' desire ' is that of the majority of the Jewish commentators. In either case the object is the same, that is, to express the decadence of the bodily powers with the advance of years.