The first_ printed English Bible containing the Apocrypha was that of Miles Coverdale, 1535. In a short prologue, Coverdale describes these writings as ‘The bokes and treatises which amonge the fathers of olde are not rekened to be of like authorite with the other bokes of the byble, nether are they founde in the Canon of the Hebrue.’ After giving a list of them, which agrees in order with our own as far as the end of Sirach, the translator adds ; ‘ Unto these also belongeth Baruc, whom we haue set amonge the prophetes next vnto Jeremy, because he was his scrybe and in his tyme.’ He then explains that these books ‘are not iudged amonge the doctours to be of like reputacion with the other scripture, as thou [good reader] mayest perceaue by S. Jerome in epistola ad Paulinum. And the chefe cause therof is this: there be many places in them, that seme to be repugnaunt vnto the open and manyfest trueth in the other bokes of the byble. Neuertheles, I haue not gathered them together to the intent that I wolde haue them despysed, or little sett by, or that I shulde think them false, for Iam not able to proue it.’
The above ‘ gathering together’ of the Apocry- phal books into one place, while it might seem an
*It will be instructive to note the progress made in a parallel revision movement—that concerned with the German Luther Bible. We are enabled to do this by a paper of Dr. Philip Schaff’s in the Hapositor, 3rd ser. vol. v. p. 468 ff. The work was begun, in 1863, by the Eisenach German Evangelical Church Conference, and the result of their labours appeared at Halle, in 1883, under the title: Die Bibel, oder die ganze Heilige Schrift des Alten und Neuen Testaments nach der deutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers. The revised NT had been already published separately. The Halle publication was re- garded as a Probe-bibel, or specimen of what was proposed. The revision was carried out with extreme care, but in too conservative a spirit ; as may be judged from the fact that, while the English revised NT contained some 36,000 changes, the German contained only 200. Failing to please either party —those who desired and those who deprecated change—‘ it was recommitted by the Eisenach Conference of 1886 for final action.’ After being subjected to a second and more thorough- going revision, and kept back for the proverbial nine years, the Luther Bible was issued again at Halle in 1892. A Preface by Dr. O. Frick, Director of the v. Canstein Bible Society, gives an interesting account of the progress of the work, and the lines on which it had been carried out. Still more than in the English revision, the difficulty was how to steer judiciously between opposite extremes: to correct errors and remove archaisms, without needlessly disturbing the venerable ‘rust’ on Luther’s handiwork ; to keep in view the wants of school and congregation, while not forgetful of the more fastidious taste of scholars ;—in short, to pacify alike those who would summarily recast the whole version, and those who would leave it altogether untouched — the large class of those whom Dr. Frick might have described as holding to the opinion of Magy. Petrus Lapp, in the Epp. obseur. Virorum : ‘Sacra scriptura putisioneer est translata, et non indigemus aliis translationi- bus.’
Dr. Frick refers, for fuller information on the subject, to Das Werk dev Bibelrevision, Halle, 1892. See also two articles by Dr. H. L. Strack in the Hapositor, 3rd ser. ii. pp. 178-187 ; y. pp. 193-201; and Funck’s Beurteilung der rev. Ausgabe d. NV.T. 1892, . . . Cannstadt, 1896,
_ + For afuller treatment of the subject, see the art. ApocryPHa in yol. i., that by Bishop Ryle in Smith’s DB, and Dv. Salmon’s General Introduction to the Apocr. in the Speaker's Commentary.
appropriate bridging over of the interval between the Old and New Testaments, undoubtedly tended to make deeper and more sharply cut the line dividing the canonical from the uncanonical books, and to diminish the esteem in which the latter were held. So long as these were interspersed among the canonical, as in the Greek and Latin Bibles, it was natural that, in the popular mind, the two classes should be indiscriminately re- garded as Scripture. Even Colet, in his hyght Jruitfull Monicion, cites or refers to Sirach more frequently than any other book ; and later still, in the two Books of Homilies (1547 and 1563), we find passages from the Apocr. quoted as ‘ Scripture written by the Holy Ghost,’ or as ‘the Word of God.’ * But, when the Apocryphal writings were grouped together by themselves, the thought easily suggested itself, to the Puritan at any rate, that they might be dispensed with altogether. It is said that some copies of the Genevan Bible of 1576 were issued without the Apocrypha.+ In any case, the practice of printing Bibles not con- taining the Apocr. must have continued, for in 1615 it was judged of sufficient importance by Archbishop Abbot to be prohibited, under pain of one year’s imprisonment. This prohibition was of little avail in arresting the course of public opinion. In 1643 Dr. John Lightfoot, when preaching before the House of Commons, com- plained of the privilege, curtailed as it was, still enjoyed by the Apocryphal writings. He speaks of them not as connecting, but as separating, the Old and New Testaments. ‘Thus sweetly and nearly,’ he exclaims, ‘ should the two Testaments join together, and thus divinely would they kiss each other, but that the wretched Apocrypha doth thrust in between.’ ‘Like the two cherubins in the temple oracle,’ he continues, the Law and the Gospel would touch each other, ‘did not this patchery of human invention divorce them asunder.’ +