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of Jubilees, assigned by the most recent scholarship to c. 130 B.C. ; the Psalms of Solomon, dating from B.C. 70-40; and the Asswmption of Moses, which appears to have been written practically at the dawn of the Christian era (A.D. 7-30). These and other pseudepigrapha dating from the early cen- turies of our era (¢.g. the Apocalypse of Baruch and the Ascension of Isaiah) are mostly apocalyptic, and, while throwing a valuable supplementary light on the religious views of the Jewish people in the time of our Lord, do not take rank with the ‘deutero-canonical’ books. Although they are sometimes termed apocryphal (Iren. Har. i. 20), they form no part of the OT Apocrypha properly so called, and perhaps we may take the latter as representing on the whole the continuity both of literature and dogma. At the same time, for the sake of completeness, it will be necessary to include in our historical survey material sup- plied by the pre-Christian Jewish literature gener- ally, as well as by the writings of Philo and Josephus, which date from the Ist cent. of the Christian era. : The history of the Church, moreover, no less than the expansive power of Divine truth, leads us to expect that there should be such a bridge between OT and NT doctrine. Almost any 400 years of Church history have witnessed important new developments of doctrine ; and every age has found occasion to sift and discuss many points that never suggested themselves to those of an ear- lier time. Our own religious perspective has dis- tinctly changed within a relatively shorter period. And, mutatis mutandis, is it at all likely that the Jewish theology of the post-Prophetic period took no colour of its own from the special circumstances, struggles, and aspirations of the age? No doubt it is true, as Langen* points out, that the OT could never have developed itself into the NT, as the seed does into the plant, seeing that a new and miraculous fact which could not develop, but was accomplished by Divine statute at a definite moment (viz. the Incarnation), came in and sharply defined the boundary line between the old and new economies, and expressed their essential difference of character. But, though the term development be inapplicable here, it is otherwise as regards doctrine, which must always of necessity develop itself. This is a natural law in the spiritual world which will not be denied. Are we, then, to sup- pose that this organic development within the sphere of Jewish theology met with a sudden check after the issue of the books composing the Heb. Canon,—ceased, in fact, in order to the sub- sequent sudden appearance of quite new truths? Such a thing, to say the least, would be a great anomaly, and to many the Apocryphal books have furnished some tangible and valuable links in the chain of biblical truth. f Certainly, none can with reason refuse to believe that in the eventful period of Jewish history to which they owe their origin there was produced, and in these works preserved, something of signifi- cance for the universal Church of God. Yet they have been denounced as worse than worthless. Few will now accept the bitterly hostile verdict of the Edinburgh Bible Society in 1825, that ‘the whole work (sic) is replete with instances of vanity, flattery, idle curiosity, affectation of learning, and other blemishes; with frivolous, absurd, false, superstitious, and contradictory statements.’+ For while the Apocrypha admittedly do contain inaccu- racies, offences against good taste, and even serious deviations from ‘sound doctrine,’ it is ridiculous to speak of the whole collection as ‘bad in itself,
* Judenthum in Paldstina zur Zeit Christi, p. 64.
+ Statement relative to the circulation of the Apocrypha (1825), Appendix, p. 8. EXTRA VOL.—18
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bad in its effects, bad in every point of view,’ * or as a ‘miserable heap of fables and romances, of pitiful fooleries and base falsehoods, of vile im- postures and gross immoralities.’+ Such an esti- mate of the main portion of the religious literature of the centuries preceding the advent of Christ amounts to the negation of the great law of spiritual evolution, according to which utter stag- nation in the matter of doctrinal development is a virtual impossibility. The developments of such a period may have been strange, retrograde, and misguided, as well as normal, progressive, and healthy ; but development of some sort there must have been. And we must look for the reflexion of this, such as it was, in the Apocryphal literature as the written repository of the religious thought of the age. Reasonable as this view of the case appears to be, it has been too often either quite overlooked or vehemently rejected. By those who concede to these books no right save that of being anathematized, it will of course be considered monstrous to take account of them at all in con- nexion with biblical doctrine. And this class has had, and probably still has, its representatives in various quarters. For rooted aversion to the Apocrypha has not been confined to Scotland. A German writer} rather wildly says, ‘They tear asunder the code of Divine revelation’; but the real question, which we must not allow to be obscured by a statement of this sort, is, How does NT doctrine stand related to that of the Hebrew Canon? Is there any middle ground? And do these post-canonical books furnish us with that middle ground? Do they show us any doctrines in a transition stage of development between the OT - and NT positions? ‘Science,’ says Reuss, ‘can never ignore or neglect with impunity the regular succession and natural connexion of facts, and it acts under a singular illusion when it attempts to bring together the two ends, after cutting away the thread which unites them’ (Apostolic Age, 1. p. 70, Eng. tr.). May not the Apocrypha in this case be the uniting thread which some have been too eager to cut away? ,