A Protestant Defends the “Apocrypha”
I quote from Protestant authority William Heaford Daubney’s The Use of the Apocrypha In the Christian Church, published by C. J. Clay & Sons, Cambridge University Press, 1900, pp. 106-110.
Daubney refutes some of the alleged contradictions which leveled by Protestants against the canonicity of the “Apocrypha,” such as the book of Tobit depicting the Angel Raphael as lying.
To Tobias and Sarah. Daubney showed that the exact same arguments raised against the “Apocrypha” can be levelled against the proto-canonical writings since they too contain similar “problems.” All emphasis will be mine.
CHAPTER X.
Conclusion.
The instances and quotations which I have adduced have been chosen with a view to illustrate the use of the Apocrypha, in accordance with the subject of this essay. No doubt, in certain writers, an equal number of instances might be discovered of its systematic depreciation ‘. But in most cases the accusations brought against the Apocrypha (when they are not mere captious fault-finding) arise from judging it by too high a standard—a standard so unattainably high that the canonical books themselves in many cases will hardly reach it. Indeed, many of the shortcomings alleged against the Apocrypha might with equal facility be brought against the books of the Canon, as in fact by unbelievers they often are.
If St Matt, xxiii. 33 (“the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias”) and xxvii. 9 (“that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet “) had been found in one of our apocryphal books, would they not have been quickly seized upon as proofs of its unhistoric and uninspired character? I think so. “Too great a wish to discover distinctions between the teaching of apocryphal and canonical books of Scripture has been father to the thought” is a very true observation of the Rev. J. M. Fuller in his Introduction to Tobit 1.
Professor J. K. Cheyne2 goes somewhat further. Referring to certain sayings in the Apocrypha the moral tone of which has been questioned, he says, “I admit the imperfections of these moral statements but can they not, several of them, be paralleled from the Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes?”
Hooker, E. P., v. 20, justly observes, “An eager desire to rake together whatsoever might prejudice or any way hinder the credit of the Apocryphal books, hath caused the Collector’s Pen to run as it were on wheels, that the mind which should guide it, had no leisure to think, &c.” And again, “If in that which we use to read there happen by the way any clause, sentence or speech, that soundeth towards error, should the mixture of a little dross constraine the Church to deprive herself of so much Gold, rather than learn how by art and judgment to make separation of the one from the other?“
For instance, the History of Susannah has been represented as having an immoral or indecent tendency: but surely an accusation of this kind might be, and has been, brought against several passages of the Old Testament, which it is not necessary to specify.
The mention of Tobias’ dog1 has ever been a favourite opening for ridicule with those who desire to depreciate these books. One of the German commentators says that Balaam’s ass has ever afforded an opportunity for the infidel to take his most cheerful ride upon it: in like manner, we may say that the scoffers at the Apocrypha have ever barked out their merriest sallies in company with Tobias’ dog. We have already seen2 how Bishop Wilson treated this trifling cavil. And with regard to Tobias’ fish (ichthus), is it much more marvellous than Jonah’s (ketos)?
Then, much objection is raised to the act of Judith in slaying Holofernes. It is pretended that a licence is given to treachery and murder. But what then are we to say to the act of Jael in slaying Sisera? If the Book of Judith is to be accused of sanctioning treachery and murder, the same may be said, and indeed has been, of the Book of Judges. Yet the Church has never felt called upon to expunge that book from the Canon, or to admit the accusation as true. Of the two acts, Judith’s and Jael’s, taking all the circumstances into account, Judith’s may, I think, be the most readily defended1.
An objection has been felt against Wisd. i. 14 as contrary to the doctrine of original sin: but surely it is no more so than Jer. i. 5 or St Luke i. 15, passages regarded as quite unobjectionable.
Another objection, one of fact and not of feeling, has been brought against the books of Maccabees. An account of the death of Antiochus Epiphanes is given in the second book (ix.) which entirely differs from that in the first (vi.). Hence it is argued that the historian must be untrustworthy, and that it is no credit to the Church to allow such books to be bound up with her Bible. But here, again, it is attempted to apply a stricter standard to the apocryphal than the canonical books; for a similar phenomenon appears in the Second Books of Kings and of Chronicles, where (ix. 28, xxii. 9) two different accounts are given of the death of Ahaziah, king of Judah. Yet we have never deemed it needful to repudiate either of those books.
Lastly, to revert for a moment to Tobit, the archangel Raphael has been accused of duplicity and dishonourable conduct; and, of course, the author and users of the book for pious purposes, of condoning his double-dealing. And all this because he appears to Tobias as a young man, and accompanies him as such on his journey to Ecbatane and back (v. 4, 5), and does not make his angelic nature known until they were well returned to Nineve (xii. 15)1. But surely those who speak in this way of Raphael’s action have forgotten the walk to Emmaus, and how Christ (with all reverence be it said) concealed His identity from the two disciples, when “their eyes were holden that they should not know him” (Luke xxiv. 16). In extenuation too of Raphael’s conduct it may be noted that the title he assumed is not without significance as an indication of his real position. “Azarias, the son of Ananias,” means the Lord’s help springing from the Lord’s mercy2.
The fact is that in some quarters the Apocrypha has not met with fair treatment, or anything approaching to it. Like the canonical books it has its serious difficulties, and, from the lower position which it holds, we might, I think, have expected a larger crop of them than it actually yields. But the more it is used with devoutness and candour, in the spirit which our Church points out and in her formularies exemplifies, the more, I think, shall we be disposed (even if we do not go so far as Whitgift) to agree with those words of Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, which I have already cited, “that patience and study will show that the Apocrypha and the Canon are agreed.”