APOCRYPHA

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) Properly, things concealed or put out of sight; applied to certain books, in behalf of which a claim to inspiration has been put forth, but which are supposed to be spurious, and are therefore rejected from the canon of Script i jure. One great distinction between the Roman and the Reformed churches is, that the latter reject certain books, admitted by the former on the same footing as those books about which there is no dispute, from the canon of the Old Testament; viz. the 3d and 4th of Esdras, the book of Tobias, that of Judith, the rest of the hook of Esther, that of Wisdom, of Jesus the son of Sirach, Baruch the prophet, the Song of the Three Children, the story of Susanna, of Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer of Mana es, and the 1st and 2d Maccabees; reading them, as the sixth Article of the English church declares, for example of life and instruction of manners, but not applying them to establish any doctrine. The English church receives no books into the canon of the Old Testament which were not so received by the Jews; and it appears that the writings thus excluded are not quoted by the authors of the New Testament, nor are admitted into any of the earlier catalogues set forth by the Christian fathers. They are also found to contain some manifest inconsistencies, some obviously fanciful relations, and, in one or two pa ages, to countenance tenets at variance with the character, or even the expre declarations, of revealed religion. There exist at the present day various writings purporting to be the Gospels or Epistles of Joseph, of James the Apostle, of St. Paul, an Epistle of Christ himself to king Abgamus, .; which are, for the most part, intrinsically absurd; and, having no external evidence or authority in their favour, have never obtained currency in the church. {See art. Canon.) APODE. [s. 78]