CITATION EVIDENCE
CITATION EVIDENCE
It is virtually impossible to avoid confusion when discussing the Apocrypha as a set. There is nothing that really unites them, except that they are the additional Books in Catholic Bibles that are either not in the Protestant Bible at all or separated out as a third category. Otherwise, they are each independent and should be thought of separately to avoid error.
They each have their own data: not every Book is on all the lists like Susanna; not every Book is cited as Scripture in the Jewish Talmud like Sirach; and not every Book has claims to be a Prophecy fulfilled by Christ like the Book of Wisdom. Accordingly, I break each Book out separately.
On the other hand, I will cover all citation evidence[1] for each Book at once, rather than break them out by era. There is sparse evidence for anything before 200, and www.biblindex.org/citation_biblique/search is not complete after 350, so 200-350 is the key era for citation evidence. However, at the end of each section, I include a chart with chronological information for that particular Book, which may be helpful. I also provide a chart of “canon list” data for each of the Apocrypha[2]—I believe that breaking it out by Book for that analysis is vital.
Apocrypha had been cited 2,313 times (www.biblindex.org/citation_biblique/search) before 350 AD, the date by which the first inarguably Christian “canon list” was written. That is as many times as Proverbs and twice as many as Job—both much-quoted core Old Testament Books. The 8 Apocrypha were cited more than 13 canonical Books combined (Ruth, Nehemiah, Zephaniah, Esther, Nahum, Haggai, Habakkuk, Obadiah, Ezra, Amos, Jonah, Lamentations, and 1 Chronicles). As we will see below, they each individually also meet standards set by other comparable Scriptures. From 350-450 AD they were cited an additional 4,404 times.
In addition, what is weak in one instance (a “mere citation”) may be quite strong by the 400th instance of “layering it on.” And there are at least 400 citations to every Apocrypha except Tobit and Judith (which, as historical works, would not be expected to be cited often). As such citations grew in number, (a) the implication becomes much stronger that a writer who does not specifically say (one way or the other) that something is Scripture did so precisely because he and his readership already saw the particular Book as Scripture, and (b) anyone who felt otherwise would have had every reason to be crystal clear about that view and to argue for it, given how many of his readers and peers were simultaneously calling the Book Scripture, etc.
My search for the Fathers’ comments on Apocrypha was as complete as I believe necessary. The various citations that I did not go find to read for myself (and thus present to you) were not worth it, in my opinion. In any event, I give you, by far, the best starting point I know of for your own research into what these citations actually said.
I have searched many books and websites trying to find every piece of evidence there is for the claim that the Fathers supported only the Protestant/Jewish canon and rejected these Apocrypha. When I checked citations and looked for actual sources among the Fathers, I always ended up with the same handful of names, books, and quotes. I simply did not find anything more to it than what I show herein.
I originally did this work to see who said what and when, then use that data to evaluate claims. One thing that stood out was that the Fathers who cited Apocrypha cited to verses throughout the Books, on many issues; and individuals with a large body of works quoted them repeatedly throughout their lives and throughout their discourses, letters, teachings, and sermons. It seems that they knew these Books “cover-to-cover” and used them just like they used the Protestant canon. And the Fathers expected their audience to also know them cover-to-cover. One can argue of course that people have also done such with Plato, Shakespeare, and the Simpsons. But my point is that if I did not find the evidence to be used that way, that might have been a problem.
In addition, the Apocrypha are repeatedly cited in theological treatises and in arguments over heresy. I found no evidence for a “third category” until mentions of the concept (but not really use of the concept) as part of the canon lists (350 AD+), and I never found it for Baruch or Susanna (although maybe Jerome’s obelus with Susanna implicitly creates a third category).
Moreover, not all evidence is equal. A sentence quoting Apocrypha in a book interpreting Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians is one thing—and, sometimes, a thing easily dismissed—but it is not the same thing as an entire Biblical Commentary on the Apocrypha. Bishops were preaching sermons on that day’s readings of Apocrypha, which is more of a commitment to them as Scripture than a citation in a book.[3] Similarly, there was a Feast Day set aside for the Maccabean Martyrs, and a Basilica of the Holy Maccabees. “Put your money where your mouth is,” they say. Well, some folks in “the cradle of Christianity” (Antioch[4]) must have tithed a lot of money for that Basilica dedicated to an Apocrypha.
I present the evidence for the first four Apocrypha (Susanna, Tobit, Judith, and Baruch) by annotating the Books using the KJV as my translation. The first layer of annotations includes every New Testament cross-reference to or from the Apocrypha, as noted in the original 1611 KJV, including possible quotations, fulfilled Prophesies, etc. Also included are additional possible New Testament references to Apocrypha from other sources.[5]
The second layer of annotations are (a) each and every citation where someone in the early Church specifically identified an Apocrypha as not being Christian canon, Scripture, etc., as well as (b) a selection of citations I found and read from all the works of the Church Fathers through 450 AD that cite the relevant Book from the Apocrypha as Sacred Scripture (or similar wording).[6] I stopped my searches (into ever more obscure and hard to find works of the Fathers) after finding over 1500 citations to all the Apocrypha as “Scripture”—and specifically after finding 500 to Wisdom, 500 to Sirach, and over 500 for the others.[7] I also give you website links to find many original sources online so that you can read the context.
In addition, I also identify some citations that confirm doctrine[8] and “citations along with books of the Protestant canon without any qualification,”[9] Consider those a very small sampling; there are thousands more out there that just were not worth the trouble of noting them.[10]
My system for annotation is as follows:
Possible references made in the New Testament are bolded and highlighted.[11]
All text from an Apocrypha referred to in a work of the early Church Fathers is underlined.
All citations countering the claim that the Apocrypha are Sacred Scripture are in italics.
All citations supporting the claim that the Apocrypha are Sacred Scripture are bolded.
[1] I am utterly and completely indebted to all those who found and pointed out the citations in the translations, indexes, websites, etc. I quote herein. My own work is just a book report on theirs.
[2] The charts for Susanna and Baruch were already provided earlier. As for the canon lists, some of them have been discussed already, and I will discuss the others later.
[3] Again, this is a point often made re: the New Testament, e.g., “Paul’s insistence that his letters be publicly read… and his readers’ understanding of what public reading would mean within a synagogue context provide good reasons to think that his letters would have been viewed as being in the same category as other “Scripture” read during times of public worship.” Kruger, p. 209. And compare to www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/stewart_don/faq/right-books-in-old-testament/question17-new-testament-quote-old-testament.cfm: “There is also evidence for the Song of Solomon. It was traditionally read at each Passover. This gives testimony to its importance among the people of Israel. Again, it is evidence of its divine inspiration.”
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch
[5] In a few cases, I also note Old Testament cross-references. There were about 700 OT-Apocrypha cross references in the KJV, but it would have been too much clutter to note them all.
[6] However, I do not always include comments that are part of the canon list data set, whether for or against Apocrypha. See the list discussions for that data.
[7] Give or take. I stopped actively counting once my personal spreadsheet reached these numbers, from which I then created this part of the book, double checking everything, deleting some mistakes and duplicates as I went, yet also stumbling on new sources—so I am not sure of the exact final tallies.
[8] I only looked at this piece comprehensively for the Book of Tobit; after that, it just takes too much work and is clearly superfluous. See the discussion under Tobit below.
[9] E.g., quoting Sirach with the Gospels (“as Mark says… and as Sirach says…”) and adding nothing to say that Sirach is not actually Scripture (or only “Ecclesiastical” or only “to be read” but not relied upon to confirm doctrine, etc.). These citations are far too numerous to bother tracking, and I only include a few I thought were notable. As it is, my judgment after reading through a great many of them is that the vast majority of such debatable citations are obviously intended to be to the Apocrypha “as Scripture,” even if they did not say so. But I still did not include them herein, except as mentioned.
[10] Gary G. Michuta, in his book The Case for the Deuterocanon, discusses these categories (which I have stolen/am paying homage to) and the reasons for using them. He gives 100 to 200 citations (for all the books, not for each book) in each such category, presenting them in list form, and then (in that book and his other books) goes into the Catholic theology he believes one should derive from the data. One of the questions I had from Michuta’s book was “Is that a lot?”—not sarcastically, but seriously. Is a measly one or two hundred citations to all the Books over 400 years really a lot, especially when so many come from the same few Fathers? The answer is (a) he did not come close to presenting them all, (b) therefore, his lists by themselves are probably not “a lot,” but (c) yes, I looked into how many there are in total, for each book, and made fair comparisons, and there are definitely a lot by any fair metric.
[11] Note that quotes almost never match the KJV exactly, thanks to translation choices, etc. Also, a few KJV cross-references between the Old Testament Books and Apocrypha are footnoted.
