350 AD: Cyril of Jerusalem
350 AD: Cyril of Jerusalem
350 AD: Cyril of Jerusalem[1] gives us a canon list, which expressly accepts Baruch and implicitly accepts Susanna. The other Apocrypha are not mentioned, and exactly what Cyril intends with them is debated. He says, “[b]ut let all the rest be put aside in a secondary rank. And whatever books are not read in Churches, these read not even by thyself, as thou hast heard me say.” However, that comment might only relate to a second tier of New Testament Books (it comes after the New Testament list, not the Old). Cyril himself cites to Sirach and Wisdom only a dozen times, but one time, he does refer to Wisdom as coming “from Solomon.” His use of them even once runs counter to the interpretation that he means that the Books are never to be read by anyone, of course—but he would hardly be the first to tell people not to do what he had done.
To me, the lack of clarity is, in fact, the answer: no one really followed Cyril’s idea, or we would know what people were doing and, hence, what he meant. So, the list is just what it says: he accepted two Apocrypha; he does not support the rest; and otherwise, it is just his ambiguous list.
However, although I generally avoid discussion of the Septuagint, note that what Cyril’s canon list actually says is, “Read the Divine Scriptures, the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, these that have been translated by the Seventy-two Interpreters. … For the process was no word-craft, nor contrivance of human devices: but the translation of the Divine Scriptures, spoken by the Holy Ghost, was of the Holy Ghost accomplished.” In other words, Cyril does not evidence Jerome’s Hebraica Veritas. He would not view the Protestant Books as the same as those named on his canon list; his express statement is that the Greek versions are the Divinely-inspired versions, not the Hebrew (and he was not alone, that view was common in the early Church).[2]
Cyril’s views have several implications—the first and most obvious of which relates to Susanna being inarguably Scripture. His full actual quote (i.e., his list of Books plus his ode to the Septuagint) is literally saying that the word Daniel on his list absolutely, positively means the Greek Daniel (with Susanna) and definitely not the Hebrew Daniel (without Susanna).[3] So, even if we lacked citation evidence to confirm it, Susanna is on the list.
Second is that he expressly lists Baruch as part of Jeremiah, which itself evidences that the Septuagint did indeed include Baruch (either as part of “Jeremiah” or separately).
But third, his entire concept is (for us) a strange hybrid: he accepts only the Septuagint versions, but also only the 22 Books, although his 22 include two Apocrypha. In point of fact, Cyril supports no modern Church’s Bible.
The entire canon discussion is often a matter of labels over contents: the names on a canon list may match the names of Protestant Books, but many a Father plainly states somewhere that the Protestant Books (the Masoretic Hebrew texts) are not his Books.[4] That two Books share a name does not make them the same Book, or make both of them “the” Book identified by that name. E.g., the Christian Bible and the Jewish Study Bible both say “Bible.”
Of course, the ground rules of the canon debate essentially exclude this point as ‘out of bounds’—everyone is supposed to understand that the canon is an esoteric discussion of names only. However, in the case for Christianity, the ground rules do not apply, and this ignored aspect of the canon debate would cause many other complications. The Septuagint problem, as I think of it, is a bit outside of my own arcanely-defined scope because I do not have space to cover all the aspects. So I will just pick one, and pick on Kruger again.[5]
Recall that his model is that the sheep heard the Shepherd’s voice as spoken through the canonical Books, which caused the early Church to accept the correct Books. The Shepherd’s voice came through a book, not a name on a canon list. Kruger’s model actually has nothing at all to do with the canon and the ‘correct list of names of Books.’ Instead, the model relates to the actual set of Books, through which the Shepherd spoke.
So which versions of Daniel, Jeremiah, etc. are the correct ones? The longer Septuagint[6] versions (with Susanna, Baruch, etc.): those are the versions the early Church accepted and thereby authenticated, so those are the versions the Shepherd spoke through. The names on the canon lists merely help us identify Books; what the Church accepted were Books, not names.
After all: which version of Luke is the true one, the shorter version of the heretic Marcion or the longer version authenticated by Irenaeus? Kruger’s model points us to the long form, because that is the document the Shepherd spoke through, as authenticated by the corporate reception of the early Church. They share a name, but what the model points to is the Book, not its name.
One last thing is that Cyril is not known as “of Jerusalem” for nothing. But he is not alone: Melito went “to the East” for his list; Epiphanius was from just outside of Jerusalem; Rufinus lived in Jerusalem for a while; and Jerome set up operation in Bethlehem. Eusebius was nearby, too. A disproportionate number of lists seem to derive from the Holy Land, and yet they give us different canon lists—even the ones expressly giving us Jewish lists (or expressly matching the Jewish list). Melito says Wisdom and skips Esther, using Greek names that imply Susanna and Baruch; Cyril includes Baruch and Susanna; Epiphanius includes Wisdom, Sirach, Susanna, and Baruch; Rufinus accepts Baruch and Susanna; and Jerome accepted Susanna. None matched the modern Jewish/Protestant list. Jerome is almost there, almost 400 years after Christ, but someone else will have to take that final step. As it is, all five lists accepted Susanna; four of five accepted Baruch; perhaps two accepted Wisdom; one accepted Sirach; one was missing Esther.[7]
[1] www.bible-researcher.com/cyril.html
[2] E.g., Rufinus: “The seventy translators, each in their separate cells, produced a version couched in consonant and identical words, under the inspiration, as we cannot doubt, of the Holy Spirit…” www.newadvent.org/fathers/27052.htm, II 33.
[3] And yet despite his Ode to the Septuagint he actually means the Theodotion Daniel: his quotes of Susanna/Daniel come from the Theodotion. This is an often-confused discrepancy, both among ancients (as we saw with Rufinus) and moderns: basically, everyone assumes their Greek version of Daniel is the Septuagint, but actually, starting after 150 AD, the Greek version people are using is the Theodotion. It might seem trivial, but, for example, the Orthodox Study Bible (Intro, p. vi, 2008 ed.) claims to have the original Bible because (they claim) they have the Septuagint as their Old Testament—but they are wrong, they too have the Theodotion Daniel, and not the Septuagint.
[4] I mention this with Cyril because his list actually includes it, but other Fathers with lists sing the same Odes (as I call them) elsewhere in their writings.
[5] Which I feel terrible about. He only gets singled out because he built a case rather than just discussed the canon. I honestly think of myself as Kruger’s biggest fan (who else considered his ideas this carefully?)—but in a Kathy Bates/James Caan sort of way.
[6] Or what they thought of as the Septuagint, since that is what they mistakenly called the Theodotion Daniel, as just noted above.
[7] So too in Alexandria with its large population of Jews: Origen’s and Athanasius’ lists differ.
