3 and 4 Maccabees.
3 and 4 Maccabees.
§ 175. Third and Fourth Maccabees. Franciscus Turrianus (De can. apost., bk. 1, c. 11) argues strongly that we must accept 3 Maccabees into the canon because the Apostolic Canons (Can. 84. apostol.) count three Books of Maccabees among the canonical books. Those Apostolic Canons, however, are proven to be apocryphal by: (1) The manner of their style. They call ministers of the Church clerici [“clerics”], though in their genuine writings [the apostles] never assign this word solely to ministers of the Church but call the whole Christian people the clerum [“lot, portion”] (1 Pet. 5:3).
(2) The comparison of time. There are many things that argue that these canons were written after the times of the apostles, especially that which speaks about the offering above the altar, canon 3; about the distinct grades and ordinations of bishops and presbyters; about celebrating Easter before the vernal equinox; about the consecrated gold and silver vessels; about bishops leaving a “parish,” a word not yet used in the apostolic Church; about those who castrate themselves, since Origen provided the occasion for this canon long after apostolic times; about cantors and lectors who had not yet been established; and about bishops getting churches through the favor of secular powers at a time when all secular powers were hateful toward Christians. There are others similar to these.
(3) The confession of the more sensible Papists. In [Jus canonicum,] dist. 15, c. Sancta Romana: “The book of apostolic canons is apocryphal.” In dist. 16 they are rejected by Isidore’s authority: “Because the apostolic see did not accept the canons that we call ‘apostolic’ and because the holy fathers did not give them their approval because they are considered to have been written by heretics under the name of the apostles, though we find many useful things in them, it is nevertheless evident that their acts have been removed from canonical and apostolic authority and that they are considered among the apocryphal writings.” Possevinus, Apparat. sacr., title Clemens: “In this place, however, we do not have to give such a strong defense of the Apostolic Canons as that undertaken by Franciscus Turrianus, a man of great zeal and erudition, so that we do not oppose the authorities of such great fathers. After all, he does not prove that individual canons are legitimate but in general that some are canons of the apostles.”
Although Baronius tries to support the authority of those canons, nevertheless he wavers, as is apparent from Annal., vol. 2, year 102, sect. 11, and vol. 8, year 692, sect. 47. In fact, on year 58, sect. 23, when the opportunity is given from Apostolic Canon 5, which condemns the presbyter or deacon who gets rid of his wife under the pretext of religion, he clearly repudiates those canons. He writes: “It is not that anyone is stirring up a question about a canon of the apostles, for the authority of apocryphal writings is not so great that they may remove the things that are reasonable, certain, and firm.” Yet this canon 5 is included among the fifty that he had earlier said were known to antiquity. When he rejects it, he erases everything Turrianus had said on behalf of their authority.
** Jodoc. Clichtovaeus writes (commentary on bk. 4 of the Damascene, c. 18): “In its beginning, the Church had the canons and rules of the apostles, collected by Clement, handed down to the institutions of the Church, etc. Now, however, we lack them because of the injury and malice of the times.” **
Bellarmine, De verbo Dei, bk. 1, c. 20, § Quod ad priorem, etc.:
It seems probable that such a canon was not [the result of] Clement’s [effort]. Pope Zepherinus, the fifteenth pope from Peter, says, in Epistle 1, that there were only seventy canons of the apostles or, as some codices have it, sixty. Humbertus, in his book Contra Nicetam, acknowledges only fifty, but he is the eighty-fourth. Surely Zepherinus knew better how many canons of the apostles there were than any of the later popes. Consequently, Gelasius, not without reason, [Jus canonicum,] dist. 15, c. Sancta Romana, placed the canons of the apostles among the apocryphal writings because some seem to have been corrupted or added by heretics…. Next, in canon 84 the canonical books are listed, but some are omitted that most certainly were canonical, such as the Books of Ezra, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the Apocalypse. This does not seem to be of small importance. For the Church that existed after the apostles has not taught which books are canonical and which are not from any other source than from the tradition of the apostles. Furthermore, in that same canon 84, there are listed among the sacred books not only 3 Maccabees but also the two epistles of Clement and the Apostolic Constitutions of the same Clement, none of which the Church has ever acknowledged as sacred ….
For more on the Apostolic Canons, see Centur. Magdeb. 1, bk. 2, c. 7, and Rivetus, Critic. sacr., p. 107.
From the Apostolic Canons, therefore, one will by no means be able to demonstrate the canonical authority of 3 Maccabees, which, along with 4 Maccabees, is proved to be apocryphal: (1) Because no prophet wrote them nor were they written in a prophetic language. (2) Because they lack the Church’s testimony. In his Synops., Athanasius mentions 4 Maccabees, but he places it outside the canon.