The seven last chapters of the Book of Esther.
The seven last chapters of the Book of Esther.
§ 198. That the opinion of our churches may be more clear, we say that a distinction must be made between the genuine and canonical Booh of Esther, which contains nine chapters written in the Hebrew language, and the appendix, which contains the seven final chapters that we do not have in Hebrew. We are speaking about these last seven chapters when we deny that that section connected to the Book of Esther as an appendix is canonical. Campianus accuses us, saying we “reject the Book of Esther from the canon” (Rat. 1). If he is speaking about the entire Book of Esther, however, he is doing us an injustice. As a consequence, in his defense of Campianus against Whitaker, Duraeus explains Campianus’s statement by saying that “he only means the appendix of Esther.” An anonymous Papist author, in a manuscript scattered throughout Austria in earlier years, also accuses us of “excluding the Book of Esther from the canon,” but he burdens us with a grave injustice. You see, we do not at all remove the entire Book of Esther from the canon—only the last seven chapters.