The ambiguity of the word “apocryphal.”
The ambiguity of the word “apocryphal.”
We must note carefully here that the ancient writers use the expression “apocryphal books” in two senses. (1) They use it to refer to books whose origin is hidden. About these it is not at all evident that they are canonical and divine. Nevertheless they can be read in the Church to edify behavior. Eusebius calls these 
, “doubtful and disputed” writings. (2) They also call apocryphal those books that contain fables, errors, and lies; consequently, these must not be read in the Church. Eusebius calls them “corrupt, spurious, absurd, and wicked writings.” The prior sense occurs in Jerome (Prologus galeatus) and the latter in Augustine (De civ. Dei, bk. 15, c. 23), Origen (homily 1 on Song of Songs), Jerome (Epist. ad Laetam de institutione filiae), and Gelasius ([Jus canonicum,] dist. 15, c. Sancta Romana). Books of the former kind are called apocryphal in the sense that they are hidden, that is, their origin is hidden and concealed. Books of the latter kind are called apocryphal in the sense that they are to be hidden and not read in the Church.
§ 68. Regarding the distinction between canonical and apocryphal books, we have a serious opponent in the Papists. With the exception of 3 and 4 Ezra, 3 and 4 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, the Appendix to the Book of Job, and Psalm 151, they consider all the other books canonical, as many as are contained in the codex of the Bible. Therefore the Council of Trent, sess. 4, lists the books, both canonical and apocryphal (including Sirach, Wisdom, Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees), and adds: “Whoever does not acknowledge these entire books—with all their parts as they are accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and are considered in the ancient Latin Vulgate edition as sacred and canonical—and knowingly and intentionally holds the aforementioned traditions in contempt, let him be anathema.” In Notae divini verbi, published in folio, p. 26, Possevinus writes: “They wanted to remove six books, as well as several parts of Daniel.” Lindanus writes: “They contaminate themselves with wicked sacrilege who try to place within the corpus of the Christian Scriptures some grades, as it were, of authority, because with the wicked discerning power of human foolishness they are daring to divide and draw apart one and the same voice of the Holy Spirit into various classes of disparate authority” (Panopl., bk. 3, c. 4). Campianus, Rat. 1: “The Protestants want the written Word of God to settle all their controversies, yet they cripple that very Word that alone stands firm as they cut so many parts out of the entire corpus.”