The so-called Apocrypha aren’t a book or a section in the bible, as in the Protestant canon but a number of books (Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, The Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach [also called Ecclesiasticus], Baruch, and additions to Daniel and Esther) scattered throughout the Old Testament. These books are called by Catholics and Orthodox “deuterocanonical” books rather than “apocrypha” because they took longer than others to be recognised (e.g. the Pentateuch – which is therefore known as “protocanonical”) as scripture. It seems that Jerome was the first to label them as “apocrypha” (hidden), and Martin Luther and all Protestants since have followed him. However in the early Church the books that were regarded as apocryphal were the spurious and forged gospels, acts and epistles, written fraudulently by Gnostics under the names of apostles; they never regarded our Apocrypha as heretical or spurious; far from it – they used them as scripture.
The canonicity of other OT books, such as Esther and Ecclesiastes, was disputed by the Jews until the 4th century AD, so these too can be said to be deuterocanonical. And in the NT there are also some books classed as deuterocanonical (DC) because they took longer than the protocanonical books (e.g. the Four Gospels) to be recognised. Specifically, Revelation was recognised in the West but took longer in the East; Hebrews was not accepted by the West initially but was recognised in the East; and James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Jude and Revelation took a while to be accepted. Even today, the latter are still regarded as forgeries by liberals and those influenced by their heresy e.g. Muslims.
The version that the Jews used was the Septuagint (or LXX), a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament); this version was used by Jews all over the world and was regarded as authoritative scripture. It was also the version primarily used by Jesus and the apostles; and consequently the version that the early Church used. The large majority of the NT quotes from the OT come from the LXX. The LXX is what we know as the Alexandrian canon and is exemplified in the corrupt Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus. It is still the version used by Ethiopian Jews as their holy scriptures and by the Orthodox churches as their Old Testament.
In the beginning of the Church there was no New Testament as we know it today, but Paul tells us the Church was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph 2:20). So what was their Authority? The Rule of Faith or Tradition (1 Thess; 2:13; 2 Thess 2:1; 1 Cor 15:3-11) which is the embodiment of apostolic teaching; of which the Apostles’ Creed is an example. And the books that made it into the NT canon were those which reflected the teaching of the Tradition. As well as all the NT writings, most of which were recognised as scripture from the beginning, there were other books which were circulating amongst the churches, such as The Shepherd of Hermas, The Didache, letters of Clement, and several others; but the Holy Spirit guided the Church into recognising and accepting the 27 books we now have in our New Testament.
But at this still early period the OT canon was still being debated, and many influential Christians thought the apocrypha should be included in the canon. The book which we today call our bible, including the books labelled “apocrypha”, was first defined formally at the Council of Rome in 383, the Synod of Hippo in 393 and the Council of Carthage in 397, centuries later at the Council of Florence (1431-1449); and as an article of faith at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) in response to the Protestant Reformers who rejected the apocrypha as Scripture.
So why aren’t the Apocrypha in our Bibles Today?
Despite that the apocrypha were included in these early canons by various Church Councils, these Councils were local, not universal, so they don’t speak for the whole Church; and the Councils of Florence and Trent were Roman Catholic, consequently neither do they speak for the whole Church. And to complicate matters, the various Eastern Orthodox Churches have even more than our seven books of the Apocrypha in their canons.
But in the West it wasn’t until the Reformation in the 16th century that the canon was widely challenged. Martin Luther was the first to do so, and when he translated his version of the bible he placed the OT deuterocanonical books between the two Testaments, thus taking away their status as the word of God. So the canonical scriptures we have today in our Protestant bibles have been preserved in the Byzantine manuscripts, the best example of which is the Textus Receptus and the King James Bible. The Protestant Old Testament canon is known as the Palestinian canon because it is the same as the canon of the Palestinian Jews.
Some interesting readings from the Apocrypha found in the New Testament
There are some striking passages in the Apocrypha which can understandably be thought of as being inspired by God.
The crucifixion
For example there is a passage in “Wisdom of Solomon” (2:12-20) which has a remarkable prophetic fulfilling in Matthew 27:39-43 of Christ’s agony and death on the cross. It says, in part, “….he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for according to what he says, he will be protected” (RSV-CE).
The Catholic NABRE comments on the passage: “From 2:12 to 5:23 the author draws heavily on Is 52-62, setting forth his teaching in a series of characters or types taken from Isaiah and embellished with additional details from other texts. The description of the ‘righteous one’ in 2:12-20 seems to undergird the New Testament passion narrative”.
So the reading from Wisdom is not unique to it but has drawn from canonical passages in the OT and made them its own.
The Seven Angels
In Tobit 12:15 the angel Raphael announces “I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord” (RSV-CE). It is surely no coincidence that in Revelation 8:2 John says “And I saw the seven angels who stand before God….” (RSV-CE). Raphael, in a book regarded by Protestants as not being scripture, and in a passage almost word for word with Revelation, reveals that there are seven angels that stand before the throne of God – it is the only passage in the whole bible, apart from Revelation, that says there are seven such angels. How would an uninspired writer know this?
And again, Raphael says “And so, when you and your daughter-in-law Sarah prayed, I brought a reminder of your prayer before the Holy One….” (Tobit 12:12 RSV-CE). Compare this with Rev 8:3-4 “And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne….” (RSV-CE).
The answer is that in the various apocryphal and canonical writings of the Old Testament period, the names of seven archangels are mentioned: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Raguel, Zerachiel, and Remiel. So the writer of Tobit would have been aware of them and that’s how he was able to have Raphael mentioning seven angels. So this precludes Raphael as one of the seven angels who stand before God as being a part of God-inspired Scripture.
The 7 Archangels of the Bible (learnreligions.com)
Whose will she be in heaven?
In Matthew 22:23-33 the Sadducees came to Jesus and tried to confound him with the problem of resurrection for the woman who had seven husbands, each of which died while she still lived. This story obviously comes from the book of Tobit (3:7-17), in which a godly young virgin had married seven times but each time the new husband was slain by the demon Asmodeus (hence the need to banish Asmodeus before she could marry Tobias). Although the Sadducees only recognised the Pentateuch as canonical, they would certainly be familiar with the other books; hence their ability to use this account against Jesus. He replied “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt 22:29 RSV-CE).
Forgive and be forgiven
In yet another passage which has no parallel in the Old Testament, Sirach 28:2 says “Forgive your neighbour the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray” (RSV-CE). Could Jesus have had this verse in mind when he said “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25 RSV-CE)? It’s most likely that Jesus knew of this passage and may well have quoted from it; but that doesn’t elevate it to the level of sacred Scripture. Paul and Jude both quoted from extra-biblical books but that didn’t make them Scripture.
Incarnation of God in Christ
In the Latin variant of Baruch 3:36 -38 it says “This is our God, and there shall no other be accounted of in comparison of him. He found out all the way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. Afterwards he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men” (DRB). Is this not a prophecy of the incarnation of Jesus Christ (Jn 1:14)?
Yes. But Isaiah 9:6 and 49:1-6, to name just two passages, would have been known to the writer of Baruch; therefore this passage is neither unique to Baruch, nor was he inspired to write it as Scripture.
Besides, if Baruch is preserved Scripture, why is it only in the Latin and not the Greek? The Latin bible was highly regarded in the early Church. However it is well documented in the Church Fathers that the Jews removed several passages of the LXX which prophesied of Jesus. And there were several variants of the Hebrew text in circulation at the time, just as there were variants of the Septuagint in circulation. Even today with our Greek New Testament there are variants, as our English versions which are based on them demonstrate. This would explain why the passage in Baruch is not in all variants.
Martyrdom
The writer of Hebrews lists among the heroes of the Faith some people who come from the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. The verse says “Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life” (Heb 11:35 RSV-CE). The first part of this verse is thought by some to refer to a woman who had seven sons, each of whom was tortured and killed by the Greek king to try and make them renounce their faith (2 Macc 7:1-42); the second part to an old man who also was tortured to death after refusing to accept release by eating swine’s flesh (2 Macc 6:18-31). But there is no proof which conclusively prove this; it is debatable at best.
But if the verses in Hebrews do refer to the aforesaid characters in 2 Maccabees, it doesn’t have to mean the whole book of 2 Maccabees becomes scripture (e.g. Enoch is mentioned in Jude yet the whole of Enoch is not scripture) but it can mean that those who deny the apocrypha are scripture can’t use the argument that they’re not mentioned in the New Testament.
“Controversial” passages in the Apocrypha
Prayer for the dead
Protestants reject the Apocrypha as being scripture because there are “unscriptural” doctrines and practices in them. For example there is a passage (2 Maccabees 12:38-45) in which Judas Maccabeus prays for his soldiers who had been killed in battle against the Greek oppressors. We’re told that he took up a collection from the rest of the soldiers so they could offer a sin offering to God because the fallen soldiers were all found to have idols hidden under their tunics. And the passage commends him for his faith and piety in doing so because he looked to the resurrection and to the “splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness”. The passage ends with: “Therefore he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin”(2 Macc 12:45 RSV-CE).
As Catholic and Orthodox Christians regard the Apocrypha as scripture, they are simply (and faithfully) following scriptural practice and acknowledging that prayer for departed believers is effectual. Prayer for the dead was an integral part of the liturgy in the early church, and in the catacombs there are prayers scratched on the walls addressed to departed loved ones to pray for the writer. And they saw no conflict between this passage of 2 Maccabees and the finished work of Christ on the cross. So even if Protestants don’t accept this passage as scripture they still can’t accuse Catholics of inventing any unbiblical ideas, because this practice was pre-Christian.
And even if the Apocrypha aren’t scripture, the passage still shows that the OT Jews did pray for their righteous dead as they looked forward to the Resurrection.
Intercession of the saints
Another doctrine that Protestants regard as unscriptural is that of the intercession of saints; i.e. redeemed sinners who had lived exemplary lives who had died and, in heaven, pray for Christians still living on earth.
Again, Catholics and Orthodox are simply following their scripture when they ask a saint in heaven to pray for them. Their biblical source for this practice is found in 2 Maccabees 15:6-19, in which Judas Maccabaeus is rousing his troops before a battle with the Greeks. During his speech he told them of a vision he’d had, in which Onias, a godly High Priest of the Jews who had earlier been murdered, was praying for the Jews for the coming battle. During his prayer Jeremiah the prophet (long since dead) also came to pray for the Jews. Onias told Judas that Jeremiah prayed much for the Jews and Jerusalem. Jeremiah handed Judah a golden sword, a gift to Judah from God, to strike down the Greek army.
Catholics and Orthodox understand from this passage that not only do departed believers pray for those still on earth, but that Christians on earth can request saints in heaven to pray for them, just as they would request a believer on earth; that there is no difference between them except for their location; that whether we are in heaven or on earth we are still part of the Church; and that asking a saint in heaven to pray is not the same as necromancy, an occult practice forbidden in scripture.
Again, whether one believes in the practice or not, the fact is that it was written in a pre-New Testament Jewish writing and is therefore not something that the Catholics have invented.
But that doesn’t mean it is binding on the New Testament Church! The important fact to be applied here is that once a person is dead, their life is ended; they lie asleep in the grave: “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun” (Eccl 9:5-6). So they are in no position to pray for anyone. And: “…it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb 9:27).
It should also be noted that “there is ONE MEDIATOR between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). So while it can’t be denied that 2 Maccabees 15:6-19 describes intercession by the saints and is thus practiced by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, the fact is that Jesus is declared in the NEW Covenant to be the ONLY Mediator between God and humanity. This is another of the important reasons why we reject the Catholic Church.
Conclusion
However, while we deny that the Apocrypha are canonical Scripture, we ought to see them as edifying and profitable to read. As Article VI of the Church of England Prayer Book says “….the Church doth read (the books of the Apocrypha) for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet it doth not apply them to establish any doctrine”
References
“New Testament, Copyright 1946; Old Testament, Copyright 1952; The Apocrypha, Copyright 1957. The Catholic Edition of the complete Bible incorporating Old Testament, New testament and Apocrypha copyright 1966 by Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America”. Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition published by Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd.