In Defense of the Deutero

The question over the divine inspiration of the Deuterocanonical books (Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Baruch, Tobit, 1 and 2 Maccabees) and the consequent legitimacy of their place within the Canon of Scripture has been one of many topics that have separated Christians influenced by the Protestant Reformation of 1517 from their forebears in the Catholic Church (as well as the Eastern Orthodox Churches) of today. Martin Luther served as the catalyst for the 16th-century Council of Trent’s reaffirmation of the Canon to include these seven additional books, when, in repudiation of Catholic tradition, the German reformer had sparked widespread disbelief in their inspired composition. Luther’s reasons for doubting their canonicity (as shared by contemporary non-Catholic/non-Orthodox Christians) can be summed up briefly by arguments for the tradition of the Jews (and, so they add, the early Church) whose recognized Canon (they claim) lacked these writings. Indeed, the oldest manuscript of the Old Testament scriptures in Hebrew, the Masoretic text dating to the 11th-century, did not include the Deuterocanonicals and thus, Protestants reason, nor should present-day Christians accept them as inspired either. Hence, the sixty-six books of the Protestant reformers have consequently been adopted by modern-day Protestants as their Old Testament, as opposed to the seventy-three books which have been handed on to Catholics as theirs.

However, does historical continuity provide the justification for Protestant rejection of the Deuterocanon or does something more theological lie at the crux of this debate? I think the latter is more probable and here is why.

It seems to me that history itself favors a Christian’s acceptance of these seven books, for we find that many Church Fathers quoted from them regularly as Scripture, even those same ones who at other times mention the fact that Jews of their own time did not accept them as inspired. Not only do these patristic authors evince these writings’ recognized divine inspiration among early Christians, we find, for example, the Didache itself, a 1st-century document believed to have been heavily influenced by the Apostles themselves, cite Sirach as an even earlier example of a deuterocanonical book’s presumed authority in the Church.

Furthermore, if we are to look at the very Apostles themselves, no less than two-thirds of New Testament citations of the Old Testament are from the Greek translation of it completed sometime in the 2nd-century BC called the Septuagint- a translation itself that included the Deuterocanon. This is quite apparent to us contemporary English readers of the Bible who commonly have the Old Testament texts we study from translated from the original Hebrew. Not being aware of this, a Christian might feel a bit discomfited when he feels the need to check an Evangelist’s (or other New Testament author’s) quotation of an Old Testament prophecy and find that what the apostolic author writes down does not quite match the version of the Old Testament he is reading from which is based on the Hebrew.

Were the Apostles then careless in citing as an authority a translation of the God’s Word which included an additional uninspired seven books? Or were they simply unaware of these additional seven being included in this translation and made a faux pas in using it authoritatively against Jews whom they knew would disregard it? Perhaps these Christian authors were straight-up charlatans who intentionally twisted the original words of the prophets to suit their own idea of the Christ? Or did these men simply recognize the authority of the Septuagint- the translation itself and the books that formed its content- and knew their contemporary Jewish audience did likewise? These questions regarding the general fact of the New Testament’s overwhelming use of the Septuagint, are too infrequently pondered.

But in pondering them myself, I am led to believe a historical case cannot be persuasively made against accepting the legitimacy of these writings. Indeed, they may not have been originally written in Hebrew, but I am not aware of any time in which God ever said this qualification would be a prerequisite for admission into the Church’s Canon. It does not seem the Apostles thought this either, due to their frequent use of the Septuagint.

Because the Bible itself lacks an inspired table of contents, it would seem some other entity must, by necessity, have the authority to determine which books are to be included in the Bible and which ones excluded, and, furthermore, on what grounds this acceptance and dismissal is to be adjudicated. And, if we are to assume the words of St. Paul are true, that the Church is “the pillar and bulwark of truth,” (1 Tim 3:15) it seems the strongest contender for determining the divine inspiration of any sacred writing would be that very same Church Jesus Christ founded to baptize and teach the nations (c.f. Mt 28:20).

And this brings us to the heart of the Deuterocanon debate: the recognition or rejection of the Catholic Church’s role in handing on apostolic teaching. If one believes the Catholic Church’s authority can be dismissed outright, then one can quite easily reason that her established Canon of inspired writings need not be accepted either- especially if those writings refute what the Protestant reformers of the 16th-century taught. Thus, what comes into focus are potential theological motives behind the Protestant dismissal of the Deuterocanonical books.

It would be odd for followers of Jesus Christ to be influenced in the collation of their own Canon by a people who denied the especial nature of Jesus and His mission. But this is precisely what non-Catholic Christians frequently argue when they are called to defend their exclusion of these seven additional writings. They claim the shorter Canon is the Canon of Scripture the Jews handed on to us and so we must accept their authority on such a matter. But, apart from the 1st-century Jewish rejection of these books being a highly debatable fact in and of itself, no one seems to bother asking the question why the Jewish people may not have wanted anything to do with these books. One example might be found in the Book of Wisdom where an obvious foretelling of Christ’s death is prophesied: “Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; 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” (Wis 2:12-20).

It should be quite obvious why the Jewish people would not want this book included in their inspired writings. Its words seem to fit perfectly the public ministry, passion, and death of Christ as recorded in the Gospels. Whether Jesus was decrying the Scribes and Pharisees with harsh woes (e.g. Mt 23:1-36), frequently referring to God as His Father (e.g. Mt 11:25-27), calling the last end of the righteous happy (e.g. Mt 5:10), or having the crowds mock him as he was undergoing an insulting and tortuous death with the very words: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross…He trusts in God; let God deliver Him, if He desires Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God’” (Mt 27:40, 43), Jesus is manifestly the fulfilment of the “righteous man” of Wisdom 2.

Likewise, do we see in the book of Sirach another passage that would be adverse to Jewish eyes when Ben Sira, its author, prays: "May the bones of the twelve prophets revive from where they lie" (Sir 49:10). Perhaps, in context these twelve alluded to here were the minor prophets of the Hebrew scriptures- but, it certainly would have been worthy of attention that when Christ was establishing His ministry through the Church, he chose twelve Apostles to go out into the world to act as His prophets. The bones of the twelve were being revived by the command of this mysterious Rabbi!

Additionally, Jewish tradition could certainly not be too favorable to the Septuagint translation of Psalm 22:16, which relates of the suffering of the future David: “They have pierced my hands and feet”- for this undoubtedly alludes to the nailing of the Christ’s hands and feet to the cross. This same verse is rendered in the Hebrew Masoretic text as something like: “Like a lion, my hands and my feet”- an unintelligible rendering of what otherwise is a rather straightforward psalm. The best option for one who denies the redemptive death of the Christ on the cross would be to simply reject the legitimacy of the Greek translation. And so the Jewish authorities did.

Likewise, Matthew’s quotation of the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14, “A virgin shall conceive” (Mt 1:23), is a much more defined translation of the Hebrew word ‘almah’ which is typically rendered merely as ‘young woman’, not ‘virgin’. But Mary did conceive as a virgin- hence, Matthew the Evangelist felt inclined to include the specificity of the Greek noun, 'parthenos' as an unmistakable allusion to a truly miraculous event as the fulfillment of Isaiah as opposed to the broader Hebrew noun used in the Masoretic.

For these reasons alone, the Jewish authorities may have reasoned for the dismissal of the Septuagint- with its “faulty” translation and “added” books- to bolster their case against acknowledging Jesus Christ as the Anointed One of God.

Hopefully, this sufficiently demonstrates that the Jewish rejection of the Septuagint- alongside its rejection of the Deuterocanonical books- may not have as innocent a motive behind it as Protestants tend to believe. Perhaps Israel’s rejection of these writings goes hand-and-hand with their rejection of Christ’s messiahship.

But, as a sidenote, I also find it interesting that whereas typical Protestant thinking follows the specific content of Jewish revelation (i.e. what books are to be included in the Canon), Protestants tend to stop short in accepting the general Jewish mentality of seeing how that revelation relates to the tradition that interprets it, a concept known to the Jews as the Dual Torah: “Side by side with the Written Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy) that was dictated by God to Moses, there is an Oral Torah, also received by successive generations of faithful teachers, and is articulated in the teachings of the Sages…By ‘Oral Torah’ the rabbis meant not only- nor even principally- unwritten laws, but the correct interpretation of those that were written.” (c.f. Norman Solomon, "Introduction" in The Talmud: A Selection).

This idea of accepting the “specific” while rejecting the “general” is apparent in that, for most Protestants, the Bible acts for them as the sole medium through which God’s Word reaches them apart from any need of a juridical and magisterial body to hand it on to them and subsequently interpret it in the first place. In effect, it seems as if Protestants are willing to accept the “detail” of revelation as provided by Jewish tradition while rejecting how that detail relates to the necessity of a larger and more substantial Tradition to hand it on.

This is of course an exact inversion of the Catholic stance that rejects the “specific” (the authoritative Jewish Canon) while indeed accepting the “general” (a need for an interpretive body to establish and discern that content). We see the Catholic position not pulled along by Jewish opinion as it relates to the content of a sixty-six book Canon- but, it does not dismiss the larger Jewish idea of the necessity for a Tradition to delineate and interpret that revelation as a whole. The Catholic Church can stand on its own two feet then when it claims to be that Body founded by Christ to transmit God’s message to the world and it remains steadfast in acknowledging its own seventy-three book Canon- which it has held from apostolic times- even while it refrains from demolishing the very legitimate foundation upon which divine revelation can be transmitted in the first place.

Admittedly, this is a digression from the larger defense of the Deuterocanon for Christians, but a digression that I think is helpful in pointing out a liberal attitude Protestants are guilty of at times adopting when they accept one Jewish “tradition”, the sixty-six book Canon, even while they reject the even more broad and important Jewish “tradition” of recognizing the necessity for a body to compile and interpret what is revealed (i.e. a "church").

But, to return to the theological motive behind a Protestant rejection of the Deuterocanonical books, we can, like our highlighting of the Jewish rejection of them based on its own theology, bring into focus two theological problems Protestantism inevitably has with some of the content revealed in these writings.

The first is a nearly universal Protestant objection to some form of belief in purgatory- whether purgatory exists as a state or place, as an instantaneous moment or progressive event, in time or beyond it- which necessarily dovetails into an antagonistic attitude towards the Deuterocanonical book 2 Maccabees which commends the practice of praying for the dead. This Protestant ill-feeling towards 2 Maccabees is expected because if it can be shown that praying for a dead person is a practice that is approved by divinely-inspired Scripture, this necessitates (for the logically consistent Christian) an acceptance of some idea of an afterlife state in which souls can actually benefit from these prayers. But this notion has been condemned by Protestantism from the beginning!

Certainly, if all souls either go immediately to heaven or directly to hell after death as Protestant believe, there would be no need for the living to pray for them- as in heaven no earthly prayer could increase a blessed soul’s joy due to his being in the very presence of God, and as in hell where it is farcical to assume the prayer of the living could assuage one’s just and eternal alienation from God. But this Protestant binary reading of life after the grave is complicated by these words from the author of 2 Maccabees: “Judas and his men went to take up the bodies of the fallen and to bring them back to lie with their kinsmen in the sepulchers of their fathers. Then under the tunic of every one of the dead they found tokens of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. And it became clear to all that this was why these men had fallen. So they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous Judge, who reveals the things that are hidden; and they turned to prayer, begging that the sin which had been committed might be wholly blotted out. And the noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen. He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin” (II Mac 12:39-45).

Here it is evident, prayer for the dead is not “superfluous” or “foolish” according to the writer. Nor is almsgiving on behalf of the deceased considered an empty gesture (two-thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for a sin offering). On the contrary, these things are praised as “holy and pious thought” and, by so doing, Judas was recognized by the author as acting “very well and honorably” because “he made atonement for the dead.”

These words and a Protestant belief that rejects belief in purgatory cannot stand together- one must be discredited for the sake of the other. Thus, Protestantism must relegate 2 Maccabees as uninspired because a rejection of purgatory would lead to a rejection of something that is too deeply embedded in its theology.

But, while we are at it, a Protestant might as well continue down this road and throw out another Deuterocanonical book, that of Sirach, which also pleas on behalf of the dead to those of us who are still alive: “Give graciously to all the living, and withhold not kindness from the dead” (Sir 7:33).

Yet, if a non-Catholic Christian dismisses prayer/kindness for the dead as superstitious thought, he has not looked closely enough at his own authoritative scriptures because if he does, he might begin to doubt his personal decision to favor his own theology over and against these Deuterocanonical books. For, if he attentively looks within his own recognized Canon, he might find that what Judas Maccabee does and what Ben Sira advises us to do, two others of well-respected Protestant authority may well have been doing as well- these men being no less personages than King David and the Apostle Paul.

First, in 2 Samuel we read: “David [upon learning of the death of Saul, Jonathan and other Israelite soldiers] took hold of his clothes, and tore them; and so did all the men who were with him; and they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword” (II Sam 1:11-12).

One need not wonder at the grief manifested in David’s mourning, weeping and tearing of clothes, for David had a good heart which had been torn by the news of his friends’ deaths. But, it is interesting David also fasted for Saul, Jonathan, and the house of Israel “because they had fallen”. It is worth pointing out that prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are traditional practices Catholics offer on behalf of the dead. We already saw Judas praying and giving of his silver; here David is praying with tears and fasting.

Secondly, we might be able to read between the text of a straightforward greeting of one of Paul’s letters to find the great apostle himself- right in front of our eyes- pray for a dead friend of his: “You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, and among them Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me; he was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me eagerly and found me- may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day- and you well know the service he rendered in Ephesus” (II Tim 1:15-18).

At first glance, it might seem like Onesiphorus, the man for whom Paul prays to receive mercy on “that Day”, is a man still living. Yet, the opinion that Onesiphorus was dead at the time of Paul’s writing is buttressed by the fact that all of Paul’s references to him are in the past tense (as if the man had already passed on) and, moreover, Paul concludes his same letter by greeting “the household of Onesiphorus”- not Onesiphorus himself (c.f. II Tim 4:19). Sure, the reality may have been that Paul predicted the man would be away from his family at the reception of his letter; but, equally as plausible, Paul may have known the man to have actually passed away at his writing and consequently decided to follow the ancient Jewish practice of praying for a deceased friend- like David and Judas before him.

Thus, it is not so obvious 2 Maccabees and Sirach are inconsistent with the rest of Sacred Scripture. What is certain however is that they cannot be coherently held alongside a rejection of the idea of praying for the dead- a denial most Protestants stringently retain.

But there is a second theological objection a Protestant might have to the inclusion of the Deuterocanon and this centers around a topic Luther deemed was so important that "nothing can be given up or compromised, nor can any believer concede or permit anything contrary to it" (Smalcald Articles, Pt II, art. I), that is, the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It will likewise not be difficult to show why this teaching cannot stand alongside a recognition of the legitimacy of Deuterocanon.

Luther’s doctrine of being saved by faith alone cannot be adequately critiqued here. However, it will be enough to say Luther believed being in right relation to God (i.e. possessing righteousness) is accomplished- from beginning to end- solely by the work of God, and this divine work is appropriated to an individual solely by his or her faith. The sticking point for Luther, and subsequent Protestants after him who hold sola fide justification as de fide teaching, is that a man’s work is, in no way, shape, or form, justifying- in any sense whatsoever. And, whereas Catholic theology has successfully worked out a coherent reconciliation between the differing language used to explain justification in the New Testament- on one hand by Paul (e.g. “A man is justified by faith apart from works of the law” Rom 3:28), and on the other hand by James (e.g. “A man is justified by works and not by faith alone” Jas 2:24)- Luther could not successfully resolve the apparent incongruity himself. Rather, the heresiarch dug his heels even deeper into the seeming contradiction to the point of being tempted to go so far as excluding the letter of James from the New Testament Canon. Though Luther did not go this far (he remained content to call it an “epistle of straw” in the preface to his New Testament translation), one wonders what the essential difference would have been if he excluded just one New Testament book from the Bible as opposed to the seven other Old Testament books he had already thrown out: for the reason he excluded the seven would have been the same for if he had excluded the one- that is, he was unable to reconcile his theology with inspired revelation, which was, unfortunately, a common theme for him.

To return again to the Deuterocanonical writings and the idea that a book, say Tobit, can by no means help strengthen one’s confidence in Protestant theology- especially a soteriology that teaches salvation by faith alone to the exclusion of works- we hear that in this Deuterocanonical book, none other than Raphael tells Tobit and his son Tobias: “Almsgiving delivers from death and it will purge away every sin” (Tob 12:9). Here, the teaching of Tobit seems to imply something besides faith saves us from sin and death- and that something is a work (almsgiving) done out of charity. So too, the book of Sirach becomes a double offender to Protestant sensibility in this regard, for Ben Sira also seems to echo the archangel’s words on the atoning power of charity when he teaches: “Water extinguishes a blazing fire: so almsgiving atones for sins” (Sir 3:30). Indeed, to return back again to Tobit, his words are adamant that love (not only faith) plays a pivotal role in becoming one with God, for we hear him teach his son: “Charity delivers from death and keeps you from entering the darkness” (Tob 4:10). And, back again to Ben Sira, who propounds this idea throughout his book: “A man’s almsgiving is like a signet with the Lord” (Sir 17:22).

Undoubtedly, in no way can these two Deuterocanonical books of Tobit and Sirach jive well with Luther’s idea that faith and only faith justifies us- even apart from love (c.f. "[the faith that justifies] cannot be grasped by a loving will," Lecture on Galatians and "[the faith that justifies is] not the faith which includes love" quoted by Robert Preus in Justification and Rome). For, if a house cannot stand if divided against itself, a theology that proclaims, “Faith alone!” must inevitably fall in the face of a divinely-revealed text that says, “Charity delivers from death!” But these words from Tobit and Sirach do harmonize well with Catholic theology that states “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pt 4:8) and that, if faith is to be of any avail, it must be “working through love” (Gal 4:6).

Hence, we see that the messages of the Deuterocanon thus highlighted above do not stand opposed to the New Testament, rather they remain in full continuity with the good news of Christ’s revelation as manifested in apostolic writing. The only grounds for these Deuterocanonical books' dismissal from the Christian Canon lies in one’s theological presuppositions that stem from a prior rejection of the Church’s authority to transmit and interpret divine revelation.

But to conclude this defense of the Deuterocanon's divine inspiration and use among Christians, I will end with an anecdote. It was told to me by Luke the Evangelist in chapter one of his Gospel when he records a prayer that spontaneously came from the Virgin Mary’s lips when she visited her cousin Elizabeth: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with His arm, He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent empty away. He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity for ever” (Lk 1:46-55).

Most footnotes in an annotated Bible will point out that this canticle of Mary mimics the Song of Hannah as written in 1 Samuel 2:1-10. Although not a word-for-word match, it is apparent Mary had Hannah’s song in mind. However, there is a line where Mary says: “He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree.” Certainly, this idea is articulated in Hannah’s Song, but it is even more clearly plucked out from another passage of the Old Testament Mary must have been knowledgeable enough with to quote from: “The Lord has cast down the thrones of rulers and has seated the lowly in their place.” This line is found at Sirach 10:14.

If the mother of Jesus was familiar enough with the book of Sirach to quote it on the fly during a spontaneous prayer, it is not hard to imagine her- with her Son- listening and reflecting on these words, as well as other Deuterocanonical writings, during the course of their daily, shared life. Therefore, I consider if they were good enough for the Holy Family, they are good enough for me.                                 

[1] 

[2]