The Scottish or Westminster Confession of Faith gives a list of all the books of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God written; adding that those called the apocrypha are not of divine inspiration, and no part of the canon,--of no authority in the Church, nor to be approved or made use of otherwise than human writings.
The Roman Catholic canon was finally determined at the Council of Trent (1546), which adopted all the books in the Vulgate as sacred and canonical, without distinction. Third and fourth Esdras, third Maccabees, and the prayer of Manasseh were not included; though the first and last appeared in the original Clementine edition of 1592, but apart from the canonical books. They are not in the Sixtine edition of 1590.(380) A council at Florence in 1441 had set the example which was followed at Trent. But this stringent decree did not prevent individual Catholics from making a distinction between the books, in assuming a first and second canon or proto-canonical and deutero-canonical books; as did Sixtis Senensis, B. Lamy, Anton a matre Dei, Jahn, and others; though it is hardly consistent with orthodox Catholicism or the view of those who passed the decree. When the writings are said to be of different authority--some more, others less--the intent of the council is violated. The Vatican council (1870) confirmed the Tridentine decree respecting the canon.
The Greek Church, after several ineffectual attempts to uphold the old distinction between the canonical and ecclesiastical books by Metrophanes Critopulus patriarch of Alexandria in 1625, and Cyril Lucaris patriarch of Constantinople (1638 A.D.),(381) came to the same decision with the Romish, and canonized all the apocrypha. This was done at a Jerusalem synod under Dositheus in 1672.
CHAPTER XI. THE CANON FROM SEMLER TO THE PRESENT TIME, WITH REFLECTIONS ON ITS READJUSTMENT.
Semler(382) was the most conspicuous scholar after the Reformation who undertook to correct the prevailing ideas respecting the canon. Acquainted with the works of Toland and Morgan, he adopted some of their views, and prosecuted his inquiries on their lines chiefly in relation to the New Testament. He had no definite principles to guide him, but judged books chiefly by their christian value and use to the Church. Though his views are sometimes one-sided and his essays ill-digested, he placed the subject in new lights, and rendered a service to truth which bore abundant fruit in after years.(383) He dealt tradition severe blows, and freed theology from the yoke of the letter. He was followed by his disciple Corrodi, by G. L. Oeder, J. D. Michaelis, Herder, Lessing, and Eichhorn,--most of whom recommended their views by a freshness of style which Semler did not command. The more recent works of Gesenius, De Wette, Zunz, Ewald, Hitzig, Geiger and Herzfeld have contributed to form a juster opinion of the true position which the books of the Bible occupy.