THE APOCRYPHA"
Sm,—May I support Canon Anthony Deane's plea for a fuller recognition of the Apocrypha by pointing out that in Anglican formularies other than the Sixth of the Thirty-Nine Articles it has a higher place than is there assigned to it. In the Thirty-Fifth Article it is said that the Books of the Homilies contain a "wholesome and necessary doctrine." Now in the Homilies there are some ninety quotations from the Apocryphal books, which are there pla,:ed on the level of the inspired Scripture. For example, the Homily on Obedience introduces Wisdom, vi. r, as "the infallible and undeceivable word of God." The Homily on Almsdeeds refers to Tobit iv. ro as the teaching of the Holy Ghost. It is evident that at the Reformation the Church of England never contemplated the issue of Bibles which would not contain the Apocrypha, but assumed that there would be a familiarity with it among the congregations for whom the Homilies were intended. But the Sixth Article was not very care- fully drawn up. For an earlier statement in it that the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments are those of whose authority there was never any doubt in the Church cannot be historically justified. About some of them there had been in the early centuries considerable and long-continued doubt.—Yours faithfully, C. T. DIMONT. 23 The Close, Salisbury, Wilts.
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