or APOCRYPHAL BOOKS, such books as are not admitted into the canon of Scripture, being either not acknowledged as divine, or considered as spurious. The word is Greek; and derived from από, and κρύψιμον, to hide or conceal.

When the Jews published their sacred books, they gave the appellations of canonical and divine only to such as they then made public; such as were still retained in their archives they called apocryphal, for no other reason but because they were not public; so that they might be really sacred and divine, though not promulged as such.

Thus, in respect of the Bible, all books were called apocryphal which were not inserted in the Jewish canon of Scripture. Vossius observes, that, with regard to the sacred books, none are to be accounted apocryphal, except such as had neither been admitted into the synagogue nor the church, so as to be added to the canon, and read in public.

The Protestants do not only reckon those books to be apocryphal which are esteemed such in the church of Rome, as the prayer of Manasseh king of Judah, the third and fourth books of Eldras, St Barnabas's epistle, the book of Hermas, the addition at the end of Job, and the 151st psalm; but also Tobit, Judith, Esther, the book of Wisdom, Jesus the son of Sirach, Baruch the prophet, the Song of the Three Children, Apocrypha the History of Susannah, the History of Bel and the Dragon, and the first and second books of the Maccabees.

It is now pretended that these books were not received by the Jews, or so much as known to them. None of the writers of the New Testament cite or mention them; neither Philo nor Josephus speak of them. The Christian church was for some ages an utter stranger to these books. Origen, Athanasius, Hilary, Cyril of Jerusalem, and all the orthodox writers, who have given catalogues of the canonical books of Scripture, unanimously concur in rejecting these out of the canon. And for the New Testament, they are divided in their opinions, whether the epistle to the Hebrews, the epistle of St James, and the second epistle of St Peter, the second and third epistles of St John, the epistle of St Jude, and the Revelation, are to be acknowledged as canonical or not.

The Protestants acknowledge such books of Scripture only to be canonical as were so esteemed to be in the first ages of the church; such as are cited by the earliest writers among the Christians as of divine authority, and after the most diligent inquiry were received and so judged to be by the council of Laodicea. The several epistles above mentioned, and the book of Revelation, whatever the sentiments of some particular persons are or may have been of them, are allowed by all the reformed churches to be parts of the canon of the New Testament.

The apocryphal books, however, according to the fifth article of the church of England, are to be read for example of life and instruction of manners; but it doth not apply them to establish any doctrine.