Apocrypha rejected for never being in the Canon
We gladly grant that the doctors of the ancient Church rejected the apocryphal books heretics had forged and pushed as divine on this ground: those books were never in the Church's Canon, nor acknowledged, held, and cited as divine by the Church's doctors.
We treat that argument as sound, and we use the same kind of argument against the books Rome adds to the Old Testament beyond the Jewish Canon — because the Jewish Church never acknowledged them, even while it was still God's true and only Church.
Nor did the primitive Christian Church: its doctors, by common consent (a very few perhaps excepted), remove those books from the Canon, though they allow them to be read in churches as useful for the people's edification.
Many apocryphal books do carry marks of vanity and traces of human weakness that show they are not God-inspired. Still, speaking absolutely and in general, we judge no argument more fit to break their authority than this: the true Church of God never held them as divine.
Latin
XXXIII. Ultro quidem concedimus Doctores Ecclesiae antiquae eo nomine rejecisse libros Apocryphos, quos haeretici confinxerant, & pro divinis obtrudebant, quod libri illi nunquam in Canone Ecclesiae fuerint, neque a Doctoribus Ecclesiae agniti, & pro divinis habiti & citati. Et hanc eorum argumentationem tanquam legitimam probamus, & simili plane modo impugnamos authoritatem librorum illorum quos Ecclesia Romana adjicit ad Vetus Testamentum supra Ecclesiae Judaicae Canonem: nempe, quia hi libri nunquam ab Ecclesia Judaica agniti fuerunt, etiam tum quum vera & sola esset Dei Ecclesia. Imo nec a primitiva Ecclesia Christiana, cujus Doctores communi consensu, paucissimis forte quibusdam exceptis, libros illos e Canone expungunt, licet eorum lectionem in Ecclesiis admittant, tanquam utilem ad plebis aedificationem. Et quamvis libri plerique Apocryphi notas quasdam in se vanitatis habeant, & infirmitatis humanae vestigia, quibus deprehendi possit illos a Deo inspiratos non esse: tamen absolute & in genere loquendo, non putamus ullum esse magis idoneum argumentum, quo librorum Apocryphorum authoritas infringi possit, quam quod nunquam vera Dei Ecclesia eos pro divinis habuerit.
About this text
Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu, Sedan Theses, newly rendered from Latin: from theology proper through the Roman theses I–77 and the Reformed theses of Part Two. The theses only — not the collected works.
English follows locked Pitt Latin through Imaginum CLOSED + Sanctorum Cultu Romana CLOSED + Pars Secunda Reformata I-XL. 1675 PDF ~384-390 (book ~370-376); Vision OCR + pdftotext + tess. No modern English. This slice densifies Sanctorum Pars Secunda I-XL. Next: Pars Secunda XLI–fin (~CI). Claim stays claimed (book densify not done).
Catalogue & scope
ESTC R17887; Wing L802. IA bub_gb_eOkHAW4G0-wC (+ EEBO 1675 for gap leaves). Densify through Sanctorum Cultu Romana I-LXXVII + Pars Secunda Reformata I-XL (Pars Secunda not closed; not whole folio).
Witnesses
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Theologia I-XLIII (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
- Checked print Internet Archive PDF of the 1675 Pitt folio (Latin)
- Checked print pdftotext of De Theologia pages (Latin)
- Checked print Internet Archive DjVu OCR of the 1675 Pitt folio (Latin)
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Fide I-XXII (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Authoritate Scripturae Pars I I-XLVII + Pars II I-XXXV + Pars III I-VIII (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
- Copy-text Locked Latin, De Scripturae plenitudine densify (Pitt 1675) (Latin)
This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.