Augustine and the North African Councils
Since the Bible used by the North African Church was the Old Latin, a translation of the Septuagint which included a number of the books of the Apocrypha, Hippo/Carthage were confirming the traditional canon for the North African Church based on the Septuagint. Philip Schaff confirms the fact that the North African Church followed the Septuagint:
Augustine…firmly followed the Alexandrian canon of the Septuagint, and the preponderant tradition in reference to the disputed Catholic Epistles and the Revelation… (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1910), Volume III,§118 Sources of Theology. Scripture and Tradition, p. 609).
The veneration which this Church held for the Septuagint, based on implicit belief in its inspiration, is well represented by Augustine. He believed the myth of the seventy-two Jewish translators who, under Ptolmey, were individually placed in isolation and rendered the same translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.2 The adherence by Augustine and the North African Church to the Septuagint has some significant implications for the whole question of the establishment of the canon. Again, Roman Catholic apologists argue that the canon was authoritatively settled for the universal Church at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage. However, the canon decreed by the North African Councils differed from that decreed by the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century on this one important point of the book of I Esdras. Hippo and Carthage stated that 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras were canonical, referring to the Septuagint version of 1 and 2 Esdras, the Bible their Latin version was based upon. In that version, 1 Esdras was the apocryphal additions to Ezra and Nehemiah not found in the Hebrew Bible, while 2 Esdras was the canonical Jewish version of Ezra/Nehemiah. The Jews only acknowledged Ezra and Nehemiah which they combined into one book. This was 2 Esdras in the Septuagint version. It was Jerome, who, out of a desire to adhere to the Hebrew canon, separated Ezra and Nehemiah into two books, calling them 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras respectively, thereby replacing the Septuagint I Esdras with the Hebrew Ezra and calling it I Esdras. This became standard for the Vulgate and the basis upon which Trent declared the Septuagint I Esdras to be noncanonical. 1 Esdras in the Septuagint then became 3 Esdras in the Vulgate and the other Apocryphal apocalyptic work of 3 Esdras became 4 Esdras in the Vulgate. In the earliest Septuagint manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus (early 4th century) and Codex Alexandrinus (early 5th century), I Esdras is listed as one book and Ezra/Nehemiah is listed separately as a second book. The New Catholic Encyclopedia confirms these facts:
Four books are attributed to Esdras (Ezra in the Hebrew spelling). The distinction between these books is confusing because of the manuscript and denominational differences:
Vulgate (Catholic) Septuagint Hebrew Text Protestant/Jewish 1 Esdras (Ezra)* Ezra* Ezra* 2 Esdras (Nehemiah)* 2 Esdras (Ezra/Nehemiah)* Nehemiah* Nehemiah* 3 Esdras 1 Esdras Missing 1 Esdras 4 Esdras 3 Esdras Missing 2 Esdras *Canonical Books
III Esdras (I Esdras in the Septuagint) was certainly compiled before A.D. 90, for the Jewish historian Josephus quoted from it (Ant. 11); but its exclusive concern with Jewish interests puts its composition before the Christian era, closer to 100 B.C. Until the 5th century, Christians very frequently ranked 3 Esdras with the Canonical books; it is found in many LXX MSS (Septuagint manuscripts) and in the Latin Vulgate (Vulg) of St. Jerome. Protestants therefore include 3 Esdras with other apocrypha (deuterocanonical) books such as Tobit or Judith. The Council of Trent definitively removed it from the canon (New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw Hill, 1967), Volume II, Bible, III, pp. 396-397).
Herbert Edward Ryle gives the following history of the differences in the books of Esdras as represented in the Septuagint and the Vulgate:
In the lists of the Old Testament which include the Apocryphal books, an element of confusion is caused by the Apocryphal Ezra, our First Book of Esdras. In the LXX Version, the Old Latin, and the Syriac, this Apocryphal Greek Book was placed, out of regard probably for chronology, before the Hebrew Ezra, and was called the First of Ezra…while our Ezra and Nehemiah appeared as one book, with the title of the Second of Ezra. In his translation of the Vulgate, Jerome did not recognize the Canonicity of the Apocryphal Books. He translated the Hebrew Ezra (our Ezra and Nehemiah) as one book with the title of Ezra; but he acquiesced in the division of the Canonical Ezra into two books, for he speaks of the Apocryphal books as the third and fourth of Ezra…In the Vulgate, accordingly, Ezra and Nehemiah were called the First and Second of Ezra; the Apocryphal Greek Ezra was called the Third of Ezra; the Apocalyptic work, the Fourth of Ezra…The influence of the Vulgate caused the names applied in the books in that version to be generally adopted in the West. At the Council of Trent, Ezra and Nehemiah are called the first book of Ezra and the second of Ezra which is called Nehemiah (Herbert Edward Ryle, Ezra and Nehemiah (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1907), pp. xiii-xiv).
These views are further confirmed by additional authorities in endnote #3. These references make it clear that the Septuagint version of 1 and 2 Esdras was different from the one decreed by Trent. The New Catholic Encyclopedia (quoted above) states that for the first five centuries many fathers of the Church regarded 1 Esdras of the Septuagint to be canonical because they followed the Septuagint. Jerome was the first to separate Ezra and Nehemiah into separate books and to assign the title of I Esdras to Ezra and 2 Esdras to Nehemiah in order to conform to the Hebrew canon. The Septuagint version of 1 Esdras is quoted, for example, by Justin Martyr, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ephrem Syrus, Basil the Great, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Ambrose, Theophilus of Antioch, Dionysius of Alexandria, Augustine and Prosper of Aquaitaine. Augustine quoted from Septuagint I Esdras in his work The City of God (Book XVIII.36). Thus, when the Council of Carthage gave its list of canonical books for the Old Testament it followed the Septuagint translation. In referring to Esdras I and II it was referring to I and II Esdras of the Septuagint. And when Carthage sent these decrees to Rome for confirmation, it was these books which were confirmed as canonical. Innocent I affirmed this in his letter to Exuperius4 and they were later included in the decrees of Popes Gelasius and Hormisdas. B.F. Westcott confirms these facts:
The enlarged canon of Augustine, which was, as it will be seen, wholly unsupported by any Greek authority, was adopted at the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397?), though with a reservation (Can. 47, De confirmando ist Canone transmarine ecclesia consulatur), and afterwards published in the decretals which bear the name of Innocent, Damasus, and Gelasius…and it recurs in many later writers (B.F. Westcott, The Canon of Scripture. Found in Dr. William Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), Volume I, Canon, p. 363.
This contradicts the decree passed by Trent which followed Jerome in assigning I and II Esdras to the canonical Hebrew books of Ezra and Nehemiah respectively. Therefore, Trent declared noncanonical what the Council of Carthage and the bishops of Rome, in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, declared to be canonical. Clearly, then, Carthage did not authoritatively and definitively establish the canon for the Church universally. The claims of Roman Catholic apologists are spurious. In fact, the New Catholic Encyclopedia states that the canon was not officially settled for the Western Church as a whole until the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century:
St. Jerome distinguished between canonical books and ecclesiastical books. The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good spiritual reading but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries…For example, John of Damascus, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicolas of Lyra and Tostado continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books…According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church at the Council of Trent…The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. II, Bible, III (Canon), p. 390; Canon, Biblical, p. 29; Bible, III (Canon), p. 390).
This is also confirmed by Yves Congar:
…an official, definitive list of inspired writings did not exist in the Catholic Church until the Council of Trent (Yves Congar, Tradition and Traditions (New York: Macmillan, 1966), p. 38).
According to Congar and the New Catholic Encylopedia the first infallible decision on the authoritative declaration of the canon, from a Roman Catholic perspective, was the Council of Trent, not Hippo and Carthage. The English translator of the Council of Trent, H.J. Schroeder, O.P., wrote:
The Tridentine list or decree was the first infallible and effectually promulgated declaration on the Canon of the Holy Scriptures (The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (Rockford: Tan, 1978), Fourth Session, Footnote #4, p. 17).
The New Catholic Encyclopedia states that the reason the canon was not definitively settled for the Church until the Council of Trent is that the issue remained unclear in the centuries subsequent to Jerome; meaning that many leading theologians, cardinals and bishops did not accept the Apocrypha as canonical. Jerome’s perspective on the canon became the dominant view throughout the history of the western church from his time all the way up to the eve of the Council of Trent.
The Influence of Jerome
While there were some who followed Augustine and the Councils of Hippo and Carthage in accepting the Apocryphal books, the vast majority of theologians, bishops and cardinals throughout the Middle Ages followed Jerome. This is seen in three major historical examples: the express statements of the Glossa ordinaria, the official Biblical commentary used during the Middle Ages, the teaching of major theologians who cited Jerome as the authority for determining the authoritative canon of the Old Testament, and Bible translations and commentaries produced just prior to the Reformation.
The Glossa Ordinaria
The Ordinary Gloss, known as the Glossa ordinaria, is an important witness to the view of the Western Church on the status of the Apocrypha because it was the standard authoritative biblical commentary for the whole Western Church. It carried immense authority and was used in all the schools for the training of theologians. The New Catholic Encyclopedia describes its importance:
A designation given during the Middle Ages to certain compilations of glosses on the text of a given MS. The earliest Glossa ordinaria is that made of the Bible, probably made in the 12th century…Although glosses originally consisted of a few words only, they grew in length as glossators enlarged them with their own comments and quotations from the Fathers. Thus the tiny gloss evolved into a running commentary of an entire book. The best known commentary of this type is the vast Glossa ordinaria of the 12th and 13th centuries…So great was the influence of the Glossa ordinaria on Biblical and philosophical studies in the Middle Ages that it was called ‘the tongue of Scripture’ and ‘the bible of scholasticism’ (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Glossa Ordinaria; Glosses, Biblical, pp. 515-516).
Karlfried Froehlich summarizes the importance, authority and influence of the Glossa ordinaria on the Middle Ages:
For medieval Christians this tool was supremely necessary, indispensable for the reading of the sacred book which could not be understood without it. In their preface of 1617, taking up Peter Lombards remark about the Gloss as the tongue of Scripture, the Douai theologians gave voice to this sentiment. Many generations, they suggested, thought of this collection of scriptural interpretation so highly that they called it the normal tongue (glossa ordinaria), the very language (lingua) of Scripture, as it were. When Scripture speaks with it, we understand. But when we read the sacred words without it, we think we hear a language which we do not know (Karlfried Froehlich and Margaret Gibson, Biblia Latina Cum Glossa Ordinaria, Introduction to the Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps Adolph Rusch of Strassborg 1480/81 (BrepolsTurnhout, 1992) Karlfried Froehlich, The Printed Gloss, p. XXVI.
Alister McGrath adds these comments:
…the Glossa Ordinaria may be regarded as a composite running commentary upon the text of the bible, characterized by its brevity, clarity and authoritativeness, drawing upon the chief sources of the patristic period…So influential did this commentary become that, by the end of the twelfth century, much biblical commentary and exegesis was reduced to restating the comments of the gloss (Alister McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), p. 126).
The work consisted of standard commentaries on the books of the Bible by major Church fathers and theologians from the Carolingian period. The principal Church fathers and theologians who provided authoritative commentary in the Gloss are described by Margaret Gibson:
Ultimately the principal contributor to the Gloss–the giant who bears it on his shoulders is Jerome. He was responsible for the text of the Bible, for many of the explanatory prefaces to individual books, and for the learned and comprehensive exegesis of most of the Old Testament and part of the New. Behind Jerome stands Origen, whose work was known directly to Jerome but to later scholars indirectly (and partially) in Rufinus translation. Augustine contributed to Genesis and Ambrose to Luke; Cassiodorus to the Psalms, and Gregory the Great at least to Job and perhaps to Ezekiel and the Gospels. The next great figure is Bede. He is the leading player in Ezra/Nehemiah, Mark, the Acts of the Apostles and the Canonical Epistles. The basic material from Jerome to Bede, was edited in the ninth century by Rabanus Maurus, who commented the entire Old Testament (except Baruch) and much of the New. Paschasius Radbertus supplied a commentary on Lamentations and revised Jerome’s commentary on Matthew (Karlfried Froehlich and Margaret Gibson, Biblia Latina Cum Glossa Ordinaria, Introduction to the Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps Adolph Rusch of Strassborg 1480/81 (Brepols–Turnhout, 1992), The Glossed Bible, pp. VIII-IX).
The importance of the Glossa ordinaria relative to the issue of the Apocrypha is seen from the statements in the Preface to the overall work. It repeats the judgment of Jerome that the Church permits the reading of the Apocryphal books only for devotion and instruction in manners, but that they have no authority for concluding controversies in matters of faith. It states that there are twenty-two books of the Old Testament, citing the testimonies of Origen, Jerome and Rufinus as support. When commenting on the Apocryphal books, it prefixes an introduction to them saying: ‘Here begins the book of Tobit which is not in the canon; here begins the book of Judith which is not in the canon’ and so forth for Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, and Maccabees etc. These prologues to the Old Testament and Apocryphal books repeated the words of Jerome. For example, the following is an excerpt from the Prologue to the Glossa ordinaria written in AD 1498, also found in a work attributed to Walafrid Strabo in the tenth century, under the title of canonical and noncanonical books, catalogues the precise books which make up the Old Testament canon,5 and those of the noncanonical Apocrypha,6 all in accordance with the teaching of Jerome. Again, the significance of this is that the Glossa ordinaria was the official Biblical commentary used during the Middle Ages in all the theological centers for the training of theologians. Therefore, it represents the overall view of the Church as a whole, demonstrating the emptiness of the claims of Roman apologists that the decrees of Hippo and Carthage officially settled the canon for the universal Church. We come back again to the New Catholic Encyclopedia which states that the canon was not officially settled for the Roman Catholic Church until the sixteenth century with the Council of Trent.
Notes:
2But another Ptolemy, called Philadelphus, who succeeded him, permitted all whom he had brought under the yoke to return free; and, more than that, sent kingly gifts to the temple of God, and begged Eleazar, who was the high priest, to give him the Scriptures, which he had heard by report were truly divine, and therefore greatly desired to have in that most noble library he had made. When the high priest had sent them to him in Hebrew, he afterwards demanded interpreters of him, and there were given him seventy-two, out of each of the twelve tribes six men, most learned in both languages, to wit, the Hebrew and Greek; and their translation is now by custom called the Septuagint. It is reported, indeed, that there was an agreement in their words so wonderful,stupendous, and plainly divine, that when they had sat at this work, each one apart (for so it pleased Ptolemy to test their fidelity), they differed from each other in no word which had the same meaning and force, or, in the order of the words; but, as if the translators had been one, so what all had translated was one, because in very deed the One Spirit had been in them all. And they received so wonderful a gift of God, in order that the authority of these Scriptures might be commended not as human but divine, as indeed it was, for the benefit of the nations who should at some time believe, as we now see them doing.
For while there were other interpreters who translated these sacred oracles out of the Hebrew tongue into Greek, as Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and also that translation which, as the name of the author is unknown, is quoted as the fifth edition, yet the Church has received this Septuagint translation just as if it were the only one; and it has been used by the Greek Christian people, most of whom are not aware that there is any other. From this translation there has also been made a translation in the Latin tongue, which the Latin churches use. Our times, however, have enjoyed the advantage of the presbyter Jerome, a man most learned and skilled in all three languages, who translated the same Scriptures into the Latin speech, not from the Greek, but from the Hebrew. But although the Jews acknowledge this very learned labor of his to be faithful, while they contend that the Septuagint translators have erred in many places, still the churches of Christ judge that no one should be preferred to the authority of so many men, chosen for this very great work by Eleazar, who was the high priest; for even if there had not appeared in them one spirit, without doubt divine, the seventy learned men had, after the manner of men, compared together the words of their translation, that what pleased them all might stand, no single translator ought to be preferred to them; but since so great a sign of divinity has appeared in them, certainly, any other translator of their Scriptures from the Hebrew into any other tongue is faithful in that case he agrees with these seventy translators, and if he is not found to agree with them, then we ought to believe that the prophetic gift is with them. For the same Spirit who was in the prophets when they spoke these things was also in the seventy men when they translated them, so that assuredly they could also say something else, just as if the prophet himself had said both, because it would be the same Spirit who said both; and could say the same thing differently, so that, although the words were not the same, yet the same meaning should shine forth to those of good understanding; and could omit or add something, so that even by this it might be shown that there was in that work not human bondage, which the translator owed to the words, but rather divine power, which filled and ruled the mind of the translator (NPNF1, Vol. 2, Augustine, The City of God 18.4243).
3Henry Barclay Swete: The Greek Esdras consists of an independent and somewhat free version of portions of 2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, broken by a long context which has no parallel in the Hebrew Bible…In the early Church the Greek Esdras was accepted without suspicion…Jerome, however, (praef. in Ezr.), discarded the book, and modern editions of the Vulgate relegate it to an appendix where it appears as 3 Esdras, the titles I Esdras and 2 Esdras being given to the two parts of the canonical book of Ezra/Nehemiah (Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (New York: Ktav Publishing, 1968), pp. 265267).
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church: Esdras is the Greek and Latin form of Ezra. In the Septuagint there are two books of this title: Esdras A, a Greek book based on parts of 2 Chron., Ez., and Neh., with an interpolated story not extant in Hebrew; and Esdras B, a straightforward rendering of the Hebrew Ezra-Neh. (treated as one book). In the current form of the Vulgate these are increased to four, namely: I and II Esdras, i.e. St. Jerome’s rendering of Ezra and Neh., treated as separate books; III Esdras, the Old Latin version of Esdras A; and IV Esdras, another book not extant in Greek. For the original Vulgate Jerome deliberately confined himself to the first two of these, rejecting the other two as uncanonical (Praef. in Esd., c. Vigil. 7); but all four books are commonly included (with some confusion in the numbering) in Latin biblical MSS. In 1546 the Council of Trent (sess. 4) finally rejected III Esdras and IV Esdras from the RC Canon, and in subsequent editions of the Vulgate they appear (with the Prayer of Manasses) as an Appendix following the N.T. (The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University, 1997), p. 560).
Jacob Myers: I Esdras owes its name to the Greek Bible where Esdras A=I Esdras and Esdras B=Ezra and Nehemiah…The Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible) has Esdras I (=Ezra), Esdras 2 (=Nehemiah), Esdras 3 (=I Esdras) and Esdras 4 (=II Esdras) (Jacob Myers, Iand II Esdras (Garden City: Doubleday, 1982), p. 1).
4The specific books listed by Innocent in his Letter to Exuperius are as follows: A brief addition shows what books really are received in the canon. These are the desiderata of which you wished to be informed verbally: of Moses five books, that is, of Genesis, of Exodus, of Leviticus, of Numbers, of Deuteronomy, and Josue, of Judges one book, of Kings four books, and also Ruth, of the Prophets sixteen book, of Solomon five books, the Psalms. Likewise of the histories, Job one book, of Tobias one book, Esther one, Judith one, of the Machabees two, of Esdras two, Paralipomenon two books (From the epistle Consulenti tibi to Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, Feb. so, 405. Henry Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma (London: Herder, 1954), p. 42. See also Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, p. 211).
5There are, then, twenty-two canonical books of the old testament, corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, as Eusebius reports, in book six of Ecclesiastical History, that Origen writes on the first Psalm; and Jerome says the same thing more fully and distinctly in his Helmeted Prologue to the books of Kings: All the books are divided into three parts by the Jews: into the law, which contains the five books of Moses; into the eight prophets; and into the nine hagiographa. This will be more clearly seen shortly. Some, however, separate the book of Ruth from the book of Judges, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah from Jeremiah, and count them among the hagiographa in order to make twenty-four books, corresponding to the twenty-four elders whom the Apocalypse presents as adoring the lamb. These are the books that are in the canon, as blessed Jerome writes at greater length in the Helmeted Prologue to the books of Kings.
In the first place are the five books of Moses, which are called the law, first of which is Genesis, second Exodus, third Leviticus, fourth Numbers, fifth Deuteronomy. Secondly follow the eight prophetic books, first of which is Joshua, second the book of Judges together with Ruth, third Samuel, i.e. first and second Kings, fourth Malachim, i.e. third and fourth Kings, fifth Isaiah, sixth Jeremiah with Lamentations, seventh Ezekiel, eighth the book of twelve prophets, first of which is Hosea, second Joel, third Amos, fourth Obadiah, fifth Jonah, sixth Micah, seventh Nahum, eighth Habakkuk, ninth Zephaniah, tenth Haggai, eleventh Zechariah, twelfth Malachi. Thirdly follow the nine hagiographa, first of which is Job, second Psalms, third Solomons Proverbs, fourth his Ecclesiastes, fifth his Song of Songs, sixth Daniel, seventh Paralipomenon, which is one book, not two, among the Jews, eighth Ezra with Nehemiah (for it is all one book), ninth Esther. And whatever is outside of these (I speak of the Old Testament), as Jerome says, should be placed in the apocrypha (Biblia cum glosa ordinaria et expositione Lyre litterali et morali. Basel: Petri & Froben, 1498. British Museum IB.37895, vol. 1. Translation by Dr. Michael Woodward. See also Walafrid Strabo, Glossa ordinaria, De Canonicis et Non Canonicis Libris. PL 113:19-24).
6These are the books that are not in the canon, which the church includes as good and useful books, but not canonical. Among them are some of more, some of less authority. For Tobit, Judith, and the books of Maccabees, also the book of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, are strongly approved by all. Thus Augustine, in book two of De Doctrina Christiana, counts the first three among canonical books; concerning Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, he says they deserved to be received as authoritative and should be numbered among the prophetic books; concerning the books of Maccabees, in book 18 of the City of God, speaking of the books of Ezra, he says that, although the Jews do not consider them canonical, the church considers them canonical because of the passions of certain martyrs and powerful miracles. Of less authority are Baruch and Third and Fourth Ezra. For Augustine makes no mention of them in the place cited above, while he included (as I have said) other apocryphal works among the canonical. Rufinus as well, in his exposition of the creed, and Isidore, in book 6 of the Etymologies, where they repeat this division of Jerome, mentioned nothing of these other books.
And that we might enumerate the apocryphal books in the order in which they appear in this Bible, even though they have been produced in a different order, first come the third and fourth books of Ezra. They are called Third and Fourth Ezra because, before Jerome, Greeks and Latins used to divide the book of Ezra into two books, calling the words of Nehemiah the second book of Ezra. These Third and Fourth Ezra are, as I have said, of less authority among all non-canonical books. Hence Jerome, in his prologue to the books of Ezra, calls them dreams. They are found in very few Bible manuscripts; and in many printed Bibles only Third Ezra is found. Second is Tobit, a very devout and useful book. Third is Judith, which Jerome says in his prologue had been counted by the Nicene Council in the number of holy scriptures. Fourth is the book of Wisdom, which almost all hold that Philo of Alexandria, a most learned Jew, wrote. Fifth is the book of Jesus son of Sirach, which is called Ecclesiasticus. Sixth is Baruch, as Jerome says in his prologue to Jeremiah. Seventh is the book of Maccabees, divided into first and second books…Further, it should be known that in the book of Esther, only those words are in the canon up to that place where we have inserted: the end of the book of Esther, as far as it is in Hebrew. What follows afterward is not in the canon. Likewise in Daniel, only those words are in the canon up to that place where we have inserted: The prophet Daniel ends. What follows afterward is not in the canon (Biblia cum glosa ordinaria et expositione Lyre litterali et morali (Basel: Petri & Froben, 1498), British Museum IB.37895, Vol. 1. Translation by Dr. Michael Woodward. See also Walafrid Strabo, Glossa ordinaria, De Canonicis et Non Canonicis Libris. PL 113:19-24).
