HistoricalChristian.Faith

The Apostolic Canons (canon 85) on the Old Testament Canon

Dates: c. 380 AD (canon 85, the closing canon of the eighty-five appended to Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions; the Constitutions are a Syrian/Antiochene compilation of c. 375–380, the canon-list itself "probably added about the year 380") · Wikipedia
Verdict on the deuterocanon: YES — with peculiarities. The last of the Apostolic Canons enumerates the books to be held "venerable and holy," and its Old-Testament list runs out the longer Septuagint reckoning: it names Judith (in some manuscripts) and three books of Maccabees outright, and closes by urging the newly catechized to learn "the Wisdom of the learned Sirach." It is an Eastern conciliar-style list more expansive than the later Catholic deuterocanon — it counts a third book of Maccabees no Western canon would — yet of its own shape: it does not name Tobit or the Wisdom of Solomon. The companion New-Testament count is just as singular, omitting the Apocalypse while adding 1–2 Clement and the Constitutions themselves.

Claims & evidence

"Esteemed venerable and holy" — the Old-Testament list of canon 85

The eighty-five Apostolic Canons stand at the end of Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions, the great fourth-century Syrian church order; the last of them lists the books the whole church, "both clergy and laity," is to hold as Scripture. Its Old-Testament catalogue carries the disputed Greek books among the rest rather than ranking them below:¹

Let the following books be esteemed venerable and holy by all of you, both clergy and laity. Of the Old Testament: the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; one of Joshua the son of Nun; one of the Judges; one of Ruth; four of the Kings; two of Paralipomena (the books of Chronicles); two of Ezra; one of Esther; [one of Judith;] three of the Maccabees; one of Job; the one hundred and fifty Psalms; three books of Solomon: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs; the sixteen of the Prophets. And see that those newly come to discipleship become acquainted with the Wisdom of the learned Sirach.

The deuterocanon present — Judith, three Maccabees, and Sirach

Measured against the disputed books, the list says Yes, and emphatically: Judith is named (in the manuscripts that carry the clause), the Maccabees are counted not at the Western two but at three, and the canon closes by commending the Wisdom of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) to the newly catechized. The Septuagint reckoning is plainly the frame: a Greek-Bible canon set down as the church's own. That third book of Maccabees pushes the list past the deuterocanon Rome would later fix — 3 Maccabees belongs to the wider Eastern Old Testament, not the Tridentine list.¹

The shape of the "Yes" — what it does not name

For all its breadth the list is not the full later deuterocanon. It does not name Tobit, and it does not name the Wisdom of Solomon — the three "books of Solomon" it counts are the protocanonical Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs, with no fourth and fifth Wisdom book of the kind the African councils folded into their "five books of Solomon." Sirach, too, is brought in sideways — not enumerated in the count of "venerable and holy" books but commended afterward as reading for beginners ("see that those newly come to discipleship become acquainted with" it), a placement that recalls the read-but-graded tier Athanasius had drawn a decade earlier. So this is a Yes of peculiar contour: wider than the Catholic deuterocanon in adding 3 Maccabees, narrower in withholding Tobit and Wisdom, and grading Sirach a half-step apart.¹

"[One of Judith]" — a textual variant

The clause naming Judith is bracketed because it is not secure across the manuscripts: some copies of canon 85 carry "one of Judith," others omit it. Where it stands, the list is a flat witness for Judith; where it drops out, the deuterocanonical weight of the list rests on the three Maccabees and Sirach alone. Either way the Septuagint frame holds, and the compiler plainly knew Judith as Scripture — Book VIII of the same Constitutions cites her by name twice, ranking "Judith" with Deborah and Huldah among the women who prophesied and naming her with Anna as the model widow.²

Notes

• A document, not a person. Like the African councils, this witness is a canon-list, not an individual Father — the closing canon of a pseudonymous Syrian compilation that ascribes itself to the apostles through Clement of Rome. It is read here for what its list affirms, not for an author's biography; its value, as Westcott put it, is "as evidence for the opinions of a part of the Syrian churches towards the end of the fourth century."
• The Eastern shape against the Western. Set beside the African councils of the same decade, the contrast is instructive: both say Yes to a longer Old Testament, but the African list (Tobit, Judith, two Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach in the "five books of Solomon") tracks the canon Rome would fix, while the Apostolic Canons run to three Maccabees and pass over Tobit and Wisdom — the wider, looser Eastern reckoning that never resolved into one fixed list. The same canon's grading of Sirach as beginners' reading echoes Athanasius's "read but not in the canon."
• The New-Testament list is just as singular. The very same canon 85 lists the New Testament — and there it omits the Apocalypse (Revelation) while adding two epistles of Clement and the Apostolic Constitutions themselves to the count, a distinctly Syrian profile. That New-Testament peculiarity belongs to the companion canon doctrine, not to this Old-Testament page; it is flagged here only to mark that the same list is unusual at both ends.
• Dating and provenance. The Apostolic Constitutions are usually placed c. 375–380 in Syria, probably Antioch; the eighty-five canons draw in part on the councils of Antioch (341) and Laodicea (363), and the book-list of canon 85 is reckoned by the editors "probably added about the year 380" — the date used to slot this witness on the timeline.

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