Note (return) — Chapter II

Supplement.—The hermeneutic principles (the "Biblicalalchemy"), above all, became of the utmost importance for the following period. These were partly invented by Philo himself, partly traditional,—the Haggadic rules of exposition and the hermeneutic principles of the Stoics having already at an earlier period been united in Alexandria. They fall into two main classes; "first, those according to which the literal sense is excluded, and the allegoric proved to be the only possible one, and then, those according to which the allegoric sense is discovered as standing beside and above the literal sense."120 That these rules permitted the discovery of a new sense by minute changes within a word, was a point of special importance.121 Christian teachers went still further in this direction, and, as can be proved, altered the text of the Septuagint in order to make more definite what suggested itself to them as the meaning of a passage, or in order to give a satisfactory meaning to a sentence which appeared to them unmeaning or offensive.122 Nay, attempts were not wanting among Christians in the second century—they were aided by the uncertainty that existed about the extent of the Septuagint, and by the want of plain predictions about the death upon the cross—to determine the Old Testament canon in accordance with new principles; that is, to alter the text on the plea that the Jews had corrupted it, and to insert new books into the Old Testament, above all, Jewish Apocalypses revised in a Christian sense. Tertullian (de cultu fem. I. 3,) furnishes a good example of the latter. "Scio scipturam Enoch, quæ hunc ordinem angelis dedit, non recipi a quibusdam, quia nee in armorium Judaicum admittitur ... sed cum Enoch eadem scriptura etiam de domino prædicarit, a nobis quidem nihil omnino reiciendum est quod pertinet ad nos. Et legimus omnem scripturam ædificationi habilem divinitus inspirari. A Judæis potest jam videri propterea reiecta, sicut et cetera fere quæ Christum sonant.... Eo accedit quod Enoch apud Judam apostolum testimonium possidet." Compare also the history of the Apocalypse of Ezra in the Latin Bible (Old Testament). Not only the genuine Greek portions of the Septuagint, but also many Apocalypses were quoted by Christians in the second century as of equal value with the Old Testament. It was the New Testament that slowly put an end to these tendencies towards the formation of a Christian Old Testament.