# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1856_S213
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Whether Such a One Is to Be Declared a Heretic or a Dangerous False Teacher, etc. 213

...who makes three orders of the sacred books: The books of the first order are those of which he says that they are of legitimate, authentic, genuine, and recognized — that is, according to the confession of all churches, of undoubted — authority, such as the writings of the Evangelists and the epistles of Paul. Then he says that there are some which are disputed, because there is not sufficient certainty concerning their authors from the testimony of the primitive Church, such as the Epistle of James, of Jude, etc. These are Hagiographa (sacred writings), also called ecclesiastical, yet they have, in themselves, no decisive weight for the confirmation of dogmas (articles of faith) (nec valent ad dogmatum confirmationem per se quidquam). To the third order he assigns those which are spurious and false." (Exeges. Loc. 1, § 241.)

So too writes further Aegidius Hunnius, who died in the year 1603 as Superintendent and Professor at Wittenberg: "The Epistle to the Hebrews, the second and third of John, the second of Peter, the Epistle of James, of Jude, and the Revelation are outside the canon and are counted among the Apocrypha. We confess, however, that the apocryphal writings of the New Testament have deserved a greater agreement and approbation of the primitive Church than the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. Hence most of the fathers, who place some books of the Old Testament outside the canon, nevertheless exclude no book of the New Testament from it, but all hold that they are canonical. The Council of Laodicea does the same. We too do not wish to contend much with anyone over the authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the second and third of John, the second of Peter, and the Revelation. It must not be concealed, however, that, by Bellarmine's own admission, doubt was raised concerning these books also in the primitive Church, because there were no adequate proofs that they certainly derived from those authors whose names they bore." (Disp. de scriptura, thesis 119–122, 126.)

Of Dr. Hafenreffer, who died in 1619 as Chancellor of the University and Provost of the church at Tübingen, Johann Gerhard writes that in his Loci he "retains the distinction between canonical and apocryphal books of the New Testament, and reckons to the class of the Apocrypha the second of Peter, the second and third of John, the Epistle to the Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Revelation," but that he adds: "'Although these apocryphal books have no canonical authority in the judging of the articles of faith, yet because they contain very much that serves for instruction and edification, they may both be read privately with profit and benefit, and also be read publicly in the church.'" (Loc. cit.)

The following is found in the larger Catechism of Conrad Dietrich, who died in 1639 as Superintendent and Director of the Gymnasium at Ulm: "Which are the books of the New Testament? Answer: The Gos-