Taken from his ‘SUM OF THEOLOGY REHEARSED OUT OF THE SCRIPTURES; (Geneva, 1665)’
Johannes Cocceius (1603–1669), a luminary of Reformed scholasticism and sacred philology, stood as a towering figure in the theological firmament of the seventeenth century, distinguishing himself by his resolute commitment to the covenantal structure of divine revelation. Born in Bremen, he ascended to academic prominence in the Dutch Republic, occupying the professorial chairs of Hebrew and theology at the University of Franeker and later at Leiden. A fervent advocate of federal theology, Cocceius propounded that the entire Scripture must be understood through the successive unfolding of the divine covenants, from the Covenant of Works with Adam to the Covenant of Grace in Christ, thereby advancing a historical-redemptive hermeneutic that profoundly influenced Reformed exegetical method. His works, suffused with a holy zeal for the sovereign majesty of God and the economy of salvation, were often set in contrast to the more rigid systematic orthodoxy of his contemporaries, most notably Gisbertus Voetius, with whom he engaged in rigorous disputation. Ever laboring to sanctify the intellect in service of the Most High, Cocceius departed this temporal realm in 1669, his theological corpus enduring as a testament to his devout scholarship and his unwavering fealty to the divine oracles.
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Next, let us enumerate those books which the orthodox or Catholic Church holds as Canonical. For the Church had a certain canon, that is, a catalogue or index of divine books, both of the Old Testament and of the New. These they named “canonical,” that is, placed in the Index: as being “according to the canon.” But others they said were outside the canon, and called them “non-canonical.” Athanasius in his Synopsis of Scripture: “All Scripture of us Christians is divinely inspired. The books are not infinite in number, but rather definite and canonized.” And afterwards: “The canonized books of the Old Testament are twenty-two in number, equal to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.” To these he opposes “those not canonized.” So the Council of Laodicea: “Private psalms ought not to be read in the church, nor uncanonized books, but only the canonical books of the Old and New Testament.” Jerome in his Preface Galeato: “Therefore Wisdom, which is commonly inscribed to Solomon, and the book of Jesus the son of Sirach, etc., are not in the Canon.”
They understood that only those books were to be held as inspired, and that they were the Canon and rule of things to be believed, spoken, and done. Thus Chrysostom in homily 13 on Genesis: “Let us follow the canon of divine Scripture.” Athanasius concerning the books of the New Testament: “So many and such are the books of the New Testament that are canonized, the foundations and anchors, as it were, of our faith. As they were written and set forth by the Apostles of Christ themselves, who both conversed with Him and were made disciples by Him.” And it is not out of place to add what follows, for it has its use: “Since afterwards, according to their sequence and harmony, a thousand and countless other books were produced by great and most wise God-bearing fathers throughout all ages as testimonies and elucidations of the former. Concerning which there is not now much to say, as they are very many and of uncertain number, and all of them following the same sequence with the ancients, and explaining and declaring the same things.”
For Athanasius approves the writings of those who came after only insofar as they say and narrate the same things that are read in the sacred letters, and serve for their confirmation and illustration, and follow in the footsteps of the sacred writers (this Athanasius calls “following the sequence”) and do not discord from them. This he calls “harmony.”
Athanasius did not find among those innumerable writers any who wrote or ought to have written anything else that is not contained in the sacred letters, and in which they do not follow them: namely, that which they received as handed down without Scriptures, and which they wished to hand down to posterity through their writings.
The same Athanasius establishes that our faith is founded in the sayings of those books; and it does not occur to him to name others, on account of which we believe those letters, or which we should have as certain and necessary interpreters.
Augustine, Against Cresconius, 2.31: “The Ecclesiastical Canon is established, to which certain books of the Prophets and Apostles belong, which we dare not judge at all, and according to which we freely judge all other writings, whether of believers or unbelievers.” But these things will have to be more diligently inculcated elsewhere. For now before all else we must review the catalogue of sacred books, which the Church has had from all time.
Because canonical books are of either Testament, they are called by the ancients “entestamental.” Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 6, chapter 25, from Origen on Psalm 1: “We should not be ignorant that the entestamental books, as the Hebrews hand them down, are twenty-two.” Indeed, books which contain God's Testament, and which exhibit God's Testament, and which are proposed by God for the purpose of making a covenant, over which and through which He stipulates from us the obedience of faith, are rightly called “entestamental.”
But whereas some, such as Epiphanius and Damascenus, say that the books of the Old Testament were “in the Ark,” or “in the Ark of the Covenant,” this perhaps needs explanation. For in the Ark of the Covenant there was nothing but the Decalogue.
The entestamental books of the Old Testament are sometimes enumerated as 24, sometimes as 22, according to the letters of the Alphabet, by various combinations or distinctions of certain ones. This number is inculcated by Josephus, Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Jerome, Nazianzen, Origen, Athanasius, Damascenus, Hilary, Rufinus, Hugh of Saint Victor and others, including within it the Canonical books. The Hebrews distinguish according to types, into the Law, the former and latter Prophets, and the Writings. In the New Testament they are either universally called the law or prophetic discourse, or they are distinguished into the law and the prophets; so that after Moses, Samuel is designated as the first of the Prophets who wrote, Acts 3:22,24, or into the law, the prophets, and the Psalms. And these are the five books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, two of Samuel and two of Kings (or four books of Kings or Kingdoms), two of Chronicles (or Paralipomena), Ezra, Nehemiah (or two of Ezra), Esther (omitted by Melito and Nazianzen. The former perhaps joins Esther to Ezra: Athanasius hesitates concerning Esther because of spurious additions. Nazianzen seems to have omitted Esther due to the constraint of verse and carelessness. For he, enumerating 22 books, after the five of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Ruth as the eighth, places Kings and Paralipomena as ninth and tenth, then Isaiah, then five written ones, and five of the prophetic spirit. Therefore one is missing, Esther, to reach the sum of twenty-two), Job, Psalms, three of Solomon, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. These constitute the Dodecapropheton, joined together lest something be lost on account of their smallness. Hence comes what is said in Acts 7:42, “written in the book of the prophets.”