De divisione et scriptoribus sacrorum librorum
by Peter of Blois
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://migne.app/pl/207/de-divisione-et-scriptoribus-sacrorum-librorum/
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## On the Division and the Writers of the Sacred Books

[1051B]The Old Testament is so called because, when the New came, it ceased; and of this the Apostle also makes mention, saying: The rest *have passed away, and behold, they are made new*. But he named the New Testament "New" because it makes new. For none speak of it save men called back from oldness through grace, and belonging already to the New Testament, which is the kingdom of heaven. The Hebrews, however, receive the Old Testament, of which God is the author, in twenty-two books, according to the number of their letters, dividing them into three orders: namely, of the law, of the prophets, and of the hagiographa. The first order is that of the law, which they receive in five books; of which the first is Beresith, which is Genesis; the second Vellesemoth, which is Exodus; the third Vaiecra, which is Leviticus; the fourth Vagedaber, which is Numbers; the fifth [1051C] Elleaddebarim, which is Deuteronomy. These are the five books of Moses, which the Hebrews call Thorah, and the Latins the Law. But properly that is called law which was given through Moses. The second order is that of the prophets, in which eight books are contained; of which the first is Josue Ben Nun, which in Latin is called Jesu Nave; the second Sophethim, which is Judges; the third Samuel, which is the first of Kings; the fourth Malachim, which is the third and fourth of Kings; the fifth Isaiah; the sixth Jeremiah; the seventh Ezekiel; the eighth There-asar, which is called the Twelve Prophets — which books, because for brevity's sake they have been joined to one another, are received as one. The third order is that of the hagiographa, that is, of those writing holy things, in which there are nine books. Of these the first is Job, the second the Psalter; the third [1051D] Massot, which is the Proverbs of Solomon; the fourth Coheleth, which is Ecclesiastes; the fifth Sir-assirim, which is the Song of Songs; the sixth Daniel; the seventh Dibrehajamin, which is "the words of days," that is, Paralipomenon; the eighth Esdras; the ninth Esther. All these together — five and eight and nine — make twenty-two, as they were reckoned above. Some, however, add to the hagiographa Ruth and Cinoth, which in Latin is called [1052B] the Lamentations of Jeremiah. These make twenty-four volumes of the Old Testament, corresponding to the twenty-four elders who stand before the sight of God. The fourth order of the Old Testament among us is that of those books which are not in the canon of the Hebrews. Of these the first is the book of Wisdom, the second Ecclesiasticus, the third Tobias, the fourth Judith, the fifth and sixth the books of Maccabees; which, though the Jews set them apart among the apocrypha, the Church of Christ nevertheless both honors and proclaims among the divine books. In the New Testament, however, there are two orders: the first evangelical, in which are Matthew, Mark, Luke, John; the second apostolic, in which are Paul in fourteen Epistles, Peter in two, John in three, James and Jude in one apiece, the Acts [1052C] of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse. Now the sum of both Testaments is distinguished in three ways: in history, in morals, in allegory. Again, these three are divided in many ways: what was done by God, what by angels, and lastly what by men; what was announced by the prophets concerning Christ and his body; what concerning the devil and his members; what concerning the old people and the new; what concerning the present age and the age to come, the kingdom and the judgment.

According to the tradition of the Hebrews, these are reported to be the authors of the Old Testament. First Moses, who set forth the cosmography of the divine history — that is, the writing of the world — in five volumes, and it is surnamed the Pentateuch. Now "Pentateuch" means five volumes: for *penta* in Greek is *five;* [1052D] *teuchus* is called a *volume.* The book of Genesis is called Beresith, because the beginning of the world and the generation of the age is contained in it. Exodus, for its part, sets out the departure from Egypt, or the going forth of the people of Israel, and from that cause it took its name. It is called Leviticus because it follows out the ministries of the Levites and the diversity of the victims, and the whole Levitical order is recorded in it. It is called the book of Numbers, because in it the tribes [1053A] that went out from Egypt are numbered, and in it is contained the description of the forty-two encampments through the desert. Deuteronomy, which in the Greek tongue is translated into Latin as *second law,* that is, the repetition of the evangelical law, is a prefiguration which so holds the things that are earlier that then all the things repeated in it are new. The book of Josue took its name from Josue the son of Nave, whose history it contains. The Hebrews assert that its writer was this same Josue, in whose text, after the crossing of the Jordan, the kingdoms of the enemies are overthrown. The land is divided to the people, and the several cities, calves, mountains, and the boundaries of the waters prefigure the spiritual kingdoms of the Church and of the heavenly Jerusalem. Judges is named from the princes of the people who presided over Israel after Moses and [1053B] Josue, before David and the other kings came to be. Samuel is believed to have published this book and Ruth. The book of Samuel describes the birth of that same Samuel, and his priesthood, and his deeds. For that reason it took its name from him; and, although this book contains the history of Saul and David, both are nevertheless referred to Samuel, from the fact that he himself anointed Saul and David as kings to come. The first part of this book that same Samuel wrote out; but what follows in it, down to the end, David wrote. It is accordingly called Malachim, because it sets out in the order of the times the deeds of the kings of Judah and of the Israelite nation. For *Malach* in Hebrew is rendered in Latin *kingdom.* Jeremiah was the first to gather this book into a single volume; for before it was scattered [1053C] through the histories of the individual Kings. It is called Paralipomenon in Greek, which we may call "of things passed over" or "of things left"; because whatever in the law, or in the books of Kings, was either omitted or not fully reported, is in this one explained summarily and briefly. Some judge that Moses wrote the book of Job, others one of the prophets; but a good many think that Job himself was the writer, after the blow of his suffering, judging that the very man who sustained the contest of a spiritual battle should narrate what victories he brought off. Now the beginnings and the ends of the book of Job are, among the Hebrews, certain by that very reckoning; but the middle parts of it, from that place where he says, *Let the day perish wherein I was born*, as far as that place, *therefore I reprove myself and do penance*, all run in heroic meter.

[1053D]The book of Psalms is called in Greek the Psalter, in Hebrew Nablat, in Latin an instrument; and it is called the book of psalms because, with one Prophet singing to the psaltery, the choir answered in harmony. The title in the Hebrew Psalms is this: Ysopocalim, which is translated *the volume of hymns.* The authors of the Psalms are those who are set down in the titles: namely Moses, David and Solomon, Asaph, Ethan, and Idithun, and the sons of Chore, the Ezechielite, and the rest, whom Esdras gathered into one volume. All the Psalms, moreover, are held to have been composed among the Hebrews in metrical song. For they are in the meter of the Roman Flaccus and the Greek Pindar: now they both run alike, now they sound in alcaic, [1054A] now they shine in sapphic, advancing on a trimeter or tetrameter foot. Solomon, the son of King David, published three volumes according to the number of his own names; of which the first is Massot, which the Greeks name Parables and the Latins Proverbs, because in it, under a comparative likeness, he would show figures of words and images of the truth. The truth itself, however, he reserved for readers to understand. The second book he called Coheleth, which in Greek is called Ecclesiastes, in Latin the preacher: because his discourse is not directed particularly to one man, as in the Proverbs, but is directed generally to all, teaching that all the things we behold in the world are fleeting and brief, and on that account by no means to be sought after. The third book he entitled Sir-assirim, which is turned into the Latin tongue as [1054B] the Song of Songs; where by a wedding-song he sings mystically the joining of Christ and the Church. And it is called the Song of Songs because it is preferred above all the things contained in the Holy Scriptures, just as certain things in the law are called holy, and those which are greater, the Holy of Holies. The songs of this third book are reported, on the authority of two — such as are Josephus and Jerome — to be composed in hexameter and pentameter verses. Isaiah published his book in an evangelical rather than a prophetic form. The whole text of his eloquence proceeds in prose; but the canticle runs in hexameter and pentameter verses. Jeremiah likewise published his book together with the Threni, which we call laments, because they are employed in sadder [1054C] affairs and at funerals; in which he composed a fourfold alphabet in different meters. Of these the first two are written in sapphic meter, because an upright *coma* closes off three little verses which are bound to one another and begin with one letter only. The third alphabet is written in trimeter, and the threni begin with sets of three verses. The fourth alphabet is held to be like the first and the second. Ezekiel and Daniel are reported to have been written by certain wise men. Of these, Ezekiel has his beginnings and ends wrapped in many obscurities; but Daniel foretells the kingdoms of the world in plain speech, and marks the time of the coming of Christ with a most manifest proclamation. These are the four prophets who are called the greater, because they composed lengthy volumes. The book of the Twelve Prophets is entitled [1054D] with the names of its own authors; and they are for this reason called the lesser, because their discourses are short. Whence also, connected one to another, they are contained in one volume; and their names are Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Michaeas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, and Malachias. The book of Esdras is entitled with the title of its own author. In its text the discourses of that same Esdras and of Nehemiah are contained alike. And let it move no one that only one book of Esdras is spoken of; because the second, third, and fourth books are not held among the Hebrews, but are reckoned among the apocrypha. Esdras is believed to have written out the book of Esther; in which that same queen, under [1055A] the figure of the Church, is believed to have rescued the people of God from servitude and death; and, Aman being slain (whose name is interpreted *iniquity* ), the solemnity of the day is handed on to those who come after. The book of Wisdom is nowhere found among the Hebrews; whence its very style savors of Greek rather than Hebrew eloquence. The Jews affirm that it belongs to Babylon; and they name it accordingly the book of Wisdom, because in it the coming of Christ, who is the wisdom of the Father, and his passion, are evidently set forth.

The book of Ecclesiasticus, however, was most certainly composed by Jesus the son of Sirach, the grandson of Jesus the high priest, of whom Zacharias also makes mention; which book, among the Latins, is entitled with the title of Solomon on account of the likeness of the speech. And it is called Ecclesiasticus [1055B] because it was published with great care and reason concerning the discipline of religious life for the whole Church. It is found among the Hebrews, but is now held apocryphal. As for Judith, and the books of Tobias, or of the Maccabees, by what authors they were written is by no means settled. They have their titles from the names of those whose deeds they record.



## On the Division and the Writers of the Sacred Books (cont.)

The four books of the Gospels four evangelists wrote out, each singly. First Matthew wrote out the Gospel in Hebrew letters in Judaea, announcing through his Gospel the human birth of Christ the son of David, saying: *The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham;* signifying that Christ had descended bodily from the seed of the patriarchs, [1055C] as had been promised in the prophets through the Holy Spirit. Second, Mark, full of the Holy Spirit, wrote the Gospel of Christ in Greek speech, in Italy, following Peter as his disciple; he made his beginning from John, in a prophetic spirit, saying: *The voice of one crying in the desert, prepare ye the way of the Lord,* that he might show that Christ, after the assumption of flesh, preached the Gospel in the world. For Christ himself was also called a prophet, as it is written: *And I have given thee for a prophet among the nations*. Third, Luke, of all the evangelists the most learned in Greek speech; for indeed, as a physician, he wrote the Gospel in Greece for Theophilus the bishop, beginning from the priestly spirit, saying: *There was in the days of Herod the king of Judaea a priest named Zacharias*, that he might make plain [1055D] that Christ, after the birth of the flesh and the preaching of the Gospel, was made a victim for the salvation of the world. For he himself is the priest of whom it is said in the Psalms: *Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech*. For where Christ came, the priesthood fell silent, the law and prophecy ceased. Fourth, John wrote the last Gospel in Asia, beginning from the Word, that he might show him to be the Savior — because for us he deigned to be born and to suffer — that he himself, the Word of God before the ages, had come from heaven, and after death had returned again to heaven. These are the four evangelists, whom through Ezekiel the Holy Spirit [1056A] signified by four living creatures. And for this reason they are four living creatures: because through them the faith of the Christian religion was scattered abroad by their preaching through the four parts of the world. And they were called living creatures because it is for the sake of the soul of man that the Gospel of Christ is preached. For they were also full of eyes within and without, since the Gospels see beforehand the things that were spoken by the prophets, and the things they had promised in the earlier book. Their legs were straight, because there is nothing crooked in the Gospels. They had six wings apiece, covering their legs and their faces; but at the coming of Christ the things that were covered were revealed. Now "Gospel" is interpreted *good announcement;* for *ev* is called *good,* and *angelium* an *announcement.* Whence "apostle" too, and "angel," is interpreted *messenger.*

[1056B]The apostle Paul wrote his fourteen Epistles in Greek, of which he wrote nine to seven Churches, and the rest to his disciples Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. But the Epistle to the Hebrews is by very many Latins held uncertain to be his, on account of the discordance of the speech; and some suspect that Barnabas wrote it out, others that it was by Clement. Peter wrote two Epistles of his own name. James and John, and Jude, wrote their Epistles; which are for this reason named canonical, because they were written not to one people or city only, but generally to all the nations. The Acts of the Apostles sets out the first beginnings of the Christian faith among the nations and the history of the newborn Church. We read that the writer of the Acts of the Apostles is Luke the evangelist; in which work the infancy of the newborn Church [1056C] is woven together, and the history of the apostles is preserved: whence also it is called the Acts of the Apostles. John the evangelist wrote the book of the Apocalypse at that time when, for the preaching of the Gospel, he is reported to have been banished to the island of Patmos. And "Apocalypse" is interpreted from the Greek into Latin as *revelation.* Revelation, moreover, is said to be the making manifest of those things which were hidden, according to what John himself also says, *the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to make openly known to his servants.* These are the writers of the sacred books, who, speaking through the Holy Spirit, wrote out for our instruction the precepts of living and the rule of believing. Besides these, other volumes are called apocryphal. And they are called apocrypha, that is, secret, because they come into doubt. For their origin is hidden, [1056D] and it does not lie open to the Fathers, from whom the authority of the truth of the Scriptures has reached us by a most certain and most well-known succession. Even if some truth is found in these apocrypha, nevertheless, on account of the many false things, there is in them no canonical authority; and they are rightly judged by the prudent not to be believed as belonging to those to whom they are ascribed. For many things are brought forward by heretics both under the names of the prophets and, more recent ones, under the names of the apostles; all of which, under the name of apocrypha, have by diligent examination been removed from canonical authority.
