slightly off topic: 7/4 evening prayer reading as you know was the story of Susanna (Daniel 13) from the apocrypha; could you shed any light on either or both Cranmer's understanding of the apocrypha and any discussion you are aware of about such text's inclusion in the BCP 2019?
The use of the apocrypha comes out of the 39 articles. In the 6th article, it explains the sufficiency of Scripture for salvation. Things that can't be read from or proved by Scripture are not to be required of anyone for salvation. The article goes on to state what Scripture is comprised of. It is the Old and New Testaments. Regarding the Apocrypha, the article says that these books are read for example of life and instruction of manners, but are not to be used to establish doctrine, ultimately because they are not considered inspired Scripture. So the Apocrypha is maintained because it has been in use from the earliest days of the church since it was attached to the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Cranmer put readings from it into the daily office because it had use for example and instructions of manners (consider some of the wisdom writings in it and how they explain righteous living, etc.). The 2019 maintains this tradition of including the Apocrypha because it was in the 1662. These books do not establish doctrines, but may help us to understand how to live in light of revelation and wisdom. So we still have readings from them here and there in the lectionary, though some will replace them with Old Testament readings when they appear in the lectionary.
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Beautiful meditation, Father. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. May your day be blessed!
slightly off topic: 7/4 evening prayer reading as you know was the story of Susanna (Daniel 13) from the apocrypha; could you shed any light on either or both Cranmer's understanding of the apocrypha and any discussion you are aware of about such text's inclusion in the BCP 2019?
The use of the apocrypha comes out of the 39 articles. In the 6th article, it explains the sufficiency of Scripture for salvation. Things that can't be read from or proved by Scripture are not to be required of anyone for salvation. The article goes on to state what Scripture is comprised of. It is the Old and New Testaments. Regarding the Apocrypha, the article says that these books are read for example of life and instruction of manners, but are not to be used to establish doctrine, ultimately because they are not considered inspired Scripture.
So the Apocrypha is maintained because it has been in use from the earliest days of the church since it was attached to the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Cranmer put readings from it into the daily office because it had use for example and instructions of manners (consider some of the wisdom writings in it and how they explain righteous living, etc.). The 2019 maintains this tradition of including the Apocrypha because it was in the 1662.
These books do not establish doctrines, but may help us to understand how to live in light of revelation and wisdom. So we still have readings from them here and there in the lectionary, though some will replace them with Old Testament readings when they appear in the lectionary.