Back to A Different Lens

Five churches in this atlas each hold a variant, differently accounted, relationship to the same set of deuterocanonical books: Church of Ireland, Anglican Communion, Church of England and The Episcopal Church, together with Church of Sweden. Four of the five state the identical settlement in identical words. The fifth reaches the same practical landing, useful reading but not scripture, by an entirely different route.

One Article, Repeated Word for Word Across Four Churches

Church of Ireland, Anglican Communion, Church of England and The Episcopal Church each carry the identical note on eleven books, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Additions to Daniel, Additions to Esther, the Book of Baruch, the Book of Judith, the Book of Tobit, the Books of the Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, the Wisdom of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon: named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571 among the books the church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine, printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546. The Church of Ireland is itself the Anglican church of the whole island, disestablished by act of parliament from 1871; the wording it carries on these eleven books is not its own local variation but the same settlement four Anglican bodies state without difference.

A Different Church, the Same Books, a Lutheran Route to the Same Place

Church of Sweden was the Lutheran state church of Sweden until the year 2000, its Reformation gradual rather than sudden, running from the Diet of Vasteras in 1527 to the Uppsala Assembly of 1593. It reaches the same practical landing on these same books, and on the Letter of Jeremiah besides, by a different route entirely: Martin Luther gathered the deuterocanonical books into a separate Apocrypha section of his own 1534 Bible, headed as not equal to Holy Scripture yet good and useful to read, and Lutheran Bibles have printed and read them there since. Not canonised, but retained, is the Lutheran wording where the Anglican wording is read but not doctrine; the destination is the same, a middle status between scripture and rejection, and the path there is not. Church of Sweden kept the historic episcopate through its own gradual Reformation, which is the ground on which the Porvoo Communion later brought it into full communion with the Anglican churches of Britain and Ireland, the very family whose own settlement on these books it reaches independently rather than by borrowing.

Where To Read More

• Church of IrelandChristianityThe Anglican church of the whole island; carries the shared Article VI wording plus further variant edges of its own not covered here
• Anglican CommunionChristianityCarries the identical Article VI wording; also carries a further, uninvestigated variant edge of its own
• Church of EnglandChristianityCarries the identical Article VI wording
• The Episcopal ChurchChristianityCarries the identical Article VI wording
• Church of SwedenChristianityReaches the same landing by its own Lutheran route, Luther's 1534 Apocrypha section
• 1 EsdrasDeuterocanonical BooksOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording
• 2 EsdrasPseudepigraphaOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording
• Additions to DanielDeuterocanonical BooksOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording
• Additions to EstherDeuterocanonical BooksOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording
• Book of BaruchDeuterocanonical BooksOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording; also under Church of Sweden's own Lutheran wording
• Book of JudithDeuterocanonical BooksOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording; also under Church of Sweden's own Lutheran wording
• Book of TobitDeuterocanonical BooksOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording; also under Church of Sweden's own Lutheran wording
• Books of the MaccabeesDeuterocanonical BooksOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording; also under Church of Sweden's own Lutheran wording
• Prayer of ManassehDeuterocanonical BooksOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording; also under Church of Sweden's own Lutheran wording
• Wisdom of SirachDeuterocanonical BooksOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording; also under Church of Sweden's own Lutheran wording
• Wisdom of SolomonDeuterocanonical BooksOne of the eleven books carrying the shared Anglican wording; also under Church of Sweden's own Lutheran wording
• Letter of JeremiahDeuterocanonical BooksHeld only under Church of Sweden's own Lutheran wording, not among the shared Anglican eleven
• The ApocryphaApocryphaChurch of Sweden's own umbrella page for the whole retained-but-not-canonised section