In their introductory comments concerning Athanasius 39th Festal Letter (AD 367), David Brakke and David M. Gwynn wrote:
Outside his canonical Old and New Testaments, Athanasius
refers to two additional categories of writings, although they lack canonical
status. Into this category go the Wisdom of Solomon; the Wisdom of Sirach;
Esther; Judith; Tobit; the Teaching of the Apostles (Didache); and the Shepherd
of Hermas (a work that Athanasius once praised as a “most edifying book” (On
the Incarnation, 3), even if noncanonical (On the Council of Nicaea
181). Far more dangerous in Athanasius’ eyes are the true apocrypha, which
heretics have invented and attributed to figures such as Enoch, Isaiah, and
Moses. These works spread deceit and discord, and must be rejected lest they
cause the faithful to falter. (in The Festal Letters of Athanasius of
Alexandria, with the Festal Index and the Historia Acephala [trans. David
Brakke and David M. Gwynn; Translated Texts for Historians 81; Liverpool:
Liverpool University Press, 2022], 232)
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