Luther has expressed opinions of certain books of the Bible which question their divine authorship. These opinions are being assiduously canvassed by Catholic writers to prove that Luther accepted only such portions of the Bible as suited his purpose, and rejected all the rest as spurious. He is said to have arrogated to himself the authority to declare any book of the Scriptures inspired or not inspired, and is, therefore, justly regarded as the father of the higher criticism of modern times, which has taken the Bible to pieces and destroyed its power. But Catholic writers fail to state that the uncertainty which Luther occasionally manifests regarding the divine origin and authenticity of certain books of the Bible is due to the confusion which the Catholic Church has created by decreeing that the apocryphal books shall be considered on a par with the canonical writings of the Bible. Setting aside the verdict of the ancient Church, and even of their famous church-father Jerome, the Catholic Church has by an arbitrary decree ruled the following books into the Bible: 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, The Rest of Esther, The Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Baruch, with the Epistle of Jeremiah, The Song of the Three Holy Children, The History of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, The Prayer of Manasses, 1 and 2 Maccabees. These writings are called apocrypha because their divine origin is in doubt. Scrupulously careful to keep the divinely inspired writings separate from all other writings, no matter how godly their contents might seem to be, the Church of the Old Covenant excluded these writings from the canon, that is, from the list of fully accredited inspired writings. Besides, in the Catholic Bible in Luther's days there were apocryphal portions inserted in canonical writings like Esther.