word was applied to the Pseudepigrapha and to other extra-canonical books; St. Jerome was the first to use it in reference to the books which are now included in the Apocrypha, i.e. in the sense in which it is now used. This new use of the term did not at once become general; St. Augustine (d. A.D. 430), for example, uses “apocrypha” in the old sense in his _De Civitate Dei_, xv. 23; but by degrees St. Jerome’s nomenclature was adopted throughout the West, and this has continued to the present time. Thus it has come about that we call the sacred books of the second rank the Apocrypha, though there is not, nor ever has been, anything “hidden” about them or their teaching. V. THE READING OF UNCANONICAL BOOKS We shall deal in detail with the books of the Apocrypha in Part II, and some account of the Pseudepigrapha will be given in the next chapter; here we purpose to say something about the early use of uncanonical “books,” apart from the two categories just mentioned, during the period with which we are mainly concerned, i.e. roughly B.C. 200-A.D. 100. As we have already seen, the idea of a Canon presupposes the existence of a number of books from which those to be included in the Canon are selected. So that before the formation of the Canon a variety of books was in existence among the Jews, the reading of which was not forbidden. This continued until after the Canon had been finally fixed, though it was not long before _all_ uncanonical books, with the exception of some of those which belong to our Apocrypha,[260] were forbidden. Rabbi Akiba, for example, who lived towards the end of the first century A.D. and during the first half of the second, reckoned among such as had no portion in the world to come those who read “outside books”[261]; these were called _Sepharim hachizônim_, the latter word being equivalent to the Greek οἱ ἔξω, which is used in the New Testament of persons “that are without,” i.e. outside the company of the faithful.[262] In Jewish writings the _Sepharim hachizônim_ are synonymous with _Sifre hamînîm_, “the books of the heretics.”[263] The Rabbis regarded such books with the greatest horror; it is said of Rabbi Tarphon, a contemporary of Rabbi Akiba, that he burned every book belonging to the _Minim_ which he could get hold of; he went so far as to say that if a man was being pursued by a murderer or a serpent it would be better to take refuge in the house of an idolater than in that of a heretic.[264] We deal with the subject of these books in the next chapter. It is often asked what _data_ we have for believing in the existence of the wide prevalence of “books” in these early ages; as the question is not without importance in the present connection it will not be out of place to indicate some of the _data_. We may refer first to Ecclesiastes xii. 11, 12: “The words of the wise are as goads, and as driven nails are the members of collections; they are given by one shepherd. And besides these, my son, be warned.