Patrick Comerford
Donald Trump in his televised debate with Kamala Harris repeated apocryphal stories about Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs in the streets of Springfield, Ohio. But this exaggerated lie seems to have backfired and it has become one of the signature moments of their first – and possibly only – debate during this election campaign.
Halfway through the debate in Philadelphia last Tuesday night, Trump repeated the fable that migrants in Springfield were ‘eating the pets of the people that live there.’
The ABC News moderator David Muir interjected quickly to clarify that the network had contacted the city’s manager, who said that there were no credible reports of pets being harmed by immigrants.
Trump’s lies echoed apocryphal stories circulating worldwide on X (the wretched platform once known as Twitter) and other social media sites that Haitian migrants in Springfield were behind a wave of local crime and to blame for the disappearances of cats and dogs.
In the days immediately before the debate, Trump supporters, including Elon Musk, promoted and reposted these claims, regurgitating lies and conspiracy theories that never survive the light of day off social media.
This particular apocryphal story has become a focus of derision of Trump, and a reminder of everything that is crazy and weird about Trump.
But his claims appeal to the audience he intended: fans on X, who responded by generating memes of cats, dogs and geese pleading with voters to save them by choosing Trump. These unfounded stories about Haitian migrants in Springfield were also repeated ahead of the debate in posts on X by Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance.
About 15,000 Haitians have come to Springfield legally in the past several years under temporary protected status as they flee poverty and violence in their home country. But the Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine says, ‘Haitians who are here are hard-working people.’ He told a news conference in Columbus before the debate, ‘They came to Springfield, Ohio, for work, and many, many, many of them are working and filling positions in Springfield.’
It all reminds me of the saying attributed to Mark Twain but that is, in fact, apocryphal, ‘A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.’
But Trump wallows in apocryphal sayings of his own making, such as ‘The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.’ If he ever said that, what he ought to have said is, ‘The truth about me is that I’m a consummate and incurable liar.’
In her handling of Trump’s barbs and lies last week, Kamala Harris must have taken to heart another apocryphal saying ascribed to Mark Twain, ‘Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.’
One story about senior foreign dignitaries visiting England is the apocryphal story about one visitor who exclaimed, ‘I’ve never understood why they built Windsor Castle right under the flightpath for Heathrow. I’d have thought royalty would have wanted somewhere less busy.’
It wasn’t Trump … but it could have been.
He constantly repeats apocryphal stories about nine-month abortions and post-natal infanticide in maternity wards, he fantasises about ‘the late and great Hannibal Lector’, he lies about the size of his crowds, he is abysmally ignorant about solar and wind energy, and he refuses to accept that he lost the last election or to accept responsibility his role in the 6 January riots in Washington.
We normally use the word Apocrypha to label biblical or related writings that are not part of the accepted canon of the Bible, some of which have doubtful authorship or authenticity. The word apocryphal (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings that were to be read privately rather than in the public context of church services. Apocrypha were edifying Christian works that were not always initially included as canonical scripture.
The adjective ‘apocryphal’, meaning of doubtful authenticity, mythical or fictional, has been in use since the late 16th century. It took on the popular meaning of ‘false,’ ‘spurious,’ ‘bad’ or ‘heretical.’ It may be used for any book that might have scriptural claims but which does not appear in the canon accepted by the author.
The word’s origin can be found the mediaeval Latin adjective apocryphus (secret, or non-canonical), from the Greek adjective ἀπόκρυφος, (apokryphos, ‘private’), from the verb ἀποκρύπτειν (apokryptein, ‘to hide away’). It is formed from a combination of ἀπό (apó, ‘from’ or ‘away’) and κρύπτω (krúptō ‘I hide’), and so we have the word apocrypha, ἀπόκρυφα.
The word apocrypha has undergone a major change in meaning throughout the centuries. In its ancient Christian usage, it originally meant a text read in private, rather than in public church settings. Later, the word Apocrypha came to be applied as a name for a set of books often placed in the Bible, between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The canonicity of many of these books is accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Churches and other Churches in the East, and they are often described as deuterocanonical. Many other traditions reject them completely, but others regard the Apocrypha as non-canonical books with some undefined Biblical standing and that remain useful for instruction.
Origen, in his Commentaries on Matthew, distinguishes between writings that were read by the churches and apocryphal writings: γραφὴ μὴ φερομένη μέν ἒν τοῖς κοινοῖς καὶ δεδημοσιευμένοις βιβλίοις εἰκὸς δ' ὅτι ἒν ἀποκρύφοις φερομένη (‘writing not found in the common and published books on one hand [and] actually found in the secret ones on the other’). The meaning of αποκρυφος here is practically equivalent to ‘excluded from the public use of the church’ and prepares the way for an even less favourable use of the word.
In general use, the word apocrypha came to mean ‘of doubtful authenticity’. This meaning also appears in Origen’s prologue to his commentary on the Song of Songs: ‘Concerning these scriptures, which are called apocryphal, for the reason that many things are found in them corrupt and against the true faith handed down by the elders, it has pleased them that they not be given a place nor be admitted to authority.’
Augustine defined the word as meaning simply ‘obscurity of origin’, implying that any book of unknown authorship or questionable authenticity would be considered apocryphal. Jerome declared that all books outside the Hebrew canon were apocryphal. In practice, Jerome treated some books outside the Hebrew canon as if they were canonical, and the Western Church did not accept Jerome’s definition of apocrypha, instead retaining the word’s prior meaning.
The Council of Trent in 1546 reconfirmed the canon of Augustine, dating to the second and third centuries, declaring ‘He is also to be anathema who does not receive these entire books, with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church, and are found in the ancient editions of the Latin Vulgate, as sacred and canonical.’ The whole of the books in question, with the exception of I Esdras and II Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, were declared canonical at Trent.
Lutherans and Anglicans retained the apocryphal books as Christian intertestamental readings and a part of the Bible (in a section called ‘Apocrypha’), but no doctrine should be based on them.
Article 6 in the 39 Articles in the Church of England declared that ‘the other books the church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners,’ though not to establish doctrine.
It is interesting that liturgically, many weddings in Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist churches have a reading from the Book of Tobit. Two traditional Anglican canticles also have sources in the Apocrypha: the canticles Benedicite and Benedictus es, Domine are based on the Song of the Three, a passage in the Book of Daniel that is generally regarded as apocryphal. In the American Prayer Book, one of the offertory sentences in Holy Communion comes from an apocryphal book (Tobit 4: 8-9).
Readings from the Apocrypha are regularly appointed to be read. In all, there are 111 such lessons in the revised American Prayer Book Lectionary, drawing on II Esdras, Tobit, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Three Holy Children, and I Maccabees.
The apocryphal books accepted as canonical by the Orthodox Church include the Psalms of Solomon, III Maccabees, IV Maccabees, the Epistle of Jeremiah the Book of Odes, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151.
Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and Protestants all agree on the canon of the New Testament. The Ethiopian Orthodox have in the past also included I and II Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas in their New Testament canon.
At one time Donald Trump was Biblically illiterate. When he first ran for the Republican nomination, he was unable to name a single Biblical verse. Now he is touting his own branded edition of the Bible.
The God Bless the USA Bible being hawked by Trump for $59.99 uses public domain text from the King James Version. But its 1,350 pages also include some of America’s most sacred documents: the Declaration of Independence; the Pledge of Allegiance; and the lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s ‘God Bless the USA’, a song which is played on repeat at Trump’s political rallies.
It gives a new but blasphemous dimension to Biblical Apocrypha.
Today, the adjective apocryphal is commonly used in modern English to refer to any text or story considered to be of dubious veracity or authority, although it may contain some moral truth. In this broader metaphorical sense, the word suggests a claim that is in the nature of folklore, factoid or urban legend.
Meanwhile, the people of Springfield, Ohio, are going to be remembered for a long time as the apocryphal home of so many lost cats and dogs that have been devoured.
Last word: 47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse
Next word: 49, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις
Previous words in this series:
1, Neologism, Νεολογισμός.
2, Welcoming the stranger, Φιλοξενία.
3, Bread, Ψωμί.
4, Wine, Οίνος and Κρασί.
5, Yogurt, Γιαούρτι.
6, Orthodoxy, Ορθοδοξία.
7, Sea, Θᾰ́λᾰσσᾰ.
8,Theology, Θεολογία.
9, Icon, Εἰκών.
10, Philosophy, Φιλοσοφία.
11, Chaos, Χάος.
12, Liturgy, Λειτουργία.
13, Greeks, Ἕλληνες or Ρωμαίοι.
14, Mañana, Αύριο.
15, Europe, Εὐρώπη.
16, Architecture, Αρχιτεκτονική.
17, The missing words.
18, Theatre, θέατρον, and Drama, Δρᾶμα.
19, Pharmacy, Φᾰρμᾰκείᾱ.
20, Rhapsody, Ραψῳδός.
21, Holocaust, Ολοκαύτωμα.
22, Hygiene, Υγιεινή.
23, Laconic, Λακωνικός.
24, Telephone, Τηλέφωνο.
25, Asthma, Ασθμα.
26, Synagogue, Συναγωγή.
27, Diaspora, Διασπορά.
28, School, Σχολείο.
29, Muse, Μούσα.
30, Monastery, Μοναστήρι.
31, Olympian, Ολύμπιος.
32, Hypocrite, Υποκριτής.
33, Genocide, Γενοκτονία.
34, Cinema, Κινημα.
35, autopsy and biopsy
36, Exodus, ἔξοδος
37, Bishop, ἐπίσκοπος
38, Socratic, Σωκρατικὸς
39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια
40, Practice, πρᾶξις
41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός
42, Pentecost, Πεντηκοστή
43, Apostrophe, ἀποστροφή
44, catastrophe, καταστροφή
45, democracy, δημοκρατία
46, ‘Αρχή, beginning, Τέλος, end
47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse
47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse
48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha
49, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις
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