Even if I said Saint Jerome’s statements in the Vulgate appear to strongly say something, his usage of those books as Scripture both before and after would at most suggested he changed his mind about them several times (is a rather fickle and dim view of him).
At most indeed it may
suggest that, but as the esteemed (including by many RCs) J. N. D. Kelly finds the evidence testifying to is that,
After enumerating the ‘twenty-two’ (or perhaps twenty-four) books recognised by the Jews, he decrees that any books outside this list must be reckoned ‘apocryphal’: ‘They are not in the canon.’ Elsewhere, while admitting that the Church reads books like Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus which are strictly uncanonical, he insists on their being used solely ‘for edifying the people, not for the corroboration of ecclesiastical’. This was the attitude which, with temporary concessions for tactical or other reasons, he was to maintain for the rest of his life—in theory at any rate, for in practice he continued to cite them as if they were Scripture. (J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2000), pp. 160-161.)
And as showed elsewhere I believe, this basic position rejecting the deuteros as Scripture was held by such men as Cardinals Cajetan approx 1,200 years later, and debated in Trent itself by the group headed by Cardinal Seripando.
But it was Rome who choose to disallow what has been allowed for approx. 1400 years of history.
The Church allowing those books in the Vulgate defies the notion that anyone viewed them as not belonging there, as does the presence of verses from them in liturgy long before the Vulgate.
That is absurd in the light of history as regards
not belonging there as being equal to Scripture, and even Luther's Bible contained apocryphal books.
How can we view a hundreds of years of prior history of strong defense against the use of, condemnation of, and warnings against using it in liturgy,,,etc of what they viewed as obviously bad writings and then with straight face suggest (simply by a label) they would allow bad writings to be used in liturgy and become part of the Bible? (that is unless we view the Church in some dim and fickle view).
How? That is easy: it is because the church of Rome does not require the misleading “
unanimous consent” of the fathers," nor did it disallow disagreement on the deuteros.
As Augustine, the main party in favor of the larger canon, apparently based upon his erroneous belief that the Jews translated the deuteros into the LXX, and his belief in the fable (and Jerome calls it that) of the
Letter of Aristeas, explains, and contrary to your attempt to make the issue merely being a matter of level of inspiration,
"...concerning the issue of books which are not universally accepted, those which are admitted by the largest number of churches and the most important churches will be placed before those which are admitted by fewer churches and churches of lesser authority. Finally, there are certain books which are accepted by the majority of churches and some others which are accepted by important churches, in these cases I deem that both must be given the same authority.” – Augustine, On Christian Doctrine (2.8.12)
And as said, if use in liturgy means such was held as Scripture proper, then 1st Clement and the Judgment of Peter would make it, including even though no church father ever listed them as canonical. Rufinus said, “they would have been read in the Churches, but not appealed to for the confirmation of doctrine.”
Meanwhile, to suggest that those who were against the use of the deuteros, even at least for doctrine, later changed their mind by the time the deuteros appears in the Vulgate and or was used in liturgy paints a view of such as dim and fickle, contrary to history as already clearly shown you.
Even Saint Jerome own comments regarding his own preface to Daniel in defense of it rather shuts the door on claiming to know what he meant by those and similar remarks without appealing to him explaining himself or lacking that in the way he used those books AS SCRIPTURE attesting to the fact those comments did not mean what many Protestants want them to mean.
Rather, it is his own statements that are self-evident in rejecting the deuteros as Scripture, and thus RCs must resort to trying to extrapolate a change of mind re. these books, or worse, a mind that never held them as he said he did.
Again, Jerome stated (circa 393 AD),
T
his preface to the Scriptures may serve as a “helmeted” introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be assured that what is not found in our list must be placed amongst the Apocryphal writings. Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd are not in the canon. “ (Jerome’s Preface to Samuel and Kings: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vii.iii.iv.html)
And J. N. D. Kelly also wrote,
"Jerome, conscious of the difficulty of arguing with Jews on the basis of books they spurned and anyhow regarding the Hebrew original as authoritative, was adamant that anything not found in it was ‘to be classed among the apocrypha’, not in the canon; later he grudgingly conceded that the Church read some of these books for edification, but not to support doctrine." [J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco: Harper, 1960), p. 55].
As for trying to minimized the distinction btwn the deuteros and holly God-inspired Scripture, an excerpt from the Prologue to the Glossa ordinaria (an assembly of “glosses,” that of brief notations of the meaning of a word or wording in the margins of the Vulgate Bible) expresses this distinction:
The canonical books have been brought about through the dictation of the Holy Spirit. It is not known,
however, at which time or by which authors the non-canonical or apocryphal books were produced. Since, nevertheless, they are very good and useful, and nothing is found in them which contradicts the canonical books, the church reads them and permits them to be read by the faithful for devotion and edification. Their authority, however, is not considered adequate for proving those things which come into doubt or contention,or for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogma,
as blessed Jerome states in his prologue to Judith and to the books of Solomon. But
the canonical books are of such authority that whatever is contained therein is held to be true firmly and indisputably, and likewise that which is clearly demonstrated from them. (note 124, written in AD 1498, and also found in a work attributed to Walafrid Strabo in the tenth century..., emp mine,
Untitled Document)
Here he is arguing with a heretical opponent who had apparently falsely made similar comments regarding Saint Jerome’s comments in the Vulgate by falsely claiming Saint Jerome wrote a letter about it:
Para 33 CHURCH FATHERS: Apology Against Rufinus, Book II (Jerome)
“We have four versions to choose from: those of Aquila, Symmachus, the Seventy, and Theodotion. The churches choose to read Daniel in the version of Theodotion. What sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches?
Contextually, what you leave out was that it was Theodotion’s translation of Daniel which the churches were using instead of the Septuagint version that Jerome refers to when he mentions the “judgment of the churches” and not their decision on canon:
"It is true, I said that the Septuagint version was in this book very different from the original, and that it was condemned by the right judgment of the churches of Christ; but the fault was not mine who only stated the fact, but that of those who read the version. We have four versions to choose from: those of Aquila, Symmachus, the Seventy, and Theodotion. The churches choose to read Daniel in the version of Theodotion. What sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches?"
And if Jerome said that the Septuagint version was in this book very different from the original [Hebrew], and that it was condemned by the right judgment of the churches of Christ,” why do Roman Catholics support the LXX version today?
Meanwhile, regarding churches choosing to read Daniel in the translation of Theodotion Daniel to Greek, Jerome wondered why one should use the version of a translator whom he regarded as heretic and judaizer [Theodotion]. (Jerome, "Apology Against Rufinus, Book II.)
But when I repeat what the Jews say against the Story of Susanna and the Hymn of the Three Children, and the fables of Bel and the Dragon, which are not contained in the Hebrew Bible, the man who makes this a charge against me proves himself to be a fool and a slanderer; for I explained not what I thought but what they commonly say against us. I did not reply to their opinion in the Preface, because I was studying brevity, and feared that I should seem to be writing not a Preface but a book. I said therefore, As to which this is not the time to enter into discussion.”
As for making distinction btwn the additions to Daniel and established Scripture, we find that Jerome was following the right judgment of the churches in making that distinction in translating into Latin the full LXX text of Daniel, including the stories of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon, by prefacing sections “with a critical symbol showing that they were not included in the Hebrew:”
in his Preface to the book of Daniel (which he cites above in Rufinus, II.33) he wrote,
..both Eusebius and Apollinarius have answered him after the same tenor, that the stories of Susanna and of Bel and the Dragon are not contained in the Hebrew...For this same reason when I was translating Daniel many years ago, I noted these visions with a critical symbol, showing that they were not included in the Hebrew. And in this connection I am surprised to be told that certain fault-finders complain that I have on my own initiative truncated the book.…And since all the churches of Christ, whether belonging to the Greek-speaking territory or the Latin, the Syrian or the Egyptian, publicly read this edition with its asterisks and obeli [distinguishing it from the original], let the hostile-minded not begrudge my labor. (St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel (1958) pp. 15-157)
Therefore, by not giving his own reasons here (which as seen on other places, argued for the Hebrew canon), but retaining Jewish distinction which all the churches of Christ retained, the fools and slanders had no case against him here (though they would based on other prefaces), but neither do you that the church themselves did not make retain that distinction while reading the apocryphal additions to Daniel.
So which argument here in CF would we think Saint Jerome call a fool and a slanderer of him? Which argument is giving Saint Jerome’s statements the charity they deserve?
Certainly not the one that makes Jerome to be changing his mind about the deuteros, or as never making the distinction btwn it and wholly inspired Scripture.
So again, I submit taking snips from history and making pronouncements from considering only that, that is the essence of making an invalid argument from the onset.
Then you should stop doing it.
If the meaning from the above quote is doubted, then look at what Saint Jerome said prior to the above quote in the same work (para24):
“It is this same man, then, who wrote this fictitious letter of retractation in my name, making out that my translation of the Hebrew books was bad, who, we now hear, accuses me of having translated the Holy Scriptures with a view to disparage the Septuagint. In any case, whether my translation is right or wrong, I am to be condemned: I must either confess that in my new work I was wrong, or else that by my new version I have aimed a blow at the old. I wonder that in this letter he did not make me out as guilty of homicide, or adultery or sacrilege or parricide or any of the vile things which the silent working of the mind can revolve within itself. Indeed I ought to be grateful to him for having imputed to me no more than one act of error or false dealing out of the whole forest of possible crimes. Am I likely to have said anything derogatory to the seventy translators, whose work I carefully purged from corruptions and gave to Latin readers many years ago, and daily expound it at our conventual gatherings; whose version of the Psalms has so long been the subject of my meditation and my song? Was I so foolish as to wish to forget in old age what I learned in youth? All my treatises have been woven out of statements warranted by their version. My commentaries on the twelve prophets are an explanation of their version as well as my own. How uncertain must the labours of men ever be! And how contrary at times to their own intentions are the results which men's studies reach. I thought that I deserved well of my countrymen the Latins by this version, and had given them an incitement to learning; for it is not despised even by the Greeks now that it is retranslated into their language; yet it is now made the subject of a charge against me; and I find that the food pressed upon them turns upon the stomach.”
So somehow Jerome translating a little of the Greek LXX (I read that he himself only translated the Tobit fable and Judith), and or using it means that he did not make the distinctions that he said he did, and Catholic scholarship said he did??? Are they all wrong? Or that if he submitted to church pressure (though it is evident doubts and disagreements on the canon were allow right into Trent) then that negates enlisting him or the like as examples of those who rejected the deuteros as Scripture?
Or do you think the argument is that we are saying the deuteros cannot be included in Protestant Bibles, or even be read? Just what is your argument?
Mine simply is that Luther was no maverick in excluding the deuteros as Scripture proper, and neither did he exclude them from his translation, and which may be edifying, at least some, but that he and we have support for our distinction btwn the deuteros as Scripture proper from certain of the ancients who were esteemed RCs, not that we need such, or hold such in Cath esteem.
I agree the ECFs and Saint Jerome are not knuckleheads and my view of their words supports that they are not and also not fickle. Someone making the claim being made here would need to explain how those men could be understood that way and not be viewed as dim witted, fickle, obstinate, knuckleheads.
That such always either held the deuteros as wholly God-inspired Scripture or else they were dim witted, fickle, obstinate, knuckleheads is a false dilemma, as it excludes the historically substantiated alternative. Which is the many did not held the deuteros, whole or in part, as Scripture, but which they were not required to do, as seen by the debate right in Trent, and the bare majority vote to require this recognition, which is only part of the history which you ignore.
So maybe I must provide some. First a summation of some ECFs (from
here) whom you need to exclude as making the distinctions at issue, or relegating them to being dim witted, fickle, obstinate, knuckleheads:
1. Melito, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.26.13-14. He claims 22 books ending with Ezra/Nehemiah; his only deviation from Jewish tradition and the Protestant OT canon was to separate Ruth from Judges and as a result omit Esther (see Jerome’s explanation of Jewish tradition in his Preface to the Book of Kings, listed below).
2. Origen, in Eusebius, 6.25.2ff. He claims 22 books, but Eusebius’ copy lists 21 ending with Esther, omitting the 12.
3. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 4.35 in NPNF s2, v7. He claims 22 books ending with Daniel, and appends Baruch & Epistle of Jeremiah to Jeremiah/Lamentations as “one book.”
4. Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Psalms, prol. 15. Claims 22 books, ending with Esther. Like Origen, he counted the Epistle of Jeremiah with Jeremiah/Lamentations as one book. He says that the Hellenistic Jews in Rome might count 24 books, adding Tobit and Judith (he didn’t understand Jewish tradition as Jerome did; the Jewish list of 24 books for those who taught their infants the Greek alphabet was the same as the 22, just separating Ruth and Lamentations from Judges and Jeremiah, respectively).
5. Athanasius, Festal Letter 39. He claims 22 books, ending with Daniel. Like Melito, he mistakenly separated Ruth from Judges and had to omit Esther to maintain 22 books. Like Cyril, he also used the LXX and counted Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah as one book with Jeremiah/Lamentations.
6. Gregory Nazianzus, Carmina 1.12.5. He claims 22 books, ending with Daniel. Like Origen, he appends the Epistle of Jeremiah to Jeremiah/Lamentations as “one book.” He is silent on Lamentations (which we know was contained in all of the MSS containing Jeremiah).
7. Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures, 4. He claims 22 books, ending with Esther. His only aberration is silence on Lamentations (which we know was part of all the MSS containing Jeremiah).
8. Rufinus, Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, 36. He claims 22 books, ending with Song of Songs. He, like Epiphanius was silent on Lamentations (which we know was part of all the MSS containing Jeremiah).
9. Jerome, Preface to the Book of Kings in NPNF s2, v6. He claims 22 ending with Esther. This is the list he calls his “helmeted introduction” to all the OT canonical books – exactly as in the Protestant canon). He also comments on an alternate Jewish tradition which separates Ruth and Lamentations from Judges and Jeremiah, respectively, putting them with the Hagiographa, yielding a count of 24 books.
Later, the Catholic Encyclopedia also states as regards the Middle Ages, which source it seems you must reject as ignorant or as being anti-Catholic:
In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome's depreciating Prologus (CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Canon of the Old Testament, emp mine)
Also, the Targums did not include these books, nor the earliest versions of the Peshitta, and the apocryphal books are seen to have been later additions,
And among those dissenting at Trent was Augustinian friar, Italian theologian and cardinal and papal legate Girolamo Seripando. As Catholic historian Hubert Jedin (German), who wrote the most comprehensive description of the Council (2400 pages in four volumes) explained, “he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship” at the Council of Trent.” Jedin further
writes:
►: “Tobias, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, the books of Esdras, Ecclesiasticus, the books of the Maccabees, and Baruch are only "canonici et ecclesiastici" and make up the canon morum in contrast to the canon fidei. These, Seripando says in the words of St. Jerome, are suited for the edification of the people, but they are not authentic, that is, not sufficient to prove a dogma. Seripando emphasized that in spite of the Florentine canon the question of a twofold canon was still open and was treated as such by learned men in the Church. Without doubt he was thinking of Cardinal Cajetan, who in his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews accepted St. Jerome's view which had had supporters throughout the Middle Ages.” (Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), pp. 270-271)
►“
While Seripando abandoned his view as a lost cause, Madruzzo, the Carmelite general, and the Bishop of Agde stood for the limited canon, and the bishops of Castellamare and Caorle urged the related motion to place the books of Judith, Baruch, and Machabees in the "canon ecclesiae." From all this it is evident that Seripando was by no means alone in his views. In his battle for the canon of St. Jerome and against the anathema and the parity of traditions with Holy Scripture, he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship.” (ibid, 281-282)
Cardinal Cajetan who himself was actually an adversary of Luther, and who was sent by the Pope in 1545 to Trent as a papal theologian, stated in his Commentary on All the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament (dedicated to Pope Clement VII ):
"Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St. Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecciesiasticus, as is plain from the Protogus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome.
Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the Bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage.” . ("A Disputation on Holy Scripture" by William Whitaker (Cambridge: University, 1849), p. 48. Cf. Cosin's A Scholastic History of the Canon, Volume III, Chapter XVII, pp. 257-258 and B.F. Westcott's A General Survey of the Canon of the New Testament, p. 475.)
► Erasmus likewise expressed doubts concerning Revelation as well as the apostolicity of James, Hebrews and 2 Peter. It was only as the Protestant Reformation progressed, and Luther's willingness to excise books from the canon threatened Rome that, at Trent, the Roman Catholic Church hardened its consensus stand on the extent of the New Testament canon into a conciliar pronouncement. 64 http://bible.org/article/evangelicals-and-canon-new-testament#P136_48836
The seventh Ecumenical Council officially accepted the Trullan Canons as part of the sixth Ecumenical Council. The importance of this is underscored by canon II of Trullo which officially authorized the decrees of Carthage, thereby elevating them to a place of ecumenical authority. However, the Council also sanctioned were the canons of Athanasius and Amphilochius that had to do with the canon and both of these fathers rejected the major books of the Apocrypha. In addition, the Council sanctioned the Apostolical canons which, in canon eighty-five, gave a list of canonical books which included 3 Maccabees, a book never accepted as canonical in the West.
(Untitled Document)
Decrees by non-ecumenical early councils such as Hippo, Carthage and Florence were not infallible, and thus doubts and disputes among scholars continued right into Trent. The decision of Trent in 1546 was the first “infallible” indisputable and final definition of the Roman Catholic canon,
(New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. II, Bible, III (Canon), p. 390; The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent: Rockford: Tan, 1978), Fourth Session, Footnote #4, p. 17, and see below) apparently after an informal
vote of 24 yea, 15 nay, with 16 abstaining (44%, 27%, 29%) as to whether to affirm it as an article of faith with its anathemas on those who dissent from it.
This definition came over 1400 hundred years (April 8th, 1546) after the last book was written — and after Luther died (February 8,1546) And if the canon list was dogma prior to Trent, then there were many Catholics throughout history who would have been de facto excommunicated.
More.
Also, some of the books of the
Pseudepigrapha were invoked by some church fathers, and some found their way into
other canons of various Eastern churches (which also differ with that of Rome, but which is seldom made a major issue by Roman Catholic apologists, unlike as with Protestants).
Because saying they would treat these books the same as they actually did treat something like the Gospel of Thomas or The Apocalypse of Daniel – which is to say strongly denounced even the usage of, is clearly a very dim view of those men indeed.
That is a strawman, an argument i never made. But Tobit is quite a fable, while i would say that that the Wisdom of Solomon is the closest to Scripture, but is not written by him, and may possibly be a 1st c. document.
Take Revelation. To this day the Greek Orthodox Church will not read from that book in Mass (one older understanding of non-canonical and/or also included in a broader sense apocrypha) yet no such Greek would or has EVER denied Revelation is Sacred Scripture. So without understanding or appreciating what they meant by apocryphon or apocryphal or noncanical, such statements are meaningless to the Protestant and do very much suggested the poorest of views and charity being given these men.
To argue that all the sources who to various degrees expressed their rejection of the deuteros were doing so as the EO does with Revelation, or that none clearly rejected them is simply untenable in the light of history. Give it up. As shown, Cyril of Jerusalem alone refuted this idea exhorting his readers to
“Of these read the two and twenty books, but have nothing to do with the apocryphal writings...And of the Old Testament, as we have said, study the two and twenty books, which, if thou art desirous of learning, strive to remember by name, as I recite them.” (Cyril of Jerusalem on the Canon of Scripture)
LOL, pointing to heretical views and dissenting opinions (whether Catholic or Protestant) has never been “proof” of what the Church “really” teaches. I can point to any number of popular Catholic groups very vocal in their errors, popular among Catholics and with the media. So were the Arians and the Originest heretics very popular.
Making ECFs into men who did not distinqush btwn the deuteros and wholly God-inspired Scripture is no more tenable than making them into heretics i they did. The rest of your sophistry is already refuted.
You made a terrible mistake in deciding to submit to an elitist church which is distinctively absent in NT record of the NT church, and it now seems you must defend it and attack those who expose her at whatever cost.
