Good Day,
The whole quote is really needed from (Against Rufinus) to fully understand what is being addressed.
33. In reference to Daniel my answer will be that I did not say that he was not a
prophet; on the contrary, I confessed in the very beginning of the Preface that he was a
prophet. But I wished to show what was the opinion upheld by the
Jews; and what were the arguments on which they relied for its
proof. I also told the reader that the version read in the
Christian churches was not that of the
Septuagint translators but that of Theodotion. 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? 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. Otherwise from the fact that I stated that Porphyry had said many things against this
prophet, and called, as witnesses of this, Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinarius, who have replied to his folly in many thousand lines, it will be in his power to accuse me for not having written in my Preface against the books of Porphyry. If there is any one who pays attention to silly things like this, I must tell him loudly and freely that no one is compelled to read what he does not want; that I wrote for those who asked me, not for those who would scorn me, for the grateful not the carping, for the earnest not the indifferent. Still, I wonder that a man should read the version of Theodotion the
heretic and judaizer, and should scorn that of a
Christian, simple and sinful though he may be.
Again (no disrespect) I find the Cardinals understanding of Jerome around this issue to be more historical and a bit more reliable then yours. Why is it you disagree with him?
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 Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus 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.
Can you tell me why he was wrong... historically I find no one correcting him nor even challenging him..
In Him,
Bill
