Why aren't the Deuterocanonical books or the Apocrypha in the Bible?

Athanasius377 said:

Different spelling conventions but same person.

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And the wrong timeframe. Judith is not even close to how history and empires transpired.

redleghunter said:

Yet none of the deutero canon books were quoted or alluded to in the NT writings.

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Are you really going to try and use that argument? Do we also throw out 6 other OT books which are in Protestant bibles, such as the Song of Songs, because they are not quoted from in any NT book? But, Paul does use a story in Hebrews 11:35 which can only be found in 2 Maccabees 7. "Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release that they might rise again to a better life."

redleghunter said:

Which none of those councils were ecumenical.

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That doesn't mean that they didn't have the authority to set doctrine when convened by the Bishop of Rome. Which the ones cited were.

mathinspiration said:

Some of these stories are about women of faith and some have a lot to do with Jewish history.

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Why aren't the Deuterocanonical books or the Apocrypha in the Bible?

They are for the majority of Christians. Catholic and Orthodox Christians have them in their bibles and they count them as inspired revelation from God.

Radagast said:

However, they are not part of the Jewish scriptures.

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I'm not Jewish so I am not too fussed about them not being in a Jewish bible - the whole of the new testament is not in the Jewish bibles I've seen, have you seen the new testament in any Jewish bibles?

Albion said:

That's just the point. They are not like the other books of the Bible, and no doctrine is based upon anything in any of these books.

They're morality tales, which doesn't mean that you shouldn't read them for instruction in Jewish life and thinking in the last years before the coming of Christ, but they are not divinely inspired.

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What do you say about Esther and Song of Solomon? And what about Ecclesiastes?

redleghunter said:

I laid out Roman Catholic Trent scholarship in the link provided in my response to you.

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You laid out what you 'thought' was correct

Daniel Marsh said:

2 Maccabees 12
Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.g43He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection in mind;44for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead.45But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.46Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be absolved from their sin.

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This is not the answer to the question.

redleghunter said:

Historically inaccurate as several Roman Catholic theologians going into Trent and scholars did not deem the books as canon.


It should also be clear that Luther and the other reformers were not engaging in a new thought of chucking the deutercanons as the meme of many pitch.

The OT canon was open leading even into Trent. This is most notable in the opinions of two highly respected Catholic theologians. One of which debated Luther at Worms.

The Roman Catholic historian (and expert on Trent) Hubert Jedin, waded into the dispute leading up to and during Trent. He noted one respected theologian stanchly loyal to the Pope, Cardinal Seripando. Jedin explained “he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship” at the Council of Trent.

Jedin elaborates:

“[Seripando was] Impressed by the doubts of St. Jerome,Rufinus, and St. John Damascene about the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, Seripando favored a distinction in the degrees of authority of the books of the Florentine canon. The highest authority among all the books of the Old Testament must be accorded those which Christ Himself and the apostles quoted in the New Testament, especially thePsalms. But the rule of citation in the New Testament does not indicate the difference of degree in the strict sense ofthe word, because certain Old Testament books not quoted in the New Testament are equal in authority to those quoted.St. Jerome gives an actual difference in degree ofauthority when he gives ahigher place to those books which are adequate to prove a dogma than to those which are read merely for edification. The former, the protocanonical books, are “libri canonici et authentici“; Tobias, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, thebooks of Esdras, Ecclesiasticus, the books of the Maccabees, and Baruchare only “canonici etecclesiastici” 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 hiscommentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews accepted St. Jerome’s view which had had supporters throughout the Middle Ages.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B.Herder Book Co., 1947), pp. 270-271.

Jedin continues:

“For the last time [Seripando] expressed his doubts [to the Council of Trent] about accepting the deuterocanonical books into the canon of faith. Together with the apostolic traditions the so-called apostolic canons were being accepted, and the eighty-fifth canon listed the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) as non-canonical. Now, he said, it would be contradictory to accept, on the one hand, the apostolic traditions as the foundation of faith and, on the other, to directly reject one of them.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), p. 278. (Papal Legate at the Council of Trent)

Catholic historian Hubert Jedin also adds later:

“In his opposition to accepting the Florentine canon and the equalization of traditions with Holy Scripture, Seripando did not stand alone. In the particular congregation of March 23, the learned Dominican Bishop Bertano of Fano had already expressed the view that Holy Scripture possessed greater authority than the traditions because the Scriptures were unchangeable; that only offenders against the biblical canon should come under the anathema, not those who deny the principle of tradition; that it would be unfortunate if the Council limited itself to the apostolic canons, because the Protestants would say that the abrogation of some of these traditions was arbitrary and represented an abuse… Another determined opponent of putting traditions on a par with Holy Scripture, as well as the anathema, was the Dominican Nacchianti. The Servite general defended the view that all the evangelical truths were contained in the Bible, and he subscribed to the canon of St. Jerome, as did also Madruzzo and Fonseca on April 1. 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.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), pp. 281-282.

The next Cardinal to raise opposition at Trent was Cardinal Cajetan:


In 1532, Cajetan wrote his Commentary on All the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament (dedicated to Pope Clement VII ). In this work, Cajetan leaves out the entirety of the Apocrypha since he did not consider it to be Canonical:

“Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the OldTestament. 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.”

Cajetan Responds

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You seem to miss the point. There can certainly be disagreement within the Catholic ranks about almost anything. Just because we had some Catholic theologians argue against these books doesnt mean a thing. In the end of the day, the Church exercising Her magisterial teaching office decided. It was done in 382 AD when Pope Damascus I approved the canon and it was further confirmed in Rome, Hippo, Carthage, Florence and Trent.

No one man or saints bigger than the Church.

GingerBeer said:

I'm not Jewish so I am not too fussed about them not being in a Jewish bible - the whole of the new testament is not in the Jewish bibles I've seen, have you seen the new testament in any Jewish bibles?

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What the Jews considered as scripture is important as Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

Rom 3:1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?
Rom 3:2 Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.
(ESV)
Its rather difficult to entrust the oracles of God if the Jews didn't know what they were.

redleghunter said:

Was that council ecumenical?

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Doesn't matter. The Canon had already been approved. The Carthage synod ratified what had already been ratified in Hippo and Rome and approve by Pope Damasus I in 382. The Canon was set

Mike Alexander said:

You seem to miss the point. There can certainly be disagreement within the Catholic ranks about almost anything. Just because we had some Catholic theologians argue against these books doesnt mean a thing. In the end of the day, the Church exercising Her magisterial teaching office decided. It was done in 397 AD and it was further confirmed in Florence and Trent.

No one man or saints bigger than the Church.

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Are you saying that the early Church did not know what books were scripture? And the implication of what you say is that the church declared which books are scripture. This notion is false. The church merely recognized the inspiration of certain books but had no authority do declare a non inspired text as inspired. Also, I realize that RCC must push the date of the codification of the canon as far forward as possible in to ensure there is a monarchical episcopate functioning in Rome since this was not the case when other writers such as Melito of Sardis were describing what the canon was in the second century. Furthermore you have popes such as Gregory the Great arguing against the inspiration of several of these books centuries later. Jerome who translated the Vulgate certainly denied their inspiration as he was fluent in Hebrew and understood Jewish culture far better than say Augustine who understood neither. What you have is far more than just an internal debate for a few centuries but one that lasted up until the sixteenth century.

Athanasius377 said:

Are you saying that the early Church did not know what books were scripture?

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No

Athanasius377 said:

the church declared which books are scripture

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Correct

Athanasius377 said:

. This notion is false. The church merely recognized the inspiration of certain books but had no authority do declare a non inspired text as inspired

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Of course She did.

Athanasius377 said:

I realize that RCC must push the date of the codification of the canon as far forward as possible in to ensure there is a monarchical episcopate functioning in Rome since this was not the case when other writers such as Melito of Sardis were describing what the canon was in the second century.

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If that make you feel better.

Athanasius377 said:

Furthermore you have popes such as Gregory the Great arguing against the inspiration of several of these books centuries later. Jerome who translated the Vulgate certainly denied their inspiration as he was fluent in Hebrew and understood Jewish culture far better than say Augustine who understood neither. What you have is far more than just an internal de

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Ok, so you have individuals who didn't agree. So what!

Athanasius377 said:

What you have is far more than just an internal debate for a few centuries but one that lasted up until the sixteenth century.

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What?

RCC history and the "apocrypha

The Council of Trent was the 19th Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. Considered one of the Church's most important councils, it convened in Trent for three periods between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563, as a response to the Protestant Reformation.

Why aren't the Deuterocanonical books or the Apocrypha in the Bible?

Deuterocanonical books - Wikipedia

The Council of Trent in ~1546 supported the decisions about which books to include in the canon that were determined by earlier councils.[3][4] While the majority at Trent supported this decision there were participants in the minority who disagreed with the books accepted in the canon. Among the minority, at Trent, were Cardinals Seripando and Cajetan, the latter an opponent of Luther at Augsburg.[5][6][7] The Fathers in session at Trent confirmed the statements of earlier regional councils which also included the deuterocanonical books, such as the Council of Rome (382), the Synod of Hippo (393), the Council of Carthage (397 & 419) and the Council of Florence (1442) and provided "the first infallible and effectually promulgated pronouncement on the Canon" by the Roman Catholic Church.[8]

Why Were 14 Books (Apocrypha) Removed from the Bible?apocrypha-removed-from-the-bible-in-1881/

The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of 16th century Protestantism and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne, and John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress. It was one of the Bibles taken to America on the Mayflower, it was used by many English Dissenters, and it was still respected by Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers at the time of the English Civil War in the booklet Cromwell’s Soldiers’ Pocket Bible.

Well, the Apocrypha was a part of every Jew’s Bible, if you will, if I can use that term in the looser sense. It was part of every Jew’s Bible, but it was also a part of every Christian’s Bible all the way up to 1881. In 1881, due to the influence of wildly liberal textual critics, Westcott and Hort, the Apocrypha was removed from non- Catholic Bibles. The Catholics ignored Westcott and Hort, but the Protestants and the Anglicans fell into line, and when the influence of the popular textual critics said, “Well, this should not be in the Bible,” amazingly, everybody just fell like dominoes. And starting in 1881, Bibles that are Protestant or Anglican don’t have the Apocrypha.

Yarddog said:

But, Paul does use a story in Hebrews 11:35 which can only be found in 2 Maccabees 7. "Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release that they might rise again to a better life."

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Elisha Raises the Shunammite's son:
Bible Gateway passage: 2 Kings 4:18-37 - English Standard Version

Jeremiah was tortured refusing release. The above is such a general statement one can find multiple examples in the OT.

Yarddog said:

That doesn't mean that they didn't have the authority to set doctrine when convened by the Bishop of Rome. Which the ones cited were.

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Frankly let's look at this historically. Why was the Florentine canon (Council of Florence 1449) debated at Trent if there was already consensus and/or the matter settled centuries before?

GingerBeer said:

Why aren't the Deuterocanonical books or the Apocrypha in the Bible?

They are for the majority of Christians. Catholic and Orthodox Christians have them in their bibles and they count them as inspired revelation from God.

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It varies.

redleghunter said:

Elisha Raises the Shunammite's son:
Bible Gateway passage: 2 Kings 4:18-37 - English Standard Version

Jeremiah was tortured refusing release. The above is such a general statement one can find multiple examples in the OT.



Frankly let's look at this historically. Why was the Florentine canon (Council of Florence 1449) debated at Trent if there was already consensus and/or the matter settled centuries before?

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I would suspect for the same reason Christ's divinity and humanity was debated over the course of 3 or 4 councils. In the face of heresy, the Church needs to repeat herself, sometimes more than once!

Q: Is the "apocrypha" the inspired and superintended written "word of God" authored by sprit-controlled "men of God"?
A: NO!

Q 2: If the "apocrypha" is in conflict with the 66 books of canonized Scripture, which should prevail?
A 2: The canonized Bible.

Antig said:

You laid out what you 'thought' was correct

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No, it was quite obvious I laid out what Roman Catholic scholar Hubert Jedin, Council of Trent expert published:


The Roman Catholic historian (and expert on Trent) Hubert Jedin, waded into the dispute leading up to and during Trent. He noted one respected theologian stanchly loyal to the Pope, Cardinal Seripando. Jedin explained “he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship” at the Council of Trent.

Jedin elaborates:

“[Seripando was] Impressed by the doubts of St. Jerome,Rufinus, and St. John Damascene about the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, Seripando favored a distinction in the degrees of authority of the books of the Florentine canon. The highest authority among all the books of the Old Testament must be accorded those which Christ Himself and the apostles quoted in the New Testament, especially thePsalms. But the rule of citation in the New Testament does not indicate the difference of degree in the strict sense ofthe word, because certain Old Testament books not quoted in the New Testament are equal in authority to those quoted.St. Jerome gives an actual difference in degree ofauthority when he gives ahigher place to those books which are adequate to prove a dogma than to those which are read merely for edification. The former, the protocanonical books, are “libri canonici et authentici“; Tobias, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, thebooks of Esdras, Ecclesiasticus, the books of the Maccabees, and Baruchare only “canonici etecclesiastici” 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 hiscommentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews accepted St. Jerome’s view which had had supporters throughout the Middle Ages.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B.Herder Book Co., 1947), pp. 270-271.

Jedin continues:

“For the last time [Seripando] expressed his doubts [to the Council of Trent] about accepting the deuterocanonical books into the canon of faith. Together with the apostolic traditions the so-called apostolic canons were being accepted, and the eighty-fifth canon listed the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) as non-canonical. Now, he said, it would be contradictory to accept, on the one hand, the apostolic traditions as the foundation of faith and, on the other, to directly reject one of them.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), p. 278. (Papal Legate at the Council of Trent)

Catholic historian Hubert Jedin also adds later:

“In his opposition to accepting the Florentine canon and the equalization of traditions with Holy Scripture, Seripando did not stand alone. In the particular congregation of March 23, the learned Dominican Bishop Bertano of Fano had already expressed the view that Holy Scripture possessed greater authority than the traditions because the Scriptures were unchangeable; that only offenders against the biblical canon should come under the anathema, not those who deny the principle of tradition; that it would be unfortunate if the Council limited itself to the apostolic canons, because the Protestants would say that the abrogation of some of these traditions was arbitrary and represented an abuse… Another determined opponent of putting traditions on a par with Holy Scripture, as well as the anathema, was the Dominican Nacchianti. The Servite general defended the view that all the evangelical truths were contained in the Bible, and he subscribed to the canon of St. Jerome, as did also Madruzzo and Fonseca on April 1. 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.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), pp. 281-282.

The next Cardinal to raise opposition at Trent was Cardinal Cajetan:


In 1532, Cajetan wrote his Commentary on All the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament (dedicated to Pope Clement VII ). In this work, Cajetan leaves out the entirety of the Apocrypha since he did not consider it to be Canonical:

“Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the OldTestament. 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.”

Cajetan Responds

About the cited author Monsignor Hubert Jedin:

Perhaps the most outstanding Church historian of the Catholic world died July 16, 1980, in Bonn, then West Germany. He was born June 17, 1900, in Breslau [1], Silesia, and ordained a priest on March 2, 1924. Since his mother was a Jewish Catholic convert, the Gestapo arrested Father Jedin in 1938, but he later managed to get released. He spent the next ten years, 1939-1949, in Rome researching history of the Council of Trent upon which he became the acknowledged expert. This exhaustive and original study of the primary source documents resulted in the publication of four large volumes of The History of the Council of Trent, only the first two of which have yet appeared in English. Many smaller studies were also published such as his 1947 Papal Legate at the Council of Trent: Cardinal Seripando. He was a lifelong specialist on councils and on Trent in particular.

After the announcement by Pope John XXIII that an ecumenical council would be held, Jedin published in 1959 his Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church: An Historical Outline (English tr. 1960). Then somewhat later as Vatican II was in session, in 1964, he published Crisis and Closure of the Council of Trent (English tr. 1967). These were prepared for seminarians and other interested students of ecclesiastical history who were looking for some perspective on just what an ecumenical council was supposed to be in the Catholic Church. But Jedin was also a generalist. He launched the massive ten-volume series History of the Church under his own editorship. The series has been called "the Fliche-Martin of our time" [2], and is considered a standard reference. The tenth volume was at last translated into English in 1981, one year after his death. Another of the projects which he supervised was the cartographic church history, Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte. Die christlichen Kirchen in Geschichte und Gegenwart, published in German in 1970.

Jedin had to suspend his research for four years, 1962-1965, in order to serve as peritus at the Second Vatican Council. Very few historians of councils actually get to participate in one as he did! This also explains the lengthy interval of time between the publication of his first two volumes on Trent (1949, 1957) and the second two (1970, 1975). From 1949 to 1965 he was a professor in Bonn; before and after those years he received many honorary doctorates and other international awards and invitations. In 1970 Pope Paul VI had offered him the position of Prefect of the Vatican Library, though Jedin declined on the grounds of advancing age. Poor health during the 1970s prevented him from making the kind of progress he wished, but in the end none of his projected works were left incomplete.

redleghunter said:

No, it was quite obvious I laid out what Roman Catholic scholar Hubert Jedin, Council of Trent expert published:


The Roman Catholic historian (and expert on Trent) Hubert Jedin, waded into the dispute leading up to and during Trent. He noted one respected theologian stanchly loyal to the Pope, Cardinal Seripando. Jedin explained “he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship” at the Council of Trent.

Jedin elaborates:

“[Seripando was] Impressed by the doubts of St. Jerome,Rufinus, and St. John Damascene about the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, Seripando favored a distinction in the degrees of authority of the books of the Florentine canon. The highest authority among all the books of the Old Testament must be accorded those which Christ Himself and the apostles quoted in the New Testament, especially thePsalms. But the rule of citation in the New Testament does not indicate the difference of degree in the strict sense ofthe word, because certain Old Testament books not quoted in the New Testament are equal in authority to those quoted.St. Jerome gives an actual difference in degree ofauthority when he gives ahigher place to those books which are adequate to prove a dogma than to those which are read merely for edification. The former, the protocanonical books, are “libri canonici et authentici“; Tobias, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, thebooks of Esdras, Ecclesiasticus, the books of the Maccabees, and Baruchare only “canonici etecclesiastici” 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 hiscommentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews accepted St. Jerome’s view which had had supporters throughout the Middle Ages.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B.Herder Book Co., 1947), pp. 270-271.

Jedin continues:

“For the last time [Seripando] expressed his doubts [to the Council of Trent] about accepting the deuterocanonical books into the canon of faith. Together with the apostolic traditions the so-called apostolic canons were being accepted, and the eighty-fifth canon listed the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) as non-canonical. Now, he said, it would be contradictory to accept, on the one hand, the apostolic traditions as the foundation of faith and, on the other, to directly reject one of them.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), p. 278. (Papal Legate at the Council of Trent)

Catholic historian Hubert Jedin also adds later:

“In his opposition to accepting the Florentine canon and the equalization of traditions with Holy Scripture, Seripando did not stand alone. In the particular congregation of March 23, the learned Dominican Bishop Bertano of Fano had already expressed the view that Holy Scripture possessed greater authority than the traditions because the Scriptures were unchangeable; that only offenders against the biblical canon should come under the anathema, not those who deny the principle of tradition; that it would be unfortunate if the Council limited itself to the apostolic canons, because the Protestants would say that the abrogation of some of these traditions was arbitrary and represented an abuse… Another determined opponent of putting traditions on a par with Holy Scripture, as well as the anathema, was the Dominican Nacchianti. The Servite general defended the view that all the evangelical truths were contained in the Bible, and he subscribed to the canon of St. Jerome, as did also Madruzzo and Fonseca on April 1. 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.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), pp. 281-282.

The next Cardinal to raise opposition at Trent was Cardinal Cajetan:


In 1532, Cajetan wrote his Commentary on All the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament (dedicated to Pope Clement VII ). In this work, Cajetan leaves out the entirety of the Apocrypha since he did not consider it to be Canonical:

“Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the OldTestament. 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.”

Cajetan Responds

About the cited author Monsignor Hubert Jedin:

Perhaps the most outstanding Church historian of the Catholic world died July 16, 1980, in Bonn, then West Germany. He was born June 17, 1900, in Breslau [1], Silesia, and ordained a priest on March 2, 1924. Since his mother was a Jewish Catholic convert, the Gestapo arrested Father Jedin in 1938, but he later managed to get released. He spent the next ten years, 1939-1949, in Rome researching history of the Council of Trent upon which he became the acknowledged expert. This exhaustive and original study of the primary source documents resulted in the publication of four large volumes of The History of the Council of Trent, only the first two of which have yet appeared in English. Many smaller studies were also published such as his 1947 Papal Legate at the Council of Trent: Cardinal Seripando. He was a lifelong specialist on councils and on Trent in particular.

After the announcement by Pope John XXIII that an ecumenical council would be held, Jedin published in 1959 his Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church: An Historical Outline (English tr. 1960). Then somewhat later as Vatican II was in session, in 1964, he published Crisis and Closure of the Council of Trent (English tr. 1967). These were prepared for seminarians and other interested students of ecclesiastical history who were looking for some perspective on just what an ecumenical council was supposed to be in the Catholic Church. But Jedin was also a generalist. He launched the massive ten-volume series History of the Church under his own editorship. The series has been called "the Fliche-Martin of our time" [2], and is considered a standard reference. The tenth volume was at last translated into English in 1981, one year after his death. Another of the projects which he supervised was the cartographic church history, Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte. Die christlichen Kirchen in Geschichte und Gegenwart, published in German in 1970.

Jedin had to suspend his research for four years, 1962-1965, in order to serve as peritus at the Second Vatican Council. Very few historians of councils actually get to participate in one as he did! This also explains the lengthy interval of time between the publication of his first two volumes on Trent (1949, 1957) and the second two (1970, 1975). From 1949 to 1965 he was a professor in Bonn; before and after those years he received many honorary doctorates and other international awards and invitations. In 1970 Pope Paul VI had offered him the position of Prefect of the Vatican Library, though Jedin declined on the grounds of advancing age. Poor health during the 1970s prevented him from making the kind of progress he wished, but in the end none of his projected works were left incomplete.

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Feel free to quote others who disagreed with the canon if it make you feel better. In the end of the day, the Church had decided. No man is bigger than His Church

Athanasius377 said:

What the Jews considered as scripture is important as Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

Rom 3:1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?
Rom 3:2 Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.
(ESV)
Its rather difficult to entrust the oracles of God if the Jews didn't know what they were.

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When Paul wrote the Jews of his day had not settled the matter of a list of holy books. Jesus makes that clear by his use of Moses alone when dealing with Sadducee and using a wider list when dealing with Pharisee and the Zealots appear to have had more books than the Pharisees and scholars say that the Essene sect had even more. That was all in Paul's life time. He died before Jerusalem was razed to the ground around 70 AD. It wasn't until after the rebellion of Bar Kokbha between 132 and 136 AD that the Jews began serious work on a list of holy books. Later generations attributed their work Ezra centuries earlier but that is not supported by the facts. So Paul was not giving approval to a Jewish list of holy books. He was observing the truth that God revealed himself to the Israelites through prophets, priests, and some kings.