St. Jerome on the Deuterocanon

Catholic Bibles, as you probably know, are larger than Protestant Bibles. Or more specifically, we Catholics have the following books, which Protestants don’t: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (a.k.a. Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, and 1st and 2nd Maccabees. In addition to that, we have longer versions of Esther and Daniel. And finally, we have the Letter of Jeremiah. It’s a copy of a letter written by Jeremiah. It used to be placed as the last chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, and is now the last chapter of the book of Baruch.

These Books, and parts of Books, which the Orthodox and Coptics have as well, are referred to as the Old Testament Deuterocanon (or usually, just “the Deuterocanon”) by us, and as “the Apocrypha” by Protestants who reject them. The Protestant Old Testament is patterned off of the Hebrew versions of the Old Testament, while the Catholic, Orthodox, and Coptic Old Testaments are modelled off of the Greek versions.

If you’ve ever discussed the reasons for their rejection with someone knowledgable enough to have a reason, there tend to be two common points brought up:

(1) the Jews don’t consider these books canonical (by which, they mean modern Jews), and

(2) Jerome rejected them.

The first point is pretty weak. The Jews up to the latter half of the first century A.D., past the time of Christ, had no settled canon. And the Church has fulfilled the mantle of Israel, as the Old Testament repeatedly prophesied. While the Jews still have a particular role in God’s plan of salvation, that role doesn’t include setting the canon for Christian Bibles.

The second point takes various forms. Sometimes, they’ll cut right to Jerome, while othertimes, the argument will be presented as if the speaker knows of someone prominent Church Father besides Jerome who felt this way. Occassionally, you’ll even hear that “the early Church” rejected these books, but that’s just untrue. In fact, if you read what Jerome actually says on the subject, you’ll quickly realize that he acknowledged his own view as (a) the minority view, (b) opposed to the Church’s view, and (c) possibly wrong, even sinfully so. The best evidence for this comes in his book Against Rufinus.

Here’s the context. St. Jerome translated the Vulgate for the pope, at his request. And Jerome submitted to the pope’s authority, including the entire Deuterocanon along with the rest of Scripture. But in his prefaces for some of the books, he noted criticisms that either he, or Jewish friends of his, had against the Greek versions (since by this time the Jews exclusively used the Hebrew version, and rejected the Deuterocanon). For these prefaces, amongst other things, Rufinus attacked him, and Jerome responded.

Jerome gets to his explaination of Daniel, and makes it clear that while he doesn’t like that the Catholic version is based on a heretic’s translation, he’s willing to submit to the “judgment of the churches”:

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 he writing not a Preface but a book. I said therefore, “As to which this is not the time to enter into discussion.” […] 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.

Nota bene: the important thing, in the end, wasn’t whether the Jews used that version (they didn’t), or whether Jerome’s individual reasoning and experience lead him to that conclusion (it didn’t), or even what the standard Greek Septuagint said, but what the Church said. Understand that point, and the entire Deuterocanonical debate is settled. The Church closed the canon long before the Reformation, and no individual Christian (whether Jerome or Luther) has the authority to overrule Her Holy Spirit-protected judgment.

24 comments

  1. I’d heard that there is some evidence that Jesus Himself used the Septuagint. On a simple search, most of the results that I’d come across were people seeking to refute this theory, and I didn’t find any convincing evidence to support the theory that Jesus used Greek. Is there any good evidence to back up either side?

  2. Here’s the thing, Joe. Jerome’s comment in 402AD in Against Rufinus, Book II was written 5 years before Jerome wrote his commentary on Daniel. And in the prologue and closing comments of his commentary he makes clear that the longer reading of Daniel is not accepted as canonical.

    “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. After all, both Origen, Eusebius and Apollinarius, and other outstanding churchmen and teachers of Greece acknowledge that, as I have said, these visions are not found amongst the Hebrews, and that therefore they are not obliged to answer to Porphyry for these portions which exhibit no authority as Holy Scripture.”

    He further argues that the two trees pun in the Greek could not have been made in the Hebrew. “But if anyone can show that the derivation of the ideas of cleaving and severing from the names of the two trees in question is valid in Hebrew, then we may accept this scripture also as canonical.”

    1. Cara, thanks for your comments. They have made me think a lot. I’m wondering if you have had further thoughts since this discussion. I’d love to hear them.

    2. Hi Cara, I think your Jerome quote is helpful and informative on this issue.

      The key question is what is “the judgement of the churches” that Jerome says he follows?

      It can’t be their judgement that the longer version of Daniel is part of Scripture, since Jerome explicitly rejects that view. He therefore, doesn’t ‘follow’ them on that point.

      If it was the case, that despite his personal view, he submitted to their judgement that the longer version of Daniel was part of Scripture, he would have done more than just translate it; He would have changed his view!

      The best explanation seems to be that the “judgement of the churches” is simply that the Theodotion is a superior *Greek* version to that of the Septuagint, and that he follows the judgement of the churches on this point — not that the longer version of Daniel is inspired, since he explicitly rejects that view.

      And Jerome is not saying that the judgement of the churches settles the matter in an authoritative Catholic sense. If he was, then “the churches” certainly didn’t hold to the longer version of Daniel, since Jerome clearly didn’t submit to them on that point. More likely, Jerome is simply questioning why Rufinus is singling him out when the majority of churches also use this particular greek version.

      There isn’t even any indication that “the churches” thought the longer version of Daniel was inspired. It could well be that the churches distinguished between the shorter inspired version and the longer non-inspired parts in the Theodotion version. 

      This would fit with what Jerome says elsewhere about the practise of the Church concerning other writings of the Apocrypha:

      “As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it also read these two Volumes (Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus) for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church…”

      This quote further suggests that Jerome didn’t in fact, translate the longer version of Daniel because he knew himself to hold the minority view and thought he might be wrong on this point. More likely, as the quote suggests, he translated the longer version of Daniel because it was still worth reading, even though not inspired. This fits with the way Jerome “noted these visions with a critical symbol, showing that they were not included in the Hebrew” and that they therefore, “exhibit no authority as Holy Scripture”.

      In any case, it’s clear that the vast majority of theologians, bishops and cardinals throughout the Middle Ages followed Jerome’s view of the cannon and explicitly rejected the Apocryphal books as non-inspired, or implicitly rejected them by limiting the number of inspired Books to the Hebrew canon. See for example, Cardinal Cajetan, Gregory the Great, Agobard of Lyons, Walafrid Strabo, Haymo of Halberstadt, Ambrose of Autpert, Radulphus Flavicencius, Hugh of St. Victor, Richard of St. Victor, John of Salisbury, Peter Cellensis, Honorius of Autun (Augustodunensis), Hugh of St. Cher (Hugo Cardinalis), Philip of Harvengt, Nicholas of Lyra, William of Ockham, Antoninus, Alonso Tostado, Dionysius (Denys) the Carthusian, Thomas Walden (Netter), Jean Driedo, John Ferus, and Jacobus Faber Stapulensis. See also, the preface to both The Glossa Ordinaria and the Biblia Complutensia. Both sources were widely held and endorsed. 

      Protestants simply still hold to this view today.

      But none of this should worry Catholics. It is a perfectly legitimate Catholic view to believe that the Cannon as the Catholic Church holds it was not settled until Trent. As the New Catholic Encyclopaedia makes clear: “According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church at the Council of Trent…The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent.”

      1. don’t you know that the Rabbi authority was wrong??
        They REJECT (Jude 14 – 16.)…
        How can you even rely on the INSPIRATION of the Rabbi authority, when they are clearly wrong in REjecting the Prophecy of Enoch??

        SECOND, the Council of Florence already considered the Deuterocanonical books as inspired…
        Go look at SESSION 11 dated February 4, 1442 Council of Florence….

        1. Not relying on *inspiration* of Rabbi authority.

          My point is that there are modern Catholic scholars who don’t think the canon was officially “defined” until Trent, and this is a perfectly legitimate Catholic position to hold. It explains why the vast majority of theologians, bishops and cardinals throughout the Middle Ages didn’t hold the Deutero books as inspired.

    3. Its an assumption to think that 5th century Rabbinic Jews are the Jews mentioned in the Old and New testament as all 4 groups were wiped out in 70AD by the Romans. The only ones to survive were Jewish Christians and a hand full of Pharisees who did not have any priests. So they created modern Rabbinic Judaism and would later alter the Hebrew texts the Pharisees used to compile the modern MT. We know this because the Hebrew in the Dead Sea Scrolls does not match the MT. Second, Jeromes primary objection to the canonicity of the DC is he was not aware of any of them existing in Hebrew. However in 1946 they were found in Hebrew in the Dead Sea Scrolls, disproving his reason for thinking they were not scripture.

  3. Cara,

    Both that passage you quoted, and the passage I quoted above show the same three things: (1) the Jewish Hebrew canon at the time of Jerome included the shorter version of Daniel; (2) the Christian canon at the time of Jerome included the longer version of Daniel; and (3) Jerome translated the longer version of Daniel, in submission to the Church, while remaining personally skeptical.

    (1) The passage I cited noted that his Jewish contemporaries criticized those passages.  The passage you cited noted that they weren’t in the Hebrew version of Daniel.

    (2) Your claim that your quote shows that “the longer reading of Daniel is not accepted as canonical” is just not true.  In fact, it shows the opposite.  While Jerome explains that he didn’t accept it as such, he admits that “in this connection I am surprised to be told that certain fault-finders complain that I have on my own initiative truncated the book.”  In other words, other Christians saw him using the shorter version of Daniel, and accused him of truncating the Book.  So Jerome is telling us that these other Christians were using the longer version of Daniel.

    Your quote, in isolation, wouldn’t tell us whether Jerome or those “certain fault-finders” were the commonly-accepted view amongst Christians.  But the passage I cited did clarify that.  When Jerome says he’s deferring to “the judgment of the churches” in translating the longer version of Daniel, he’s admitting that theirs is the accepted canon, not his.

    (3) In submitting to the judgment of the churches, Jerome translated the Vulgate, which included the longer version of Daniel, as well.  The passage you quoted references this as well, in the first sentence.

    In the above post, I said that Jerome himself acknowledged his view as “(a) the minority view, (b) opposed to the Church’s view, and (c) possibly wrong, even sinfully so.” Your quote seems to support, rather than refute, this proposition.

    Of course, this raises a broader issues for Christians: do we believe that God revealed His canon through the Church?  Or that God revealed His canon through Jerome, even though Jerome waffled on the question, submitting to the Church, while remaining doubtful?

    God bless,

    Joe

    P.S. I answered Kerath’s question here, but forgot to respond to the comment itself to signal that.

  4. Thanks Joe, but this ignores the context of Jerome’s response to Rufinus. In Rufinus’ Apology he argues that Jerome (A) does not believe Daniel to be a prophet, (B) Susanna is not true, and (C) the Song of the Children is not true history.

    Jerome responds to this attack as you quoted in Against Rufinus.

    In this context we see that Jerome is not referencing Hebrew vs. Greek, but rather which Greek translation: the LXX or the Theodotian. Jerome argues the LXX is different from the original and that the Theodotian version is best… agreeing with the churches. Jerome agrees with the churches because the churches at the time held to a shorter version of Daniel and that the last chapters of Daniel were not accurate.

    The point is that the churches of that time did not hold the longer version, but rather the shorter version, when Jerome is understood in context to the attack by Rufinus. It’s not that Jerome holds a minority opinion that he concedes to the magisterium but rather he agrees with the churches who hold to a similar version of Daniel as he does.

    Make sense?

  5. Cara,

    Your last comment appears to be based upon a mistaken belief that the Theodotian version was a short version of Daniel, like the modern Jewish or Protestant version of the Book.  That is incorrect.

    The Theodotian version of Daniel is one of the two “long versions” of Daniel (the LXX is the other).  It includes both the story of Susanna and the Hymn of the Three Children.  You can find both of them, in the original Greek here  (Susanna; Daniel 3, comparing the LXX, Theodotian, TNKH, and Vulgate side-by-side).

    By the time Jerome gets to translating Daniel for the Latin Vulgate, he’s skeptical about the authenticity of the parts not found in the shorter version.  But he goes ahead and translates them anyways, using the long Theodotian version because of the “judgment of the churches,” since it was the widely-accepted translation.

    Rufinus’ argument, as you correctly note, was that Jerome should have used the LXX version, instead (out of a belief that the LXX was a divinely-inspired translation).  But Jerome’s answer for not using the LXX also answers why he didn’t use the shorter Hebrew version.

    As I said in the original post: “the important thing, in the end, wasn’t whether the Jews used that version (they didn’t), or whether Jerome’s individual reasoning and experience lead him to that conclusion (it didn’t), or even what the standard Greek Septuagint said, but what the Church said.”

    God bless,

    Joe

  6. Thanks Joe. But didn’t the Theodotian version use asterisks to highlight the apocryphal sections? Jerome notes that Origen, Eusebius and Apollinarius agree. So couldn’t it be argued that the “judgment of the churches” was for the Theodotian version but acknowledging that the apocryphal parts were not divinely inspired. That Jerome felt in good company agreeing with the churches because they understood the difference between the inspired text and the apocryphal text?

    As evidence to this I go back to my quote from Jerome’s commentary on Daniel. It’s clear (to me) that he does not mince words against what he believes to be the apocryphal texts sometimes attributed to the book of Daniel. If this is the case, one is left with a couple options:

    1) Jerome changed his mind from 402 to 407 on the canonical nature of the separated texts in Daniel. In 402 he believed them to be canonical and in 407 he did not.
    2) Jerome was consistent. He rejected the apocryphal components in Daniel in 402 and in 407 and claimed the churches did the same.

    The first would point out that the “judgment of the churches” held that the entirety of Daniel contained in the Vulgate (Theodotian’s version, re-ordered) was canonical.

    The second would argue that the “judgment of the churches” was consistent with Jerome’s belief that certain parts of Daniel were apocryphal.

    How can we know which one? Jerome tells us in that quote I shared from his commentary on Daniel… “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.”

    From this I conclude that Jerome believed in 402 (when he said he agreed with the “judgement of the churches”) that certain parts of Daniel were apocryphal. And not only him, but also “Origen, Eusebius and Apollinarius, and other outstanding churchmen and teachers of Greece”. And he kept this position all throughout, even in 407 when he confirmed this perspective.

    The bottom line here is that not only did Jerome hold the Deuterocanon (as evidenced here by the additions to Daniel) to be apocryphal, he claims that the “judgment of the churches” at the time was also consistent with this perspective.

    It’s my hunch that Catholics try to minimize Jerome’s perspective here as unique, novel, isolated. But when read in context, it appears that he was not alone in thinking this. That he may very well have found that the majority of churches held the deuterocanonical texts to be apocryphal. That it was only the “unlearned” (to use Jerome’s term) that believed otherwise.

    -Cara

  7. Also, could you clarify what you meant here: “But Jerome’s answer for not using the LXX also answers why he didn’t use the shorter Hebrew version.”

    It seems reasonable that Jerome answered why the LXX was wrong, but I cannot find where this covers the shorter Hebrew version. If anything, because of the agreeing with the obeli and asterisks, he was arguing that these separated sections were not canonical.

  8. Cara,

    I think you’re still making a few important mistakes. First, you view the only two options as:

    “1) Jerome changed his mind from 402 to 407 on the canonical nature of the separated texts in Daniel. In 402 he believed them to be canonical and in 407 he did not.

    2) Jerome was consistent. He rejected the apocryphal components in Daniel in 402 and in 407 and claimed the churches did the same.”

    # 2 appears to be premised off of the mistaken idea that the Theodotian version used asterisks to highlight the apocryphal sections. Of course, even if the parts not found in the Hebrew were marked off, it wouldn’t prove that those parts were considered uninspired. Most Catholic Bibles demarcate the parts of Daniel not found in the Hebrew today. That doesn’t mean we’re rejecting (or even questioning) their canonicity.

    So I would say that neither of the options that you lay out is likely. Rather, the best supported option is that Jerome doubted the canonicity of the Deuterocanonical components in Daniel, but deferred to “the judgment of the churches” in translating them anyways. His decision to demarcate the parts he was skeptical of met with denunciations, as he noted in 407.

    And it’s not the case, as you suggest in your last comment, that “Origen, Eusebius and Apollinarius” rejected the canonicity of these parts of Daniel, either. Nor does Jerome claim that.

    Rather, he claims that Origen, Eusebius and Apollinarius all had pointed out that these sections weren’t in the Hebrew, a fact that nobody disagrees on today. In fact, as William Heaford Daubney notes in Three Additions to Daniel, “Origen deems Susanna part of the genuine Daniel, cut out by the Jews, as he suggests in his Epistle to Africanus,” believing that Jewish censors removed the parts that reflected poorly on their leadership.

    Jerome never claims that the “judgment of the churches” is consistent with his skepticism of the longer version. Instead, he defers to the “judgment of the churches” in choosing the (long) Theodotian version over the (long) LXX version. The (short) Masoretic Text and other Hebrew versions weren’t even on the table.

    So I think you’re mistaken about the Theodotian version (as I showed with my links) and misreading what Jerome is saying about Fathers like Origen. And I think that you should revisit your conclusions as a result.

    God bless,

    Joe

    P.S. If Jerome was speaking on behalf of the broader Church, where do we see this widespread rejection of the longer parts of Daniel?

  9. Jerome didn’t think the LXX was wrong. He (personally) thought it was the best translation, but deferred to the Church.

    I’m saying that had he instead thought that the Masoretic Text (or any other version) was the best, he would have deferred to the Church as well.

    Joe

  10. Jummy Akin explains in his DEFENDING THE DEUTEROCANONICALS

    When Catholics and Protestants talk about “the Bible,” the two groups actually have two different books in mind.

    In the sixteenth century, the Protestant Reformers removed a large section of the Old Testament that was not compatible with their theology. They charged that these writings were not inspired Scripture and branded them with the pejorative title “Apocrypha.”

    Catholics refer to them as the “deuterocanonical” books (since they were disputed by a few early authors and their canonicity was established later than the rest), while the rest are known as the “protocanonical” books (since their canonicity was established first).

    Following the Protestant attack on the integrity of the Bible, the Catholic Church infallibly reaffirmed the divine inspiration of the deuterocanonical books at the Council of Trent in 1546. In doing this, it reaffirmed what had been believed since the time of Christ.

    Who Compiled the Old Testament?

    The Church does not deny that there are ancient writings which are “apocryphal.” During the early Christian era, there were scores of manuscripts which purported to be Holy Scripture but were not. Many have survived to the present day, like the Apocalypse of Peter and the Gospel of Thomas, which all Christian churches regard as spurious writings that don’t belong in Scripture.

    During the first century, the Jews disagreed as to what constituted the canon of Scripture. In fact, there were a large number of different canons in use, including the growing canon used by Christians. In order to combat the spreading Christian cult, rabbis met at the city of Jamnia or Javneh in A.D. 90 to determine which books were truly the Word of God. They pronounced many books, including the Gospels, to be unfit as scriptures. This canon also excluded seven books (Baruch, Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, and the Wisdom of Solomon, plus portions of Esther and Daniel) that Christians considered part of the Old Testament.

    The group of Jews which met at Javneh became the dominant group for later Jewish history, and today most Jews accept the canon of Javneh. However, some Jews, such as those from Ethiopia, follow a different canon which is identical to the Catholic Old Testament and includes the seven deuterocanonical books (cf. Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 6, p. 1147).

    Needless to say, the Church disregarded the results of Javneh. First, a Jewish council after the time of Christ is not binding on the followers of Christ. Second, Javneh rejected precisely those documents which are foundational for the Christian Church — the Gospels and the other documents of the New Testament. Third, by rejecting the deuterocanonicals, Javneh rejected books which had been used by Jesus and the apostles and which were in the edition of the Bible that the apostles used in everyday life — the Septuagint.

    The Apostles & the Deuteros

    The Christian acceptance of the deuterocanonical books was logical because the deuterocanonicals were also included in the Septuagint, the Greek edition of the Old Testament which the apostles used to evangelize the world. Two thirds of the Old Testament quotations in the New are from the Septuagint. Yet the apostles nowhere told their converts to avoid seven books of it. Like the Jews all over the world who used the Septuagint, the early Christians accepted the books they found in it. They knew that the apostles would not mislead them and endanger their souls by putting false scriptures in their hands — especially without warning them against them.

    But the apostles did not merely place the deuterocanonicals in the hands of their converts as part of the Septuagint. They regularly referred to the deuterocanonicals in their writings. For example, Hebrews 11 encourages us to emulate the heroes of the Old Testament and in the Old Testament “Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life” (Heb. 11:35).

    There are a couple of examples of women receiving back their dead by resurrection in the Protestant Old Testament. You can find Elijah raising the son of the widow of Zarepheth in 1 Kings 17, and you can find his successor Elisha raising the son of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4, but one thing you can never find — anywhere in the Protestant Old Testament, from front to back, from Genesis to Malachi — is someone being tortured and refusing to accept release for the sake of a better resurrection. If you want to find that, you have to look in the Catholic Old Testament — in the deuterocanonical books Martin Luther cut out of his Bible.

    The story is found in 2 Maccabees 7, where we read that during the Maccabean persecution, “It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine’s flesh. . . . [B]ut the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, ‘The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us . . . ‘ After the first brother had died . . . they brought forward the second for their sport. . . . he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. And when he was at his last breath, he said, ‘You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life'” (2 Macc. 7:1, 5-9).

    One by one the sons die, proclaiming that they will be vindicated in the resurrection. “The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them . . . [saying], ‘I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws,'” telling the last one, “Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again with your brothers” (2 Macc. 7:20-23, 29).

    This is but one example of the New Testaments’ references to the deuterocanonicals. The early Christians were thus fully justified in recognizing these books as Scripture, for the apostles not only set them in their hands as part of the Bible they used to evangelize the world, but also referred to them in the New Testament itself, citing the things they record as examples to be emulated.

    The Fathers Speak

    The early acceptance of the deuterocanonicals was carried down through Church history. The Protestant patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly writes: “It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the [Protestant Old Testament] . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or deutero-canonical books. The reason for this is that the Old Testament which passed in the first instance into the hands of Christians was . . . the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. . . . most of the Scriptural quotations found in the New Testament are based upon it rather than the Hebrew.. . . In the first two centuries . . . the Church seems to have accept all, or most of, these additional books as inspired and to have treated them without question as Scripture. Quotations from Wisdom, for example, occur in 1 Clement and Barnabas. . . Polycarp cites Tobit, and the Didache [cites] Ecclesiasticus. Irenaeus refers to Wisdom, the History of Susannah, Bel and the Dragon [i.e., the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel], and Baruch. The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary” (Early Christian Doctrines, 53-54).

    The recognition of the deuterocanonicals as part of the Bible that was given by individual Fathers was also given by the Fathers as a whole, when they met in Church councils. The results of councils are especially useful because they do not represent the views of only one person, but what was accepted by the Church leaders of whole regions.

    The canon of Scripture, Old and New Testament, was finally settled at the Council of Rome in 382, under the authority of Pope Damasus I. It was soon reaffirmed on numerous occasions. The same canon was affirmed at the Council of Hippo in 393 and at the Council of Carthage in 397. In 405 Pope Innocent I reaffirmed the canon in a letter to Bishop Exuperius of Toulouse. Another council at Carthage, this one in the year 419, reaffirmed the canon of its predecessors and asked Pope Boniface to “confirm this canon, for these are the things which we have received from our fathers to be read in church.” All of these canons were identical to the modern Catholic Bible, and all of them included the deuterocanonicals.

    This exact same canon was implicitly affirmed at the seventh ecumenical council, II Nicaea (787), which approved the results of the 419 Council of Carthage, and explicitly reaffirmed at the ecumenical councils of Florence (1442), Trent (1546), Vatican I (1870), and Vatican II (1965).

    The Reformation Attack on the Bible

    The deuterocanonicals teach Catholic doctrine, and for this reason they were taken out of the Old Testament by Martin Luther and placed in an appendix without page numbers. Luther also took out four New Testament books — Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation — and put them in an appendix without page numbers as well. These were later put back into the New Testament by other Protestants, but the seven books of the Old Testament were left out. Following Luther they had been left in an appendix to the Old Testament, and eventually the appendix itself was dropped (in 1827 by the British and Foreign Bible Society), which is why these books are not found at all in most contemporary Protestant Bibles, though they were appendicized in classic Protestant translations such as the King James Version.

    The reason they were dropped is that they teach Catholic doctrines that the Protestant Reformers chose to reject. Earlier we cited an example where the book of Hebrews holds up to us an Old Testament example from 2 Maccabees 7, an incident not to be found anywhere in the Protestant Bible, but easily discoverable in the Catholic Bible. Why would Martin Luther cut out this book when it is so clearly held up as an example to us by the New Testament? Simple: A few chapters later it endorses the practice of praying for the dead so that they may be freed from the consequences of their sins (2 Macc. 12:41-45); in other words, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. Since Luther chose to reject the historic Christian teaching of purgatory (which dates from before the time of Christ, as 2 Maccabees shows), he had to remove that book from the Bible and appendicize it. (Notice that he also removed Hebrews, the book which cites 2 Maccabees, to an appendix as well.)

    To justify this rejection of books that had been in the Bible since before the days of the apostles (for the Septuagint was written before the apostles), the early Protestants cited as their chief reason the fact that the Jews of their day did not honor these books, going back to the council of Javneh in A.D. 90. But the Reformers were aware of only European Jews; they were unaware of African Jews, such as the Ethiopian Jews who accept the deuterocanonicals as part of their Bible. They glossed over the references to the deuterocanonicals in the New Testament, as well as its use of the Septuagint. They ignored the fact that there were multiple canons of the Jewish Scriptures circulating in first century, appealing to a post-Christian Jewish council which has no authority over Christians as evidence that “The Jews don’t except these books.” In short, they went to enormous lengths to rationalize their rejection of these books of the Bible.

    Rewriting Church History

    In later years they even began to propagate the myth that the Catholic Church “added” these seven books to the Bible at the Council of Trent!

    Protestants also try to distort the patristic evidence in favor of the deuterocanonicals. Some flatly state that the early Church Fathers did not accept them, while others make the more moderate claim that certain important Fathers, such as Jerome, did not accept them.

    It is true that Jerome, and a few other isolated writers, did not accept most of the deuterocanonicals as Scripture. However, Jerome was persuaded, against his original inclination, to include the deuterocanonicals in his Vulgate edition of the Scriptures-testimony to the fact that the books were commonly accepted and were expected to be included in any edition of the Scriptures.

    Furthermore, it can be documented that in his later years Jerome did accept certain deuterocanonical parts of the Bible. In his reply to Rufinus, he stoutly defended the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel even though the Jews of his day did not.

    He wrote, “What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susanna, the Son of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume, proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I was not relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us” (Against Rufinus 11:33 [A.D. 402]). Thus Jerome acknowledged the principle by which the canon was settled — the judgment of the Church, not of later Jews.

    Other writers Protestants cite as objecting to the deuterocanonicals, such as Athanasius and Origen, also accepted some or all of them as canonical. For example, Athanasius, accepted the book of Baruch as part of his Old Testament (Festal Letter 39), and Origen accepted all of the deuterocanonicals, he simply recommended not using them in disputations with Jews.

    However, despite the misgivings and hesitancies of a few individual writers such as Jerome, the Church remained firm in its historic affirmation of the deuterocanonicals as Scripture handed down from the apostles. Protestant patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly remarks that in spite of Jerome’s doubt, “For the great majority, however, the deutero-canonical writings ranked as Scripture in the fullest sense. Augustine, for example, whose influence in the West was decisive, made no distinction between them and the rest of the Old Testament . . . The same inclusive attitude to the Apocrypha was authoritatively displayed at the synods of Hippo and Carthage in 393 and 397 respectively, and also in the famous letter which Pope Innocent I dispatched to Exuperius, bishop of Toulouse, in 405” (Early Christian Doctrines, 55-56).

    It is thus a complete myth that, as Protestants often charge, the Catholic Church “added” the deuterocanonicals to the Bible at the Council of Trent. These books had been in the Bible from before the time canon was initially settled in the 380s. All the Council of Trent did was reaffirm, in the face of the new Protestant attack on Scripture, what had been the historic Bible of the Church — the standard edition of which was Jerome’s own Vulgate, including the seven deuterocanonicals!

    The New Testament Deuteros

    It is ironic that Protestants reject the inclusion of the deuterocanonicals at councils such as Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), because these are the very same early Church councils that Protestants appeal to for the canon of the New Testament. Prior to the councils of the late 300s, there was a wide range of disagreement over exactly what books belonged in the New Testament. Certain books, such as the gospels, acts, and most of the epistles of Paul had long been agreed upon. However a number of the books of the New Testament, most notably Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, and Revelation remained hotly disputed until the canon was settled. They are, in effect, “New Testament deuterocanonicals.”

    While Protestants are willing to accept the testimony of Hippo and Carthage (the councils they most commonly cite) for the canonicity of the New Testament deuterocanonicals, they are unwilling to accept the testimony of Hippo and Carthage for the canonicity of the Old Testament deuterocanonicals. Ironic indeed!

    http://cin.org/users/james/files/deuteros.htm

    1. Why should you accept book such as Tobit as Canonical that contains horrible theological error? YOU SHOULD NOT! Proof…Tobit 12:9 “For almsgiving saves from death, and purges all sin”. This contradicts apostolic teaching of Paul in Romans 4 and 5 and clearly detracts from the unique atoning Work of Christ Jesus!

      1. Did Jesus, in your view, teach “horrible theological error” in advising the Pharisees to “give alms, and all will be clean for you?”

        Besides, how do you know that “Romans” is part of the canon? Because 2nd Peter alluded to “the letters of my dear brother Paul” as Scripture, “that the unlearned and the unstable distort to their destruction”?

        How do you know 2nd Peter is part of Scripture? If it is, it doesn’t give a canonical LIST of Paul’s letters: Romans might not even have been written yet. Finally, why should we accept your theological judgement of Romans?

        What guarantee do you have (except perhaps pride) that your interpretation not be “unlearned or unstable” compared to that of an authoritative Council of the “Church of the Living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth”? If Romans is your ultimate authority, you, like Marcion before you in the 2nd century A.D., may end up editing down all the Scriptures to Romans plus a few harmless ancillary documents.

  11. There’s clearly nuances here you’re missing. Almsgiving/caring for the poor is all over the New Testament (and Old). I wonder what you would think of St. Paul’s words here…

    “And Adam was not seduced; but the woman being seduced, was in the transgression. Yet she shall be saved through childbearing; if she continue in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.” ~ 1 Timothy 2:14-15

    St. Paul teaches women don’t need the saving Atonement of Christ’s work on the Cross! They just need to make babies! Throw out Timothy! Throw out St. Paul!

    1. she must continue in faith in Jesus and love….obviously, you are twisting the words of ST. PAul… St. Paul did not say a woman is saved through child bearing ALONE….the word “Alone” is a very dangerous word… Many people become heretics because of the word “Alone”

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