The Glossa ordinaria was used as the standard textbook by the Roman Catholic Church for several hundred years.
As would many standard textbooks that are used today that question the Virgin birth, or the inerrancy of Scripture, abortion, contraception etc. I note with pleasure that Joe mentioned textbook but omitted any reference to the teaching authority of the Bishops. The question boils down to who has authority to decide what is the will of Christ. As a Catholic, I affirm that the Bishops in communion with the Bishop of Rome have the infallible authority to make such judgements, and that this corresponds to the will of Christ.
And so if you wade through that, you find the historic position of the Church in amazing consistency.
If the historic position is so amazingly consistent, surely the Glossa ordinaria would not merely quote the authority of St Jerome on this matter. It would surely quote the teachings of Councils and Popes in this matter to support Jerome’s thesis. St Jerome’s towering reputation in the field of Biblical studies in an era when the learned were wont to criticize supposed authorities led to a certain reverence for Jerome’s idea, and these were included in the Glossa ordinaria.
If the “learned” are swayed by the stature of Jerome, it wouldn’t have mattered. Even in the time of Jesus, the scribes and doctors of the law, who pored over the Scriptures, never got it right. Rightfully, the “unlearned”, relying on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, have maintained another canon of Scripture. Bruce Metzger, another towering scholar who forays into the formation of the Biblical canon acknowledges that despite Jerome’s stature and importance, the Western Church has generally accepted the deuterocannonical books as Scripture. He writes:
In the Latin Church,…, though opinion has not been unanimous, a generally high regard for the books of the Apocrypha has prevailed. More than one synodical council… justified and authorized their use as Scripture… [even if it is true that] more than one highly respected ecclesiastical writer … being influenced by the great authority of Jerome, raised theoretical doubts about the disputed books. (Oxford Annotated Bible, 1977)
Joe would have us believe a well-respected textbook settles all dispute. No one in the field of education today would accept that statement.
It wasn’t until that assembly of the unlearned known as the Council of Trent that there was any dispute, then, in one of the great underwhelming votes of history, 25 aye, 15 nay, 16 abstain, they supposedly recognized what was supposedly known by all for a long time.
Actually, Joe and his friends, for his ideas are not original, are reading too much into the nays and the abstentions. Since we do not have a record of the reasons for their votes, it would be presumptious to say that these Bishops did not regard the deuterocannonical books as Scripture. Perhaps some wanted more books of the Apocrypha to be included? The canon that was affirmed at Trent had indeed been known for a long time as clear evidence demonstrate. The dispute arising from Jerome’s negative judgements (themselves being quite mixed and far from clear) muddles the situation, but then every truth that Christianity holds dear, from the divinity of Christ to the Incarnation, had at some point in time been disputed by different individuals. Arius almost won the whole Church over to his heretical ideas, but that doesn’t mean that the orthodox position was not known for a long time in the Church.
They supposedly set all the books equal, but while you do not hear it being rejected outright, you see the Catholic Church doing exactly that in practice, and so they are treated differently, called by a distinguishing name, and they really are not used as a source of doctrine. Oh you hear a couple of passages quoted about certain things, but they are weak at best, and the Orthodox who accept them as scripture disagree on the doctrines supposedly drawn by some from them.
I don’t know Joe, but as a Catholic, I am seriously offended by this last paragraph more than any other. I would have hoped you would do your homework better. The Catholic Church affirms that the deuterocannonical books are an integral part of the OT, and have the same authority and importance. We affirm that the Bible comprises the OT and NT, not OT, deuterocanonicals and NT. When Catholics refer to the OT, we always include the deuterocanonical books with the protocanonical books with no distinction. Out of respect for ecumenical dialogue, we do not object to editions of the Scriptures that separate the deuterocanonical books, but every edition of the Bible designed for Catholics leave all the books in their traditional order with no distinction. The term deuterocanonical was coined in the 16th century so that these books can be conveniently referred to without the Protestant baggage associated with Jerome’s term: Apocypha.
The Latin Church also uses the deuterocannonicals extensively in her liturgy. The books of Maccabees are read during Mass, as are the books of Tobit, Wisdom and Sirach. The canticle of the three Jews is used in the Liturgy of the Hours.
There are many possible ways of reading a single passage of Scripture, and it is possible to draw different lessons from the same dead text. Why, even Protestants draw diverse and incompatible teachings from the same Bible. For us Catholics, we affirm that Scripture and Tradition form one single deposit of the Word of God. We are sure that God guides the Magisterium to keep us true to the teachings of the Apostles, no matter how small the majority may be. Did not Jesus compare his Church to the mustard seed?
). Jews spread throughout the empire were beginning to lose their Hebrew language so the Jewish Scriptures were translated into Greek (somewhere between 300-200 BC).