I’m not asserting that as fact, and I would like the Decretum to be validly from 382. But it just doesn’t make sense, as far as Jerome’s rejection/acceptance of the Deuteros. Why would he not accept them, if they were declared Scripture by Damasus? He had great respect for Damasus, as a friend and pope.
Exactly.
Now Jerome does mention in his preface to Judith that Judith was found “by the Nicene Council” to be Scripture. We can assume that he was referring to the Council of Nicaea here. (The acts for Nicaea are lost; we have only the list of canons promulgated by the council, none of which mention anything about the canon of Scripture, although it’s possible that the canon was one of the issues they talked about there.)
But the question I have is: why did Jerome apparently only know about this supposed declaration by Nicaea or if he already knew about it, only take it seriously when he was pretty much done with the ‘Hebrew OT into Latin’ project? In the earlier stages of his task he seemed pretty confident about his preference of the 24/39-book Jewish canon:
"And thus there are likewise twenty-two books in the Old Law, that is, five of Moses, eight of the Prophets, nine of the Hagiographa. Although some may write Ruth and Cinoth among the Hagiographa, and think of counting these books among their number, and then by this to have twenty-four books of the Old Law, which the Apoclypse of John introduces under the number of twenty-four elders worshipping the Lamb and offering their crowns, prostrated on their faces, and crying out with unwearying voice: “Holy, holy, holy Lord God almighty, Who was and Who is, and Who will be.
“This prologue to the Scriptures may be appropriate as a helmeted introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin,
so we may be able to know whatever is outside of these is to be set apart among the apocrypha. Therefore, Wisdom, which is commonly ascribed to Solomon, and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith and Tobias, and The Shepherd are not in the canon. I have found the First Book of the Maccabees is Hebrew, the Second is Greek, which may also be proven by their styles.” (
Prologue to Samuel-Kings, 393)
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“Therefore, I have shown these things to you as a difficulty of Daniel, which among the Hebrews has neither the history of Susanna, nor the hymn of the three young men, nor the fables of Bel and the dragon, which we, because they are spread throughout the whole world, have appended by banishing and placing them after the skewer, so we will not be seen among the unlearned to have cut off a large part of the scroll. I heard a certain one of the teachers of the Jews, when he derided the history of Susanna and said it to have been forged by an unknown Greek, to propose that which Africanus also proposed to Origen, these etymologies to come down from the Greek language: “to split” from “mastich” and “to saw” from “oak.” On which subject we are able to give this understanding to those of our own language, as we might, for example say it to have said of the oak tree (
illice), “you will perish there (
illico)” or of the mastic tree (
lentisco), “May the angel crush you like a lentil (
lentem) bean" or “You will not perish slowly (
lente)" or “Pliant (
lentus), that is, flexible, you are led to death” or anything which fits the name of the tree. Then he jested for there to have been so much leisure time for the three young men, that in the furnace of raging fires they played with (poetic) meter, and called in order all the elements to the praise of God. Or what miracle and indication of Divine inspiration is it, either a dragon having been killed by a lump of tar or the tricks of the priests of Bel having been discovered, which things are better accomplished by the wisdom of a clever man rather than by the prophetic Spirit? When indeed he came to Habakkuk and had read him having been carried off from Judea to Chaldea carrying a dish, he requested an example where we might have read in all the Old Testament any one of the saints to have flown with a heavy body and in a short time to have passed over so great a space of lands. To which, when one of us rather a little too quick to speaking had brought Ezekiel into the discussion and said him to have been moved from Chaldea to Judea, he derided the man and from the same scroll proved Ezekiel to have seen himself moved in the Spirit. Finally also our Apostle, namely as an erudite man and one who had learned the Law from the Hebrews, was also not daring to affirm himself taken away in the body, but had said “Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows.” By these and arguments of such kinds he exposed / accused (
arguebat) the apocryphal fables in the book of the Church." (
Prologue to Daniel, ca. 394)
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“Neither should it disturb anyone that the book edited by us is one, nor should they be delighted by the dreams of the third and fourth books of the apocrypha *, both because among the Hebrews the words of Ezra and Nehemiah are confined to one scroll, and those things which are not found among them,
nor are of the twenty-four elders, = not of the 24 protocanonical books]
are for throwing away.” (
Prologue to Ezra-Nehemiah, ca. 394-395)
===
“Therefore, just as the Church also reads the books of Judith, Tobias, and the Maccabees, but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so also one may read these two scrolls for the strengthening of the people, (but) not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas.” (
Preface to the Solomonic Books, ca. 398)*
)