You’re correct about it not mattering. Jerome did not consider the 7 deuterocanonical books canonical by the same erroneous reasoning of his contemporary Jewish scholars— that they knew of no copies of them in Hebrew. As pointed out above, they (and he) turned out to be mistaken, as copies of at least some of the disputed books were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
It further does not matter since Jerome, loyal son of the Church that he was, did include these books as Sacred Scripture. He was humble enough to recognize, saint that he was, that individual Christians (even learned scholars) do not have the authority to definitively interpret Sacred Scripture, let alone determine the canonicity of any given book.
Would that Martin Luther have had that same humilty. He might have ended up being considered a great Saint by all Christians today.
You are in error. Jerome clearly rejected the canonocity of the deutero’s and did not include them as part of canonical scripture as is easily demonstrated by the prologues he wrote for each deuterocanonical book. It is true that the deutero’s were bound together with the rest of the canonical scriptures but they certainly were not included as “part” of the canon in Jerome’s eyes or anyone elses eyes that could read the prefaces Jerome wrote to each deutero.
Using the faulty logic you are attempting to use one could say that Luther too accepted the canon set forth by the North African councils since he too included the deutero’s in his version of the bible. Clearly there is a differnce between including the detuero’s in the same binding as the canonical scriptures and accepting the deutero’s as canonical. The KJV of the bible as well as the Generva bible all included the deutero’s, at least the early versions of the KJV and Geneva bible did. But, and this is important, neither of these two bibles accepted the deutero’s as canonical. Same with Jerome and the Vulgate.
You are simply trying to hard to defend your church by white washing historical fact.
Among the many places you can verify what I am saying is true is
www.newadvent.org. Read the section on the canon of the old testament.
For example:
New Advent Canon of the OT:
This period exhibits a curious exchange of opinions between the West and the East, while ecclesiastical usage remained unchanged, at least in the Latin Church. During this intermediate age the use of St. Jerome’s new version of the Old Testament (the Vulgate) became widespread in the Occident. With its text went Jerome’s prefaces disparaging the deuterocanonicals, and under the influence of his authority the West began to distrust these and to show the first symptoms of a current hostile to their canonicity
.
Note two things about the above quote:
1.) The text of the Vulgate included Jerome’s prologues or prefaces disparaging the deuterocanonicals. Kind of hard to claim Jerome accepted the canon of whatever council regarding the canonical status of the deutero’s while he rejected them according to historical fact.
2.) Because of Jerome’s influence and authority the West began to distrust the deutero’s canonocity. Again, because of Jerome’s influence and clear teaching regarding the deutero’s some began to doubt their canonocity. What is important is that it was Jerome, loyal son of the church and saint too, that rejected the canonocity of the deutero’s and was apparently the chief cause of others rejecting them too.
Jerome, loyal son of the church and saint though he may have been, did not accept the deutero’s as canonical as even a brief reading of the historical record surrounding the deutero’s will clearly show.
By the way, Jerome would have still been a “loyal son of the church” all the while rejecting the canon’s of Carthage and Hippo since they were only provinicial councils. The debate over the OT canon and the canonocity of the deutero’s continued within the Catholic church all the way up to Trent and was debated at Trent by the council fathers.
What is most clear about all of this is that Jerome most certainly did not accept the decision of the early councils with regards to the canonocity of the deutero’s.
