I’m not protesting anything.So shouldn’t you be protesting that the Catholic Church removed books from the Bible? I’m not even sure what your argument is, that there was NO official canon until Trent?
The definitive Canon was declared by Pope Damasus I in 382, that is exactly the same canon that was reaffirmed at Trent. Theologians, fine as they are, don’t have any authority to determine the Canon.Ignatius;7861499:
These recitations of canon are hardly definitive, because Augustine, who lived after Damascus, omits Lamentations from his list; and Aquinas famously questioned the canonicity of the Deuterocanon.You are misunderstanding the issue. This is a red herring frequently used by polemicists. Also the site itself is bogus, it states that it is about the writings of Tertullian, but he lived around 160, nearly 200 years before Rome I. So it starts off in error and continues in error. Additionally it needs to be noted that It is The Catholic Church that has declared that the decretal is a forgery, However that has nothing to do with the Canon of the Council. The historicity of the 382 CE Council of Rome is well documented and no credible scholar doubts it.
Even so, several of councils, starting with Hippo and Carthage have declared the same Canon down through the mellenia.
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Trent, of course, reaffirmed that Canon that The Church has held since 382 CE.
Even after Trent, the Clementine Vulgate included an appendix with additional books (1 and 2 Esdras )
No, I am referring to the modern names (that you find in the RSV or NRSV). Using the Latin names, they were called 3 Esdras and 4 Esdras.The definitive Canon was declared by Pope Damasus I in 382, that is exactly the same canon that was reaffirmed at Trent. Theologians, fine as they are, don’t have any authority to determine the Canon.
I should also point out another erroneous misconception that you seem to be holding. 1 and 2 Esdras are simply different names for the Canonical books Ezra and Nehemiah.
But the final point is, the Canon Declared by Pope Damasus I in 382, and reafffirmed at Trent is the selfsame Canon of the bible in use today.
Now The real question is, since they were in every bible printed up to that time, why were the Deuterocanonical books removed in the early 1800’s by book publishers? Why would you accept the Authority over the Canon to book publishers so that they could save on the cost of printing?
Lamentations is not an issue, whatsoever. That book was certainly included and not questioned. It might be helpful to understand that when a church Father list’s Jeremiah in their Canon, that Lamentations was included under the name Jeremiah along with Baruch and the Epistle as listed as one book.No, I am referring to the modern names (that you find in the RSV or NRSV). Using the Latin names, they were called 3 Esdras and 4 Esdras.
And I might point out that you can ask the same question about Catholic Bibles – why do they omit these works and the Prayer of Manasseh, which were all in the Clementine Apocrypha?
And while it is true that the Council of Damasus (again, we are not certain because we have no original reports from this Council) probably did affirm the same canon as we have today, that decision was reversed six years later, when the Council of Hippo dropped Lamentations from the Canon – showing the canon was in flux.
By the time of the Council of Carthage (397), the list had changed again – according to Canon 26 of that Council, Lamentations is out, and there is a reference to 1-5 Solomon (which probably means – but we are not sure – Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Songs, Sirach, and Wisdom.)
The Council of Damasus did definitely set the New Testament canon. However, the Old Testament Canon was not definitively set until Trent.
Finally, I will add that the theologians I listed are not just any ordinary theologians. For example, Gregory the Great was pope, and if the Canon had been definitively set, it seems unlikely that he would have disputed it. (However, in fairness, I must point out that his opinions were personal, and not magisterial in this regard.)
This quote should suffice for the above misunderstanding…but if you would like more quotes…I certainly will be able to provide other fathers who said the exact same thing.But those which are written in verses are five, Job, and the book of Psalms, and Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, which is the seventeenth book. And after these come the five Prophetic books: of the Twelve Prophets one book, of Isaiah one, of Jeremiah one, including Baruch and Lamentations and the Epistle; 9 then Ezekiel, and the Book of Daniel, the twenty-second of the Old Testament.