Did St. Jerome accept...?

[Richard_Lamb]

No porblem…

 

[Churchmouse]

Richard Lamb:

No porblem…

Hey! It’s Richard Lamb! Hello there Boriqua (well, at least half of you anyway Are you still enjoying the arroz con habichuelas? Las chuletas? Tostones?

Ai!! Ahora tengo hambre

Peace,
CM

 

[Churchmouse]

Hi again Phil,

A very knowledgeable pastor friend of mine pointed me to J.N.D. Kelly regarding Jerome:

Jerome’s conversion to ‘the Hebrew verity’ * carried with it an important corollary—his acceptance also of the Hebrew canon, or list of books properly belonging to the Old Testament. Since the early Church had read its Old Testament in Greek, it had taken over without question the so-called Alexandrian canon used in the Greek-speaking Jewish communities outside Palestine. This had included those books (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, etc.) which are variously described as deutero-canonical or as the Apocrypha. Around the end of the first century, however, official Judaism had formally excluded these, limiting the canon to the books which figure in English Bibles as the Old Testament proper. Since Origen’s time it had been recognised that there was a distinction between the Jewish canon and the list acknowledged by Christians, but most writers preferred to place the popular and widely used deutero-canonical books in a special category (e.g. calling them ‘ecclesiastical’) rather than to discard them. Jerome now takes a much firmer line. After enumerating the ‘twenty-two’ (or perhaps twenty-four) books recognised by the Jews, he decrees that any books outside this list must be reckoned ‘apocryphal’: ‘They are not in the canon.’ Elsewhere, while admitting that the Church reads books like Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus which are strictly uncanonical, he insists on their being used solely ‘for edifying the people, not for the corroboration of ecclesiastical’. This was the attitude which, with temporary concessions for tactical or other reasons, he was to maintain for the rest of his life—in theory at any rate, for in practice he continued to cite them as if they were Scripture.* Again what chiefly moved him was the embarrassment he felt at having to argue with Jews on the basis of books which they rejected or even (e.g. the stories of Susanna, or of Bel and the Dragon) found frankly ridiculous. J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2000), pp. 160-161.

He also threw in the following for seed:

J. N. D. Kelly: Jerome, conscious of the difficulty of arguing with Jews on the basis of books they spurned and anyhow regarding the Hebrew original as authoritative, was adamant that anything not found in it was ‘to be classed among the apocrypha’, not in the canon; later he grudgingly conceded that the Church read some of these books for edification, but not to support doctrine. . J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco: Harper, 1960), p. 55.

…and…

J. N. D. Kelly: Thus Jerome had taken some fourteen years, c. 391 to 405, to carry out his famous Vulgate version of the Old Testament. Throughout he had struck loyally to the Hebrew canon, never deigning to touch the so-called Apocrypha or deuterocanonical books. But now (perhaps earlier) he found himself, to his chagrin, compelled to break his rule and translate Tobit and Judith. In the case of the former, almost certainly of the latter too, the compulsion took the form of a request, rather the importunate demand (as he was quick to emphasise), of his close friends Chromatius and Heliodorus. Both, we should note, gave him regular, substantial subsidies, and this probably swayed his decision. But he made it plain that it went against the grain to translate books which, in his view, lacked the authority of the Hebrew canon. J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2000), p. 284.

Peace,
CM

 

[PhilVaz]

<< A very knowledgeable pastor friend of mine pointed me to J.N.D. Kelly regarding Jerome >>

Thanks, that clarifies St. Jerome’s view. I do have that JND Kelly book (Early Christian Doctrines) but didn’t check it. Kelly also has a full-length book just on Jerome, I’ve seen it at USF library.

Will wait for Gary Michuta’s book on the OT canon

Gary Michuta debate page and notes

Phil P

 

[Churchmouse]

Kelly also has a full-length book just on Jerome, I’ve seen it at USF library.

Thanks for the info! That’s good to know. I’ll be looking for that one in the bookstores

Peace,
CM

 

[bamark]

<< A very knowledgeable pastor friend of mine pointed me to J.N.D. Kelly regarding Jerome >>

Thanks, that clarifies St. Jerome’s view. I do have that JND Kelly book (Early Christian Doctrines) but didn’t check it. Kelly also has a full-length book just on Jerome, I’ve seen it at USF library.

Will wait for Gary Michuta’s book on the OT canon

Gary Michuta debate page and notes

Phil P

Phil, just curious on wheter or not you agreed with Churchmouse on his view of the Church not accepting the DC’s as canon.

PS I just ran across this thread doing a google on the same argument in another forum.

Mark