Jerome, Luther, & the Deuterocanonicals

[Duane1966]

Thank you. I think Augustine or at least Augustinians in the Church may have agreed with Jerome on some of this, but I can’t find anything to support that. I know Luther based his decisions on information from his studies/training as an Augustian monk. It was not his subjective opinion.

That is all I have to say. I don’t have an opinion on what is canonical - sorry can’t help you there. My only point to make is that Luther kept everything in the Bible - and what he moved he did based on a line of previous opinion within the Church. It amazes me how few people know this - even after you tell them.

1.) Well here is St. Augustine listing the books that make up scripture. Notice the books in bold that he cosiders scripture.

Now the whole canon of Scripture on which we say this judgment is to be exercised, is contained in the following books:—Five books of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; one book of Joshua the son of Nun; one of Judges; one short book called Ruth, which seems rather to belong to the beginning of Kings; next,four books of Kings, and two of Chronicles—these last not following one another, but running parallel, so to speak, and going over the same ground. The books now mentioned are history, which contains a connected narrative of the times, and follows the order of the events. There are other books which seem to follow no regular order, and are connected neither with the order of the preceding books nor with one another, such as Job, andTobias, **and Esther, and **Judith, and thetwo books of Maccabees, and the two of Ezra,which last look more like a sequel to the continuous regular history which terminates with the books of Kings and Chronicles. Next are the Prophets, in which there is one book of the Psalms of David; and three books of Solomon, viz., Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. For two books, one calledWisdomand the other Ecclesiasticus**, are ascribed to Solomon from a certain resemblance of style, but the most likely opinion is that they were written by Jesus the son of Sirach.*Still they are to be reckoned among the prophetical books, since they have attained recognition as being authoritative. The remainder are the books which are strictly called the Prophets: twelve separate books of the prophets which are connected with one another, and having never been disjoined, are reckoned as one book; the names of these prophets are as follows:—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; then there are the four greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel.***The authority of the Old Testament is contained within the limits of these forty-four books. **That of the New Testament, again, is contained within the following:—Four books of the Gospel, according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John; fourteen epistles of the Apostle Paul—one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy, one to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews: two of Peter; three of John; one of Jude; and one of James; one book of the Acts of the Apostles; and one of the Revelation of John. (On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 8, section 13: “The Canonical Books”; NPNF 1, Vol. II; bolding added presently)

2.) St. Jerome quotes from the Deuterocanonicals, specifically calling them scripture, when he quotes from them.

3.) Did some in the early church reject them? Yes, but they were in the extreme minority.

4.) If it is okay to move things around on previous opinion, then it must be okay to move things around for the NT also, as there were arguments about whether Hebrews, Revelation, 2 Peter, and James should be in the NT.

5.) As was said earlier, that previous line of reasoning was in the minority.

 

[patrick457]

I guess when people hear “council” they generally think of authoritative ecumenical councils. Since this definition of the biblical canon only seemed to stick in the West and not elsewhere, I guess “local council” works, although it could be misleading to people who don’t realize that the dictum only applied/was accepted to/in the West.

I think it’s really only in the West that the canon of Scripture historically became a real, major issue. I mean, Marcion - the guy who rejected many of the New Testament books in favor of only Luke and Paul and in so doing, ironically became the first recorded Christian to define a ‘canon’ - was a Roman priest. And, well, it’s pretty obvious where the Reformers came from.

The Eastern Churches never really had the same drive to clearly and sharply define the canon as the Latin Christians did, because they didn’t have the same experience that the West had. (We could say the opposite for another issue: sacred images. That issue was mainly an Eastern one, which is why the East developed this complex theology of icons and this strictly-defined iconography, while the West - who mostly never had to experience Iconoclasm - really doesn’t have the same level of precision in this area. In other words, that’s the reason why we had the Renaissance and increasingly naturalistic artworks and everything: Western Christians have a different understanding and approach to images than the East has - which was partly shaped by the Iconoclast controversy.)