Where do you guys get this bit about how Jerome “put them in a separate book for reading”?
That’s simple nonsense!
Where is the indication by Jerome that he didn’t accept them?
“In the latter part of the century, Jerome recognizing the differences between the Greek Septuagint and the original Hebrew, began to make translations from the Hebrew text instead of the Septuagint. For that he was soundly criticized by many of his day. But he recognized and argued that the Septuagint was not the inspired originals, and that a more accurate translation would logically be made from the original Hebrew language of the Old Testament from which the Septuagint was taken. Jerome’s translation grew in importance and soon became the accepted Latin version. The version Jerome produced in the 4th century A.D. came to be regarded as the official Scripture of the Roman Catholic Church. But even then (contrary to revised teaching today), it clearly distinguished between the libri eccesiastici and the libri canonici. The Apocrypha was accorded secondary status, and not God inspired Canon for doctrine. At the Council of Carthage (397), which Augustine attended, the decision was to accept the Apocrypha as suitable for reading [still as a lower level then the rest of the Old Testament]. This despite Jerome’s maintaining that they should not be included in the Vulgate. Ironic that the Latin Vulgate remains the basis of the official Roman Catholic Bible, and yet the translator himself (Jerome) denied the Apocrypha as canonical.
http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/articles/apoc.html