[HarleyD]

You found a Catholic cardinal who ascribed to Luther’s false history... and was branded a heretic, forced to recant, and had his book excised. So Cajetan fell for Luther’s take on Jerome....St. Jerome, himself, was fooled by the Jews into believing that the Septuagint was chalk full of mistakes.

OK, well that's interesting...

1. Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 285-246 BC) is said to have hired 72 Jewish scholars for putting together the Septuagint, a name which it gained around AD 354-430, "the time of Augustine of Hippo". The Septuagint (LXX) was the very first translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the church and the basis of its canon.

2. St. Jerome (born in 347AD) who is the patron saint of translators, librarians and encyclopedists, along with the whole Church of that time, rejected the deuterocanonicals when putting together the Latin Vulgate. They used the Septuagint for the most part. Whatever was doubtful was looked upon as good information but not inspired.

3. The Latin Vulgate was accepted as the standard and used by the Church for over a 1,000 years.

4. Then came Saint Cajetan (yes, another Saint who was born in 1480) supporting Jerome and the early Church's decision, also rejected the deuterocanonicals.

5. Then came Luther (born in 1483) who supporting Jerome and the early Church's decision, also rejected the deuterocanonicals. Luther had a hard time with the book of James but it was there so he left it in. He wasn't going to mess with what was always accepted by the Church as God's word.

6. Then in the middle of the 1500s came the Council of Trent who stated that, "Oops, we've been wrong. The deuterocanonicals should be included. Everyone who supported the Latin Vulgate as inclusive are heretical." Saint Cajetan recanted. Luther did not. It was too late for Jerome who was duped (along with the whole Church of that time).

7. And now Trent's decision is confirmed as the correct decision based upon the admittedly error-ridden Dead Sea Scrolls "found" 500 years after Trent made their decision.

Did I get the time line correct? We are talking about the infallible decisions of the Church aren't we?

[dangus]

I just love dealing with people who just read snippets and polemicists’ proof-texts for their history!

Cardinal Catejan who fell for St. Jerome is not Saint Catejan.

Cardinal Catejan is Thomas Cardinal Catejan.

Saint Catejan is Gaetano dei Conti di Tiene.

That’s quite an impossible confusion for someone who has learned a single thing about either man, except for some out-of-context quotes. And you demonstrate a profound ignorance at what the Council of Trent was, which I find absolutely incredible.

An ecumenical council does not invent doctrine; it discerns when a doctrine is unquestionable.

The greatest schism in Christianity (Orthodox v Catholic) was created because the Catholic church began including a clarifying word (”filioque”) into the Apostles’ Creed. The Orthodox bishops unanimously assented to the notion that the Catholic meaning of having done so was orthodox, but simply because it lacked apostolic authority to insert the word, the Orthodox bishops anathematized to the Catholic bishops. But somehow the Catholics add seven books to the bible, and not only does not one single bishop in all of Catholic Christendom raise an eyebrow, but the Orthodox churches follow suit???

Record of the Council of Trent were kept. Not one bishop objected that the Council was not keeping tradition, as it was sworn to exclusively do. Not even Cardinal Cajetan. Oh, sure, we know that in later synods he eventually sided with Lutherans on several issues (not only the canon, but also condemning mandatory priestly celibacy and reception on the body of Christ through bread alone), so there is no cover-up here.

And it’s not like they all recognized a need to conspire to maintain their previous doctrinal assertions. Quite the opposite: not only did the Council of Trent require assent to doctrines found in the dueterocanonicals, it also reaffirmed where those doctrines Luther had rejected were found in the bible outside the dueterocanonicals.

Or shall we look to the Thomist churches? For 1,500 years, they grew in complete isolation from the Catholic and Orthodox churches. On their discovery, many of them affirmed their unity with the Catholic church. Some remained independent... but added seven books to their bibles anyway?

And let’s go back to those Church Fathers who you insist believed the deuterocanonicals were to be read for “edification,” but not “doctrine”: Suppose Luther and Calvin were correct about what doctrines the Church Fathers held. Suppose praying for the dead is sinful, that there is no temporal atonement, that there is no state of purgation between this life and Heaven: why would any reasonable person, then, recommend for “edification” and inclusion into church services books that specifically endorse praying and atoning for the dead so that they be spared purgation? How is edifying to include false doctrine?

The exact opposite was the case with the Church Fathers: there were many “legends” of extreme bravery and faithfulness in Early Christian culture. Every apostle had at least gospel written of them. Some were fantastic (there’s one passage that includes a lion given the miraculous ability to speak), and some had obvious heresies included by gnostics, but many were quite believable, and many had no heresies at all. And some had been read in church services since the days when the apostles still walked the Earth. But because their apostolic authority was uncertain, they were all held suspect, and they were all forbidden to be read in church services.

[dangus]

One last note on the dueterocanonicals:

Only those books which were found to be universally accepted throughout the entire history of the Church were mandated by the Council of Trent. You’ll note that among the “apocrypha” in the Protestant bibles which include the deuterocanonicals are certain materials which are not part of the deuterocanonicals. Since the Council could not find that they were used universally throughout Church history, the Council found that it could not bind people to believe in them BECAUSE COUNCILS MUST SPEAK FOR THE ENTIRE CHURCH, THROUGHOUT HISTORY.

“B-b-but didn’t St. Thomas Aquinas create the doctrine of transubstantiation?” many people object, “Didn’t some Church fathers contradict him on it?”

No, he did not. He formulated a means of expressing what some previous Church fathers inadequately expressed. One of the Church Fathers (I forgot which) called it “transformation.” Aquinas explicitly stated that the Eucharist didn’t change its form. But that’s not a deliberate contradiction; surely the Church Father had not meant that it changed its appearance, but rather than invent a new word for the concept (as Aquinas had done), he used a word that didn’t fit exactly.

Likewise, the “immaculate conception” was Pope Pius IX’s formulation for the sinlessness of Mary. The Eastern churches may not use that formulation, since it is influenced by St. Augustine’s formulation of original sin which is alien to them, but they absolutely believe in the unique sinlessness of Mary. And yes, they also believe she was assumed into Heaven.