This is why Catholics recoil at the dueterocanonicals being called “apocrypha”: the apocrypha are much later in date and were never held to be scriptural. The deuterocanonicals (1 & 2 Maccabees, Sirach, various chapters of Daniel & Esther, etc.) were written before even certain portions of the Protestant Old Testament canon, contrary to Jerome’s notions which he got from the Jews were all-but-one written in Hebrew, and, contrary to Luther’s assertions, alluded to in the New Testament.
Most protestants who belief that ancient Church Fathers rejected the “apocrypha” are confused by the fact that these books are the ones which should be known as the apocrypha; many of the same fathers who reject the “apocrypha” attest to the dueterocanonicals as scripture.
And many Early Church Fathers said the deuterocanonicals were not read for doctrine, but ok to read in church. Not God Breathed as Jerome indicates in his preface to the deuterocanonicals.
Yeah, sure they are. And scripture contradicts itself right?
“Whoso honoureth his father maketh an atonement for his sins...Water will quench a flaming fire; and alms maketh an atonement for sin” (Sirach 3:3, 30).
Leviticus 17:11 “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”
Sirach teaches justification by the works of the law (honouring parents, etc.)
“A man is not justified by the works of the law” (Galatians 2:16).
I could go on and on. Those who believe the apocrypha or even the dueterocanonicals are scripture are in horrible error.
The fact that the early church fathers did not include the deuterocanonicals as part of the "inerrant and infallible" group of scriptures speaks volumes. While there were disagreements with what deuterocanonical books to accept or reject, the early church never accepted them. Neither did the Hebrew fathers. It wasn't included in the original package.
The Council of Trent changed all that by including them. Almost 1,000 years later. One has to wonder what new evidence surface that confirmed they were authentic when 1,000 before hand they said they weren't.
Actually the term “Apocrypha” (as distinguished from the “apocryphal writings” in the article) was not coined by Protestants, rather it was used by Jerome. Early catholic scholars were NEVER uniform in approving of the Apocrypha—that is the pre-Christian Jewish writings—which were (and are) rejected by the Jews as canonical.
Luther happened to follow in that Jewish/patristic/scholastic scholarly stream within catholicism which rejected the Apocrypha as God’s Word. In direct reaction to Luther—Rome thought it had to at Trent—finally formally recognize the “deuterocanonical books” in the 1560s. The idea that the Catholic Church has ALWAYS accepted the Apocrypha is just the typical historical revisionism (lie) which Protestants have gotten used to hearing from Rome for the last 500 years.