Posted on 10/30/2013 2:07:54 PM PDT by dangus
"Therefore, just as the Church also reads the books of Judith, Tobias, and the Maccabees, but does not receive them among the the canonical Scriptures, so also one may read these two scrolls for the strengthening of the people, (but) not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas."
St. Jerome's preface to the Books of Wisdom.
I long ago read where St. Jerome calls anyone who claims he disdains the canon of the Septuagint, "a fool or a slanderer." He says he was merely representing the opinions of the Jews. For me, that always settled the matter of St. Jerome's opinion of the canon of the Septuagint. But one thing always stuck in my craw: given the previous quote, St. Jerome seems to be blustering a little: It does seem quite reasonable to interpret that passage as meaning that St. Jerome doesn't regard them as being sacred scripture.
The passage is not the clear repudiation of their canonicity that it appears to be. In several other places, St. Jerome contradicts this interpretation directly, and we have to interpret the passage in that light:
Several Church Fathers argued against using the "apocrypha" to gain converts among the Jews. So it's also quite reasonable to suppose that St. Jerome merely meant, "don't use these books to convince anyone of the authority the ecclesiastical dogmas, (since they won't believe you). Use them merely to help those who have already converted to grow further in their faith." But still...
Then I got ... once again... into a quarrel in yet another thread about the Catholic church "adding" the apocrypha to the canon and I came across a simple, but powerful discovery:
I had always regarded the Vulgate as a single publication. I hadn't realized it was issued over several years. St. Jerome's preface to the Books of Wisdom was published years before his prefaces to the Books of Judith and Tobit. Read them:
Jerome to the Bishops in the Lord Cromatius and Heliodorus, health!
I do not cease to wonder at the constancy of your demanding. For you demand that I bring a book written in Chaldean words into Latin writing, indeed the book of Tobias, which the Hebrews exclude from the catalogue of Divine Scriptures, being mindful of those things which they have titled Hagiographa. I have done enough for your desire, yet not by my study. For the studies of the Hebrews rebuke us and find fault with us, to translate this for the ears of Latins contrary to their canon. But it is better to decide to displease the opinions of the Pharisees and to be subject to the commands of bishops. I have persisted as I have been able, and because the language of the Chaldeans is close to Hebrew speech, finding a speaker very skilled in both languages, I took to the work of one day, and whatever he expressed to me in Hebrew words, this, with a summoned scribe, I have set forth in Latin words. I will be paid the price of this work by your prayers, when, by your grace, I will have learned what you request to have been completed by me was worthy.St. Jerome's preface to the Book of Tobit.
But Bishop Cromatius and Bishop Heliodorus are only two people? OK, he calls those Jews who retain the smaller canon, "Pharisees". But apologists might still claim that Jerome's earlier prologue bears greater weight, and that he only is caving to the demands of two bishops, whereas before he was stating the opinion of the Church. But read this still later passage:
Among the Jews, the book of Judith is considered among the apocrypha; the warrant for affirming these disputed texts which have come into dispute is deemed less than sufficient. Moreover, since it was written in the Chaldean language, it is counted among the historical books. But since the Nicene Council is considered to have counted this book among the number of sacred Scriptures, I have acquiesced to your request (or should I say demand!): and, my other work set aside, from which I was forcibly restrained, I have given a single night's work , translating according to sense rather than verbatim. I have hacked away at the excessively error-ridden panoply of the many codices; I conveyed in Latin only what I could find expressed coherently in the Chaldean words. Receive the widow Judith, example of chastity, and with triumphant praise acclaim her with eternal public celebration. For not only for women, but even for men, she has been given as a model by the one who rewards her chastity, who has ascribed to her such virtue that she conquered the unconquered among humanity, and surmounted the insurmountable.St. Jerome's preface to the Book of Judith.
Now, we can understand St. Jerome's anger he expresses when he uses terms like "fool" and "slanderer"! Whatever opinions St. Jerome might have developed on his own, he has submitted his own opinion to that of the Church, which has made its own opinion the subject of an ecumenical council!
It's altogether reasonable to read these prefaces as St. Jerome "evolving" his views, rather than taking greater concern not to be misread. It's reasonable to reconcile prefaces which at least appear contradictory, in the light of a greater historical context. It's NOT reasonable to read his preface to the Books of Wisdom as indicating that the Church did not consider the "apocrypha" to be scripture, but then ignore St. Jerome's assertion that a universal council of the entire Christian world, held to define mandatory and infallible doctrine, contradicted that reading.
This is what just galls me: Every single Protestant discussion of the canon or St. Jerome's opinion of the canon excludes his prefaces to the Book of Judith and to the Book of Tobit. Every one. And this, then, is the hope Catholics have for the salvation of Protestants: that they have had no free choice to follow the true Church which Jesus, himself, founded. They have been led astray by "fools and slanderers," who have concealed the truth from them. Those "Protestants" who knew the truth in the time of Martin Luther were anathematized by the Council of Trent, because there was no way they could possibly believe the assertion that the Church had just added such books to the canon. But today's Protestants adamantly believe this assertion for no-one has told them otherwise. Hence, their ignorance is "invinceable."
“Truth, or hyperbole?”
The hyperbole only supports the truth. And, as it is obvious hyperbole, it is clearly not intended to decieve.
You don’t find it the least bit odd that they would delete those accusations?
Does anybody else smell ozone right now?
“So the mods have denied your accusations and you still make them?”
“You don’t find it the least bit odd that they would delete those accusations?”
Oh, you wrote “denied.” Dang my failing eyes, I misread it as “deleted.”
To answer the question you asked, I find their denials to be very similar to something I used to hear in Jim Crow Oklahoma: “I ain’t prejudiced; n*ggers really is inferior.”
It may be, unlikely as it seems to me, that the moderators really do think they’re being even-handed. Anything is possible.
Back in the eighties lots of people thought the media were at least trying to be even-handed. Many leftists in the media are still unable to see the beams in their own eyes.
All that notwithstanding, the media are biased and so are the religion moderators, whether they are able to see it in themselves or not.
“Does anybody else smell ozone right now?”
Really? The moderators are so sensitive to criticism that they don’t allow it?
144 should have been to you.
>> “ Even in discussions about Jerome apparently changing his mind about the canon, there is no mention of the prefaces to Judith and to Tobit. None! How is that possible?” <<
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Seriously, who, having a grip on their senses, gives a hoot about Judith or Tobit?
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It’s not the significance of the biblical book, but the fact that Jerome states, unambiguously, that he is obeying the practice of the Christians of his day by including them. In the case of Judith, he cites the Council of Nicea, which included a consensus of the bishops from the entire Roman world, as why he must include Judith.
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