And?
Does that constitute a significant distinction to you?
That's what I meant.
If that's unclear, let me try it another way.
The Gospels are accounts of Jesus' life and ministry. The Epistles are letters, explicating Jesus' teachings and Church doctrine.
Do you see the distinction? Yet both the Gospels and Epistles constitute Sacred Scripture.
Similarly, the deuterocanonical (literally, "second canon") books are distinct from the protocanonical books of the Bible, yet both canons constitute Sacred Scripture.
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And while I have you, what person or group of persons had, or has, the authority to infallibly determine what books constitute Sacred Scripture?
You?
Luther?
Who?
Why won't any Protestants answer?
It's a simple question.
“has, the authority to infallibly determine “
As a former Catholic who came to trust Christ, I’ll answer your question...
GOD HIMSELF worked through history and people to infallibly deliver His Word.
That he uses a person or group of people to accomplish His will doesn’t make the people infallible. He alone is infallible.
He used Balaam’s ass too. Was the ass infallible? Or was it simply an ass that HE used?
Do you think that both the Gospels and the Epistles are divinely inspired?
Why won't any Protestants answer?
They have and they do. Boatbums has provided that answer many times over.
But this equality was not the case with all those who rejected deuterocanonical books, as unlike the epistles, the DC books were rejected as authoritative for doctrine. And the history regarding this testifies against an infallible, indisputable canon bewfore Trent which required acceptance of all the DC books as being Scripture proper.
In its attempts to deal with the problem of ancient rejection of the apocrypha, the Catholic Encyclopedia states,
the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid [strict] a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the "confirmation of the doctrine of the Church", to borrow Jerome's phrase. — http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm
Catholic historian Hubert Jedin (German), who wrote the most comprehensive description of the Council (2400 pages in four volumes), states,
“[Seripando was] Impressed by the doubts of St. Jerome, Rufinus, and St. John Damascene about the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, Seripando favored a distinction in the degrees of authority of the books of the Florentine canon... St. Jerome gives an actual difference in degree of authority when he gives a higher place to those books which are adequate to prove a dogma than to those which are read merely for edification. The former, the protocanonical books, are "libri canonici et authentici"; Tobias, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, the books of Esdras, Ecclesiasticus, the books of the Maccabees, and Baruch are only "canonici et ecclesiastici" and make up the canon morum in contrast to the canon fidei. These, Seripando says in the words of St. Jerome, are suited for the edification of the people, but they are not authentic, that is, not sufficient to prove a dogma. Seripando emphasized that in spite of the Florentine canon the question of a twofold canon was still open and was treated as such by learned men in the Church. Without doubt he was thinking of Cardinal Cajetan, who in his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews accepted St. Jerome's view which had had supporters throughout the Middle Ages.”
While Seripando abandoned his view as a lost cause, Madruzzo, the Carmelite general, and the Bishop of Agde stood for the limited canon, and the bishops of Castellamare and Caorle urged the related motion to place the books of Judith, Baruch, and Machabees in the "canon ecclesiae." From all this it is evident that Seripando was by no means alone in his views. In his battle for the canon of St. Jerome and against the anathema and the parity of traditions with Holy Scripture, he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship.” - Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), pp. 270-271,282.
And it is of note that the decision to adopt the Florentine canon as an article of faith anathematizing those who rejected it was agreed to by only 44% of the council members. MORE