Ah, yes, the Glossa Ordinaria.
Had my discussion gone beyond Jerome, I would be totally remiss not to mention the Glossa Ordinaria,... but also the Council of Florence, of which you make no mention.
The Glossa was a compilation of works from various theologians, including Walafrid Strabo (who was once thought to be lead author by some early modern authors), who seems to be quite familiar with Jerome’s denigration of the deuterocanonicals in his prologue to the Books of Wisdom, but neither his apologia or his prologues to Judith or Tobit, or the assertion that the Council of Nicea established the books as Canonical. Based on monks being educated with this work, there actually was significant confusion: The Glossa didn’t differentiate among authors, and thus appeared to present Strabo’s statement as representative of Church scholarship.
But here again, we see the Protestant Apologists’ knack for proof-texting history. Contrary to Protestant analysis which asks, “how could such opinion be so widely spread if it were counter to the Catholic theology?,” Councils prior to Trent *did,* in fact, react with alarm to the accidental spreading of false theology.
During the Council of Florence, wherein representatives of the East and West concurred that there was no valid theological disagreement between the Eastern and Western churches (a conclusion sadly countered by Eastern political leaders once word got back to the East), a list of infalllible doctrines common to both churches was created. The Decretum Pro Jacobitis established a uniform set books of the bible, which all Christians were obliged to defend as doctrinally required. Normally, the East avoids such definitions, but there was the Strabo problem in the West, which made it necessary. Following the issue of the Decretum, the Strabo’s Glossa Ordinaria virtually disappeared from currency.
“B-b-b-but,” the protestant apologists say, “the Council of Florence didn’t use the word, ‘canon.’” Precisely: the word created confusion as to whether it referred to the Hebrew bible or the Christian bible, and the Eastern church rejected the notion of there being any authority separate from the bishops altogether. The fixation on “canon” implies a validity to the notion of sola scriptura which was altogether alien prior to Luther, apart from the mission of evangelizing Jews.
So, no, in discussing Jerome, I failed to mention the Glossa Ordinaria, or the Council of Florence, which was required to repudiate it.
Oh, and just to be clear:
The Council of Florence was “ecumenical,” meaning that it was regarded as infallible, and thus representing the consensus of Catholic thought throughout history. And while it was 11 centuries later than the Council of Nicea, it was still a full century earlier than Martin Luther’s controversy.
In re-reading that, I should probably counter anyone believing I mean to imply that the Glossa was a catalyst for the Council of Florence. Infinitely more important was the unification of the East and the West; clearing away any theological controversy engendered by the Glossa or any other source was absolutely merely followed this primary objective.
“or the assertion that the Council of Nicea established the books as Canonical”
Really? I understand what Jerome wrote, but can you point to where the Council of Nicea actually established the list? And if they did, why did the Council of Trent need to address the issue in the 1500s, and why did Catholic scholars prior to Trent feel free to debate the canon status of books?
Jesus gave what He considered scripture, and the Glossa Ordinaria agreed with Him and Jerome.
And please remember the Council of Trent specifically and deliberately avoided the issue of the Apocrypha and authority. They listed most of the Apocrypha as canon, but punted on what ‘canon’ meant.