[drstevej]

***The Apostles seemed to think it worthy to use. Why were they wrong?***

I presume you mean apostles beyond the 1st century. (You reckon the term apostle differently than I since you hold apostolic succession and I do not.)

Nothing wrong with reading these books, quoting these books, encouraging people to gain insight from them. The same is true of Pilgrim's Progress. Placing them in the canon on a par with the books of the New and Old Testament is wrong as Jerome notes.

We can talk about why they were wrong after we establish that Jerome [to cite someone you know well] excluded them from the canon. BTW, Was he wrong?

[JMJ333]

In regard to Jerome from the above article:

Furthermore, it can be documented that in his later years Jerome did accept certain deuterocanonical parts of the Bible. In his reply to Rufinus, he stoutly defended the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel even though the Jews of his day did not.

He wrote, "What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susanna, the Son of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume, proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I was not relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us" (Against Rufinus 11:33 [A.D. 402]). Thus Jerome acknowledged the principle by which the canon was settled -- the judgment of the Church, not of later Jews.