Jerome Canon Lists
Jerome Canon Lists
391 AD, 398 AD, 404 AD: Jerome. Jerome’s personal views are pretty clear: he thought the Jewish canon and the Hebrew versions of those books should be the Christian Old Testament as well. Exactly who agreed with him, if anyone, is unclear. He had some high-level support, but (as we saw from Chromatius) that meant support in his translations and his right to hold his views, but not always actual agreement with those views. He had peers who agreed with him sometimes and in some ways, while not at other times or in other ways (Rufinus, notably). And he had various lower-level supporters (lay people, etc.), which I did not find much about (in terms of their views on the canon). The broader field of “the Church” or “Churches” clearly disagreed with him, as Council votes are promptly held, and they roundly reject his views every time. One can use lack of evidence outside of North Africa to debate how broad that consensus was in terms of geography, but numerically, the evidence we do have is that the Fathers were overwhelmingly opposed to Jerome’s view in the timeframe we are discussing.
Later, the Reformers loved Jerome’s Hebraica Veritas viewpoint—when the topic was the canon. But when the topic changed, then they, too, thought he had “gone native” and gullibly believed the Jews:
“Jerome, in his manner, imposes Jewish blindness on us… Shall we then suffer this most beautiful and invincible text against Freewill to be polluted with Jewish filth, such as Jerome and Diatribe have daubed on it? God forbid! … Unless a special grace has interposed, Jerome has earned hell rather than heaven for this…” Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will (1521).[1]
But let’s forget all discussions of the Apocrypha, the Jewish canon, Hebraica Veritas, or anything else. Just focus on Judith for a moment:
In 391 AD, Jerome wrote: “what is outside of them must be placed aside among the Apocryphal writings. …Judith … are not in the canon.”[2]
In 398 AD, Jerome wrote: “Therefore, just as the Church also reads the books of Judith, … but does not receive them among 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.”[3]
In 404 AD or so, Jerome wrote: “… the Book of Judith … is found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures …”[4]
That is Jerome giving us all three of the major views on Judith today and claiming each as the historical practice of the Church: truly Apocryphal and not part of the Bible (391AD) (the usual Baptist/Evangelical/etc. view); not canon but could/should be read (398 AD) (kind of a Lutheran/Anglican view); and Sacred Scripture since 325 AD (Nicene Council) and, thus, full canon (404 AD) (the Catholic/Orthodox view).[5]
Ignore Jerome’s personal views: which one of those writings accurately states what the Church was and had been doing? Did Christians at that time reject Judith? Put it in a third category? Or accept it?
Jerome’s inconsistency makes his statements somewhat worthless for telling us what was really going on. But on the other hand, once you ignore his statements from an “actual factual description” perspective, and, instead, focus on why he says them and what else he is complaining about, he actually paints a very clear picture. Jerome’s Church did not agree with his own strongly-held views of what ought to be done. Start with his famous “Helmeted Preface:”
This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a helmeted [i.e. defensive] introduction [Why would he need to be defensive if what he says has always been?]… what is outside of them must be [Must be? Not “has been”?] placed aside among the Apocryphal writings. … as can be proved [Why is proof now needed if the Church has always seen it this way? Would he not, at least, quote someone or something as a second piece of proof?] from the very style. … I beseech you, my reader, not to think that my labours are intended to disparage the ancients [Sounds like he and the ancients disagree]…I beg you to confront with the shields of your prayers the dogs who bark and rage against me with rabid mouths, and who go about the city, and think themselves learned if they disparage others. [Jerome has lots of enemies, presumably because he is advancing new ideas against entrenched old ideas].[6]
Nor is there corroborating evidence to support the idea that the Church was actually doing things the way Jerome claims. Let’s move ahead a few years and focus on the middle view—that the Church “does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures,” however, they may be “read for the strengthening of the people, (but) not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas.” What other evidence have we seen to confirm that this statement is true?
We have a statement from Athanasius in 367 AD, and statements from Jerome and Rufinus around 400 AD. But none of the statements match—Athanasius accepts Baruch but puts Esther in the third category; Jerome fully accepts Esther but rejects Baruch (i.e., it is not even in his third category); Rufinus fully accepts both Baruch and Esther.
We do not have a single other canon list before 450 AD matching any one of these—nor did I find anyone else simply mentioning these as the way things were, in fact, being done. No one, when citing to any Books, distinguishes them as being in a third category. There is no mention of these things except via these competing lists.[7]
Even the three Fathers do not actually do things the way they claim everyone does. E.g., Jerome, during his spat with Rufinus, while they are calling each other heretics, defends himself by quoting Origen, who was citing to Judith as Scriptural proof[8]—without anyone (Origen, Jerome, or Rufinus) mentioning that Judith is not really Scripture and can only be read “for the strengthening of the people, (but) not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas,” etc.
So, what are these Fathers doing when they say these things? Well, consider that the lists give us three different canons, each of which was “handed down from the beginning”—and yet, each is also a perfect match for the ideas, beliefs, and desires of the particular Father claiming that it had been handed down from the beginning. Rufinus gives it to us in very flowery prose:
These are the books which the fathers have included in the canon; on which they would have us establish the declarations of our faith. But it should also be known that there are other books which are called not “canonical” but “ecclesiastical” by the ancients… They were willing to have all these read in the churches but not brought forward for the confirmation of doctrine. The other writings they named “apocrypha,” which they would not have read in the churches. These are what the fathers have handed down to us, which, as I said, I have thought it opportune to set forth in this place, for the instruction of those who are being taught the first elements of the Church and of the Faith, that they may know from what fountains of the Word of God they should draw for drinking.[9]
Which ancients? When? Where? No one has found a single mention of the “Ecclesiastical” label before Rufinus. Personally, I have to give credit where credit is due: I find it very noble—in fact, rather uncharacteristically noble—of Rufinus to put aside his own thoughts and desires and selflessly give us the exact list that the ancients gave him, without letting any of his own bias or “spin” influence him in any way, shape, or form…[10]
We see this stuff over and over, among the ancients and the moderns. It is the usual trick. Someone claims (perhaps as part of an honest belief, perhaps not) that their personal view is direct from the Fathers, or the original Church, or the long lost first Gospel, or the true Jesus, or the real Christianity, or the forgotten facts, or the hidden history, or the secret truth, or the Q Source, or the M Logion, or whatever else.
It works like a charm, unless we double check and look for corroborating evidence. Sure, they say it goes back to the beginning and was what everyone was doing, but is that actually true?
That Jerome said that the Church reads them “for example of life and instruction of manners” is absolutely true.
That the Church (at the time of Jerome) actually did read them only “for example of life and instruction of manners”? Sorry, but you are going to have to show corroborating evidence to prove it, and quoting one of Jerome’s contradictory statements is not proof of anything.[11]
Rufinus and Athanasius do not support Jerome, either, because they each have a different list of books. The only thing they have in common is a manipulative style of “persuasive” writing.[12] They each claimed that their view is what the Church was doing and had always done. They each spoke definitively, and with great confidence. Which is why it is called a con game. And as with all cons, it all breaks down because the stories conflict.[13]
But no matter what, Jerome was always valued for his translations. And from that work, his writings and ideas would become more beloved by monks and scholars as time went on.[14] In the meantime there will be an immediate backlash on the topic of the canon, via the Councils.
For our purposes, let us not forget Jerome himself: he certainly believed in the Protestant canon (except for Susanna[15] and a few inconsistencies along the way). But which Protestant canon? Did he want the books “placed aside among the Apocryphal writings and not in the canon;” or “not received among the canonical Scriptures, and only read for the strengthening of the people, (but) not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas;” or did he think those two were the same view? Scholars support all three guesses. My guess is that deep down he wanted them removed completely never to be seen again. But when that was not well received, he moderated his view to the “third category” in hopes that at least that might happen – but then later when his financial backers demanded that he translate Judith and Tobit, he gives in and does so (making his mistake about Nicea amidst his complaining).
In any event, it is your decision as to what to make of Jerome. To help you, I list all the variations as separate line items in my chronologies.
[1] www.monergism.com/bondage-will-ebook: Part 4, Section 39 and Part 5, Section 10.
[2] www.bible-researcher.com/jerome.html
[3] www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_preface_solomon.htm
[4] www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_preface_judith_e.htm
[5] Few believe the Nicene Council actually did this, as discussed earlier, but the point is that it is what Jerome says.
[6] www.bible-researcher.com/jerome.html
[7] I mention some vague claims of evidence of a third category with some earlier canon lists; I think the evidence is worthless, but that is just my opinion—you be the judge. In any event, that still only gives you vague and conflicting evidence going all the way back to 350 AD, 17 years before Athanasius gives the first clear mention. That is 317 years after Christ. As I write this, Thomas Jefferson’s father was born 317 years ago.
[8] “Now take the words of Origen: ‘… a man on whom necessity imposes the responsibility of lying is bound to use very great care, and to use falsehood as he would a stimulant or a medicine, and strictly to preserve its measure, and not go beyond the bounds observed by Judith in her dealings with Holofernes, whom she overcame by the wisdom with which she dissembled her words.’” www.newadvent.org/fathers/27101.htm—Section 18, from 402 AD. Note that this is after the African councils, so perhaps Jerome is ok with it for that reason; he writes it two years before the preface to Judith where he mentions the Nicene Council. On the other hand, Rufinus says it is “Ecclesiastical” and not canon but does not seem to call Jerome out for using it.
[9] www.bible-researcher.com/rufinus.html
[10] See e.g., Gallagher and Meade, p. 91: “Unfortunately, the passage [something else, not what I have quoted] is available only in the Latin translation made by Rufinus, whose notoriously loose translation technique was criticized in Antiquity as in the Modern Period. Some scholars have doubted that the passage [meaning the entire passage of relevance, not just a few words] derives from Origen, attributing its creation instead to the translator [Rufinus]…”
[11] If Athanasius, Rufinus, and/or Jerome were accurately describing what was really being done, there should be a lot of evidence to back them up by this time period—but there is no such thing. In addition, what Jerome says about the Apostles has already become “research into ancient times,” not actual testimony based on knowledge (and “research” is me being mighty generous). Christ was 350 years before Jerome’s earliest writings—the same distance as 1675 is from us. William Penn was alive but had not yet founded Pennsylvania.
[12] The ancients studied rhetoric and were not gentle about using it. (Read Rufinus (www.newadvent.org/fathers/2709.htm) and Jerome (www.newadvent.org/fathers/2710.htm) attack each other, for example). The real lesson is not to take the persuasive techniques of the Fathers too seriously: a mix of hyperbole, disingenuousness, and pugnacity is just how things were done back in the day. This sort of practice has many ancient parallels and is often understood and accepted by modern Christians (e.g., the “pseudepigraphical” explanations for who actually wrote Biblical Books). Ehrman, of course, sees much of it as forgery and fraud.
[13] Which happens to be the plot of Susanna, by the way.
[14] E.g., Gallagher maintains www.sanctushieronymus.blogspot.com/ —meaning Saint Jerome.
[15] An always forgotten detail. E.g., Gallagher and Meade claim Jerome’s Epistle 53 and Epistle 107 “match precisely the modern Protestant Old Testament,” but Jerome’s Daniel included Susanna. They do note that Jerome prefixes an “obelus” to Susanna, but Jerome himself says he did not call for its deletion from Daniel. What he said to Rufinus is as applicable to anyone else who claims Jerome matched the Protestant canon: “But when I repeat what the Jews say against the Story of Susanna … the man who makes this a charge against me proves himself to be a fool and a slanderer; for I explained not what I thought but what they commonly say against us.”
