In this video, Alex Jurado from Voice Of Reason responds to a caller who asks if there is any weight to the claim that St. Jerome, first translator of the Bible, agreed with the Protestant canon of scripture in a conversation hosted by Cy Kellett.
Transcript:
Caller: So my question is, oftentimes I’ll see Protestant apologists and they’ll use, you know, very prominent Catholic scholars, like they’ll use St. Jerome or they’ll use Cardinal Tommaso Vio Kayetan, the Catholic cardinal who was very anti-Protestant and was a very vocal critic of the Protestant quote unquote Reformation. They’ll often use them as sources to try and support the 66-book canon. So I was wondering, what are your thoughts on that?
And if I could ask, just a really quick follow-up, how do you respond to Protestants that will try to say that they’ll try to bring up, you know, contradictions in the Deuterocanon? Like they’ll try to say Tobit promotes witchcraft or they’ll try to say that Judith 1:1 is a historical error.
Alex: Sure. Really good question. So let me start off by saying that, you know, my dear Protestant friends, you know, Protestant apologists, they really need to retire the Jerome argument because it just doesn’t work anymore. And they also don’t want to appeal to Cardinal Kayetan because Cardinal Kayetan is no friend of theirs either.
And I’ll explain why. The reason that you don’t want to appeal to Jerome is because Jerome, and it seems like a lot of Protestants don’t know that Jerome actually changed his mind. Jerome actually changed his mind twice on the inspiration of the Deuterocanon. What a lot of people don’t know is that Jerome, early in his career, before he was commissioned by Pope Saint Damasus to translate the Bible into Latin, he actually used the Deuterocanonical writings as inspired scripture, and he calls them inspired scripture. He’ll cite them and he’ll quote them and he’ll say it is written in God’s divine word and then he’ll quote one of the Deuterocanonical books.
It wasn’t until after Jerome was commissioned by Pope Saint Damasus to translate the Bible into Latin that he actually went to go learn biblical Hebrew from Jewish rabbis. And it’s in talking to the Jewish rabbis that the Jewish rabbis told him that these extra books that the Christians had in their Bible, that they had no Hebrew basis for them, that St. Jerome posited this idea or this theory which really was just speculation, that perhaps those seven Deuterocanonical books didn’t belong in the Bible because they don’t have Hebrew originals.
But here’s the problem with that. First of all, we actually now know that the vast majority of the seven Deuterocanonical books, five of the seven actually were originally written in Hebrew. And as a matter of fact, St. Jerome himself actually tells us this. He’ll tell us that the book of Baruch, Tobit, and Judith, that those three books were originally written in Hebrew and in Aramaic, which is why he actually did translate them when he was writing the Latin Vulgate.
But we also now know that the book of First Maccabees and also Sirach, that those books were also originally written in Hebrew. The only books that we know were originally written in Greek were Second Maccabees and Wisdom. So if we actually use St. Jerome’s standard, the standard that he posited, then Protestants have to explain why they don’t have those five books that were originally written in Hebrew if we’re using St. Jerome’s standard.
But then a further problem, it’s complicated when towards the end of St. Jerome’s life, around the year 394, is when he actually starts using those plural canonical books again as inspired scripture. So the reason that Protestants appealed to St. Jerome is because he is the only Church Father ever, the only Church Father that ever called the Deuterocanonical books apocryphal, meaning that he said that those books were uninspired, that they weren’t inspired.
However, he changed his mind again towards the end of his life. And do you know why he changed his mind? St. Jerome changed his mind because the North African Council, starting with Hippo in 393, said that those books were indeed inspired. And it was in 394, the very next year, when St. Jerome in his writings started citing and quoting those Deuterocanonical books as inspired scripture.
So at the end of his life, he did hold to their inspiration. It was only during a small period of his life where he questioned the inspiration or even said that they were probably apocryphal. But the question that we have for Protestants is why are you going with what Jerome said during this, you know, 15-year period of his life? But you’re ignoring what he said before that period and then you’re ignoring what he said after that period.
Especially because in one of his writings, he says that everybody needs to follow the Pope in all things. Pope Innocent, he said that those seven Deuterocanonical books were indeed inspired scripture, and St. Jerome followed suit.
Now, so following St. Jerome, appealing to St. Jerome just doesn’t work anymore because it’s ignoring so much context. And again, the standard that St. Jerome himself was using we now know was wrong because we know that the vast majority of those books were indeed written in Hebrew. But even then the question is, why is that the standard? Why is it that all of the Old Testament books have to be written in Hebrew and only Hebrew?
Because if we’re using that standard, then it doesn’t work when we look at the New Testament books, because we know that the New Testament books were written in Greek and that’s the inspired language of the New Testament. So then the question is this standard of only the Old Testament can be inspired in Hebrew. Where does the Bible say that? Does the Bible say that all of the Old Testament books have to be only in Hebrew? The Bible doesn’t say that.
So it’s actually a tradition of men that is a non-biblical tradition that Protestants are holding to. And they’re ignoring everything else that St. Jerome said in between, including what he said at the end of his life when he started using them as inspired scripture following the teachings of the Pope and of the Church Universal. Because 393 and the Council of Hippo, 397, the Council of Carthage, and the decrees of Pope Galatius and the decrees of Pope Innocent, they all said that those books were indeed inspired.
So that’s why appealing to Jerome just doesn’t work. Appealing to Cardinal Kayetan doesn’t work either. Because when Protestants appeal to him, it’s clear that they’ve actually never read what Cardinal Kayetan actually said. Because Cardinal Kayetan also said that the Deuterocanon of the New Testament also wasn’t Scripture either.
So Cardinal Kayetan said that Hebrews, James, Jude, Second Peter, Second and Third John, and Revelation did not belong in the Bible either for the same reasons that he said that the Old Testament Deuterocanon didn’t belong in the Bible either. So why is it that Protestants are listening to what Cardinal Kayetan said about the Old Testament canon, but they’re ignoring what he said about the New Testament canon? It’s a huge inconsistency.
Also, we have to know that Cardinal Kayetan said the reason that he said that these books should be removed, especially when it comes to the Old Testament, is because he actually was appealing to Jerome, ignoring what Jerome said at the beginning of his career as a theologian and at the end of his career. But Cardinal Kayetan actually said that all of the councils of the Church, that those councils need to conform to what Jerome taught during this specific period in his life. He actually was teaching that Jerome was infallible only during this period of his life.
So it’s completely inconsistent. And Protestants who appeal to him are ignoring what he said about the New Testament Deuterocanon as well. So Cardinal Kayetan is on a whole other extreme and he shouldn’t be appealed to either, because clearly there are other things that he said that we wouldn’t hold to.
And if Cardinal Kayetan is right and he says that St. Jerome is infallible, right, let’s say that St. Jerome is infallible. Well, St. Jerome had all of these other uniquely Catholic beliefs that Protestants reject to this day as well. So it is completely inconsistent. It just doesn’t work. Protestants need to retire the argument from Jerome and the argument from Cardinal Kayetan.
And if they want to say that the Deuterocanonical books have certain historical errors in them, well, there are atheists that will actually say the same thing about the proto-canonical books, that there are historical errors in the proto-canonical books. But all of the errors of both the proto-canonical books or the alleged errors of the proto-canonical books and the Deuterocanonical books, they’ve actually already been answered and settled.
So there are no errors in any of these books. But when Protestants want to point to alleged or supposed errors in the Deuterocanon, they’re actually, you know, not being consistent because then we could point them to the alleged errors in the proto-canon. And if they’re able to find the answers to these alleged contradictions in the proto-canon, why can’t they do the same for the Deuterocanon? Especially because we know that there are indeed responses to these alleged errors of the Deuterocanonical books.
Cy: So, yeah, so that was your answer to his second part, which was about Tobit and Judith. Right? In other words, especially he was saying, I think the historical error in the beginning of Judith naming the wrong king. But the answer to that is no. This has been dealt with. There is no error there. And you need to apply the same standard you apply when you say, oh, is there an error about King David or something like that in the books that we all share an acceptance of.
Alex: Right? Because non-Christians will be quick to point out that even the proto-canon has all of these alleged errors and contradictions or historical inaccuracies. But if the Protestants that hold of the proto-canon are able to explain those and actually give a good, you know, true response for those, why can’t they do the same thing to the Deuterocanonical books? Especially because we know there are answers that exist.
And even actually, the Church Fathers noticed this too, long before Protestants, long before Protestants ever pointed out these alleged contradictions. St. Thomas Aquinas was talking about them too, and he was able to explain them away as well, or not explain them away. He was able to respond and give answers.
Cy: Yeah. All right, Ignatius, thanks very much. Let’s go to Sean in Austin, Texas.