Summing up why Sacred Scripture matters, St. Jerome once proclaimed that “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” The famously acerbic Doctor of the Church knew that the Word Made Flesh could be found on every page of the Bible and therefore dedicated his life to studying the Scriptures and producing accurate translations of the books of the Bible. Living in a time when many of the versions had become corrupt due to poor translation and copyist errors, he learned Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic just so that he could create the most accurate translation of the ancient books. So gifted was he in this area that the pope at the time, Pope Damasus, asked him to produce an “official” translation in Latin that became known as the Vulgate. It is this translation that remains the official translation of the Church to our day.
Like much of what the somewhat contentious Jerome did during his lifetime, his work was not without controversy in his day. Little did he know that this controversy would be felt a millennium later when a former Augustinian monk stumbled upon some of his early thought and used his arguments to justify his own position. The bulk of Jerome’s work was done when the Church did not have an official canon—official in the sense that the Church had authoritatively spoken as to which books were part of the Bible and which weren’t. It was not until 382 that Pope Damasus produced a list of the canon that was later affirmed by the Council of Hippo (393) and the Council of Carthage (397). Nevertheless, there was still widescale agreement among the Faithful as to which books could be used in the Liturgy (which was the home of Scripture) and which couldn’t. There was still some question about a few books like the Book of James, Revelation, the Letter of Clement to the Corinthians and the Didache, but most agreed that the former two belonged and the latter did not. But before officially closing the canon, Pope Damasus sought to produce an accurate translation of the entire canon of Scripture so that the Church could have a single collection of the books to rely on.
It is important to note however that the debated books never included what has become known as the Deuterocanon (or Apocrypha in Protestant circles). This name, Deuterocanon, was used to distinguish books of the Old Testament that could be used for argumentation and evangelization with Jews from those that couldn’t. For the Jews, once they realized that their books were being coopted by the Christians, had begun to build a wall around their Scriptures and rejected all those books that were not found in Hebrew. A list that included the seven books (Baruch, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Sirach, Judith, Wisdom, and Tobit) and parts of two others (Daniel and Esther) of the Catholic canon. But the Church still viewed both sets of books as inspired and we find those books included among all the early lists of the approved Scriptures by the Church Fathers.
Jerome’s Line of Reasoning
The agreement in the Early Church regarding the Deuterocanonical books was unanimous except for one man—St. Jerome. For Jerome made a mistake in his thinking, a mistake of which the aftershocks are still felt today. As he gathered up the various translations of the books, he found that the copies of the Septuagint, that is, the ancient Greek translation of the books of the Old Testament, were various and not wholly consistent. Translating them without finding an “official” text proved difficult to say the least. He also found that the Hebrew texts, what he called the Hebrew Masoretic (HM) texts, had been widely circulated for several centuries and were much cleaner and consistent. From these two facts, Jerome came to an incorrect conclusion. He thought that the HM texts were the “correct” ones and not the Septuagint. He called this the principle of “Hebrew Verity”. And since the Deuterocanon did not appear in the HM texts he also concluded that they were not inspired.
Flash forward 1100 years and Martin Luther, whose theology, especially on indulgences and praying for the dead, is clearly contradicted by these books, is looking for a reason to throw these books out of the Canon. He stumbles across Jerome’s reasoning and latches on to it. The story of how he removed the books has been covered previously, so we won’t rehash that here. What we will cover however is that Jerome was wrong in his line of thinking and therefore Luther merely resurrected his error and passed on a stunted Canon to his Protestant progeny.
Why Jerome was Wrong
We know that Jerome was wrong for two reasons. The first is related to the findings in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This sacred library was discovered in 1947 by Bedouin shepherds and contained the earliest translations of many of the books in the Old Testament. These translations precede any of the earliest translations we had up to that point by almost 1000 years and precede Jerome’s HM text by almost 500 years in some case. Why this is significant for the discussion at hand is that among the books that were found were the books of the Deuterocanon. And not only were they in the library, but there were Hebrew and Aramaic translations. These translations, as well as the translations of the other books that were found, are closer in substance to the Septuagint and not to the HM texts. In short, the Dead Sea Scrolls show that Jerome erred in thinking that just because the HM texts were consistent, they were correct. The problem was that the parts of the Septuagint were actually preserving the original Hebrew better than the currently existing Hebrew and the Dead Sea Scrolls show this.
While Luther might be excused for not knowing this, the second reason should have convinced him. The reason we know Jerome was wrong is because Jerome said he was wrong. In a letter Against Rufinus he said,
“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 Song 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.”
And this ultimately helps us to uncover not just the error Luther made but his motivation. For he cites St. Jerome as his authority, but then does not do what Jerome did. For Jerome, even though he had personal reservations against those books being included in the official canon, still translated them, and ultimately deferred to the authority of the Church. He knew that his personal opinion could err, but the Church could not, especially when it comes to the Canon of Scripture. He knew that a fallible list of infallible books leads to an absurdity, one that tugs at the seamless garment of the content of faith until it entirely unravels.
It is not much of a stretch, especially when we read their writings, to see that Jerome and Luther were kindred spirits with one huge exception. St. Jerome has the humility of a saint and deferred to the authority of the Church. Luther had the pride of devil and decided to set himself up as his own authority.