Book One: On the Sacred and Apocryphal Books
Chapter Four: Which are the Sacred Books
That the Prophetic and Apostolic Scripture is sacred and divine has, as I think, been sufficiently shown by the above disputation. It follows that we now explain which books truly are Prophetic and Apostolic. Now this whole disputation about the number of the sacred books is divided into three parts. For first we must deal with the books about whose authority there was never dispute among Catholics. Next about those which although truly Prophetic or Apostolic have not always had their authority certain and confirmed. Lastly about those that although they have by some very famous and learned men sometimes been held to be in the number of the divine volumes yet have never been approved by the public authority of the whole Church.
The names of the first order of books are: the Pentateuch of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Chronicles, two of Ezra and Nehemiah, Job, 150 Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, four major Prophets, twelve minor Prophets, four books of Gospels, Acts, thirteen epistles of Paul, namely with the whole of Hebrews omitted, two Canonical Epistles, one of Peter, the other of John.
The second order of books contains Esther, Baruch, part of Daniel, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, first and second Maccabees, certain parts of Mark, Luke, and John, the epistle to the Hebrews, the epistle of James, the second of Peter, part of the first of John, the second and third of John, the epistle of Jude, Apocalypse.
The third order contains all those that were reviewed by Innocent in epistle 3 to Exuperimus, by Gelasius in distinct.15, holy Roman canon, Athanasius in his Synopsis, Eusebius in the third book of his History ch.25, of which these few seem to be extant: the prayer of Manassas, the third and fourth books of Ezra, the third and fourth again of Maccabees, Psalm 151, the appendix to the book of Job, the book of Hermas which has the title of Shepherd.
That the books of the first order indeed have always had divine authority in the Catholic Church is testified by all the Supreme Pontiffs, all the Councils, all the Fathers, who for whatever reason have studied to enumerate the books. See among the Pontiffs Innocent I epistle 3 to Exuperius last chapter, Gelasius I in his decree on the sacred books, which is extant in the second volume of Councils. Among the Councils, Laodicea ch.59, the Third of Carthage can.47, Florence in the instruction on the Armenians, according to the evidence of the summa of Councils, Trent sess.4
See among the Greek Fathers Origen in Eusebius Hist. bk.6 ch.18; Eusebius himself bk.3 ch.25. Athanasius in his Synopsis, Gregory Nazianzen in his Hymn written about the genuine scriptures, Epiphanius in his book on Measures and Weights, the same again against the Heresy of the Anomeans, Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechesis 4, John Damascene in book 4 On the Faith ch.18.
See among the Latins, Jerome, both in his Galeatic Prologue, and in his epistle to Paulina about the study of the sacred scriptures, Ruffinus in his explanation of the Creed, Augustine in the second book of Christian Doctrine ch.8, Isidore in the sixth book of Etymologies ch.1. Add to these three other writers who review only the books of the Old Testament, Josephus bk.1 Against Appion, Melito of Sardis in Eusebius Histories bk.4 ch.6, Hilary in his preface on Psalms.
Further certain Fathers, Justin, Irenaeus, Basil, Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, all the others both Greek and Latin, although they do not describe the series of the divine books, yet do everywhere so use their testimonies that they give not obscure evidence that these were all held by them among the divine books.
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