tradition) as handed on by the Church. Who, however, was to make such a
determination? To assert that this was the Holy Spirit alone without men
who determined such is neither historical nor honest. The Holy Spirit did
do all the work of inspiration and collection but it was through men who
were leaders and pillars of the Church divinely founded, that is, the
infallible voice of the successors to St. Peter and the Apostles. Thus came
about the decrees of Popes St. Damasus (382 AD) and St. Innocent I (405
AD), and the Councils of Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage (397 AD), which
accepted as canonical the Greek Septuagint and all the books of the New
Testament. In these pronouncements the Catholic has the way to certainty.
Without such a voice the Protestant has a fallible collection of infallible
books.
Fourth objection: “These councils and popes made no final decision.
The Council of Trent added the Deuterocanon to have Scriptural
backup for its many false teachings, and in doing so contradicted the
universal practice of Christianity up to that time.”
The Council of Trent added nothing to the Old Testament. Rather it re-
affirmed the ancient practice of the Apostles and the decisions of the early
Church through a universal dogmatic definition.
The Council of Rome in 382 AD and the Councils of Carthage 393, 397
and 419 AD all published canons entirely identical with that of the Council
of Trent. So did Pope Innocent I in 405 AD, Pope Gelasius I in 495 AD,
Pope Hormisdas in 520 AD, the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 AD and
the Council of Florence in 1442. Likewise, the Biblical canon of the
separated Oriental Churches has always been the same as the Catholic
Church—which confirms that in severing parts of the Bible, Protestants are
out on an unhistorical limb.
However, all these Papal decrees and Council decisions lacked one or
another important factor relating to its universal acceptance. Either they
were decisions that acted only at a local level or, if they were universal,
dealt with the sacredness or usefulness of the deuterocanonicals without
necessarily declaring their canonicity. The Protestant Revolt, with its
denials of the inspiration (and therefore canonicity) of the
deuterocanonicals, provided the occasion for a universal dogmatic
definition relating to their canonicity that would end all discussion. The
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