Augustine and The North African Councils
Jerome's views did not prevail, and in 393 at the Synod of Hippo, the Septuagint was likely canonized, largely because of the influence of Augustine of Hippo. Later in 397, the Synod of Carthage confirmed the action taken at Hippo, once again, due to the significant influence exerted by Augustine. These councils were under the authority of Augustine, who regarded the canon as already closed.
McDonald & Sanders's The Canon Debate, Appendix C-2, lists the following Old Testament canon of Augustine, from De doctrina christiana 2.13, circa 395:
| “ | Gen, Exod, Lev, Num, Deut, Josh, Judg, Ruth, 1-4 Kgs, 1-2 Chr, Job, Tob, Esth, Jdt, 1-2 Macc, 1-2 Esd, Pss, Prov, Song, Eccles, Wis, Sir, Twelve, Isa, Jer, Dan, Ezek. | ” |
"1-2 Esd" is ambiguous and could be 1 Esdras and Ezra-Nehemiah as in the Septuagint or Ezra and Nehemiah as in the Vulgate.
Despite these formal pronouncements by the Synods, there remained those who were uncomfortable about the canonization of books not found in the Hebrew canon, and up to the time of the Protestant-Catholic schism, there continued to be scholars who made sharp distinctions between canonical and apocryphal writings.
Read more about this topic: Development Of The Old Testament Canon
Famous quotes containing the words augustine, north, african and/or councils:
“St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere, and its circumference nowhere.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The North will at least preserve your flesh for you; Northerners are pale for good and all. There’s very little difference between a dead Swede and a young man who’s had a bad night. But the Colonial is full of maggots the day after he gets off the boat.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)
“Like dreaming, reading performs the prodigious task of carrying us off to other worlds. But reading is not dreaming because books, unlike dreams, are subject to our will: they envelop us in alternative realities only because we give them explicit permission to do so. Books are the dreams we would most like to have, and, like dreams, they have the power to change consciousness, turning sadness to laughter and anxious introspection to the relaxed contemplation of some other time and place.”
—Victor Null, South African educator, psychologist. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure, introduction, Yale University Press (1988)
“How many councils and decrees
Have perished in the simple prayer
That gave obedience to the knee;”
—Austin Clarke (1896–1974)