ST. ISIDORE OF PELUSIUM, G. C. “Those holy volumes of the Scriptures are certain steps, by which to ascend to God. Receive, therefore, as pure gold, and purged as it were, by the Holy Spirit, whatever is proposed to you in the Church. But as to such writings, as are not contained in that holy volume, though they may hold out some good advice, leave them to be discussed and preserved by others.” Ep. 369, p. 96. Ed. Paris, 1638.
ST. GELASIUS,[1] L. C. In 494, Pope Gelasius, aided by a council of seventy Bishops, at Rome, published a decree concerning canonical and uncanonical or apocryphal books. The canonical form the same catalogue, as that which we have seen, and the Roman Catholic Church admits; save that he reckons but one book of the Maccabees. This is followed by a declaration of the authority of the Roman Church and its Primacy; an enumeration of the four first General Councils, and of the works of the most celebrated Fathers; and some critical reflections on the Acts of Martyrs and other writings, which should be received with caution. Then comes a list of the spurious or apocryphal works, which the Church condemns; comprising false gospels and other similar writings, the works of heretics, and of some orthodox authors, who, in some points, had departed from the doctrines of the Church. Conc. Gen. T. iv. p. 1260.
While Councils and Popes were thus laudably employed in fixing the genuine Canon of the Scriptures, and transmitting them to the Churches, St. Augustin, as we have seen, was labouring in the same cause; and before him, Origen, in the third century, had collected, in separate columns, the various Greek versions of the Old Testament, and written commentaries on many books of the Old and New; and St. Jerom, at the end of the fourth century, had translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew, into Latin, and
- ↑ He succeeded to Felix II. in 492, and held the Roman See about five years.
