The Canon of Cardinal Cajetan

 

Cardinal Thomas Cajetan was well known in his interactions with Martin Luther. He is less well known for having written several books and commentaries. And yet, in his commentary we read the following:

“Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the Bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage.” (cited in William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, pg. 48)

Now, that said, it is likely someone will respond by saying that this quote is only from secondary sources and that Cardinal Cajetan did not actually say this. However, there is good proof that this quote is indeed coming from Cajetan himself. It is contained in the original Latin edition of his commentary:

I apologize for how weird it may look. The quote overlaps into two pages so I had to piece it together with two separate screenshots. 

A more easy-to-read Latin edition of this can be found here. 

I end this article with this comment from historian Michael O'Connor:

"This principle leads Cajetan, on Jerome’s authority (and without detailed consideration of authorship), to exclude the following from the canon of the Old Testament: Judith, Tobit, six or seven chapters of Esther, the Books of Maccabees, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach)...He persists, however, in urging that Jerome’s determination is the measure to which the teaching of the fathers and even the councils of the Church must be aligned...likewise, on the issue of canonicity, he shares Jerome’s concern that the Church’s canon of the Old Testament should be no more extensive than that of the Hebrews" (Michael O' Connor, St. Andrew's Studies in Reformation History - Cajetan's Biblical Commentaries: Motive and Method, pgs. 149-150, source)