Heresy IX, Of the Canonical or Catholic Epistles

OF THE CANONICAL OR CATHOLIC EPISTLES — Heresy IX (De Canonicis siue Catholicis Epistolis. Hæresis IX)

To reject the Canonical Epistles.

ASSERTORES HVIVS HAERESEOS [The Assertors of this Heresy]

This heresy is bipartite. Some cast away absolutely all the Canonical or catholic epistles — as Marcion, and all those who receive nothing of the new testament besides the gospel of Luke. Others reject only some of them — as Luther: who, having left untouched only two Canonical epistles (moved by what religious scruple I know not), namely the first of Peter and [the first] of John, raves freely against the five others: casting out of the canon, first, the epistle of James, for no other cause than that it is opposed to his dogma of Justification by faith alone. He asserts, moreover, that it is falsely inscribed with the name of James, because it contains nothing of the apostolic spirit, but is wholly (that I may use his words) dry and straw-like (arida ac straminea), full of swelling and of contention. He denies also that the epistle of Jude is canonical, or worthy to be numbered among the catholic scriptures; and in like manner he calls into doubt the three other Canonical epistles — namely the second of Peter, and the second and third of John — maintaining that they are not theirs by whose name they are fore-noted, but some uncertain author’s, who wished to illustrate his own offspring with the splendor of another’s name. But the Anabaptists and Serve[tians]

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[the Anabaptists and Serve]tians, perceiving that the impiety devised by them against the majesty of the most holy Trinity is laid prostrate (prosterni) by the first epistle of John, asseverate that it was adulterated by the assertors of the Trinity, certain things being added in it by which they might defend their own assertion.

IMPVGNATIO [The Refutation]

Whose audacity we, pressing it down with the weight of ecclesiastical authority, show that not only are all these epistles canonical, but that they are also theirs by whose names they are inscribed. First, then, that the first of John and the first of Peter are canonical, and are also those authors’ under whose name they are carried, the perpetual consensus of the church and all the venerable antiquity of the fathers [affirm] so constantly that it would be superfluous to attempt to show it — which antiquity, as Eusebius asseverates, never doubted concerning these two epistles, and always recounted them in the order of the sacred letters under the name of Peter and of John. ¹ But as for the other five epistles: although there was at one time doubt about them among the fathers — because they came to the notice of the whole Church not immediately in the very times of the apostles, as the first two epistles did, but long after — yet these also at length, by the unanimous will of all the fathers and the consensus of the whole church, were received into the number of the sacred volumes under the same name of the apostles which is now read on their fronts; and all the holy councils, from the council of Laodicea and the third of Carthage down to the most recent holy Tridentine Synod, have numbered them in the Catalogues of divine scripture — although even long before the aforesaid councils, those most ancient fathers of the nascent church used the testimonies of these epistles, not as of apocrypha, but as of Canonical scriptures, for the confirming of ecclesiastical dogmas. And first of all Clement, third pontiff after Peter, in his second epistle took from the fourth chapter of James those words: “But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a Judge.” And again: “Be humbled in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.” And Anacletus the Pope, in his first epistle, cites under the name of James a testimony out of the second chapter, saying: “Whosoever (as the apostle James saith) shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all.” And Alexander the first, Pope, bringing in James as witness out of the fifth chapter of this epistle, says: “For much availeth (as Blessed James the Apostle saith) the assiduous supplication of a just man.” Urban I, in his first epistle, alleges the words of the second chapter of this epistle under the title of James, saying: “What doth it profit, my brethren (saith James the apostle), if a man say he hath faith, but hath not works?” And what makes most of all for confirming the majesty of this epistle is chiefly this: that the authority of the whole universal catholic church confirms, out of this one epistle, the Sacrament of extreme unction, first intimated in the gospel of Mark — as appears from the decree of Innocent, first of that name, and as is established from the Councils which were after Innocent.

In like manner also, from the second epistle of Peter, Anacletus in his third epistle adduces certain words of the third chapter as uttered by Peter, saying: ² “Wherefore, dearest, expecting these things, be diligent (as Peter saith) to be found immaculate and inviolate before him in peace.” Reason also shows this 2nd epistle to be Peter’s: because, if it be not his, it will assuredly be the work of some most impudent trifler and fable-monger. For the author there testifies that he was one of those who were on the holy mount, and saw the magnificent glory of Christ borne down from the cloud. But if this mountebank (circulator) had so basely imposed upon us as to vend himself to all the faithful in place of Peter, how could it ever have come to pass that the church — which cannot err — should have computed this impostor among the sacred writers, and ordered him to be read in the assemblies of the faithful, even in the sacred mysteries? To this is added that the author of this epistle, when he rendered that most laudatory testimony concerning the epistle of Paul written to the Hebrews, calls himself not only Paul’s brother, but his dearest brother, saying: “Our dearest brother Paul hath written to you.” And certainly no one among the apostles was dearer to Peter than Paul; who, as he had always loved him in life, so neither in death was he separated from him — on one day, and in one place, having the same man as companion of his passion whom he had always had as fellow of his evangelical preaching.

Now concerning the two later epistles of John the apostle, it is well known that Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine frequently take testimonies from the second of this apostle. And of the third (that I may pass over the other ancient writers), Dionysius, the most ancient of all, in the book of the celestial Hierarchy, chapter three, cites certain words from the first chapter of this epistle.

Of the epistle of Jude the apostle, likewise, Anacletus in his third epistle takes those words: “These are they who segregate themselves, animal men, not having the spirit,” etc. And Alexander the first, in his third epistle, brings forth a testimony with the name of Jude the apostle set upon it, citing in this manner: “Behold (saith Jude the apostle), the Lord will come amid his thousands, and the rest.” But he whom I ought to have named before all — D. Dionysius, in the book On the Divine Names, took a testimony from this epistle; ³ and D. Epiphanius, in the first book against heresies, citing a testimony from this epistle against the Gnostics, says: “Wherefore concerning these men I judge that the Holy Spirit was moved in the apostle Jude — in the catholic epistle, I say, written by him: now this Jude is he who is called the brother of James, and of the Lord.” ⁴ And Jerome, in the book On Illustrious Men, writes thus of this same epistle: “Jude, the brother of James, left a small epistle, which is of the seven Canonical ones; and because in it he takes testimonies from the book of Enoch, which is apocryphal, it is rejected by very many. Nevertheless it has now merited authority by antiquity and use, and is computed among the holy scriptures.” And the same [Jerome], in the epistle to Marcella, brings forth a testimony concerning it in these words: “In the canonical epistle, Jude the apostle, the brother of James, writes, saying: ‘But I wish to remind you,’ etc.” And concerning all the Canonical epistles together — their number, authority, and authors — the same Jerome, expressing his own opinion and that of the whole church, in the epistle to Paulinus says thus: “James, Peter, John, and Jude wrote seven epistles, as mystical as they are succinct — both brief and long: brief in words, long in sentences.” And in the prologue of the seven Cano[nical epistles]

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[in the prologue of the seven Cano]nical [epistles], to Eustochium, explaining singularly their number and order, he says: “The order among the Greeks — those who think soundly (integre) and follow the right faith — is not the same as that of the seven epistles which are called canonical as it is found in the Latin codices: so that, because Peter is first in the order of the apostles, his epistles should also be first in the order of the rest. But as we have long since corrected the evangelists to the line of truth, so, God helping, we have restored these to their proper order. For the first of them is one of James; two of Peter; three of John; and one of Jude.” From which things it appears clearer than light that all these epistles, even to the very times of the apostles, were always in the greatest authority, and were always believed to be theirs by whose name they are fore-noted.

OBIECTIONES HAERETICORVM [The Objections of the Heretics]

1. Against the epistle of James, which is first in order, the profane Luther, rising up, objects first that its sentences conflict with the doctrine of Paul. For Paul, writing to the Romans, says that man is justified not by works, but by faith, ⁵ proving this by the example of Abraham, who was justified before God not by works but by faith, as it is written: “Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice.” ⁶ The opposite of which the author of the present epistle teaches, asserting that Abraham was justified not by faith, but by works, saying: “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, offering Isaac his son upon the altar?” ⁷ — and a little after: “You see that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” James, therefore, teaches the contrary of what Paul taught.

2. Next, that this epistle is far distant from evangelical piety appears from this: that its author — more than befits an evangelical man, one freed from the yoke of the law by the benignity of Christ — shows himself bitter and harsh, while he again threatens (intentat) the faithful with the most severe malediction of the Mosaic law, already abolished through Christ, saying: “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all.” ⁸ Which sentence, if it be true, how will it be true that Christ exchanged the most bitter hardness of the law for the sweet yoke of the gospel, and the light burden, for the quiet of souls? Again, since in many things (as the same author says) we all offend, ⁹ shall we not through our whole life be defendants (rei) of the whole law — and after this life be excluded also from eternal life?

3. Nay, the very style of this epistle argues that it is not James the apostle’s: for its phrase does not carry that apostolic majesty and gravity, nor so much of Hebraism as it is credible was present in James, the bishop of Jerusalem. Then, the salutation of the epistle is so plain (pura), and so void of all Christian spirit, that it is conformable to none of the apostolic epistles — announcing nothing of God, nothing of Jesus Christ, nothing of grace, nothing of peace, as the other epistles of the apostles do, but offering greeting (salutem) only, in the profane manner. Nor does he name himself apostle in the title of the epistle, but only “James” — although in our Latin codices the surname of “apostle” has been added, against the truth of the Greek exemplars, in which such a surname is nowhere read. From all which things joined together, the author of this epistle is rendered less certain, and its authority is not a little diminished.

4. There are present, moreover, testimonies not to be contemned of ancient writers who turn the authority of this epistle into doubt; among whom Eusebius of Caesarea, in the second book of the Ecclesiastical History, speaks thus: ¹⁰ “Thus far concerning James, whose is held to be that epistle which is written first among those that are called Catholic. Yet it must be known that it is not received by some; nor does any one of the ancients easily make mention of it — as neither indeed of that one which is said to be Jude’s, which is itself also one of the seven.” And D. Jerome, in the book On Illustrious Men, wrote thus: ¹¹ “James, the brother of the Lord, wrote only one epistle, which is of the seven Canonical ones; which also is itself asserted [to have been put forth] by some other under his name, although little by little, as time proceeded, it obtained authority.” From which words of Jerome two things offer themselves to be gathered: one, that this epistle is another man’s, who adorned himself with the name of James; the other, that the epistle cannot have canonical authority: because neither the long duration of time, nor the custom of the faithful, nor the tacit permission of a conniving church, can bring it about that any doctrine whatsoever should begin to be true, canonical, and divine, if of itself it was not such. For it is not in the power of men to make things that have not been revealed by the divine spirit to be divinely published, or things not written by a certain author to be written by that author. Thus Luther against the epistle of the apostle James.

5. Concerning the second epistle of Peter the same man doubts whether it be Peter’s: because Eusebius, in the third book of the History, sets down these words about it: ¹² “Peter the apostle left very few monuments of his preaching. For there is one epistle of his, of which no one at all has doubted; but of the second it is uncertain to many.” And D. Jerome, in the book On Illustrious Men: “The second epistle of Peter,” says he, “is denied by very many to be his, on account of the dissonance of its style with the first.”

6. Concerning the epistles likewise the second and third of John, it is certain (says he) that they are not his: because the author himself, in the salutation of each epistle, calls himself John — not the apostle, but the presbyter — the name of John being even left unsaid: “The presbyter, to the elect lady”; and, “The presbyter, to the dearest Gaius.” Whence Jerome, in the book On Illustrious Men, says: “John wrote one epistle, whose exordium is, ‘That which was from the beginning’ — which is approved by all ecclesiastical and erudite men. But the remaining two — of which the beginning of the first is, ‘The senior, to the elect lady,’ and of the following, ‘The senior, to the dearest Gaius, whom I love in the truth’ — are asserted to be John the presbyter’s; whose second sepulchre is shown at Ephesus even today.”

7. But the very first epistle of John the Anabaptists contend to have been falsified with foreign additions, the argument being taken from this: that in its fifth chapter that sentence has been added: “There are three who give testimony in heaven: the father, the word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.” ¹³ Which sentence they say was inserted in that place by the favorers of the Trinity — all the ancient exemplars of Greece crying out against it, in which those words of old were not; and even Jero[me…]

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[even] Jerome has testified in the preface of the canonical epistles. And Erasmus — who in his first edition of the New testament does not have it — affirmed on that account that he had passed it over, because in the Greek codices those words were not read.

8. Now concerning the epistle of Jude: besides the fact that Eusebius, in the third book of the History, and Jerome, in the book of illustrious men, assert that it was doubted of by the ancients, ¹⁴ and that the ancient Fathers cite no testimonies from it — as being apocryphal — this also shows the epistle to be apocryphal and unworthy of credit: that it confirms its doctrine with Apocryphal testimonies, adducing for this the uncertain writing of Enoch, saying: “And Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, [saying]: behold, the Lord will come amid his holy thousands, to do vengeance against all,” etc. To these things he cites also the altercation of Michael with the devil over the body of Moses, which is read nowhere in the sacred letters. Wherefore, since the author of the epistle — the fountain of canonical scripture being left, whence he could have received innumerable testimonies for his argument concerning the perpetual punishment of the impious — borrows helps from an uncertain writing, he has deservedly made his epistle suspect, as one that leans upon the uncertain testimonies of apocryphal scripture. To which absurdity he has added another yet more absurd: that he has approved by his own testimony the apocryphal books of the prophecy of Enoch and of the devil’s contest, and has conferred upon them an authority equal with the canonical scriptures, since he took testimonies from them to prove canonical doctrine, as from books certain, approved, and canonical. Thus the heretics.

DISSOLVTIO OBIECTORVM [The Dissolution of the Objections]

1. Luther, blinded by malice, errs most widely when he believes the sentence of James to be contrary to the doctrine of Paul. For he ought to have read Augustine, who, in the preface on Psalm 31, reconciles Paul and James to one another in these words: ¹⁵ “Concerning Abraham himself, we find [something] in the epistle of another apostle, who wished to correct men who had ill understood the apostle Paul himself. For James, in his epistle, against those who would not work well, presuming upon faith alone, commended the works of that same man whose faith Paul commended; and the apostles are not adverse to each other. For since Abraham, according to Paul, was justified by faith, as by a root and foundation, [and] according to James was justified by works, as by fruit and superstructure — these two apostles, understood in this manner, are entirely concordant between themselves.”

2. Nor is the sentence of James so severe that it makes us defendants of the whole law for any lightest fault whatsoever, as Luther complains. For James, by that single “one,” does not understand in one defect any least and venial sin whatsoever, but that one grave and great delict by which one sins against the law of the charity of God and of neighbor, and against the lawgiver — not from human fragility, but from contempt of the lawgiver; against which charity and lawgiver if anyone commit a crime, he deservedly becomes guilty of the whole law: because the fullness of the whole law is charity, and on it the whole law hangs. So Augustine expounded this place, in sermon 4 De tempore, saying: ¹⁶ “‘Whoso offendeth in one, is become guilty of all.’ What is this ‘one,’ except that which the Apostle says — that the whole law is completed in one discourse: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as thyself?” And in epistle 29 to Jerome he says: “He who offends in one is become guilty of all, if he acts against charity, whence the whole law hangs; for he becomes guilty of all by doing against that on which all things hang.” From which it appears that the severity of his sentence is promulgated not against all sinners who offend in something, but against those alone who offend against the law of charity and its lawgiver, God — out of contempt and despite of the law and the lawgiver, not from fragility of the flesh, but from the iniquity of malice and malignity. Again, according to the exposition of Cyril, it can be said that those who have failed in one are pronounced guilty of the whole law, not because they are to be punished for the other precepts which they observed, as if they had transgressed them (for that would be altogether unjust), but because on account of the transgression of one command they will be deprived of the eternal reward no otherwise than if they had contemned all the divine precepts. D. Thomas, not differing much from this interpretation, says that the sinner failing in one is made guilty of all the commandments for this reason: that in the transgression of one he contemns him who is the author of all the precepts.

3. But in that he accuses the salutation of the epistle, as one containing nothing of God and of Christ, he openly raves: for there is set in it, “James, the servant of God and of our lord Jesus Christ” — than which what could be said more Christian? “But,” says he, “he prefixes to the epistle that word of greeting (salutis) in use among the gentiles.” O insane and stolid Luther! Does not Luke, in Acts 15, testify that the apostles, writing from the council of Jerusalem to the gentiles, prefixed the same word to their epistle, in these words: “The Apostles and elders, to the brethren out of the gentiles who are at Antioch, and in Syria and Cilicia — greeting (salutem)”? ¹⁷ And yet he is not ashamed to propose such ineptitudes in public. He urges also, with a like insanity, that the epistle should be rejected because it is very like [profane] salutations; and yet he has before his eyes the third epistle of John, whose salutation is like none of the apostolic epistles; likewise also the first epistle of John, in which the Apostle, no salutation being prefixed, begins as it were abruptly: “That which was from the beginning.” This profane fellow says, moreover, that there is not in the epistle so much of the apostolic spirit as would befit James. But far otherwise judge the catholic fathers — Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and all the others — who decree that it was composed at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; whom we believe rather than the insane Luther. He says the surname of “Apostle” is lacking in the Greek exemplars; but his rash impudence is refuted: because all the most ancient of the Latin codices, and besides these also some Greek exemplars, have it — which is a manifest indication that the ancient exemplars of the Greeks had that very surname of the Apostle in the salutation of the epistle, and that afterward, either by chance or by malice, it fell out.

4. He adduces also the words of Eusebius — but truncated, according to the custom of the heretics — passing over that which Eusebius straightway adds: “We know, nevertheless, that this epistle, with the rest, is received by all the churches.” With these

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With these [words] he also sets down the saying of Jerome — which nevertheless in no way patronizes his cause: since it is well enough established, from very many other sentences of Jerome, that he reports not his own but others’ opinion. Nor are the following words of Jerome to be interpreted so perversely that from them we should deduce, with Luther, that this epistle was made divine, and ascribed to James, either by the succession of times or by the dissimulation of the church, when of itself it was not such (for this is utterly impossible); but rather they are to be expounded thus, according to the true mind of Jerome: that this epistle — about which at first it was disputed among some whether it was written by the divine spirit, and whether by the apostle James — the church of Christ, little by little as time proceeded, discovered to be true, and canonical, and the genuine work of James himself; and so what the church herself, illuminated more and more with the progress of time, after the manner of the dawn, had found, she manifested and declared openly to all the faithful: namely, that the epistle is truly the apostle James’s, and was composed by him at the dictation of the Holy Spirit. So much for the epistle of James.

5. Now concerning the second epistle of Peter: when Luther contends that it is to be doubted of, on account of the words of Eusebius and Jerome, the argument is vain and puerile. For besides the fact that each of them reports not his own but others’ uncertain opinion — if on this account it is now lawful to be in doubt about this epistle, because certain men once doubted of it, it will be lawful also to doubt of the divinity of Christ, because at one time, before the reception of the Holy Spirit, it was doubted of by the apostles themselves, not yet fully believing. Wherefore, if in the time of Eusebius the second epistle of Peter was uncertain to many, because the church had not yet defined anything about it, now, after the definition of the church, it is so certain that no place of doubting about it is left any longer — except to heretics. And as to the diversity of style by which the two epistles of Peter differ between themselves, Jerome, in the Questions to Hedibia, gives satisfaction in these words: “The two epistles which are carried about as Peter’s disagree between themselves in style and character and structure of words: from which we understand that Peter, according to the necessity of things, used diverse interpreters.” Which sentence of Jerome shows that from the diversity of the style there is inferred a diversity not of authors, but of interpreters.

6. That likewise which Luther opposes against the two epistles of John, from the fore-notation of “presbyter,” has no weight. For in these epistles that John the presbyter is the same who is both Apostle and evangelist; and he calls himself presbyter, or senior, on account of the notable long duration of his age. For he lived, as Jerome hands down in the book On Illustrious Men, until the sixty-eighth year after the passion of the Lord, and died at Ephesus, worn out with long old age, after he had founded the churches of Asia. Nor does the testimony of Jerome at all harm these epistles, since it is certain that he spoke not according to his own mind — which he himself expressed in places adduced above by us — but out of the opinion of others; as he himself testifies in that very place, straightway subjoining to his aforesaid words these: “On which matter, when in due order we come to Papias, his hearer, we shall discourse.” And in [the entry on] Papias, when he was speaking of the twofold John, he subjoined: “Now this we have said on account of the above opinion, which we have related as handed down by very many — that the two later epistles of John are not the Apostle’s, but the presbyter’s.”

7. Now to that which the impious Anabaptists and Servetians contend concerning those words added (as they say) in the fifth chapter of the first of John, we answer: that those words have always been of undoubted truth among catholics, and were read in all the Greek exemplars from the very times of the apostles. Nor is there need to doubt anything of their perpetual integrity and sincerity, since Hyginus, the first Pope [of that name], adduces them against heretics as an invincible testimony for the supreme Trinity. For thus he writes, in the epistle to all the faithful of Christ: “And again, John the evangelist himself, writing to the Parthians, saith: There are three who give testimony in heaven — the father, the word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.” Nay, holy mother church also chants that testimony every year, through the octave of Easter, in the sacred mysteries, as from the true and genuine epistle of the same evangelist. Nor did Jerome anywhere say that it was lacking in the Greek codices of the Catholic Church; on the contrary, in the prologue of the canonical [epistles], to Eustochium, he complains that these words were not turned into Latin by unfaithful and heretical translators, although they were read everywhere in the Greek volumes. For these are the words of Jerome in that prologue: “Which epistles, namely, if they had also been faithfully turned into Latin eloquence by interpreters just as they were digested by them — that is, by the Greek authors — they would neither cause ambiguity to readers, nor would the variety of their language impugn itself; especially in that place where we read set down, in the first epistle of John, [the passage] concerning the unity of the trinity: in which also we find that much error has been committed by unfaithful translators, against the verity of the faith — they setting down in their edition only the names of three [witnesses], that is, of the water, the blood, and the spirit, and omitting the testimony of the father, the word, and the Holy Spirit, by which above all both the catholic faith is strengthened, and the one substance of divinity of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit is proved.” Thus far Jerome. And as for what they add out of the first translation of Erasmus, the authority of this man moves us nothing — not a few of whose sentences the catholic church has lately condemned — since those words were always in the Greek exemplars, as we have shown, and even now are openly read in our Greek codices in this manner: τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, πατὴρ, λόγος, καὶ πνεῦμα ἅγιον, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι. And Erasmus himself, in his annotations, confesses that these same words are had in most ancient Greek exemplars of Britain, of Spain, and of Rhodes.

8. Finally, concerning the epistle of Jude, it is no marvel if some of the ancients doubted of it, or rarely brought forth testimonies from it, since it also is of the number of those scriptures which came late (as we have already said) to the notice of the whole church. Nor is anything subtracted from its authority because its author cited apocrypha out of the book of Enoch: since Paul the apostle (as Jerome prudently observed) adduced testimonies in confirmation of his doctrine not only out of the apocrypha, but also out of the books of the gentile poets — such as that, when he disputed in the court of Mars [the Areopagus]: τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν — ¹⁸

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that is, “For we are also his offspring”; and that other, φθείρουσιν ἤθη χρηστὰ ὁμιλίαι κακαί — that is, “Evil colloquies corrupt good manners”; and that, writing to Titus about the Cretans: Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψεῦσται, κακὰ θηρία, γαστέρες ἀργαί — that is, “The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slothful bellies.” ¹⁹ Of which the first hemistich Jerome attests to be the poet Aratus’s, in the exordium of the Φαινομένων [Phaenomena]; the second, an iambic from a comedy of Menander; and the third, entire, from the book of oracles of Epimenides the Cretan, or from Callimachus of Cyrene, in the things which he sang of the praises of Jove. Nor on that account did Paul use the testimonies of the gentiles as though divine testimonies from the sacred books failed him, but that he might convict the students of gentile books even from the reading of their own books. Which it must be believed the apostle Jude also did, with a certain scholastic art, prudently: while he wished to persuade those to whom he was writing by testimonies produced even from those books which had authority among them. Nor does it therefore follow that Jude approved the books of Enoch because he took testimonies from them — just as neither did Paul approve the books of Epimenides, Menander, and Aratus when he received testimonies from them. For each of them approved those authors’ books not whole and entire, but received only those testimonies from their books, the rest of what was read in them being omitted. Whence Jerome, in the commentaries on the epistle to Titus, confuting those who reprehended Paul because he had used the versicle of Epimenides against the Cretans, speaks thus: “Some think the Apostle is to be reprehended, in that he imprudently slipped: while he was convicting false teachers, he approved their versicles. To whom it must briefly be answered: in that he said ‘Evil colloquies corrupt good manners,’ and in that other, ‘We are his offspring,’ he did not straightway approve the whole comedy of Menander, and, in the present place, not the whole work of Callimachus or of Epimenides — of whom the one sings the praises of Jove, the other wrote of oracles — but by the one versicle he rebuked the Cretans only as liars, from the vice of the race; not on account of that opinion for which they are convicted by the poets, but confuting them, from their own native facility of lying, out of their nation’s own author. Now those who think that one must follow the whole book of him whose versicle one has used, seem to me to receive also the apocryphon of Enoch — from which the Apostle Jude set a testimony in his epistle — among the scriptures of the church.” Thus far Jerome; from whose words it is had that Jude did not therefore approve the whole book of Enoch, because he approved that one testimony in it. And let these things have been said concerning the Canonical epistles.