Deuterocanon

The Catholic claim

The Catholic Bible contains 73 books. The Catholic Old Testament includes Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Baruch (with the Letter of Jeremiah), 1–2 Maccabees, and the longer Greek forms of Daniel and Esther. In the Latin West that longer Old Testament was the Bible of the liturgy for centuries, even while some scholars preferred the Hebrew list. Cutting the Church’s liturgical Bible to 66 books was a sixteenth-century revision, not a recovery of Jesus’ table of contents.

The question is which Bible the Church actually received, not a Catholic taste for extra reading. If God left a Church to recognize Scripture, the Church’s liturgical memory matters more than a later printer’s shorter list.

These books are called deuterocanonical—“second canon”—not because they are second-class, but because their reception was clarified amid controversy. They belong to the canon the Church read in the liturgy and defined against later deletions (CCC 120).

Catechism of the Catholic Church
CCC 120
CCC 138
“It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. This complete list is called the canon of Scripture.…”
Canon
“The Church accepts and venerates as inspired the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New.”
Discernment

Biblical evidence

The New Testament writers often quote the Greek Scriptures of Second Temple Judaism. First-century Jews were not agreed on one closed library, and there was no single Palestinian table of contents matching today’s Protestant Old Testament. Hundreds of Old Testament quotations and allusions in the New Testament follow Septuagint phrasing. Matthew’s “virgin shall conceive” (Matthew 1:23) follows the Greek of Isaiah 7:14 (parthenos). The Hebrew word is almah, a young woman of marriageable age; Jews did not later swap the Hebrew to dodge the Gospel. Paul can argue from creation against idolatry in language that sits next to Wisdom’s case that men should have known the Maker from his works (Romans 1:20–23; Wisdom 13:1–9). That Greek Bible world is broader than the later Masoretic table many Protestants treat as the only “Hebrew canon.”

The apostles also preach themes that sit naturally in the deuterocanon. Hebrews recalls women who received their dead by resurrection, and others tortured who refused release so they might rise again—language that fits the Maccabean martyrs (Hebrews 11:35; 2 Maccabees). Wisdom already sketches the righteous sufferer whom the wicked test with insult and a shameful death (Wisdom 2:12–20). 2 Maccabees shows Judas taking a collection for the dead, that they might be loosed from sin (2 Maccabees 12:39–46)—a practice the Church later recognized as prayer for the dead, not a medieval invention. Lack of a formal “as it is written” tag does not settle canonicity. Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and other Protestant books are likewise never quoted that way.

Hebrews 11:35
“Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.”
2 Maccabees 12:39-46
“It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”
Wisdom 2:12-20
“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man… Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”
Wisdom 13:1-9
“For all men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is…”
Matthew 1:23
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).”
Romans 1:20-23
“For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made,”

Sacred Scripture
2 Maccabees 12:39-46
Hebrews 11:35
“It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”
Scripture
“Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.”
Scripture

Quotation is not the canon test

Protestants often say the New Testament never quotes the deuterocanon, so those books cannot be Scripture. Apply the rule evenly: several books every Protestant accepts are also never quoted with an “as it is written.” Citation patterns show which Bible world the apostles lived in. They are not a published table of contents.

Tradition and magisterium

When confusion arose about which books belonged in Christian Scripture, the Church named the library it already used. Hippo (393) and Carthage (397)—with Augustine defending the Greek books the African church already read—listed the deuterocanonical books with the rest of the Old Testament as Divine Scripture for the church, and asked Rome’s confirmation. A canon catalog later associated with Pope Damasus (often dated to a Roman synod in 382) matches that longer list, though the surviving document’s exact date is disputed.

Florence (1442), in the Bull of Union with the Copts, already declared this canon dogmatically—decades before Luther’s protest. Trent (1546) then issued a solemn definition when Reformation Bibles subtracted books and even questioned New Testament texts. Trent did not invent a new Old Testament; it anathematized rejection of the longer Catholic list.

Jerome’s scholarly preference for Hebrew manuscripts is real—and so is his submission: “What sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches?” He translated the books into the Vulgate and could quote Sirach as Scripture. Private academic hesitation is not the Church’s rule of faith.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
CCC 702
“From the beginning until "the fullness of time," the joint mission of the Father's Word and Spirit remains hidden, but it is at work. God's Spirit prepares for the time of the Messiah.…”
Preparation
Clement of Rome
Letter to the Corinthians 27:5 [c. A.D. 96]
To the church at Corinth.
Corinth had deposed its lawful presbyters; Rome writes to restore order.
“By the word of his might [God] established all things, and by his word he can overthrow them. ‘Who shall say to him, “What have you done?” or who shall resist the power of his strength?’ [Wis. 12:12]”
Fathers
Irenaeus
Against Heresies 4:26:3 · A.D. 189
A treatise against Gnostic teachers, written from Lyons.
He tests secret gospels against the churches the apostles founded and the bishops who still sit there.
“Those . . . who are believed to be presbyters by many, but serve their own lusts and do not place the fear of God supreme in their hearts, but conduct themselves with contempt toward others and are puffed up with the pride of holding the chief seat [Matt. 23:6] and work evil deeds in secret, saying ‘No man sees us,’…”
Fathers

History and development

The Septuagint—the Greek Old Testament produced mainly in Alexandria between roughly 250–100 BC—became Scripture for Greek-speaking Jews and then for the apostolic Church. Early Christians inherited that broader collection. Later rabbinic Judaism settled on a shorter Hebrew list. Those rabbis were not the Church’s teaching office, and they were not closing the canon in a council called to answer Christians. Protestant adoption of that shorter list does not rewrite the Church’s liturgical memory.

The Dead Sea Scrolls confirm that some of these books were Jewish reading in Jesus’ world. Hebrew and Aramaic copies of Tobit and Sirach, and the Letter of Jeremiah, turned up at Qumran. That does not by itself prove canonicity, but it does bury the claim that Catholics invented these titles in the Middle Ages.

There was no single closed Jewish canon in Jesus’ day that matches the modern Protestant Old Testament. First-century Judaism was fragmented. Later rabbinic discussions (often popularly labeled “Jamnia”) came after the Church was already reading the wider Greek Scriptures, and those rabbis were not the Church’s teaching office. The “400 silent years” slogan likewise fails: the New Testament itself shows living prophecy and expectation, not a sealed library waiting for Malachi’s last page.

From the first Christian generations, deuterocanonical books are treated as authoritative: the Didache leans on Sirach, Clement of Rome quotes Wisdom as God’s word, Polycarp places Tobit beside the apostles’ letters, and Barnabas and Irenaeus handle Wisdom and the longer Daniel as prophetic Scripture.

Much later, English mass distribution hardened the shorter Protestant Old Testament. The British and Foreign Bible Society, after the Apocrypha controversy of the 1820s, resolved in 1826–1827 not to fund Bibles containing those books—helping make a 66-book English Bible feel “normal.” That was a missionary society’s printing policy, not the apostolic Church rewriting its canon. See British Bible Society and the Apocrypha (1826).

The Didache
Didache 4:5 · c. A.D. 70–110
A church-order from the first Christian generations.
Short rules on morals, baptism, confession, and the Sunday sacrifice.
“You shall not waver with regard to your decisions [Sir. 1:28]. Do not be someone who stretches out his hands to receive but withdraws them when it comes to giving [Sir. 4:31]”
This earliest Christian “church order” treats Sirach as standard, authoritative wisdom for discipleship—already Scripture in the Church’s ethical life alongside the New Testament era.
The Letter of Barnabas
Letter of Barnabas 6:7 · c. A.D. 80–120
A general epistle; no named church or person.
It teaches the ‘two ways’ and how to read the Old Testament in Christ.
“Since, therefore, [Christ] was about to be manifested and to suffer in the flesh, his suffering was foreshown. For the prophet speaks against evil, ‘Woe to their soul, because they have counseled an evil counsel against themselves’ [Is. 3:9], saying, ‘Let us bind the righteous man because he is displeasing to us’ [Wis. 2:12.]”
Barnabas cites Wisdom as “the prophet” next to Isaiah. Wisdom 2’s righteous sufferer mocked as God’s child also foreshadows the Passion language of Matthew 27—prophetic Scripture, not optional legend.
Clement of Rome
Letter to the Corinthians 27:5 [c. A.D. 96]
To the church at Corinth.
Corinth had deposed its lawful presbyters; Rome writes to restore order.
“By the word of his might [God] established all things, and by his word he can overthrow them. ‘Who shall say to him, “What have you done?” or who shall resist the power of his strength?’ [Wis. 12:12]”
The earliest post-apostolic Roman witness quotes Wisdom 12:12 as the sovereign voice of God—unquestioned Holy Scripture for a bishop writing while apostles’ memory was still living.
Polycarp of Smyrna
Letter to the Philippians 10 · A.D. 135
To the church at Philippi.
They asked for counsel—and for copies of Ignatius—after a presbyter had fallen.
“Stand fast, therefore, in these things, and follow the example of the Lord, being firm and unchangeable in the faith, loving the brotherhood [1 Pet. 2:17]. . . . When you can do good, defer it not, because ‘alms delivers from death’ [Tob. 4:10, 12:9]. Be all of you subject to one another [1 Pet. 5:5], having your conduct blameless among the Gentiles [1 Pet. 2:12], and the Lord may not be blasphemed through you. But woe to him by whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed [Is. 52:5]!”
John’s disciple quotes Tobit—“alms delivers from death”—in the same exhortation as 1 Peter and Isaiah. Tobit functions as Scripture in apostolic preaching, not as a late Catholic insert.

Mastery and practice

Name the deuterocanonical books and say what the word means: “second canon” is about the history of reception, not a lower rank. Then ask which Bible the apostles actually inhabited. If the New Testament’s Old Testament quotations run with the Septuagint, a later shortlist needs an argument, not a slogan.

When someone says “Catholics added books at Trent,” list Hippo, Carthage, and Florence first—the secure fourth- and fifteenth-century catalogs. Trent defended an older reception against subtraction. Ask whether God left a self-compiling Bible or a Church to receive Scripture. If quotation is offered as the canon test, apply it to Esther and Ecclesiastes as well, and watch the test collapse.

Name the deuterocanonical books.
Show that Trent defended older reception against subtraction.
Explain why the apostles’ Septuagint world and early councils matter more than a quotation checklist.
Ask whether God left a self-compiling Bible or a Church to receive Scripture.
Name the deuterocanonical books and what “deuterocanonical” means.
Refute “Catholics added books at Trent” with Hippo/Carthage/Florence.

The Didache
Didache 4:5 [c. A.D. 70–110]
A church-order from the first Christian generations.
Short rules on morals, baptism, confession, and the Sunday sacrifice.
“You shall not waver with regard to your decisions [Sir. 1:28]. Do not be someone who stretches out his hands to receive but withdraws them when it comes to giving [Sir. 4:31]”
The Letter of Barnabas
Letter of Barnabas 6:7 [c. A.D. 80–120]
A general epistle; no named church or person.
It teaches the ‘two ways’ and how to read the Old Testament in Christ.
“Since, therefore, [Christ] was about to be manifested and to suffer in the flesh, his suffering was foreshown. For the prophet speaks against evil, ‘Woe to their soul, because they have counseled an evil counsel against themselves’ [Is. 3:9], saying, ‘Let us bind the righteous man because he is displeasing to us’ [Wis. 2:12.]”

Common objections

Catholics added books at the Council of Trent.

Trent dogmatized a canon the Church had already been reading in the liturgy and listing in councils—Hippo and Carthage in the late 300s, Florence before Luther ever posted a thesis. “Added” is the wrong verb. The Reformation removed books from a wider Christian inheritance; Trent refused the removal. A late solemn definition under pressure is not invention of the list. If defining a contested truth meant inventing it, the Trinity would be a fourth-century novelty too.

Jesus and the apostles only used the Hebrew (Protestant) canon.

Luke 24:44—“Law… Prophets… Psalms”—is a Jewish way of summarizing the Scriptures that point to Christ, not a closed 39-book table of contents. First-century Judaism was not unanimous (Sadducees, Pharisees, and others differed), and the apostles lived in a Septuagint world that included the wider Greek books the early Church kept reading. “Abel to Zechariah” (Luke 11:51) is rhetorical span, not a decree that 2 Chronicles seals the canon. Hebrews 11’s Maccabean-flavored hope and Wisdom’s righteous sufferer fit that broader Bible, not a later shortlist.

The New Testament never quotes the deuterocanonicals.

Direct quotation is not the test of canonicity. Protestants accept Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and other books the New Testament never quotes with an “as it is written.” Named figures from Judges or Ruth are not a formula citation of those books, and they are not the test of canonicity anyway. Apply the rule evenly, or drop it. The apostles’ scriptural world is still the broader Greek Scriptures, and early Fathers cite Wisdom, Sirach, Tobit, and Maccabees as Scripture. Absence of a formula quote does not equal absence of inspiration—especially when the same standard would gut parts of the Protestant Old Testament.

Jerome rejected the deuterocanonicals.

Jerome preferred the Hebrew text as a scholar and hesitated over some Greek books. That is academic preference, not the Church’s final vote. He submitted to the churches’ judgment, put the books into the Vulgate, and could quote Sirach as Scripture. “Jerome rejected them” is a pamphlet slogan that erases his practice and the councils he ultimately followed. One brilliant translator’s ranking does not rewrite the canon any more than one bishop’s private letter rewrites dogma.

The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God—so their canon settles ours.

Romans 3:2 honors Israel’s trust with God’s oracles; it does not hand Christians a closed 39-book list dated to Jesus’ lifetime. First-century Judaism was not unanimous on the full library. Later rabbinic Judaism settled on a shorter Hebrew list after the Church was already using the Septuagint. Those rabbis were not the Church’s teaching office, and they did not hand Jesus a closed thirty-nine-book table of contents. The Church received Scripture through the apostles’ Greek Bible and Christian liturgy. She does not outsource the New Covenant’s canon to post-apostolic Judaism that also rejected the Gospel. If Jewish custody alone fixed our Old Testament, the New Testament itself would never have been added.

Sources

Citations for this article. Browse the full bibliography to see every place each source is used across the library.

Catechism

CCC 120

Complete list of sacred books

It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. This complete list is called the canon of Scripture.…

CCC 120. Canon

Open source Also in bibliography

Catechism

CCC 138

Apostolic Tradition discerned the canon

The Church accepts and venerates as inspired the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New.

CCC 138. Discernment

Open source Also in bibliography

Catechism

CCC 702

Spirit and the Word in the Old Testament

From the beginning until "the fullness of time," the joint mission of the Father's Word and Spirit remains hidden, but it is at work. God's Spirit prepares for the time of the Messiah.…

CCC 702. Preparation

Open source Also in bibliography

Scripture