VI.

(Not esteemed authoritative by all, p. 379.)

Not by Jerome, nor Rufinus, nor Chrysostom. Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, is also shown by Lardner (Credib., v. 127) to have quoted "the wisdom of Solomon" only as the sayings of a wise man; not at all as Scripture. The Easterns are equally represented by John Damascene (a.d. 730), who says of this book that it is one of those "excellent and useful" books which are not reckoned with the hagiographa. But Methodius is an exception; for he quotes this book twice (says Lardner) as if it were Scripture, and certainly cites it not infrequently. Yet his testimony does not amount, perhaps, to more than an acceptance of the same as only deutero-canonical; i.e., as one of the books read in the Church for instruction, but not appealed to as establishing any doctrine otherwise unknown to the Church. We may examine this subject when we come to Methodius, in vol. vi. of this series.