367 – c. 405

The Canon in the Fourth Century: Athanasius's Festal Letter, the African Councils and Jerome's "Hebraica Veritas"

In his Festal Letter of 367, Athanasius for the first time lists the New Testament canon in the form in which it is held today. For the Old Testament the question remained disputed: the Eastern fathers usually used the long list but, from Athanasius on, distinguished strictly canonical from secondary books, while the Western fathers, under the influence of Augustine and the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), revered all of Scripture as equally sacred. Jerome translated the Old Testament for the Vulgate not from the Septuagint but from the Hebrew original, regarding only the Jewish books as canonical. His principle of "truth in the Hebrew" shook the unanimity of the Latins and introduced the division into canonical and non-canonical books.