Why do the lists provided by such authorities as St Cyril of Jerusalem, St Athanasius, or St John of Damascus not include the so-called deuterocanonical books?
As we have seen, many of the Fathers were concerned to attend to the Jewish reception of certain books as authoritative, and rejection of others, so that a common basis could exist for appeal to the Old Testament in controversy and mission. Blessed Augustine testifies to this same principle of seeking common ground in dispute:
I must not press the authority of Nicaea against you, nor you that of Ariminum against me. I do not acknowledge the one, as you do not the other. But let us come to ground that is common to both: the testimony of the Holy Scriptures… Surely it is the books of the Lord on whose authority we both agree and on which we both believe. There let us seek the Church; there let us discuss our case. (Blessed Augustine, Against Maximinus the Arian, II.14.3)
The shorter lists, in other words, were pastoral and apologetic in purpose: they identified the witnesses admissible before every tribunal, without thereby expelling the anagignōskomena from the Church’s Bible, which the same Fathers continued to quote, and which the Church continued to read in her services.
