13. Jerome (AD 340-420) The great scholar and translator of the Latin Vulgate rejected the Apocrypha as part of the canon.
You seem to forget that, while under the influence of rabbinical scholars who did not believe Jesus was the Messiah (a group Jesus called "spiritually blind") Jerome's initial opinion was against the LXX; but he later included the deuterocanonicals in his translation precisely because he did not want to rely on his own opinion, or on rabbinical opinion influenced by their ongoing anti-Christian polemic, but on the actual practice of the church. He went with the texts received and preserved by the churches for liturgical use.
That established a principle: The guiding authority is (1) not your opinion (2) not rabbinical opinion, but (3) the actual practice of the churches.
And that leads directly into your last point:
14. Not until 1546 AD in a polemical action at the counter-Reformation Council of Trent (1545-63), did the apocryphal books receive full canonical status by the Roman Catholic Church.
That's an unfortunately common misunderstanding of the way texts are recognized as canonical. The Council invented nothing, added nothing and imposed nothing: it confirmed (that's an important key word, "confirmed") the identical list already approved by the Council of Florence (1442), which in turn is the same as the earliest canonical lists extant from the synods of Carthage and Rome in the fourth century.
This business of something lacking "full canonical status" unless it's confirmed in an Ecumenical Council is a misunderstanding of what a Council does.
Although the Canon wasn't dogmatically defined in an ecumenical council until 1546, it had been first believed by the ancient Christian community (sensus fidelium), then celebrated liturgically, then recognized by local synods, then supported by scholastic argument, and lastly --- many centuries later, and under pressure of controversy by dissenters --- formally defined as a dogma of the Faith.
That, by the way, is the normal course of doctrine: it is first anciently believed based on what was handed down to them; then celebrated; then clarified by argument, then defined. And not the other way around!
Ecumenical Councils are generally prodded into action by dissent, controversy, conflict. There's no particular reason to define things which nobody out there is bug-tussling about. The purpose of the Council is to confirm what has been received by the Church, and by the Church I mean Christendom: by believers East and West going back to Apostolic times.
Toodle-oo!
No, I didn't forget. Jerome translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew and also did the Deuterocanonicals/Apocryphals from the Greek Septuagint into the Latin under orders from Rome. His own opinion of those books was that they were not part of the Hebrew canon recognized by the Jews and he included forwards to each of these books explaining why they were considered secondary to the universally accepted divinely-inspired Scriptures. I question the challenge put out by some that the reason the Jews rejected those books was because of their "Christian" influence. That is ludicrous for two simple reasons, there WAS no Christian influence during the times these intertestamental books were written (Christ had not come yet) and NOTHING in these books can be interpreted as "Christian" in the first place. The Jews - unto whom Paul said had been given the "Oracles of God" - did not accept these books as Divinely-inspired.
That the early church used some of these books for edification purposes and was why they were included among liturgical material is not at issue. What IS at issue is the contention that these books are equally inspired and binding upon a believer as the rest of the unanimously accepted Scriptures. Even early church fathers differentiated them as such.
Ecumenical Councils are generally prodded into action by dissent, controversy, conflict. There's no particular reason to define things which nobody out there is bug-tussling about. The purpose of the Council is to confirm what has been received by the Church, and by the Church I mean Christendom: by believers East and West going back to Apostolic times.
We can leave aside the questionable "development of doctrine" versus the Vincentian Canon for another day. The "bug-tussling" on the canon has NOT been resolved on these questionable books and their place and purpose for the Christian life and beliefs. Even after the Council of Trent - among Catholics even, there continued to be disagreement. It really is not as "settled" as some would have us believe. I learned that:
Jedin is worth quoting at length:
“(Seripando was) Impressed by the doubts of St. Jerome, Rufinus, and St. John Damascene about the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, Seripando favored a distinction in the degrees of authority of the books of the Florentine canon. The highest authority among all the books of the Old Testament must be accorded those which Christ Himself and the apostles quoted in the New Testament, especially the Psalms. But the rule of citation in the New Testament does not indicate the difference of degree in the strict sense of the word, because certain Old Testament books not quoted in the New Testament are equal in authority to those quoted. St. Jerome gives an actual difference in degree of authority when he gives a higher place to those books which are adequate to prove a dogma than to those which are read merely for edification. The former, the protocanonical books, are "libri canonici et authentici"; Tobias, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, the books of Esdras, Ecclesiasticus, the books of the Maccabees, and Baruch are only "canonici et ecclesiastici" and make up the canon morum in contrast to the canon fidei. These, Seripando says in the words of St. Jerome, are suited for the edification of the people, but they are not authentic, that is, not sufficient to prove a dogma. Seripando emphasized that in spite of the Florentine canon the question of a twofold canon was still open and was treated as such by learned men in the Church. Without doubt he was thinking of Cardinal Cajetan, who in his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews accepted St. Jerome's view which had had supporters throughout the Middle Ages.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), 270-271
“For the last time [Seripando] expressed his doubts [to the Council of Trent] about accepting the deuterocanonical books into the canon of faith. Together with the apostolic traditions the so-called apostolic canons were being accepted, and the eighty-fifth canon listed the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) as non-canonical. Now, he said, it would be contradictory to accept, on the one hand, the apostolic traditions as the foundation of faith and, on the other, to directly reject one of them.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), 278.
Jedin also documents a group of excellent scholars that stood against “tradition” as being on the same level of authority as scripture:
“In his opposition to accepting the Florentine canon and the equalization of traditions with Holy Scripture, Seripando did not stand alone. In the particular congregation of March 23, the learned Dominican Bishop Bertano of Fano had already expressed the view that Holy Scripture possessed greater authority than the traditions because the Scriptures were unchangeable; that only offenders against the biblical canon should come under the anathema, not those who deny the principle of tradition; that it would be unfortunate if the Council limited itself to the apostolic canons, because the Protestants would say that the abrogation of some of these traditions was arbitrary and represented an abuse… Another determined opponent of putting traditions on a par with Holy Scripture, as well as the anathema, was the Dominican Nacchianti. The Servite general defended the view that all the evangelical truths were contained in the Bible, and he subscribed to the canon of St. Jerome, as did also Madruzzo and Fonseca on April 1. While Seripando abandoned his view as a lost cause, Madruzzo, the Carmelite general, and the Bishop of Agde stood for the limited canon, and the bishops of Castellamare and Caorle urged the related motion to place the books of Judith, Baruch, and Machabees in the "canon ecclesiae." From all this it is evident that Seripando was by no means alone in his views. In his battle for the canon of St. Jerome and against the anathema and the parity of traditions with Holy Scripture, he was aligned with the leaders of a minority that was outstanding for its theological scholarship.”
Source: Hubert Jedin, Papal Legate At The Council Of Trent (St Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1947), 281-282. (From http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2006/06/who-were-some-of-best-scholars-at.html)