Epiphanius.
Epiphanius.
§ 80. From Judea let us go on to the island of Cyprus, whose chief city was Salamis or Salamin (which was later called Constantia, just as Jerusalem was called Aelia). Here Paul and Barnabas proclaimed the Word of the Lord (Acts 13:5). Therefore an apostolic church (a church founded by the apostles) was there. Its bishop was Epiphanius, whom Jerome calls “the bishop of Salamis of Cyprus” (Catal. script.). Therefore [Epiphanius] relates: “The Jews sent twenty-two books written in golden letters to Ptolemy” (De mensur. et ponderib., f. 534), and he lists them by name. Regarding the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach, he writes: “They are indeed useful, but they are not carried in the number of the canonical books nor were they deposited in the ark of the covenant.” In Haeres. 8, contra Epicur., he lists twenty-seven books that he asserts were given by God to the Jews. Or, rather, he says twenty-two: “The books were counted to correspond to the letters of the alphabet in use in Hebrew writing.” Some are double books; for that reason the discrepancy of number occurs so that there are twenty-two when counting double books and twenty-seven when counting them individually. He says that the Wisdom of Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon are in doubt [
].