The Damascene.
The Damascene.
[John of] Damascus, who lived not long after that council (around AD 730), lists the canonical books as follows (Orth. fid., bk. 4, c. 18): “One must know that there are twenty-two books of the Old Testament according to the elements of the Hebrew language, 
.” However, the translator rendered this poorly: ut sint dispositi libri hoc pacto [“that the books be arranged in this way”], because he calls the books 
(“testamentary”). He says the Wisdom of Solomon and of Sirach are “virtuous and good, but they are not numbered [in the canon] nor were they placed in the ark.” He does not even mention the rest of the apocryphal books.
Sixtus Senensis (bk. 8, haeres. 9) tries in bad faith to prove that the Damascene counts Wisdom and Sirach among the canonical books, though P. Victorius, the commentator of the Damascene, and Canus (Locorum comm., bk. 2, c. 10) acknowledge that “the Damascene rejected them from the canon.” But Canus offers another exception: “The Damascene affirmed this at that time when the thing was not yet defined, and for this reason we also excuse the others.” Therefore the consequence will be this: that this had not yet been defined by the fathers of the Council of Carthage nor by Gelasius, all of whom were much earlier than the Damascene, though nevertheless our adversaries repeatedly appeal to the Council of Carthage and Gelasius. With greater beauty it could be turned against the testimony of the Damascene that he numbers among the canonical books the “Canons of the Apostles” that Clement had collected. However, the Papists themselves acknowledge that in this respect the Damascene suffered something human.