In 393, the African bishops held a council at Hippo where the canon was discussed. The list of the canonical Scripture given includes, besides the Palestinian one, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, and the two books of Maccabees. The New Testament canon seems to have agreed exactly with our present one.(297) The Council of Carthage (397) repeated the statute of its predecessor, enumerating the same books of the Bible as canonical.(298) Augustine was the animating spirit of both councils, so that they may be taken as expressing his views on the subject. Jerome(299) gives a list of the twenty-two canonical books of the Old Testament, the same as that of the Palestinian Jews, remarking that some put Ruth and Lamentations among the Hagiographa, so making twenty-four books. All besides should be put among the Apocrypha. Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, the Shepherd are not in the canon. The two books of Maccabees he regarded in the same light.(300) But though Jerome’s words imply the apocryphal position of these extra-canonical books, he allows of their being read in public for the edification of the people, not to confirm the authority of doctrines; _i.e._, they belong to “the ecclesiastical books” of Athanasius. His idea of “apocryphal” is wider and milder than that of some others in the Latin Church. It has been conjectured by Welte,(301) that the conclusions of the African councils in 393 and 397 influenced Jerome’s views of the canon, so that his later writings allude to the apocryphal works in a more favorable manner than that of the _Prologus galeatus_ or the preface to Solomon’s books. One thing is clear, that he quotes different passages from the Apocrypha along with others from the Hebrew canon. In his letter to Eustochius, Sirach iii. 33 (Latin) comes between citations from Matthew and Luke; and is introduced by _which is written_, in a letter to Pammachius; and xxii. 6 has _divine Scripture_ applied to it.(302) Ruth, Esther, and Judith are spoken of as _holy volumes_. The practice of Jerome differed from his theory; or rather he became less positive, and altered his views somewhat with the progress of time and knowledge. As to the New Testament, he gives a catalogue of all that now belongs to it, remarking of the epistle to the Hebrews and of the Apocalypse that he adopts both on the authority of ancient writers, not of present custom. His opinion about them was not decided.(303) In another work he gives the Epistle of Barnabas at the end of the canonical list. He also states the doubts of many respecting the Epistle to Philemon, and about 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John. According to him the first Epistle of Clement of Rome was publicly read in some churches.(304)