The church had to counteract the influence of a criticism as bold as it was easy, by her immutable decrees. It must once more affirm the ancient canon of Scripture. This catalogue of the sacred books had been solemnly approved at the end of the IVth century, in a celebrated decree of the Councils of Hippo and Carthage, in which the Fathers declared they received this canon from their ancestors in the faith. A little later, Pope S. Innocent I. sent this same canon of Scripture to S. Exuperius, the illustrious Bishop of Toulouse. S. Gelasius, in 494, included it in his synodical decree. Finally, the Council of Florence, in its decree relating to the Jacobites, and, at a later period, the Council of Trent, sanctioned it by their supreme authority. Several of the Fathers of Trent proposed to subject it to a re-examination; not in order to retrench anything, but to satisfy the heretical, and convince them by such a discussion that the Church of Rome had not lightly decided on the list of the inspired books. But a large majority of the Fathers thought, and with reason, that such a discussion was appropriate to schools of Catholic theology, but to a council it belonged to pronounce authoritatively. The canon of Scripture, being a dogma of faith, formally defined by popes and councils, and consequently unchangeable, could only be proclaimed anew and without discussion.[61] The Council of the Vatican came to a like decision, and, in declaring its acceptance of the canon of the Council of Trent, with each of its books, in all the parts, it strengthened the faith of Christians against the shameful pretensions of false science. This course has shocked the Protestant historian of the council. M. de Pressensé is indignant at so summary a procedure. “The council,” he says, “has fallen into a profound and dangerous error on two important points. In the first place, it proclaims the indisputable canonicity of all the books of the Vulgate, including the Apocrypha[62] of the Old Testament, thus showing it regards the immense labors of the critics of the XIXth century as of no account, and acknowledging that it is not permitted, for example, to question the origin of the Gospel of Matthew, or the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, by referring to such and such an expression of a Father of the IId and IIId centuries.[63]The Catholic Church is thus prevented anew from taking any part in the great work of Christian science of our day, which consists in establishing a safeguard to the true canon of Holy Scripture by free and conscientious research. What confidence can we have in Catholic theology, on those points disputed by rationalism, like the authenticity of the fourth Gospel? Examination, even, is forbidden. Everything must be accepted in a lump. How much valuable co-operation is thus lost or made fruitless through the council!”[64]