Development of the Old Testament canon "Apocrypha" ("hidden"). To counter Luther's "heresy", the fourth session of the Catholic Council of Trent in 1546 confirmed that the deuterocanonical books were equally authoritative as the protocanonical in the Canon of Trent in the year Luther died. Following Jerome's "Veritas Hebraica" (truth of the Hebrew) principle, the Protestant Old Testament consists of the same books as the Hebrew Bible, but the order and division of the books are different. Protestants number the Old Testament books at 39, while the Hebrew Bible numbers the same books as 24. The Hebrew Bible counts Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles as one book each,
Development of the Old Testament canon deuterocanonical books were referenced by some fathers as Scripture, men such as Athanasius held that they were for reading only and not to be used for determination of doctrine. Athanasius includes the Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah in the list of the Canon of the Old Testament, and excludes the Book of Esther. According to the "Catholic Encyclopedia", "the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be