It was around 390 that Jerome embarked upon his translation of the bible from the Hebrew. This conversion to the hehraica veritas also entailed an acceptance of the Hebrew canon, which excluded the deuterocanonical works commonly read in the church. Henceforth Jerome makes a point of stressing the uncanonica! nature of these books 2. In practice however he continues to quote thern as if they were scripture. Texts are cited with particular frequency from Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom of Solomon and the deuterocanonical parts of Daniel 3. On the other hand quotation from the Book of Tobit is rare. Only three passages have so far been identified: all of them belong to the later period of Jerome's life in which he expressed serious reservations about such uncanonical books. It is the purpose of the present article to add a further passage to the dossier of Jerome's quotations frorn Tobit. This one is significantly earlier than the other three. The three passages which have hitherto been recognized are listed by Penna 4. The earliest occurs in Jerome's commentary on Ecclesiastes, which was produced around 389. There he cites Tobit 1 Citation of Latin works follows the method of
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