In his prologue to the books of Samuel and Kings, Jerome, though seeming to favor counting 22, said: “Some would include both Ruth and Lamentations among the Hagiographa . . . and thus would get twenty-four books.”

Jerome (340?-420 C.E.), Biblical scholar of the Latin church and compiler of the Vulgate. In his prologue to the books of Samuel and Kings, after enumerating the 22 books of the Hebrew Scriptures, Jerome says: “Whatever is beyond these must be put in the apocrypha.”