For that matter, neither have most Catholics. And Newman, being English, was unfamiliar with the Lutheran reformation and had never read Chemnitz. Otherwise he would have realized that there was a whole tradition of protestant theology that was better read in the fathers than he was.
Not that I think the opinions of the church fathers are the final authority for doctrine; but neither did most of the fathers.
You don't know the translator of the Vulgate? Shame on you.
Moreover, this sacred and holy Synod,—considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic,—ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.
The one-all-knowing Holy Catholic Translator of the Vulgate was Jerome. And he did not accept the OT apocrypha as Scripture.
http:// www.justforcatholics.org/a108.htm
smh
I'm not claiming Newman was dumb, just that his knowledge of the Reformation was limited and stilted due to his time and place. And agreed, way off Q.