Ep. LIII–LV — Letter LIII. To Paulinus.

Letter LIII. To Paulinus. Jerome urges Paulinus, bishop of Nola, (for whom see Letter LVIII.) to make a diligent study of the Scriptures and to this end reminds him of the zeal for learning displayed not only by the wisest of the pagans but also by the apostle Paul. Then going through the two Testaments in detail he describes the contents of the several books and the lessons which may be learned from them. He concludes with an appeal to Paulinus to divest himself wholly of his earthly wealth and to devote himself altogether to God. Written in 394 a.d. 1. Our brother Ambrose along with your little gifts has delivered to me a most charming letter which, though it comes at the beginning of our friendship, gives assurance of tried fidelity and of long continued attachment. A true intimacy cemented by Christ Himself is not one which depends upon material considerations, or upon the presence of the persons, or upon an insincere and 1 Tim. iii. 2. Viz. Letter XXII. Matt. vii. 3–5. St. Jerome exaggerated flattery; but one such as ours, wrought by a common fear of God and a joint study of the divine scriptures. We read in old tales that men traversed provinces, crossed seas, and visited strange peoples, simply to see face to face persons whom they only knew from books. Thus Pythagoras visited the prophets of Memphis; and Plato, besides visiting Egypt and Archytas of Tarentum, most carefully explored that part of the coast of Italy which was formerly called Great Greece. In this way the influential Athenian master with whose lessons the schools of the Academy resounded became at once a pilgrim and a pupil choosing modestly to learn what others had to teach rather than over confidently to propound views of his own. Indeed his pursuit of learning—which seemed to fly before him all the world over—finally led to his capture by pirates who sold him into slavery to a cruel tyrant. Thus he became a prisoner, a bond-man, and a slave; yet, as he was always a philosopher, he was greater still than the man who purchased him. Again we read that certain noblemen journeyed from the most remote parts of Spain and Gaul to visit Titus Livius, and listen to his eloquence which flowed like a fountain of milk. Thus the fame of an individual had more power to draw men to Rome than the attractions of the city itself; and the age displayed an unheard of and noteworthy portent in the shape of men who, entering the great city, bestowed their attention not upon it but upon something else. Apollonius too was a traveller—the one I mean who is called the sorcerer by ordinary people and the philosopher by such as follow Pythagoras. He entered Persia, traversed the Caucasus and made his way through the Albanians, the Scythians, the Massagetæ, and the richest districts of India. At last, after crossing that wide river the Pison, he came to the Brahmans. There he saw Hiarcas sitting upon his golden throne and drinking from his Tantalus-fountain, and heard him instructing a few disciples upon the nature, motions, and orbits of the heavenly bodies. After this he travelled among the Elamites, the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, the Medes, the Assyrians, the Parthians, the Syrians, the Phenicians, the Arabians, and the Philistines. Then returning to Alexandria he made his way to Ethiopia to see the gymnosophists and the famous table of the sun spread in the sands of the desert. Everywhere he found something to learn, and as he was always going to new places, he became constantly wiser and better. Philostratus has written the story of his life at length in eight books. 2. But why should I confine my allusions to the men of this world, when the Apostle Paul, the chosen vessel the doctor of the Gentiles, who could boldly say: “Do ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me?”1408 knowing that he really had within him that greatest of guests—when even he after visiting Damascus and Arabia “went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him fifteen 1403 Gymnasia. Dionysius of Syracuse. Cf. Quint. X. i. 32. Apollonius of Tyana, whose strange life and adventures have been written for us by Philostratus. Magus. Gen. ii. 11. Philostratus iii. 7. i.e. dwellers in Palestine. Herod. iii. 17, 18. Acts ix. 15. A favourite title for theologians in the Middle Ages. days.”1409 For he who was to be a preacher to the Gentiles had to be instructed in the mystical numbers seven and eight. And again fourteen years after he took Barnabas and Titus and communicated his gospel to the apostles lest by any means he should have run or had run in vain. Spoken words possess an indefinable hidden power, and teaching that passed directly from the mouth of the speaker into the ears of the disciples is more impressive than any other. When the speech of Demosthenes against Æschines was recited before the latter during his exile at Rhodes, amid all the admiration and applause he sighed “if you could but have heard the brute deliver his own periods!”1411 3. I do not adduce these instances because I have anything in me from which you either can or will learn a lesson, but to show you that your zeal and eagerness to learn—even though you cannot rely on help from me—are in themselves worthy of praise. A mind willing to learn deserves commendation even when it has no teacher. What is of importance to me is not what you find but what you seek to find. Wax is soft and easy to mould even where the hands of craftsman and modeller are wanting to work it. It is already potentially all that it can be made. The apostle Paul learned the Law of Moses and the prophets at the feet of Gamaliel and was glad that he had done so, for armed with this spiritual armour, he was able to say boldly “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;” armed with these we war “casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; and being in a readiness to revenge all disobedience.”1412 He writes to Timothy who had been trained in the holy writings from a child exhorting him to study them diligently and not to neglect the gift which was given him with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. To Titus he gives commandment that among a bishop’s other virtues (which he briefly describes) he should be careful to seek a knowledge of the scriptures: A bishop, he says, must hold fast “the faithful word as he hath been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.”1415 In fact want of education in a clergyman prevents him from doing good to any one but himself and much as the virtue of his life may build up Christ’s church, he does it an injury as great by failing to resist those who are trying to pull it down. The prophet Haggai says—or rather the Lord says it by the mouth of Haggai—“Ask now the priests concerning the law.”1417 For such is the important function of the priesthood to give answers to those who question them concerning the law. And in Deuteronomy we read “Ask thy father and he will shew thee; thy elders and they will tell thee.”1418 Also in the one hundred and nineteenth psalm “thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.”1419 David too, in the description of the righteous man whom he compares to the tree of life in paradise, amongst his other excellences speaks of this, “His delight is in the law of the 1415 Gal. ii. 1, 2. Cic. de Orat. iii. 56, the word ‘brute’ is inserted by Jerome. 2 Tim. iii. 14, 15. Tit. i. 9. Sancta rusticitas. Hag. ii. 11. Deut. xxxii. 7. v. 54. In the Vulg. this psalm is the 118th. St. Jerome Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”1420 In the close of his most solemn vision Daniel declares that “the righteous shall shine as the stars; and the wise, that is the learned, as the firmament.”1421 You can see, therefore, how great is the difference between righteous ignorance and instructed righteousness. Those who have the first are compared with the stars, those who have the second with the heavens. Yet, according to the exact sense of the Hebrew, both statements may be understood of the learned, for it is to be read in this way:—“They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.” Why is the apostle Paul called a chosen vessel? Assuredly because he is a repertory of the Law and of the holy scriptures. The learned teaching of our Lord strikes the Pharisees dumb with amazement, and they are filled with astonishment to find that Peter and John know the Law although they have not learned letters. For to these the Holy Ghost immediately suggested what comes to others by daily study and meditation; and, as it is written, they were “taught of God.” The Saviour had only accomplished his twelfth year when the scene in the temple took place; but when he interrogated the elders concerning the Law His wise questions conveyed rather than sought information. 4. But perhaps we ought to call Peter and John ignorant, both of whom could say of themselves, “though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge.”1425 Was John a mere fisherman, rude and untaught? If so, whence did he get the words “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.”1426 Logos in Greek has many meanings. It signifies word and reason and reckoning and the cause of individual things by which those which are subsist. All of which things we rightly predicate of Christ. This truth Plato with all his learning did not know, of this Demosthenes with all his eloquence was ignorant. “I will destroy,” it is said, “the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”1427 The true wisdom must destroy the false, and, although the foolishness of preaching is inseparable from the Cross, Paul speaks “wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world that come to nought,” but he speaks “the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world.”1429 God’s wisdom is Christ, for Christ, we are told, is “the power of God and the wisdom of God.”1430 He is the wisdom which is hidden in a mystery, of which also we read in the heading of the ninth psalm “for the hidden things of the son.”1431 In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He also who was hidden in a mystery is the same that was foreordained before the world. Now it was in the Law and in the Prophets that he was foreordained and prefigured. For this reason too the prophets were called <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Ps. i. 2.">seers,</span> because 1426 Ps. i. 2. Dan. xii. 3. Acts ix. 15. Luke ii. 46. Joh. i. 1. 1 Cor. i. 21. 1 Cor. i. 24. “Upon Muthlabben” A.V. See Perowne on the words. St. Jerome they saw Him whom others did not see. Abraham saw His day and was glad. The heavens which were sealed to a rebellious people were opened to Ezekiel. “Open thou mine eyes,” saith David, “that I may behold wonderful things out of thy Law.”1434 For “the law is spiritual”1435 and a revelation is needed to enable us to comprehend it and, when God uncovers His face, to behold His glory. 5. In the apocalypse a book is shewn sealed with seven seals, which if you deliver to one that is learned saying, Read this, he will answer you, I cannot, for it is sealed. How many there are to-day who fancy themselves learned, yet the scriptures are a sealed book to them, and one which they cannot open save through Him who has the key of David, “he that openeth and no man shutteth; and shutteth and no man openeth.”1438 In the Acts of the Apostles the holy eunuch (or rather “man” for so the scripture calls him1439) when reading Isaiah he is asked by Philip “Understandest thou what thou readest?”, makes answer:—“How can I except some man should guide me?”1440 To digress for a moment to myself, I am neither holier nor more diligent than this eunuch, who came from Ethiopia, that is from the ends of the world, to the Temple leaving behind him a queen’s palace, and was so great a lover of the Law and of divine knowledge that he read the holy scriptures even in his chariot. Yet although he had the book in his hand and took into his mind the words of the Lord, nay even had them on his tongue and uttered them with his lips, he still knew not Him, whom—not knowing—he worshipped in the book. Then Philip came and shewed him Jesus, who was concealed beneath the letter. Wondrous excellence of the teacher! In the same hour the eunuch believed and was baptized; he became one of the faithful and a saint. He was no longer a pupil but a master; and he found more in the church’s font there in the wilderness than he had ever done in the gilded temple of the synagogue. 6. These instances have been just touched upon by me (the limits of a letter forbid a more discursive treatment of them) to convince you that in the holy scriptures you can make no progress unless you have a guide to shew you the way. I say nothing of the knowledge of grammarians, rhetoricians, philosophers, geometers, logicians, musicians, astronomers, astrologers, physicians, whose several kinds of skill are most useful to mankind, and may be ranged under the three heads of teaching, method, and proficiency. I will pass to the less important crafts which require manual dexterity more than mental ability. Husbandmen, masons, carpenters, workers in wood and metal, wool-dressers and fullers, as well as those artisans who make furniture and cheap utensils, cannot attain the ends they seek without instruction from qualified persons. As Horace <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Joh. viii. 56.">says</span> Doctors alone profess the healing art And none but joiners ever try to join. 7. The art of interpreting the scriptures is the only one of which all men everywhere claim to be masters. To quote Horace again 1439 Joh. viii. 56. Ps. cxix. 18. Rom. vii. 14. Rev. v. 1. Isa. xxix. 11. Rev. iii. 7. Acts viii. 27. Acts viii. 30, 31. Hor. Ep. II. 1. 115, 116. Taught or untaught we all write poetry. The chatty old woman, the doting old man, and the wordy sophist, one and all take in hand the Scriptures, rend them in pieces and teach them before they have learned them. Some with brows knit and bombastic words, balanced one against the other philosophize concerning the sacred writings among weak women. Others—I blush to say it—learn of women what they are to teach men; and as if even this were not enough, they boldly explain to others what they themselves by no means understand. I say nothing of persons who, like myself have been familiar with secular literature before they have come to the study of the holy scriptures. Such men when they charm the popular ear by the finish of their style suppose every word they say to be a law of God. They do not deign to notice what Prophets and apostles have intended but they adapt conflicting passages to suit their own meaning, as if it were a grand way of teaching—and not rather the faultiest of all—to misrepresent a writer’s views and to force the scriptures reluctantly to do their will. They forget that we have read centos from Homer and Virgil; but we never think of calling the Christless Maro a Christian because of his lines:— Now comes the Virgin back and Saturn’s reign, Now from high heaven comes a Child newborn. Another line might be addressed by the Father to the Son:— Hail, only Son, my Might and Majesty. And yet another might follow the Saviour’s words on the cross:— Such words he spake and there transfixed remained. But all this is puerile, and resembles the sleight-of-hand of a mountebank. It is idle to try to teach what you do not know, and—if I may speak with some warmth—is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance. 8. Genesis, we shall be told, needs no explanation; its topics are too simple—the birth of the world, the origin of the human race, the division of the earth, the confusion of tongues, and the descent of the Hebrews into Egypt! Exodus, no doubt, is equally plain, containing as it does merely an account of the ten plagues, the decalogue, and sundry mysterious and divine precepts! The meaning of Leviticus is of course self-evident, although every sacrifice that it describes, nay more every word that it contains, the description of Aaron’s <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Hor. Ep. II. i. 117.">vestments,</span> and all the regulations connected with the Levites are symbols of things heavenly! The book of Numbers too—are not its 1448 Hor. Ep. II. i. 117. Virgil’s full name was Publius Vergilius Maro. Virg. E. iv. 6, 7. Virg. A. i. 664. Virg. A. ii. 650. Cc. 1–2. C. x. C. xi. C. xlvi. Cc. vii–xii. C. xx. C. viii. St. Jerome very <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="C. xxvi.">figures,</span> and Balaam’s prophecy, and the forty-two camping places in the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="C. xxxiii. See Letter lxxviii.">wilderness</span> so many mysteries? Deuteronomy also, that is the second law or the foreshadowing of the law of the gospel,—does it not, while exhibiting things known before, put old truths in a new light? So far the ‘five words’ of the Pentateuch, with which the apostle boasts his wish to speak in the Church. Then, as for Job, that pattern of patience, what mysteries are there not contained in his discourses? Commencing in prose the book soon glides into verse and at the end once more reverts to prose. By the way in which it lays down propositions, assumes postulates, adduces proofs, and draws inferences, it illustrates all the laws of logic. Single words occurring in the book are full of meaning. To say nothing of other topics, it prophesies the resurrection of men’s bodies at once with more clearness and with more caution than any one has yet shewn. “I know,” Job says, “that my redeemer liveth, and that at the last day I shall rise again from the earth; and I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh shall I see God. Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another. This my hope is stored up in my own bosom.”1459 I will pass on to Jesus the son of Nave1460—a type of the Lord in name as well as in deed—who crossed over Jordan, subdued hostile kingdoms, divided the land among the conquering people and who, in every city, village, mountain, river, hill-torrent, and boundary which he dealt with, marked out the spiritual realms of the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, of the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Gal. iv. 26.">church.</span> In the book of Judges every one of the popular leaders is a type. Ruth the Moabitess fulfils the prophecy of Isaiah:—“Send thou a lamb, O Lord, as ruler of the land from the rock of the wilderness to the mount of the daughter of Zion.”1462 Under the figures of Eli’s death and the slaying of Saul Samuel shews the abolition of the old law. Again in Zadok and in David he bears witness to the mysteries of the new priesthood and of the new royalty. The third and fourth books of Kings called in Hebrew Malâchim give the history of the kingdom of Judah from Solomon to <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Also called Coniah and Jehoiachin.">Jeconiah,</span> and of that of Israel from Jeroboam the son of Nebat to Hoshea who was carried away into Assyria. If you merely regard the narrative, the words are simple enough, but if you look beneath the surface at the hidden meaning of it, you find a description of the small numbers of the church and of the wars which the heretics wage against it. The twelve prophets whose writings are compressed within the narrow limits of a single volume, have typical meanings far different from their literal ones. Hosea speaks many times of Ephraim, of Samaria, of Joseph, of Jezreel, of a wife of whoredoms and of children of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Hos. i. 2.">whoredoms,</span> of an adulteress shut up within the chamber of her husband, sitting for a long time in widowhood and in the garb of mourning, awaiting the time when her husband will return to her. Joel the son of Pethuel describes the land of the twelve tribes as spoiled and devastated by the palmerworm, the C. xxvi. Cc. xxiii., xxiv. C. xxxiii. See Letter lxxviii. The mention of Job at this point is curious: it would seem that in Jerome’s opinion he was coæval with or very little later than Moses. Job xix. 25–27, Vulg. i.e., Joshua the son of Nun whose name is so rendered by the LXX. Cf. Ecclus. xlvi. 1, A.V. Gal. iv. 26. Isa. xvi. 1, Vulg. ‘the rock of the wilderness’=Moab. Also called Coniah and Jehoiachin. They are reckoned as forming one book in the Hebrew Bible. Hos. i. 2. Hos. iii. 1, 3, 4. canker-worm, the locust, and the blight, and predicts that after the overthrow of the former people the Holy Spirit shall be poured out upon God’s servants and handmaids; the same spirit, that is, which was to be poured out in the upper chamber at Zion upon the one hundred and twenty believers. These believers rising by gradual and regular gradations from one to fifteen form the steps to which there is a mystical allusion in the “psalms of degrees.”1470 Amos, although he is only “an herdman” from the country, “a gatherer of sycomore fruit,”1471 cannot be explained in a few words. For who can adequately speak of the three transgressions and the four of Damascus, of Gaza, of Tyre, of Idumæa, of Moab, of the children of Ammon, and in the seventh and eighth place of Judah and of Israel? He speaks to the fat kine that are in the mountain of Samaria, and bears witness that the great house and the little house shall fall. He sees now the maker of the grasshopper, now the Lord, standing upon a wall daubed or made of adamant, now a basket of apples that brings doom to the transgressors, and now a famine upon the earth “not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.”1479 Obadiah, whose name means the servant of God, thunders against Edom red with blood and against the creature born of earth. He smites him with the spear of the spirit because of his continual rivalry with his brother Jacob. Jonah, fairest of doves, whose shipwreck shews in a figure the passion of the Lord, recalls the world to penitence, and while he preaches to Nineveh, announces salvation to all the heathen. Micah the Morasthite a joint heir with Christ announces the spoiling of the daughter of the robber and lays siege against her, because she has smitten the jawbone of the judge of Israel. Nahum, the consoler of the world, rebukes “the bloody city”1483 and when it is overthrown cries:—“Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings.”1484 Habakkuk, like a strong and unyielding wrestler, stands upon his watch and sets his foot upon the tower that he may contemplate Christ upon the cross and say “His glory covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise. And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.”1487 Zephaniah, that is the bodyguard and knower of the secrets of the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Joel i. 4.">Lord,</span> hears “a cry from the fishgate, and an howling from the second, and a great 1472 1478 1484 Joel ii. 29. Acts i. 13, 15. The allusion is to Psalms cxx.–cxxxiv. One hundred and twenty is the sum of the numerals one to fifteen. Amos vii. 14. Amos iv. 1. Amos vi. 11. Amos vii. 1. Amos vii. 7. So the Vulgate. So the LXX. Amos viii. 1. Amos viii. 11. ‘Edom’ means ‘red’ and is connected with ‘Adâmâh’=‘the earth.’ Jerome interprets the Hebrew word ‘Morasthite’ to mean ‘my possession.’ Mic. v. 1, Vulg. i.e., Nineveh—Nahum iii. 1. Nahum i. 15. The name strictly means ‘embrace.’ Hab. ii. 1. Hab. iii. 3, 4. Strictly ‘the Lord guards’ or ‘hides.’ St. Jerome crashing from the hills.”1489 He proclaims “howling to the inhabitants of the mortar; for all the people of Canaan are undone; all they that were laden with silver are cut off.”1491 Haggai, that is he who is glad or joyful, who has sown in tears to reap in joy, is occupied with the rebuilding of the temple. He represents the Lord (the Father, that is) as saying “Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations and he who is desired of all nations shall come.”1494 Zechariah, he that is mindful of his Lord, gives us many prophecies. He sees Jesus, “clothed with filthy garments,”1497 a stone with seven eyes, a candle-stick all of gold with lamps as many as the eyes, and two olive trees on the right side of the bowl and on the left. After he has described the horses, red, black, white, and grisled, and the cutting off of the chariot from Ephraim and of the horse from Jerusalem he goes on to prophesy and predict a king who shall be a poor man and who shall sit “upon a colt the foal of an ass.”1502 Malachi, the last of all the prophets, speaks openly of the rejection of Israel and the calling of the nations. “I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name is great among the Gentiles: and in every place incense is offered unto my name, and a pure offering.”1504 As for Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, who can fully understand or adequately explain them? The first of them seems to compose not a prophecy but a gospel. The second speaks of a rod of an almond tree and of a seething pot with its face toward the north, and of a leopard which has changed its spots. He also goes four times through the alphabet in different metres. The beginning and ending of Ezekiel, the third of the four, are involved in so great obscurity that like the commencement of Genesis they are not studied by the Hebrews until they are thirty years old. Daniel, the fourth and last of the four prophets, having knowledge of the times and being interested in the whole world, in clear language proclaims the stone cut out of the mountain without hands that overthrows all kingdoms. David, who is our Simonides, Pindar, and Alcæus, our Horace, our Catullus, and our Serenus all in one, sings of Christ to his lyre; and on a psaltery with ten strings calls him from the lower world to rise again. Solomon, a lover of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Zeph. i. 10.">peace</span> and of the 1494 1500 1506 So R.V. marg. Probably a place in Jerusalem. Zeph. i. 11, R.V. Ps. cxxvi. 5. So Vulg. ‘the desire’ A.V. Hag. ii. 6, 7. Strictly ‘the Lord is mindful.’ i.e., Joshua the High Priest. Zech. iii. 3. Zech. iii. 9. Zech. iv. 2, 3. Zech. vi. 1–3. Zech. ix. 10. Zech. ix. 9. This word is not in the Vulg. Mal. i. 10, 11, R.V. Jer. i. 11. Jer. i. 13. Jer. xiii. 23. Lamentations cc. I.–IV., each verse in which begins with a different letter of the alphabet. Dan. ii. 45. See note on LII. 3, p. Lord, corrects morals, teaches nature, unites Christ and the church, and sings a sweet marriage song to celebrate that holy bridal. Esther, a type of the church, frees her people from danger and, after having slain Haman whose name means iniquity, hands down to posterity a memorable day and a great feast. The book of things omitted or epitome of the old dispensation is of such importance and value that without it any one who should claim to himself a knowledge of the scriptures would make himself a laughing stock in his own eyes. Every name used in it, nay even the conjunction of the words, serves to throw light on narratives passed over in the books of Kings and upon questions suggested by the gospel. Ezra and Nehemiah, that is the Lord’s helper and His consoler, are united in a single book. They restore the Temple and build up the walls of the city.

Ep. LVI–LVIII — Letter LVI. From Augustine.

Letter LVI. From Augustine. Augustine’s first letter to Jerome (printed in his correspondence in this Library as Letter XXVIII.): through a series of accidents it was not delivered until nine years after it had been written. In it Augustine comments on Jerome’s new Latin version of the O.T. and advises him in his future labours to adhere more closely to the text of the LXX. He also discusses Jerome’s account (in his commentary on the epistle to the Galatians) of the quarrel between Paul and Peter at Antioch. This according to Jerome was not a real misunderstanding but only one artificially ‘got up’ to put clearly before the Church the mischief of Christians conforming to the now obsolete Mosaic Law. Augustine strongly controverts this view and maintains that it is fatal to the veracity and authority claimed for scripture. Written from Hippo about the year 394 a.d. Letter LVII. To Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating. Written to Pammachius (for whom see Letter LXVI.) in a.d. 395. In the previous year Jerome had rendered into Latin Letter LI. (from Epiphanius to John of Jerusalem) under circumstances which he here describes (§2). His version soon became public and incurred severe criticism from some person not named by Jerome but supposed by him to have been instigated by Rufinus (§12). Charged with having falsified his original he now repudiates the charge and defends his method of translation (“to give sense for sense and not word for word” §5) by an appeal to the practice of classical (§5), ecclesiastical (§6), and N.T. (§§7–10) writers. When at a subsequent period Rufinus gave to the world what was in Jerome’s opinion a misleading version of Origen’s First Principles, he appealed to this letter as giving him ample warranty for what he had done. See Letters LXXX, and LXXXI, and Rufinus’ Preface to the in Vol. iii. of this series. 1. The apostle Paul when he appeared before King Agrippa to answer the charges which were brought against him, wishing to use language intelligible to his hearers and confident of the success of his cause, began by congratulating himself in these words: “I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee touching all the things whereof I am accused by the Jews: especially because thou art expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews.”1649 He had read the saying of Jesus: “Well is him that speaketh in the ears of them that will hear;”1651 and he knew that a pleader only succeeds in proportion as he impresses his judge. On this occasion I too think myself happy that learned ears will hear my defence. For a rash tongue charges me with ignorance or falsehood; it alleges that in translating another man’s letter I have made mistakes through incapacity or carelessness; it convicts me of either an involuntary error or a deliberate offence. And lest it should happen that my accuser—encouraged by a volubility which stops at nothing and by an impunity which arrogates to itself an unlimited license—should accuse me as he has already done our father (Pope) Epiphanius; I send this letter to inform you—and through you others who think me worthy of their regard—of the true order of the facts. 2. About two years ago the aforesaid Pope Epiphanius sent a letter to Bishop John, first finding fault with him as regarded some of his opinions and then mildly calling him to penitence. Such was the repute of the writer or else the elegance of the letter that all Palestine fought for copies of it. Now there was in our monastery a man of no small estimation in his country, Eusebius of Cremona, who, when he found that this letter was in everybody’s mouth and that the ignorant and the educated alike admired it for its teaching and for the purity of its style, set to work to beg me to translate it for him into Latin and at the same time to simplify the argument so that he might more readily understand it; for he was himself altogether unacquainted with the Greek language. I consented to his request and calling to my aid a secretary speedily dictated my version, briefly marking on the side of the page the contents of the several chapters. The fact is that he asked me to do this merely for himself, and I requested of him in return to keep his copy private and not too readily to circulate it. A year and six months went by, and then the aforesaid translation found its way by a novel stratagem from his desk to Jerusalem. For a pretended monk—either bribed as there is much reason to believe or actuated by malice of his own as his tempter vainly tries to convince us—shewed himself a second Judas by robbing Eusebius of his literary property and gave to the adversary an occasion of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Cf. Jude 9.">railing</span> against me. They tell the unlearned that I have falsified the original, that I have not rendered word for word, that I have put ‘dear friend’ in place of ‘honourable sir,’ and more shameful still! that I have cut down my translation by omitting the words αἰδεσιμῶτατε Πάππα. These and similar trifles form the substance of the charges brought against me. Acts xxvi. 2, 3. i.e., the son of Sirach. Ecclus. xxv. 9. Letter LI. to John Bp. of Jerusalem. Cf. Jude 9. i.e., ‘most reverend pope.’ This title at first given to all bishops was in Jerome’s time becoming restricted to metropolitans and patriarchs. Jerome, however, still uses it in the wider sense. The omission of the title here may well have seemed deliberate, as Jerome was known to entertain very bitter feelings towards John of Jerusalem. 3. At the outset before I defend my version I wish to ask those persons who confound wisdom with cunning, some few questions. Where did you get your copy of the letter? Who gave it to you? How have you the effrontery to bring forward what you have procured by fraud? What place of safety will be left us if we cannot conceal our secrets even within our own walls and our own writing-desks? Were I to press such a charge against you before a legal tribunal, I could make you amenable to the laws which even in fiscal cases appoint penalties for meddlesome informers and condemn the traitor even while they accept his treachery. For though they welcome the profit which the information gives them, they disapprove the motive which actuates the informer. A little while ago a man of consular rank named Hesychius (against whom the patriarch Gamaliel waged an implacable war) was condemned to death by the emperor Theodosius simply because he had laid hold of imperial papers through a secretary whom he had tempted. We read also in old <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Livy v. 27.">histories</span> that the schoolmaster who betrayed the children of the Faliscans was sent back to his boys and handed over to them in bonds, the Roman people refusing to accept a dishonourable victory. When Pyrrhus king of Epirus was lying in his camp ill from the effects of a wound, his physician offered to poison him, but Fabricius thinking it shame that the king should die by treachery sent the traitor back in chains to his master, refusing to sanction crime even when its victim was an enemy. A principle which the laws uphold, which is maintained by enemies, which warfare and the sword fail to violate, has hitherto been held unquestioned among the monks and priests of Christ. And can any one of them presume now, knitting his brow and snapping his <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Jerome constantly speaks of Rufinus in this way. See Letter CXXV. 18 and Apol. c. Ruf. I. 13, 32.">fingers,</span> to spend his breath in saying: “What if he did use bribes or other inducements! he did what suited his purpose.” A strange plea truly to defend a fraud as though robbers, thieves, and pirates did not do the same. Certainly, when Annas and Caiaphas led hapless Judas astray, they only did what they believed to be expedient for themselves. 4. Suppose that I wish to write down in my note books this or that silly trifle, or to make comments upon the scriptures, to retort upon my calumniators, to digest my wrath, to practise myself in the use of commonplaces and to stow away sharp shafts for the day of battle. So long as I do not publish my thoughts, they are only unkind words not matter for a charge of libel; in fact they are not even unkind words for the public ear never hears them. You may bribe my slaves and tamper with my clients. You may, as the fable has it, penetrate by means of your gold to the chamber of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Danaë, the daughter of Acrisius, was confined by her father in a brazen tower to which Zeus obtained access in the shape">Danaë;</span> and then, dissembling what you have done, you may call me a falsifier; but, if you do so, you will have to plead guilty yourself to a worse charge than any that you can bring against me. One man inveighs against you as a heretic, another as a perverter of doctrine. You are silent yourself; you do not venture to answer; you assail the translator; you cavil about syllables and you fancy your defence complete if your calumnies provoke no reply. Suppose that I have made a mistake or an omission in my rendering. Your whole case turns upon this; this is the defence which you offer to your accusers. Are you no heretic because I am a bad translator? Mind, I do not say that I know you to be a heretic; I leave such knowledge to your accuser, to him who wrote the Livy v. 27. Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus. Jerome constantly speaks of Rufinus in this way. See Letter CXXV. 18 and Apol. c. Ruf. I. 13, 32. Rufinus is meant. Danaë, the daughter of Acrisius, was confined by her father in a brazen tower to which Zeus obtained access in the shape of a shower of gold. St. Jerome letter: what I do say is that it is the height of folly for you when you are accused by one man to attack another, and when you are covered with wounds yourself to seek comfort by wounding one who is still quiescent and unaggressive. 5. In the above remarks I have assumed that I have made alterations in the letter and that a simple translation may contain errors though not wilful ones. As, however the letter itself shews that no changes have been made in the sense, that nothing has been added, and that no doctrine has been foisted into it, “obviously their object is understanding to understand nothing;”1661 and while they desire to arraign another’s want of skill, they betray their own. For I myself not only admit but freely proclaim that in translating from the Greek (except in the case of the holy scriptures where even the order of the words is a mystery) I render sense for sense and not word for word. For this course I have the authority of Tully who has so translated the Protagoras of Plato, the Œconomicus of Xenophon, and the two beautiful orations which Æschines and Demosthenes delivered one against the other. What omissions, additions, and alterations he has made substituting the idioms of his own for those of another tongue, this is not the time to say. I am satisfied to quote the authority of the translator who has spoken as follows in a prologue prefixed to the orations. “I have thought it right to embrace a labour which though not necessary for myself will prove useful to those who study. I have translated the noblest speeches of the two most eloquent of the Attic orators, the speeches which Æschines and Demosthenes delivered one against the other; but I have rendered them not as a translator but as an orator, keeping the sense but altering the form by adapting both the metaphors and the words to suit our own idiom. I have not deemed it necessary to render word for word but I have reproduced the general style and emphasis. I have not supposed myself bound to pay the words out one by one to the reader but only to give him an equivalent in value.” Again at the close of his task he says, “I shall be well satisfied if my rendering is found, as I trust it will be, true to this standard. In making it I have utilized all the excellences of the originals, I mean the sentiments, the forms of expression and the arrangement of the topics, while I have followed the actual wording only so far as I could do so without offending our notions of taste. If all that I have written is not to be found in the Greek, I have at any rate striven to make it correspond with it.” Horace too, an acute and learned writer, in his Art of Poetry gives the same advice to the skilled translator:— And care not thou with over anxious thought To render word for word. Terence has translated Menander; Plautus and Cæcilius the old comic poets. Do they ever stick at words? Do they not rather in their versions think first of preserving the beauty and charm of their originals? What men like you call fidelity in transcription, the learned term pestilent minuteness. Such were my teachers about twenty years ago; and even <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Epiphanius.">then</span> I was the victim 1666 Epiphanius. Ter. And. prol. 17. The two speeches on the Crown. Only a small part of this is extant. Hor. A. P. 133. i.e. the poets of the so called New Comedy. κακοζηλίαν . That is, five years later. Jerome translated the Chronicle of Eusebius at Constantinople in 381–2. St. Jerome of a similar error to that which is now imputed to me, though indeed I never imagined that you would charge me with it. In translating the Chronicle of Eusebius of Cæsarea into Latin, I made among others the following prefatory observations: “It is difficult in following lines laid down by others not sometimes to diverge from them, and it is hard to preserve in a translation the charm of expressions which in another language are most felicitous. Each particular word conveys a meaning of its own, and possibly I have no equivalent by which to render it, and if I make a circuit to reach my goal, I have to go many miles to cover a short <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Vix brevis viæ spatia consummo.">distance.</span> To these difficulties must be added the windings of hyperbata, differences in the use of cases, divergencies of metaphor; and last of all the peculiar and if I may so call it, inbred character of the language. If I render word for word, the result will sound uncouth, and if compelled by necessity I alter anything in the order or wording, I shall seem to have departed from the function of a translator.”1669 And after a long discussion which it would be tedious to follow out here, I added what follows:—“If any one imagines that translation does not impair the charm of style, let him render Homer word for word into Latin, nay I will go farther still and say, let him render it into Latin prose, and the result will be that the order of the words will seem ridiculous and the most eloquent of poets scarcely articulate.”1670 6. In quoting my own writings my only object has been to prove that from my youth up I at least have always aimed at rendering sense not words, but if such authority as they supply is deemed insufficient, read and consider the short preface dealing with this matter which occurs in a book narrating the life of the blessed Antony. “A literal translation from one language into another obscures the sense; the exuberance of the growth lessens the yield. For while one’s diction is enslaved to cases and metaphors, it has to explain by tedious circumlocutions what a few words would otherwise have sufficed to make plain. I have tried to avoid this error in the translation which at your request I have made of the story of the blessed Antony. My version always preserves the sense although it does not invariably keep the words of the original. Leave others to catch at syllables and letters, do you for your part look for the meaning.” Time would fail me were I to unfold the testimonies of all who have translated only according to the sense. It is sufficient for the present to name Hilary the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="i.e., Hilary of Poitiers.">confessor</span> who has turned some homilies on Job and several treatises on the Psalms from Greek into Latin; yet has not bound himself to the drowsiness of the letter or fettered himself by the stale literalism of inadequate culture. Like a conqueror he has led away captive into his own tongue the meaning of his originals. 7. That secular and church writers should have adopted this line need not surprise us when we consider that the translators of the Septuagint, the evangelists, and the apostles, have done the same in dealing with the sacred writings. We read in <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Mark v. 41.">Mark</span> of the Lord saying Talitha cumi and it is immediately added “which is interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.” The evangelist may be charged with falsehood for having added the words “I say unto thee” for the Hebrew is only “Damsel arise.” To emphasize this and to give the impression of one calling and commanding he Vix brevis viæ spatia consummo. Preface, translated in this Volume, § 1. Preface §2. This life long supposed to have been the work of Athanasius was originally composed in Greek but had been rendered into Latin by Evagrius bishop of Antioch. i.e., Hilary of Poitiers. Lit. the seventy translators. Mark v. 41. has added “I say unto thee.” Again in Matthew when the thirty pieces of silver are returned by the traitor Judas and the potter’s field is purchased with them, it is written:—“Then was fulfilled that which was spoken of by Jeremy the prophet, saying, ‘And they took the thirty pieces of silver the price of him that was valued which they of the children of Israel did value, and gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.’” This passage is not found in Jeremiah at all but in Zechariah, in quite different words and an altogether different order. In fact the Vulgate renders it as follows:—“And I will say unto them, If it is good in your sight, give ye me a price or refuse it: So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Put them into the melting furnace and consider if it is tried as I have been tried by them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them into the house of the Lord.”1677 It is evident that the rendering of the Septuagint differs widely from the quotation of the evangelist. In the Hebrew also, though the sense is the same, the words are quite different and differently arranged. It says: “And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and, if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter; a goodly price that I was priced at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.”1679 They may accuse the apostle of falsifying his version seeing that it agrees neither with the Hebrew nor with the translators of the Septuagint: and worse than this, they may say that he has mistaken the author’s name putting down Jeremiah when it should be Zechariah. Far be it from us to speak thus of a follower of Christ, who made it his care to formulate dogmas rather than to hunt for words and syllables. To take another instance from Zechariah, the evangelist John quotes from the Hebrew, “They shall look on him whom they pierced,”1681 for which we read in the Septuagint, “And they shall look upon me because they have mocked me,” and in the Latin version, “And they shall look upon me for the things which they have mocked or insulted.” Here the evangelist, the Septuagint, and our own version all differ; yet the divergence of language is atoned by oneness of spirit. In Matthew again we read of the Lord preaching flight to the apostles and confirming His counsel with a passage from Zechariah. “It is written,” he says, “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.”1683 But in the Septuagint and in the Hebrew it reads differently, for it is not God who speaks, as the evangelist makes out, but the prophet who appeals to God the Father saying:—“Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” In this instance according to my judgment—and I have some careful critics with me—the evangelist is guilty of a fault in presuming to ascribe to God what are the words of the prophet. Again the same evangelist writes that at the warning of an angel Joseph took the young child and his mother and went into Egypt and remained there till the death of Herod; “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.”1684 The Latin manuscripts do 1681 Quod. A.V. has ‘whom.’ Zech. xi. 12, 13, Vulg. Statuarius. Zech. xi. 12, 13, A.V. Pedissequus. Joh. xix. 37; Zech. xii. 10. i.e., the Italic, for the Vulgate, which was not then published, accurately represents the Hebrew. Matt. xxvi. 31; Zech. xiii. 7. Matt. ii. 13–15. St. Jerome not so give the passage, but in Hosea the true Hebrew text has the following:—“When Israel was a child then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” Which the Septuagint renders thus:—“When Israel was a child then I loved him, and called his sons out of Egypt.” Are they altogether to be rejected because they have given another turn to a passage which refers primarily to the mystery of Christ? Or should we not rather pardon the shortcomings of the translators on the score of their human frailty according to the saying of James, “In many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body.”1687 Once more it is written in the pages of the same evangelist, “And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”1688 Let these word fanciers and nice critics of all composition tell us where they have read the words; and if they cannot, let me tell them that they are in Isaiah. For in the place where we read and translate, “There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots,”1690 in the Hebrew idiom it is written thus, “There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse and a Nazarene shall grow from his root.” How can the Septuagint leave out the word ‘Nazarene,’ if it is unlawful to substitute one word for another? It is sacrilege either to conceal or to set at naught a mystery. 8. Let us pass on to other passages, for the brief limits of a letter do not suffer us to dwell too long on any one point. The same Matthew says:—“Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel.”1691 The rendering of the Septuagint is, “Behold a virgin shall receive seed and shall bring forth a son, and ye shall call his name Emmanuel.” If people cavil at words, obviously ‘to receive seed’ is not the exact equivalent of ‘to be with child,’ and ‘ye shall call’ differs from ‘they shall call.’ Moreover in the Hebrew we read thus, “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel.”1692 Ahaz shall not call him so for he was convicted of want of faith, nor the Jews for they were destined to deny him, but she who is to conceive him, and bear him, the virgin herself. In the same evangelist we read that Herod was troubled at the coming of the Magi and that gathering together the scribes and the priests he demanded of them where Christ should be born and that they answered him, “In Bethlehem of Judæa: for thus it is written by the prophet; And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a governour that shall rule my people Israel.”1693 In the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Hos. xi. 1.">Vulgate</span> this passage appears as follows:—“And thou Bethlehem, the house of Ephratah, art small to be among the thousands of Judah, yet one shall come out of thee for me to be a prince in Israel.” You will be more surprised still at the difference in words and order between Matthew and the Septuagint if you look at the Hebrew which runs thus:—“But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth 1690 i.e., the Septuagint and Vulgate versions. James iii. 2. Matt. ii. 23. Isa. xi. 1. So A.V. the Vulg. varies slightly. Matt. i. 22, 23; Isa. vii. 14. A.V. Matt. ii. 5, 6. i.e. the Versio Itala which was vulgata or ‘commonly used’ at this time as Jerome’s Version was afterwards. St. Jerome unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.”1695 Consider one by one the words of the evangelist:—“And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah.” For “the land of Judah” the Hebrew has “Ephratah” while the Septuagint gives “the house of Ephratah.” The evangelist writes, “art not the least among the princes of Judah.” In the Septuagint this is, “art small to be among the thousands of Judah,” while the Hebrew gives, “though thou be little among the thousands of Judah.” There is a contradiction here—and that not merely verbal—between the evangelist and the prophet; for in this place at any rate both Septuagint and Hebrew agree. The evangelist says that he is not little among the princes of Judah, while the passage from which he queries says exactly the opposite of this, “Thou art small indeed and little; but yet out of thee, small and little as thou art, there shall come forth for me a leader in Israel,” a sentiment in harmony with that of the apostle, “God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.”1696 Moreover the last clause “to rule” or “to feed my people Israel” clearly runs differently in the original. 9. I refer to these passages, not to convict the evangelists of falsification—a charge worthy only of impious men like Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian—but to bring home to my critics their own want of knowledge, and to gain from them such consideration that they may concede to me in the case of a simple letter what, whether they like it or not, they will have to concede to the Apostles in the Holy Scriptures. Mark, the disciple of Peter, begins his gospel thus:—“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah: Behold I send my messenger before thy face which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”1697 This quotation is made up from two prophets, Malachi that is to say and Isaiah. For the first part: “Behold I send my messenger before thy face which shall prepare thy way before thee,” occurs at the close of Malachi. But the second part: “The voice of one crying, etc.,” we read in Isaiah. On what grounds then has Mark in the very beginning of his book set the words: “As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, Behold I send my messenger,” when, as we have said, it is not written in Isaiah at all, but in Malachi the last of the twelve prophets? Let ignorant presumption solve this nice question if it can, and I will ask pardon for being in the wrong. The same Mark brings before us the Saviour thus addressing the Pharisees: “Have ye never read what David did when he had need and was an hungred, he and they that were with him, how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the highpriest, and did eat the shew-bread which is not lawful to eat but for the priests?”1700 Now let us turn to the books of Samuel, or, as they are commonly called, of Kings, and we shall find there that the highpriest’s name was not Abiathar but Ahimelech, the same that was afterwards put to death with the rest of the priests by Doeg at the command of Saul. Let us pass on now to the apostle Paul who writes thus to the Corinthians: “For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Ep. LIX–LXI — Letter LIX. To Marcella.

Letter LIX. To Marcella. An answer to five questions put to Jerome by Marcella in a letter not preserved. The questions are as follows. Cf. Letter LXX. 5. Cf. Luke xii. 3. Horace, Sat. I. ix. 59, 60. Virgil, Georg. iii. 67, 68. Afterwards noted as an assailant of Jerome’s ascetic doctrines. See the introduction to Letter LXI. The allusion seems to be to the behaviour of Vigilantius during an earthquake which occurred when he was at Bethlehem. His fright on the occasion exposed him to the ridicule of the community there. (Against Vig., i. 11.) As before, Therasia, the wife of Paulinus is meant. (1) What are the things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard (1 Cor. ii. 9)? Jerome answers that they are spiritual things which as such can only be spiritually discerned. (2) Is it not a mistake to identify the sheep and the goats of Christ’s parable (Matt. xxv. 31 sqq.) with Christians and heathens? Are they not rather the good and the bad? For an answer to this question Jerome refers Marcella to his treatise against Jovinian (II. §§18–23). (3) Paul says that some shall be “alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord;” and that they shall be “caught up to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. iv. 15, 17). Are we to suppose this assumption to be corporeal and that those assumed will escape death? Yes, Jerome answers, but their bodies will be glorified. (4) How is John xx. 17, “touch me not,” to be reconciled with Matt. xxviii. 9, “they came and held him by the feet”? In the one case, Jerome replies, Mary Magdalen failed to recognize the divinity of Jesus; in the other the women recognized it. Accordingly they were admitted to a privilege which was denied to her. (5) Was the risen Christ before His ascension present only with the disciples, or was He in heaven and elsewhere as well? The latter according to Jerome is the true doctrine. “The Divine Nature,” he writes, “exists everywhere in its entirety. Christ, therefore, was at one and the same time with the apostles and with the angels; in the Father and in the uttermost parts of the sea. So afterwards he was with Thomas in India, with Peter at Rome, with Paul in Illyricum, with Titus in Crete, with Andrew in Achaia.” The date of the letter is a.d. 395 or a.d. 396. Letter LX. To Heliodorus. One of Jerome’s finest letters, written to console his old friend, Heliodorus, now Bp. of Altinum, for the loss of his nephew Nepotian who had died of fever a short time previously. Jerome tries to soothe his friend’s grief (1) by contrasting pagan despair or resignation with Christian hope, (2) by an eulogy of the departed both as man and presbyter, and (3) by a review of the evils which then beset the Empire and from which, as he contended, Nepotian had been removed. The letter is marked throughout with deep and sincere feeling. Its date is 396 a.d. 1. Small wits cannot grapple large themes but venturing beyond their strength fail in the very attempt; and, the greater a subject is, the more completely is he overwhelmed who cannot find words to unfold its grandeur. Nepotian who was mine and yours and ours—or rather who was Christ’s and because Christ’s all the more ours—has forsaken us his elders so that we are smitten with pangs of regret and overcome with a grief which is past bearing. We supposed him our heir, yet now his corpse is all that is ours. For whom shall my intellect now labour? Whom shall my poor letters desire to please? Where is he, the impeller of my work, whose voice was sweeter than a swan’s last song? My mind is dazed, my hand trembles, a mist covers my eyes, stammering seizes my tongue. Whatever my words, they seem as good as unspoken seeing that he no longer hears them. My very pen seems to feel his loss, my very wax tablet looks dull and sad; the one is covered with rust, the other with mould. As often as I try to express myself in words and to scatter the flowers of this encomium upon his tomb, my eyes fill with tears, my grief returns, and I can think of nothing but his death. It was a custom in former days for children over the dead bodies of their parents publicly to proclaim their praises and (as when pathetic songs are sung) to draw tears from the eyes and sighs from the breasts of those who heard them. But in our case, behold, the order of things is changed: to deal us this blow nature has forfeited her rights. For the respect which the young man should have paid to his elders, we his elders are paying to him. 2. What shall I do then? Shall I join my tears to yours? The apostle forbids me for he speaks of dead Christians as “them which are asleep.”1805 So too in the gospel the Lord says, “the damsel is not dead but sleepeth,”1806 and Lazarus when he is raised from the dead is said to have been asleep. No, I will be glad and rejoice that “speedily he was taken away lest that wickedness should alter his understanding” for “his soul pleased the Lord.”1808 But though I am loth to give way and combat my feelings, tears flow down my cheeks, and in spite of the teachings of virtue and the hope of the resurrection a passion of regret crushes my too yielding mind. O death that dividest brothers knit together in love, how cruel, how ruthless thou art so to sunder them! “The Lord hath fetched a burning wind that cometh up from the wilderness: which hath dried thy veins and hath made thy well spring desolate.”1809 Thou didst swallow up our Jonah, but even in thy belly He still lived. Thou didst carry Him as one dead, that the world’s storm might be stilled and our Nineveh saved by His preaching. He, yes He, conquered thee, He slew thee, that fugitive prophet who left His home, gave up His inheritance and surrendered his dear life into the hands of those who sought it. He it was who of old threatened thee in Hosea: “O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.”1810 By His death thou art dead; by His death we live. Thou hast swallowed up and thou art swallowed up. Whilst thou art smitten with a longing for the body assumed by Him, and whilst thy greedy jaws fancy it a prey, thy inward parts are wounded with hooked fangs. 3. To Thee, O Saviour Christ, do we Thy creatures offer thanks that, when Thou wast slain, Thou didst slay our mighty adversary. Before Thy coming was there any being more miserable than man who cowering at the dread prospect of eternal death did but receive life that he might perish! For “death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.”1811 If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob be in hell, who can be in the kingdom of heaven? If Thy friends—even those who had not sinned themselves—were yet for the sins of another liable to the punishment of offending Adam, what must we think of those who have said in their hearts “There is no God;” who “are corrupt and abominable”1812 in their self-will, and of whom it is said “they are gone out of the way, they are become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="1 Thess. iv. 13.">one”?</span> Even if Lazarus is seen in Abraham’s bosom and in a place of refreshment, still the lower regions cannot be compared with the kingdom of heaven. Before Christ’s coming Abraham is in the lower regions: after Christ’s coming the robber is in paradise. And therefore at His rising again “many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and were seen in the 1811 Mark v. 39. Joh. xi. 11. Wisd. iv. 11, 14. Hos. xiii. 15, LXX. Hos. xiii. 14. Rom. v. 14. Ps. xiv. 1. Rom. iii. 12. heavenly Jerusalem.”1814 Then was fulfilled the saying: “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”1815 John the Baptist cries in the desert: “repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”1816 For “from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.”1817 The flaming sword that keeps the way of paradise and the cherubim that are stationed at its <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Gen. iii. 24.">doors</span> are alike quenched and unloosed by the blood of Christ. It is not surprising that this should be promised us in the resurrection: for as many of us as living in the flesh do not live after the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="2 Cor. x. 3.">flesh,</span> have our citizenship in heaven, and while we are still here on earth we are told that “the kingdom of heaven is within us.”1822 4. Moreover before the resurrection of Christ God was “known in Judah” only and “His name was great in Israel” alone. And they who knew Him were despite their knowledge dragged down to hell. Where in those days were the inhabitants of the globe from India to Britain, from the frozen zone of the North to the burning heat of the Atlantic ocean? Where were the countless peoples of the world? Where the great multitudes? Unlike in tongue, unlike in dress and <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Virg. A. viii. 723.">arms?</span> They were crushed like fishes and locusts, like flies and gnats. For apart from knowledge of his Creator every man is but a brute. But now the voices and writings of all nations proclaim the passion and the resurrection of Christ. I say nothing of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans, peoples which the Lord has dedicated to His faith by the title written on His cross. The immortality of the soul and its continuance after the dissolution of the body—truths of which Pythagoras dreamed, which Democritus refused to believe, and which Socrates discussed in prison to console himself for the sentence passed upon him—are now the familiar themes of Indian and of Persian, of Goth and of Egyptian. The fierce <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="A Thracian tribe.">Bessians</span> and the throng of skinclad savages who used to offer human sacrifices in honour of the dead have broken out of their harsh discord into the sweet music of the cross and Christ is the one cry of the whole world. 5. What can we do, my soul? Whither must we turn? What must we take up first? What must we pass over? Have you forgotten the precepts of the rhetoricians? Are you so preoccupied with grief, so overcome with tears, so hindered with sobs, that you forget all logical sequence? Where are the studies you have pursued from your childhood? Where is that saying of Anaxagoras and Telamon (which you have always commended) “I knew myself to have begotten a mortal”? I have read the books of Crantor which he wrote to soothe his grief and which Cicero has <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="In his De consolatione of which only a few fragments remain.">imitated.</span> Matt. xxvii. 52, 53. Eph. v. 14. Matt. iii. 2. Matt. xi. 12. Gen. iii. 24. Cf. Letter XXXIX. § 4. Phi. iii. 20. Luke xvii. 21. Ps. lxxvi. 1. Virg. A. viii. 723. Luke xxiii. 38. A Thracian tribe. The words are quoted by Cicero (T. Q. iii. 13) apparently from the Telamon of Ennius. They are ascribed to Anaxagoras by Diog. Laert. In his De consolatione of which only a few fragments remain. I have read the consolatory writings of Plato, Diogenes, Clitomachus, Carneades, Posidonius, who at different times strove by book or letter to lessen the grief of various persons. Consequently, were my own wit to dry up, it could be watered anew from the fountains which these have opened. They set before us examples without number; and particularly those of Pericles and of Socrates’s pupil Xenophon. The former of these after the loss of his two sons put on a garland and delivered a harangue; while the latter, on hearing when he was offering sacrifice that his son had been slain in war, is said to have laid down his garland; and then, on learning that he had fallen fighting bravely, is said to have put it on his head again. What shall I say of those Roman generals whose heroic virtues glitter like stars on the pages of Latin history? Pulvillus was dedicating the capitol when receiving the news of his son’s sudden death, he gave orders that the funeral should take place without him. Lucius Paullus entered the city in triumph in the week which intervened between the funerals of his two sons. I pass over the Maximi, the Catos, the Galli, the Pisos, the Bruti, the Scævolas, the Metelli, the Scauri, the Marii, the Crassi, the Marcelli, the Aufidii, men who shewed equal fortitude in sorrow and war, and whose bereavements Tully has set forth in his book Of consolation. I pass them over lest I should seem to have chosen the words and woes of others in preference to my own. Yet even these instances may suffice to ensure us mortification if our faith fails to surpass the achievements of unbelief. 6. Let me come then to my proper subject. I will not beat my breast with Jacob and with David for sons dying in the Law, but I will receive them rising again with Christ in the Gospel. The Jew’s mourning is the Christian’s joy. “Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.”1832 “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.”1833 Accordingly when Moses dies, mourning is made for him, but when Joshua is buried, it is without tears or funeral pomp. All that can be drawn from scripture on the subject of lamentation I have briefly set forth in the letter of consolation which I addressed to Paula at Rome. Now I must take another path to arrive at the same goal. Otherwise I shall seem to be walking anew in a track once beaten but now long disused. 7. We know indeed that our Nepotian is with Christ and that he has joined the choirs of the saints. What here with us he groped after on earth afar off and sought for to the best of his judgment, there he sees nigh at hand, so that he can say: “as we have heard so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God.”1837 Still we cannot bear the feeling of his absence, and grieve, if not for him, for ourselves. The greater the happiness which he enjoys, the deeper the sorrow in which the loss of a blessing so great plunges us. The sisters of Lazarus could not help weeping for him, although they knew that he would rise again. And the Saviour himself—to shew that he possessed true human feeling—mourned for him whom He was about to <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Val. Max. v. 10.">raise.</span> His apostle also, 1835 In the first year of the Republic. Acc. to Livy (ii. 8) his son was not really dead. The conqueror of Macedonia. He celebrated his triumph 167 b.c. Ps. xxx. 5. Rom. xiii. 12. Deut. xxxiv. 8. Josh. xxiv. 30. Letter XXXIX. Ps. xlviii. 8. Joh. xi. 35. St. Jerome though he says: “I desire to depart and to be with Christ,”1839 and elsewhere “to me to live is Christ and to die is gain,”1840 thanks God that <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="i.e. Epaphroditus.">Epaphras</span> (who had been “sick nigh unto death”) has been given back to him that he might not have sorrow upon sorrow. Words prompted not by the fear that springs of unbelief but by the passionate regret that comes of true affection. How much more deeply must you who were to Nepotian both uncle and bishop, (that is, a father both in the flesh and in the spirit), deplore the loss of one so dear, as though your heart were torn from you. Set a limit, I pray you, to your sorrow and remember the saying “in nothing overmuch.”1843 Bind up for a little while your wound and listen to the praises of one in whose virtue you have always delighted. Do not grieve that you have lost such a paragon: rejoice rather that he has once been yours. As on a small tablet men depict the configuration of the earth, so in this little scroll of mine you may see his virtues if not fully depicted at least sketched in outline. I beg that you will take the will for the performance. 8. The advice of the rhetoricians in such cases is that you should first search out the remote ancestors of the person to be eulogized and recount their exploits, and then come gradually to your hero; so as to make him more illustrious by the virtues of his forefathers, and to show either that he is a worthy successor of good men, or that he has conferred lustre upon a lineage in itself obscure. But as my duty is to sing the praises of the soul, I will not dwell upon those fleshly advantages which Nepotian for his part always despised. Nor will I boast of his family, that is of the good points belonging not to him but to others; for even those holy men Abraham and Isaac had for sons the sinners Ishmael and Esau. And on the other hand Jephthah who is reckoned by the apostle in the roll of the righteous is the son of a <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Judg. xi. 1.">harlot.</span> It is said “the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”1846 The soul therefore that has not sinned shall live. Neither the virtues nor the vices of parents are imputed to their children. God takes account of us only from the time when we are born anew in Christ. Paul, the persecutor of the church, who is in the morning the ravening wolf of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Gen. xlix. 27.">Benjamin,</span> in the evening “gave food,”1848 that is yields himself up to the sheep <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Acts ix. 17. (Cf. Letter LXIX. § 6.)">Ananias.</span> Let us likewise reckon our Nepotian a crying babe and an untutored child who has been born to us in a moment fresh from the waters of Jordan. 9. Another would perhaps describe how for his salvation you left the east and the desert and how you soothed me your dearest comrade by holding out hopes of a return: and all this that you might save, if possible, both your sister, then a widow with one little child, or, should she reject your counsels, at any rate your sweet little nephew. It was of him that I once used the prophetic words: “though your little nephew cling to your neck.”1850 Another, I say, would relate how while Phi. i. 23. Phi. i. 21. i.e. Epaphroditus. Phi. ii. 27. μηδέν ἄγαν, ne quid nimis. A saying of one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, 6th cent. b.c. See Grote iv. 127. Heb. xi. 32. Judg. xi. 1. Ezek. xviii. 4 Gen. xlix. 27. Dedit escam. This is the reading of the LXX. The Vulgate, like the A.V., has “shall divide the spoil.” Compare Letter LXIX. 6. Acts ix. 17. (Cf. Letter LXIX. § 6.) Letter XIV. § 2. St. Jerome Nepotian was still in the service of the court, beneath his uniform and his brilliantly white linen, his skin was chafed with sackcloth; how, while standing before the powers of this world, his lips were discoloured with fasting; how still in the uniform of one master he served another; and how he wore the sword-belt only that he might succour widows and wards, the afflicted and the unhappy. For my part I dislike men to delay the complete dedication of themselves to God. When I read of the centurion Cornelius that he was a just man I immediately hear of his baptism. 10. Still we may approve these things as the swathing bands of an infant faith. He who has been a loyal soldier under a strange banner is sure to deserve the laurel when he comes to serve his own king. When Nepotian laid aside his baldrick and changed his dress, he bestowed upon the poor all the pay that he had received. For he had read the words: “if thou wilt be perfect, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor and follow me,”1853 and again: “ye cannot serve two masters, God and Mammon.”1854 He kept nothing for himself but a common tunic and cloak to cover him and to keep out the cold. Made in the fashion of his province his attire was not remarkable either for elegance or for squalor. He burned daily to make his way to the monasteries of Egypt, or to visit the communities of Mesopotamia, or at least to live a lonely life in the Dalmatian islands, separated from the mainland only by the strait of Altinum. But he had not the heart to forsake his episcopal uncle in whom he beheld a pattern of many virtues and from whom he could take lessons without going abroad. In one and the same person he both found a monk to imitate and a bishop to revere. What so often happens did not happen here. Constant intimacy did not produce familiarity, nor did familiarity breed contempt. He revered him as a father and every day admired him for some new virtue. To be brief, he became a clergyman, and after passing through the usual stages was ordained a presbyter. Good Jesus! how he sighed and groaned! how he fasted and fled the eyes of all! For the first and only time he was angry with his uncle, complaining that the burthen laid upon him was too heavy for him and that his youth unfitted him for the priesthood. But the more he struggled against it, the more he drew to himself the hearts of all: his refusal did but prove him worthy of an office which he was reluctant to assume, and all the more worthy because he declared himself unworthy. We too in our day have our Timothy; we too have seen that wisdom which is as good as gray hairs; our Moses has chosen an elder whom he has known to be an elder indeed. Nepotian regarded the clerical state less as an honour than a burthen. He made it his first care to silence envy by humility, and his next to give no cause for scandal that such as assailed his youth might marvel at his continence. He helped the poor, visited the sick, stirred men up to hospitality, soothed them with soft words, rejoiced with those who rejoiced and wept with those who <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="For other allusions to a Roman officer’s uniform see Letters LXXIX. § 2 and CXVIII. § 1.">wept.</span> He was a staff to the blind, food to the hungry, hope to the dejected, consolation to the bereaved. Each single virtue was as conspicuous in him as if he possessed no other. Among his fellow-presbyters while ever foremost in work, he was ever satisfied with the lowest place. Any good that he did he ascribed to his uncle: but if the result did not correspond to his expectations, 1857 For other allusions to a Roman officer’s uniform see Letters LXXIX. § 2 and CXVIII. § 1. Acts x. Matt. xix. 21. Matt. vi. 24. Like Bonosus (Letter III. 4). Wisd. iv. 9. Nu. xi. 16. Presbyterum. This name (afterwards contracted into Priest) is taken from that of the Elders of Israel. Rom. xii. 15. he would say that his uncle knew nothing of it, that it was his own mistake. In public he recognized him as a bishop; at home he looked upon him as a father. The seriousness of his disposition was mitigated by a cheerful expression. But while his laughter was joyous it was never loud. Christ’s virgins and widows he honoured as mothers and exhorted as sisters “with all purity.”1859 When he returned home he used to leave the clergyman outside and to give himself over to the hard rule of a monk. Frequent in supplication and watchful in prayer he would offer his tears not to man but to God. His fasts he regulated—as a driver does the pace of his horses—according to the weariness or vigour of his body. When at his uncle’s table he would just taste what was set before him, so as to avoid superstition and yet to preserve self-control. In conversing at entertainments his habit was to propose some topic from scripture, to listen modestly, to answer diffidently, to support the right, to refute the wrong, but both without bitterness; to instruct his opponent rather than to vanquish him. Such was the ingenuous modesty which adorned his youth that he would frankly confess from what sources his several arguments came; and in this way, while disclaiming a reputation for learning, he came to be held most learned. This he would say is the opinion of Tertullian, that of Cyprian; this of Lactantius, that of Hilary; to this effect speaks Minucius Felix, thus Victorinus, after this manner Arnobius. Myself too he would sometimes quote, for he loved me because of my intimacy with his uncle. Indeed by constant reading and long-continued meditation he had made his breast a library of Christ. 11. How often in letters from beyond the sea he urged me to write something to him! How often he reminded me of the man in the gospel who sought help by night and of the widow who importuned the cruel judge! And when I silently ignored his request and made my petitioner blush by blushing to reply, he put forward his uncle to enforce his suit, knowing that as the boon was for another he would more readily ask it, and that as I held his episcopal office in respect he would more easily obtain it. Accordingly I did what he wished and in a brief <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="1 Tim. v. 2.">essay</span> dedicated our mutual friendship to everlasting remembrance. On receiving this Nepotian boasted that he was richer than Crœsus and wealthier than Darius. He held it in his hands, devoured it with his eyes, kept it in his bosom, repeated it with his lips. And often when he unrolled it upon his couch, he fell asleep with the cherished page upon his breast. When a stranger came or a friend, he rejoiced to let them know my witness to him. The deficiencies of my little book he made good by careful punctuation and varied emphasis, so that when it was read aloud it was always he not I who seemed to please or to displease. Whence came such zeal, if not from the love of God? Whence came such untiring study of Christ’s law, if not from a yearning for Him who gave it? Let others add coin to coin till their purses are chock-full; let others demean themselves to sponge on married ladies; let them be richer as monks than they were as men of the world; let them possess wealth in the service of a poor Christ such as they never had in the service of a rich devil; let the church lose breath at the opulence of men who in the world were beggars. Our Nepotian spurns gold and begs only for written books. But while he despises himself in the flesh and walks abroad more splendid than ever in his poverty, he still seeks out everything that may adorn the church. Luke xi. 5, 8. Luke xviii. 1, 5. Letter LII. St. Jerome 12. In comparison with what has gone before what I am now about to say may appear trivial, but even in trifles the same spirit makes itself manifest. For as we admire the Creator not only as the framer of heaven and earth, of sun and ocean, of elephants, camels, horses, oxen, pards, bears, and lions; but also as the maker of the most tiny creatures, ants, gnats, flies, worms, and the like, whose shapes we know better than their names, and as in all alike we revere the same creative skill; so the mind that is given to Christ shews the same earnestness in things of small as of great importance, knowing that it must render an account of every idle word. Nepotian took pains to keep the altar bright, the church walls free from soot and the pavement duly swept. He saw that the doorkeeper was constantly at his post, that the doorhangings were in their places, the sanctuary clean and the vessels shining. The careful reverence that he shewed to every rite led him to neglect no duty small or great. Whenever you looked for him in church you found him there. In Quintus Fabius antiquity admired a nobleman and the author of a history of Rome, yet his paintings gained him more renown than his writings. Our own Bezaleel also and Hiram, the son of a Tyrian woman, are spoken of in scripture as filled with wisdom and the spirit of God because they framed, the one the furniture of the tabernacle, the other that of the temple. For, as it is with fertile tillage-fields and rich plough-lands which at times go out into redundant growths of stalk or ear, so is it with distinguished talents and a mind filled with virtue. They are sure to overflow into elegant and varied accomplishments. Accordingly among the Greeks we hear of a philosopher who used to boast that everything he wore down to his cloak and ring was made by himself. We may pass the same eulogy on our friend, for he adorned both the basilicas of the church and the halls of the martyrs with sketches of flowers, foliage, and vine-tendrils, so that everything attractive in the church, whether made so by its position or by its appearance, bore witness to the labour and zeal of the presbyter set over it. 13.

Ep. LXII–LXIV — Letter LXII. To Tranquillinus.

Letter LXII. To Tranquillinus. Tranquillinus, one of Jerome’s Roman friends, had written (1) to tell him of the stand that Oceanus was making against the Origenists at Rome, and (2) to ask whether any parts of Origen’s works might be studied with safety and profit. Jerome welcomes the tidings about Oceanus and answers the question of Tranquillinus in the affirmative. He classes Origen with Tertullian, Apollinaris and others whose works continued to be read in spite of their heresies. Written in 396 or 397 a.d. 1. Though I formerly doubted the fact, I have now proved that the links which bind spirit to spirit are stronger than any physical bond. For you, my reverend friend, cling to me with all your soul, and I am united to you by the love of Christ. I speak simply and sincerely to your spotless heart: the very paper on which you write, the very letters which you have formed—voiceless though they are—inspire in me a sense of your affection. 2. You tell me that many have been deceived by the mistaken teaching of Origen, and that that saintly man, my son Oceanus, is doing battle with their madness. I grieve to think that simple folk have been thrown off their balance, but I am rejoiced to know that one so learned as Oceanus is doing his best to set them right again. Moreover you ask me, insignificant though I am, for an opinion as to the advisability of reading Origen’s works. Are we, you say, to reject him altogether with our brother Faustinus, or are we, as others tell us, to read him in part? My opinion is that we should sometimes read him for his learning just as we read Tertullian, Novatus, Arnobius, Apollinarius and some other church writers both Greek and Latin, and that we should select what Isa. xiv. 14. St. Jerome is good and avoid what is bad in their writings according to the words of the Apostle, “Prove all things: hold fast that which is good.”1910 Those, however, who are led by some perversity in their dispositions to conceive for him too much fondness or too much aversion seem to me to lie under the curse of the Prophet:—“Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”1911 For while the ability of his teaching must not lead us to embrace his wrong opinions, the wrongness of his opinions should not cause us altogether to reject the useful commentaries which he has published on the holy scriptures. But if his admirers and his detractors are bent on having a tug of war one against the other, and if, seeking no mean and observing no moderation, they must either approve or disapprove his works indiscriminately, I would choose rather to be a pious boor than a learned blasphemer. Our reverend brother, Tatian the deacon, heartily salutes you. Letter LXIII. To Theophilus. When the dispute arose between Jerome and Epiphanius on the one side and Rufinus and John of Jerusalem on the other (see Letter LI.), Theophilus bishop of Alexandria, being appealed to by the latter sent the presbyter Isidore to report to him on the matter. Isidore reported against Jerome and consequently Theophilus refused to answer several of his letters. Finally he wrote counselling him to obey the canons of the church. Jerome replies that to do this has always been his first object. He then remonstrates with Theophilus on his too great leniency towards the Origenists and declares it to be productive of the worst results. The date of the letter is probably 397 a.d. Jerome to the most blessed pope Theophilus. 1. Your holiness will remember that at the time when you kept silence towards me, I never ceased to do my duty by writing to you, not taking so much into account what you in the exercise of your discretion were then doing as what it became me to do. And now that I have received a letter from your grace, I see that my reading of the gospel has not been without fruit. For if the frequent prayers of a woman changed the determination of an unyielding judge, how much more must my constant appeals have softened a fatherly heart like yours? 2. I thank you for your reminder concerning the canons of the Church. Truly, “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”1914 Still I would assure you that nothing is more my aim than to maintain the rights of Christ, to keep to the lines laid down by the fathers, and always to remember the faith of Rome; that faith which is praised by the lips of an apostle, and of which the Alexandrian church boasts to be a sharer. 3. Many religious persons are displeased that you are so long-suffering in regard to that shocking <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="1 Th. v. 21.">heresy,</span> and that you suppose yourself able by such lenity to amend those who are attacking the 1915 Is. v. 20. See note on Letter LVIII. Luke xviii. 2–5. Heb. xii. 6. Rom. i. 8. That of the Origenists. Church’s vitals. They believe that, while you are waiting for the penitence of a few, your action is fostering the boldness of abandoned men and making their party stronger. Farewell in Christ. Letter LXIV. To Fabiola. Fabiola’s visit to Bethlehem had been shortened by the threatened invasion of the Huns which compelled Jerome and his friends to take refuge for a time on the seaboard of Palestine. Fabiola here took leave of her companions and set sail for Italy, but not until Jerome had completed this letter for her use (§22). It contains a mystical account of the vestments of the High Priest worked out with Jerome’s usual ingenuity and learning. Similar treatises are ascribed to Tertullian and to Hosius bishop of Cordova, but these have long since perished. Its date is 396 or 397 a.d.

Ep. LXV–LXVII — Letter LXV. To Principia.

Letter LXV. To Principia. A commentary on Ps. XLV. addressed to Marcella’s friend and companion Principia (see Letter CXXVII.). Jerome prefaces what he has to say by a defence of his practice of writing for women, a practice which had exposed him to many foolish sneers. He deals with the same subject in his dedication of the Commentary of Sophronius. The date of the letter is 397 a.d. Letter LXVI. To Pammachius. Pammachius a Roman senator, had lost his wife Paulina one of Paula’s daughters, while she was still in the flower of her youth. It was not till two years had elapsed that Jerome ventured to write to him; and when he did so he dwelt but little on the life and virtues of Paulina. Probably there was but little to tell. The greater part of the letter is taken up with commendation of Pammachius himself who, in spite of his high rank and position, had become a monk and was now living a life of severe self-denial. Jerome speaks approvingly of the Hospice for Strangers which, in conjunction with Fabiola, Pammachius had set up at Portus, and describes his own somewhat similar institutions at Bethlehem. He also mentions Paula, Eustochium, and the dead Blæsilla, all in terms of the highest praise. The date of the letter is 397 a.d. 1. Supposing a wound to be healed and a scar to have been formed upon the skin, any course of treatment designed to remove the mark must in its effort to improve the appearance renew the smart of the original wound. After two years of inopportune silence my condolence now comes rather late; yet even so I am afraid that my present speech may be still more inopportune. I fear lest in touching the sore spot in your heart I may by my words inflame afresh a wound which time and reflection have availed to cure. For who can have ears so dull or hearts so flinty as to hear the name of your Paulina without weeping? Even though reared on the milk of Hyrcanian <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Virgil, Æn. iv. 367.">tigresses</span> they Virgil, Æn. iv. 367. must still shed tears. Who can with dry eyes see thus untimely cut down and withered an opening rose, an undeveloped bud, which has not yet formed itself into a cup nor spread forth the proud display of its crimson petals? In her a most priceless pearl is broken. In her a vivid emerald is shattered. Sickness alone shews us the blessedness of health. We realize better what we have had when we cease to have it. 2. The good ground of which we read in the parable brought forth fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold. In this threefold yield I recognize an emblem of the three different rewards of Christ which have fallen to three women closely united in blood and moral excellence. Eustochium culls the flowers of virginity. Paula sweeps the toilsome threshing floor of widowhood. Paulina keeps the bed undefiled of marriage. A mother with such daughters wins for herself on earth all that Christ has promised to give in heaven. Then to complete the team—if I may so call it—of four saints turned out by a single family, and to match the women’s virtues by those of a man, the three have a fit companion in Pammachius who is a cherub such as Ezekiel describes, brother-in-law to the first, son-in-law to the second, husband to the third. Husband did I say? Nay, rather a most devoted brother; for the language of marriage is inadequate to describe the holy bonds of the Spirit. Of this team Jesus holds the reins, and it is of steeds like these that Habakkuk sings: “ride upon thy horses and let thy riding be salvation.”1922 With like resolve if with unlike speed they strain after the victor’s palm. Their colours are different; their object is the same. They are harnessed in one yoke, they obey one driver, not waiting for the lash but answering the call of his voice with fresh efforts. 3. Let me use for a moment the language of philosophy. According to the Stoics there are four virtues so closely related and mutually coherent that he who lacks one lacks all. They are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. While all of you possess the four, yet each is remarkable for one. You have prudence, your mother has justice, your virgin sister has fortitude, your wedded wife has temperance. I speak of you as wise, for who can be wiser than one who, despising the folly of the world, has followed Christ “the power of God and the wisdom of God”? Or what better instance can there be of justice than your mother, who having divided her substance among her offspring has taught them by her own contempt of riches the true object on which to fix their affections? Who has set a better example of courage than Eustochium, who by resolving to be a virgin has breached the gates of the nobility and broken down the pride of a consular house? The first of Roman ladies, she has brought under the yoke the first of Roman families. Has there ever been temperance greater than that of Paulina, who, reading the words of the apostle: “marriage is honourable in all and the bed undefiled,”1925 and not presuming to aspire to the happiness of her virgin sister or the continence of her widowed mother, has preferred to keep to the safe track of a lower path rather than treading on air to lose herself in the clouds? When once she had entered 1924 Quoted from a poet in the Latin Anthology. Matt. xiii. 8. Paula and her two daughters, Paulina and Eustochium. Ezek. x. 8–22. Hab. iii. 8, LXX. Cf. Wisdom viii. 7. Heb. xiii. 4. upon the married state, her one thought day and night was that, as soon as her union should be blessed with offspring, she would live thenceforth in the second degree of chastity, and Though woman, foremost in the high emprise, would induce her husband to follow a like course. She would not forsake him but looked for the day when he would become a companion in salvation. Finding by several miscarriages that her womb was not barren, she could not give up all hope of having children and had to allow her own reluctance to give way to the eagerness of her mother-in-law and the chagrin of her husband. Thus she suffered much as Rachel suffered, although instead of bringing forth like her a son of pangs and of the right hand, the heir she had longed for was no other than her husband. I have learned on good authority that her wish in submitting herself to her husband was not to take advantage of God’s primitive command “Be faithful and multiply and replenish the earth”1930 but that she only desired children that she might bring forth virgins to Christ. 4. We read that the wife of Phinehas the priest, on hearing that the ark of the Lord had been taken, was seized suddenly with the pains of travail and that she brought forth a son Ichabod and died a mother in the hands of the women who nursed her. Rachel’s son is called Benjamin, that is ‘son of excellence’ or ‘of the right hand’; but the son of the other, afterwards to be a distinguished priest of God, derives his name from the ark. The same thing has come to pass in our own day, for since Paulina fell asleep the Church has posthumously borne the monk Pammachius, a patrician by his parentage and marriage, rich in alms, and lofty in lowliness. The apostle writes to the Corinthians, “Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men, not many noble are called.”1933 The conditions of the nascent church required this to be so that the grain of mustard seed might grow up little by little into a tree, and that the leaven of the gospel might gradually raise more and more the whole lump of the church. In our day Rome possesses what the world in days gone by knew not of. Then few of the wise or mighty or noble were Christians; now many wise powerful and noble are not Christians only but even monks. And among them all my Pammachius is the wisest, the mightiest, and the noblest; great among the great, a leader among leaders, he is the commander in chief of all monks. He and others like him are the offspring which Paulina desired to have in her life time and which she has given us in her death. “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="i.e., continence in marriage.">child”;</span> for in a moment thou hast brought forth as many sons as there are poor men in Rome. 5. The glowing gems which in old days adorned the neck and face of Paulina now purchase food for the needy. Her silk dresses and gold brocades are exchanged for soft woollen garments intended to keep out the cold and not to expose the body to vain admiration. All that formerly 1932 Virg. A. i. 494. Gen. xxxv. 16. The respective meanings of Benoni and Benjamin. Gen. i. 28. Ichabod means ‘there is no glory’; glory being (apparently) a synonym for the ark. Matt. xiii. 31. Matt. xiii. 33. Isa. liv. 1. ministered to luxury is now at the service of virtue. That blind man holding out his hand, and often crying aloud when there is none to hear, is the heir of Paulina, is co-heir with Pammachius. That poor cripple who can scarcely drag himself along, owes his support to the help of a tender girl. Those doors which of old poured forth crowds of visitors, are now beset only by the wretched. One suffers from a dropsy, big with death; another mute and without the means of begging, begs the more appealingly because he cannot beg; another maimed from his childhood implores an alms which he may not himself enjoy. Still another has his limbs rotted with jaundice and lives on after his body has become a corpse. To use the language of Virgil: Had I a hundred tongues, a hundred lips, I could not tell men’s countless <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Virg. A. vi. 625, 627.">sufferings.</span> Such is the bodyguard which accompanies Pammachius wherever he walks; in the persons of such he ministers to Christ Himself; and their squalor serves to whiten his soul. Thus he speeds on his way to heaven, beneficent as a giver of games to the poor, and kind as a provider of shows for the needy. Other husbands scatter on the graves of their wives violets, roses, lilies, and purple flowers; and assuage the grief of their hearts by fulfilling this tender duty. Our dear Pammachius also waters the holy ashes and the revered bones of Paulina, but it is with the balm of almsgiving. These are the confections and the perfumes with which he cherishes the dead embers of his wife knowing that it is written: “Water will quench a flaming fire; and alms maketh an atonement for sins.”1938 What great power compassion has and what high rewards it is destined to win, the blessed Cyprian sets forth in an extensive <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Viz. the treatise entitled Of Work and Alms.">work.</span> It is proved also by the counsel of Daniel who desired the most impious of kings—had he been willing to hear him—to be saved by shewing mercy to the poor. Paulina’s mother may well be glad of Paulina’s heir. She cannot regret that her daughter’s wealth has passed into new hands when she sees it still spent upon the objects she had at heart. Nay, rather she must congratulate herself that without any exertion of her own her wishes are being carried out. The sum available for distribution is the same as before: only the distributor is changed. 6. Who can credit the fact that one, who is the glory of the Furian stock and whose grandfathers and great grandfathers have been consuls, moves amid the senators in their purple clothed in sombre garb, and that, so far from blushing when he meets the eyes of his companions, he actually derides those who deride him! “There is a shame that leadeth to death and there is a shame that leadeth to life.”1941 It is a monk’s first virtue to despise the judgments of men and always to remember the apostle’s words:—“If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”1942 In the same sense the Lord says to the prophets that He has made their face a brazen city and a stone of adamant and an iron pillar, to the end that they shall not be afraid of the insults of the people but shall by the sternness of their looks discompose the effrontery of those who sneered at them. A finely strung mind is more readily overcome by contumely than by terror. And men whom no tortures can overawe Virg. A. vi. 625, 627. Ecclus. iii. 30. Viz. the treatise entitled Of Work and Alms. Dan. iv. 27. Ecclus. iv. 25. Est confusio adducens peccatum: et est confusio adducens gloriam et gratiam, Vulg. Jerome probably quotes from memory. A.V. follows the Greek and the Vulg. Gal. i. 10. Cf. Jer. i. 18; Ezek. iii. 8, 9. are sometimes prevailed over by the fear of shame. Surely it is no small thing for a man of birth, eloquence, and wealth to avoid the company of the powerful in the streets, to mingle with the crowd, to cleave to the poor, to associate on equal terms with the untaught, to cease to be a leader and to become one of the people. The more he humbles himself, the more he is exalted. 7. A pearl will shine in the midst of squalor and a gem of the first water will sparkle in the mire. This is what the Lord promised when He said: “Them that honour me I will honour.”1945 Others may understand this of the future when sorrow shall be turned into joy and when, although the world shall pass away, the saints shall receive a crown which shall never pass. But I for my part see that the promises made to the saints are fulfilled even in this present life. Before he began to serve Christ with his whole heart, Pammachius was a well known person in the senate. Still there were many other senators who wore the badges of proconsular rank. The whole world is filled with similar decorations. He was in the first rank it is true, but there were others in it besides him. Whilst he took precedence of some, others took precedence of him. The most distinguished privilege loses its prestige when lavished on a crowd, and dignities themselves become less dignified in the eyes of good men when held by persons who have no dignity. Thus Tully finely says of Cæsar, when he wished to advance some of his adherents, “he did not so much honour them as dishonour the honourable positions in which he placed them.”1946 To-day all the churches of Christ are talking of Pammachius. The whole world admires as a poor man one whom heretofore it ignored as rich. Can anything be more splendid than the consulate? Yet the honour lasts only for a year and when another has succeeded to the post its former occupant gives way. Each man’s laurels are lost in the crowd and sometimes triumphs themselves are marred by the shortcomings of those who celebrate them. An office which was once handed down from patrician to patrician, which only men of noble birth could hold, of which the consul Marius—victor though he was over Numidia and the Teutons and the Cimbri—was held unworthy on account of the obscurity of his family, and which Scipio won before his time as the reward of valour,—this great office is now obtained by merely belonging to the army; and the shining robe of victory now envelops men who a little while ago were country boors. Thus we have received more than we have given. The things we have renounced are small; the things we possess are great. All that Christ promises is duly performed and for what we have given up we have received an hundredfold. This was the ground in which Isaac sowed his seed, Isaac who in his readiness to die bore the cross of the Gospel before the Gospel came. 8. “If thou wilt be perfect,” the Lord says, “go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor.…and come and follow me.”1951 If thou wilt be perfect. Great enterprises are always left to the free choice of those who hear of them. Thus the apostle refrains from making virginity a positive duty, because the Lord in speaking of eunuchs who had made themselves such for the kingdom of heaven’s sake finally said: “He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”1952 For, to quote the apostle, “it is not 1950 Cf. Luke xiv. 11. Cf. the remark of Æneas Silvius that “men should be given to places not places, to men.” Palma, i.e. tunica palmata. Cf. Matt. xix. 29. Gen. xxvi. 12. Gen. xxii. Matt. xix. 21. Matt. xix. 12. St. Jerome of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”1953 If thou wilt be perfect. There is no compulsion laid upon you: if you are to win the prize it must be by the exercise of your own free will. If therefore you will to be perfect and desire to be as the prophets, as the apostles, as Christ Himself, sell not a part of your substance (lest the fear of want become an occasion of unfaithfulness, and so you perish with Ananias and Sapphira1954) but all that you have. And when you have sold all, give the proceeds not to the wealthy or to the high-minded but to the poor. Give each man enough for his immediate need but do not give money to swell what a man has already. “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn,”1955 and “the labourer is worthy of his reward.”1956 Again “they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar.”1957 Remember also these words: “having food and raiment let us be therewith content.”1958 Where you see smoking dishes, steaming pheasants, massive silver plate, spirited nags, long-haired boy-slaves, expensive clothing, and embroidered hangings, give nothing there. For he to whom you would give is richer than you the giver. It is moreover a kind of sacrilege to give what belongs to the poor to those who are not poor. Yet to be a perfect and complete Christian it is not enough to despise wealth or to squander and fling away one’s money, a thing which can be lost and found in a single moment. Crates the Theban did this, so did Antisthenes and several others, whose lives shew them to have had many faults. The disciple of Christ must do more for the attainment of spiritual glory than the philosopher of the world, than the venal slave of flying rumours and of the people’s breath. It is not enough for you to despise wealth unless you follow Christ as well. And only he follows Christ who forsakes his sins and walks hand in hand with virtue. We know that Christ is wisdom. He is the treasure which in the scriptures a man finds in his field. He is the peerless gem which is bought by selling many pearls. But if you love a captive woman, that is, worldly wisdom, and if no beauty but hers attracts you, make her bald and cut off her alluring hair, that is to say, the graces of style, and pare away her dead nails. Wash her with the nitre of which the prophet speaks, and then take your ease with her and say “Her left hand is under my head, and her right hand doth embrace me.”1964 Then shall the captive bring to you many children; from a Moabitess she shall become an Israelitish woman. Christ is that sanctification without which no man shall see the face of God. Christ is our redemption, for He is at once our Redeemer and our Ransom. Christ is all, that he who has left all for Christ may find One in place of all, and may be able to proclaim freely, “The Lord is my portion.”1967 1959 1965 Rom. ix. 16. Acts v. 1 Tim. v. 18. 1 Tim. vi. 8. Cf. Letter LVIII. § 2. Matt. xiii. 44. Matt. xiii. 45. Cf. Deut. xxi. 11, 12. Jer. ii. 22. Cant. ii. 6. A.V. ‘his’ for ‘her.’ Jerome is thinking of Ruth. Ps. lxxiii. 26. 9. I see clearly that you have a warm affection for divine learning and that far from trying—like some rash persons—to teach that of which you are yourself ignorant you make it your first object to learn what you are going to teach. Your letters in their simplicity are redolent of the prophets and savour strongly of the apostles. You do not affect a stilted eloquence, nor boylike balance shallow sentences in clauses neatly-turned. The quickly frothing foam disappears with equal quickness; and a tumour though it enlarges the size of the body is injurious to health. It is moreover a shrewd maxim, this of Cato, “Fast enough if well enough.” Long ago it is true in the days of our youth we laughed outright at this dictum when the finished <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Quintilian.">orator</span> used it in his exordium. I fancy you remember the mistake shared by the speaker in our Athenæum and how the whole room resounded with the cry taken up by the students “Fast enough if well enough.” According to <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Fabius Pietor.">Fabius</span> crafts would be sure to prosper if none but craftsmen were allowed to criticise them. No man can adequately estimate a poet unless he is competent himself to write verse. No man can comprehend philosophers, unless he is acquainted with the various theories that they have held. Material and visible products are best appraised by those who make them. To what a cruel lot we men of letters are exposed you may gather from the fact that we are forced to rely on the judgment of the public; and many a man is in company a formidable opponent who would certainly be despised could he be seen alone. I have touched on this in passing to make you content, if possible, with the ear of the learned. Disregard the remarks which uneducated persons make concerning your ability; but day by day imbibe the marrow of the prophets, that you may know the mystery of Christ and share this mystery with the patriarchs. 10. Whether you read or write, whether you wake or sleep, let the herdsman’s horn of Amos always ring in your ears. Let the sound of the clarion arouse your soul, let the divine love carry you out of yourself; and then seek upon your bed him whom your soul <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Cant. iii. 1.">loveth,</span> and boldly say: “I sleep, but my heart waketh.”1973 And when you have found him and taken hold of him, let him not go. And if you fall asleep for a moment and He escapes from your hands, do not forthwith despair. Go out into the streets and charge the daughters of Jerusalem: then shall you find him lying down in the noontide weary and drunk with passion, or wet with the dew of night by the flocks of his companions, or fragrant with many kinds of spices, amid the apples of the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Cf. Cant. i. 7, ii. 5, v. 2.">garden.</span> There give to him your breasts, let him suck your learned bosom, let him rest in the midst of his heritage, his feathers as those of a dove overlaid with silver and his inward parts with the brightness of gold. This young child, this mere boy, who is fed on butter and <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Isa. vii. 14, 15.">honey,</span> and who is reared among curdled mountains, quickly grows up to manhood, speedily spoils <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Perhaps an allusion to Isa. viii. 1. Mahershalal-hash-baz, ‘Spoil speedeth, prey hasteth.’">all</span> that is opposed to him Quintilian. What was the mistake? Did the orator say, “Well enough if fast enough”? The text seems obscure. Fabius Pietor. Cf. Letter XLVI. § 12. Cant. iii. 1. Cant. v. 2. Cf. Cant. i. 7, ii. 5, v. 2. Ps. lxviii. 13. Isa. vii. 14, 15. Ps. lxviii. 14, Vulg. (acc. to some mss.). Intermedios cleros—the lot or inheritance—with an allusion perhaps to the word clergy formed from clerus. Perhaps an allusion to Isa. viii. 1. Mahershalal-hash-baz, ‘Spoil speedeth, prey hasteth.’ St. Jerome in you, and when the time is ripe plunders [the spiritual] Damascus and puts in chains the king of [the spiritual] Assyria. 11. I hear that you have erected a hospice for strangers at Portus and that you have planted a twig from the tree of Abraham upon the Ausonian shore. Like Æneas you are tracing the outlines of a new encampment; only that, whereas he, when he reached the waters of the Tiber, under pressure of want had to eat the square flat cakes which formed the tables spoken of by the oracle, you are able to build a house of bread to rival this little village of Bethlehem wherein I am staying; and here after their long privations you propose to satisfy travellers with sudden plenty. Well done. You have surpassed my poor beginning. You have reached the highest point. You have made your way from the root to the top of the tree. You are the first of monks in the first city of the world: you do right therefore to follow the first of the patriarchs. Let Lot, whose name means ‘one who turns aside’ choose the plain and let him follow the left and easy branch of the famous letter of Pythagoras. But do you make ready for yourself a monument like Sarah’s on steep and rocky heights. Let the City of Books be near; and when you have destroyed the giants, the sons of Anak, make over your heritage to joy and merriment. Abraham was rich in gold and silver and cattle, in substance and in raiment: his household was so large that on an emergency he could bring a picked body of young men into the field, and could pursue as far as Dan and then slay four kings who had already put five kings to flight. Frequently exercising hospitality and never turning any man away from his door, he was accounted worthy at last to entertain God himself. He was not satisfied with giving orders to his servants and hand-maids to attend to his guests, nor did he lessen the favour he conferred by leaving others to care for them; but as though he had found a prize, he and Sarah his wife gave themselves to the duties of hospitality. With his own hands he washed the feet of his guests, upon his own shoulders he brought home a fat calf from the herd. While the strangers dined he stood by to serve them, and set before them the dishes cooked by Sarah’s hands—though meaning to fast himself. 12. The regard which I feel for you, my dear brother, makes me remind you of these things; for you must offer to Christ not only your money but yourself, to be a “living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service,”1990 and you must imitate the son of man who “came not to be ministered unto but to minister.”1991 What the patriarch did for strangers that our Lord and Master did for His servants and disciples. “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But,” says the devil, “touch his flesh and he will curse thee to thy face.”1992 The old enemy knows that the battle with impurity is a harder one than that with covetousness. It is easy to cast 1984 1990 i.e. the oak of Mamre under which he entertained the three angels (Gen. xviii. 1–8). Virg. Æn. vii. 112–129. Beth-lehem means ‘house of bread.’ v. § 14 below. Gen. xiii. 5–11. The letter . Cf. Pers. iii. 56, 57 and Conington’s note. Gen. xxiii. 19. i.e. Kirjathsepher close to Hebron (Josh. xv. 13–15) where Sarah was buried. Cf. Jos. xv. 14. An allusion to the name of Abraham’s heir, Isaac or ‘laughter’ (Gen. xxi. 3, 6). Gen. xiv. 13–16. Rom. xii. 1. Matt. xx. 28. Job ii. 4, 5. St. Jerome off what clings to us from without, but a war within our borders involves far greater peril. We have to unfasten things joined together, we have to sunder things firmly united. Zacchæus was rich while the apostles were poor. He restored fourfold all that he had taken and gave to the poor the half of his remaining substance. He welcomed Christ as his guest, and salvation came unto his house. And yet because he was little of stature and could not reach the apostolic standard of height, he was not numbered with the twelve apostles. Now as regards wealth the apostles gave up nothing at all, but as regards will they one and all gave up the whole world. If we offer to Christ our souls as well as our riches, he will gladly receive our offering. But if we give to God only those things which are without while we give to the devil those things which are within, the division is not fair, and the divine voice says: “Hast thou not sinned in offering aright, and yet not dividing aright?”1994 13. That you, the leader of the patrician order, first set the example of turning monk should not be to you an occasion of boasting but rather one of humility, knowing as you do that the Son of God became the Son of man.

Ep. LXVIII–LXX — Letter LXVIII. To Castrutius.

Letter LXVIII. To Castrutius. Castrutius, a blind man of Pannonia, had set out for Bethlehem to visit Jerome. However, on reaching Cissa (whether that in Thrace or that on the Adriatic is uncertain) he was induced by his friends to turn back. Jerome writes to thank him for his intention and to console him for his inability to carry it out. He then tries to comfort him in his blindness (1) by referring to Christ’s words concerning the man born blind (Joh. ix. 3) and (2) by telling him the story of Antony and Didymus. The date of the letter is 397 a.d. 1. My reverend son Heraclius the deacon has reported to me that in your eagerness to see me you came as far as Cissa, and that, though a Pannonian and consequently a land animal, you did not quail before the surges of the Adriatic and the dangers of the Ægean and Ionian seas. He tells me that you would have actually accomplished your purpose, had not our brethren with affectionate care held you back. I thank you all the same and regard it as a kindness shewn. For in the case of friends one must accept the will for the deed. Enemies often give us the latter, but only sincere attachment can bring us the former. And now that I am writing to you I beseech you do not regard the bodily affliction which has befallen you as due to sin. When the Apostles speculated concerning the man that was born blind from the womb and asked our Lord and Saviour: “Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” they were told “Neither hath this man sinned nor his St. Jerome parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”1997 Do we not see numbers of heathens, Jews, heretics and men of various opinions rolling in the mire of lust, bathed in blood, surpassing wolves in ferocity and kites in rapacity, and for all this the plague does not come nigh their dwellings? They are not smitten as other men, and accordingly they wax insolent against God and lift up their faces even to heaven. We know on the other hand that holy men are afflicted with sicknesses, miseries, and want, and perhaps they are tempted to say “Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.” Yet immediately they go on to reprove themselves, “If I say, I will speak thus; behold I should offend against the generation of thy children.”1999 If you suppose that your blindness is caused by sin, and that a disease which physicians are often able to cure is an evidence of God’s anger, you will think Isaac a sinner because he was so wholly sightless that he was deceived into blessing one whom he did not mean to bless. You will charge Jacob with sin, whose vision became so dim that he could not see Ephraim and Manasseh, although with the inner eye and the prophetic spirit he could foresee the distant future and the Christ that was to come of his royal line. Were any of the kings holier than Josiah? Yet he was slain by the sword of the Egyptians. Were there ever loftier saints than Peter and Paul? Yet their blood stained the blade of Nero. And to say no more of men, did not the Son of God endure the shame of the cross? And yet you fancy those blessed who enjoy in this world happiness and pleasure? God’s hottest anger against sinners is when he shews no anger. Wherefore in Ezekiel he says to Jerusalem: “My jealousy will depart from thee and I will be quiet and will be no more angry.”2004 For “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.”2005 The father does not instruct his son unless he loves him. The master does not correct his disciple unless he sees in him signs of promise. When once the doctor gives over caring for the patient, it is a sign that he despairs. You should answer thus: “as Lazarus in his lifetime received evil things so will I now gladly suffer torments that future glory may be laid up for me.” For “affliction shall not rise up the second time.”2007 If Job, a man holy and spotless and righteous in his generation, suffered terrible afflictions, his own book explains the reason why. 2. That I may not make myself tedious or exceed the due limits of a letter by repeating old stories, I will briefly relate to you an incident which happened in my childhood. The saintly Athanasius bishop of Alexandria had summoned the blessed Antony to that city to confute the heretics there. Hereupon Didymus, a man of great learning who had lost his eyes, came to visit the hermit and, the conversation turning upon the holy scriptures, Antony could not help admiring his ability and eulogizing his insight. At last he said: You do not regret, do you, the loss of your eyes? At first Didymus was ashamed to answer, but when the question had been repeated a second time 2003 Ps. xci. 10. Ps. lxxiii. 13, 15. Gen. xxvii. Gen. xlviii. 10. Gen. xlix. 10. Ezek. xvi. 42. In the Vulgate the tenses are different, but the sense is substantially the same. Heb. xii. 6. Luke xvi. 25. Nahum i. 9. and a third, he frankly confessed that his blindness was a great grief to him. Whereupon Antony said: “I am surprised that a wise man should grieve at the loss of a faculty which he shares with ants and flies and gnats, and not rejoice rather in having one of which only saints and apostles have been thought worthy.” From this story you may perceive how much better it is to have spiritual than carnal vision and to possess eyes into which the mote of sin cannot <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Luke vi. 42.">fall.</span> Though you have failed to come this year, I do not yet despair of your coming. If the reverend deacon who is the bearer of this letter is again caught in the toils of your affection, and if you come hither in his company I shall be delighted to welcome you and shall readily acknowledge that the delay in payment is made up for by the largeness of the interest. Letter LXIX. To Oceanus. Oceanus, a Roman nobleman zealous for the faith, had asked Jerome to back him in a protest against Carterius a Spanish bishop who contrary to the apostolic rule that a bishop is to be “the husband of one wife” had married a second time. Jerome refuses to take the line suggested on the ground that Carterius’s first marriage having preceded his baptism cannot be taken into account. He therefore advises Oceanus to let the matter drop. The date of the letter is 397 a.d. 1. I never supposed, son Oceanus, that the clemency of the Emperor would be assailed by criminals, or that persons just released from prison would after their own experience of its filth and fetters complain of relaxations allowed to others. In the gospel he who envies another’s salvation is thus addressed: “Friend, is thine eye evil because I am good?”2010 “God hath concluded them all in sin that he might have mercy upon all.”2012 “When sin abounded grace did much more abound.”2013 The first born of Egypt are slain and not even a beast belonging to Israel is left behind in <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Ex. xii. 29, 30, 38.">Egypt.</span> The heresy of the Cainites rises before me and the once slain viper lifts up its shattered head, destroying not partially as most often hitherto but altogether the mystery of Christ. This heresy declares that there are some sins which Christ cannot cleanse with His blood, and that the scars left by old transgressions on the body and the soul are sometimes so deep that they cannot be effaced by the remedy which He supplies. What else is this but to say that Christ has died in vain? He has indeed died in vain if there are any whom He cannot make alive. When John the Baptist points to Christ and says: “Behold the lamb of God which taketh away the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="A.V. ‘sin.’">sins</span> of the world”2017 he utters a falsehood if after all there are persons living whose sins Christ has not taken away. For Luke vi. 42. Heraclius, a deacon of Pannonia, who had been sent to Bethlehem by his bishop Amabilis to procure from Jerome a long promised commentary on the Visions of Isaiah. This, which Jerome subsequently incorporated as book V. in his complete work on the prophet, Heraclius succeeded in obtaining from him. See the Preface to the Commentary. Matt. xx. 15. A.V. ‘unbelief.’ Rom. xi. 32. Rom. v. 20. Ex. xii. 29, 30, 38. The Cainites appear to have denied the efficacy of the atonement. A.V. ‘sin.’ Joh. i. 29. either it must be shewn that they are not of the world whom the grace of Christ thus ignores: or, if it be admitted that they are of the world, we have to choose between the horns of a dilemma. Either they have been delivered from their sins, in which case the power of Christ to save all men is proved; or they remain undelivered and as it were still under the charge of misdoing, in which case Christ is proved to be powerless. But far be it from us to believe of the Almighty that He is powerless in aught. For “what things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”2018 To ascribe weakness to the Son is to ascribe it to the Father also. The shepherd carries the whole sheep and not only this or that part of it: all the epistles of the apostle speak continually of the grace of Christ. And, lest a single announcement of this grace might seem a little thing, Peter says: “Grace unto you and peace be multiplied.”2020 The Scripture promises abundance; yet we affirm scarcity. 2. To what does all this tend, you ask. I reply; you remember the question that you proposed. It was this. A Spanish bishop named Carterius, old in years and in the priesthood has married two wives, one before he was baptized, and, she having died, another since he has passed through the laver; and you are of opinion that he has violated the precept of the apostle, who in his list of episcopal qualifications commands that a bishop shall be “the husband of one wife.”2021 I am surprised that you have pilloried an individual when the whole world is filled with persons ordained in similar circumstances; I do not mean presbyters or clergy of lower rank, but speak only of bishops of whom if I were to enumerate them all one by one I should gather a sufficient number to surpass the crowd which attended the synod of Ariminum. Still it does not become me to defend one by incriminating many; nor if reason condemns a sin, to make the number of those who commit it an excuse for it. At Rome an eloquent pleader caught me, as the phrase goes, between the horns of a dilemma: whichever way I turned I was held fast. Is it sinful, said he, to marry a wife, or is it not sinful? I in my simplicity, not being wary enough to avoid the snare laid for me, replied that it was not sinful. Then he propounded another question: Is it good deeds which are done away with in baptism or is it evil? Here again my simplicity induced me to say that it was sins which were forgiven. At this point, just as I began to fancy myself secure, the horns of the dilemma commenced to close in on me from this side and from that and their points hidden before began to shew themselves. If, said he, to marry a wife is not sinful, and if baptism forgives sins, all that is not done away with is held over. On the instant a dark mist rose before my eyes as though I had been struck by a strong boxer. Yet recalling the sophism attributed to <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="See note on Letter LXI. 3.">Chrysippus:</span> “Whether you lie or whether you speak the truth, in either case you lie,” I came to myself again and turned upon my opponent with a dilemma of my own. Pray tell me, I said, does baptism make a new man or does it not? He grudgingly admitted that it did. I pursued my advantage by saying, Does it make him wholly new or only partially so? He replied, Wholly. Then I asked, Is there nothing then of the old man held over in baptism? He assented. Hereupon I propounded the argument; If baptism makes a man new and creates a wholly new being, and if there is nothing of the old man held over in the new, that which Joh. v. 19. i.e. Paul. 1 Tim. iii. 2. This synod held in 359 a.d. was attended by about 450 bishops. It put forth an Arian formula which caused general consternation. “The whole world,” says Jerome, “groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian.” See note on Letter LXI. 3. St. Jerome once was in the old cannot be imputed to the new. At first my thorny friend held his tongue; afterwards however, making Piso’s mistake, though he had nothing to say he could not remain silent. Sweat stood upon his brow, his cheeks turned pale, his lips trembled, his tongue clove to his mouth, his throat became dry; and fear (not age) made him cower. At last he broke out in these words, Have you not read how the apostle permits none to be ordained priest save the husband of one wife, and that what he lays stress upon is the fact of the marriage and not the time at which it is contracted? Now as the fellow had challenged me with syllogisms, and as I saw that he was feeling his way towards some intricate and awkward questions, I proceeded to turn his own weapons against him. I said therefore, Whom did the apostle select for the episcopate, baptized persons or catechumens? He refused to reply. I however made a fresh onslaught repeating my question a second time and a third. You would have taken him for Niobe changed to stone by excessive weeping. I turned to the audience and said: It is all the same to me, good people, whether I bind my opponent awake or sleeping; but it is easier to fetter a man who offers no resistance. If those whom the apostle admits into the ranks of the clergy are not catechumens but the faithful, and if he who is ordained bishop is always one of the faithful, being one of the faithful he cannot have the faults of a catechumen imputed to him. Such were the darts I hurled at my paralysed opponent. Such the quivering spears I cast at him. At last his mouth opened and he vomited forth the contents of his mind. Certainly, he blurted out, that is the doctrine of the apostle Paul. 3. Accordingly I bring out two epistles of the apostle, the first to Timothy, and the second to Titus. In the first is the following passage: “If a man desire the office of a bishop he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker…but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) Not a novice lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.”2025 While immediately at the commencement of the epistle to Titus the following behests are laid down: “For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God; not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.”2026 In both epistles commandment is given that only monogamists should be chosen for the clerical office whether as bishops or as <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Cf. Cic. In Pis. 1.">presbyters.</span> Indeed with the ancients these names were synonymous, one alluding to the office, the other to the age of the clergy. No one at any rate can doubt that the apostle is speaking only of those who have been baptized. If therefore it in no wise prejudices the case of one who is to be ordained bishop that before his baptism he has not possessed all the requisite qualifications (for it is asked what he is and not what he has 1 Tim. iii. 1–7. Tit. i. 5–9. Rendered ‘elders’ in A.V. St. Jerome been), why should a previous marriage—the one thing which is in itself not sinful—prove a hindrance to his ordination? You argue that as his marriage was not a sin it was not done away with at his baptism. This is news to me indeed, that what in itself was not a sin is to be reckoned as such. All fornication and contamination with open vice, impiety towards God, parricide and incest, the change of the natural use of the sexes into that which is against nature and all extraordinary lusts are washed away in the fountain of Christ. Can it be possible that the stains of marriage are indelible, and that harlotry is judged more leniently than honourable wedlock? I do not, Carterius might say, hold you to blame for the hosts of mistresses and the troops of favourites that you have kept; I do not charge you with your bloodshedding and sow-like wallowings in the mire of uncleanness: yet you are ready to drag from her grave for my confusion my poor wife, who has been dead long years, and whom I married that I might be kept from those sins into which you have fallen. Tell this to the heathen who form the church’s harvest with which she stores her granaries; tell this to the catechumens who seek admission to the number of the faithful; tell them, I say, not to contract marriages before their baptism, not to enter upon honourable wedlock, but like the Scots and the Atacotti and the people of Plato’s republic to have community of wives and no discrimination of children, nay more, to beware of any semblance even of matrimony; lest, after they have come to believe in Christ, He shall tell them that those whom they have had have not been concubines or mistresses but wedded wives. 4. Let every man examine his own conscience and let him deplore the violence he has done to it at every period of his life; and then when he has brought himself to deliver a true judgment on his own former misdeeds, let him give ear to the chiding of Jesus: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”2032 Truly like the scribes and pharisees we strain out the gnat and swallow the camel, we pay tithe of mint and anise, and we omit the just judgment which God requires. What parallel can be drawn between a wife and a prostitute? Is it fair to make a marriage now dissolved by death a ground of accusation, while dissolute living wins for itself a garland of praise? He, had his former wife lived, would not have married another; but as for you, how can you defend the bestial unions you indiscriminately make? Perhaps indeed you will say that you feared to contract marriage lest by so doing you might disqualify yourself for ordination. He took a wife that he might have children by her; you by taking a harlot have lost the hope of children. He withdrew into the privacy of his own chamber when he sought to obey nature and to win God’s blessing: “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.”2034 You on the contrary outraged public decency in the hot eagerness of your lust. He covered a lawful indulgence beneath a veil of modesty; you pursued an unlawful one shamelessly before the eyes of all. For him it is written “Marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled,” while to you the words are read, “but whoremongers and adulterers God wilt judge,”2035 and “if any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy.”2036 All iniquities, we are 2033 Exoleti. A Scottish tribe, cannibals according to Jerome (Against Jov. ii. 7.) Bk. V. 457. Matt. vii. 5. Matt. xxiii. 23, 24, R.V. Gen. i. 28. Heb. xiii. 4. told, are forgiven us at our baptism, and when once we have received God’s mercy we need not afterwards dread from Him the severity of a judge. The apostle says:—“And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”2037 All sins then are forgiven; it is an honest and faithful saying. But I ask you, how comes it that, while your uncleanness is washed away, my cleanness is made unclean? You reply, “No, it is not made unclean, it remains just what it was. Had it been uncleanness, it would have been washed away like mine.” I want to know what you mean by this shuffling. Your remarks seem to have no more point in them than the round end of a pestle. Is a thing sin because it is not sin? or is a thing unclean because it is not unclean? The Lord, you say, has not forgiven because He had nothing to forgive; yet because He has not forgiven, that which has not been forgiven still remains. 5. What the true effect of baptism is, and what is the real grace conveyed by water hallowed in Christ, I will presently tell you; meantime I will deal with this argument as it deserves. ‘An ill knot,’ says the common proverb, ‘requires but an ill wedge to split it.’ The text quoted by the objector, “a bishop must be the husband of one wife,” admits of quite another explanation. The apostle came of the Jews and the primitive Christian church was gathered out of the remnants of Israel. Paul knew that the Law allowed men to have children by several wives, and was aware that the example of the patriarchs had made polygamy familiar to the people. Even the very priests might at their own discretion enjoy the same license. He gave commandment therefore that the priests of the church should not claim this liberty, that they should not take two wives or three together, but that they should each have but one wife at one time. Perhaps you may say that this explanation which I have given is disputed; in that case listen to another. You must not have a monopoly of bending the Law to suit your will instead of bending your will to suit the Law. Some by a strained interpretation say that wives are in this passage to be taken for churches and husbands for their bishops. A decree was made by the fathers assembled at the council of Nicæa that no bishop should be translated from one church to another, lest scorning the society of a poor yet virgin see he should seek the embraces of a wealthy and adulterous one. For as the word λογισμόι, that is, “disputings,” refers to the fault and misdoing of sons in the faith, and as the precept concerning the management of a house refers to the right direction of body and of soul, so by the wives of the bishops we are to understand their churches. Concerning whom it is written in Isaiah, “Make haste ye women and come from the show, for it is a people of no understanding.”2043 And again “Rise up, ye women that are wealthy, and hear my voice.”2045 And in the Book of Proverbs, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.”2046 In the same book too it is written, “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the 2043 Ex. xxi. 10. Lev. xxi. 7, 13. Canon xv. Cf. Ph. ii. 14, 15. Isa. xxvii. 11, LXX. A.V. follows the Hebrew. A.V. that are at ease. Isa. xxxii. 9. Prov. xxxi. 10, 11. St. Jerome foolish plucketh it down with her hands.”2047 Nor does this, say they, derogate from the dignity of the episcopate; for the same figure is used in relation to God. Jeremiah writes: “As a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel.”2048 And the apostle employs the same comparison: “I have espoused you,” he says to his converts, “to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”2049 The word woman is in the Greek ambiguous and should in all these places be understood as meaning wife. You will say that this interpretation is harsh and does violence to the sense. In that case give back to the scripture its simple meaning and save me from the necessity of fighting you on your own ground. I will ask you the following question, Can a man who before his baptism has kept a concubine, and after her death has received baptism and has taken a wife, become a clergyman or not? You will answer me that he can, because his first partner was a concubine and not a wife. What the apostle condemns then, it would seem, is not mere sexual intercourse but marriage contracts and conjugal rights. Many persons, we see, because of narrow circumstances refuse to take upon them the burthen of matrimony. Instead of taking wives they live with their maid-servants and bring up as their own the children which these bear to them. Thus, if through the bounty of the Emperor they gain for their mistresses the right of wearing a matron’s robes, they will at once come beneath the yoke of the apostle and sorely against their will will have to receive their partners as their wedded wives. But, if their poverty prevents them from obtaining an imperial rescript such as I have mentioned, the decrees of the Church will vary with the laws of Rome. Be careful therefore not to interpret the words “the husband of one wife,” that is, of one woman, as approving indiscriminate intercourse and condemning only contracts of marriage. I bring forward all these explanations not for the purpose of resisting the true and simple sense of the words in question but to shew you that you must take the holy scriptures as they are written, and that you must not empty of its efficacy the baptismal rite ordained by the Saviour, or render vain the whole mystery of the cross. 6. Let me now fulfil the promise I made a little while ago and with all the skill of a rhetorician sing the praises of water and of baptism. In the beginning the earth was without form and void, there was no dazzling sun or pale moon, there were no glittering stars. There was nothing but matter inorganic and invisible, and even this was lost in abysmal depths and shrouded in a distorting gloom. The Spirit of God above moved, as a charioteer, over the face of the waters, and produced from them the infant world, a type of the Christian child that is drawn from the laver of baptism. A firmament is constructed between heaven and earth, and to this is allotted the name heaven,—in the Hebrew Shamayim or ‘what comes out of the waters,’—2053and the waters which are above the heavens are parted from the others to the praise of God. Wherefore also in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel there is seen above the cherubim a crystal stretched <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Prov. xiv. 1.">forth,</span> that is, the compressed and denser waters. The first living beings come out of the waters; and believers soar out of the laver 2053 Prov. xiv. 1. Jer. iii. 20. i.e. that of strained interpretations. V. Dict. Ant. s. v. stola and cf. Cic. Phil. ii. 18, 44. Gen. i. 2. It is hardly necessary to remark that this derivation is purely fanciful and has no foundation in fact. Ezek. i. 22. St. Jerome with wings to heaven. Man is formed out of clay and God holds the mystic waters in the hollow of his hand. In Eden a garden is planted, and a fountain in the midst of it parts into four heads. This is the same fountain which Ezekiel later on describes as issuing out of the temple and flowing towards the rising of the sun, until it heals the bitter waters and quickens those that are dead. When the world falls into sin nothing but a flood of waters can cleanse it again. But as soon as the foul bird of wickedness is driven away, the dove of the Holy Spirit comes to Noah as it came afterwards to Christ in the Jordan, and, carrying in its beak a branch betokening restoration and light, brings tidings of peace to the whole world. Pharaoh and his host, loth to allow God’s people to leave Egypt, are overwhelmed in the Red Sea figuring thereby our baptism.

Ep. LXXI–LXXIII — Letter LXXI. To Lucinius.

Letter LXXI. To Lucinius. Lucinius was a wealthy Spaniard of Bætica who in conformity with the ascetic ideas of his time had made a vow of continence with his wife Theodora. Being much interested in the study of scripture he proposed to visit Bethlehem, and in a.d. 397 sent several scribes thither to transcribe for him Jerome’s principal writings. To these on their return home Jerome now entrusts the following letter. In it he encourages Lucinius to fulfil his purpose of coming to Bethlehem, describes the books which he is sending to him, and answers two questions relating to ecclesiastical usage. He also sends him some trifling presents. Shortly after receiving the letter (written in 398 a.d.) Lucinius died and Jerome wrote to Theodora to console her for her loss (Letter LXXV). 1. Your letter which has suddenly arrived was not expected by me, and coming in an unlooked for way it has helped to rouse me from my torpor by the glad tidings which it conveys. I hasten to embrace with the arms of love one whom my eyes have never seen, and silently say to myself:—‘“oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I flee away and be at rest.”’2202 Then would I find him “whom my soul loveth.”2203 In you the Lord’s words are now truly fulfilled: “many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham.”2204 In those days the faith of my Lucinius was A Spanish Christian of the fourth century. His “Story of the Gospels,” a life of Christ in hexameter verse, still exists. For most of the writers mentioned in this section see also Jerome’s Book of Famous Men translated in Vol. iii. of this series. For an account of Epicurus see Letter V. § 5, note. He professed to have read but little. That Rufinus is the person meant is plain from a reference made to this passage in Apol. adv. Rufinum, i. 30 and also from Letter CII. § 3. Jerome is however mistaken in connecting this Calpurnius with Sallust. He is mentioned by Plutarch as a treacherous friend. Sallust does mention a certain Calpurinus Bestia, and Jerome has probably confounded the two. Ps. lv. 6. PBV. Cant. iii. 1. Matt. viii. 11. foreshadowed in Cornelius, “centurion of the band called the Italian band.”2205 And when the apostle Paul writes to the Romans: “whensoever I take my journey into Spain I will come to you: for I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you;”2206 he shews by the tale of his previous successes what he looked to gain from that <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Italy.">province.</span> Laying in a short time the foundation of the gospel “from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum,”2208 he enters Rome in bonds, that he may free those who are in the bonds of error and superstition. Two years he dwells in his own hired <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Acts xxviii. 30.">house</span> that he may give to us the house eternal which is spoken of in both the testaments. The apostle, the fisher of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Matt. iv. 19.">men,</span> has cast forth his net, and, among countless kinds of fish, has landed you like a magnificent gilt-bream. You have left behind you the bitter waves, the salt tides, the mountain-fissures; you have despised Leviathan who reigns in the waters. Your aim is to seek the wilderness with Jesus and to sing the prophet’s song: “my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary,”2213 or, as he sings in another place, “lo, then would I wander far off and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.”2214 Since you have left Sodom and are hastening to the mountains, I beseech you with a father’s affection not to look behind you. Your hands have grasped the handle of the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Luke ix. 62.">plough,</span> the hem of the Saviour’s garment, and His locks wet with the dew of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Cant. v. 2.">night;</span> do not let them go. Do not come down from the housetop of virtue to seek for the clothes which you wore of old, nor return home from the field. Do not like Lot set your heart on the plain or upon the pleasant <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Gen. xiii. 10.">gardens;</span> for these are watered not, as the holy land, from heaven but by Jordan’s muddy stream made salt by contact with the Dead Sea. 2. Many begin but few persevere to the end. “They which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the crown.”2220 But of us on the other hand it is said: “So run that ye may obtain.”2221 Our master of the games is not grudging; he does not give the palm to one and disgrace another. His wish is that all his athletes may alike win garlands. My soul rejoices, yet the very greatness of my joy makes me feel sad. Like Ruth when I try to speak I burst into tears. Zacchæus, the convert of an hour, is accounted worthy to receive the Saviour as his <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Luke xix. 5.">guest.</span> Martha and Mary make ready a feast Acts x. 1. Rom. xv. 24. Italy. Rom. xv. 19. Acts xxviii. 30. Utriusque instrumenti æternam domum. The ‘twofold record’ is that of the old and new testaments both of which speak of the church under the figure of a house. For the term “instrument” see note on Letter. Matt. iv. 19. Cf. Ps. civ. 26. Ps. lxiii. 1, 2. Ps. lv. 7, 8. Luke ix. 62. Matt. ix. 20. Cant. v. 2. Matt. xxiv. 17, 18. Gen. xiii. 10. Jerome quoting from memory substitutes ‘crown’ for ‘prize.’ Ruth i. 14. Luke xix. 5. St. Jerome and then welcome the Lord to it. A harlot washes His feet with her tears and against His burial anoints His body with the ointment of good works. Simon the leper invites the Master with His disciples and is not refused. To Abraham it is said: “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee.”2227 He leaves Chaldæa, he leaves Mesopotamia; he seeks what he knows not, not to lose Him whom he has found. He does not deem it possible to keep both his country and his Lord; even at that early day he is already fulfilling the prophet David’s words: “I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.”2228 He is called “a Hebrew,” in Greek περάτής, a passer-over, for not content with present excellence but forgetting those things which are behind he reaches forth to that which is before. He makes his own the words of the psalmist: “they shall go from strength to strength.”2230 Thus his name has a mystic meaning and he has opened for you a way to seek not your own things but those of another. You too must leave your home as he did, and must take for your parents, brothers, and relations only those who are linked to you in Christ. “Whosoever,” He says, “shall do the will of my father…the same is my brother and sister and mother.”2231 3. You have with you one who was once your partner in the flesh but is now your partner in the spirit; once your wife but now your sister; once a woman but now a man; once an inferior but now an equal. Under the same yoke as you she hastens toward the same heavenly kingdom. A too careful management of one’s income, a too near calculation of one’s expenses—these are habits not easily laid aside. Yet to escape the Egyptian woman Joseph had to leave his garment with her. And the young man who followed Jesus having a linen cloth cast about him, when he was assailed by the servants had to throw away his earthly covering and to flee naked. Elijah also when he was carried up in a chariot of fire to heaven left his mantle of sheepskin on earth. Elisha used for sacrifice the oxen and the yokes which hitherto he had employed in his work. We read in Ecclesiasticus: “he that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith.”2237 As long as we are occupied with the things of the world, as long as our soul is fettered with possessions and revenues, we cannot think freely of God. “For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?”2238 “Ye cannot,” the Lord says, “serve God and Mammon.”2239 Now the laying aside of money is for those who are beginners in the way, not for 2230 2236 Mark xiv. 8. Matt. xxvi. 6. Gen. xii. 1. Ps. xxxix. 12. Phil. iii. 13. Ps. lxxxiv. 7. Matt. xii. 50. His wife Theodora. Gen. xxxix. 12. Mark xiv. 51, 52. 1 Kings xix. 21. Ecclus. xiii. 1. Matt. vi. 24. those who are made perfect. Heathens like <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="A disciple of Socrates, subsequently the founder of the Cynic School. Fl. 366 b.c.">Antisthenes</span> and Crates the Theban have done as much before now. But to offer one’s self to God, this is the mark of Christians and apostles. These like the widow out of their penury cast their two mites into the treasury, and giving all that they have to the Lord are counted worthy to hear his words: “ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”2242 4. You can see for yourself why I mention these things; without expressly saying it I am inviting you to take up your abode at the holy places. Your abundance has supported the want of many that some day their riches may abound to supply your want; you have made to yourself “friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that they may receive you into everlasting habitations.”2244 Such conduct deserves praise and merits to be compared with the virtue of apostolic times. Then, as you know, believers sold their possessions and brought the prices of them and laid them down at the apostles’ <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Acts iv. 34, 35.">feet:</span> a symbolic act designed to shew that men must trample on covetousness. But the Lord yearns for believers’ souls more than for their riches. We read in the Proverbs: “the ransom of a man’s soul are his own riches.”2246 We may, indeed, take a man’s own riches to be those which do not come from some one else, or from plunder; according to the precept: “honour God with thy just labours.”2247 But the sense is better if we understand a man’s “own riches” to be those hidden treasures which no thief can steal and no robber wrest from him. 5. As for my poor works which from no merits of theirs but simply from your own kindness you say that you desire to have; I have given them to your servants to transcribe, I have seen the paper-copies made by them, and I have repeatedly ordered them to correct them by a diligent comparison with the originals. For so many are the pilgrims passing to and fro that I have been unable to read so many volumes. They have found me also troubled by a long illness from which this Lent I am slowly recovering as they are leaving me. If then you find errors or omissions which interfere with the sense, these you must impute not to me but to your own servants; they are due to the ignorance or carelessness of the copyists, who write down not what they find but what they take to be the meaning, and do but expose their own mistakes when they try to correct those of others. It is a false rumour which has reached you to the effect that I have translated the books of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="See note on Letter XXII. § 35.">Josephus</span> and the volumes of the holy men Papias and <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Another sub-apostolic writer who was also a disciple of John. He became bishop of Smyrna and underwent martyrdom">Polycarp.</span> I have neither the leisure nor the ability to preserve the charm of these masterpieces in another tongue. Of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="See note on Letter XXXIII.">Origen</span> and Didymus I have translated a few things, to set before my countrymen some specimens of Greek A disciple of Socrates, subsequently the founder of the Cynic School. Fl. 366 b.c. See note on Letter LXVI. § 8. Matt. xix. 28. Luke xvi. 9. Acts iv. 34, 35. Prov. xiii. 8, LXX. Prov. iii. 9, LXX. Cf. Matt. vi. 20. See note on Letter XXII. § 35. A writer of the sub-apostolic age who had been a disciple of the apostle John. He was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia. Another sub-apostolic writer who was also a disciple of John. He became bishop of Smyrna and underwent martyrdom at the age of 86. See note on Letter XXXIII. The blind theologian of Alexandria by whose teaching Jerome had himself profited. See Letter XXXIV. § 3. St. Jerome teaching. The canon of the Hebrew verity2254—except the octoteuch which I have at present in hand—I have placed at the disposal of your slaves and copyists. Doubtless you already possess the version from the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="This work Jerome accomplished between the years 383 and 390 a.d. Only the Psalter and Job are extant.">septuagint</span> which many years ago I diligently revised for the use of students. The new testament I have restored to the authoritative form of the Greek original. For as the true text of the old testament can only be tested by a reference to the Hebrew, so the true text of the new requires for its decision an appeal to the Greek. 6. You ask me whether you ought to fast on the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="i.e. on Saturday.">Sabbath</span> and to receive the eucharist daily according to the custom—as currently reported—of the churches of Rome and Spain. Both these points have been treated by the eloquent <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="A leading Roman churchman, bishop of Portus, in the early part of the third century, the rival and enemy of pope Callistus">Hippolytus,</span> and several writers have collected passages from different authors bearing upon them. The best advice that I can give you is this. Church-traditions—especially when they do not run counter to the faith—are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down; and the use of one church is not to be annulled because it is contrary to that of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Compare the similar advice given by Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury (Bede, H. E. 1. 27).">another.</span> As regards fasting, I wish that we could practise it without intermission as—according to the Acts of the Apostles2262—Paul did and the believers with him even in the season of Pentecost and on the Lord’s Day. They are not to be accused of manichæism, for carnal food ought not to be preferred before spiritual. As regards the holy eucharist you may receive it at all <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Daily if you will and on fast days as well as on feast days.">times</span> without qualm of conscience or disapproval from me. You may listen to the psalmist’s words:—“O taste and see that the Lord is good;”2264 you may sing as he does:—“my heart poureth forth a good word.”2265 But do not mistake my meaning. You are not to fast on feast-days, neither are you to abstain on the week days in Pentecost. In such matters each province may follow its own inclinations, and the traditions which have been handed down should be regarded as apostolic laws. 7. You send me two small cloaks and a sheepskin mantle from your wardrobe and ask me to wear them myself or to give them to the poor. In return I send to you and your <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="i.e. his wife Theodora.">sister</span> in the Lord four small haircloths suitable to your religious profession and to your daily needs, for they are the mark of poverty and the outward witness of a continual penitence. To these I have added a manuscript containing Isaiah’s ten most obscure visions which I have lately elucidated with a critical commentary. When you look upon these trifles call to mind the friend in whom you delight and hasten the voyage which you have for a time deferred. And because “the way of man is not in himself” but it is the Lord that “directeth his steps;”2268 if any hindrance should interfere—I hope The old testament as translated direct from the Hebrew. The first eight books. This work Jerome accomplished between the years 383 and 390 a.d. Only the Psalter and Job are extant. This task he undertook at the request of pope Damasus in 383 a.d. See Letter XXVII. i.e. on Saturday. At this time the communion was celebrated daily at Constantinople, in Africa, and in Spain. At Rome it was celebrated on every day of the week except Saturday (the Sabbath). See Socrates, H. E. v. 22. A leading Roman churchman, bishop of Portus, in the early part of the third century, the rival and enemy of pope Callistus and author of many theological treatises, one of which—the Refutation of all Heresies—has recently become famous. Compare the similar advice given by Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury (Bede, H. E. 1. 27). Nothing in the book of Acts bears out this statement. Fasting at the times mentioned was forbidden in Jerome’s day. Daily if you will and on fast days as well as on feast days. Ps. xxxiv. 8. Ps. xlv. 1, Vulg. i.e. the period of fifty days between Easterday and Whitsunday. See Letter XLI. §3. i.e. his wife Theodora. Jer. x. 23. none may—to prevent you from coming, I pray that distance may not sever those united in affection and that I may find my Lucinius present in absence through an interchange of letters. Letter LXXII. To Vitalis. Vitalis had asked Jerome “Is Scripture credible when it tells us that Solomon and Ahaz became fathers at the age of eleven?” The difficulty had previously occurred to Jerome himself (Letter XXXVI. 10, whence perhaps Vitalis took it) and in this letter he suggests several ways in which it may be met. He is quite prepared, if necessary, to accept the alleged fact on the grounds that “there are many things in Scripture which sound incredible and yet are true” and that “nature cannot resist the Lord of nature” (§2). He is disposed, however, to regard the question as trivial and of no importance. The date of the letter is 398 a.d. Letter LXXIII. To Evangelus. Evangelus had sent Jerome an anonymous treatise in which Melchisedek was identified with the Holy Ghost, and had asked him what he thought of the theory. Jerome in his reply repudiates the idea as absurd and insists that Melchisedek was a real man, possibly, as the Jews said, Shem the eldest son of Noah. The date of the letter is 398 a.d.

Ep. LXXIV–LXXVI — Letter LXXIV. To Rufinus of Rome.

Letter LXXIV. To Rufinus of Rome. Rufinus, a Roman Presbyter (to be carefully distinguished from Rufinus of Aquileia and Rufinus the Syrian), had written to Jerome for an explanation of the judgment of Solomon (1 Kings iii. 16–28). This Jerome gives at length, treating the narrative as a parable and making the false and true mothers types of the Synagogue and the Church. The date of the letter is 398 a.d. Letter LXXV. To Theodora. Theodora the wife of the learned Spaniard Lucinius (for whom see Letter LXXI.) had recently lost her husband, a bereavement which suggested the present letter. In it Jerome recounts the many virtues of Lucinius and especially his zeal in resisting the gnostic heresy of Marcus which during his life was prevalent in Spain. The date of the letter is 399 a.d. 1. So overpowered am I by the sad intelligence of the falling asleep of the holy and by me deeply revered Lucinius that I am scarcely able to dictate even a short letter. I do not, it is true, lament his fate, for I know that he has passed to better things: like Moses he can say: “I will now turn aside and see this great sight,”2269 but I am tormented with regret that I was not allowed to look upon the face of one, who was likely, as I believed, in a short time to come hither. True indeed is the prophetic warning concerning the doom of death that it divides brothers, and with harsh and cruel hand sunders those whose names are linked together in the bonds of love. But we have this consolation that it is slain by the word of the Lord. For it is said: “O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction,” and in the next verse: “An east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up.”2271 For, as Isaiah says, “there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots”: and He says Himself in the Song of Songs, “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley.”2273 Our rose is the destruction of death, and died that death itself might die in His dying. But, when it is said that He is to be brought “from the wilderness,” the virgin’s womb is indicated, which without sexual intercourse or impregnation has given to us God in the form of an infant able to quench by the glow of the Holy Spirit the fountains of lust and to sing in the words of the psalm: “as in a dry and pathless and waterless land, so have I appeared unto thee in the sanctuary.”2274 Thus when we have to face the hard and cruel necessity of death, we are upheld by this consolation, that we shall shortly see again those whose absence we now mourn. For their end is not called death but a slumber and a falling asleep. Wherefore also the blessed apostle forbids us to sorrow concerning them which are asleep, telling us to believe that those whom we know to sleep now may hereafter be roused from their sleep, and when their slumber is ended may watch once more with the saints and sing with the angels:—“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men of good will.”2276 In heaven where there is no sin, there is glory and perpetual praise and unwearied singing; but on earth where sedition reigns, and war and discord hold sway, peace must be gained by prayer, and it is to be found not among all but only among men of good will, who pay heed to the apostolic salutation: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”2277 For “His abode is in peace and His dwelling place is in Zion,”2278 that is, on a watch-tower, on a height of doctrines and of virtues, in the soul of the believer; for the angel of this latter daily beholds the face of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Exod. iii. 3.">God,</span> and contemplates with unveiled face the glory of God. 2. Wherefore, though you are already running in the way, I urge a willing horse, as the saying goes, and implore you, while you regret in your Lucinius a true brother, to rejoice as well that he now reigns with Christ. For, as it is written in the book of Wisdom, he was “taken away lest that wickedness should alter his understanding…for his soul pleased the Lord…and he…in a short time 2274 Exod. iii. 3. Hos. xiii. 15, Vulg. Quia ipse inter fratres dividet. A.V. follows the Hebrew. Hos. xiii. 14, 15. Isa. xi. 1, Vulg. Cant. ii. 1. Ps. lxiii. 1, 2, Vulg. Luke ii. 14, Vulg. Rom. i. 7. Ps. lxxvi. 2. “Salem” (A.V.), the Hebrew word for peace. See Jerome’s Book of Hebrew Names. Cf. also Letter CVIII. § 9. Matt. xviii. 10. St. Jerome fulfilled a long time.”2281 We may with more right weep for ourselves that we stand daily in conflict with our sins, that we are stained with vices, that we receive wounds, and that we must give account for every idle word. Victorious now and free from care he looks down upon you from on high and supports you in your struggle, nay more, he prepares for you a place near to himself; for his love and affection towards you are still the same as when, disregarding his claim on you as a husband, he resolved to treat you even on earth as a sister, or indeed I may say as a brother, for difference of sex while essential to marriage is not so to a continent tie. And since even in the flesh, if we are born again in Christ, we are no longer Greek and Barbarian, bond and free, male and female, but are all one in <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Gal. iii. 28.">Him,</span> how much more true will this be when this corruptible has put on incorruption and when this mortal has put on immortality. “In the resurrection,” the Lord tells us, “they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels…in heaven.”2285 Now when it is said that they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels in heaven, there is no taking away of a natural and real body but only an indication of the greatness of the glory to come. For the words are not “they shall be angels” but “they shall be as the angels”: thus while likeness to the angels is promised identity with them is refused. “They shall be,” Christ tells us, “as the angels,” that is like the angels; therefore they will not cease to be human. Glorious indeed they shall be, and graced with angelic splendour, but they will still be human; the apostle Paul will still be Paul, Mary will still be Mary. Then shall confusion overtake that <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Origenism.">heresy</span> which holds out great but vague promises only that it may take away hopes which are at once modest and certain. 3. And now that I have once mentioned the word “heresy,” where can I find a trumpet loud enough to proclaim the eloquence of our dear Lucinius, who, when the filthy heresy of Basilides raged in Spain and like a pestilence ravaged the provinces between the Pyrenees and the ocean, upheld in all its purity the faith of the church and altogether refused to embrace Armagil, Barbelon, Abraxas, Balsamum, and the absurd Leusibora. Such are the portentous names which, to excite the minds of unlearned men and weak women, they pretend to draw from Hebrew sources, terrifying the simple by barbarous combinations which they admire the more the less they understand <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="These terms, the meanings of which are very uncertain, are either the names of æons or magical formulæ used by the">them.</span> The growth of this heresy is described for us by Irenæus, bishop of the church of Lyons, a man of the apostolic times, who was a disciple of Papias the hearer of the evangelist John. He informs us that a certain <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="A gnostic of the school of Valentinus, who taught in the middle of the second century. Jerome is in error when he describes">Mark,</span> of the stock of the gnostic Basilides, came in the first instance to Gaul, that he contaminated with his teaching those parts of the country which are watered by the Rhone and the Garonne, and that in particular he misled by his errors high-born women; to whom he promised certain secret mysteries and whose affection he enlisted by magic arts and hidden indulgence in unlawful intercourse. Irenæus goes on to say that subsequently Mark crossed the Pyrenees and occupied Spain, making it his object to seek out the houses of the wealthy, and in these especially Wisd. iv. 11–14. Matt. xii. 36. Gal. iii. 28. Matt. xxii. 30. Origenism. Probably as revived by Priscillian, who was put to death 385. See Jerome On Illustrious Men, c. 121. These terms, the meanings of which are very uncertain, are either the names of æons or magical formulæ used by the Marcosians in the celebration of their mysteries. A gnostic of the school of Valentinus, who taught in the middle of the second century. Jerome is in error when he describes him as a disciple of Basilides. the women, concerning whom we are told that they are “led away with divers lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”2290 All this he wrote about three hundred years ago in the extremely learned and eloquent books which he composed under the title Against all heresies. 4. From these facts you in your wisdom will realize how worthy of praise our dear Lucinius shewed himself when he shut his ears that he might not have to hear the judgement passed upon blood <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Is. xxxiii. 15. Jerome’s allusion may be to the execution of Priscillian in 385. Lucinius may have shared the views of">shedders,</span> and dispersed all his substance and gave to the poor that his righteousness might endure for <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Ps. cxii. 9.">ever.</span> And not satisfied with bestowing his bounty upon his own country, he sent to the churches of Jerusalem and Alexandria gold enough to alleviate the want of large numbers. But while many will admire and extol in him this liberality, I for my part will rather praise him for his zeal and diligence in the study of the scriptures. With what eagerness he asked for my poor works! He actually sent six copyists (for in this province there is a dearth of scribes who understand Latin) to copy for him all that I have ever dictated from my youth until the present time. The honour was not of course paid to me who am but a little child, the least of all Christians, living in the rocks near Bethlehem because I know myself a sinner; but to Christ who is honoured in his servants and who makes this promise to them, “He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.”2295 5. Therefore, my beloved daughter, regard this letter as the epitaph which love prompts me to write upon your husband, and if there is any spiritual work of which you think me to be capable, boldly command me to undertake it: that so ages to come may know that He who says of Himself in Isaiah, “He hath made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me,”2296 has with His sharp arrow so wounded two men severed by an immense interval of sea and land, that, although they know each other not in the flesh, they are knit together in love in the spirit. May you be kept holy both in body and spirit by the Samaritan—that is, saviour and keeper—of whom it is said in the psalm, “He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”2297 May the watcher and the holy one who came down to Daniel come also to you, that you too may be able to say, “I sleep but my heart waketh.”2299 Letter LXXVI. To Abigaus. Abigaus the recipient of this letter was a blind presbyter of Bætica in Spain. He had asked the help of Jerome’s prayers in his struggles with evil and Jerome now writes to cheer and to console An error for ‘two hundred years ago.’ Is. xxxiii. 15. Jerome’s allusion may be to the execution of Priscillian in 385. Lucinius may have shared the views of Ambrose and Martin against the shedding of blood. Ps. cxii. 9. Luke ix. 48. Matt. x. 40. Isa. xlix. 2. Ps. cxxi. 4. Dan. iv. 13. Lit. May Hir, that is the watcher, Hir being the Hebrew word. Cant. v. 2. him. He concludes his remarks by commending to his especial care the widow Theodora. The letter should be compared with that addressed to Castrutius (LXVIII.). It was written at the same time with the preceding. 1. Although I am conscious of many sins and every day pray on bended knees, “Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions, yet because I know that it has been said by the Apostle “let a man not be lifted up with pride lest he fall into the condemnation of the devil,”2301 and that it is written in another passage, “God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble,”2302 there is nothing I have striven so much to avoid from my boyhood up as a swelling mind and a stiff neck, things which always provoke against themselves the wrath of God. For I know that my master and Lord and God has said in the lowliness of His flesh: “Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart,”2304 and that before this He has sung by the mouth of David: “Lord, remember David and all his gentleness.”2305 Again we read in another passage, “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty; and before honour is humility.”2306 Do not, then, I implore you, suppose that I have received your letter and have passed it over in silence. Do not, I beseech you, lay to my charge the dishonesty and negligence of which others have been guilty. For why should I, when called on to respond to your kind advances, continue dumb and repel by my silence the friendship which you offer? I who am always forward to seek intimate relations with the good and even to thrust myself upon their affection. “Two,” we read, “are better than one.…for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.…a three fold cord is not quickly broken, and a brother that helps his brother shall be exalted.”2307 Write to me, therefore, boldly, and overcome the effect of absence by frequent colloquies. 2. You should not grieve that you are destitute of those bodily eyes which ants, flies, and creeping things have as well as men; rather you should rejoice that you possess that eye of which it is said in the Song of Songs, “Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes.”2308 This is the eye with which God is seen and to which Moses refers when he says:—“I will now turn aside and see this great sight.”2309 We even read of some philosophers of this world that they have plucked out their eyes in order to turn all their thoughts upon the pure depths of the mind. And a prophet has said “Death has entered through your windows.”2311 Our Lord too tells the Apostles: “Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”2312 Consequently they are commanded to lift up their eyes and to look on the fields, for these are white and ready for <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Ps. xxv. 7.">harvest.</span> 2305 2311 Ps. xxv. 7. James iv. 6. Cf. Ps. lxxv. 5. Matt. xi. 29. Ps. cxxxii. 1, Vulg. A.V. has ‘afflictions.’ Prov. xviii. 12. Eccl. iv. 9–12. The last clause is Jerome’s own. Cant. iv. 9. Ex. iii. 3. Cicero ascribes this piece of fanaticism to Democritus and Metrodorus. Jer. ix. 21. LXX. Matt. v. 28. Joh. iv. 35. 3. You request me by my exhortations to slay in you Nebuchadnezzar and Rabshakeh and Nebuzar-adan and Holofernes. Were they alive in you, you would never have sought my aid. No, they are dead within you, and you have begun to build up the ruins of Jerusalem with the help of Zerubbabel and of Joshua the son of Josedech the high priest, of Ezra and of Nehemiah. You do not put your wages into a bag with holes, but you lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, and if you seek my friendship, it is because you believe me to be a servant of Christ. I commend to you—although she needs no commendation but her own—my holy daughter Theodora, formerly the wife or rather the sister of Lucinius of blessed memory. Tell her that she must not grow weary of the path upon which she has entered, and that she can only reach the Holy Land by toiling through the wilderness. Warn her against supposing that the work of virtue is perfected when she has made her exodus from Egypt. Remind her that she must pass through snares innumerable to arrive at mount Nebo and the River Jordan, that she must receive circumcision anew at Gilgal, that Jericho must fall before her, overthrown by the blasts of priestly trumpets, that Adoni-zedec must be slain, that Ai and Hazor, once fairest of cities, must both fall. The brothers who are with me in the monastery salute you, and I through you earnestly salute those reverend persons who deign to bestow upon me their regard.

Ep. LXXVII–LXXIX — Letter LXXVII. To Oceanus.

Letter LXXVII. To Oceanus. The eulogy of Fabiola whose restless life had come to an end in 399 a.d. Jerome tells the story of her sin and of her penitence (for which see Letter LV.), of the hospital established by her at Portus, of her visit to Bethlehem, and of her earnestness in the study of scripture. He relates how he wrote for her his account of the vestments of the high priest (Letter LXIV.) and how at the time of her death he was at her request engaged upon a commentary on the forty-two halting-places of the Israelites in the wilderness (Letter LXXIX.). This last he now sends along with this letter to Oceanus. Jerome also bestows praise upon Pammachius as the companion of all Fabiola’s labours. The date of the letter is 399 a.d. 1. Several years since I consoled the venerated Paula, whilst her affliction was still recent for the falling asleep of Blæsilla. Four summers ago I wrote for the bishop Heliodorus the epitaph of Nepotian, and expended what ability I possessed in giving expression to my grief at his loss. Only two years have elapsed since I sent a brief letter to my dear Pammachius on the sudden flitting of his <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="The legendary oppressor of the Jews, whose fate is described in the Book of Judith.">Paulina.</span> I blushed to say more to one so learned or to give him back his own thoughts: 2319 The legendary oppressor of the Jews, whose fate is described in the Book of Judith. Hagg. i. 6. Matt. vi. 20. Nu. xxxiii. 47, 48. Josh. v. 2, 9. Josh. vi. 20. Josh. x. 1, 26. Josh. viii; xi. 10. Letter XXXIX. Letter LX. Letter LXVI. lest I should seem less the consoler of a friend than the officious instructor of one already perfect. But now, Oceanus my son, the duty that you lay upon me is one that I gladly accept and would even seek unasked. For when new virtues have to be dealt with, an old subject itself becomes new. In previous cases I have had to soften and restrain a mother’s affection, an uncle’s grief, and a husband’s yearning; according to the different requirements of each I have had to apply from scripture different remedies. 2. To-day you give me as my theme Fabiola, the praise of the Christians, the marvel of the gentiles, the sorrow of the poor, and the consolation of the monks. Whatever point in her character I choose to treat of first, pales into insignificance compared with those which follow after. Shall I praise her fasts? Her alms are greater still. Shall I commend her lowliness? The glow of her faith is yet brighter. Shall I mention her studied plainness in dress, her voluntary choice of plebeian costume and the garb of a slave that she might put to shame silken robes? To change one’s disposition is a greater achievement than to change one’s dress. It is harder for us to part with arrogance than with gold and gems. For, even though we throw away these, we plume ourselves sometimes on a meanness that is really ostentatious, and we make a bid with a saleable poverty for the popular applause. But a virtue that seeks concealment and is cherished in the inner consciousness appeals to no judgement but that of God. Thus the eulogies which I have to bestow upon Fabiola will be altogether new: I must neglect the order of the rhetoricians and begin all I have to say only from the cradle of her conversion and of her penitence. Another writer, mindful of the school, would perhaps bring forward Quintus Maximus, “the man who by delaying rescued Rome,”2325 and the whole Fabian family; he would describe their struggles and battles and would exult that Fabiola had come to us through a line so noble, shewing that qualities not apparent in the branch still existed in the root. But as I am a lover of the inn at Bethlehem and of the Lord’s stable in which the virgin travailed with and gave birth to an infant God, I shall deduce the lineage of Christ’s handmaid not from a stock famous in history but from the lowliness of the church. 3. And because at the very outset there is a rock in the path and she is overwhelmed by a storm of censure, for having forsaken her first husband and having taken a second, I will not praise her for her conversion till I have first cleared her of this charge. So terrible then were the faults imputed to her former husband that not even a prostitute or a common slave could have put up with them. If I were to recount them, I should undo the heroism of the wife who chose to bear the blame of a separation rather than to blacken the character and expose the stains of him who was one body with her. I will only urge this one plea which is sufficient to exonerate a chaste matron and a Christian woman. The Lord has given commandment that a wife must not be put away “except it be for fornication, and that, if put away, she must remain unmarried.”2326 Now a commandment which is given to men logically applies to women also. For it cannot be that, while an adulterous wife is to be put away, an incontinent husband is to be retained. The apostle says: “he which is joined to an harlot is one body.”2327 Therefore she also who is joined to a whoremonger and unchaste person is made one body with him. The laws of Cæsar are different, it is true, from the laws of Christ: Ennius. Matt. xix. 9; 1 Cor. vii. 11. St. Jerome <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="A Roman jurist of great renown who held high legal office first under Marcus Aurelius and afterwards under Severus.">Papinianus</span> commands one thing; our own Paul another. Earthly laws give a free rein to the unchastity of men, merely condemning seduction and adultery; lust is allowed to range unrestrained among brothels and slave girls, as if the guilt were constituted by the rank of the person assailed and not by the purpose of the assailant. But with us Christians what is unlawful for women is equally unlawful for men, and as both serve the same God both are bound by the same obligations. Fabiola then has put away—they are quite right—a husband that was a sinner, guilty of this and that crime, sins—I have almost mentioned their names—with which the whole neighbourhood resounded but which the wife alone refused to disclose. If however it is made a charge against her that after repudiating her husband she did not continue unmarried, I readily admit this to have been a fault, but at the same time declare that it may have been a case of necessity. “It is better,” the apostle tells us, “to marry than to burn.”2329 She was quite a young woman, she was not able to continue in widowhood. In the words of the apostle she saw another law in her members warring against the law of her mind; she felt herself dragged in chains as a captive towards the indulgences of wedlock. Therefore she thought it better openly to confess her weakness and to accept the semblance of an unhappy marriage than, with the name of a monogamist, to ply the trade of a courtesan. The same apostle wills that the younger widows should marry, bear children, and give no occasion to the adversary to speak <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="1 Tim. v. 14.">reproachfully.</span> And he at once goes on to explain his wish: “for some are already turned aside after Satan.”2332 Fabiola therefore was fully persuaded in her own mind: she thought she had acted legitimately in putting away her husband, and that when she had done so she was free to marry again. She did not know that the rigour of the gospel takes away from women all pretexts for re-marriage so long as their former husbands are alive; and not knowing this, though she contrived to evade other assaults of the devil, she at this point unwittingly exposed herself to a wound from him. 4. But why do I linger over old and forgotten matters, seeking to excuse a fault for which Fabiola has herself confessed her penitence? Who would believe that, after the death of her second husband at a time when most widows, having shaken off the yoke of servitude, grow careless and allow themselves more liberty than ever, frequenting the baths, flitting through the streets, shewing their harlot faces everywhere; that at this time Fabiola came to herself? Yet it was then that she put on sackcloth to make public confession of her error. It was then that in the presence of all Rome (in the basilica which formerly belonged to that Lateranus who perished by the sword of Cæsar2333) she stood in the ranks of the penitents and exposed before bishop, presbyters, and people—all of whom wept when they saw her weep—her dishevelled hair, pale features, soiled hands and unwashed neck. What sins would such a penance fail to purge away? What ingrained stains would such tears be unable to wash out? By a threefold confession Peter blotted out his threefold <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Joh. xviii. 15–27; xxi. 15–17.">denial.</span> If Aaron committed sacrilege by fashioning molten gold into the head of a calf, his brother’s prayers made A Roman jurist of great renown who held high legal office first under Marcus Aurelius and afterwards under Severus. He was put to death by Caracalla. Rom. vii. 23. 1 Tim. v. 15. A senator who having conspired against Nero was by that emperor put to death. His palace on the Ælian Hill was long afterwards bestowed by Constantine upon pope Silvester who made it a church which it has ever since remained. Joh. xviii. 15–27; xxi. 15–17. St. Jerome amends for his transgressions. If holy David, meekest of men, committed the double sin of murder and adultery, he atoned for it by a fast of seven days. He lay upon the earth, he rolled in the ashes, he forgot his royal power, he sought for light in the darkness. And then, turning his eyes to that God whom he had so deeply offended, he cried with a lamentable voice: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight,” and “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit.”2337 He who by his virtues teaches me how to stand and not to fall, by his penitence teaches me how, if I fall, I may rise again. Among the kings do we read of any so wicked as Ahab, of whom the scripture says: “there was none like unto Ahab which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord”? For shedding Naboth’s blood Elijah rebuked him, and the prophet denounced God’s wrath against him: “Hast thou killed and also taken possession?…behold I will bring evil upon thee and will take away thy posterity”2339 and so on. Yet when Ahab heard these words “he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted…in sackcloth, and went softly.”2340 Then came the word of God to Elijah the Tishbite saying: “Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days.”2341 O happy penitence which has drawn down upon itself the eyes of God, and which has by confessing its error changed the sentence of God’s anger! The same conduct is in the Chronicles attributed to Manasseh, and in the book of the prophet Jonah to Nineveh, and in the gospel to the publican. The first of these not only was allowed to obtain forgiveness but also recovered his kingdom, the second broke the force of God’s impending wrath, while the third, smiting his breast with his hands, “would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven.” Yet for all that the publican with his humble confession of his faults went back justified far more than the Pharisee with his arrogant boasting of his virtues. This is not however the place to preach penitence, neither am I writing against Montanus and Novatus. Else would I say of it that it is “a sacrifice…well pleasing to God,”2346 I would cite the words of the psalmist: “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,”2347 and those of Ezekiel “I prefer the repentance of a sinner rather than his death,”2348 and those of Baruch, “Arise, arise, O Jerusalem,”2349 and many other proclamations made by the trumpets of the prophets. 5. But this one thing I will say, for it is at once useful to my readers and pertinent to my present theme. As Fabiola was not ashamed of the Lord on earth, so He shall not be ashamed of her in <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Ex. xxxii. 30–35.">heaven.</span> She laid bare her wound to the gaze of all, and Rome beheld with tears the disfiguring 2341 2347 2 Sam. xii. 16. Ps. li. 4, 12. 1 Kings xxi. 19, 21. 1 Kings xxi. 28, 29. Jon. iii. 5–10. Luke xviii. 13. Rigourists who denied the power of the Church to absolve persons who had fallen into sin. Ph. iv. 18. Ps. li. 17. Cf. Ezek. xviii. 23. Bar. v. 5, cf. Isa. lx. 1. Luke ix. 26. scar which marred her beauty. She uncovered her limbs, bared her head, and closed her mouth. She no longer entered the church of God but, like Miriam the sister of Moses, she sat apart without the camp, till the priest who had cast her out should himself call her back. She came down like the daughter of Babylon from the throne of her daintiness, she took the millstones and ground meal, she passed barefooted through rivers of tears. She sat upon the coals of fire, and these became her aid. That face by which she had once pleased her second husband she now smote with blows; she hated jewels, shunned ornaments and could not bear to look upon fine linen. In fact she bewailed the sin she had committed as bitterly as if it had been adultery, and went to the expense of many remedies in her eagerness to cure her one wound. 6. Having found myself aground in the shallows of Fabiola’s sin, I have dwelt thus long upon her penitence in order that I might open up a larger and quite unimpeded space for the description of her praises. Restored to communion before the eyes of the whole church, what did she do? In the day of prosperity she was not forgetful of affliction; and, having once suffered shipwreck she was unwilling again to face the risks of the sea. Instead therefore of re-embarking on her old life, she broke up and sold all that she could lay hands on of her property (it was large and suitable to her rank), and turning it into money she laid out this for the benefit of the poor. She was the first person to found a hospital, into which she might gather sufferers out of the streets, and where she might nurse the unfortunate victims of sickness and want. Need I now recount the various ailments of human beings? Need I speak of noses slit, eyes put out, feet half burnt, hands covered with sores? Or of limbs dropsical and atrophied? Or of diseased flesh alive with worms? Often did she carry on her own shoulders persons infected with jaundice or with filth. Often too did she wash away the matter discharged from wounds which others, even though men, could not bear to look at. She gave food to her patients with her own hand, and moistened the scarce breathing lips of the dying with sips of liquid. I know of many wealthy and devout persons who, unable to overcome their natural repugnance to such sights, perform this work of mercy by the agency of others, giving money instead of personal aid. I do not blame them and am far from construing their weakness of resolution into a want of faith. While however I pardon such squeamishness, I extol to the skies the enthusiastic zeal of a mind that is above it. A great faith makes little of such trifles. But I know how terrible was the retribution which fell upon the proud mind of the rich man clothed in purple for not having helped Lazarus. The poor wretch whom we despise, whom we cannot so much as look at, and the very sight of whom turns our stomachs, is human like ourselves, is made of the same clay as we are, is formed out of the same elements. All that he suffers we too may suffer. Let us then regard his wounds as though they were our own, and then all our insensibility to another’s suffering will give way before our pity for ourselves. Not with a hundred tongues or throat of bronze Could I exhaust the forms of fell <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Nu. xii. 14.">disease</span> 2356 Nu. xii. 14. Isa. xlvii. 1, 2. Isa. xlvii. 14, Vulg. Linteamina. Ecclus. xi. 25. Dilapidare, vendre pierre à pierre—Goelzer. Luke xvi. 19–24. Virg. Æn. vi. 625–627. St. Jerome which Fabiola so wonderfully alleviated in the suffering poor that many of the healthy fell to envying the sick. However she showed the same liberality towards the clergy and monks and virgins. Was there a monastery which was not supported by Fabiola’s wealth? Was there a naked or bedridden person who was not clothed with garments supplied by her? Were there ever any in want to whom she failed to give a quick and unhesitating supply? Even Rome was not wide enough for her pity. Either in her own person or else through the agency of reverend and trustworthy men she went from island to island and carried her bounty not only round the Etruscan Sea, but throughout the district of the Volscians, as it stands along those secluded and winding shores where communities of monks are to be found. 7. Suddenly she made up her mind, against the advice of all her friends, to take ship and to come to Jerusalem. Here she was welcomed by a large concourse of people and for a short time took advantage of my hospitality. Indeed, when I call to mind our meeting, I seem to see her here now instead of in the past. Blessed Jesus, what zeal, what earnestness she bestowed upon the sacred volumes! In her eagerness to satisfy what was a veritable craving she would run through Prophets, Gospels, and Psalms: she would suggest questions and treasure up the answers in the desk of her own bosom. And yet this eagerness to hear did not bring with it any feeling of satiety: increasing her knowledge she also increased her sorrow, and by casting oil upon the flame she did but supply fuel for a still more burning zeal. One day we had before us the book of Numbers written by Moses, and she modestly questioned me as to the meaning of the great mass of names there to be found. Why was it, she inquired, that single tribes were differently associated in this passage and in that, how came it that the soothsayer Balaam in prophesying of the future mysteries of Christ spoke more plainly of Him than almost any other prophet? I replied as best I could and tried to satisfy her enquiries. Then unrolling the book still farther she came to the passage in which is given the list of all the halting-places by which the people after leaving Egypt made its way to the waters of Jordan. And when she asked me the meaning and reason of each of these, I spoke doubtfully about some, dealt with others in a tone of assurance, and in several instances simply confessed my ignorance. Hereupon she began to press me harder still, expostulating with me as though it were a thing unallowable that I should be ignorant of what I did not know, yet at the same time affirming her own unworthiness to understand mysteries so deep. In a word I was ashamed to refuse her request and allowed her to extort from me a promise that I would devote a special work to this subject for her use. Till the present time I have had to defer the fulfilment of my promise: as I now perceive, by the Will of God in order that it should be consecrated to her memory. As in a previous work I clothed her with the priestly vestments, so in the pages of the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Eccl. i. 18.">present</span> she may rejoice that she has passed through the wilderness of this world and has come at last to the land of promise. 8. But let me continue the task which I have begun. Whilst I was in search of a suitable dwelling for so great a lady, whose only conception of the solitary life included a place of resort like Mary’s inn; suddenly messengers flew this way and that and the whole East was terror-struck. For news Nu. xxiv. 15–19. Nu. xxxiii. Letter LXIV. Letter LXXVIII. on the Mansions or Halting-places of Israel in the Desert. St. Jerome came that the hordes of the Huns had poured forth all the way from <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="The Sea of Azov.">Mæotis</span> (they had their haunts between the icy Tanais and the rude Massagetæ2366 where the gates of Alexander keep back the wild peoples behind the Caucasus); and that, speeding hither and thither on their nimble-footed horses, they were filling all the world with panic and bloodshed. The Roman army was absent at the time, being detained in Italy on account of the civil wars. Of these Huns Herodotus tells us that under Darius King of the Medes they held the East in bondage for twenty years and that from the Egyptians and Ethiopians they exacted a yearly tribute. May Jesus avert from the Roman world the farther assaults of these wild beasts! Everywhere their approach was unexpected, they outstripped rumour in speed, and, when they came, they spared neither religion nor rank nor age, even for wailing infants they had no pity. Children were forced to die before it could be said that they had begun to live; and little ones not realizing their miserable fate might be seen smiling in the hands and at the weapons of their enemies. It was generally agreed that the goal of the invaders was Jerusalem and that it was their excessive desire for gold which made them hasten to this particular city. Its walls uncared for in time of peace were accordingly put in repair. Antioch was in a state of siege. Tyre, desirous of cutting itself off from the land, sought once more its ancient island. We too were compelled to man our ships and to lie off the shore as a precaution against the arrival of our foes. No matter how hard the winds might blow, we could not but dread the barbarians more than shipwreck. It was not, however, so much for our own safety that we were anxious as for the chastity of the virgins who were with us. Just at that time also there was dissension among <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="The Origenistic controversy in which Jerome, Paula and Epiphanius took one side, John bishop of Jerusalem, Rufinus,">us,</span> and our intestine struggles threw into the shade our battle with the barbarians. I myself clung to my long-settled abode in the East and gave way to my deep-seated love for the holy places. Fabiola, used as she was to moving from city to city and having no other property but what her baggage contained, returned to her native land; to live in poverty where she had once been rich, to lodge in the house of another, she who in old days had lodged many guests in her own, and—not unduly to prolong my account—to bestow upon the poor before the eyes of Rome the proceeds of that property which Rome knew her to have sold. 9. This only do I lament that in her the holy places lost a necklace of the loveliest. Rome recovered what it had previously parted with, and the wanton and slanderous tongues of the heathen were confuted by the testimony of their own eyes. Others may commend her pity, her humility, her faith: I will rather praise her ardour of soul. The <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Letter XIV.">letter</span> in which as a young man I once urged Heliodorus to the life of a hermit she knew by heart, and whenever she looked upon the walls of Rome she complained that she was in a prison. Forgetful of her sex, unmindful of her frailty, and only desiring to be alone she was in fact there where her soul lingered. The counsels of her friends could not hold her back; so eager was she to burst from the city as from a place of bondage. Nor did she leave the distribution of her alms to others; she distributed them herself. Her wish was that, after equitably dispensing her money to the poor, she might herself find support from others The Sea of Azov. The Don. An Asiatic tribe to the East of the Caspian Sea. Hdt. i. 106, (of the Scythians). The Origenistic controversy in which Jerome, Paula and Epiphanius took one side, John bishop of Jerusalem, Rufinus, and Melania the other. Letter XIV. i.e. in the desert where many women lived as solitaries. for the sake of Christ. In such haste was she and so impatient of delay that you would fancy her on the eve of her departure. As she was always ready, death could not find her unprepared. 10. As I pen her praises, my dear Pammachius seems suddenly to rise before me. His wife Paulina sleeps that he may keep vigil; she has gone before her husband that he remaining behind may be Christ’s servant. Although he was his wife’s heir, others—I mean the poor—are now in possession of his inheritance. He and Fabiola contended for the privilege of setting up a tent like that of Abraham at Portus. The contest which arose between them was for the supremacy in shewing kindness. Each conquered and each was overcome. Both admitted themselves to be at once victors and vanquished for what each had desired to effect alone both accomplished together. They united their resources and combined their plans that harmony might forward what rivalry must have brought to nought. No sooner was the scheme broached than it was carried out. A house was purchased to serve as a shelter, and a crowd flocked into it. “There was no more travail in Jacob nor distress in Israel.”2372 The seas carried voyagers to find a welcome here on landing. Travellers left Rome in haste to take advantage of the mild coast before setting sail. What Publius once did in the island of Malta for one apostle and—not to leave room for gainsaying—for a single ship’s crew, Fabiola and Pammachius have done over and over again for large numbers; and not only have they supplied the wants of the destitute, but so universal has been their munificence that they have provided additional means for those who have something already. The whole world knows that a home for strangers has been established at Portus; and Britain has learned in the summer what Egypt and Parthia knew in the spring. 11. In the death of this noble lady we have seen a fulfilment of the apostle’s words:—“All things work together for good to them that fear God.”2374 Having a presentiment of what would happen, she had written to several monks to come and release her from the burthen under which she laboured; for she wished to make to herself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that they might receive her into everlasting habitations. They came to her and she made them her friends; she fell asleep in the way that she had wished, and having at last laid aside her burthen she soared more lightly up to heaven. How great a marvel Fabiola had been to Rome while she lived came out in the behaviour of the people now that she was dead. Hardly had she breathed her last breath, hardly had she given back her soul to Christ whose it was when Flying Rumour heralding the woe gathered the entire city to attend her obsequies. Psalms were chaunted and the gilded ceilings of the temples were shaken with uplifted shouts of Alleluia. The choirs of young and old extolled her deeds And sang the praises of her holy <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Like that in which Abraham entertained the angels. See Letter LXVI. 11.">soul.</span> 2377 Like that in which Abraham entertained the angels. See Letter LXVI. 11. Num. xxiii. 21, LXX. Acts xxviii. 7. Rom. viii. 28: note that Jerome substitutes ‘fear’ for ‘love.’ The remnant of her fortune. Luke xvi. 9. Virg. A. xi. 139. Virg. A. viii. 287, 288. St. Jerome Her triumph was more glorious far than those won by Furius over the Gauls, by Papirius over the Samnites, by Scipio over Numantia, by Pompey over Pontus. They had conquered physical force, she had mastered spiritual iniquities. I seem to hear even now the squadrons which led the van of the procession, and the sound of the feet of the multitude which thronged in thousands to attend her funeral. The streets, porches, and roofs from which a view could be obtained were inadequate to accommodate the spectators. On that day Rome saw all her peoples gathered together in one, and each person present flattered himself that he had some part in the glory of her penitence. No wonder indeed that men should thus exult in the salvation of one at whose conversion there was joy among the angels in heaven. 12.

Ep. LXXX–LXXXII — Letter LXXX. From Rufinus to Macarius.

Letter LXXX. From Rufinus to Macarius. 2475 Ezek. xvi. 25. Ezek. xxiii. 3. Exod. xxxii. 4. Ezek. xx. 25. Phil. iii. 13. As Judith cut off the head of Holofernes (Judith xiii.). Luke ii. 36–38. Rufinus on his return from Bethlehem to Rome published a Latin version of Origen’s treatise περι ᾽Αρχῶν, On First Principles. To this he prefixed the preface which is here printed among Jerome’s letters. Professing to take as his model Jerome’s own translations of Origen’s commentaries which he greatly praises, he declares that, following his example, he has paraphrased the obscure passages of the treatise and has paraphrased the obscure passages of the treatise and has omitted as due to interpolators such parts as seem heretical. This preface with its insincere praise of Jerome (whose name, however, is not mentioned) and its avowed manipulation of Origen’s text caused much perplexity at Rome (see Letters LXXXI., LXXXIII., and LXXXIV.), and gave rise to the controversy between Rufinus and Jerome described in the Prolegomena, and given at length in vol. iii. of this Series. The date is 398 a.d. 1. Large numbers of the brethren have, I know, in their zeal for the knowledge of the scriptures begged learned men skilled in Greek literature to make Origen a Roman by bringing home his teaching to Latin ears. One of these scholars, a dear brother and associate, at the request of bishop Damasus translated from Greek into Latin his two homilies on the Song of Songs and prefaced the work with an eloquent and eulogistic introduction such as could not fail to arouse in all an ardent desire to read and to study Origen. To the soul of that just man—so he declared—the words of the Song were applicable: “the king hath brought me into his chambers;”2479 and he went on to speak thus: “while in his other books Origen surpasses all former writers, in dealing with the Song of Songs he surpasses himself.” In his preface he pledges himself to give to Roman ears these homilies of Origen and as many of his other works as he can. His style is certainly attractive but I can see that he aims at a more ambitious task than that of a mere translator. Not content with rendering the words of Origen he desires to be himself the teacher. I for my part do but follow up an enterprise which he has sanctioned and commenced, but I lack his vigorous eloquence with which to adorn the sayings of this great man. I am even afraid lest my deficiencies and inadequate command of Latin may detract seriously from the reputation of one whom this writer has deservedly termed second only to the apostles as a teacher of the Church in knowledge and in wisdom. 2. Often turning this over in my mind I held my peace and refused to listen to the brethren when—as frequently happened—they urged me to undertake the work. But your persistence, most faithful brother Macarius, is so great that even want of ability cannot resist it. Thus, to escape the constant importunings to which you subject me, I have given way contrary to my resolution; yet only on these terms that, so far as is possible, I am to be free to follow the rules of translation laid down by my predecessors, and particularly those acted upon by the writer whom I have just mentioned. He has rendered into Latin more than seventy of Origen’s homiletical treatises and a few also of his commentaries upon the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="i.e. Jerome.">apostle;</span> and in these wherever the Greek text presents a stumbling block, he has smoothed it down in his version and has so emended the language used that a Latin writer can find no word that is at variance with our faith. In his steps, therefore, I propose to walk, if not displaying the same vigorous eloquence at least observing the same rules. I shall not reproduce passages in Origen’s books which disagree with or contradict his own statements Cant. i. 4. See the Preface to Origen on the Canticles translated in this volume. Rem maioris gloriæ sequitur ut pater verbi sit potius quam interpres. i.e. St. Paul. St. Jerome elsewhere. The reason of these inconsistencies I have put more fully before you in the defence of Origen’s writings composed by <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Or Pamphilus.">Pamphilianus</span> which I have supplemented by a short treatise of my own. I have given what I consider plain proofs that his books have been corrupted in numbers of places by heretics and ill-disposed persons, and particularly those which you now urge me to translate. The books περὶ ᾽Αρχῶν, that is of Principles or of Powers, are in fact in other respects extremely obscure and difficult. For they treat of subjects on which the philosophers have spent all their days and yet have been able to discover nothing. In dealing with these themes Origen has done his best to make belief in a Creator and a rational account of things created subservient to religion and not, as with the philosophers, to irreligion. Wherever then in his books I have found a statement concerning the Trinity contrary to those which in other places he has faithfully made on the same subject, I have either omitted the passage as garbled and misleading or have substituted that view of the matter which I find him to have frequently asserted. Again, wherever—in haste to get on with his theme—he is brief or obscure relying on the skill and intelligence of his readers, I, to make the passage clearer, have sought to explain it by adding any plainer statements that I have read on the point in his other books. But I have added nothing of my own. The words used may be found in other parts of his writings: they are his, not mine. I mention this here to take from cavillers all pretext for once more finding fault. But let such perverse and contentious persons look well to what they are themselves doing. 3. Meantime I have taken up this great task—if so be that God will grant your prayers—not to stop the mouths of slanderers (an impossible feat except perhaps to God) but to give to those who desire it the means of making progress in knowledge. In the sight of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="For this adjuration comp. Rev. xxii. 18, 19, and Stieren’s Irenæus i. 821.">Ghost,</span> I adjure and require everyone who shall either read or copy these books of mine, by his belief in a kingdom to come, by the mystery of the resurrection from the dead, by the eternal fire which is “prepared for the devil and his angels;”2485 as he hopes not to inherit eternally that place where “there is weeping and gnashing of teeth,”2486 and where “their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched,”2487 let him add nothing to what is written, let him subtract nothing, let him insert nothing, let him alter nothing, but let him compare his transcript with the copies from which it is made, let him correct it to the letter, and let him punctuate it aright. Every manuscript that is not properly corrected and punctuated he must reject: for otherwise the difficulties in the text arising from the want of punctuation will make obscure arguments still more obscure to those who read them. Letter LXXXI. To Rufinus. Or Pamphilus. See this treatise in vol. iii. of this series. Rufinus with John of Jerusalem had been already accused of Origenism. See Letter LI. 6. For this adjuration comp. Rev. xxii. 18, 19, and Stieren’s Irenæus i. 821. Matt. xxv. 41. Matt. xxii. 13. Mark ix. 44. A friendly letter of remonstrance written by Jerome to Rufinus on receipt of his version of the περὶ ᾽Αρχῶν see the preceding letter). Being sent in the first instance to Pammachius this latter treacherously suppressed it and thus put an end to all hope of the reconciliation of the two friends. The date of the letter is 399 a.d. 1. That you have lingered some time at Rome your own language shews. Yet I feel sure that a yearning to see your spiritual <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Chromatius and Eusebius of Aquileia.">parents</span> would have drawn you to your native country, had not grief for your mother deterred you lest a sorrow scarce bearable away might have proved unbearable at home. As to your complaint that men listen only to the dictates of passion and refuse to acquiesce in your judgement and mine; the Lord is witness to my conscience that since our reconciliation I have harboured no rancour in my breast to injure anyone; on the contrary I have taken the utmost pains to prevent any chance occurrence being set down to ill-will. But what can I do so long as everyone supposes that he has a right to do as he does and thinks that in publishing a slander he is requiting not originating a calumny? True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks. The short preface to the books περὶ ᾽Αρχῶν which has been sent to me I recognize as yours by the style. You know best with what intention it was written; but even a fool can see how it must necessarily be understood. Covertly or rather openly I am the person aimed at. I have often myself feigned a controversy to practise <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="See the introduction to Letter CXVII.">declamation.</span> Thus I might now recall this well-worn artifice and praise you in your own method. But far be it from me to imitate what I blame in you. In fact I have so far restrained my feelings that I make no charge against you, and, although injured, decline for my part to injure a friend. But another time, if you wish to follow any one, pray be satisfied with your own judgement. The objects which we seek are either good or bad. If they are good, they need no help from another; and if they are bad, the fact that many sin together is no excuse. I prefer thus to expostulate with you as a friend rather than to give public vent to my indignation at the wrong I have suffered. I want you to see that when I am reconciled to anyone I become his sincere friend and do not—to borrow a figure from Plautus2492—while offering him bread with one hand, hold a stone in the other. 2. My brother Paulinian has not yet returned from home and I fancy that you will see him at Aquileia at the house of the reverend pope Chromatius. I am also sending the reverend presbyter <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Rufinus the Syrian, to be carefully distinguished from his more famous namesake (to whom this letter is addressed) of">Rufinus</span> on business to Milan by way of Rome, and have requested him to communicate to you my feelings and respects. I am sending the same message to the rest of my friends; lest, as the apostle says, ye bite and devour one another, ye be consumed one of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Gal. v. 15.">another.</span> It only remains for you and your friends to shew your moderation by giving no offence to those who are disinclined Chromatius and Eusebius of Aquileia. Concordia, near Aquileia. See the introduction to Letter CXVII. i.e. insincerely. Plautus, Aul. ii. 2, 18. Paulinian (of whose ordination an account is given in Letter LI.) had been sent to Italy by Jerome in a.d. 398 partly to counteract the proceedings of Rufinus and partly to sell the family property at Stridon (see Letter LXVI. § 14.) Rufinus the Syrian, to be carefully distinguished from his more famous namesake (to whom this letter is addressed) of Aquileia. He was a monk in Jerome’s monastery at Bethlehem. Gal. v. 15. to put up with it. For you will hardly find everyone like me. There are few who can be pleased with pretended eulogies. Letter LXXXII. To Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria. Two years after his former attempt (see Letter LXIII.) Theophilus again wrote to Jerome urging him to be reconciled with John of Jerusalem. Jerome replies that there is nothing he desires more earnestly than peace but that this must be real and not a hollow truce. He speaks very bitterly of John who has, he alleges, intrigued to procure his banishment from Palestine. He also deals with the ordination of his brother Paulinian (for which see Letter LI.) and defends himself for having translated Origen’s commentaries by adducing the example of Hilary of Poitiers. This letter should be compared with the Treatise “Against John of Jerusalem” in this volume. Its date is 399 a.d. 1. Your letter shews you to possess that heritage of the Lord of which when going to the Father he said to the apostles, “peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you,”2496 and to own the happiness described in the words, “blessed are the peace-makers.”2497 You coax as a father, you teach as a master, you enjoin as a bishop. You come to me not with a rod and severity but in a spirit of kindness, gentleness, and meekness. Your opening words echo the humility of Christ who saved men not with thunder and lightning but as a wailing babe in the manger and as a silent sufferer upon the cross. You have read the prediction made in one who was a type of Him, “Lord, remember David and all his meekness,”2500 and you know how it was fulfilled afterwards in Himself. “Learn of me,” He said, “for I am meek and lowly in heart.”2501 You have quoted many passages from the sacred books in praise of peace, you have flitted like a bee over the flowery fields of scripture, you have culled with cunning eloquence all that is sweet and conducive to concord. I was already running after peace, but you have made me quicken my pace: my sails were set for the voyage but your exhortation has filled them with a stronger breeze. I drink in the sweet streams of peace not reluctantly and with aversion but eagerly and with open mouth. 2. But what can I do, I who can only wish for peace and have no power to bring it about? Even though the wish may win its recompense with God, its futility must still sadden him who cherishes it. When the apostle said, “as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men,”2502 he knew quite well that the realisation of peace depends upon the consent of two parties. The prophet truly cries “They say Peace, peace: and yet there is no peace.”2503 To overthrow peace by actions while professing it in words is not hard. To point out its advantages is one thing and to strive for it another. Men’s speeches may be all for unity but their actions may enforce bondage. I wish for peace as much as others; and not only do I wish for it, I ask for it. But the peace which I want is the peace 2501 Joh. xiv. 27. Matt. v. 9. Cf. Heb. xii. 18. Ps. cxxxii. 1, LXX. Matt. xi. 29. Rom. xii. 18. Jer. xi. 14, LXX. of Christ; a true peace, a peace without rancour, a peace which does not involve war, a peace which will not reduce opponents but will unite friends. How can I term domination peace? I must call things by their right names. Where there is hatred there let men talk of feuds; and where there is mutual esteem, there only let peace be spoken of. For my part I neither rend the church nor separate myself from the communion of the fathers. From my very cradle, I may say, I have been reared on Catholic milk; and no one can be a better churchman than one who has never been a heretic. But I know nothing of a peace that is without love or of a communion that is without peace. In the gospel I read:—“if thou bring thy gift to the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”2504 If then we may not offer gifts that are our own unless we are at peace with our brothers; how much less can we receive the body of Christ if we cherish enmity in our hearts? How can I conscientiously approach Christ’s eucharist and answer the Amen if I doubt the charity of him who ministers it? 3. Hear me, I beg you with patience and do not take truthfulness for flattery. Is any man reluctant to communicate with you? Does any turn his face away when you hold out your hand? Does any at the holy banquet offer you the kiss of Judas? At your approach the monks instead of trembling rejoice. They race to meet you and leaving their dens in the desert are fain to master you by their humility. What compels them to come forth? Is it not their love for you? What draws together the scattered dwellers in the desert? Is it not the esteem in which they hold you? A parent ought to love his children; and not only a parent but a bishop ought to be loved by his children. Neither ought to be feared. There is an old saying: “whom a man fears he hates; and whom he hates, he would fain see dead.” Accordingly, while for the young the holy scripture makes fear the beginning of knowledge, it also tells us that “perfect love casteth out fear.”2509 You exact no obedience from them; therefore the monks obey you. You offer them a kiss; therefore they bow the neck. You shew yourself a common soldier; therefore they make you their general. Thus from being one among many you become one above many. Freedom is easily roused if attempts are made to crush it. No one gets more from a free man than he who does not force him to be a slave. I know the canons of the church; I know what rank her ministers hold; and from men and books I have daily up to the present learned and gathered many things. The kingdom of the mild David was quickly dismembered by one who chastised his people with scorpions and fancied that his fingers were thicker than his father’s loins. The Roman people refused to brook insolence even in a king. Moses was leader of the host of Israel; he brought ten plagues upon Egypt; sky, earth, and sea alike obeyed his commands: yet he is spoken of as “very meek above all the men which were” at that time “upon the face of the earth.”2512 He maintained his forty-years’ supremacy because he tempered the 2510 Matt. v. 23, 24. Matt. xxvi. 48, 49: the kiss of peace formed an integral part of the eucharistic office from primitive till mediæval times. Attributed by Cicero to Ennius. Prov. i. 7. 1 Kings xii. 10. Tarquin the Proud the last king of Rome was driven into exile because of his many acts of tyranny. Nu. xii. 3. St. Jerome insolence of office with gentleness and meekness. When he was being stoned by the people he made intercession for <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Exod. xvii. 4.">them;</span> nay more he wished to be blotted out of God’s book sooner than that the flock committed to him should perish. He sought to imitate the Shepherd who would, he knew, carry on his shoulders even the wandering sheep. “The good Shepherd”—they are the Lord’s own words—“layeth down his life for the sheep.”2515 One of his disciples can wish to be anathema from Christ for his brethren’s sake, his kinsmen according to the flesh who were Israelites. If then Paul can desire to perish that the lost may not be lost, how much should good parents not provoke their children to <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Eph. vi. 4.">wrath</span> or by too great severity embitter those who are naturally mild. 4. The limits of a letter compel me to restrain myself; otherwise, indignation would make me diffuse. In an epistle which its writer regards as conciliatory but which to me appears full of malice my opponent admits that I have never calumniated him or accused him of heresy. Why then does he calumniate me by spreading a rumour that I am infected with that awful malady and am in revolt against the Church? Why is he so ready to spare his real assailants and so eager to injure me who have done nothing to injure him? Before my brother’s ordination he said nothing of any dogmatic difference between himself and pope Epiphanius. What then can have “forced” him—I use his own word—publicly to argue a point which no one had yet raised? One so full of wisdom as you knows well the danger of such discussions and that silence is in such cases the safest course; except, indeed, on some occasion which renders it imperative to deal with great matters. What ability and eloquence it must have needed to compress into a single sermon—as he boasts to have done2519—all the topics which the most learned writers have treated in detail in voluminous treatises! But this is nothing to me: it is for the hearers of the sermon to notice and for the writer of the letter to realize. But as for me he ought of his own accord to acquit me of bringing the charge against him. I was not present and did not hear the sermon. I was only one of the many, indeed hardly one of them; for while others were crying out I held my peace. Let us confront the accused and the accuser, and let us give credit to him whose services, life, and doctrine are seen to be the best. 5. You see, do you not, that I shut my eyes to many things and touch upon others only in the most cursory manner, hinting at what I suppose rather than saying out what I think. I understand and approve your <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Jerome now addresses John of Jerusalem.">manœuvres;</span> how in the interests of the peace of the Church you stop your ears when you come within range of the Sirens. Moreover, trained as you have been from childhood in sacred studies, you know exactly what is meant by each expression which you use. You knowingly employ ambiguous terms and carefully balanced sentences so as not to condemn others or repudiate <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="The orthodox.">us.</span> But it is not a pure faith and a frank confession which look for quibbles Exod. xvii. 4. Exod. xxxii. 31, 32. Joh. x. 11, R.V.; Luke xv. 4, 5. Rom. ix. 3, 4, R.V. Eph. vi. 4. John, Bishop of Jerusalem, who had accused Jerome of Origenism, a charge which was brought against himself by Epiphanius (see Letter LI.). Jerome represents John as saying that he took advantage of a verse in the lesson “to preach on faith and all the dogmas of the Church” (c. Joh. Jer. ii.). Jerome now addresses John of Jerusalem. The Origenists. The orthodox. St. Jerome or circumlocutions. What is simply believed must be professed with equal simplicity. For my part I could cry out—though it were amid the swords and fires of Babylon, “why does the answer evade the question? why is there no frank, straightforward declaration?” From beginning to end all is shrinking, compromise, ambiguity: as though he were trying to walk on spikes of corn. His blood boils with eagerness for peace; yet he will not give a straightforward answer! others are free to insult him; for, when he is insulted, he does not venture to retaliate. I meantime hold my peace: for the present I shall let it be thought that I am too busy, or ignorant, or afraid; for how would he treat me were I to accuse him, if when I praise him—as he admits himself that I do—he secretly traduces me? 6. His whole letter is less an exposition of his faith than a mass of calumnies aimed at myself. Without any of those mutual courtesies which men may use towards each other without flattery, he takes up my name again and again, flouts it, and bandies it about as though I were blotted out of the book of the living. He thinks that he has beaten me black and blue with his letter; and that I live for the trifles at which he aims, I who from my boyhood have been shut up in a monastic cell, and have always made it my aim to be rather than to seem a good man. Some of us, it is true, he mentions with respect, but only that he may afterwards wound us more deeply. As if, forsooth, we too have no open secrets to reveal! One of his charges is that we have allowed a slave to be ordained. Yet he himself has clergymen of the same class, and he must have read of Onesimus who, being made regenerate by Paul in <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Philemon 10.">prison,</span> from a slave became a deacon. Then he throws out that the slave in question was a common informer; and, lest he should be compelled to prove the charge, declares he has it from hearsay only! Why, if I had chosen to repeat the talk of the crowd and to listen to scandal-mongers, he would have learned before now that I too know what all the world knows and have heard the same stories as other people. He declares farther that ordination has been given to this slave as a reward for a slander spread abroad by him. Does not such cunning and subtlety appal one? And is there any answer to eloquence so overwhelming? Which is best, to spread a calumny or to suffer from one? To accuse a man whose love you may afterwards wish for, or to pardon a sinner? And is it more tolerable that a common informer should be made a consul than that he should be made an ædile? He knows what I pass over in silence and what I say; what I myself have heard and what—from the fear of Christ—I perhaps refuse to believe. 7. He charges me with having translated Origen into Latin. In this I do not stand alone for the confessor Hilary has done the same, and we are both at one in this that while we have rendered all that is useful, we have cut away all that was harmful. Let him read our versions for himself, if he knows how (and as he constantly converses and daily associates with <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="A hit at Rufinus.">Italians,</span> I think he cannot be ignorant of Latin); or else, if he cannot quite take it in, let him use his interpreters and then he will come to know that I deserve nothing but praise for the work on which he grounds a charge against me. For, while I have always allowed to Origen his great merit as an interpreter and critic of the scriptures, I have invariably denied the truth of his doctrines. Is it I then that let him loose upon the crowd? Is it I that act sponsor to other preachers like him? No, for I know that a difference must be made between the apostles and all other preachers. The former always speak the truth; but Philemon 10. The highest and lowest offices in the Roman magistracy. Jerome insinuates that if the ordained slave was a common informer so also was John of Jerusalem. A hit at Rufinus. St. Jerome the latter being men sometimes go astray. It would be a strange defence of Origen surely to admit his faults and then to excuse them by saying that other men have been guilty of similar ones! As if, when you cannot venture to defend a man openly, you may hope to shield him by imputing his mistake to a number of others! As for the six thousand volumes of Origen of which he speaks, it is impossible that any one should have read books which have never been written: and I for my part find it easier to suppose that this falsehood is due to the man who professes to have heard it rather than to him who is said to have told <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="The statement that he had read 6000 volumes of Origen was attributed to Epiphanius by Rufinus and John of Jerusalem.">it.</span> 8. Again he avers that my <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Paulinian, who had been ordained by Epiphanius.">brother</span> is the cause of the disagreement which has arisen, a man who is content to stay in a monastic cell and who regards the clerical office as onerous rather than honourable. And although up to this very day he has spoon-fed us with insincere protestations of peace, he has caused commotion in the minds of the western bishops by telling them that a mere youth, hardly more than a boy, has been <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Not by himself but by Epiphanius.">ordained</span> presbyter of Bethlehem in his own diocese. If this is the truth, all the bishops of Palestine must be aware of it. For the monastery of the reverend pope Epiphanius—called the old monastery—where my brother was ordained presbyter is situated in the district of Eleutheropolis and not in that of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Ælia Capitolina was the name given by Hadrian to the colony established by him on the site of Jerusalem.">Ælia.</span> Furthermore his age is well known to your Holiness; and as he has now attained to thirty years I apprehend that no blame can attach to him on that score. Indeed this particular age is stamped as full and complete by the mystery of Christ’s assumed manhood.

Ep. LXXXIII–LXXXV — Letter LXXXIII. From Pammachius and Oceanus.

Letter LXXXIII. From Pammachius and Oceanus. Cf. 1 Cor. ix. 19. 1 Cor. xiii. 13. Eccl. iv. 12. Cf. Col. iii. 14. Cf. Joh. xiii. 20. Gal. v. 15. A letter from Pammachius and Oceanus in which they express the perplexity into which they have been thrown by Rufinus’s version of Origen’s treatise, On First Principles (see Letter LXXX.) and request Jerome to make for them a literal translation of the work. Written in 399 or 400 a.d. 1. Pammachius and Oceanus to the presbyter Jerome, health. A reverend brother has brought to us sheets containing a certain person’s translation into Latin of a treatise by Origen—entitled περὶ ἀρχῶν. These contain many things which disturb our poor wits and which appear to us to be uncatholic. We suspect also that with a view of clearing the author many passages of his books have been removed which had they been left would have plainly proved the irreligious character of his teaching. We therefore request your excellency to be so good as to bestow upon this particular matter an attention which will benefit not only ourselves but all who reside in the city; we ask you to publish in your own language the abovementioned book of Origen exactly as it was brought out by the author himself; and we desire you to make evident the interpolations which his defender has introduced. You will also confute and overthrow all statements in the sheets which we have sent to your holiness that are ignorantly made or contradict the Catholic faith. The writer in the preface to his work has, with much subtlety but without mentioning your holiness’s name, implied that he has done no more than complete a work which you had yourself promised, thus indirectly suggesting that you agree with him. Remove then the suspicions men cannot help feeling and confute your assailant; for, if you ignore his implications, people will say that you admit their truth. Letter LXXXIV. To Pammachius and Oceanus. A calm letter in which Jerome defines and justifies his own attitude towards Origen, but unduly minimizes his early enthusiasm for him. He admires him in the same way that Cyprian admired Tertullian but does not in any way adopt his errors. He then describes his own studies and recounts his obligations to Apollinaris, Didymus, and a Jew named Bar-anina. The rest of the letter deals with the errors of Origen, the state of the text of his writings, and the eulogy of him composed by the martyr Pamphilus (the authenticity of which Jerome assails without any sufficient reason). The date of the letter is 400 a.d. Jerome to the brothers Pammachius and Oceanus, with all good wishes. 1. The sheets that you send <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="i.e. Rufinus’s version of Origen’s treatise, On First Principles, with the Preface, translated in vol. iii. of this series. See">me</span> cover me at once with compliments and confusion; for, while they praise my ability, they take away my sincerity in the faith. But as both at Alexandria and at Rome and, I may say, throughout the whole world good men have made it a habit to take the same liberties with my name, esteeming me only so far that they cannot bear to be heretics without having me of the number, I will leave aside personalities and only answer specific charges. For it is of no i.e. Rufinus’s version of Origen’s treatise, On First Principles, with the Preface, translated in vol. iii. of this series. See also Letters LXXX. and LXXXI. St. Jerome benefit to a cause to encounter railing with railing and to retaliate for attacks upon oneself by attacks upon one’s opponents. We are commanded not to return evil for <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="1 Thess. v. 15.">evil</span> but to overcome evil with good, to take our fill of insults, and to turn the other cheek to the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Matt. v. 39.">smiter.</span> 2. It is charged against me that I have sometimes praised Origen. If I am not mistaken I have only done so in two places, in the short preface (addressed to Damasus) to his homilies on the Song of Songs and in the prologue to my book of Hebrew Names. In these passages do the dogmas of the church come into question? Is anything said of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? or of the resurrection of the flesh? or of the condition and material of the soul? I have merely praised the simplicity of his rendering and commentary and neither the faith nor the dogmas of the Church come in at all. Ethics only are dealt with and the mist of allegory is dispelled by a clear explanation. I have praised the commentator but not the theologian, the man of intellect but not the believer, the philosopher but not the apostle. But if men wish to know my real judgement upon Origen; let them read my commentaries upon Ecclesiastes, let them go through my three books upon the epistle to the Ephesians: they will then see that I have always opposed his doctrines. How foolish it would be to eulogize a system so far as to endorse its blasphemy! The blessed Cyprian takes Tertullian for his master, as his writings prove; yet, delighted as he is with the ability of this learned and zealous writer he does not join him in following Montanus and Maximilla. Apollinaris is the author of a most weighty book against Porphyry, and Eusebius has composed a fine history of the Church; yet of these the former has mutilated Christ’s incarnate <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Dimidiatam Christi introduxit œconomiam. Apollinaris taught that in Christ the divine personality supplied the place of">humanity,</span> while the latter is the most open champion of the Arian <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Eusebius, although he sided with the Arians, always claimed to be orthodox. However, as Newman says, “his acts are">impiety.</span> “Woe,” says Isaiah, “unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”2555 We must not detract from the virtues of our opponents—if they have any praiseworthy qualities—but neither must we praise the defects of our friends. Each several case must be judged on its own merits and not by a reference to the persons concerned. While Lucilius is rightly assailed by Horace for the unevenness of his verses, he is equally rightly praised for his wit and his charming style. 3. In my younger days I was carried away with a great passion for learning, yet I was not like some presumptuous enough to teach myself. At Antioch I frequently listened to Apollinaris of Laodicea, and attended his lectures; yet, although he instructed me in the holy scriptures, I never embraced his disputable doctrine as to their meaning. At length my head became sprinkled with gray hairs so that I looked more like a master than a disciple. Yet I went on to Alexandria and heard <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="See Letter L. § 2.">Didymus.</span> And I have much to thank him for: for what I did not know I learned from him, and what I knew already I did not forget. So excellent was his teaching. Men fancied that I had now made an end of learning. Yet once more I came to Jerusalem and to Bethlehem. What trouble and Rom. xii. 21. Matt. v. 39. Of these the two founders of Montanism the first was a Phrygian of the second century who professed to be the special organ of the Holy Ghost while the second was a female disciple who claimed to exercise the gift of prophecy in furtherance of his aims. Dimidiatam Christi introduxit œconomiam. Apollinaris taught that in Christ the divine personality supplied the place of a human soul. In his view, therefore, Christ ceased to be “very man.” Eusebius, although he sided with the Arians, always claimed to be orthodox. However, as Newman says, “his acts are his confession.” Isa. v. 20. Hor. S. 1. x. 1–4. See Letter L. § 2. St. Jerome expense it cost me to get <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="From this Jew Jerome took lessons in Hebrew during the earlier years of his life at Bethlehem. From time to time he also">Baraninas</span> to teach me under cover of night. For by his fear of the Jews he presented to me in his own person a second edition of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Joh. iii. 2.">Nicodemus.</span> Of all of these I have frequently made mention in my works. The doctrines of Apollinaris and of Didymus are mutually contradictory. The squadrons of the two leaders must drag me in different directions, for I acknowledge both as my masters. If it is expedient to hate any men and to loath any race, I have a strange dislike to those of the circumcision. For up to the present day they persecute our Lord Jesus Christ in the synagogues of Satan. Yet can anyone find fault with me for having had a Jew as a teacher? Does a certain person dare to bring forward against me the letter I wrote to Didymus calling him my master? It is a great crime, it would seem, for me a disciple to give to one both old and learned the name of master. And yet when I ask leave to look at the letter which has been held over so long to discredit me at last, there is nothing in it but courteous language and a few words of greeting. Such charges are both foolish and frivolous. It would be more to the point to exhibit a passage in which I have defended heresy or praised some wicked doctrine of Origen. In the portion of Isaiah which describes the crying of the two <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Isa. vi. 2.">seraphim</span> he explains these to be the Son and the Holy Ghost; but have not I altered this hateful explanation into a reference to the two testaments? I have the book in my hand as it was published twenty years ago. In numbers of my works and especially in my commentaries I have, as occasion has offered, mangled this heathen school. And if my opponents allege that I have done more than anyone else to form a collection of Origen’s books, I answer that I only wish I could have the works of all theological writers that by diligent study of them, I might make up for the slowness of my own wits. I have made a collection of his books, I admit; but because I know everything that he has written I do not follow his errors. I speak as a Christian to Christians: believe one who has tried him. His doctrines are poisonous, they are unknown to the Holy Scriptures, nay more, they do them violence. I have read Origen, I repeat, I have read him; and if it is a crime to read him, I admit my guilt: indeed, these Alexandrian writings have emptied my purse. If you will believe me, I have never been an Origenist: if you will not believe me, I have now ceased to be one. But if even this fails to convince you, you will compel me in self-defence to write against your favourite, so that, if you will not believe me when I disclaim him, you will have to believe me when I attack him. But I find readier credence when I go wrong than when I shew amendment. And this is not surprising, for my would-be friends suppose me a fellow-disciple with them in the arcana of their system. I am loath, they fancy, to profess esoteric doctrines before persons who according to them are brute-like and made of clay. For it is an axiom with them that pearls ought not to be lightly cast before swine, nor that which is holy given to the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Matt. vii. 6.">dogs.</span> They agree with David when he says: “Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee;”2564 and when in another place he describes the righteous man as one “who speaketh truth with his neighbour,”2565 that is with those who “are of the household of faith.”2566 From these From this Jew Jerome took lessons in Hebrew during the earlier years of his life at Bethlehem. From time to time he also consulted other Jewish scholars. Joh. iii. 2. Cf. Rev. ii. 9. Isa. vi. 2. Cf. Letter XVIII. § 14. Matt. vii. 6. Ps. cxix. 11. Ps. xv. 2, 3 from memory. Gal. vi. 10. St. Jerome passages they conclude that those of us who as yet are uninitiated ought to be told falsehoods, lest, being still unweaned babes, we should be choked by too solid food. Now that perjury and lying enter into their mysteries and form a bond between them appears most clearly from the sixth book of Origen’s <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="στρωματεις , lit. = ‘tapestries.’ See note on Letter LXX. § 4.">Miscellanies,</span> in which he harmonizes the Christian doctrine with the conceptions of Plato. 4. What must I do then? deny that I am of Origen’s opinion? They will not believe me. Swear that I am not? They will laugh and say that I deal in lies. I will do the one thing which they dread. I will bring forward their sacred rites and mysteries, and will expose the cunning whereby they delude simple folk like myself. Perhaps, although they refuse credence to my voice when I deny, they may believe my pen when I accuse. Of one thing they are particularly apprehensive, and that is that their writings may some day be taken as evidence against their master. They are ready to make statements on oath and to disclaim them afterwards with an oath as false as the first. When asked for their signatures they use shifts and seek excuses. One says: “I cannot condemn what no one else has condemned.” Another says: “No decision was arrived at on the point by the Fathers.”2569 It is thus that they appeal to the judgment of the world to put off the necessity of assenting to a condemnation. Another says with yet more assurance: “how am I to condemn men whom the council of Nicæa has left untouched? For the council which condemned Arius would surely have condemned Origen too, had it disapproved of his doctrines.” They were bound in other words to cure all the diseases of the church at once and with one remedy; and by parity of reasoning we must deny the majesty of the Holy Ghost because nothing was said of his nature in that council. But the question was of Arius, not of Origen; of the Son, not of the Holy Ghost. The bishops at the council proclaimed their adherence to a dogma which was at the time denied; they said nothing about a difficulty which no one had raised. And yet they covertly struck at Origen as the source of the Arian heresy: for, in condemning those who deny the Son to be of the substance of the Father, they have condemned Origen as much as Arius. On the ground taken by these persons we have no right to condemn Valentine, <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="See note on Letter XLVIII. § 2.">Marcion,</span> or the Cataphrygians, or Manichæus, none of whom are named by the council of Nicæa, and yet there is no doubt that in time they were prior to it. But when they find themselves pressed either to subscribe or to leave the Church, you may see some strange twisting. They qualify their words, they arrange them anew, they use vague expressions; so as, if possible, to hold both our confession and that of our opponents, to be called indifferently heretics and Catholics. As if it were not in the same spirit that the Delphian Apollo (or, as he is sometimes called, Loxias) gave his oracles to Crœsus and to Pyrrhus; cheating with a similar device two men widely separated in <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Crœsus when he asked whether he should resist Cyrus was told that, if he did so, he would overthrow a mighty kingdom,">time.</span> To make my meaning clear I will give a few examples. 5. We believe, say they, in the resurrection of the body. This confession, if only it be sincere, is free from objection. But as there are bodies celestial and bodies <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="1 Cor. xv. 40.">terrestrial</span> and as thin air and στρωματεις , lit. = ‘tapestries.’ See note on Letter LXX. § 4. The doctrine alluded to is probably that of the Trinity. i.e. the Bishops present at Nicæa. The founder of a Gnostic sect in the second century. He taught first in Egypt and afterwards in Rome. See note on Letter XLVIII. § 2. The Montanists were so called because the headquarters of their sect were at Pepuza a small village in Phrygia. Crœsus when he asked whether he should resist Cyrus was told that, if he did so, he would overthrow a mighty kingdom, a prophecy fulfilled in his own destruction; while Pyrrhus long afterwards received an equally evasive answer in the words, “Pyrrhus the Sons of Rome may well defeat.” the æther are both according to their natures called bodies, they use the word body instead of the word flesh in order that an orthodox person hearing them say body may take them to mean flesh while a heretic will understand that they mean spirit. This is their first piece of craft, and if this is found out, they devise fresh wiles, and, pretending innocence themselves, accuse us of malice. As though they were frank believers they say, “We believe in the resurrection of the flesh.” Now when they have said this, the ignorant crowd thinks it ought to be satisfied, particularly because these exact words are found in the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Article XI. of the Apostles’ Creed speaks in the original forms of the resurrection not of “the body” but of “the flesh:”">creed.</span> If you go on to question them farther, a buzz of disapproval is heard in the ring and their backers cry out: “You have heard them say that they believe in the resurrection of the flesh; what more do you want?” the popular favour is transferred from our side to theirs, and while they are called honest, we are looked on as false accusers. But if you set your face steadily and keeping a firm hold of their admission about the flesh, proceed to press them as to whether they assert the resurrection of that flesh which is visible and tangible, which walks and speaks, they first laugh and then signify their assent. And when we inquire whether the resurrection will exhibit anew the hair and the teeth, the chest and the stomach, the hands and the feet, and all the other members of the body, then no longer able to contain their mirth they burst out laughing and tell us that in that case we shall need barbers, and cakes, and doctors, and cobblers. Do we, they ask us in turn, believe that after the resurrection men’s cheeks will still be rough and those of women smooth, and that sex will differentiate their bodies as it does at present? Then if we admit this, they at once deduce from our admission conclusions involving the grossest materialism. Thus, while they maintain the resurrection of the body as a whole, they deny the resurrection of its separate members. 6. The present is not a time to speak rhetorically against a perverse doctrine. Neither the rich vocabulary of Cicero nor the fervid eloquence of Demosthenes could adequately convey the warmth of my feeling, were I to attempt to expose the quibbles by which these heretics, while verbally professing a belief in the resurrection, in their hearts deny it. For their women finger their breasts, slap their chests, pinch their legs and arms, and say, “What will a resurrection profit us if these frail bodies are to rise again? No, if we are to be like <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Cf. Matt. xxii. 30.">angels,</span> we shall have the bodies of angels.” That is to say they scorn to rise again with the flesh and bones wherewith even Christ rose. Now suppose for a moment that in my youth I went astray and that, trained as I was in the schools of heathen philosophy, I was ignorant, in the beginning of my faith, of the dogmas of Christianity, and fancied that what I had read in Pythagoras and Plato and Empedocles was also contained in the writings of the apostle: Supposing, I say, that I believed all this, why do you yet follow the error of a mere babe and sucking child in Christ? Why do you learn irreligion of one who as yet knew not religion? After shipwreck one has still a plank to cling <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="A favourite metaphor with Jerome to describe the nature of Christian penitence.">to;</span> and one may atone for sin by a frank confession. You have followed me when I have gone astray; follow me also now that I have been brought back. In youth we have wandered; now that we are old let us mend our ways. Let us unite our tears and our groans; let us weep together, and return to the Lord our Maker. Let us not wait for the repentance of the devil; for this is a vain anticipation and one that will drag us into Article XI. of the Apostles’ Creed speaks in the original forms of the resurrection not of “the body” but of “the flesh:” and it is still found in this shape in the Anglican office for the visitation of the sick. Cf. Matt. xxii. 30. Cf. Luke xxiv. 39. A favourite metaphor with Jerome to describe the nature of Christian penitence. Ps. xcv. 6, Vulg. St. Jerome the deep of hell. Life must be sought or lost here. If I have never followed Origen, it is in vain that you seek to discredit me: if I have been his disciple, imitate my penitence. You have believed my confession; credit also my denial. 7. But it will be said, “If you knew these things, why did you praise him in your works?” I should praise him today but that you and men like you praise his errors. I should still find his talent attractive, but that some people have been attracted by his impiety. <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="A.V. ‘prove.’">“Read</span> all things,” says the apostle, “hold fast that which is good.”2581 Lactantius in his books and particularly in his letters to Demetrian altogether denies the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, and following the error of the Jews says that the passages in which he is spoken of refer to the Father or to the Son and that the words ‘holy spirit’ merely prove the holiness of these two persons in the Godhead. But who can forbid me to read his Institutes—in which he has written against the Gentiles with much ability—simply because this opinion of his is to be abhorred? <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="See note on § 2 above.">Apollinaris</span> has written excellent treatises against Porphyry, and I approve of his labours, although I despise his doctrine in many points because of its foolishness. If you too for your parts will but admit that Origen errs in certain things I will not say another syllable. Acknowledge that he thought amiss concerning the Son, and still more amiss concerning the Holy Spirit, point out the impiety of which he has been guilty in speaking of men’s souls as having fallen from heaven, and shew that, while in word he asserts the resurrection of the flesh, he destroys the force of this language by other assertions. As, for instance, that, after many ages and one “restitution of all things,”2583 it will be the same for Gabriel as for the devil, for Paul as for Caiaphas, for virgins as for prostitutes. When once you have rejected these misstatements and have parted them with your censor’s wand from the faith of the Church, I may read what is left with safety, and having first taken the antidote need no longer dread the poison. For instance it will do me no harm to say as I have said, “Whereas in his other books Origen has surpassed all other writers, in commenting on the Song of Songs he has surpassed himself”; nor will I fear to face the words with which formerly in my younger days I spoke of him as a doctor of the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="See Jerome’s preface to his version of Origen’s Homilies on Ezekiel: and his preface to his own Treatise on Hebrew">churches.</span> Will it be pretended, that I was bound to accuse a man whose works I was translating by special request? that I was bound to say in my preface, “This writer whose books I translate is a heretic: beware of him, reader, read him not, flee from the viper: or, if you are bent on reading him, know that the treatises which I have translated have been garbled by heretics and wicked men; yet you need not fear, for I have corrected all the places which they have corrupted,” that in other words I ought to have said: “the writer that I translate is a heretic, but I, his translator, am a Catholic.” The fact is that you and your party in your anxiety to be straightforward, ingenuous, and honest, have paid too little regard to the precepts of rhetoric and to the devices of oratory. For in admitting that his books On First Principles are heretical and in trying to lay the blame of this upon others, you raise difficulties for your readers; you induce them to examine the whole life of the author and to form a judgment on the question from the remainder of his writings. I on the other hand have been wise enough to emend silently what I wished to emend: thus by ignoring the crime I have averted prejudice from the criminal. Doctors tell us that serious maladies ought not to be subjected to treatment, but A.V. ‘prove.’ See note on § 2 above. Acts iii. 21. See Jerome’s preface to his version of Origen’s Homilies on Ezekiel: and his preface to his own Treatise on Hebrew Names. See also Letter XXXIII. should be left to nature, lest the remedies applied should intensify the disease. It is now almost one hundred and fifty years since Origen died at Tyre. Yet what Latin writer has ever ventured to translate his books On the Resurrection and On First Principles, his Miscellanies and his Commentaries or as he himself calls them his Tomes? Who has ever cared by so infamous a work to cover himself with infamy? I am not more eloquent than Hilary or truer to the faith than Victorinus who both have rendered his Homilies2588not in exact versions but in independent paraphrases. Recently also Ambrose appropriated his Six Days’ Work, but in such a way that it expressed the views of Hippolytus and Basil rather than of Origen. You profess to take me for your model, and blind as moles in relation to others you scan me with the eyes of gazelles. Well, had I been ill-disposed towards Origen, I might have translated these very books so as to make his worst writings known to Latin readers; but this I have never done; and, though many have asked me, I have always refused. For it has never been my habit to crow over the mistakes of men whose talents I admire. Origen himself, were he still alive, would soon fall out with you his would-be patrons and would say with Jacob: “Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land.”2590 8. Does any one wish to praise Origen? Let him praise him as I do. From his childhood he was a great man, and truly a martyr’s son. At Alexandria he presided over the school of the church, succeeding a man of great learning the presbyter Clement. So greatly did he abhor sensuality that, out of a zeal for God but yet one not according to knowledge, he castrated himself with a knife. Covetousness he trampled under foot. He knew the scriptures by heart and laboured hard day and night to explain their meaning. He delivered in church more than a thousand sermons, and published innumerable commentaries which he called tomes. These I now pass over, for it is not my purpose to catalogue his writings. Which of us can read all that he has written? and who can fail to admire his enthusiasm for the scriptures? If some one in the spirit of Judas the Zealot brings up to me his mistakes, he shall have his answer in the words of Horace: ’Tis true that sometimes Homer sleeps, but then He’s not without excuse: The fault is venial, for his work is long. Let us not imitate the faults of one whose virtues we cannot equal. Other men have erred concerning the faith, both Greeks and Latins, but I must not mention their names lest I should be supposed to defend Origen not by his own merits but by the errors of others. This, you will say, is to accuse them and not to excuse him. You would be right, if I had declared him not to have erred, or if I had professed a belief that the apostle Paul or an angel from <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Origen died at Tyre about the year 255 a.d.">heaven</span> ought to be listened 2591 See note on Letter LXX. § 4. τόμοι. Tractatus. Hexaëmeron: an account of the creation is meant. Gen. xxxiv. 30. His father Leonides suffered martyrdom in the persecution of Severus. Rom. x. 2. i.e. Judas the Gaulonite whose fanatical rising against the Romans is mentioned in Acts v.

Ep. LXXXVI–LXXXVIII — Letter LXXXVI. To Theophilus.

Letter LXXXVI. To Theophilus. Jerome congratulates Theophilus on the success of his crusade against Origenism, and speaks of the good work done in Palestine by his emissaries Priscus and Eubulus. He then (by a singular change in his sentiments) asks Theophilus to forgive John of Jerusalem for having unwittingly received an excommunicated Egyptian. The date of the Letter is 400 a.d. Jerome to the most blessed Pope Theophilus. I have recently received despatches from your blessedness setting right your long silence and summoning me to return to my duty. So, though the reverend brothers Priscus and Eubulus have been slow in bringing me your letters, yet, as they are now hastening in the ardour of faith from end to end of Palestine and scattering and driving into their holes the basilisks of heresy, I write a few lines to congratulate you on your success. The whole world glories in your victories. An exultant crowd of all nations gazes on the standard of the Cf. Hor. S. II. viii. 21. Dionysius of Heraclea called the renegade because he abandoned the Stoic for the Cyrenaic school. Isa. v. 20. Ad. Ux. ii. 2. A.V. ‘purified.’ St. Jerome cross raised by you at Alexandria and upon the shining trophies which mark your triumph over heresy. Blessings on your courage! blessings on your zeal! You have shewn that your long silence has been due to policy and not to inclination. I speak quite openly to your reverence. I grieved to find you too forbearing, and, knowing nothing of the course shaped by the pilot, I yearned for the destruction of those abandoned men. But, as I now see, you have had your hand raised and, if you have delayed to strike, it has only been that you might strike harder. As regards the welcome given to a certain <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Doubtless some Egyptian monk or ecclesiastic placed under ban by Theophilus on account of Origenism.">person,</span> you have no reason to be vexed with the prelate of this city; for as you gave no instructions on the point in your letter, it would have been rash in him to decide a case of which he knew nothing. Still I think that he would neither wish nor venture to annoy you in any way. Letter LXXXVII. From Theophilus to Jerome. Theophilus informs Jerome that he has expelled the Origenists from the monasteries of Nitria, and urges him to shew his zeal for the faith by writing against the prevalent heresy. The date of the letter is 400 a.d. Theophilus, bishop, to the well-beloved and most loving brother, the presbyter Jerome. The reverend bishop Agatho with the well-beloved deacon Athanasius is accredited to you with tidings relating to the church. When you learn their import I feel no doubt but that you will approve my resolution and will exult in the church’s victory. For we have cut down with the prophet’s <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Joel iii. 13.">sickle</span> certain wicked fanatics who were eager to sow broadcast in the monasteries of Nitria the heresy of Origen. We have remembered the warning words of the apostle, “rebuke with all authority.”2620 Do you therefore on your part, as you hope to receive a share in this reward, make haste to bring back with scriptural discourses those who have been deceived. It is our desire, if possible, to guard in our days not only the Catholic faith and the rules of the church, but the people committed to our charge, and to give a quietus to all strange doctrines. Letter LXXXVIII. To Theophilus. Replying to the preceding letter Jerome again congratulates Theophilus on the success of his efforts to put down Origenism, and informs him that they have already borne fruit as far west as Italy. He then asks him for the decrees of his council (held recently at Alexandria). The date of the letter is 400 a.d. Doubtless some Egyptian monk or ecclesiastic placed under ban by Theophilus on account of Origenism. John of Jerusalem. He had probably, like Rufinus, been reconciled to Jerome, and seems to have taken no part in the subsequent quarrel between Jerome and Rufinus. Joel iii. 13. Tit. ii. 15. Jerome to the most blessed pope Theophilus. The letter of your holiness has given me a twofold pleasure, partly because it has had for its bearers those reverend and estimable men, the bishop Agatho and the deacon Athanasius, and partly because it has shewn your zeal for the faith against a most wicked heresy. The voice of your holiness has rung throughout the world, and to the joy of all Christ’s churches the poisonous suggestions of the devil have been silenced. The old serpent hisses no longer, but, writhing and disembowelled, lurks in dark caverns unable to bear the shining of the sun. I have already, before the writing of your letter, sent missives to the West pointing out to those of my own language some of the quibbles employed by the heretics. I hold it due to the special providence of God that you should have written to the pope Anastasius at the same time as myself, and should thus without knowing it have been the means of confirming my testimony. Now that you have directly urged me to do so, I shall shew myself more zealous than ever to recall from their error simple souls both near and far. Nor shall I hesitate, if needful, to incur odium with some, for we ought to please God rather than men: although indeed they have been much more forward to defend their heresy than I and others have been to attack it. At the same time I beg that if you have any synodical decrees bearing upon the subject you will forward them to me, that, strengthened with the authority of so great a prelate, I may open my mouth for Christ with more freedom and confidence. The presbyter Vincent has arrived from Rome two days ago and humbly salutes you. He tells me again and again that Rome and almost the whole of Italy owe their deliverance after Christ to your letters. Shew diligence therefore, most loving and most blessed pope, and whenever opportunity offers write to the bishops of the West not to hesitate—in your own words2624—to cut down with a sharp sickle the sprouts of evil.

Ep. LXXXIX–XCI — Letter LXXXIX. From Theophilus to Jerome.

Letter LXXXIX. From Theophilus to Jerome. This letter (probably earlier in date than the three preceding) commends to Jerome the monk Theodore, who, having come from Rome to declare the condemnation of Origenism by the church there, had visited the monasteries of Nitria now purged of heresy, and wished before returning to the West to see the Holy Places as well. The date of the letter is 400 a.d. Theophilus, bishop, to the well-beloved lord and most loving brother the presbyter Jerome. I have learned the project of the monk Theodore—which will be known also to your holiness—and I approve of it. Having to leave us on a voyage for Rome, he has been unwilling to set out without first visiting and embracing as his own flesh and blood you and the reverend brothers who are with you in the monastery. You will, I am sure, rejoice in the news with which he will meet your welcome, that quiet has been restored to the church here. He has seen all the monasteries of Nitria and can tell you of the continence and meekness of the monks in them; as also how the Origenists have been put down and scattered, how peace has been restored to the church, and how the discipline of Bishop of Rome, a.d. 398–402. Acts v. 29. See the preceding letter. the Lord is being upheld. How gladly would I see the mask of hypocrisy laid aside by those also who near you are said to be undermining the truth. I feel obliged to write thus because the brothers in your neighbourhood are mistaken concerning them. Wherefore take heed to yourselves and shun men of this type; even as it is written:—“if any man bring not to you the faith of the church, bid him not God speed.”2626 It may, indeed, be superfluous to write thus to you who can recall the erring from their error, yet no harm is done when those careful for the faith admonish even the wise and learned. Kindly salute in my name all the brothers who are with you. Letter XC. From Theophilus to Epiphanius. Theophilus writes to Epiphanius to convoke a council in Cyprus for the condemnation of Origenism and asks him to transmit to Constantinople by a trustworthy messenger a copy of its decrees together with the synodical letter of Theophilus himself. His anxiety about this last point is caused by the news that certain of the excommunicated monks have set sail for Constantinople to lay their case before the bishop, John Chrysostom. The date of the letter is 400 a.d. Theophilus to his well-beloved lord, brother, and fellow-bishop Epiphanius. The Lord has said to his prophet “See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy and…to build and to plant.”2627 In every age he bestows the same grace upon his church, that His Body may be preserved intact and that the poison of heretical opinions may nowhere prevail over it. And now also do we see the words fulfilled. For the church of Christ “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing”2629 has with the sword of the gospel cut down the Origenist serpents crawling out of their caves, and has delivered from their deadly contagion the fruitful host of the monks of Nitria. I have compressed a short account of my proceedings (it was all that time would allow) into the general letter which I have addressed indiscriminately to all. As your excellency has often fought in contests of the kind before me, it is your present duty to strengthen the hands of those who are in the field and to gather together to this end the bishops of your entire island. A synodical letter should be sent to myself and the bishop of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="The bishops of Palestine are meant. See Letter XCII.">Constantinople</span> and to any others whom you think fit; that by universal consent Origen himself may be expressly condemned and also the infamous heresy of which he was the author. I have learned that certain calumniators of the true faith, named Ammonius, Eusebius, and Euthymius, filled with a fresh access of enthusiasm in behalf of the heresy, have taken ship for Constantinople, to ensnare with their deceits as many new converts as they can and to confer anew with the old companions of their impiety. Let it be your care, therefore, to set forth the course of the matter to 2631 The bishops of Palestine are meant. See Letter XCII. Jer. i. 10. Eph. i. 23. Eph. v. 27. Letter XCII. Cyprus. i.e. John Chrysostom who had been raised to the patriarchate in 398 a.d. all the bishops throughout Isauria and Pamphylia and the rest of the neighbouring provinces: moreover, if you think fit, you can add my letter, so that all of us gathered together in one spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ may deliver these men unto Satan for the destruction of the impiety which possesses them. And to ensure the speedy arrival of my despatches at Constantinople, send a diligent messenger, one of the clergy (as I send fathers from the monasteries of Nitria with others also of the monks, learned men and continent) that when they arrive they may be able themselves to relate what has been done. Above all I beg of you to offer up earnest prayers to the Lord that we may be able in this contest also to gain the victory; for no small joy has filled the hearts of the people both in Alexandria and throughout all Egypt, because a few men have been expelled from the Church that the body of it might be kept pure. Salute the brothers who are with you. The people with us salute you in the Lord. Letter XCI. From Epiphanius to Jerome. An exultant letter from Epiphanius in which he describes the success of his council (convened at the suggestion of Theophilus), sends Jerome a copy of its synodical letter. and urges him to go on with his work of translating into Latin documents bearing on the Origenistic controversy. Written in 400 a.d. To his most loving lord, son, and brother, the presbyter Jerome, Epiphanius sends greeting in the Lord. The general epistle written to all Catholics belongs particularly to you; for you, having a zeal for the faith against all heresies, particularly oppose the disciples of Origen and of Apollinaris whose poisoned roots and deeply planted impiety almighty God has dragged forth into our midst, that having been unearthed at Alexandria they might wither throughout the world. For know, my beloved son, that Amalek has been destroyed root and branch and that the trophy of the cross has been set up on the hill of Rephidim. For as when the hands of Moses were held up on high Israel prevailed, so the Lord has strengthened His servant Theophilus to plant His standard against Origen on the altar of the church of Alexandria; that in him might be fulfilled the words: “Write this for a memorial, for I will utterly put out Origen’s heresy from under heaven together with that Amalek himself.” And that I may not appear to be repeating the same things over and over and thus to be making my letter tedious, I send you the actual missive written to me that you may know what Theophilus has said to me, and what a great blessing the Lord has granted to my last days in approving the principles which I have always proclaimed by the testimony of so great a prelate. I fancy that by this time you also have published something and that, as I suggested in my former letter to you on this subject, you have elaborated a treatise for readers of your own language. For I hear that certain of those who have made <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Cf. 1 Cor. v. 4, 5.">shipwreck</span> have come also to the West, and that, not content with their own destruction, they desire to involve others in death with them; as if they Plebs. By Theophilus. Cf. Exod. xvii. 8–14. thought that the multitude of sinners lessens the guilt of sin and the flames of Gehenna do not grow in size in proportion as more logs are heaped upon them. With you and by you we send our best greetings to the reverend brothers who are with you in the monastery serving God. Letter XCII. The Synodical Letter of Theophilus to the Bishops of Palestine and of Cyprus. The synodical letter of the council held at Alexandria in 400 a.d. to condemn Origenism. Written originally in Greek it was translated into Latin by Jerome. This letter has been sent in identical terms to the Bishops of Palestine and to those of Cyprus. We reproduce the headings of both copies. That to the Bishops of Palestine commences thus: To the well-beloved lords, brothers, and fellow-bishops, Eulogius, John, Zebianus, Auxentius, Dionysius, Gennadius, Zeno, Theodosius, Dicterius, Porphyry, Saturninus, Alan, Paul, Ammonius, Helianus, Eusebius, the other Paul, and to all the Catholic bishops gathered together at the dedication festival of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="In Æliæ encæniis. Ælia was the name given by the emperor Hadrian to the Roman colony founded by him on the site of">Ælid,</span> Theophilus [sends] greeting in the Lord. The Cyprians he addresses thus: To the well-beloved lords, brothers, and fellow-bishops, Epiphanius, Marcianus, Agapetus, Boethius, Helpidius, Entasius, Norbanus, Macedonius. Aristo, Zeno, Asiaticus, Heraclides, the other Zeno, Cyriacus, and Aphroditus, Theophilus [sends] greeting in the Lord. The scope of the letter is as follows: We have personally visited the monasteries of Nitria and find that the Origenistic heresy has made great ravages among them. It is accompanied by a strange fanaticism: men even maim themselves or cut out their <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="The monk Ammonius is said to have done this and similar things.">tongues</span> to show how they despise the body. I find that some men of this kind have gone from Egypt into Syria and other countries where they speak against us and the truth. The books of Origen have been read before a council of bishops and unanimously condemned. The following are his chief errors, mainly found in the περὶ ᾽Αρχῶν. 1. The Son compared with us is truth, but compared with the Father he is falsehood. 2. Christ’s kingdom will one day come to an end. 3. We ought to pray to the Father alone, not to the Son. 4. Our bodies after the resurrection will be corruptible and mortal. 5. There is nothing perfect even in heaven; the angels themselves are faulty, and some of them feed on the Jewish sacrifices. 6. The stars are conscious of their own movements, and the demons know the future by their courses. 7. Magic, if real, is not evil. In Æliæ encæniis. Ælia was the name given by the emperor Hadrian to the Roman colony founded by him on the site of Jerusalem. The monk Ammonius is said to have done this and similar things. Some fifty, led by Ammonius and his three brothers (called the Long or Tall Monks) went first to Syria and then to Constantinople. St. Jerome 8. Christ suffered once for men; he will suffer again for the demons. The Origenists have tried to coerce me; they have even stirred up the heathen by denouncing the destruction of the Serapeum; and have sought to withdraw from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction two persons accused of grave crimes. One of these is the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="This woman is said to have brought a charge of immorality against Isidore and then suppressed it on being placed by him">woman</span> who was wrongly placed on the list of widows by Isidore, the other Isidore himself. He is the standard-bearer of the heretical faction, and his wealth supplies them with unbounded resources for their violent enterprises. They have tried to murder me; they seized the monastery church at Nitria, and for a time prevented the bishops from entering and the offices from being performed. Now, like Zebul (Beelzebub) they go to and fro on the earth. I have done them no harm; I have even protected them. But I would not let an old friendship (with Isidore) impair our faith and discipline. I implore you to oppose them wherever they come, and to prevent them from unsettling the brethren committed to you.

Ep. XCIII–XCV — Letter XCIII. From the Bishops of Palestine to Theophilus.

Letter XCIII. From the Bishops of Palestine to Theophilus. The synodical letter of the council of Jerusalem sent to Theophilus in reply to the preceding. The translation as before is due to Jerome. The following is an epitome: We have done all that you wished, and Palestine is almost wholly free from the taint of heresy. We wish that not only the Origenists, but Jews, Samaritans and heathen also, could be put down. Origenism does not exist among us. The doctrines you describe are never heard here. We anathematize those who hold such doctrines, and also those of Apollinaris, and shall not receive anyone whom you excommunicate. Letter XCIV. From Dionysius to Theophilus. In this letter (translated into Latin by Jerome) Dionysius, bishop of Lydda, praises Theophilus for his signal victories over Origenism and urges him to continue his efforts against that heresy. Written in 400 a.d. Letter XCV. From Pope Anastasius to Simplicianus. This woman is said to have brought a charge of immorality against Isidore and then suppressed it on being placed by him on the list of widows who received the church’s bounty. Isidore was now eighty years old, and there were many causes for the quarrel. Palladius, Socrates and Sozomen intimate that the real cause of Theophilus’ enmity to his old confidant Isidore was that Isidore knew secrets unfavorable to Theophilus. He afterwards went with the Long Monks to Constantinople, where Chrysostom by his reception of them incurred the hatred of Theophilus. See Jerome Letter CXIII. At the request of Theophilus Anastasius, bishop of Rome, writes to Simplicianus, bishop of Milan, to inform him that he, like Theophilus, has condemned Origen whose blasphemies have been brought under his notice by Eusebius of Cremona. This latter had shown him a copy of the version by Rufinus of the treatise On First Principles. The date of the letter is 400 a.d. To his lord and brother Simplicianus, Anastasius. 1. It is felt right that a shepherd should bestow great care and watchfulness upon his flock. In like manner too from his lofty tower the careful watchman keeps a lookout day and night on behalf of the city. So also in the hour of tempest when the sea is dangerous the shipmaster suffers keen anxiety lest the gale and the violence of the waves shall dash his vessel upon the rocks. It is with similar feelings that the reverend and honourable Theophilus our brother and fellow-bishop, ceases not to watch over the things that make for salvation, that God’s people in the different churches may not by reading Origen run into awful blasphemies. 2. Being informed, then, by a letter of the aforesaid bishop, we inform your holiness that we in like manner who are set in the city of Rome in which the prince of the apostles, the glorious Peter, first founded the church and then by his faith strengthened it; to the end that no man may contrary to the commandment read these books which we have mentioned, have condemned the same; and have with earnest prayers urged the strict observance of the precepts which God and Christ have inspired the evangelists to teach. We have charged men to remember the words of the venerable apostle Paul, prophetic and full of warning:—“if any than preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”2643 Holding fast, therefore, this precept, we have intimated that everything written in days gone by Origen that is contrary to our faith is even by us rejected and condemned. 3. I send this letter to your holiness by the hand of the presbyter <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Magister hactenus navis hora tempestatis æquoris et periculo magnam patitur animi jactationem.">Eusebius,</span> a man filled with a glowing faith and love for the Lord. He has shewn to me some blasphemous chapters which made me shudder as I passed judgement on them. If Origen has put forth any other writings, you are to know that they and their author are alike condemned by me. The Lord have you in safe keeping, my lord and brother deservedly held in honour.

Ep. XCVI–XCVIII — Letter XCVI. From Theophilus.

Letter XCVI. From Theophilus. A translation by Jerome of Theophilus’s paschal letter for the year 401 a.d. In it Theophilus refutes at length the heresies of Apollinaris and Origen. Letter XCVII. To Pammachius and Marcella. Magister hactenus navis hora tempestatis æquoris et periculo magnam patitur animi jactationem. Gal. i. 8. See the account of the meeting of Eusebius with Rufinus in the presence of Simplicianus. Ruf. Apol. i. 19. St. Jerome With this letter Jerome sends to Pammachius and Marcella a translation of the paschal letter issued by Theophilus for the year 402 a.d. together with the Greek original. He takes the precaution of sending this latter because in the preceding year complaints have been made that his translation was not accurate. Written in 402 a.d. 1. Once more with the return of spring I enrich you with the wares of the east and send the treasures of Alexandria to Rome: as it is written, “God shall come from the south and the Holy One from Mount Paran, even a thick shadow.”2645 (Hence in the Song of Songs the joyous cry of the bride: “I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”2646) Now truly is Isaiah’s prophecy fulfilled: “In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the land of Egypt.”2647 “Where sin hath abounded, grace doth much more abound.”2648 They who fostered the infant Christ now with glowing faith defend Him in His manhood; and they who once saved Him from the hands of Herod are ready to save Him again from this blasphemer and heretic. Demetrius expelled Origen from the city of Alexander; but he is now thanks to Theophilus outlawed from the whole world. Like him to whom Luke has dedicated the Acts of the Apostles this bishop derives his name from his love to God. Where now is the wriggling serpent? In what plight does the venomous viper find himself? His is A human face with wolfish body joined. Where now is that heresy which crawled hissing through the world and boasted that both the bishop Theophilus and I were partisans of its errors? Where now is the yelping of those shameless hounds who, to win over the simple minded, falsely proclaimed our adherence to their cause? Crushed by the authority and eloquence of Theophilus they are now like demon-spirits only able to mutter and that from out of the earth. For they know nothing of Him who, as He comes from above, speaks only of the things that are above. 2. Would that this generation of <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Hab. iii. 3, LXX.">vipers</span> would either honestly accept our doctrines, or else consistently defend its own; that we might know whom we are to esteem and whom we are to shun. As it is they have invented a new kind of penitence, hating us as enemies though they dare not deny our faith. What, I ask, is this chagrin of theirs which neither time nor reason seems able to cure? When swords flash in battle and men fall and blood flows in streams, hostile hands are often clasped in amity and the fury of war is exchanged for an unexpected peace. The partisans of this heresy alone can make no terms with churchmen; for they repudiate mentally the verbal assent that is extorted from them. When their open blasphemy is made plain to the public ear, and when they perceive their hearers clamouring against them; then they assume an air of simplicity, declaring that they hear such doctrines for the first time and that they have no previous knowledge of them 2650 Cant. ii. 3. Isa. xix. 19. Rom. v. 20. Acts i. 1. The allusion is to Rufinus. Virg. A. iii. 426. Cf. 1 Sam. xxviii. 13. Joh. viii. 23. Matt. iii. 7. St. Jerome as taught by their master. And when you hold their writings in your hand, they deny with their lips what their hands have written. Why, sirs, need you beset the <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Many of the Egyptian Origenists had fled to Constantinople and thrown themselves on the kindness of the patriarch John">Propontis,</span> shift your abode, wander through different countries, and rend with foaming mouths a distinguished prelate of Christ and his followers? If your recantations are sincere, you should replace your former zeal for error with an equal zeal for the faith. Why do you patch together from this quarter and from that these rags of cursing? And why do you rail at the lives of men whose faith you cannot resist? Do you cease to be heretics because according to you sundry persons believe us to be sinners? And does impiety cease to disfigure your lips because you can point to scars on our ears? So long as you have a leopard’s spots and an Ethiopian’s <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Jer. xiii. 23.">skin,</span> how can it help your perfidy to know that I too am marked by moles? See, Pope Theophilus is freely allowed to prove Origen a heretic; and the disciples do not defend the master’s words. They merely pretend that they have been altered by heretics and tampered with, like the works of many other writers. Thus they seek to maintain his cause not by their own belief but by other people’s errors. So much I would say against heretics who in the fury of their unjust hostility to us betray the secret feelings of their minds and prove the incurable nature of the wound that rankles in their breasts. 3. But you are Christians and the lights of the senate: accept therefore from me the letter which I append. This year I send it both in Greek and Latin that the heretics may not again lyingly assert that I have made many changes in and additions to the original. I have laboured hard, I must confess, to preserve the charm of the diction by a like elegance in my version: and keeping within fixed lines and never allowing myself to deviate from these I have done my best to maintain the smooth flow of the writer’s eloquence and to render his remarks in the tone in which they are made. Whether I have succeeded in these two objects or not I must leave to your judgement to determine. As for the letter itself you are to know that it is divided into four parts. In the first Theophilus exhorts believers to celebrate the Lord’s passover; in the second he slays Apollinarius; in the third he demolishes Origen; while in the fourth and last he exhorts the heretics to penitence. If the polemic against Origen should seem to you to be inadequate, you are to remember that Origenism was fully treated in last year’s <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Letter XCVI.">letter;</span> and that this which I have just translated, as it aims at brevity, was not bound to dwell farther upon the subject. Besides, its terse and clear confession of faith directed against Apollinarius is not lacking in dialectical subtlety. Theophilus first wrests the dagger from his opponent’s hand, and then stabs him to the heart. 4. Entreat the Lord, therefore, that a composition which has won favour in Greek may not fail to win it also in Latin, and that what the whole East admires and praises Rome may gladly take to her heart. And may the chair of the apostle Peter by its preaching confirm the preaching of the chair of the evangelist Mark. Popular rumour, indeed, has it that the blessed pope Anastasius is of like zeal and spirit with Theophilus and that he has pursued the heretics even to the dens in which they lurk. Moreover his own letters inform us that he condemns in the West what is already condemned in the East. May he live for many years so that the reviving sprouts of heresy may in course of time by his efforts be made to wither and to die. Many of the Egyptian Origenists had fled to Constantinople and thrown themselves on the kindness of the patriarch John Chrysostom. Jer. xiii. 23. Letter XCVIII. Letter XCVI. He was already dead when these words were written. Letter XCVIII. From Theophilus. A translation by Jerome of Theophilus’s paschal letter for the year 402 a.d. Like that of the previous year (Letter XCVI.) it deals mainly with the heresies of Apollinarius and Origen.

Ep. XCIX — Letter XCIX. To Theophilus.

Letter XCIX. To Theophilus. Jerome forwards to Theophilus a translation of the latter’s paschal letter for 404 a.d. and apologizes for his delay in sending it, on the ground that ill-health and grief for the death of Paula have prevented him from doing literary work. The date of the letter is 404 a.d. To the most blessed pope Theophilus, Jerome. 1. From the time that I received the letters of your holiness together with the paschal treatise until the present day I have been so harassed with sorrow and mourning, with anxiety, and with the different reports which have come from all quarters concerning the condition of the church, that I have hardly been able to turn your volume into Latin. You know the truth of the old saying, grief chokes utterance; and it is more than ever true when to sickness of the mind is added sickness of the body. I have now been five days in bed in a burning fever: consequently it is only by using the greatest haste that I can dictate this very letter. But I wish to shew your holiness in a few words what pains I have taken, in translating your treatise, to transfer the charm of diction which marks every sentence in the original, and to make the style of the Latin correspond in some degree with that of the Greek. 2. At the outset you use the language of philosophy; and, without appearing to particularize, you slay one while you instruct all. In the remaining sections—a task most difficult of accomplishment—you combine philosophy and rhetoric and draw together for us Demosthenes and Plato. What diatribes you have launched against self-indulgence! What eulogies you have bestowed upon the virtue of continence! With what secret stores of wisdom you have spoken of the interchange of day and night, the course of the moon, the laws of the sun, the nature of our world; always appealing to the authority of scripture lest in a paschal treatise you should appear to have borrowed anything from secular sources! To be brief, I am afraid to praise you for these things lest I should be charged with offering flattery. The book is excellent both in the philosophical portions and where, without making personal attacks, you plead the cause which you have espoused. Wherefore, I beseech you, pardon me my backwardness: I have been so completely overcome by the falling asleep of the holy and venerable <span class="jl-fn-term" data-fn="Letter C.">Paula</span> that except my translation of this book I have hitherto written nothing bearing on sacred subjects. As you yourself know, I have suddenly lost the comforter whom I have led about with me, not—the Lord is my witness—to minister to my own needs, but for the relief and refreshment of the saints upon whom she has waited with all diligence. Your holy and estimable daughter Eustochium (who refuses to be comforted for the loss Letter C. Origen. See Letter CVIII. of her mother), and with her all the brotherhood humbly salute you. Kindly send me the books which you say that you have lately written that I may translate them or, if not that, at least read them. Farewell in Christ.