30 September. St. Jerome. 1662 Book of Common Prayer
30
September. St. Jerome. 1662 Book of Common Prayer
Two brief bio-notes: (1) From the 1662 BCP, (2)
Wiki-notes, and (3) notes from Catholics
online.
St.
Jerome
(Hieronymus; A.D. 342-420), the great critic and scholar of the West, as Origen
of the East, standing almost alone among the Latin Fathers in knowledge, not
only of Greek, but of Hebrew and Chaldee, and in the instincts of sound and
scholarly criticism. He was born at Stridon in Pannonia, in early life a
teacher of grammar and rhetoric; after his baptism he travelled to Gaul, Rome,
and the East, and spent some time as a recluse in the desert of Chalcis;
thence, after visiting Constantinople, he settled at Rome, as the trusted
counsellor of Pope Damasus; afterwards he returned to the East, and spent the
last thirty years of his life in seclusion and study at Bethlehem. His
character was violent, and often undisciplined and fanatic, as in his
championship of asceticism and monasticism, and his various controversies. But
his service in producing, direct from the original, the great Lain Version of
the Western Church (the "Vulgate"), superseding, except in the
Psalter and the Apocryphal books, the varying and inaccurate versions
previously existing, was simply priceless; and on all points of Biblical criticism
his authority far outweighs all others in the Patristic literature of the West.
His scriptural Commentaries, his Letters and Treatises, and his historical and
biographical works are also of the highest value. -- September 30.
Second, from Wiki.
Saint Jerome (Latin: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; Ancient Greek: Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; c. 347 – 30 September 420) was a
Latin Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian,
who also became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia. He is best known for his
translation of the Bible
into Latin (the Vulgate), and his commentaries on
the Gospel of the Hebrews. His list of writings is extensive.[1]
He is recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church, the Eastern
Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Church of England (Anglican Communion).[2] Jerome is commemorated on
30 September with a memorial.
LifeEusebius Sophronius Hieronymus was born at Stridon around 347.[3] He was not baptized until about 360 or 366, when he had gone to Rome with his friend Bonosus (who may or may not have been the same Bonosus whom Jerome identifies as his friend who went to live as a hermit on an island in the Adriatic) to pursue rhetorical and philosophical studies. He studied under the grammarian Aelius Donatus. There Jerome learned Latin and at least some Greek,[4] though probably not the familiarity with Greek literature he would later claim to have acquired as a schoolboy.[5]
As a student in Rome, he engaged in the superficial
escapades and wanton behaviour of students there, which he indulged in quite
casually but for which he suffered terrible bouts of repentance afterwards. To
appease his conscience, he
would visit on Sundays the sepulchers of the martyrs and the Apostles in the catacombs. This experience would remind him of the terrors of hell:
"Often I would find
myself entering those crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either
side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything was so dark that
almost it seemed as though the Psalmist's words were fulfilled, Let them go
down quick into Hell.[6] Here and there the light, not entering in through
windows, but filtering down from above through shafts, relieved the horror of
the darkness. But again, as soon as you found yourself cautiously moving
forward, the black night closed around and there came to my mind the line of
Vergil, "Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent'".[7][8]
Jerome used a quote from Vergil — "On all sides round
horror spread wide; the very silence breathed a terror on my soul."[9] — to describe the horror of
hell. Jerome initially used classical authors to describe Christian concepts such as hell that indicated both
his classical education and his deep shame of their associated practices, such
as pederasty which was found in Rome.
Although initially skeptical of Christianity, he was eventually converted.[10] After several years in
Rome, he travelled with Bonosus to Gaul and settled in Trier where he seems to have
first taken up theological studies, and where he copied, for his friend Tyrannius Rufinus, Hilary of Poitiers' commentary on the Psalms and the treatise De synodis. Next
came a stay of at least several months, or possibly years, with Rufinus at Aquileia, where he made many
Christian friends.
Some of these accompanied him when he set out about 373
on a journey through Thrace and
Asia Minor into northern Syria. At Antioch, where he stayed the
longest, two of his companions died and he himself was seriously ill more than
once. During one of these illnesses (about the winter of 373–374), he had a
vision that led him to lay aside his secular studies and devote himself
to God. He seems to have abstained for a considerable time from the study of
the classics and to have plunged deeply into that of the Bible, under the impulse of Apollinaris
of Laodicea, then teaching in Antioch and not yet suspected of heresy.
Seized with a desire for a life of ascetic penance, he went for a time
to the desert of Chalcis, to
the southwest of Antioch,
known as the Syrian Thebaid, from the number of hermits
inhabiting it. During this period, he seems to have found time for study and
writing. He made his first attempt to learn Hebrew under the guidance of a
converted Jew; and he seems to have been
in correspondence with Jewish Christians in
Antioch. Around this time he had copied for him a Hebrew Gospel, of which
fragments are preserved in his notes, and is known today as the Gospel of the Hebrews, and which the Nazarenes considered was the true Gospel of Matthew.[11] Jerome translated parts of
this Hebrew Gospel into Greek.[12]
Returning to Antioch in 378 or 379, he was ordained by
Bishop Paulinus, apparently unwillingly and on condition that he continue his ascetic life. Soon afterward, he
went to Constantinople to
pursue a study of Scripture under Gregory Nazianzen. He
seems to have spent two years there, then left, and the next three (382–385) he
was in Rome again, attached to Pope Damasus I and the leading
Roman Christians. Invited originally for the synod of 382, held to end the schism of Antioch as there were
rival claimants to be the proper patriarch in Antioch. Jerome had accompanied
one of the claimants, Paulinus back to Rome in order to get more support for
him, and distinguished himself to the pope, and took a prominent place in his
councils.
He was given duties in Rome, and he undertook a revision
of the Latin Bible, to
be based on the Greek
manuscripts of the New Testament. He
also updated the Psalter containing the Book of Psalms then at use in Rome
based on the Septuagint.
Though he did not realize it yet, translating much of what became the Latin Vulgate Bible would take many years
and be his most important achievement (see Writings– Translations section
below).
This painting by Antonio da
Fabriano II, depicts St. Jerome in study. The writing implements, scrolls, and
manuscripts testify to Jerome's scholarly pursuits.[13] The Walters Art Museum.
In Rome he was surrounded by a circle of well-born and
well-educated women, including some from the noblest patrician families, such as the widows Lea, Marcella and Paula, with their daughters Blaesilla and Eustochium. The resulting inclination
of these women to the monastic life and from the indulgent lasciviousness in
Rome, and his unsparing criticism of the secular clergy of Rome, brought a
growing hostility against him among the Roman clergy and their supporters. Soon
after the death of his patron Damasus (10 December 384), Jerome
was forced by them to leave his position at Rome after an inquiry was brought
up by the Roman clergy into allegations that he had an improper relationship
with the widow Paula.
Additionally, his condemnation of Blaesilla's hedonistic lifestyle
in Rome had led her to adopt aescetic practices, but it affected her health and
worsened her physical weakness to the point that she died just four months
after starting to follow his instructions; much of the Roman populace were
outraged at Jerome for causing the premature death of such a lively young
woman, and his insistence to Paula that Blaesilla should not be mourned, and
complaints that her grief was excessive, were seen as heartless, polarising
Roman opinion against him.[14]
In August 385, he left Rome for good and returned to
Antioch, accompanied by his brother Paulinianus and several friends, and followed a little later by Paula and Eustochium,
who had resolved to end their days in the Holy Land. In the winter of 385,
Jerome acted as their spiritual adviser. The pilgrims, joined by Bishop
Paulinus of Antioch, visited Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the holy places of Galilee, and then went to Egypt, the home of the great
heroes of the ascetic life.
At the Catechetical
School of Alexandria, Jerome listened to the catechist Didymus the Blind
expounding the prophet Hosea and
telling his reminiscences of Anthony the Great,
who had died 30 years before; he spent some time in Nitria, admiring the disciplined community life of the numerous inhabitants of
that "city of the Lord," but detecting even there "concealed
serpents," i.e., the influence of Origen of Alexandria. Late in the summer of 388 he was back in Israel, and spent the remainder
of his life in a hermit's cell near Bethlehem, surrounded by a few friends,
both men and women (including Paula and Eustochium), to whom he acted as
priestly guide and teacher.
Amply provided by Paula with the means of
livelihood and of increasing his collection of books, he led a life of
incessant activity in literary production. To these last 34 years of his career
belong the most important of his works; his version of the Old Testament from
the original Hebrew text, the best of his scriptural commentaries, his
catalogue of Christian authors, and the dialogue against the Pelagians, the literary perfection of
which even an opponent recognized. To this period also belong most of his polemics, which distinguished him
among the orthodox Fathers, including the treatises against the Origenism later declared anathema, of
Bishop
John II of Jerusalem and his early friend
Rufinus. Later, as a result of his writings against Pelagianism, a body of excited
partisans broke into the monastic buildings, set them on fire, attacked the
inmates and killed a deacon,
forcing Jerome to seek safety in a neighboring fortress (416).
It is recorded that Jerome died near Bethlehem on 30 September 420. The
date of his death is given by the Chronicon of Prosper of Aquitaine. His remains, originally buried at Bethlehem, are said to have been
later transferred to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, though other places in the West claim some relics — the cathedral
at Nepi boasting possession of his
head, which, according to another tradition, is in the Escorial.
Translations and commentaries
Jerome was a scholar at a time when that statement
implied a fluency in Greek. He knew some Hebrew when he started his translation project, but moved to Jerusalem to
strengthen his grip on Jewish scripture commentary. A wealthy Roman aristocrat,
Paula, funded his stay in a monastery in Bethlehem and he completed his
translation there. He began in 382 by correcting the existing Latin language
version of the New Testament, commonly referred to as the Vetus Latina. By 390 he turned to
translating the Hebrew Bible
from the original Hebrew, having previously translated portions from the Septuagint which came from Alexandria.
He believed that the Council of Jamnia, or
mainstream rabbinical Judaism,
had rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts because of what
were ascertained as mistranslations along with its Hellenistic heretical elements.[15][16] He completed this work by
405. Prior to Jerome's Vulgate, all Latin translations of the Old Testament were based on the
Septuagint not the Hebrew. Jerome's decision to use a Hebrew text instead of
the previous translated Septuagint went against the advice of most other
Christians, including Augustine, who thought the Septuagint
inspired. Modern scholarship, however, has cast doubts on the actual quality of
Jerome's Hebrew knowledge. Many modern scholars believe that the Greek Hexapla is the main source for
Jerome's "iuxta Hebraeos" translation of the Old Testament.[17]
For the next 15 years, until he died, Jerome produced a
number of commentaries on Scripture, often explaining his translation choices
in using the original Hebrew rather than suspect translations. His patristic commentaries align closely
with Jewish tradition, and he indulges in allegorical and mystical subtleties after the manner
of Philo and the Alexandrian school.
Unlike his contemporaries, he emphasizes the difference between the Hebrew
Bible "apocrypha" and the Hebraica veritas of the protocanonical books. Evidence of this can be found in his introductions to the Solomonic writings, the Book of Tobit, and the Book of Judith. Most notable, however,
is the statement from his introduction to the Books of Samuel:
This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a helmeted
[i.e. defensive] introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into
Latin, so that we may be assured that what is outside of them must be placed
aside among the Apocryphal writings.[18]
Jerome in the desert,
tormented by his memories of the dancing girls of Rome.
Jerome's commentaries fall into three groups:
·
His translations or
recastings of Greek predecessors, including fourteen homilies on the Book of Jeremiah and
the same number on the Book of Ezekiel by Origen
(translated ca. 380 in Constantinople); two homilies of Origen of Alexandria on the Song of Solomon (in Rome, ca. 383); and thirty-nine on the Gospel of Luke (ca. 389, in
Bethlehem). The nine homilies of Origen on the Book of Isaiah included among his
works were not done by him. Here should be mentioned, as an important
contribution to the topography of Israel, his book De situ et nominibus
locorum Hebraeorum, a translation with additions and some regrettable
omissions of the Onomasticon of Eusebius. To the same period (ca.
390) belongs the Liber interpretationis nominum Hebraicorum, based on a
work supposed to go back to Philo and
expanded by Origen.
·
Original commentaries on the
Old Testament. To the period before his settlement at Bethlehem and the
following five years belong a series of short Old Testament studies: De
seraphim, De voce Osanna, De tribus quaestionibus veteris legis
(usually included among the letters as 18, 20, and 36); Quaestiones
hebraicae in Genesim; Commentarius in Ecclesiasten; Tractatus
septem in Psalmos 10-16 (lost); Explanationes in Michaeam, Sophoniam,
Nahum, Habacuc, Aggaeum. After 395 he composed a series of
longer commentaries, though in rather a desultory fashion: first on Jonah and
Obadiah (396), then on Isaiah (ca. 395-ca. 400), on Zechariah, Malachi, Hoseah,
Joel, Amos (from 406), on the Book of Daniel (ca. 407), on
Ezekiel (between 410 and 415), and on Jeremiah (after 415, left unfinished).
·
New Testament commentaries.
These include only Philemon, Galatians, Ephesians, and Titus (hastily composed 387-388);
Matthew (dictated in a fortnight, 398); Mark, selected passages in Luke, Revelation, and the prologue to the Gospel of John.
Historical and hagiographic writings
Jerome is also known as a historian. One of his earliest
historical works was his Chronicle (or Chronicon or Temporum liber), composed ca. 380 in Constantinople; this is a
translation into Latin of the chronological tables which compose the second
part of the Chronicon of Eusebius, with a supplement covering
the period from 325 to 379. Despite numerous errors taken over from Eusebius,
and some of his own, Jerome produced a valuable work, if only for the impulse
which it gave to such later chroniclers as Prosper, Cassiodorus,
and Victor of Tunnuna to continue his annals.
Important also is De
viris illustribus, written at Bethlehem in 392, the title and
arrangement of which are borrowed from Suetonius. It contains short biographical and literary notes on 135 Christian
authors, from Saint Peter
down to Jerome himself. For the first seventy-eight authors Eusebius (Historia
ecclesiastica) is the main source; in the second
section, beginning with Arnobius and
Lactantius, he includes a good deal of
independent information, especially as to western writers.
·
the Vita Pauli monachi, written during his first sojourn at Antioch (ca. 376), the legendary
material of which is derived from Egyptian monastic tradition;
·
the Vita Malchi monachi captivi
(ca. 391), probably based on an earlier work, although it purports to be
derived from the oral communications of the aged ascetic Malchus originally made to him in
the desert of Chalcis;
·
the Vita Hilarionis, of the same date, containing more trustworthy historical matter than the
other two, and based partly on the biography of Epiphanius and partly on oral tradition.
The so-called Martyrologium
Hieronymianum is spurious; it was apparently composed
by a western monk toward the end of the 6th or beginning of the 7th century,
with reference to an expression of Jerome's in the opening chapter of the Vita
Malchi, where he speaks of intending to write a history of the saints and
martyrs from the apostolic times.
Jerome's letters
or epistles, both by the great variety
of their subjects and by their qualities of style, form an important portion of
his literary remains. Whether he is discussing problems of scholarship, or
reasoning on cases of conscience, comforting the afflicted, or saying pleasant
things to his friends, scourging the vices and corruptions of the time and
against sexual
immorality among the clergy, [19] exhorting to the ascetic life and renunciation of
the world, or breaking a lance with his theological opponents, he gives a vivid picture not only of his
own mind, but of the age and its peculiar characteristics. Because there was no
distinct line between personal documents and those meant for publication, we
frequently find in his letters both confidential messages and treatises meant
for others besides the one to whom he was writing.[20]
The letters most frequently reprinted or referred to are
of a hortatory nature, such as Ep. 14,
Ad Heliodorum de laude vitae solitariae; Ep. 22, Ad Eustochium
de custodia virginitatis; Ep. 52, Ad Nepotianum de vita
clericorum et monachorum, a sort of epitome of pastoral theology
from the ascetic standpoint; Ep. 53, Ad Paulinum de studio
scripturarum; Ep. 57, to the same, De institutione monachi; Ep.
70, Ad Magnum de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis; and Ep. 107, Ad
Laetam de institutione filiae.
Theological writings
Practically all of Jerome's productions in the field of dogma have a more or less
vehemently polemical character, and are directed
against assailants of the orthodox doctrines. Even the translation of the
treatise of Didymus the Blind on the Holy Spirit
into Latin (begun in Rome 384, completed at Bethlehem) shows an apologetic tendency against the Arians and Pneumatomachoi. The same is true of
his version of Origen's De principiis (ca. 399), intended to supersede
the inaccurate translation by Rufinus. The more strictly polemical writings
cover every period of his life. During the sojourns at Antioch and
Constantinople he was mainly occupied with the Arian controversy, and
especially with the schisms centering around Meletius of Antioch and Lucifer Calaritanus. Two letters to Pope Damasus (15 and 16) complain of the conduct of both
parties at Antioch, the Meletians and Paulinians, who had tried to draw him
into their controversy over the application of the terms ousia and hypostasis
to the Trinity. At the same time or a little
later (379) he composed his Liber Contra Luciferianos, in which he
cleverly uses the dialogue form to combat the tenets of that faction,
particularly their rejection of baptism by heretics.
In Rome (ca. 383) he wrote a passionate counterblast
against the teaching of Helvidius, in
defense of the doctrine of the perpetual
virginity of Mary and of the superiority of the single
over the married state. An opponent of a somewhat similar nature was Jovinianus, with whom he came into
conflict in 392 (Adversus Jovinianum, Against Jovinianus) and the defense of this work addressed to his friend Pammachius, numbered 48 in the
letters). Once more he defended the ordinary Catholic practices of piety and his own ascetic ethics in 406 against the Gallic presbyter Vigilantius, who opposed the cultus of martyrs and relics, the
vow of poverty, and clerical celibacy. Meanwhile the controversy with John II
of Jerusalem and Rufinus concerning the orthodoxy of Origen occurred. To this
period belong some of his most passionate and most comprehensive polemical
works: the Contra Joannem Hierosolymitanum (398 or 399); the two closely
connected Apologiae contra Rufinum (402); and the "last word"
written a few months later, the Liber tertius seu ultima responsio adversus
scripta Rufini. The last of his polemical works is the skilfully composed Dialogus
contra Pelagianos (415).
Reception by later Christianity
Jerome is the second most voluminous writer (after St. Augustine) in ancient Latin
Christianity. In the Roman Catholic Church, he is recognized as the patron saint of translators, librarians and encyclopedists.[21]
He acquired a knowledge of Hebrew by studying with a Jew who converted to
Christianity, and took the unusual position (for that time) that the Hebrew,
and not the Septuagint, was the inspired text of the Old Testament. The
traditional view is that he used this knowledge to translate what became known
as the Vulgate, and his translation was slowly but eventually accepted in the
Catholic Church.[22] The later resurgence of
Hebrew studies within Christianity owes much to him.
He showed more zeal and interest in the ascetic ideal
than in abstract speculation. It was this strict asceticism that made Martin Luther judge him so
severely. In fact, Protestant
readers are not generally inclined to accept his writings as authoritative. The
tendency to recognize a superior comes out in his correspondence with Augustine (cf. Jerome's letters numbered 56, 67, 102-105, 110-112, 115-116; and 28,
39, 40, 67-68, 71-75, 81-82 in Augustine's).
Despite the criticisms already mentioned, Jerome has
retained a rank among the western Fathers. This would be his due, if for
nothing else, on account of the great influence exercised by his Latin version
of the Bible upon the subsequent ecclesiastical and theological development.
In art
16th century un-signed
painting of St. Jerome, in private collection
The vision of Saint Jerome by Louis Cretey, 17th century, oil on canvas, 150,5 x 127 cm, private
collection.
This painting by the
Workshop of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, depicts St. Jerome in his study.[23] The Walters Art Museum.
In art, he is often represented as one of the four Latin doctors of the Church along
with Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose, and Pope Gregory I. As a prominent
member of the Roman clergy, he has often been portrayed anachronistically[24] in the garb of a cardinal. Even when he is depicted as a half-clad anchorite, with cross, skull and
Bible for the only furniture of his cell, the red hat or some other indication
of his rank as cardinal is as a rule introduced somewhere in the picture.
He is also often depicted with a lion, in reference to a story
telling how Jerome tamed a lion by healing its paw. The source for the story is
a nearly identical story told about Saint
Gerasimus, possibly due to Salmaan's confusion between
"Gerasimus" and "Geronimus", the late Latin name of Jerome.[25][26] Hagiographies of Jerome
talk of his having spent a lot of his years in the Syrian desert, and multiple
artists have titled their works "St Jerome in the wilderness"; some
of them include Pietro Perugino and Lambert Sustris.[27]
He is also sometimes depicted with an owl, the symbol of wisdom and
scholarship.[28] Writing materials and
the trumpet of final judgment are
also part of his iconography.[28] He is commemorated on 30
September with a memorial.
See also
References
Notes
1.
Jump up ^ Schaff, Philip, ed. (1893). A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the
Christian Church.
2nd series VI. Henry Wace. New York: The Christian Literature Company. Retrieved 2010-06-07.
2.
Jump up ^ In
the Eastern Orthodox Church he is known as St. Jerome of Stridonium or Blessed
Jerome. Though "Blessed" in this context does not have the sense
of being less than a saint, as in the West.
3.
Jump up ^ Williams,
Megan Hale (2006), The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the making of Christian
Scholarship, Chicago.
4.
Jump up ^ Walsh,
Michael, ed. (1991), Butler's Lives of the Saints, New York:
HarperCollins, p. 307.
5.
Jump up ^ Kelly,
JND (1975), Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies, New York:
Harper & Row, pp. 13–14.
8.
Jump up ^ Patrologia Latina 25, 373: Crebroque cryptas ingredi, quae in terrarum profunda defossae, ex utraque
parte ingredientium per parietes habent corpora sepultorum, et ita obscura sunt
omnia, ut propemodum illud propheticum compleatur: Descendant ad infernum
viventes (Ps. LIV,16): et raro desuper lumen admissum, horrorem temperet
tenebrarum, ut non tam fenestram, quam foramen demissi luminis putes: rursumque
pedetentim acceditur, et caeca nocte circumdatis illud Virgilianum proponitur
(Aeneid. lib. II): "Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia
terrent."
9.
Jump up ^ P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneid Theodore C.
Williams, Ed. Perseus Project (retrieved 23 Aug 2013)
11.
Jump up ^ Rebenich,
Stefan (2002), Jerome, p. 211, "Further, he began to study
Hebrew: 'I betook myself to a brother who before his conversion had been a
Hebrew and'..."
12.
Jump up ^ Pritz,
Ray (1988), Nazarene Jewish Christianity: from the end of the New Testament,
p. 50, "In his accounts of his desert sojourn, Jerome never mentions
leaving Chalcis, and there is no pressing reason to think..."
15.
Jump up ^ "The
translation, which shows at times a peculiar ignorance of Hebrew usage, was
evidently made from a codex which differed widely in places from the text
crystallized by the Masorah (..) Two things, however, rendered the Septuagint
unwelcome in the long run to the Jews. Its divergence from the accepted text
(afterward called the Masoretic) was too evident; and it therefore could not serve as a
basis for theological discussion or for homiletic interpretation. This distrust
was accentuated by the fact that it had been adopted as Sacred Scripture by
[Christianity] (..) In course of time it came to be the canonical Greek Bible
(..) It became part of the Bible of the Christian Church.""Bible Translations - The
Septuagint".
JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
16.
Jump up ^ "(..)
die griechische Bibelübersetzung, die einem innerjüdischen Bedürfnis entsprang
(..) [von den] Rabbinen zuerst gerühmt (..) Später jedoch, als manche ungenaue
Übertragung des hebräischen Textes in der Septuaginta und Übersetzungsfehler
die Grundlage für hellenistische Irrlehren abgaben, lehte man die Septuaginta
ab." Verband der Deutschen Juden (Hrsg.), neu hrsg. von Walter Homolka,
Walter Jacob, Tovia Ben Chorin: Die Lehren des Judentums nach den Quellen;
München, Knesebeck, 1999, Bd.3, S. 43ff
17.
Jump up ^ Pierre
Nautin, article Hieronymus, in: Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Vol. 15,
Walter de Gruyter, Berlin - New York 1986, p. 304-315, here p. 309-310.
21.
Jump up ^ "St. Jerome: Patron Saint of Librarians | Luther
College Library and Information Services"
25.
Jump up ^ "Eugene Rice has suggested that in all probability the story of
Gerasimus's lion became attached to the figure of Jerome some time during the
seventh century, after the military invasions of the Arabs had forced many
Greek monks who were living in the deserts of the Middle East to seek refuge in
Rome. Rice conjectures (Saint Jerome in the Renaissance, pp. 44-45) that
because of the similarity between the names Gerasimus and Geronimus -- the late
Latin form of Jerome's name -- 'a Latin-speaking cleric . . . made St Geronimus
the hero of a story he had heard about St Gerasimus; and that the author of Plerosque
nimirum, attracted by a story at once so picturesque, so apparently
appropriate, and so resonant in suggestion and meaning, and under the
impression that its source was pilgrims who had been told it in Bethlehem,
included it in his life of a favourite saint otherwise bereft of
miracles.'" Salter,
David. Holy and Noble Beasts: Encounters With Animals in Medieval Literature.
D. S. Brewer. p. 12. ISBN 9780859916240. [1]
26.
Jump up ^ "a
figment" found in the thirteenth-century Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine Williams,
Megan Hale. The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian
Scholarship. Chicago: U of Chicago P. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-226-89900-8.
28.
^ Jump up to:
a b The Collection: St. Jerome, gallery of the religious art collection of New Mexico
State University,
with explanations. Accessed August 10, 2007.
Bibliography
·
J.N.D. Kelly, "Jerome:
His Life, Writings, and Controversies" (Peabody, MA 1998)
·
S. Rebenich,
"Jerome" (London and New York, 2002)
·
This article uses material from
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religion.
Further reading
·
Saint Jerome, Three
biographies: Malchus, St. Hilarion and Paulus the First Hermit Authored by
Saint Jerome, London, 2012. limovia.net. ISBN 978-1-78336-016-1
External links
·
earlyfathers.com/jerome/
Early Church Fathers. Jerome: Great Translator (link cybersquatted as of Mar.
17, 2013)
Latin texts
·
Chronological list of Jerome's Works
with modern editions and translations cited
Facsimiles
English translations
·
Letters, The Life of Paulus
the First Hermit, The Life of S. Hilarion, The Life of Malchus, the Captive
Monk, The Dialogue Against the Luciferians, The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed
Mary, Against Jovinianus, Against Vigilantius, To Pammachius against John of
Jerusalem, Against the Pelagians, Prefaces (CCEL)
St. Jerome, who was born
Eusebius Hieronymous Sophronius, was the most learned of the Fathers of the
Western Church. He was born about the year 342 at Stridonius, a small town at
the head of the Adriatic, near the episcopal city of Aquileia. His father, a
Christian, took care that his son was well instructed at home, then sent him to
Rome, where the young man's teachers were the famous pagan grammarian Donatus and Victorinus, a Christian rhetorician. Jerome's native tongue was the Illyrian
dialect, but at Rome he became fluent in Latin and Greek, and read the
literatures of those languages with great pleasure. His aptitude for oratory was such that he may have considered law as a career. He acquired many worldly ideas, made little
effort to check his pleasure-loving instincts, and lost much of the piety that
had been instilled in him at home. Yet in spite of the pagan and hedonistic influences around him, Jerome was
baptized by Pope Liberius in 360. He tells us that "it was my custom on
Sundays to visit, with friends of my own age and tastes, the tombs of the
martyrs and Apostles, going down into those subterranean galleries whose walls
on both sides preserve the relics of the dead." Here he enjoyed deciphering the
inscriptions.
After three years at Rome, Jerome's intellectual curiosity led him to explore other parts of the world. He visited his home and then, accompanied by his boyhood friend Bonosus, went to Aquileia, where he made friends among the monks of the monastery there, notably Rufinus. Then, still accompanied by Bonosus, he traveled to Treves, in Gaul. He now renounced all secular pursuits to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to God. Eager to build up a religious library, the young scholar copied out St. Hilary's books on and his Commentaries on the Psalms, and got together other literary and religious treasures. He returned to Stridonius, and later settled in Aquileia. The bishop had cleared the church there of the plague of Arianism and had drawn to it many eminent men. Among those with whom Jerome formed friendships were Chromatius (later canonized), to whom Jerome dedicated several of his works, Heliodorus (also to become a saint), and his nephew Nepotian. The famous theologian Rufinus, at first his close friend, afterward became his bitter opponent. By nature an irascible man with a sharp tongue, Jerome made enemies as well as friends. He spent some years in scholarly studies in Aquileia, then, in search of more perfect solitude, he turned towards the East. With his friends, Innocent, Heliodorus, and Hylas, a freed slave, he started overland for Syria. On the way they visited Athens, Bithynia, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Cilicia.
The party arrived at Antioch about the year 373. There Jerome at first attended the lectures of the famous Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea, who had not yet put forward his heresy1 With his companions he left the city for the desert of Chalcis, about fifty miles southeast of Antioch. Innocent and Hylas soon died there, and Heliodorus left to return to the West, but Jerome stayed for four years, which were passed in study and in the practice of austerity. He had many attacks of illness but suffered still more from temptation. "In the remotest part of a wild and stony desert," he wrote years afterwards to his friend Eustochium, "burnt up with the heat of the sun, so scorching that it frightens even the monks who live there, I seemed to myself to be in the midst of the delights and crowds of Rome.... In this exile and prison to which through fear of Hell I had voluntarily condemned myself, with no other company but scorpions and wild beasts, I many times imagined myself watching the dancing of Roman maidens as if I had been in the midst of them. My face was pallid with fasting, yet my will felt the assaults of desire. In my cold body and my parched flesh, which seemed dead before its death, passion was still able to live. Alone with the enemy, I threw myself in spirit at the feet of Jesus, watering them with my tears, and tamed my flesh by fasting whole weeks. I am not ashamed to disclose my temptations, though I grieve that I am not now what I then was."
Jerome added to these trials the study of Hebrew, a discipline which he hoped would help him in winning a victory over himself. "When my soul was on fire with wicked thoughts," he wrote in 411, "as a last resort, I became a pupil to a monk who had been a Jew, in order to learn the Hebrew alphabet. From the judicious precepts of Quintilian, the rich and fluent eloquence of Cicero, the graver style of Fronto, and the smoothness of Pliny, I turned to this language of hissing and broken-winded words. What labor it cost me, what difficulties I went through, how often I despaired and abandoned it and began again to learn, both I, who felt the burden, and they who lived with me, can bear witness. I thank our Lord that I now gather such sweet fruit from the bitter sowing of those studies." He continued to read the pagan classics for pleasure until a vivid dream turned him from them, at least for a time. In a letter he describes how, during an illness, he dreamed he was standing before the tribunal of Christ. "Thou a Christian?" said the judge skeptically. "Thou art a Ciceronian. Where thy treasure is, there thy heart is also."
The church at Antioch was greatly disturbed at this time by party and doctrinal disputes. The anchorites in the desert took sides, and called on Jerome, the most learned of them, to give his opinions on the subjects at issue. He wrote for guidance to Pope Damasus at Rome. Failing to receive an answer, he wrote again. "On one side, the Arian fury rages, supported by the secular power; on the other side, the Church (at Antioch) is being divided into three parts, and each would draw me to itself." No reply from Damasus is extant; but we know that Jerome acknowledged Paulinus, leader of one party, as bishop of Antioch, and that when he left the desert of Chalcis, he received from Paulinus' hands his ordination as priest. Jerome consented to ordination only on condition that he should not be obliged to serve in any church, knowing that his true vocation was to be a monk and recluse.
About 380 Jerome went to Constantinople to study the Scriptures under the Greek, Gregory of Nazianzus, then bishop of that city. Two years later he went back to Rome with Paulinus of Antioch to attend a council which Pope Damasus was holding to deal with the Antioch schism. Appointed secretary of the council, Jerome acquitted himself so well that, when it was over, Damasus kept him there as his own secretary. At the Pope's request he prepared a revised text, based on the Greek, of the Latin New Testament, the current version of which had been disfigured by "wrong copying, clumsy correction, and careless interpolations." He also revised the Latin psalter. That the prestige of Rome and its power to arbitrate between disputants, East as well as West, was recognized as never before at this time, was due in some measure at least to Jerome's diligence and ability. Along with his official duties he was fostering a new movement of Christian asceticism among a group of noble Roman ladies. Several of them were to be canonized, including Albina and her daughters Marcella and Asella, Melania the Elder, who was the first of them to go to the Holy Land, and Paula, with her daughters, Blesilla and Eustochium. The tie between Jerome and the three last-mentioned women was especially close, and to them he addressed many of his famous letters.
When Pope Damasus died in 384, he was succeeded by Siricius, who was less friendly to Jerome. While serving Damasus, Jerome had impressed all by his personal holiness, learning, and integrity. But he had also managed to get himself widely disliked by pagans and evil-doers whom he had condemned, and also by people of taste and tolerance, many of them Christians, who were offended by his biting sarcasm and a certain ruthlessness in attack. An example of his style is the harsh diatribe against the artifices of worldly women, who "paint their cheeks with rouge and their eyelids with antimony, whose plastered faces, too white for human beings, look like idols; and if in a moment of forgetfulness they shed a tear it makes a furrow where it rolls down the painted cheek; women to whom years do not bring the gravity of age, who load their heads with other people's hair, enamel a lost youth upon the wrinkles of age, and affect a maidenly timidity in the midst of a troop of grand children." In a letter to Eustochium he writes with scorn of certain members of the Roman clergy. "All their anxiety is about their clothes.... You would take them for bridegrooms rather than for clerics; all they think about is knowing the names and houses and doings of rich ladies."
Although Jerome's indignation was usually justified, his manner of expressing it-both verbally and in letters-aroused resentment. His own reputation was attacked; his bluntness, his walk, and even his smile were criticized. And neither the virtue of the ladies under his direction nor his own scrupulous behavior towards them was any protection from scandalous gossip. Affronted at the calumnies that were circulated, Jerome decided to return to the East. Taking with him his brother Paulinian and some others, he embarked in August, 385. At Cyprus, on the way, he was received with joy by Bishop Epiphanius, and at Antioch also he conferred with leading churchmen. It was here, probably, that he was joined by the widow Paula and some other ladies who had left Rome with the aim of settling in the Holy Land.
With what remained of Jerome's own patrimony and with financial help from Paula, a monastery for men was built near the basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem, and also houses for three communities of women. Paula became head of one of these, and after her death was succeeded by her daughter Eustochium. Jerome himself lived and worked in a large cave near the Saviour's birthplace. He opened a free school there and also a hospice for pilgrims, "so that," as Paula said, "should Mary and Joseph visit Bethlehem again, they would have a place to stay." Now at last Jerome began to enjoy some years of peaceful activity. He gives us a wonderful description of this fruitful, harmonious, Palestinian life, and its attraction for all manner of men. "Illustrious Gauls congregate here, and no sooner has the Briton, so remote from our world, arrived at religion than he leaves his early-setting sun to seek a land which he knows only by reputation and from the Scriptures. Then the Armenians, the Persians, the peoples of India and Ethiopia, of Egypt, and of Pontus, Cappadocia, Syria, and Mesopotamia!... They come in throngs and set us examples of every virtue. The languages differ but the religion is the same; as many different choirs chant the psalms as there are nations.... Here bread and herbs, planted with our own hands, and milk, all country fare, furnish us plain and healthy food. In summer the trees give us shade. In autumn the air is cool and the falling leaves restful. In spring our psalmody is sweeter for the singing of the birds. We have plenty of wood when winter snow and cold are upon us. Let Rome keep its crowds, let its arenas run with blood, its circuses go mad, its theaters wallow in sensuality...."
But when the Christian faith was threatened Jerome could not be silent. While at Rome in the time of Pope Damasus, he had composed a book on the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary against one Helvidius, who had maintained that Mary had not remained always a virgin but had had other children by St. Joseph, after the birth of Christ. This and similar ideas were now again put forward by a certain Jovinian, who had been a monk. Paula's son-in-law, Pammachius, sent some of this heretical writing to Jerome, and he, in 393, wrote two books against Jovinian. In the first he described the excellence of virginity. The books were written in Jerome's vehement style and there were expressions in them which seemed lacking in respect for honorable matrimony. Pammachius informed Jerome of the offense which he and many others at Rome had taken at them. Thereupon Jerome composed his , sometimes called his third book against Jovinian, in which he showed by quoting from his own earlier works that he regarded marriage as a good and honorable state and did not condemn even a second or a third marriage.
A few years later he turned his attention to one Vigilantius, a Gallic priest, who was denouncing both celibacy and the veneration of saints' relics, calling those who revered them idolaters and worshipers of ashes. In defending celibacy Jerome said that a monk should purchase security by flying from temptations and dangers when he distrusted his own strength. As to the veneration of relics, he declared: "We do not worship the relics of the martyrs, but honor them in our worship of Him whose martyrs they are. We honor the servants in order that the respect paid to them may be reflected back to the Lord." Honoring them, he said, was not idolatry because no Christian had ever adored the martyrs as gods; on the other hand, they pray for us. "If the Apostles and martyrs, while still living on earth, could pray for other men, how much more may they do it after their victories? Have they less power now that they are with Jesus Christ?" He told Paula, after the death of her daughter Blesilla, "She now prays to the Lord for you, and obtains for me the pardon of my sins." Jerome was never moderate whether in virtue or against evil. Though swift to anger, he was also swift to feel remorse and was even more severe on his own failings than on those of others.
From 395 to 400 Jerome was engaged in a war against Origenism2, which unhappily created a breach in his long friendship with Rufinus. Finding that some Eastern monks had been led into error by the authority of Rufinus' name and learning, Jerome attacked him. Rufinus, then living in a monastery at Jerusalem, had translated many of Origen's works into Latin and was an enthusiastic upholder of his scholarship, though it does not appear that he meant to defend the heresies in Origen's writings. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, was one of the churchmen greatly distressed by the quarrel between Jerome and Rufinus, and became unwillingly involved in a controversy with Jerome.
Jerome's passionate controversies were the least important part of his activities. What has made his name so famous was his critical labor on the text of the Scriptures. The Church regards him as the greatest of all the doctors in clarifying the Divine Word. He had the best available aids for such an undertaking, living where the remains of Biblical places, names, and customs all combined to give him a more vivid view than he could have had at a greater distance. To continue his study of Hebrew he hired a famous Jewish scholar, Bar Ananias, who came to teach him by night, lest other Jews should learn of it. As a man of prayer and purity of heart whose life had been mainly spent in study, penance, and contemplation, Jerome was prepared to be a sensitive interpreter of spiritual things.
We have seen that already while at Rome he had made a revision of the current Latin New Testament, and of the Psalms. Now he undertook to translate most of the books of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. The friends and scholars who urged him to this task realized the superiority of a version made directly from the original to any second-hand version, however venerable. It was needed too for argument with the Jews, who recognized no other text as authentic but their own. He began with the Books of Kings, and went on with the rest at different times. When he found that the Book of Tobias and part of Daniel had been composed in Chaldaic, he set himself to learn that difficult language also. More than once he was tempted to give up the whole wearisome task, but a certain scholarly tenacity of purpose kept him at it. The only parts of the Latin Bible, now known as the Vulgate, which were not either translated or worked over by him are the Books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and the two Books of the Maccabees.3 He revised the Psalms once again, with the aid of Origen's ,4 and the Hebrew text. This last is the version included now in the Vulgate and used generally in the Divine Office; his first revision, known as the Roman Psalter, is still used for the opening psalm at Matins and throughout the Missal, and for the Divine Office in the cathedrals of St. Peter at Rome and St. Mark at Venice, and in the Milanese rite.
In the sixteenth century the great Council of Trent pronounced Jerome's Vulgate the authentic and authoritative Latin text of the Catholic Church, without, however, thereby implying a preference for it above the original text or above versions in other languages. In 1907 Pope Pius X entrusted to the Benedictine Order the office of restoring as far as possible the correct text of St. Jerome's Vulgate, which during fifteen centuries of use had naturally become altered in many places. The Bible now ordinarily used by English-speaking Catholics is a translation of the Vulgate, made at Rheims and Douay towards the end of the sixteenth century, and revised by Bishop Challoner in the eighteenth. The Confraternity Edition of the New Testament appearing in 1950 represents a complete revision.
A heavy blow came to Jerome in 404 when his staunch friend, the saintly Paula, died. Six years later he was stunned by news of the sacking of Rome by Alaric the Goth. Of the refugees who fled from Rome to the East at this time he wrote: "Who would have believed that the daughters of that mighty city would one day be wandering as servants and slaves on the shores of Egypt and Africa, or that Bethlehem would daily receive noble Romans, distinguished ladies, brought up in wealth and now reduced to beggary? I cannot help them all, but I grieve and weep with them, and am completely absorbed in the duties which charity imposes on me. I have put aside my commentary on Ezekiel and almost all study. For today we must translate the precepts of the Scriptures into deeds; instead of speaking saintly words, we must act them." A few years later his work was again interrupted by raids of barbarians pushing north through Egypt into Palestine, and later still by a violent onset of Pelagian heretics, who, relying on the protection of Bishop John of Jerusalem, sent a troop of ruffians to Bethlehem to disperse the monks and nuns living there under the direction of Jerome, who had been opposing Pelagianism5 with his customary truculence. Some of the monks were beaten, a deacon was killed, and monasteries were set on fire. Jerome had to go into hiding for a time.
The following year Paula's daughter Eustochium died. The aged Jerome soon fell ill, and after lingering for two years succumbed. Worn with penance and excessive labor, his sight and voice almost gone, his body like a shadow, he died peacefully on September 30, 420, and was buried under the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. In the thirteenth century his body was translated and now lies somewhere in the Sistine Chapel of the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome. The Church owes much to St. Jerome. While his great work was the Vulgate, his achievements in other fields are valuable; to him we owe the distinction between canonical and apocryphal writings; he was a pioneer in the field of Biblical archeology, his commentaries are important; his letters, published in three volumes, are one of our best sources of knowledge of the times.
St. Jerome has been a popular subject with artists, who have pictured him in the desert, as a scholar in his study, and sometimes in the robes of a cardinal, because of his services for Pope Damasus; often too he is shown with a lion, from whose paw, according to legend, he once drew a thorn. Actually this story was transferred to him from the tradition of St. Gerasimus, but a lion is not an inappropriate symbol for so fearless a champion of the faith.
After three years at Rome, Jerome's intellectual curiosity led him to explore other parts of the world. He visited his home and then, accompanied by his boyhood friend Bonosus, went to Aquileia, where he made friends among the monks of the monastery there, notably Rufinus. Then, still accompanied by Bonosus, he traveled to Treves, in Gaul. He now renounced all secular pursuits to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to God. Eager to build up a religious library, the young scholar copied out St. Hilary's books on and his Commentaries on the Psalms, and got together other literary and religious treasures. He returned to Stridonius, and later settled in Aquileia. The bishop had cleared the church there of the plague of Arianism and had drawn to it many eminent men. Among those with whom Jerome formed friendships were Chromatius (later canonized), to whom Jerome dedicated several of his works, Heliodorus (also to become a saint), and his nephew Nepotian. The famous theologian Rufinus, at first his close friend, afterward became his bitter opponent. By nature an irascible man with a sharp tongue, Jerome made enemies as well as friends. He spent some years in scholarly studies in Aquileia, then, in search of more perfect solitude, he turned towards the East. With his friends, Innocent, Heliodorus, and Hylas, a freed slave, he started overland for Syria. On the way they visited Athens, Bithynia, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Cilicia.
The party arrived at Antioch about the year 373. There Jerome at first attended the lectures of the famous Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea, who had not yet put forward his heresy1 With his companions he left the city for the desert of Chalcis, about fifty miles southeast of Antioch. Innocent and Hylas soon died there, and Heliodorus left to return to the West, but Jerome stayed for four years, which were passed in study and in the practice of austerity. He had many attacks of illness but suffered still more from temptation. "In the remotest part of a wild and stony desert," he wrote years afterwards to his friend Eustochium, "burnt up with the heat of the sun, so scorching that it frightens even the monks who live there, I seemed to myself to be in the midst of the delights and crowds of Rome.... In this exile and prison to which through fear of Hell I had voluntarily condemned myself, with no other company but scorpions and wild beasts, I many times imagined myself watching the dancing of Roman maidens as if I had been in the midst of them. My face was pallid with fasting, yet my will felt the assaults of desire. In my cold body and my parched flesh, which seemed dead before its death, passion was still able to live. Alone with the enemy, I threw myself in spirit at the feet of Jesus, watering them with my tears, and tamed my flesh by fasting whole weeks. I am not ashamed to disclose my temptations, though I grieve that I am not now what I then was."
Jerome added to these trials the study of Hebrew, a discipline which he hoped would help him in winning a victory over himself. "When my soul was on fire with wicked thoughts," he wrote in 411, "as a last resort, I became a pupil to a monk who had been a Jew, in order to learn the Hebrew alphabet. From the judicious precepts of Quintilian, the rich and fluent eloquence of Cicero, the graver style of Fronto, and the smoothness of Pliny, I turned to this language of hissing and broken-winded words. What labor it cost me, what difficulties I went through, how often I despaired and abandoned it and began again to learn, both I, who felt the burden, and they who lived with me, can bear witness. I thank our Lord that I now gather such sweet fruit from the bitter sowing of those studies." He continued to read the pagan classics for pleasure until a vivid dream turned him from them, at least for a time. In a letter he describes how, during an illness, he dreamed he was standing before the tribunal of Christ. "Thou a Christian?" said the judge skeptically. "Thou art a Ciceronian. Where thy treasure is, there thy heart is also."
The church at Antioch was greatly disturbed at this time by party and doctrinal disputes. The anchorites in the desert took sides, and called on Jerome, the most learned of them, to give his opinions on the subjects at issue. He wrote for guidance to Pope Damasus at Rome. Failing to receive an answer, he wrote again. "On one side, the Arian fury rages, supported by the secular power; on the other side, the Church (at Antioch) is being divided into three parts, and each would draw me to itself." No reply from Damasus is extant; but we know that Jerome acknowledged Paulinus, leader of one party, as bishop of Antioch, and that when he left the desert of Chalcis, he received from Paulinus' hands his ordination as priest. Jerome consented to ordination only on condition that he should not be obliged to serve in any church, knowing that his true vocation was to be a monk and recluse.
About 380 Jerome went to Constantinople to study the Scriptures under the Greek, Gregory of Nazianzus, then bishop of that city. Two years later he went back to Rome with Paulinus of Antioch to attend a council which Pope Damasus was holding to deal with the Antioch schism. Appointed secretary of the council, Jerome acquitted himself so well that, when it was over, Damasus kept him there as his own secretary. At the Pope's request he prepared a revised text, based on the Greek, of the Latin New Testament, the current version of which had been disfigured by "wrong copying, clumsy correction, and careless interpolations." He also revised the Latin psalter. That the prestige of Rome and its power to arbitrate between disputants, East as well as West, was recognized as never before at this time, was due in some measure at least to Jerome's diligence and ability. Along with his official duties he was fostering a new movement of Christian asceticism among a group of noble Roman ladies. Several of them were to be canonized, including Albina and her daughters Marcella and Asella, Melania the Elder, who was the first of them to go to the Holy Land, and Paula, with her daughters, Blesilla and Eustochium. The tie between Jerome and the three last-mentioned women was especially close, and to them he addressed many of his famous letters.
When Pope Damasus died in 384, he was succeeded by Siricius, who was less friendly to Jerome. While serving Damasus, Jerome had impressed all by his personal holiness, learning, and integrity. But he had also managed to get himself widely disliked by pagans and evil-doers whom he had condemned, and also by people of taste and tolerance, many of them Christians, who were offended by his biting sarcasm and a certain ruthlessness in attack. An example of his style is the harsh diatribe against the artifices of worldly women, who "paint their cheeks with rouge and their eyelids with antimony, whose plastered faces, too white for human beings, look like idols; and if in a moment of forgetfulness they shed a tear it makes a furrow where it rolls down the painted cheek; women to whom years do not bring the gravity of age, who load their heads with other people's hair, enamel a lost youth upon the wrinkles of age, and affect a maidenly timidity in the midst of a troop of grand children." In a letter to Eustochium he writes with scorn of certain members of the Roman clergy. "All their anxiety is about their clothes.... You would take them for bridegrooms rather than for clerics; all they think about is knowing the names and houses and doings of rich ladies."
Although Jerome's indignation was usually justified, his manner of expressing it-both verbally and in letters-aroused resentment. His own reputation was attacked; his bluntness, his walk, and even his smile were criticized. And neither the virtue of the ladies under his direction nor his own scrupulous behavior towards them was any protection from scandalous gossip. Affronted at the calumnies that were circulated, Jerome decided to return to the East. Taking with him his brother Paulinian and some others, he embarked in August, 385. At Cyprus, on the way, he was received with joy by Bishop Epiphanius, and at Antioch also he conferred with leading churchmen. It was here, probably, that he was joined by the widow Paula and some other ladies who had left Rome with the aim of settling in the Holy Land.
With what remained of Jerome's own patrimony and with financial help from Paula, a monastery for men was built near the basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem, and also houses for three communities of women. Paula became head of one of these, and after her death was succeeded by her daughter Eustochium. Jerome himself lived and worked in a large cave near the Saviour's birthplace. He opened a free school there and also a hospice for pilgrims, "so that," as Paula said, "should Mary and Joseph visit Bethlehem again, they would have a place to stay." Now at last Jerome began to enjoy some years of peaceful activity. He gives us a wonderful description of this fruitful, harmonious, Palestinian life, and its attraction for all manner of men. "Illustrious Gauls congregate here, and no sooner has the Briton, so remote from our world, arrived at religion than he leaves his early-setting sun to seek a land which he knows only by reputation and from the Scriptures. Then the Armenians, the Persians, the peoples of India and Ethiopia, of Egypt, and of Pontus, Cappadocia, Syria, and Mesopotamia!... They come in throngs and set us examples of every virtue. The languages differ but the religion is the same; as many different choirs chant the psalms as there are nations.... Here bread and herbs, planted with our own hands, and milk, all country fare, furnish us plain and healthy food. In summer the trees give us shade. In autumn the air is cool and the falling leaves restful. In spring our psalmody is sweeter for the singing of the birds. We have plenty of wood when winter snow and cold are upon us. Let Rome keep its crowds, let its arenas run with blood, its circuses go mad, its theaters wallow in sensuality...."
But when the Christian faith was threatened Jerome could not be silent. While at Rome in the time of Pope Damasus, he had composed a book on the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary against one Helvidius, who had maintained that Mary had not remained always a virgin but had had other children by St. Joseph, after the birth of Christ. This and similar ideas were now again put forward by a certain Jovinian, who had been a monk. Paula's son-in-law, Pammachius, sent some of this heretical writing to Jerome, and he, in 393, wrote two books against Jovinian. In the first he described the excellence of virginity. The books were written in Jerome's vehement style and there were expressions in them which seemed lacking in respect for honorable matrimony. Pammachius informed Jerome of the offense which he and many others at Rome had taken at them. Thereupon Jerome composed his , sometimes called his third book against Jovinian, in which he showed by quoting from his own earlier works that he regarded marriage as a good and honorable state and did not condemn even a second or a third marriage.
A few years later he turned his attention to one Vigilantius, a Gallic priest, who was denouncing both celibacy and the veneration of saints' relics, calling those who revered them idolaters and worshipers of ashes. In defending celibacy Jerome said that a monk should purchase security by flying from temptations and dangers when he distrusted his own strength. As to the veneration of relics, he declared: "We do not worship the relics of the martyrs, but honor them in our worship of Him whose martyrs they are. We honor the servants in order that the respect paid to them may be reflected back to the Lord." Honoring them, he said, was not idolatry because no Christian had ever adored the martyrs as gods; on the other hand, they pray for us. "If the Apostles and martyrs, while still living on earth, could pray for other men, how much more may they do it after their victories? Have they less power now that they are with Jesus Christ?" He told Paula, after the death of her daughter Blesilla, "She now prays to the Lord for you, and obtains for me the pardon of my sins." Jerome was never moderate whether in virtue or against evil. Though swift to anger, he was also swift to feel remorse and was even more severe on his own failings than on those of others.
From 395 to 400 Jerome was engaged in a war against Origenism2, which unhappily created a breach in his long friendship with Rufinus. Finding that some Eastern monks had been led into error by the authority of Rufinus' name and learning, Jerome attacked him. Rufinus, then living in a monastery at Jerusalem, had translated many of Origen's works into Latin and was an enthusiastic upholder of his scholarship, though it does not appear that he meant to defend the heresies in Origen's writings. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, was one of the churchmen greatly distressed by the quarrel between Jerome and Rufinus, and became unwillingly involved in a controversy with Jerome.
Jerome's passionate controversies were the least important part of his activities. What has made his name so famous was his critical labor on the text of the Scriptures. The Church regards him as the greatest of all the doctors in clarifying the Divine Word. He had the best available aids for such an undertaking, living where the remains of Biblical places, names, and customs all combined to give him a more vivid view than he could have had at a greater distance. To continue his study of Hebrew he hired a famous Jewish scholar, Bar Ananias, who came to teach him by night, lest other Jews should learn of it. As a man of prayer and purity of heart whose life had been mainly spent in study, penance, and contemplation, Jerome was prepared to be a sensitive interpreter of spiritual things.
We have seen that already while at Rome he had made a revision of the current Latin New Testament, and of the Psalms. Now he undertook to translate most of the books of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. The friends and scholars who urged him to this task realized the superiority of a version made directly from the original to any second-hand version, however venerable. It was needed too for argument with the Jews, who recognized no other text as authentic but their own. He began with the Books of Kings, and went on with the rest at different times. When he found that the Book of Tobias and part of Daniel had been composed in Chaldaic, he set himself to learn that difficult language also. More than once he was tempted to give up the whole wearisome task, but a certain scholarly tenacity of purpose kept him at it. The only parts of the Latin Bible, now known as the Vulgate, which were not either translated or worked over by him are the Books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, and the two Books of the Maccabees.3 He revised the Psalms once again, with the aid of Origen's ,4 and the Hebrew text. This last is the version included now in the Vulgate and used generally in the Divine Office; his first revision, known as the Roman Psalter, is still used for the opening psalm at Matins and throughout the Missal, and for the Divine Office in the cathedrals of St. Peter at Rome and St. Mark at Venice, and in the Milanese rite.
In the sixteenth century the great Council of Trent pronounced Jerome's Vulgate the authentic and authoritative Latin text of the Catholic Church, without, however, thereby implying a preference for it above the original text or above versions in other languages. In 1907 Pope Pius X entrusted to the Benedictine Order the office of restoring as far as possible the correct text of St. Jerome's Vulgate, which during fifteen centuries of use had naturally become altered in many places. The Bible now ordinarily used by English-speaking Catholics is a translation of the Vulgate, made at Rheims and Douay towards the end of the sixteenth century, and revised by Bishop Challoner in the eighteenth. The Confraternity Edition of the New Testament appearing in 1950 represents a complete revision.
A heavy blow came to Jerome in 404 when his staunch friend, the saintly Paula, died. Six years later he was stunned by news of the sacking of Rome by Alaric the Goth. Of the refugees who fled from Rome to the East at this time he wrote: "Who would have believed that the daughters of that mighty city would one day be wandering as servants and slaves on the shores of Egypt and Africa, or that Bethlehem would daily receive noble Romans, distinguished ladies, brought up in wealth and now reduced to beggary? I cannot help them all, but I grieve and weep with them, and am completely absorbed in the duties which charity imposes on me. I have put aside my commentary on Ezekiel and almost all study. For today we must translate the precepts of the Scriptures into deeds; instead of speaking saintly words, we must act them." A few years later his work was again interrupted by raids of barbarians pushing north through Egypt into Palestine, and later still by a violent onset of Pelagian heretics, who, relying on the protection of Bishop John of Jerusalem, sent a troop of ruffians to Bethlehem to disperse the monks and nuns living there under the direction of Jerome, who had been opposing Pelagianism5 with his customary truculence. Some of the monks were beaten, a deacon was killed, and monasteries were set on fire. Jerome had to go into hiding for a time.
The following year Paula's daughter Eustochium died. The aged Jerome soon fell ill, and after lingering for two years succumbed. Worn with penance and excessive labor, his sight and voice almost gone, his body like a shadow, he died peacefully on September 30, 420, and was buried under the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. In the thirteenth century his body was translated and now lies somewhere in the Sistine Chapel of the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome. The Church owes much to St. Jerome. While his great work was the Vulgate, his achievements in other fields are valuable; to him we owe the distinction between canonical and apocryphal writings; he was a pioneer in the field of Biblical archeology, his commentaries are important; his letters, published in three volumes, are one of our best sources of knowledge of the times.
St. Jerome has been a popular subject with artists, who have pictured him in the desert, as a scholar in his study, and sometimes in the robes of a cardinal, because of his services for Pope Damasus; often too he is shown with a lion, from whose paw, according to legend, he once drew a thorn. Actually this story was transferred to him from the tradition of St. Gerasimus, but a lion is not an inappropriate symbol for so fearless a champion of the faith.
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