JEROME

Returning to Antioch, in 378 or 379, he was ordained by Bishop Paulinus, apparently with some unwillingness and on condition that he still continue his ascetic life. Soon afterward he went to Constantinople to pursue his study of Scripture under the instruction of Gregory Nazianzen. There he seems to have spent two years; the next three (382 - 385) he was in Rome again, in close intercourse with Pope Damasus and the leading Roman Christians. Invited thither originally to the synod of 382 held for the purpose of ending the schism of Antioch, he made himself indispensable to the pope, and took a prominent place in his councils. Among other duties he undertook the revision of the text of the Latin Bible on the basis of the Greek New Testament and the Septuagint, in order to put an end to the marked divergences in the current western texts. This commission determined the course of his scholarly activity for many years, and is his most important achievement. He undoubtedly exercised an important influence during these three years, to which, outside of his unusual learning, his zeal for ascetic strictness and the realization of the monastic ideal contributed not a little. He was surrounded by a circle of well-born and well-educated women, including some from the noblest patrician families, such as the widows Marcella and Paula, with their daughters Blaesilla and Eustochium. The resulting inclination of these women for the monastic life, and his unsparing criticism of the life of the secular clergy, brought a growing hostility against him amongst the clergy and their supporters. Soon after the death of his patron Damasus (December 10, 384), and having lost his necessary protection, Jerome left his position at Rome.

In August 385 he returned to Antioch, accompanied by his brother Paulinianus and several friends and followed a little later by Paula and Eustochium, who had resolved to leave their patrician surroundings and to end their days in the Holy Land. In the winter of 385 Jerome accompanied them and 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. In Alexandria Jerome listened to the blind catechist Didymus The Blind expounding the prophet Hosea and telling his reminiscences of Anthony, who had died thirty 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 the theology of Origen. Late in the summer of 388 he was back in Palestine, and settled down for 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 thirty-four years of his career belong the most important of his works -- his version of the Old Testament from the original text, the best of his scriptural commentaries, his catalogue of Christian authors, and the dialogue against the Pelagians, the literary perfection of which even a controversial opponent recognized. To this period also belong the majority of his passionate polemics, which distinguished him among the orthodox Fathers, including notably the treatises occasioned by the Origenistic controversy against Bishop John of Jerusalem and his early friend Rufinus. 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, which forced Jerome to seek safety in a neighboring fortress (416). 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 translated to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, though other places in the West claim some relics -- the cathedral at Nepi boasting the possession of his head, which, according to another tradition, is in the Escurial.

For the next 15 years, until he died, he produced a number of commentaries on scripture, often explaining his translation choices. His knowledge of Hebrew, primarily required for this branch of his work, gives also to his exegetical treatises (especially to those written after 386) a value greater than that of most patristic commentaries, although he is as a rule too much hampered by Jewish tradition, and indulges too often in allegorical and mystical subtleties after the manner of Philo and the Alexandrian school. But he deserves credit for the distinctness with which he emphasizes the difference between the Old Testament Apocrypha and the Hebraica veritas of the canonical books (cf. his introductions to the Books of Samuel, see Prologus Galeatus, to the Solomonic writings, to the Book of Tobit, and to Judith. His commentaries fall into three groups:

• His translations or recastings of Greek predecessors, including fourteen homilies on Jeremiah and the same number on Ezekiel by Origen (translated c.380 in Constantinople); two homilies of Origen on the Song of Solomon (in Rome, c.383); and thirty-nine on Luke (c.389, in Bethlehem). The nine homilies of Origen on Isaiah included among his works were not done by him. Here should be mentioned, as an important contribution to the topography of Palestine, 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 (c. 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 Genesin; Commentarius in Ecclesiasten; Tractatus septem in Psalmos 10 - 16 (lost); Explanationes in Michaeam, Sophoniam, Nahum, Habacuc, Aggaeum.'' About 395 he composed a series of longer commentaries, though in rather a desultory fashion: first on the remaining seven minor prophets, then on Isaiah (c.395 - c.400), on Daniel (c. 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, the prologue of John, and Revelation. Treating the last-named book in his cursory fashion, he made use of an excerpt from the commentary of the North-African Tichonius, which is preserved as a sort of argument at the beginning of the more extended work of the Spanish presbyter Beatus of Libana. But before this he had already devoted to the Book of Revelation another treatment, a rather arbitrary recasting of the commentary of Victorinus (d. 303), with whose chiliastic views he was not in accord, substituting for the chiliastic conclusion a spiritualizing exposition of his own, supplying an introduction, and making certain changes in the text.

Historical Writings

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.

He surpasses the others especially in his knowledge of Hebrew, gained by hard study, and not unskilfully used. It is true that he was perfectly conscious of his advantages, and not entirely free from the temptation to despise or belittle his literary rivals, especially Ambrose. His own scholarship is by no means without its weak points. His acquaintance with Greek and Latin literature, both pagan and Christian, is great, but by no means without its gaps and its traces of superficial reading; and his knowledge of Hebrew offers innumerable points of attack to modern criticism.

As a general rule it is not so much by absolute knowledge that he shines as by an almost poetical elegance, an incisive wit, a singular skill in adapting recognized or proverbial phrases to his purpose, and a successful aiming at rhetorical effect. His weaknesses are most noticeable in dogmatic subjects. He was so little of a dogmatic theologian that he contributed only indirectly to the development of doctrine. The same may be said of his contribution to moral theology, in which he showed less an interest in abstract ethical speculation than a morbid ascetic zeal and passionate enthusiasm for the monastic ideal.

It was this attitude that made Martin Luther judge him so severely. In fact, Evangelical readers are generally little inclined to accept his writings as authoritative, especially in consideration of his lack of independence as a dogmatic teacher and his submission to orthodox tradition. He approaches his papal patron Damasus with the most utter submissiveness, making no attempt at an independent decision of his own. The Church founded upon the rock of Peter is to decide whether he is to recognize, with the Meletians, three hypostases in the divine ousia, or, with the Paulinians, one hypostasis with three prosopa or persons. "Decide, I pray thee, and I shall not fear to speak of three hypostases." He may be called not only the forerunner of modern ultra-montanism, but even of the Jesuit unreasoning obedience. The tendency to recognize a superior comes out scarcely less significantly 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).

Yet in spite of the defects and weaknesses already mentioned, Jerome has retained a rank among the western Fathers. This would be his due, if for nothing else, on account of the incalculable influence exercised by his Latin version of the Bible upon the subsequent ecclesiastical and theological development. But that he won his way to the title of a saint and doctor of the catholic Church was possible only because he broke away entirely from the theological school in which he was brought up, that of the Origenists. In the artistic tradition of the Roman Catholic Church it has been usual to represent him, the patron of theological learning, as a cardinal, by the side of the Bishop Augustine, the Archbishop Ambrose, and the Pope Gregory I. 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 is as a rule introduced somewhere in the picture.

This article uses material from Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religion