Saint Jerome and Jewish Tradition Chapter Fourteen

PART THREE

SAINT JEROME AND JEWISH TRADITION CHAPTER FOURTEEN

JEWISH TRADITIONS IN JEROME’S COMMENTARY ON JEREMIAH AND THE TARGUM OF JEREMIAH

Jerome had an innate flair for languages. He lived at a time when the linguistic cleavage between East and West was deepening: few Christians in the East ever had known any Latin; and fewer and fewer in the West now knew any Greek. By his ‘indefatigable’ study of Hebrew Jerome turned himself into a near-unique phenomenon at any period in the history of the early Church—a ‘trilingual’ (competent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew).1 If this alone were true of St. Jerome, it would be remarkable enough in itself, since it enabled him to produce his famous Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate. But St. Jerome is renowned, not only for his translation of the Bible but also for his commentaries on the Biblical books; indeed, in many respect he remains as a model exegete, with his careful attention to text, language, context, and exposition.2 Particularly impressive in these commentaries is his knowledge and use of Jewish exegetical traditions; indeed, he often frankly acknowl- edges his debt to the Jews.3 In this, he was helped by his understanding of Hebrew, and his learning of Syriac, which had been forced upon him by his sojourn in the desert of Chalcis.4 He also knew Aramaic, although it would seem that he found this language easier to read than

1 H.D.F. Sparks, ‘Jerome as Biblical Scholar’, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. P.R. Ackroyd and C.F. Evans, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1970), p. 517. 2 For general information on St. Jerome as commentator, see J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London, 1975), pp. 141–167; H.D.F. Sparks, op. cit., pp. 535–541; A. Penna, Principi e carattere dell’ Esegesi di S. Gerolamo (Rome, 1950); and F. Cavallera, S. Jérôme: Sa Vie et son Oeuvre (Louvain, 1922). 3 See, for example, the list of references cited by Sparks, op. cit., p. 539; S. Krauss, article ‘Jerome’, Jewish Encyclopaedia vol. 7 (New York, 1904), pp. 115–118; A. Penna, op. cit., pp. 6–10; G. Bardy, ‘Saint Jérôme et ses Maitres Hebreux’, Revue Bénédictine 46 (1934), pp. 145–164; S. Krauss, ‘The Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers’, Jewish Quarterly Review 6 (1894), pp. 225–261; H. Grätz, ‘Hagadische Elemente bei den Kirchenvätern’, Monatsschrift fur Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums 3 (1854), pp. 311–318. 4 For the details, see Kelly, op. cit., p. 49; Krauss, ‘Jerome’, p. 115.