Ambrose and Jerome: the Opening Shot

AMBROSE AND JEROME: THE OPENING SHOT

N. ADKIN

The personal relations between Jerome and Ambrose have excited attention since Rufinus (cf. Apol. adv. Hier. 2,25-81)). How- ever, the first scholar to subject this relationship to a really meticu- lous scrutiny was Paredi2). He concluded that until 385 Jerome's references to Ambrose were favourable; thereafter they became predominantly hostile. Paredi accordingly posited a breach in the relations between the two men: he argued that it was due to Ambrose's failure to support Jerome at the time of the latter's from Rome in 385 Paredi's thesis has met with expulsion (ib. 198).' general assent3). Recently however Nauroy has rejected Paredi's view of a sudden breach in he calls instead for an interpretation of Jerome's estimate of Ambrose that is more "nuance" . Nauroy accordingly attempts to differentiate between Jerome's attitude to the various

1) Citation of Latin works follows the method of ThesaurusLinguae Latinae: Index LibrorumScriptorum Inscriptionum (Leipzig 21990). The editions used are those given in H. J. Frede, Kirchenschriftsteller:Verzeichnis und Sigel (Freiburg/B. 1981) and its Aktualisierungshefte(1984 and 1988). Greek works are cited according to the conven- tions adopted in G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic GreekLexicon (Oxford 1961-8), xi-xlv; the editions used are those given in M. Geerard and F. Glorie, Clavis Patrum Graecorum,I-V (Turnhout 1974-87). 2) A. Paredi, S. Gerolamoe S. Ambrogio, in: Mélanges Eugène Tisserant, V 2 (Vatican City 1964), 183-98. 3) Cf. (e.g.) J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings,and Controversies(London 1975), 144 ("the most plausible explanation so far suggested, and one that is in itself very plausible"); G. Coppa, Sant'Ambrogio:Opere esegetiche IX/I. Esosizione del Vangelosecondo Luca (Milan-Rome 1978), 12, n. 8; P. Nautin, Le premieréchange épistolaireentre Jérômeet Damase: lettresréelles ou fictives?,FZPhTh 30 (1983), 342-3; M. Testard, Jérôme et Ambroise:Sur un "aveu" du De officiisde l'évêquede Milan, in: Y.-M. Duval (ed.), Jérôme entrel'Occident et l'Orient: XVIe centenairedu départde saint Jérôme de Rome et de son installationà Bethléem(Paris 1988), 233-4 and 252-4. 4) G. Nauroy, Jérôme, lecteuret censeurde l'éxègesed'Ambroise, in: Duval, op. cit. (supra n. 3), 173-203. 365 aspects of Ambrose's person and work. On the one hand there is Ambrose's achievement as "le chantre eloquent de la virginit6" (ib. 177); on the other Nauroy distinguishes "les prises de position du theologien et le talent de 1'6crivain" (ib. 180). While therefore Nauroy finds that Jerome entertained some serious reservations about Ambrose from a theological and literary standpoint, he maintains that Jerome's admiration for the "panegyrist of virginity" was unqualified. It is the purpose of the present article to show that both Paredi and Nauroy are wrong. Evidence can be adduced to demonstrate that Jerome was already hostile to Ambrose before his enforced departure from Rome in 385: Paredi's interpretation cannot therefore be right. At the same time the evidence in question is an attack on one of Ambrose's works on virginity: Nauroy's view must accordingly be rejected as well. Jerome's first two references to Ambrose belong to the years 376/7 and 381 respectively (Epist. 15,4,3 and Chron. ab Abr. 2390); both are favourable. However Nauroy (ib. 177) rightly observes that they could hardly be otherwise, since both are exclusively con- cerned with Ambrose's opposition to Arianism. Paredi then notes that in 387 Jerome attacks Ambrose's treatise on the Holy Spirit in the preface to his own translation of Didymus' work on the same subject; here Ambrose himself is not named 5). Before Jerome's departure for the East in 385 there is one other explicit reference to Ambrose: it occurs in the Libellus de virginitate servanda ( = Epist. 22), which Jerome produced in the spring of 3846). Here he speaks of Ambrose's De airginibus in the following terms: Ambrosii nostri quae nuper ad sororem scripsit opuscula, in quibus tanto se fudit eloquio, ut, quid- quid ad laudem virginum pertinet, exquisierit, ordinarit, expresserit (Epist. 22,22,3). This passage is regarded as unequivocally eulogistic by

5) For the date cf. P. Nautin, Theol. Realenzykl.XV (1986) s.v. Hieronymus, 306. A further anonymous attack on Ambrose at in Eph. prol. p. 440B has recently been identified by W. Dunphy, On the Date of St. Ambrose'sDe Tobia, SEJG 27 (1984), 29-33. Since the passage belongs to 386 (so Nautin, loc. cit.), it does not affect Paredi's argument. 6) Cf. F. Cavallera, S. Jérôme: Sa vie et son oeuvre,1, 2 (Louvain-Paris 1922), 24-5.