THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY EDITED BY T. E. PAGE, LITT.D. E. CAPPS, PH.D., LL.D. W. H. D. ROUSE, litt.d SELECT LETTERS OF ST. JEROME r S. JEROME IN THE DESERT Left hand panel, Pope Damasus and Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea. Right hand panel, Paula and Eustoehium. The small kneeling figures represent the patron who commissioned the picture and his son. [Reproduced from the picture by Botticini, by permission of the trustees of the SationaJ Qallery."] JerfC) '-I'. SELECT LETTEKS OF ST. JEROME WITH AN Bl^LISH TRANSLATION BY Fi^Xy WRIGHT, M.A. PROFESSOR OP CLASSICS DT LOSDOS XTNTVEBfiHY .\^. LONDON: WILLL\M HEINEMANN LTD ZVV YORK: G. P. PUTNAxM'S SONS Mciqxxxiu m 1933 Printed in Great Britain CONTENTS St. Jerome in the Desert Frontispiece LETTEB PAGE IXTRODUCTION vii I. The Woman Struck by Seven Swords 2 VII. Family Affairs 18 XIV. The Ascetic Life 28 ^XXII. The Virgin's Profession 52 "^XXXVIII. A Good Woman 158 XL. Onasus the Windbag 166 7<XLIII. The Country Life 170 XLIV. A Letter of Thanks 176 XLV. Innocent Friendships 178 tf<s,-',LII. A Clergyman's Duties 188 LIV. Widows 228 ^ LX. A Letter of Consol-ation 264 ^ LXXVII. The Eulogy of Fabiola 308 ^ CVII. A Girl's Education . 338 ^ CXVII. Dangerous Friendships 370 - CXXV. Good and Bad Monks 396 CXXVII. Marcella and the Sack of Rom 438 >^CXXVIII. Feminine Training 466 Appendices 483 Index of Proper Names 503 ^'7 INTRODUCTION (a) Life of Jerome Jerome—or, to give him his significant Greek name, Eusebius HieronjTnus—was bom a.d. 345 at Stridon in Dalmatia, a small to\\Ti near Aquileia, which was partly destroyed by the Goths during their invasion of 377. His father, Eusebius, and his mother were Christians of moderate wealth and were alive in 373 when Jerome first went to the East, but probably died when Stridon was taken by the barbarians. Jerome himself received a good education at his local school, and then, like most young pro\-incials of talent, he was attracted to Rome, where he studied rhetoric under the great grammarian Aelius Donatus, returning with his friend Bonosus to Aquileia in 370. In that toATO he estabhshed his first society of ascetics, which lasted for three years until some event—referred to by him variously as ' a sudden ' storm ' and ' a monstrous rending asunder —broke up the fellowship, and Jerome >vith a few of his closer associates went eastwards to Antioch. But even this small company did not remain long together, and a meeting >\-ith the old hermit Malchus made Jerome resolve to seek complete solitude. The adjacent desert of Chalcis was'already full of hermits living under the rule of Theodosius, and Jerome soon became one of their nimaber, sleeping in a bare cell, INTRODUCTION clothed in sackcloth, submitting himself to rigorous penances, and for five years giving all his days to devotional exercise and to the study of the Scriptures. This first period of Jerome's life ended in 379 when he returned to Antioch and was ordained presbyter by Bishop Paulinus. With Paulinus he attended the Second General Council at Constantinople, where he met Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa, and in his bishop's company he came to Rome for the Church Council held there in 382, and for the next three years lived in the great city. The Pope at that time was Damasus, the clerical dilettante who made the catacombs a show place for the world, and Jerome soon became his intimate friend and trusted adviser, constantly consulted on all points of biblical knowledge and finally commissioned to write a revised Latin version of the Psalms and the New Testament. This was a task of pure scholar- ship, but Jerome also found amid the luxury and splendour of Rome a few ardent souls, most of them women, who were ready to embrace and follow his ascetic rule. One of his disciples was Paula, the heiress of the great Aemilian family, who brought over her two daughters Blesilla and Eustochium. Another was the wealthy Marcella, at whose palace on the Aventine master and pupils used to come together for the study of Hebrew, to join in earnest prayer, and to sing psalms. During these months Jerome was perhaps as happy as he ever thought it right to be, but the death of his protector Damasus unchained against him all the enmities that his rigorous virtues had challenged and his bitter sarcasms provoked. The new Pope Siricius regarded him as a dangerous rival ; the mob were enraged by INTRODUCTION the sudden death of Blesilla, which was believed to have been caused by her prolonged fastings and * penances ; the cry was raised The monks to the ' Tiber : and Jerome left Rome and Europe for ever. Then began the third period in Jerome's Ufe. He resolved that he would no longer sing the Lord's song in a strange land, and taking Paula and Eustochiura with him he went once more to the East, the true home of ascetic belief, and after some little delay settled down in Judaea at Bethlehem, where he remained for the last thirty-four years of his existence. At Bethlehem he built a monastery of which he was head, a convent over which first Paula and then Eustochium presided, a church where both com- munities assembled for worship, and a hospice to lodge the pilgrims who came from all parts of the world to that holy ground. The expenses of these various institutions were borne by Paula until even her great wealth was exhausted, and then by Jerome himself, who sold the remains of his family property for their support. Their administration must have occupied a portion of his time, but the greater part of his energy was given at Bethlehem, as everj^- where, to writing and study. Not that his life was peaceful, or that he passed his days in quietude. His own character always ensured a certain amount of friction ; he quarrelled bitterly with the Bishop of Jerusalem ; his health was never of the best ; and the calm of his monastery was continually being broken by rumours of wars and by the actual shock of invasion. The sack of Rome in 410, for example, spread terror even in Palestine, and it is from Jerome perhaps that we get the clearest idea of the con- INTRODUCTION sternation caused throughout the world by the fall of the imperial city. In the preface to his ' Ezekiel he ^^Tites : I was so stupefied and dismayed that day and night I could think of nothing but the welfare of the Roman community. It seemed to me that I was sharing the captivity of the saints and I could not open my lips until I received some more definite news. All the while, full of anxiety, I wavered between hope and despair, torturing myself with the misfortunes of others. But when I heard that the bright light of all the world was quenched, or rather that the Roman Empire had lost its head and that the whole universe had perished in one city : then indeed, " I became dumb and humbled myself and kept silence from good words." ' But however troubled at heart Jerome might be, neither public calamity nor private sorrow could stop his labours. Paula passed away from him in Palestine ; Marcella only survived the barbarities of the sack of Rome for a short period; even Eustochixmi, although she was of a younger generation, succumbed to the rigours of the ascetic life. But the old man, nearly blind and over seventy, was still working at his commen- tary on Jeremiah when his last illness came. He died September 20th, 420, and his body was buried beside Paula near the grotto of the Nativity at Bethlehem, in later days to be transferred and to be the cause of many a miracle at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. (b) Jerome's Works The literary works of Jerome, apart from the Letters, are very voliuninous, for he lived a long life, INTRODUCTION was a quick writer, and possessed enormous powers of industry'-. The following list is given by Canon Fremantle. I. Bible Translations. — (a) From the Hebrew. ^The \'ulgate of the Old Testament, \vritten at Bethlehem, begun 391 and finished 404. (b) From the Septuagint.—The Psalms as used at Rome, A\Titten in Rome 383, and the Psalms as used in Gaul, >\Titten at Bethlehem 388, this Gallican Psalter being collated with the Hebrew. The Book of Job, ^v^itten at Bethlehem 386-392. (c) From the Chaldee.—^The Books of Tobit and Judith. Bethlehem, 398. (d) From the Greek.—^The Vulgate version of the New Testament, made at Rome, 382-385. II. Commentaries. (a) Original.—Ecclesiastes, 385. Isaiah, 410. Jeremiah i-xxxii, 419. Ezekiel, 410-414. Daniel, 407. Minor Prophets, 391-406. St. Matthew, 398. Galatians, Ephesians, Titus, Philemon, 388. All these MTitten at Bethlehem. (6) Translated from the Greek of Origen.—Jere- miah and Ezekiel, Bethlehem, 381. St. Luke, Bethlehem, 389. Canticles, Rome and Bethlehem, 385-387. A commentary on Job and a translation of Origen 's Isaiah are also often attributed to Jerome. III. Books on Scriptural Subjects. (a) A glossary of proper names in the Old Testa- ment, 388. xi INTRODUCTION (b) Questions on Genesis, 388. (c) A translation of Eusebius ' On the sites and names of Hebrew places,' 388. (d) A translation of Didymus ' On the Holy Spirit,' 385-387. All these WTitten at Bethlehem. IV. Books on Church History and Controversy. (a) Book of Illustrious Men, Bethlehem, 392. (6) Dialogue with a Luciferian, Antioch, 379.