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The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of
Religious Knowledge, Philip Schaff Vol. VI:
(abridged and edited for
clarity) |
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JEROME
(C. 345–C. 420)
Latin Bible
translator; biblical scholar
Studies and Travels to 378IThe famous
ecclesiastical author commonly known an St. Jerome, whose full name was
Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, was born at Stridon, on the border between
Pannonia and Dalmatia, in the second quarter of the fourth century; d. near
Bethlehem Sept. 30, 420, He came of Christian parents, but was not baptized
until about 380, when he had gone to Rome with his friend Bonosus to pursue his
rhetorical and philosophic studies. These were principally secular, probably
including Greek literature; he seems as yet to have had no thought of studying
the Greek Fathers, or any Christian writings. His journey with Bonosus to Gaul
seems to have followed immediately upon a stay of several years in Rome. During
this sojourn in eastern Gaul and "on the semi-barbarous banks of the Rhine," he
seems to have been occupied with theological studies, and to have copied for
his friend Rufinus, Hilary's commentary on the Psalms and treatise De
synodis. Next came a stay of at least several months, 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 made the longest stay, 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 which
determined him to lay aside his secular studies and devote himself to the
things of God. In any case he seems to have abstained for a considerable time
from the study of the classics and to have plunged deeply into that of Holy
Scripture, under the impulsion of Apollinaris of Laodicea, then teaching in
Antioch and not yet suspected of heresy. Seized with the desire for a life of
ascetic penance, he went for a time to the desert of Chalcia, to the southwest
of Antioch, known as the Syrian Thebaid, from the number of hermits inhabiting
it. During this period, however, 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 at this time he seems to have been in relation with the
Jewish Christians in Antioch, and perhaps as early as this to have interested
himself in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, asserted by them to be the
source of the canonical Matthew.
Sojourn in Rome, 382-385  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 communication with Pope
Damasus and the leading Roman Christians. Invited 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 gave occasion to his
most important achievement. He undoubtedly exercised an important influence
during these three years, to which, outside of his unusual learning, his seal
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, raised a growing hostility against him,
especially in the class just named. Soon after the death of his patron, Damasus
(Dec. 10, 384) he decided to retire from a position which was fast becoming
impossible.
Residence in Palestine after 385In 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 expounding the prophet Hosea and telling his
reminiscences of the great 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 poison of Origenistio heresy. 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 onslaughts on the Pelagians, he was subjected to actual
persecution at their hands about the beginning of 418, when a body of excited
partizans broke into the monastic buildings, set them on fire, and laid violent
hands on the inmates, killing a deacon, and forcing Jerome to seek safety in a
neighboring fortress. The date of his death is given by the Chronicon of
Prosper. 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.
Works, Biblical and ExegeticalThe writings of
Jerome cover nearly all the principal departments of Christian theology; but
the most numerous and important belong to that of Biblical study, including
especially his labors for the improvement or translation of the Latin text. 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, to the Solomonic writings, to Tobit, and to Judith. His exegetical works
fall into three groups: (a) 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 (e. 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. (b) 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. 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). (c) New-Testament commentaries. These
include only Philemon, Galatians, Ephesians, and Titus (hastily composed
387-388); Matthew (dictated in two weeks, 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 Apocalypse another treatment, a
rather arbitrary recasting of the commentary of Victorinus (d. 303), with whose
chiliastic views(the doctrine that Christ will return and reign for a thousand
years) 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 WritingsOne of Jerome's
earliest attempts in the department of history was his Temporum fiber,
composed e. 380 in Constantinople; this is a recasting in 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. In spite of
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 Tannuna to continue his
annals. Three other works of a hagiological(bios of the saints) nature are the
Vita Pauli monachi, written during his first sojourn at Antioch (c.
376), the legendary material of which is derived from Egyptian monastic
tradition; the Vita Malchi monachi captivi (c. 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; and 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 sancti Hieronymi is spurious; it was apparently composed
by a western monk toward the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh
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. But the most important of Jerome's
historical works is the book De viris illus - 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
St. Peter down to Jerome himself. For the first seventy-eight Eusebius is the
main source; in the second section, beginning with Arnobius and Laotantius, he
includes a good deal of independent information, especially as to western
writers.
Dogmatic and Polemical WritingsPractically all
of Jerome's productions in the field of dogma have a more or less violently
polemical, character, and are directed against assailants of the orthodox
doctrines. Even the translation of the treatise of Didymus on the Holy Spirit
into Latin (begun in Rome 384, completed at Bethlehem) shows an apologetic
tendency against the Arians and Pneumatomachi. The same is true of his version
of Origen's De principiis (c. 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 and Lucifer. Two letters
to Pope Damasus 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 Lucifer ianos, in which he cleverly uses the dialogue form to
combat the tenets of that faction, particularly their rejection of baptism by
heretics. In Rome (c. 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. Once more he defended the ordinary catholic practices of piety and his own
ascetic ethics in 406 against the Spanish presbyter Vigilantius, who opposed
the worship of martyrs and relics, the vow of poverty, and clerical celibacy.
Meanwhile the controversy with John of Jerusalem and Rufinus concerning the
orthodoxy of Origen occurred. To this period belong some of his most passionate
and most comprehensive polemical works.
Jerome's LettersJerome's letters, both by the great
variety of their subjects and by their qualities of style, form the most
interesting 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, exhorting to the ascetic life and renunciation of the world, or
debating with his theological opponents, he gives a vivid picture not only of
his own mind, but of the age and its peculiar characteristics. The letters most
frequently reprinted or referred to are enticements to action, a sort of
epitome of pastoral theology from the ascetic standpoint.
His Strengths and WeaknessesJerome
undoubtedly ranks as the most learned of the western Fathers. 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 be 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.
His Lack of IndependenceIt was this
attitude that made 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 approacbes 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
recognise a superior comes out scarcely less significantly in his
correspondence with Augustine.
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. 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.
(O. ZÖCKLER) |
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