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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 06 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 26.01.03 Letters VIII-XI
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Letter VIII. To Niceas, Sub-Deacon of Aquileia.
Niceas, the sub-deacon, had accompanied Jerome to the East but had now returned home. In after-years he became bishop of Aquileia in succession to Chromatius. The date of the letter is 374 a.d.
The comic poet Turpiliushyperlink says of the exchange of letters that it alone makes the absent present. The remark, though occurring in a work of fiction, is not untrue. For what more real presence-if I may so speak-can there be between absent friends than speaking to those whom they love in letters, and in letters hearing their reply? Even those Italian savages, the Cascans of Ennius, who-as Cicero tells us in his books on rhetoric-hunted their food like beasts of prey, were wont, before paper and parchment came into use, to exchange letters written on tablets of wood roughly planed, or on strips of bark torn from the trees. For this reason men called letter-carriers tablet-bearers,hyperlink and letter-writers bark-users,hyperlink because they used the bark of trees. How much more then are we, who live in a civilized age, bound not to omit a social duty performed by men who lived in a state of gross savagery, and were in some respects entirely ignorant of the refinements of life. The saintly Chromatius, look you, and the reverend Eusebius, brothers as much by compatibility of disposition as by the ties of nature, have challenged me to diligence by the letters which they have showered upon me. You, however, who have but just left me, have not merely unknit our new-made friendship; you have torn it asunder-a process which Laelius, in Cicero's treatise,hyperlink wisely forbids. Can it be that the East is so hateful to you that you dread the thought of even your letters coming hither? Wake up, wake up, arouse yourself from sleep, give to affection at least one sheet of paper. Amid the pleasures of life at home sometimes heave a sigh over the journeys which we have made together. If you love me, write in answer to my prayer. If you are angry with me, though angry still write. I find my longing soul much comforted when I receive a letter from a friend, even though that friend be out of temper with me.
Letter IX. To Chrysogonus, a Monk of Aquileia.
A bantering letter to an indifferent correspondent. Of the same date as the preceding.
Heliodorus,hyperlink who is so dear to us both, and who loves you with an affection no less deep than my own, may have given you a faithful account of my feelings towards you; how your name is always on my lips, and how in every conversation which I have with him I begin by recalling my pleasant intercourse with you, and go on to marvel at your lowliness, to extol your virtue, and to proclaim your holy love.
Lynxes, they say, when they look behind them, forget what they have just seen, and lose all thought of what their eyes have ceased to behold. And so it seems to be with you. For so entirely have you forgotten our joint attachment that you have not merely blurred but erased the writing of that epistle which, as the apostle tells us,hyperlink is written in the hearts of Christians. The creatures that I have mentioned lurk on branches of leafy trees and pounce on fleet roes or frightened stags. In vain their victims fly, for they carry their tormentors with them, and these rend their flesh as they run. Lynxes, however, only hunt when an empty belly makes their mouths dry. When they have satisfied their thirst for blood, and have filled their stomachs with food, satiety induces forgetfulness, and they bestow no thought on future prey till hunger recalls them to a sense of their need.
Now in your case it cannot be that you have already had enough of me. Why then do you bring to a premature close a friendship which is but just begun? Why do you let slip what you have hardly as yet fully grasped? But as such remissness as yours is never at a loss for an excuse, you will perhaps declare that you had nothing to write. Had this been so, you should still have written to inform me of the fact.
Letter X. To Paul, an Old Man of Concordia.
Jerome writes to Paul of Concordia, a centenarian (§2), and the owner of a good theological library (§, to lend him some commentaries. In return he sends him his life (newly written) of Paul the hermit.hyperlink The date of the letter is 374 a.d.
1. The shortness of man's life is the punishment for man's sin; and the fact that even on the very threshold of the light death constantly overtakes the new-born child proves that the times are continually sinking into deeper depravity. For when the first tiller of paradise had been entangled by the serpent in his snaky coils, and had been forced in consequence to migrate earthwards, although his deathless state was changed for a mortal one, yet the sentencehyperlink of man's curse was put off for nine hundred years, or even more, a period so long that it may be called a second immortality. Afterwards sin gradually grew more and more virulent, till the ungodliness of the giantshyperlink brought in its train the shipwreck of the whole world. Then when the world had been cleansed by the baptism-if I may so call it-of the deluge, human life was contracted to a short span. Yet even this we have almost altogether wasted, so continually do our iniquities fight against the divine purposes. For how few there are, either who go beyond their hundredth year, or who, going beyond it, do not regret that they have done so; according to that which the Scripture witnesses in the book of Psalms: "the days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow."hyperlink
2. Why, say you, these opening reflections so remote and so far fetched that one might use against them the Horatian witticism:
back to the eggs which leda laid for zeus,
the bard is fain to trace the war of troy?hyperlink
Simply that I may describe in fitting terms your great age and hoary head as white as Christ's.hyperlink For see, the hundredth circling year is already passing over you, and yet, always keeping the commandments of the Lord, amid the circumstances of your present life you think over the blessedness of that which is to come. Your eyes are bright and keen, your steps steady, your hearing good, your teeth are white, your voice musical, your flesh firm and full of sap; your ruddy cheeks belie your white hairs, your strength is not that of your age. Advancing years have not, as we too often see them do, impaired the tenacity of your memory; the coldness of your blood has not blunted an intellect at once warm and wary.hyperlink Your face is not wrinkled nor your brow furrowed. Lastly, no tremors palsy your hand or cause it to travel in crooked pathways over the wax on which you write. The Lord shows us in you the bloom of the resurrection that is to he ours; so that whereas in others who die by inches whilst yet living, we recognize the results of sin, in your case we ascribe it to righteousness that you still simulate youth at an age to which it is foreign. And although we see the like haleness of body in many even of those who are sinners, in their case it is a grant of the devil to lead them into sin, whilst in yours it is a gift of God to make you rejoice.
3. Tully in his brilliant speech on behalf of Flaccushyperlink describes the learning of the Greeks as "innate frivolity and accomplished vanity."
Certainly their ablest literary men used to receive money for pronouncing eulogies upon their kings or princes. Following their example, I set a price upon my praise. Nor must you suppose my demand a small one. You are asked to give me the pearl of the Gospel,hyperlink "the words of the Lord," "pure words, even as the silver which from the earth is tried, and purified seven times in the fire,"hyperlink I mean the commentaries of Fortunatianhyperlink and-for its account of the persecutors-the History of Aurelius Victor,hyperlink and with these the Letters of Novatian;hyperlink so that, learning the poison set forth by this schismatic, we may the more gladly drink of the antidote supplied by the holy martyr Cyprian. In the mean time I have sent to you, that is to say, to Paul the aged, a Paul that is older still.hyperlink I have taken great pains to bring my language down to the level of the simpler sort. But, somehow or other, though you fill it with water, the jar retains the odor which it acquired when first used.hyperlink If my little gift should please you, I have others also in store which (if the Holy Spirit shall breathe favorably), shall sail across the sea to you with all kinds of eastern merchandise.
Letter XI. To the Virgins of Aemona.
Aemona was a Roman colony not far from Stridon, Jerome's birthplace. The virgins to whom the note is addressed had omitted to answer his letters, and he now writes to upbraid them for their remissness. The date of the letter is 374 a.d.
This scanty sheet of paper shows in what a wilderness I live, and because of it I have to say much in few words. For, desirous though I am to speak to you more fully, this miserable scrap compels me to leave much unsaid. Still ingenuity makes up for lack of means, and by writing small I can say a great deal. Observe, I beseech you, how I love you, even in the midst of my difficulties, since even the want of materials does not stop me from writing to you.
Pardon, I beseech you, an aggrieved man: if I speak in tears and in anger it is because I have been injured. For in return for my regular letters you have not sent me a single syllable. Light, I know, has no communion with darkness,hyperlink and God's handmaidens no fellowship with a sinner, yet a harlot was allowed to wash the Lord's feet with her tears,hyperlink and dogs are permitted to eat of their masters' crumbs.hyperlink It was the Saviour's mission to call sinners and not the righteous; for, as He said Himself, "they that be whole need not a physician.hyperlink He wills the repentance of a sinner rather than his death,hyperlink and carries home the poor stray sheep on His own shoulders.hyperlink So, too, when the prodigal son returns, his father receives him with joy.hyperlink Nay more, the apostle says: "Judge nothing before the time."hyperlink For "who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth."hyperlink And "let him that standeth take heed lest he fall."hyperlink "Bear ye one another's burdens."hyperlink
Dear sisters, man's envy judges in one way, Christ in another; and the whisper of a corner is not the same as the sentence of His tribunal. Many ways seem right to men which are afterwards found to be wrong.hyperlink And a treasure is often stowed in earthen vessels.hyperlink Peter thrice denied his Lord, yet his bitter tears restored him to his place. "To whom much is forgiven, the same loveth much."hyperlink No word is said of the flock as a whole, yet the angels joy in heaven over the safety of one sick ewe.hyperlink And if any one demurs to this reasoning, the Lord Himself has said: "Friend, is thine eye evil because I am good?"hyperlink
Footnotes
120 Turpilius, who appears to have been a dramatist of some note, died in 101 b.c. He is mentioned by Jerome in his edition of the Eusebian Chronicle.
121 Tabellarii, from tabella, a small tablet.
122 Librarii, from liber, bark.
123 Cic. Laelius, 76.
124 See introd. to Letter XIV.
125 2 Cor. iii. 2.
126 See the Life of Paul in this volume.
127 Elogium.
128 Gen. vi. 4.
129 Ps. xc. 10.
130 Hor. A. P. 147. Zeus having visited Leda in the form of a swan, she produced two eggs, from one of which came Castor and Pollux, and from the other Helen, who was the cause of the Trojan war.
131 Rev. i. 14.
132 A play on words: callidus, "wary," is indistinguishable in sound from calidus, "warm."
133 The words quoted do not occur in the extant portion of Cicero's speech.
134 Matt. xiii. 46.
135 Ps. xii. 7, P. B. V.
136 For some account of this writer see Jerome, De V. iii. c. xcvii.
137 A Roman annalist some of whose works are still extant. He was contemporary with but probably older than Jerome.
138 A puritan of the third century who seceded from the Roman church because of the laxity of its discipline.
139 I.e. the life of Paul the Hermit, translated in this vol.
140 Hor. Ep. I. ii. 69; cf. T. Moore:
"You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will:
The scent of the roses will hang round it still."
141 2 Cor. vi. 14.
142 Luke vii. 37 sqq.
143 Matt. xv. 27.
144 Matt. ix. 12, Matt. ix. 13.
145 Ezek. xxxiii. 11.
146 Luke xv. 5.
147 Luke xv. 20.
148 1 Cor. iv. 5.
149 Rom. xiv. 4.
150 1 Cor. x. 12.
151 Gal. vi. 2.
152 Cf. Prov. xiv. 12.
153 2 Cor. iv. 7.
154 Luke vii. 47.
155 Luke xv. 7, Luke xv. 10.
156 Matt. xx. 15.