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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 06 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 26.01.05 Letters XV-XXI
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Letter XVI. To Pope Damasus.
This letter, written a few months after the preceding, is another appeal to Damasus to solve the writer's doubts. Jerome once more refers to his baptism at Rome, and declares that his one answer to the factions at Antioch is, "He who clings to the chair of Peter is accepted by me." Written from the desert in the year 377 or 378.
1. By her importunity the widow in the gospel at last gained a hearing,hyperlink and by the same means one friend induced another to give him bread at midnight, when his door was shut and his servants were in bed.hyperlink The publican's prayers overcame God,hyperlink although God is invincible. Nineveh was saved by its tears from the impending ruin caused by its sin.hyperlink To what end, you ask, these far-fetched references? To this end, I make answer; that you in your greatness should look upon me in my littleness; that you, the rich shepherd, should not despise me, the ailing sheep. Christ Himself brought the robber from the cross to paradise,hyperlink and, to show that repentance is never too late, He turned a murderer's death into a martyrdom. Gladly does Christ embrace the prodigal son when he returns to Him;hyperlink and, leaving the ninety and nine, the good shepherd carries home on His shoulders the one poor sheep that is left.hyperlink From a persecutor Paul becomes a preacher. His bodily eyes are blinded to clear the eyes of his soul,hyperlink and he who once haled Christ's servants in chains before the council of the Jews,hyperlink lives afterwards to glory in the bonds of Christ.hyperlink
2. As I have already written to you,hyperlink I, who have received Christ's garb in Rome, am now detained in the waste that borders Syria. No sentence of banishment, however, has been passed upon me; the punishment which I am undergoing is self-inflicted. But, as the heathen poet says:
They change not mind but sky who cross the sea.hyperlink
The untiring foe follows me closely, and the assaults that I suffer in the desert are severer than ever. For the Arian frenzy raves, and the powers of the world support it. The church is rent into three factions, and each of these is eager to seize me for its own. The influence of the monks is of long standing, and it is directed against me. I meantime keep crying: "He who clings to the chair of Peter is accepted by me." Meletius, Vitalis, and Paulinushyperlink all profess to cleave to you, and I could believe the assertion if it were made by one of them only. As it is, either two of them or else all three are guilty of falsehood. Therefore I implore your blessedness, by our Lord's cross and passion, those necessary glories of our faith, as you hold an apostolic office, to give an apostolic decision. Only tell me by letter with whom I am to communicate in Syria, and I will pray for you that you may sit in judgment enthroned with the twelve;hyperlink that when you grow old, like Peter, you may be girded not by yourself but by another,hyperlink and that, like Paul, you may be made a citizen of the heavenly kingdom.hyperlink Do not despise a soul for which Christ died.
Letter XVII. To the Presbyter Marcus.
In this letter, addressed to one who seems to have had some pre-eminence among the monks of the Chalcidian desert, Jerome complains of the hard treatment meted out to him because of his refusal to take any part Z in the great theological dispute then raging in Syria. He protests his own orthodoxy, and begs permission to remain where he is until the return of spring, when he will retire from "the inhospitable desert," Written in a.d. 378 or 379.
1. I had made up my mind to use the words of the psalmist: "While the wicked was before me I was dumb with silence; I was humbled, and I held my peace even from good "hyperlink and "I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. Thus I was as a man that heareth not."hyperlink But charity overcomes all things,hyperlink and my regard for you defeats my determination. I am, indeed, less careful to retaliate upon my assailants than to comply with your request. For among Christians, as one has said,hyperlink not he who endures an outrage is unhappy, but he who commits it.
2. And first, before I speak to you of my belief (which you know full well), I am forced to cry out against the inhumanity of this country. A hackneyed quotation best expresses my meaning:
What savages are these who will not grant
A rest to strangers, even on their sands!
They threaten war and drive us from their coasts.hyperlink
I take this from a Gentile poet that one who disregards the peace of Christ may at least learn its meaning from a heathen. I am called a heretic, although I preach the consubstantial trinity. I am accused of the Sabellian impiety although I proclaim with unwearied voice that in the Godhead there are three distinct,hyperlink real, whole, and perfect persons. The Arians do right to accuse me, but the orthodox forfeit their orthodoxy when they assail a faith like mine. They may, if they like, condemn me as a heretic; but if they do they must also condemn Egypt and the West, Damasus and Peter.hyperlink Why do they fasten the guilt on one and leave his companions uncensured? If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source. I blush to say it, but from the caves which serve us for cells we monks of the desert condemn the world. Rolling in sack-cloth and ashes,hyperlink we pass sentence on bishops. What use is the robe of a penitent if it covers the pride of a king? Chains, squalor, and long hair are by right tokens of sorrow, and not ensigns of royalty. I merely ask leave to remain silent. Why do they torment a man who does not deserve their ill-will? I am a heretic, you say. What is it to you if I am? Stay quiet, and all is said. You are afraid, I suppose, that, with my fluent knowledge of Syriac and Greek, I shall make a tour of the churches, lead the people into error, and form a schism! I have robbed no man of anything; neither have I taken what I have not earned. With my own handhyperlink daily and in the sweat of my browhyperlink I labor for my food, knowing that it is written by the apostle: "If any will not work, neither shall he eat."hyperlink
3. Reverend and holy father, Jesus is my witness with what groans and tears I have written all this. "I have kept silence, saith the Lord, but shall I always keep silence? Surely not."hyperlink I cannot have so much as a corner of the desert. Every day I am asked for my confession of faith; as though when I was regenerated in baptism I had made none. I accept their formulas, but they are still dissatisfied. I sign my name to them, but they still refuse to believe me. One thing only will content them, that I should leave the country. I am on the point of departure. They have already torn away from me my dear brothers, who are a part of my very life. They are, as you see, anxious to depart-nay, they are actually departing; it is preferable, they say, to live among wild beasts rather than with Christians such as these. I myself, too, would be at this moment a fugitive were I not withheld by physical infirmity and by the severity of the winter. I ask to be allowed the shelter of the desert for a few months till spring returns; or if this seems too long a delay, I am ready to depart now. "The earth is the Lord' ? and the fulness thereof."hyperlink Let them climb up to heaven alone;hyperlink for them alone Christ died; they possess all things and glory in all. Be it so. "But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world."hyperlink
4. As regards the questions which you have thought fit to put to me concerning the faith, I have given to the reverend Cyrilhyperlink a written confession which sufficiently answers them. He who does not so believe has nopart in Christ. My faith is attested both by your ears and by those of your blessed brother, Zenobius, to whom, as well as to yourself, we all of us here send our best greeting.
Letter XVIII. To Pope Damasus
This (written from Constantinople in a.d. 381) is the earliest of Jerome's expository letters. In it he explains at length the vision recorded in the sixth chapter of Isaiah, and enlarges upon its mystical meaning. "Some of my predecessors," he writes, "make `the Lord sitting upon a throne' God the Father, and suppose the seraphim to represent the Son and the Holy Spirit. I do not agree with them, for John expressly tells ushyperlink that it was Christ and not the Father whom the prophet saw." And again, "The word seraphim means either `glow' or `beginning of speech,' and the two seraphim thus stand for the Old and New Testaments.hyperlink `Did not our heart burn within us,' said the disciples, `while he opened to us the Scriptures?'hyperlink Moreover, the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, and this unquestionably was man's original language." Jerome then speaks of the unity of the sacred books. "Whatever," he asserts, "we read in the Old Testament we find also in the Gospel; and what we red in the Gospel is deduced from the Old Testament.hyperlink There is no discord between them, no disagreement. In both Testaments the Trinity is preached."
The letter is noticeable for the evidence it affords of the thoroughness of Jerome's studies. Not only does he cite the several Greek versions of Isaiah in support of his argument, but he also reverts to the Hebrew original. So far as the West was concerned be may be said to have discovered this anew. Even educated men like Augustine had ceased to look beyond the LXX., and were more or less aghast at the boldness with which Jerome rejected its time-honored but inaccurate renderings.hyperlink
The letter also shows that independence of judgment which always marked Jerome's work. At the time when he wrote it he was much under the sway of Origen. But great as was his admiration for the master, he was not afraid to discard his exegesis when, as in the case of the seraphim, he believed it to be erroneous.
Letter XIX. From Pope Damasus.
A letter from Damasus to Jerome, in which he asksfor an explanation of the word "Hosanna" (a.d. 383).
Letter XX. To Pope Damasus.
Jerome's reply to the foregoing. Exposing the error of Hilary of Poitiers, who supposed the expression to signify "redemption of the house of David," he goes on to show that in the gospels it is a quotation from cxviii. 25 and that its true meaning is "save now" (so A.V.). "Let us," he writes, "leave the streamlets of conjecture and return to the fountain-head. It is from the Hebrew writings that the truth is to be drawn." Written at Rome a.d. 383.
Letter XXI. To Damasus
In this letter Jerome, at the request of Damasus, gives a minutely detailed explanation of the parable of the prodigal son.
Footnotes
293 Matt. xv. 28.
294 Luke xi. 7, Luke xi. 8.
295 Luke xviii. 10-14.
296 Jon. iii. 5, Jon. iii. 10.
297 Luke xxiii. 43.
298 Luke xv. 20.
299 Luke xv. 5.
300 Acts ix. 8.
301 Acts viii. 3.
302 2 Cor. xii. 10.
303 See Letter XV.
304 Hor. Epist. i. 11, 27.
305 The three rival claimants of the see of Antioch. Paulinus and Meletius were both orthodox, but Meletius derived his orders from the Arians and was consequently not recognized in the West. In the East, however, he was so highly esteemed that some years after this he was chosen to preside over the Council of Constantinople (a.d. 391). Vitalis, the remaining claimant, a follower of Apollinaris, but much respected by the orthodox on account of his high character.
306 Matt. xix. 28.
307 Joh. xxi. 18.
308 Phi. iii. 20, R.V.
309 Ps. xxxix. 1, 2 Vulg.
310 Ps. xxxviii. 13, Ps. xxxviii. 14.
311 Cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 7.
312 Cyprian, Letter LV. Cf. Cic. T. Q. v. accipere quam facere praestat injuriam.
313 Virg. A. i. 539-541.
314 Subsistenets.
315 The contemporary bishops of Rome and Alexandria.
316 Tert. Apol. 40, s. f.
317 1 Cor. iv. 12.
318 Gen. iii. 19.
319 2 Thess. iii. 10.
320 Isa. xlii. 14, LXX.
321 Ps. xxiv. 1.
322 Was Jerome thinking of Constantine's rebuke to the Novatian bishop at Nicaea, "Plant a ladder for thyself, Acesius, and mount alone to heaven"?
323 Gal. vi. 14.
324 Who this was is unknown. The extant document purporting to contain this confession is not genuine.
325 John xii. 41.
326 Jerome greatly prides himself on this explanation, and frequently reverts to it.
327 Luke xxiv. 32.
328 Cf. Augustine's dictum: "The New Testament is latent in the Old; the Old Testament is patent in the New."
329 See Augustine's letters to Jerome, passim.