Letters

Epistulae

Translation in progress.

Reading pages: 1.1–6.2 · 7.1–13.4 · 14.1–19.1 · 20.1–21.23 · 21.24–22.6 · 22.7–22.24 · 22.25–22.38 · 22.39–28.7 · 29.1–32.2 · 33.1–35.2 · 36.1–38.5 · 39.1–41.4 · 42.1–45.7 · 46.1–49.1 · 49.2–49.13 · 49.14–49.21 · 50.1–50.5 · 51.1–51.9 · 52.1–52.17 · 53.1–53.11 · 54.1–54.18 · 55.1–56.5 · 57.1–57.13 · 58.1–60.4 · 60.5–60.19 · 61.1–64.15 · 64.16–65.8 · 65.9–65.21 · 65.22–66.15 · 67.1–68.2 · 69.1–69.10 · 70.1–72.5 · 73.1–75.5 · 76.1–78.3 · 78.4–78.30 · 78.31–78.43 · 79.1–81.2 · 82.1–83.2 · 84.1–89.2 · 90.1–96.3 · 96.4–96.18 · 96.19–98.11 · 98.12–98.26 · 99.1–100.13 · 100.14–106.1 · 106.2–106.42 · 106.43–106.77 · 106.78–108.2 · 108.3–108.16 · 108.17–108.28 · 108.29–112.1 · 112.2–112.16 · 112.17–116.12 · 116.13–116.32 · 116.33–117.12 · 118.1–119.6 · 119.7–119.12 · 120.1–120.7 · 120.8–120.10 · 120.11–121.2 · 121.3–121.7 · 121.8–121.9 · 121.10–121.11 · 122.1–123.4 · 123.5–124.1 · 124.2–124.15 · 125.1–125.20 · 126.1–127.13 · 128.1–130.1 · 130.2–130.13 · 130.14–131.8 · 131.9–131.28 · 132.1–133.1 · 133.2–133.12 · 133.13–140.11 · 140.12–143.2 · 144.1–145.5 · 146.1–148.2 · 148.3–148.25 · 148.26–154.3

1.1Jerome explains that his friend Innocent has pressed him to write about a recent miracle despite his reluctance.
1.2Jerome compares his undertaking to an untrained sailor put to sea and commits the attempt to the Holy Spirit.
1.3At Vercellae a woman falsely accused of adultery with a young man is tortured and, while he confesses falsely to escape the pain, she refuses to lie.
1.4The governor orders the woman's tortures doubled.
1.5The woman endures further torture in prayer and continues to deny the charge for both herself and the young man.
1.6The woman appeals to God's future judgment, and the governor reasons that she must be guilty since adultery takes two.
1.7At the execution the young man is beheaded, but the sword twice fails to harm the woman, who calmly points out the executioner's fallen brooch.
1.8A third stroke and an attempt to stab the woman fail, the sword bending back to its hilt.
1.9Jerome compares the woman's deliverance to the three young men in the furnace, Daniel among the lions, and Susanna.
1.10The crowd rescues the woman, but the officer responsible pleads that he will die in her place, and the people relent.
1.11A new executioner strikes the woman down, and she appears to die so that the officer will not die in her place.
1.12As the clergy prepare her burial at nightfall, the woman revives and quotes the psalm, "The Lord is my helper."
1.13An old woman's body is buried in the tomb in her place, and the clergy mock the lictor who comes looking for the corpse.
1.14The woman is secretly nursed back to health and hidden in a country house, but the law still pursues her.
1.15Jerome praises Evagrius, who obtained the emperor's pardon so that the woman restored to life was also set free.
2.1Jerome longs to join the monks of the desert, whose solitude he calls lovelier than any city.
2.2Jerome asks the monks to pray that he may be freed from the world and actually take up the monastic life he desires.
2.3Jerome compares himself to the lost sheep and to the prodigal son who has not yet returned.
2.4Caught between his old life and the monastic one, Jerome asks for prayer that the Holy Spirit may bring him to harbor.
3.1Jerome rejoices at news that Rufinus is visiting the monks of Egypt and sends this letter in place of the visit illness prevents.
3.2Jerome describes how the report that Rufinus was with the monks of Nitria reached him and how he longs to see him.
3.3Jerome recounts his journey to Syria, his illnesses, and the deaths of Innocent and Hylas, then turns to good news.
3.4Jerome praises their friend Bonosus, who has left wealth and family to live as a hermit on a barren island.
3.5Jerome describes how Scripture will arm Bonosus against every temptation and prays to share a lowly place among the saints.
3.6Jerome asks Rufinus not to forget their friendship, which he values above any wealth.
4.1Jerome greets Florentius, whose charity to pilgrims, including Heliodorus, he has heard praised, and offers him friendship.
4.2Jerome asks Florentius to forward a letter to Rufinus, contrasting Rufinus's holiness with his own sinfulness.
5.1Writing from the Syrian desert, Jerome asks Florentius to keep up their new friendship by exchanging letters.
5.2Jerome asks Florentius to obtain copies of commentaries by Reticius and Hilary and offers books from his own library in return.
5.3Jerome reports on the man suspected of abducting Florentius's servant and has asked Evagrius to deal with the matter.
6.1Jerome answers the deacon Julian's complaint that he never writes, asking pardon and pleading serious illness.
6.2Jerome promises frequent letters, rejoices at his sister's perseverance under Julian's care, and dismisses slander against himself.
7.1Jerome greets Chromatius, Jovinus, and Eusebius together and describes his joy at receiving their letter in the desert.
7.2Jerome treasures his friends' letter as the only Latin he hears, but playfully complains that it was so short.
7.3Jerome contrasts Bonosus's triumphant solitude with his own sense of being still captive to sin.
7.4Jerome commends his sister, restored through Julian's care, to his friends and asks for letters, including one from Bishop Valerian, to strengthen her.
7.5Jerome complains of the worldliness of his home town and its unworthy bishop, Lupicinus.
7.6Jerome greets the mother and sisters of his friends, praising their household for its holiness and for having driven Arianism from Aquileia.
8.1Jerome opens his letter to Niceas by praising letters as a way of making absent friends present.
8.2Jerome urges Niceas, who has returned home, to write, even if angry, rather than break off their friendship.
9.1Jerome tells Chrysogonus that he constantly speaks of him with affection, as Heliodorus can attest.
9.2Jerome reproaches Chrysogonus for forgetting their friendship like a lynx that forgets what it no longer sees.
9.3Jerome describes how the lynx forgets its prey once it has eaten its fill.
9.4Jerome asks Chrysogonus why he has dropped their friendship and urges him to write, even if only to say he has no news.
10.1Jerome begins his letter to the aged Paul by reflecting on how sin has shortened human life since the Fall and the Flood.
10.2Jerome praises the vigorous health of Paul of Concordia, nearly a hundred years old, as a foretaste of the resurrection.
10.3As the "price" of his praise Jerome asks Paul for books of Fortunatianus, Aurelius Victor, and Novatian, and sends his Life of Paul the hermit.
11.1Jerome tells the virgins of Emona that he has written in tiny letters because he had only a small sheet.
11.2Jerome reproaches the virgins of Emona for never answering his letters, reminding them that Christ welcomed sinners.
11.3Jerome cites Christ's mercy toward sinners and Paul's warnings against judging others.
11.4Jerome contrasts human judgment with Christ's, citing Peter's restoration and God's joy over one lost sheep.
12.1Jerome begins his letter to the monk Antony with Christ's teaching and example of humility.
12.2Jerome gives examples of pride brought low, from Satan's fall to the choice of fishermen as apostles.
12.3Jerome complains that Antony has not answered any of his ten letters.
12.4Jerome restrains his anger and again asks Antony to write to him.
13.1Jerome begins his appeal for reconciliation with his aunt Castorina with Scripture's warnings against hatred and lasting anger.
13.2Jerome recalls Christ's command to be reconciled before offering one's gift at the altar.
13.3Jerome laments that their estrangement has made both their offerings and the Lord's Prayer insincere.
13.4Jerome again asks his aunt for peace, saying that if she refuses, this letter will clear him before Christ.
14.1Jerome invites Heliodorus, as promised, to join him in the desert, trusting Christ to provide.
14.2Jerome rebukes Heliodorus as a soldier of Christ who has left the battle for home comforts and urges him to let nothing hold him back.
14.3Jerome acknowledges the family ties that hold Heliodorus back but argues from Scripture that love for Christ must come first.
14.4Jerome warns Heliodorus that the Christian is always under attack from the devil and his own passions, even when there is no open persecution.
14.5Jerome argues from Paul that sexual immorality and greed are forms of idolatry and that a monk may keep no possessions.
14.6Jerome urges Heliodorus, who has vowed the perfect life of a monk, to renounce his inheritance and the dangers of the city.
14.7Jerome argues that a monk cannot be perfect in his homeland, where he will meet contempt and distraction.
14.8Jerome honors the clergy, who consecrate the Eucharist and exercise discipline, but warns that their office demands the highest standards and brings grave danger to the unworthy.
14.9Jerome warns that church office does not make a Christian holy and that the fall of a cleric is more dangerous than that of a monk.
14.10In a famous closing hymn to the desert, Jerome answers every fear of the ascetic life with the promises of Christ.
14.11Jerome closes with the day of judgment, when the despised Christ will be revealed as Judge and the humble believer will rejoice.
15.1Amid the divisions of the Eastern church, Jerome turns to Pope Damasus and the Roman see as the guardian of the faith.
15.2Jerome declares his communion with the see of Peter and refuses to side with any of the rival bishops of Antioch until Damasus directs him.
15.3Jerome complains that a party at Antioch demands that he confess "three hypostases", a term he fears implies three substances.
15.4Jerome asks Damasus to rule whether he must say "three hypostases", arguing that the term implies three natures and professing one substance in three coequal persons.
15.5Jerome asks Damasus for a ruling on the term and for guidance on which bishop of Antioch to recognize.
16.1Jerome begins a second appeal to Damasus with scriptural examples of persistence rewarded and of God's mercy to the lowly.
16.2Pressed by Arians and the three rival factions at Antioch, Jerome again asks Damasus to tell him with whom to be in communion.
17.1Jerome breaks his resolve of silence to answer the presbyter Mark about the attacks on him in the desert.
17.2Jerome protests that the monks of the desert brand him a heretic, though his Trinitarian faith is that of Damasus and Peter of Alexandria.
17.3Hounded by demands to confess his faith, Jerome announces that he will leave the desert after the winter.
17.4Jerome says he has given his written confession of faith to Cyril and sends greetings.
19.1Pope Damasus asks Jerome to explain from the Hebrew what "Hosanna" means, since commentators disagree.
20.1Jerome answers Damasus by rejecting earlier explanations of "Hosanna", including Hilary's "redemption of the house of David".
20.2Jerome sets out the Gospel accounts of the cry "Hosanna" and proposes to go back to the Hebrew source.
20.3Comparing the Hebrew of Ps 118:25 with the Greek versions, Jerome explains that hosanna means "save" and that anna is a particle of entreaty.
20.4Jerome explains that the crowd took the cry from Ps 118, a well-known messianic psalm, and why Luke omits the untranslatable word.
20.5Jerome concludes that hosanna combines "save" with an interjection of entreaty, meaning "save, I beseech you".
20.6Jerome ends by defending his detailed treatment as better than inventing an easy answer.
21.1Jerome restates Damasus's questions about the parable of the prodigal son, especially how the elder brother can represent either the Jews or the righteous.
21.2Jerome explains that the parable answers the Pharisees' complaint that Jesus ate with sinners, and sets it against the severity of the law and the mercy of the gospel.
21.3Jerome rejects Tertullian's Montanist claim that the tax collectors were Gentiles and holds that they stand for sinners of every kind, Jew and Gentile.
21.4Jerome interprets the father as God and the two sons as the two peoples called by God.
21.5Jerome interprets the father's property as the natural gifts of reason and life that God gives to all.
21.6Jerome explains the dividing of the property as God's gift of free will to humanity.
21.7Jerome explains that the son's departure to a far country signifies estrangement from God in will, not in place.
21.8Jerome compares the prodigal's departure with Cain's exile and the building of the tower of Babel.
21.9Jerome describes self-indulgence as squandering God's gifts.
21.10Jerome interprets the famine as the spiritual want of those who turn from God to idols.
21.11Jerome interprets the ruler to whom the prodigal attaches himself as the devil, known in Scripture by many names.
21.12Jerome interprets the pigs as the demons who feed on idolatrous sacrifice and on the death of human souls.
21.13Jerome interprets the pigs' pods as the vices, and also the pagan literature, that feed demons, and warns clergy against reading the classics for pleasure.
21.14Jerome interprets the hired servants as those who obey God's law only for earthly reward, and contrasts fear with love.
21.15Jerome notes that the prodigal must "rise", since sinners lie fallen and the righteous stand before God.
21.16Jerome explains the prodigal's confession as sin against the heavenly Jerusalem and against God through idolatry.
21.17Jerome paraphrases the prodigal's request to be made a hired servant.
21.18Jerome says we return to God as soon as we turn from sin in repentance.
21.19Jerome interprets the father's running to meet his son as God's prevenient grace in the incarnation of the Word.
21.20Jerome interprets the father's embrace as the incarnation and the placing of Christ's easy yoke on the believer by grace.
21.21Jerome interprets the father's kiss as the incarnation longed for by the church in the Song of Songs.
21.22Jerome notes that even the unworthy son calls God "Father", against those who restrict the name to the saints.
21.23Jerome interprets the first robe as the garment of the Holy Spirit lost by Adam.
21.24Jerome interprets the ring as the seal of the Holy Spirit, restoring the likeness of Christ and marking works of righteousness.
21.25Jerome interprets the shoes as preparation for the Passover and for proclaiming the gospel of peace.
21.26Jerome interprets the fatted calf as Christ, whose flesh and blood believers receive daily in the Eucharist.
21.27Jerome sees the feast as the daily Eucharist in which Christ is offered for believers.
21.28Jerome turns to the elder son, whom some take as the saints and others as the Jews, and links him with those who refuse the invitation to the feast.
21.29Jerome explains that "symphony" in the parable means harmonious singing, not an instrument.
21.30Jerome applies the elder son's question to Israel's incomprehension at the calling of the Gentiles.
21.31Jerome explains the joy of the feast as the salvation of Gentiles and sinners, in which all creation shares except Israel.
21.32Jerome compares the elder son's refusal to enter with those who stand outside the church.
21.33Jerome sees the father's entreaty in the apostles' preaching of reconciliation.
21.34Jerome argues that the elder son's claim never to have disobeyed is a boast like the Pharisee's, and that the father's reply implies mercy, not approval.
21.35Jerome voices Israel's complaint that no redeemer died for it, answers that Christ the Lamb has been offered to it too, and warns of the Antichrist.
21.36Jerome says the elder son's complaint admits that the fatted calf, Christ, has been slain.
21.37Jerome interprets "all that is mine" as the law and the Scriptures given to Israel, noting that "all" in Scripture often means "most".
21.38Jerome notes that all three parables of Luke 15 end alike, signifying God's welcome of repentant sinners.
21.39Taking the elder son as a righteous man, Jerome explains his envy by the imperfection of all human righteousness compared with God's.
21.40Jerome argues from the apostles' indignation and the parable of the laborers that envy can touch even the righteous, since only God is perfectly righteous.
21.41Jerome shows that the laborers accept equal wages among themselves but resent only the last-hired, a figure of the Gentiles.
21.42Jerome apologizes for his unpolished, dictated style, saying that in church matters meaning matters more than words.
22.1Jerome opens his treatise to the virgin Eustochium with Ps 45: the soul must forget its father's house to be the bride of Christ the King.
22.2Jerome tells Eustochium that he writes not to praise virginity or disparage marriage but to warn her of the dangers to her vow.
22.3Jerome warns Eustochium that the Christian life is a constant spiritual battle, in which God's help is greater than all the enemy's forces.
22.4Jerome warns that the devil seeks especially to devour those within the church, as he fell himself and caused others to fall.
22.5Jerome warns Eustochium that if even Paul had to struggle with the flesh, she must guard her virginity in mind as well as body.
22.6Jerome describes in prophetic images the shame of a consecrated virgin who falls, and urges Eustochium to crush sinful thoughts at their first stirring.
22.7Jerome recounts how, even in the harshest desert life, he was tormented by memories of Rome and sexual temptation, and found relief only in prayer and fasting.
22.8Jerome urges Eustochium to avoid wine as the chief kindler of lust, citing Timothy's permitted medicine and the drunkenness of Noah and Lot.
22.9Jerome cites Elijah, Elisha, and Daniel as examples of the simple fare God gives his servants.
22.10Jerome summarizes Scripture's condemnation of gluttony and commends fasting as the way back to paradise.
22.11Jerome explains that the devil's chief power over people lies in sexual desire, citing Job and many scriptural references to the loins.
22.12Jerome cites Samson, David, Solomon, and Amnon as strong men brought down by sexual desire.
22.13Jerome denounces professed virgins who live immorally, conceal pregnancies, procure contraception and abortion, and excuse themselves with Scripture.
22.14Jerome condemns the practice of celibate men and women living together as "spiritual" partners (agapetae).
22.15Jerome turns to Eustochium herself, citing her widowed sister Blesilla as an example of marriage's uncertainties and of widowhood's lesser but real reward.
22.16Jerome warns Eustochium against the society of worldly married women and of rich widows who flaunt their freedom and patronize fawning clergy.
22.17Jerome counsels Eustochium to keep ascetic companions, stay at home, fast, pray, and read Scripture, overcoming bodily desire with love for Christ.
22.18Jerome urges Eustochium to watchful prayer and tears, and argues that the virgin is free from the curse on woman and from marriage, which ends in death.
22.19Jerome insists that preferring virginity does not disparage marriage, which he places second, and argues from Scripture that virginity belongs to paradise and marriage to the fallen state.
22.20Jerome praises marriage because it brings forth virgins, and explains that Paul gave no command about virginity so that it would be freely chosen and marriage not condemned.
22.21Jerome contrasts the Old Testament blessing of children with the gospel's call to virginity, which began with Mary and is commended by Paul.
22.22Jerome refers Eustochium to his own work against Helvidius and to earlier writers on virginity, and argues that marital relations hinder continual prayer.
22.23Jerome urges Eustochium to guard her virginity like the sacred vessels of the temple, not displaying herself in public.
22.24Jerome warns Eustochium against flattery and worldly distractions, urging her to be like the ark of the covenant and like Mary at the Lord's feet.
22.25Using the Song of Songs, Jerome urges Eustochium to meet Christ in the privacy of her room and not to seek him in public, where she will be exposed to danger.
22.26Jerome urges Eustochium to stay within in prayer, opening her heart to Christ and closing it to the devil.
22.27Jerome warns Eustochium against vainglory, especially the subtle pride of ostentatious humility and showy asceticism.
22.28Jerome warns Eustochium against fraudulent male ascetics and worldly clergy who frequent the houses of rich women, describing one notorious example.
22.29Jerome advises Eustochium on companions, humility toward her maidservants, and avoiding idle widows and affected speech, and asks what pagan literature has to do with Scripture.
22.30Jerome tells of his famous dream, in which Christ the Judge condemned him as "a Ciceronian, not a Christian" for his love of the classics.
22.31Jerome warns Eustochium against greed and anxiety about material needs, citing Christ's teaching on trusting the Father's provision.
22.32Jerome contrasts the showy luxury and charity of rich Roman women with the Scriptures' teaching on contentment and trust in God.
22.33Jerome tells how the fathers of Nitria had a greedy monk's savings buried with him as a warning.
22.34Jerome describes the three kinds of Egyptian monks and condemns the third, the undisciplined remnuoth.
22.35Jerome describes the ordered common life of Egyptian cenobitic monks: obedience, work, silence, prayer, Scripture, and care for the sick.
22.36Jerome briefly mentions the anchorites, whose founders were Paul, Antony, and John the Baptist, and returns to the theme of despising wealth.
22.37Jerome sets out the hours of prayer, the sign of the cross, and warnings against judging others and against fasting with an angry heart.
22.38Jerome warns Eustochium against worldly "virgins", holds up Mary as her model, and insists that virginity avails only within the church, not among heretics like the Manichaeans.
22.39Jerome says that love for Christ, who humbled himself for our salvation, makes every hardship light, and that no saint was crowned without a contest.
22.40Jerome urges Eustochium to endure hardships out of love for Christ, as Jacob served for Rachel and Paul suffered for the gospel.
22.41Jerome closes by picturing the heavenly welcome of the virgin by Mary, Thecla, and Christ the Bridegroom, with the virgins who follow the Lamb.
23.1Jerome tells Marcella how, in the middle of their Bible study, news came of the death of the holy widow Lea.
23.2Jerome praises Lea, a noble widow who became head of a community of virgins and lived in humility and prayer.
23.3Jerome contrasts Lea's heavenly reward with the fate of the pagan consul Praetextatus, likening them to Lazarus and the rich man.
23.4Jerome draws the lesson that Christians should travel light through this world, renouncing wealth and power for eternal things.
24.1Jerome writes to Marcella in praise of the virgin Asella, asking that the letter be read to young women rather than to Asella herself.
24.2Jerome passes over the signs of grace in Asella's infancy and turns to the life she chose from the age of twelve.
24.3Jerome describes Asella's life of fasting in a single cell and how, as a girl, she sold her necklace and put on dark clothing to dedicate herself to God.
24.4Jerome describes Asella's secluded life of work, prayer, and fasting, which she kept in health to the age of fifty.
24.5Jerome describes Asella's balanced, unostentatious holiness, which is respected by all in luxurious Rome.
25.1Jerome answers Marcella's request to explain the ten Hebrew names of God, prompted by the word Shaddai in Ps 91.
25.2Jerome explains the first six Hebrew names of God: El, Elohim, Eloah, Sabaoth, Elyon, and the "I am" of Exodus.
25.3Jerome explains the names Adonai, Yah, and the four-letter divine name, which some Greek readers misread as PIPI.
25.4Jerome explains Shaddai and notes that Elohim is plural in form but used of the one God.
26.1Jerome takes up Marcella's question why certain Hebrew words are left untranslated in Scripture.
26.2Jerome explains that these Hebrew words were kept to avoid offending early Jewish believers and because translation would weaken their force.
26.3Jerome explains that alleluia means "praise the Lord".
26.4Jerome explains amen as a word of confirmation and maran atha as the Syriac "Our Lord comes".
26.5Jerome defers other questions, such as the meaning of selah, to keep Marcella eager.
27.1Jerome defends his revision of the Latin Gospels against the Greek against critics who accuse him of tampering with the Lord's words.
27.2Jerome protests that his only offense has been to urge that virgins keep company with women rather than men.
27.3Jerome gives examples where the Latin text his critics prefer departs from the Greek, such as "serving the time" for "serving the Lord".
28.1Jerome agrees to explain the word diapsalma (selah) to Marcella after all.
28.2Jerome rejects musical explanations of selah and argues from Aquila's rendering "always" and from its placement in the Psalms.
28.3Jerome concludes that selah links passages or marks what is said as everlasting, with examples from Pss 3 and 4.
28.4Jerome explains that Hebrew books often close with amen, selah, or shalom.
28.5Jerome offers to translate Origen's view of selah for Marcella.
28.6Jerome quotes Origen's comparison of the Hebrew selah with the Greek versions in Pss 75 and 76.
28.7Jerome says he prefers Origen's modest uncertainty to others' false confidence.
29.1Jerome agrees to answer Marcella's question about Hebrew terms, noting that in Scripture meaning matters more than eloquence.
29.2Jerome restates Marcella's question about the "ephod bad" worn by Samuel and the priests in 1 Samuel.
29.3Jerome shows from 1 Samuel and Judges that the ephod was a priestly vestment, distinct from Micah's silver idol.
29.4Jerome shows from Exodus and Leviticus that the ephod is the priestly shoulder-garment, which the Greek translators render as epomis.
29.5Jerome explains that bad means linen, so the "ephod bad" is the plain linen ephod of ordinary priests, distinct from the high priest's ornate one.
29.6Jerome explains teraphim as figured or embroidered works, linked with the ephod as signs of priesthood, with evidence from 1 Samuel and Hosea.
29.7Jerome closes by deferring a fuller account of the priestly vestments and apologizing for his rusty Latin.
30.1Jerome answers Paula's question about the Hebrew letters that divide Ps 119, after describing the Bible's range of physics, ethics, and theology.
30.2Jerome explains that Ps 119 is an alphabetic acrostic of eight verses per Hebrew letter, and agrees to write out the letters' meanings.
30.3Jerome lists the alphabetic psalms (Pss 111, 112, 119, 145), the acrostics of Lamentations, and Prov 31, describing their verse forms.
30.4Jerome compares learning the alphabet with beginning the spiritual life in ethics before advancing to deeper knowledge.
30.5Jerome gives the meanings of the twenty-two Hebrew letters.
30.6Jerome reads the first letters as a sentence: the church's teaching is found in the fullness of the Scriptures.
30.7Jerome reads the next letters as teaching that life lies in knowing the Scriptures, through which Christ is known.
30.8Jerome reads "good beginning" as meaning that present knowledge is partial and will give way to direct knowledge in heaven.
30.9Jerome reads "hand of the heart" as meaning that right action depends on first knowing what to do.
30.10Jerome reads the next letters as saying that eternal help comes from the Scriptures.
30.11Jerome briefly notes the sixth group of letters.
30.12Jerome reads the last letters as the call to Christ the head, reached through articulate speech, that is, the word of Scripture.
30.13Jerome exclaims that the study of Scripture is sweeter than any worldly pleasure.
30.14Jerome sends greetings to Paula's household of consecrated women and asks for prayer.
31.1Jerome thanks Eustochium for her gifts of bracelets, a letter, and doves, and promises to season his thanks with a little "pepper".
31.2Jerome draws spiritual warnings from Eustochium's gifts, using Scripture passages about bracelets, letters, and doves.
31.3Jerome thanks Eustochium for cherries, draws a lesson from the figs of Jeremiah, and urges her to keep the feast with spiritual joy rather than feasting.
32.1Jerome explains that he is busy comparing Aquila's Greek version with the Hebrew and sends Marcella copies of two other letters.
32.2Jerome sends greetings to Marcella's mother Albina.
33.1Jerome begins a comparison of the prolific Varro and Didymus with Origen, contrasting their zeal with the greed of his own day.
33.2Jerome lists the many works of Varro.
33.3Jerome satirizes the learned men of his time, expert in delicacies and inheritances but scornful of true study.
33.4Jerome gives a long list of the works of Origen, whom he calls "our Adamantius", to show his extraordinary industry.
33.5Jerome claims Origen was condemned by Demetrius of Alexandria and others out of envy of his learning, not for heresy.
33.6Jerome hints that his letter is aimed at the pleasure-loving critics of his day.
34.1Jerome explains to Marcella that Origen's commentary on Ps 127 has been lost, so he must answer her question himself.
34.2From the Hebrew and Greek versions Jerome concludes that the "bread of sorrow" in Ps 127 means the bread of idols.
34.3Jerome rejects Hilary's reading of "sons of the shaken-out" in Ps 127 as the apostles, blaming Hilary's informant Heliodorus.
34.4From the Hebrew and Greek versions Jerome shows that "sons of the shaken-out" means "sons of youth", strong young people compared to arrows.
34.5Jerome shows that "the labors of your fruits" in Ps 128:2 is a Latin mistranslation of a Greek word meaning "hands".
34.6Jerome ends the letter, dictated late at night, because of a sudden attack of stomach pain.
35.1Pope Damasus urges Jerome to write, proposing that they discuss Scripture by question and answer.
35.2Damasus asks Jerome five questions: on the vengeance for Cain, clean and unclean animals, the generations in Egypt, Abraham's circumcision, and Isaac's blessing.
36.1Jerome explains to Damasus why his reply is hasty and partial: he is busy copying Hebrew books, and some questions have been treated by Tertullian, Novatian, and Origen.
36.2Jerome compares the Hebrew and Greek versions of Gen 4:15 and interprets it to mean that Cain was left to live in torment until his death released him.
36.3Jerome illustrates his reading with the example of a master who refuses a guilty slave the release of death.
36.4Jerome reports the tradition that Lamech, seventh from Adam, accidentally killed Cain, as Gen 4:23-24 was understood.
36.5Jerome interprets Lamech's seventy-sevenfold vengeance as the sins of the world taken away by Christ, whose genealogy in Luke numbers seventy-seven generations.
36.6Jerome reports another view that Cain's seven vengeances correspond to seven sins, the last being his refusal to repent.
36.7Jerome notes the view that seven here signifies fullness of punishment.
36.8Jerome reports an interpretation linking the numbers seven and seventy-seven with Peter's question on forgiveness, Enoch's translation, and Christ's victory over death.
36.9Jerome mentions a numerical interpretation linking the sabbatical year, the jubilee, and the penitential psalm, and notes that Origen wrote two books on this question.
36.10Jerome takes up Damasus's question on the "fourth" and "fifth" generations and lists other apparent chronological difficulties in Scripture.
36.11Jerome resolves the discrepancy by counting four generations in the line of Levi and five in the line of Judah.
36.12Jerome notes that Aquila's version of Exod 13:18 reads "armed" rather than "in the fifth generation", removing the difficulty.
36.13Jerome explains from the Hebrew letters of Exod 13:18 that the word can mean "armed" and that the Greek "fifth generation" is a misreading, like other vowel ambiguities.
36.14Jerome defends his plain style as suited to explaining Scripture.
36.15Jerome answers that even holy men know only what God reveals, and that Isaac's blindness was providential, preventing him from blessing Esau.
36.16Jerome quotes Hippolytus's allegory of Isaac's blessing, in which Jacob represents Christ and the church and Esau the former people.
36.17Jerome adds that the blessing offered first to Israel passed to the Gentiles, but that all Israel will yet be saved.
37.1Jerome criticizes Reticius of Autun's commentary on the Song of Songs for confusing Tharshish with Tarsus and Ophaz with Cephas.
37.2Jerome explains that "Tharshish" names both a precious stone and a region or sea, named for its color.
37.3Jerome faults Reticius for seeking eloquence rather than accuracy and for not consulting Origen or Hebrew scholars.
37.4Jerome refuses to lend Marcella Reticius's commentaries, explaining that different readers need different food.
38.1Jerome begins by listing biblical figures whose trials led to greater faith.
38.2Jerome describes how Blesilla, after a near-fatal fever, turned from a worldly life to Christ, like one raised from the dead.
38.3Jerome defends Blesilla's plain dress and food as a widow, contrasting them with painted society women.
38.4Jerome describes Blesilla's changed life of prayer, psalmody, simple dress, and almsgiving.
38.5Jerome says the ascetic way of life is mild compared with the apostles' renunciations, and that Blesilla will laugh off her critics.
39.1Jerome laments the death of the young widow Blesilla, praising her faith, learning, humility, and last words.
39.2Jerome confesses his own grief and wrestles, like the psalmist, with the death of the young, concluding that God's judgments are just and must be accepted.
39.3Jerome argues that death is universal and that Blesilla has gone to Christ, and imagines Christ rebuking Paula for her excessive grief and self-starvation.
39.4Jerome answers the biblical examples of mourning, arguing that under the gospel, which has opened paradise, Christians should not grieve like those without hope.
39.5Jerome reminds Paula of her ascetic vows and holds up Naomi, Job, and Melania as examples of patience in bereavement.
39.6Jerome urges Paula to restrain her grief for the sake of Eustochium and of her own soul, warning that her excess has given occasion to attacks on the monks.
39.7Jerome imagines Blesilla speaking from heaven, urging her mother not to grieve but to please Christ.
39.8Jerome promises to keep Blesilla's memory alive in all his writings.
40.1Jerome compares those who rebuke vice to surgeons, citing the prophets, Paul, and Christ, who were hated for telling the truth.
40.2Jerome mocks Onasus, who has taken his general satire of vices as a personal attack.
40.3Jerome ends his satire by advising Onasus to hide his nose and hold his tongue.
41.1Against a Montanist, Jerome shows from Acts that Christ's promise of the Paraclete was fulfilled at Pentecost.
41.2Jerome explains that the church does not reject prophecy as such, but rejects the Montanists because they contradict Scripture.
41.3Jerome lists the Montanists' errors: Sabellian views of the Trinity, condemnation of second marriage as adultery, extra Lents, a hierarchy that ranks bishops third, and refusal of penance.
41.4Jerome rejects the Montanist claim that God's saving revelation reached its fullness through Montanus and his prophetesses.
42.1Against Novatian, Jerome argues that the unforgivable sin is ascribing Christ's works to the devil, not denying Christ under torture.
42.2Jerome argues from Peter's denial and restoration that denying Christ under pressure is forgivable, unlike calling Christ's works diabolical.
42.3Jerome apologizes for the brevity of his answer.
43.1Jerome recalls how Origen and his patron Ambrose never ate or slept without reading Scripture and prayer.
43.2Jerome contrasts his and Marcella's distracted Roman life, full of visits, gossip, and money, with Origen's devotion.
43.3Jerome urges Marcella to leave Rome for a simple country life of prayer and reading.
44.1Jerome thanks Marcella for gifts and proposes to draw spiritual meanings from them.
44.2Jerome interprets Marcella's gifts of sackcloth, chairs, candles, cups, and fans as symbols of the ascetic life.
44.3Jerome jokingly applies the gifts to himself as an idle, penitent, and fearful man.
45.1Leaving Rome, Jerome thanks Asella for her friendship despite the slanders against him.
45.2Jerome protests his innocence of the charges of misconduct with the women he taught at Rome, noting that his accuser has retracted.
45.3Jerome recalls his former high reputation in Rome and says it was lost only because he revered the ascetic Paula.
45.4Jerome says that only ascetic women like Paula and Melania are gossiped about in Rome, and chiefly by nominal Christians.
45.5Jerome contrasts the luxury of worldly Christians with the ascetic life of Paula and Melania, which each side thinks madness in the other.
45.6Boarding ship for the East, Jerome asks Asella's prayers and consoles himself that Christ and the apostles were also slandered.
45.7Jerome sends greetings to his friends in Rome and asks Asella to pray for his voyage.
46.1Paula and Eustochium write from Bethlehem urging their teacher Marcella to join them.
46.2Paula and Eustochium argue from Scripture that God calls his people to leave the world for the land of promise, and praise Jerusalem's sacred history.
46.3They add the tradition that Adam was buried at Calvary and interpret the city's three names as a movement from affliction to the vision of peace.
46.4They anticipate Marcella's objection that Jerusalem lost its holiness after rejecting Christ.
46.5They answer that the sin was the people's, not the place's, and that the Holy Sepulchre is now more venerable than the old Holy of Holies.
46.6They answer the objection from Rev 11:8, which calls the city of the crucifixion "Sodom and Egypt", by showing that Revelation elsewhere calls Jerusalem holy and must be read spiritually.
46.7They argue that "the great city", Sodom, and Egypt in Scripture signify the world, and that Jerusalem remains the holy city.
46.8They defend the holiness of the Lord's tomb, which even demons fear, and cite Paul's eagerness to go to Jerusalem.
46.9They note that many Christian leaders have visited Jerusalem, which they call the Christian Athens.
46.10They describe the international community of monks and virgins at Jerusalem, united in humility and free of judgment of one another.
46.11They praise the simple cave of the nativity at Bethlehem above the luxurious buildings of Rome.
46.12They contrast the busy, worldly life of Rome, figured as Babylon in Revelation, with the quiet, psalm-singing countryside of Bethlehem.
46.13They picture the joy of Marcella's arrival and the holy places they will visit together in Palestine.
47.1Jerome thanks Desiderius for a flattering letter, protesting his own unworthiness.
47.2Jerome invites Desiderius and his sister Serenilla to visit Bethlehem and the holy places.
47.3Jerome tells Desiderius where to borrow his writings and mentions his book On Illustrious Men.
48.1Jerome renews his correspondence with Pammachius, explaining his long silence.
48.2Jerome tells Pammachius that his books Against Jovinian, which some thought disparaged marriage, have already circulated, and sends him a defense of them.
48.3Jerome argues that his treatment of marriage was milder than Paul's and than earlier commentators such as Pierius, who said Paul openly preached celibacy.
48.4Jerome tells Pammachius of his translations from the Hebrew and argues that church translation should be plain rather than eloquent.
49.1Jerome answers Pammachius's letter and prepares to brief him as the defender of his books against Jovinian.
49.2Jerome denies that his books against Jovinian condemned marriage and quotes his own preface ranking virginity, widowhood, and marriage as the hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold yield.
49.3Jerome argues that his treatment of marriage was milder than that of other commentators and that he asked married people for their prayers.
49.4Jerome cites his comments on 1 Corinthians 7, where he said that the Lord forbids putting away a wife and that marriage too is a gift of God, though a different one.
49.5Jerome recalls that he called marriage a gift of God and cites his teaching that a wife may be put away only for sexual immorality and may not remarry while her husband lives.
49.6Jerome recalls that he allowed second and third marriages and urged a believing husband not to use his faith as a reason to leave his wife.
49.7Jerome cites passages where he called marriage the root and foundation of virginity and forbade a married man to divorce his wife.
49.8Jerome explains his 'middle way' between lust and Manichaean contempt for marriage and defends his remarks on second and later marriages.
49.9Jerome distinguishes not condemning from praising and cites passages where he rejected the Encratite condemnation of marriage and set out three grades of chastity.
49.10Jerome cites his statements that marriage is permitted in the Gospel though it does not win the rewards of chastity, and that the married stand in the third grade after virgins and widows.
49.11Jerome recalls that he said the church does not condemn marriage but ranks it below virginity and widowhood.
49.12Jerome asks readers to judge the harsh passages of his book by the whole and challenges his critics to write against Jovinian themselves.
49.13Jerome defends his polemical style by the distinction between writing as an exercise and writing as teaching, citing philosophers, apologists, and Paul himself.
49.14Jerome says his harsh sayings on touching a woman only expound Paul by comparison, and shows that Ambrose used still stronger language about marriage.
49.15Jerome defends his view, drawn from Paul and Peter, that married intercourse is a hindrance to prayer and to receiving the body of Christ, and urges couples to abstain before communion.
49.16Jerome shows that his comment calling married intercourse an 'indulgence' repeats Paul's own words in 1 Corinthians 7:5–6.
49.17Jerome explains that his remark 'it is better to marry because it is worse to burn' only interprets 1 Corinthians 7:8–9, and that a commentator must say what his author means.
49.18Jerome defends his remarks on the troubles of marriage and restates that second and later marriages are not condemned in the church, though they are not praised.
49.19Jerome defends his interpretation that the omission of 'God saw that it was good' on the second day of creation, and the pairs of unclean animals in the ark, show that the even number is inferior.
49.20Jerome protests that he has never condemned marriage but praises virginity, which he admits he does not himself possess.
49.21Jerome closes by pointing to the virginity of Christ and the perpetual virginity of Mary, and to the continence required of clergy.
50.1Jerome answers Domnio's report that a monk at Rome is attacking his books against Jovinian and mocks the critic's pretensions to logic.
50.2Jerome ironically praises his critic's self-taught eloquence and learning.
50.3Jerome asks Domnio to warn the critic against teaching virgins in private and to put his objections in writing, as Pammachius did.
50.4Jerome urges the critic to keep the silence proper to a monk or else to write a book against him.
50.5Jerome challenges his critic to write rather than slander, forgives him, and repeats that he does not condemn marriage.
51.1Epiphanius explains to John of Jerusalem why he ordained a monk of Jerome's monastery as deacon and presbyter by force, outside John's authority.
51.2Epiphanius defends his ordination by the practice of the Cypriot bishops and denies having promised John not to ordain anyone.
51.3Epiphanius denies praying publicly for John's orthodoxy and urges him to abandon Origen, whom he calls the father of Arius.
51.4Epiphanius lists Origen's teachings that the Son cannot see the Father, that souls are fallen angels imprisoned in bodies, and his allegorical proof texts.
51.5Epiphanius attacks Origen's teachings on the devil's restoration, the coats of skins as bodies, a heavenly paradise, and the waters above the firmament.
51.6Epiphanius urges John to reject Origen and argues from Scripture that humans did not lose the image of God after Adam's sin.
51.7Epiphanius criticizes Origenist speculations about the image of God and affirms that it remains in all people, while its nature is known to God.
51.8Epiphanius urges John to stop complaining and to keep the bond of peace.
51.9Epiphanius tells how he tore down a painted curtain bearing an image in a village church, sends a replacement, and warns John against the Origenist Palladius.
52.1Jerome, now old, agrees to write rules of life for the young cleric Nepotian, contrasting this letter with the youthful rhetoric of his earlier letter to Heliodorus.
52.2Jerome turns to the story of Abishag, who warmed the aged David, as a riddle to be read spiritually.
52.3Jerome interprets Abishag as the wisdom that grows in old age, supporting this from Proverbs, from long-lived sages and poets, and from the meaning of her name.
52.4Jerome promises plain teaching rather than rhetoric, guided by the wisdom that never ages, and offers the letter as a guide for Nepotian as a cleric.
52.5Jerome explains the name 'cleric' as meaning that the Lord is his portion, and warns Nepotian against wealth, business, and familiarity with women.
52.6Jerome deplores the legacy-hunting of clergy and monks that led emperors to forbid them to receive inheritances.
52.7Jerome urges constant study of Scripture and consistency of life, and describes the proper relation between bishop and presbyters.
52.8Jerome warns Nepotian against preaching for applause, illustrating the point with a jest of Gregory of Nazianzus and a passage of Cicero.
52.9Jerome advises moderation in dress, warns against collecting alms for gain, and says each member of the church has its own role.
52.10Jerome criticizes lavish church decoration while ministers are chosen carelessly, arguing that the gold of the temple belongs to the figures of the old law.
52.11Jerome warns Nepotian against feasting with officials and against wine and all intoxicating drink, though he does not condemn wine itself.
52.12Jerome recommends simple fasting on bread and water and mocks elaborate fasts that seek out delicacies.
52.13Jerome warns against seeking popular praise and commends the four cardinal virtues as the true adornment of a cleric.
52.14Jerome warns against both speaking and listening to slander.
52.15Jerome urges discretion in pastoral visits, comparing it with the Hippocratic oath of silence.
52.16Jerome tells clerics not to seek gifts, arrange marriages, or manage others' estates, and to distribute alms at once.
52.17Jerome ends by saying that he writes of vices in general and attacks no one by name.
53.1Jerome welcomes Paulinus's friendship and recalls ancient philosophers who travelled far to learn from others.
53.2Jerome cites Paul's visits to Peter and to the apostles, and the story of Aeschines, to show the power of the living voice of a teacher.
53.3Jerome praises Paulinus's zeal to learn and shows from Scripture that teachers and priests must know the Scriptures.
53.4Jerome argues that the apostles were not unlearned, since John's prologue expresses a wisdom unknown to the philosophers, and that Scripture needs revelation to be understood.
53.5Jerome shows from the sealed book of the Apocalypse and the Ethiopian eunuch that Scripture needs a teacher.
53.6Jerome argues that every art and craft needs a teacher, and so does Scripture.
53.7Jerome complains that everyone thinks himself an interpreter of Scripture, and mocks forcing texts to fit one's meaning, as in Christian centos made from Virgil.
53.8Jerome surveys the books of the Old Testament one by one, pointing to the spiritual meanings hidden in each.
53.9Jerome briefly surveys the books of the New Testament and their depth.
53.10Jerome urges Paulinus to devote himself to Scripture despite its plain style, offering himself as a fellow student.
53.11Jerome invites Paulinus to come and urges him to give up his property without delay.
54.1Jerome answers the young widow Furia, who asks how to remain a widow, recalling that the women of her family traditionally did not remarry.
54.2Jerome expects the anger of Furia's noble family at his letter but insists he does not set her against her father.
54.3Jerome tells Furia to honor her father only so far as he does not draw her away from God, applying Psalm 45 to her.
54.4Jerome urges Furia, having known the troubles of marriage, not to marry again for the sake of children or heirs.
54.5Jerome warns Furia against self-interested servants and gossiping matrons who spread slander against Christians and monks.
54.6Jerome urges Furia to imitate her mother, persuade her father, and make her widowhood a virtue.
54.7Jerome tells Furia that cosmetics and fine dress are unfitting for a Christian widow, whose adornment is penitence and perseverance.
54.8Jerome explains that a widow living in pleasure is 'dead while she lives' and that chastity needs continence and frugality.
54.9Jerome explains, from Scripture and medicine, that rich food and wine inflame lust, which alone of the vices is rooted in nature.
54.10Jerome prescribes water, light and cool food, and steady moderation rather than occasional long fasts.
54.11Jerome gives Furia a rule of daily Scripture reading, followed by orthodox writers.
54.12Jerome urges Furia to give her wealth to the poor.
54.13Jerome warns Furia against suspicious company and public display and holds up her relative Eustochium at Bethlehem as a model.
54.14Jerome urges Furia to use her wealth for virgins and widows and her aged father to lay up treasure in heaven.
54.15Jerome answers the reasons young widows give for remarrying and describes the troubles of second marriages.
54.16Jerome offers Anna the prophetess, the widow of Zarephath, and Judith as models for widows.
54.17Jerome adds Deborah, Naomi, and the poor widow of the Gospel as examples, interpreting them spiritually.
54.18Jerome holds up the widow Marcella as a living model and refers Furia to his books against Jovinian on second marriage.
55.1Jerome explains Matthew 6:34 ('sufficient for the day is its own evil') as forbidding anxiety about the future, discussing the Greek word for 'evil'.
55.2Jerome gives several interpretations of Paul's saying that the sexually immoral man sins against his own body.
55.3Jerome explains that the Son's subjection to the Father in 1 Corinthians 15:28 means the subjection of his body, the church and humanity, so that God may be all in all.
55.4Jerome answers that a woman who left an adulterous husband and married another while he lives is an adulteress and cannot be admitted to communion without penance.
55.5Jerome requires the woman to do penance and cease relations with her second partner in order to receive communion, and holds that, by Deuteronomy 24, she cannot return to her first husband.
56.1Augustine greets Jerome, whom he knows through Alypius, and introduces the bearer, Profuturus.
56.2Augustine asks Jerome to translate the Greek commentators and questions the need for a new Latin translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew.
56.3Augustine objects to Jerome's view, in his commentary on Galatians, that Paul's rebuke of Peter at Antioch was staged, arguing that admitting any 'useful lie' in Scripture destroys its authority.
56.4Augustine asks Jerome to reconsider the passages cited in favor of a useful lie, lest the authority of Scripture become uncertain.
56.5Augustine asks Jerome to read his writings, sent with Profuturus, and to correct them frankly.
57.1Jerome begins his defense against the charge that he mistranslated the letter of Epiphanius, addressing it to Pammachius.
57.2Jerome tells how his private Latin version of Epiphanius's letter was stolen and used to accuse him of mistranslation.
57.3Jerome protests that his letter was obtained by theft and bribery, which even pagan laws and enemies would condemn.
57.4Jerome argues that his private papers were his own and that his opponent cannot clear himself of heresy by attacking a translator.
57.5Jerome defends translating sense for sense, except in Scripture, by the precepts and practice of Cicero, Horace, and the Latin comic poets, and by his own earlier preface.
57.6Jerome cites the preface of Evagrius's Latin Life of Antony and the practice of Hilary as further examples of translating by sense.
57.7Jerome shows that the evangelists quote the Old Testament freely, by sense rather than word for word, giving examples from Mark, Matthew, and John.
57.8Jerome compares Matthew's quotations of Isaiah 7:14 and Micah 5:2 with the Septuagint and the Hebrew to show that the evangelist quotes by sense.
57.9Jerome gives further examples from Mark and Paul of free quotation of the Old Testament, to show that the apostles sought the sense and not the words.
57.10Jerome points to discrepancies between Stephen's speech in Acts and Genesis, and to additions in the Septuagint of Psalm 22, to show that the sense matters more than the words.
57.11Jerome notes the Septuagint's additions and omissions, defends its use in the church, and rejects Aquila's over-literal method.
57.12Jerome quotes the Greek opening of Epiphanius's letter and ridicules his critic's proposed word-for-word rendering.
57.13Jerome leaves the matter to Pammachius's judgment and says he would rather write commentaries on Scripture than invectives.
58.1Jerome answers Paulinus's praise by saying that wisdom and faith are not measured by age or seniority.
58.2Jerome praises Paulinus for giving up his wealth and says that what matters is not having been to Jerusalem but living well.
58.3Jerome argues that God is not confined to Jerusalem and that holy places profit only those who live holily, recalling the pagan shrines once set over Calvary and Bethlehem.
58.4Jerome advises Paulinus that a monk should live in solitude rather than in crowded Jerusalem.
58.5Jerome tells Paulinus that clergy belong in cities but monks in solitude, following Elijah, Elisha, and the Rechabites.
58.6Jerome gives Paulinus and his wife practical rules of diet, reading, prayer, almsgiving, and caution with money.
58.7Jerome urges Paulinus to adorn the soul rather than buildings and to distribute his wealth wisely to the truly poor.
58.8Jerome praises Paulinus's panegyric on Theodosius and wishes he would devote his gifts to the Scriptures.
58.9Jerome urges Paulinus to seek the hidden meaning of Scripture, which only Christ can open.
58.10Jerome gives brief judgments on the Latin Christian writers Tertullian, Cyprian, Victorinus, Lactantius, Arnobius, and Hilary.
58.11Jerome urges Paulinus to devote his talents to the study of Scripture and mentions the visit of the presbyter Vigilantius.
59.1Jerome answers Marcella that the things 'eye has not seen' are spiritual realities beyond present human knowledge, which Paul did not necessarily reveal to others.
59.2Jerome denies having identified the sheep and goats with Christians and pagans and refers to his discussion in Against Jovinian.
59.3Jerome explains that believers alive at Christ's return will meet him in bodies transformed without death, and declines to read the Apocalypse literally.
59.4Jerome reconciles 'Do not touch me' in John with the women clasping Jesus' feet in Matthew.
59.5Jerome explains that, as God the Word, Christ was everywhere during the forty days after the resurrection while also present with the apostles.
60.1Jerome begins his consolation to Bishop Heliodorus on the death of his nephew Nepotian, the young presbyter to whom Letter 52 was addressed.
60.2Jerome struggles between grief and Christian hope, and addresses death as conquered by Christ, the true Jonah.
60.3Jerome gives thanks to Christ for conquering death and opening paradise, which before him was closed even to the patriarchs.
60.4Jerome contrasts the world's ignorance of God before Christ with the spread of the gospel among all nations.
60.5Jerome recalls the consolations of philosophers and the fortitude of Greek and Roman fathers who lost their sons.
60.6Jerome turns from pagan examples to Christian hope, which changes mourning into joy.
60.7Jerome admits that grief is natural, as Christ wept for Lazarus, but asks Heliodorus to moderate it and to hear Nepotian's praises.
60.8Jerome declines to praise Nepotian's ancestry, since a Christian's life is reckoned from his rebirth in baptism.
60.9Jerome recalls that Nepotian, while still an imperial officer, lived austerely and helped the poor, though Jerome dislikes such delayed commitment.
60.10Jerome describes Nepotian's renunciation of his property, his reluctant ordination, and his humble and studious life as a presbyter.
60.11Jerome recalls how Nepotian begged for and treasured Letter 52, and contrasts his poverty with money-seeking monks.
60.12Jerome praises Nepotian's care for the cleanliness and decoration of the church and the martyrs' shrines.
60.13Jerome describes Nepotian's final illness and peaceful death, in which he remembered Jerome and bequeathed him his tunic.
60.14Jerome notes the mourning for Nepotian and urges Heliodorus, as a bishop watched by all, to restrain his grief as one who awaits rather than has lost him.
60.15Jerome recounts the violent or miserable deaths of recent emperors and usurpers to show that Nepotian escaped a troubled age.
60.16Jerome describes the fall of powerful men and the barbarian invasions devastating the Roman world, including the Hunnic raid on the East in 395.
60.17Jerome attributes the barbarian victories to the sins of the Romans and calls for repentance, citing biblical deliverances.
60.18Jerome recalls Xerxes weeping over the brevity of his army's life and imagines seeing the whole world's miseries at once.
60.19Jerome closes by reflecting on the passing of life and the love of Christ that unites him, Heliodorus, and Nepotian.
61.1Jerome answers Vigilantius's charge of Origenism, saying that he reads Origen as he reads other writers, choosing what is good and rejecting errors.
61.2Jerome lists Origen's errors, which he condemns, but defends translating his good exegesis, as Hilary and Eusebius of Vercelli did.
61.3Jerome rebukes Vigilantius for presumption, reminding him that he once praised Jerome's orthodoxy on the resurrection.
61.4Jerome mocks Vigilantius's learning and denounces his interpretation of the mountain in Daniel 2 as the devil, calling him to repentance.
62.1Jerome thanks Tranquillinus for his letter, which shows a friendship of the spirit.
62.2Jerome advises Tranquillinus that Origen may be read for his learning, choosing the good and rejecting his errors.
63.1Jerome tells Theophilus of Alexandria that he continued writing to him during his silence and welcomes his letter.
63.2Jerome accepts Theophilus's admonition about church canons and affirms his loyalty to the faith of Rome and Alexandria.
63.3Jerome warns Theophilus that his patience with the Origenists is encouraging them.
64.1Beginning his treatise on the priestly law for Fabiola, Jerome interprets spiritually the portions of the sacrifices given to the priests.
64.2Jerome interprets the priests' portions, the rules of their purity and support, and the tithes and cities of the Levites.
64.3Jerome interprets the rules that the high priest must not uncover his head, tear his garments, or approach the dead.
64.4Jerome applies the rule that the high priest must not defile himself for parents to the priority of God over family ties.
64.5Jerome applies the rule that the high priest must not leave the sanctuary to the bishop's duty to live blamelessly and keep his baptismal garment.
64.6Jerome notes that many interpret the high priest of Leviticus 21 as Christ.
64.7Jerome applies the high priest's marriage rules spiritually to the soul, which must be a pure virgin betrothed to Christ.
64.8Jerome addresses Fabiola, who has left Bethlehem, and introduces his account of the priestly vestments.
64.9Jerome briefly describes the tabernacle as a figure of the world and turns to a literal description of the priestly vestments.
64.10Jerome describes the priests' linen drawers, citing Josephus.
64.11Jerome describes the priests' close-fitting linen tunic, comparing it to the soldier's shirt.
64.12Jerome describes the priests' embroidered girdle.
64.13Jerome describes the priests' round linen cap.
64.14Jerome lists the four garments common to all priests and begins the high priest's special garments with the blue robe hung with bells and pomegranates.
64.15Jerome describes the ephod with its gold-woven fabric and its two engraved shoulder stones.
64.16Jerome describes the high priest's breastplate with its twelve engraved stones and its fastenings to the ephod.
64.17Jerome describes the golden plate bearing the divine name on the high priest's forehead.
64.18Jerome reports the Jewish interpretation of the high priest's vestments as a figure of the universe and its elements, and relates it to Ezekiel's vision.
64.19Jerome begins the spiritual interpretation: the washing of the priests signifies baptism, and the linen garment the purity of the reborn.
64.20Jerome interprets the blue robe, ephod, and breastplate as the higher knowledge, good works, and true teaching required of a priest, works coming before teaching.
64.21Jerome gives the spiritual meaning of the golden plate and of the linen drawers, which signify chastity known only to God.
64.22Jerome ends by saying that a priest's whole life must teach, and that he dictated the letter in one night before a ship sailed.
65.1Jerome defends writing to women by the many holy women of Scripture who taught, prophesied, or served.
65.2Jerome praises holy women at Rome, like Susanna among the elders, and introduces his commentary on Psalm 45 'for the lilies'.
65.3Jerome explains the title of Psalm 45 (44 in the Greek) from the Septuagint, the Hebrew, and Symmachus.
65.4Jerome explains 'for those who will be changed' of the resurrection and of the Christian's continual renewal, and 'the beloved' and 'the victor' of Christ.
65.5Jerome explains 'My heart has belched out a good word' of the psalmist's inspired speech and, as some interpret, of the Father's eternal begetting of the Word.
65.6Jerome explains 'I speak my works to the king' as the psalmist's confession and dedication of his song to Christ.
65.7Jerome interprets 'My tongue is the pen of a swift scribe' of the Holy Spirit writing the Gospel on hearts through the preacher's tongue.
65.8Jerome reconciles Christ's beauty in Psalm 45 with Isaiah 53's 'no form or beauty', referring the one to his virtue and the other to his passion.
65.9Jerome explains 'Grace is poured out on your lips' of the fullness of grace in Christ's human nature.
65.10Jerome interprets the sword on the thigh as the chastity by which Christ, born of a virgin, overcame the flesh and became the leader of virgins.
65.11Jerome interprets 'ride on prosperously for the sake of truth' of Christ's victorious reign, in which his members share.
65.12Jerome interprets the king's arrows as the word of Christ that wounds hearts with love and burns out vice.
65.13Jerome explains 'Your throne, O God' as addressed to the Son, who is God, and refers the anointing to the humanity he assumed, against Photinus and Arius.
65.14Jerome interprets the myrrh, stacte, and cassia of the king's garments as the virgin's mortification and praise, and explains the 'ivory houses'.
65.15Jerome compares the versions of 'the queen stood at your right hand' and interprets the queen as the catholic church.
65.16Jerome interprets 'Hear, O daughter … forget your people' as the Father's call to the church of the Gentiles, and to each soul, to leave its old life for Christ.
65.17Jerome argues against a Jewish interpretation that the psalm distinguishes the speaker from the divine king.
65.18Jerome discusses the Hebrew sor ('Tyre' or 'strongest') and interprets the rich who entreat the daughter as Israelites coming to faith in the church of the Gentiles.
65.19Jerome interprets 'all the glory of the king's daughter is within' of the inner beauty of the church and of the hidden meanings of Scripture.
65.20Jerome interprets the virgins and companions led to the king as the ranks of virgins, widows, and the continent married within the church.
65.21Jerome interprets 'instead of your fathers, sons' as the church's teachers replacing the pagan past, or the apostles succeeding the patriarchs.
65.22Jerome ends by interpreting the church's promise to remember the bridegroom's name and asks Principia to remember him.
66.1Jerome, writing two years late, consoles Pammachius on the death of his young wife Paulina.
66.2Jerome compares Eustochium, Paula, and Paulina to the hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold yields, with Pammachius completing a four-horse team.
66.3Jerome praises the four virtues in Pammachius's family and describes Paulina's chaste marriage, her many miscarriages, and her wish to bear children who would be virgins for Christ.
66.4Jerome says that by Paulina's death the church has gained Pammachius as a monk, and many poor as her children.
66.5Jerome describes how Pammachius gave Paulina's wealth to the sick and poor of Rome, honoring her grave with almsgiving rather than flowers.
66.6Jerome praises Pammachius, a man of consular family, for wearing the dark dress of a monk and mixing with the poor, unashamed before his peers.
66.7Jerome contrasts the fading honor of the consulship with the renown Pammachius has won in the churches by becoming poor for Christ.
66.8Jerome urges Pammachius to give all his wealth to the truly poor and to follow Christ, making secular learning serve him like the captive woman of Deuteronomy.
66.9Jerome praises Pammachius's simple, scriptural style and urges him to disregard the judgment of the unlearned.
66.10Jerome urges Pammachius to seek Christ constantly, in the language of the Song of Songs, and to nourish him in his heart.
66.11Jerome praises Pammachius for building a hospice at Portus, comparing him to Abraham in his personal service to guests.
66.12Jerome urges Pammachius to offer himself, not only his money, to Christ, since inner self-giving is harder than giving away wealth.
66.13Jerome urges Pammachius to humility, pointing to Christ's sufferings and to Paula and Eustochium, who now do menial work in their monastery.
66.14Jerome tells Pammachius that the crowds at his Bethlehem monastery and hostel have forced him to send Paulinian home to sell the family property.
66.15Jerome closes by remembering Blesilla, Paulina's sister, who died before her.
67.1Augustine thanks Jerome for his short letter and asks him to keep up their correspondence, saying he knows Jerome's mind from his books.
67.2Augustine asks why Jerome's catalogue of Christian writers is called an 'Epitaph' when it includes living authors.
67.3Augustine objects that Jerome's view of the dispute at Antioch makes Paul tell a 'well-meant lie' and so undermines the authority of Scripture.
67.4Augustine explains that Paul kept Jewish rites out of compassion and as a born Jew, not as a pretence, while refusing to impose them on Gentiles.
67.5Augustine holds that Paul truly corrected Peter for compelling Gentiles to Judaize, so that Scripture's truthfulness is kept.
67.6Augustine argues that Paul rejected only the Jews' errors, not the rites themselves, and became 'all things to all' by compassion, not pretence.
67.7Augustine urges Jerome to retract his view, as the truth of Scripture is worth more than Helen was to the Greeks.
67.8Augustine mentions an earlier undelivered letter and asks forgiveness if Jerome's view proves the better one.
67.9Augustine asks Jerome to name Origen's errors and to write a short handbook of all the heresies, and commends the bearer Paulus.
68.1Jerome thanks the blind Castrutius for trying to visit him and assures him that his blindness is not a punishment for sin.
68.2Jerome tells how Antony consoled the blind Didymus, and hopes Castrutius may still come.
69.1Jerome opens his answer to Oceanus by insisting that Christ's grace takes away all sins, against those who hold some sins are beyond cleansing.
69.2Jerome defends a Spanish bishop who married once before and once after baptism, arguing that baptism makes a wholly new man and recalling a debate at Rome.
69.3Jerome quotes Paul's qualifications for bishops and argues that a marriage before baptism cannot count against a man when every sin before baptism is forgiven.
69.4Jerome contrasts the honourable first marriage of the accused bishop with the sexual sins of his accusers, which baptism has forgiven.
69.5Jerome offers alternative readings of 'husband of one wife' (against polygamy; bishops wedded to churches) and shows the absurdities of his opponents' view.
69.6Jerome praises water and baptism by tracing water through the Scriptures, from creation to the apostles.
69.7Jerome cites Scripture on the complete cleansing and newness given in baptism, which leaves no room for a first marriage to count against a man.
69.8Jerome begins to explain Paul's list of a bishop's qualities: irreproachable, sober, prudent, well ordered, hospitable, and able to teach.
69.9Jerome continues through Paul's list, warning against drunken, violent, greedy, luxurious, and newly baptized bishops.
69.10Jerome concludes that church leaders must follow the canons fairly, not private grudges, and that the accused bishop's only fault is a marriage before baptism.
70.1Jerome tells Magnus, an orator of Rome, that Sebesius has repented and been forgiven.
70.2Jerome defends his use of pagan literature by the examples of Solomon and Paul and by the law of the captive woman in Deuteronomy.
70.3Jerome cites Christian and Jewish writers, from Origen against Celsus to Josephus and Philo, who used pagan learning against pagans.
70.4Jerome lists Greek Christian writers, from Quadratus to the Cappadocians, who drew on philosophy in their works.
70.5Jerome lists Latin Christian writers, from Tertullian to Juvencus, who used secular learning.
70.6Jerome suspects that someone else prompted the question and closes by asking Magnus to tell him not to envy others their learning.
71.1Jerome warmly welcomes the letter of Lucinius, a rich Spaniard who has turned to the ascetic life, and urges him not to look back.
71.2Jerome urges Lucinius to persevere to the end, following Abraham, who left his homeland for God.
71.3Jerome praises Lucinius and his wife for living as brother and sister and urges him to give himself, not only his wealth, to God.
71.4Jerome invites Lucinius to come and live in the holy places, since God seeks the soul more than wealth.
71.5Jerome explains that copyists' errors are not his fault and lists what he has and has not translated, including his Bible versions from the Hebrew and Greek.
71.6Jerome advises Lucinius that on fasting on the Sabbath and daily Communion each church should keep its own received tradition.
71.7Jerome thanks Lucinius for his gifts, sends haircloths and his commentary on Isaiah's visions, and asks him to keep writing.
72.1Jerome answers the presbyter Vitalis's question how Solomon and Ahaz could have fathered sons at about eleven years of age, according to the biblical chronology.
72.2Jerome notes that the Hebrew and Greek texts agree on the figures and argues from unusual cases that such early fatherhood is possible.
72.3Jerome suggests that Scripture implies that Solomon and Ahaz were given to lust from boyhood, as their early offspring show.
72.4Jerome proposes that Solomon and Ahaz began to reign alongside their fathers, so their sons' birth dates are less anomalous than they seem.
72.5Jerome concludes that such chronological puzzles in Scripture are of little profit and thanks Vitalis for his gifts.
73.1Jerome tells Evangelus that he has read an anonymous book claiming that Melchizedek was the Holy Spirit, and will report what earlier writers said.
73.2Jerome reports that Origen and Didymus made Melchizedek an angel, while most other Fathers held him to be a Canaanite king and priest.
73.3Jerome explains that most interpreters see the Canaanite Melchizedek as a type of Christ's priesthood, offering bread and wine.
73.4Jerome summarizes Hebrews 7: Melchizedek's being 'without genealogy' means his origins are not recorded, and he prefigures Christ's eternal priesthood.
73.5Jerome gives the Hebrew text of Genesis 14:18-20 and the Jewish view that Melchizedek was Shem, who by the Hebrew chronology outlived Abraham.
73.6Jerome reports the Jewish view that the firstborn were priests before Aaron, and discusses who gave the tithe to whom.
73.7Jerome reports the view that Melchizedek's Salem was a town near Scythopolis, not Jerusalem.
73.8Jerome argues that Salem near Shechem lay on Abraham's route home and is the Salim of John's Gospel.
73.9Jerome concludes that Melchizedek was a real human king, a type of Christ, not an angel or the Spirit.
73.10Jerome leaves Evangelus to judge the witnesses, dismisses the anonymous writer, and mentions his illness and his commentary on Matthew.
74.1Jerome thanks Rufinus, a Roman, for his letter and explains that he had not written first only because he did not know him.
74.2Jerome explains the literal sense of Solomon's judgement between two harlots and introduces the reading of the two women as synagogue and church.
74.3Jerome shows from the prophets and the gospel that the church can be called a former harlot, whom Christ has taken in marriage.
74.4Jerome reads the story of the two mothers as the church and the synagogue, the dead child standing for the law's observance and the living child for the church's converts.
74.5Jerome continues the allegory: Solomon as Christ tests the two women with the sword, and the true mother, the church, will not see her child divided between law and grace.
74.6Jerome says his allegory was dictated hastily during illness, asks for prayers, and mentions an injury to his right hand.
75.1Jerome consoles Theodora on the death of her husband Lucinius: Christ has conquered death, and the dead are only asleep.
75.2Jerome urges Theodora to rejoice that Lucinius reigns with Christ, and teaches that in the resurrection people remain human, 'like' the angels.
75.3Jerome praises Lucinius for resisting the Basilidian heresy in Spain, citing Irenaeus on the Gnostic Marcus.
75.4Jerome praises Lucinius's generosity to the poor and his zeal for Scripture in having all of Jerome's works copied.
75.5Jerome offers this letter as Lucinius's epitaph and closes with a blessing on Theodora.
76.1Jerome assures Abigaus, a blind Spanish presbyter, that he did not neglect his letter, and asks him to write often.
76.2Jerome consoles the blind Abigaus: the eyes of the flesh are shared with insects, but the inner eye sees God.
76.3Jerome encourages Abigaus in his spiritual rebuilding and commends to him Theodora, Lucinius's widow, using the imagery of Israel's journey to Canaan.
77.1Jerome begins his memorial of Fabiola, written at Oceanus's request, recalling his earlier letters of consolation.
77.2Jerome announces that he will praise Fabiola not for her noble Fabian ancestry but for her conversion, penitence, humility, and almsgiving.
77.3Jerome explains that Fabiola divorced a vicious first husband and remarried in ignorance of the gospel's rule, which forbids a Christian woman to remarry while her husband lives.
77.4Jerome describes Fabiola's public penance in the Lateran basilica after her second husband's death and cites biblical examples of forgiven penitents.
77.5Jerome describes the humility and grief of Fabiola's penance, which she bore as though she had committed adultery.
77.6Jerome praises Fabiola's charity after her restoration: she sold her property, founded a hospital, and nursed the sick with her own hands.
77.7Jerome recalls Fabiola's visit to Bethlehem, her eager study of Scripture, and her request for an explanation of Israel's stations in the wilderness.
77.8Jerome tells how the Hun invasion of the East (395) and disputes at home led Fabiola to return to Rome, where she lived in poverty.
77.9Jerome praises Fabiola's longing for the solitary life and her readiness for death.
77.10Jerome praises Pammachius, who with Fabiola founded a hospice for travellers and the poor at Portus, the harbour of Rome.
77.11Jerome describes Fabiola's death and the huge funeral crowds in Rome that honoured her as a penitent.
77.12Jerome closes his memorial by answering critics of praising a penitent: Christ carries back the fallen, and the one forgiven more loves more.
78.1Jerome opens his treatise for Fabiola on Israel's stations in the wilderness by showing from Scripture that the exodus is to be read spiritually as well as historically.
78.2Jerome explains the title and number of the forty-two stations, comparing them to the forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ.
78.3Jerome interprets the first station, Rameses ('thunder of joy'), as the soul's joyful departure from the world, leaving behind the errors of the philosophers.
78.4Jerome interprets the second station, Succoth ('tents'), as the pilgrim's first temporary dwelling and the unleavened bread of sincerity.
78.5Jerome interprets the third station, Etham ('strength'), where God first leads the people by the pillar of cloud and fire.
78.6Jerome interprets the fourth station, Pihahiroth ('mouth of the nobles'), opposite Baal-zephon ('lord of the north'), as rejecting idolatrous pride.
78.7Jerome interprets the Red Sea crossing and Marah ('bitterness'), whose waters were sweetened, as the bitter letter made sweet by the cross.
78.8Jerome interprets the sixth station, Elim, with twelve springs and seventy palms, as the twelve apostles and the seventy disciples.
78.9Jerome discusses the seventh station, by the Red Sea, suggesting it was a reed-filled bay, and warns that past dangers can reappear.
78.10Jerome interprets the eighth station, the wilderness of Sin ('bush' or 'hatred'), as the church burning under persecution yet not consumed.
78.11Jerome interprets the ninth station, Dophkah ('knocking'), and defends his etymologies as based on the Hebrew rather than corrupt Greek and Latin copies.
78.12Jerome interprets the tenth station, Alush ('leaven'), linking it with the giving of quails and manna.
78.13Jerome interprets the eleventh station, Rephidim, with the water from the rock and the victory over Amalek through Moses' uplifted hands.
78.14Jerome interprets the twelfth station, Sinai, where the law was given on the fiftieth day, as a type of Pentecost and the gift of the Spirit.
78.15Jerome interprets the thirteenth station, the graves of craving, where Israel, longing for Egypt's meat, was struck down, as a warning against returning to worldly wisdom.
78.16Jerome interprets the fourteenth station, Hazeroth ('courts'), where Miriam was struck with leprosy, as the Jewish people's jealousy of the Gentile church and the possibility of rising after a fall.
78.17Jerome interprets the fifteenth station, Rithmah ('juniper' or 'sound'), and lists the events of the long stay in the wilderness of Paran.
78.18Jerome interprets the sixteenth station, Rimmon-perez ('division of the pomegranate'), as the church holding many believers in unity.
78.19Jerome interprets the seventeenth station, Libnah ('bricks'), as a warning that spiritual progress can fall back into earthly labour.
78.20Jerome interprets the eighteenth station, Rissah ('bridles' or 'racecourse'), as the discipline of Scripture that restrains the wandering soul.
78.21Jerome interprets the nineteenth station, Kehelathah ('church'), as the return of the wanderer to the church.
78.22Jerome interprets the twentieth station, Mount Shepher ('beauty'), as Christ, the mountain to which the nations come.
78.23Jerome interprets the twenty-first station, Haradah ('wonder'), as the soul's amazement at Christ.
78.24Jerome interprets the twenty-second station, Makheloth ('assemblies'), as the harmonious assembly of the church.
78.25Jerome interprets the twenty-third station, Tahath ('fear'), as the fear that guards virtue against pride.
78.26Jerome interprets the twenty-fourth station, Terah ('driver away'), as vigilance that drives off the birds that steal the seed of the word.
78.27Jerome interprets the twenty-fifth station, Mithkah ('sweetness'), as the sweet fruit that follows the labour of learning and virtue.
78.28Jerome interprets the twenty-sixth station, Hashmonah ('haste'), as pressing on without resting on past progress.
78.29Jerome interprets the twenty-seventh station, Moseroth ('bonds' or 'disciplines'), distinguishing the bonds of sin from the loving bonds of Christ.
78.30Jerome interprets the twenty-eighth station, Bene-jaakan ('sons of necessity' or 'of gnashing'), as converts won by the Scriptures from the devil's bondage.
78.31Jerome interprets the twenty-ninth station, Hor-haggidgad ('cutting', 'messenger', 'girding'), as the teacher's work of cutting away error and preparing disciples for spiritual battle.
78.32Jerome interprets the thirtieth station, Jotbathah ('goodness'), linking the number thirty with maturity, the priesthood, and Christ the good shepherd.
78.33Jerome interprets the thirty-first station, Abronah ('passage'), as the saints' longing to pass over from this passing world to God.
78.34Jerome interprets the thirty-second station, Ezion-geber ('woods of a man'), as the teacher who shapes believers like a woodworker shaping vessels.
78.35Jerome interprets the thirty-third station, Zin-Kadesh ('command', 'changed'), where Miriam died and Moses and Aaron were barred from Canaan, as the end of the law's power to bring the people into the promised land.
78.36Jerome interprets the thirty-fourth station, Mount Hor, where Aaron died, and the defeat and later victory at Hormah, as encouragement not to despair after a fall.
78.37Jerome interprets the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth stations, Zalmonah ('little image') and Punon ('little mouth'), with the bronze serpent as a type of Christ's cross.
78.38Jerome interprets the thirty-seventh station, Oboth ('magicians' or 'wineskins'), as the snares of magic and demons, against which the heart must be guarded.
78.39Jerome interprets the thirty-eighth station, Iye-abarim ('heaps of those passing over'), as progress from one virtue to another.
78.40Jerome interprets the thirty-ninth station, Dibon-gad, and the intervening places of Numbers 21 (the well, Mattanah, Pisgah) as stages of spiritual ascent that must end in humility.
78.41Jerome interprets the fortieth station, Almon-diblathaim ('contempt of fig cakes' or 'of reproaches'), as scorn for worldly sweetness and patience under insult.
78.42Jerome interprets the forty-first station, the mountains of Abarim opposite Nebo, where Moses died, as the end of the law and the need to descend in humility.
78.43Jerome reviews the events at the last station, the plains of Moab, from Balaam to Moses' death, and closes by linking the crossing of the Jordan under Joshua ('Jesus') with the Christian's entrance into the promised land.
79.1Jerome explains why he writes to Salvina, a young widow at the imperial court whom he does not know, to console her on the death of her husband Nebridius.
79.2Jerome praises Nebridius as a courtier who, like Cornelius, Joseph, and Daniel, lived devoutly amid rank and wealth, giving alms and keeping chastity.
79.3Jerome argues that wealth rightly used gave Nebridius material for virtue, explaining how a rich man may pass through the eye of a needle.
79.4Jerome relates how Nebridius, though married and unable to give up everything, spent his income on the poor, and insists he praises him without self-interest.
79.5Jerome praises Nebridius's chastity as a young courtier, his humility toward the emperors and palace officials, and his use of influence for the poor.
79.6Jerome tells of Nebridius's death and describes his two small children, in whom his likeness lives on.
79.7Jerome urges Salvina to devote herself to raising her children and to keep her widowhood in chastity and austerity, avoiding rich food and luxury.
79.8Jerome warns Salvina that a widow's reputation is fragile and urges caution with her household servants.
79.9Jerome urges Salvina to avoid dangerous company, to keep to Scripture and prayer, and explains that first stirrings of passion are unavoidable but must be mastered.
79.10Jerome warns Salvina that penitence is no substitute for keeping chastity, and argues that second marriage is only a concession to prevent worse sin.
79.11Jerome compares the concession of second marriage to the 'statutes that were not good' given to rebellious Israel and holds up Judith and Anna as models for Salvina's widowhood.
80.1Rufinus's preface to his translation of Origen's On First Principles recalls that Jerome had translated and praised Origen before him.
80.2Rufinus explains that, like Jerome with Origen's homilies, he has removed or corrected passages of On First Principles which he believes heretics corrupted.
80.3Rufinus adjures all copyists of his translation to copy it exactly, without additions or changes.
81.1Jerome complains to Rufinus, as a friend, that Rufinus's preface to On First Principles attacked him under the guise of praise.
81.2Jerome sends news of friends and urges Rufinus and his circle not to provoke further quarrels.
82.1Jerome thanks Theophilus of Alexandria for his gentle letter urging peace between Jerome and Bishop John of Jerusalem.
82.2Jerome says he wants true peace, not submission under the name of peace, and asks how he can receive the Eucharist from a bishop whose love he doubts.
82.3Jerome contrasts Theophilus's gentleness, which wins the monks' love, with harsh bishops, citing Moses and Paul as models of meek leadership.
82.4Jerome answers John of Jerusalem's letter, rejecting his claims that Jerome had not been wronged and that doctrinal disputes began only with the ordination of Jerome's brother.
82.5Jerome complains that John's statement of faith evades the questions put to him, but says he will keep silent for the sake of peace.
82.6Jerome protests that John's letter is full of insults against him and answers John's charge that a former slave and informer had been ordained among Jerome's circle.
82.7Jerome defends his translations of Origen, saying he kept Origen's exegesis and rejected his doctrines, and rejects the claim that Origen wrote six thousand books.
82.8Jerome defends his brother Paulinian's ordination as presbyter by Epiphanius, arguing it lay outside John's jurisdiction and that his age of thirty was no bar.
82.9Jerome explains that he answered John only briefly and complains that John's party misuses Theophilus's name and withheld his conciliatory letter.
82.10Jerome protests that John sought an imperial order exiling the Bethlehem monks while leaving Jews, heretics, and Manichees undisturbed, and declares the monks ready to leave.
82.11Jerome insists he is in communion with John's church, asks Theophilus to urge John to seek genuine peace, and describes bishops as fathers, not lords.
83.1Pammachius and Oceanus ask Jerome to make a faithful translation of Origen's On First Principles to expose what Rufinus's version had softened.
83.2Pammachius and Oceanus urge Jerome to clear himself of Rufinus's implication that he shares Origen's views.
84.1Jerome replies to Pammachius and Oceanus, saying he will answer the charges of Origenism without personal attacks.
84.2Jerome explains that he praised Origen only as an interpreter of Scripture, never his doctrines, as Cyprian valued Tertullian without following his Montanism.
84.3Jerome recounts his teachers (Apollinaris, Didymus, the Jewish scholar Baraninas), denies ever holding Origen's doctrines, and accuses the Origenists of hiding their teaching and permitting deceit.
84.4Jerome describes how the Origenists evade condemnation, arguing that Nicaea's silence about Origen does not clear him, and that they use ambiguous formulas.
84.5Jerome describes how the Origenists speak of the resurrection of the 'body' or 'flesh' while mocking the idea that the same flesh, with its members, will rise.
84.6Jerome mocks the Origenists' denial of the bodily resurrection and urges them, if they followed him into error, to follow him in correcting it.
84.7Jerome says he would still praise Origen's talent if others did not praise his errors, lists those errors, and contrasts his own practice with Rufinus's claim to have 'corrected' Origen.
84.8Jerome gives his own measured praise of Origen's life and learning while admitting his errors.
84.9Jerome says he opposes Origen only because his supporters treat him as infallible, defends the ancient faith of Rome, and professes his love for the flesh sanctified in Christ and martyrdom.
84.10Jerome rejects the claim that heretics corrupted Origen's books, citing Eusebius, Didymus, and Origen's own letter to Pope Fabian.
84.11Jerome doubts that the Apology for Origen is really by the martyr Pamphilus, and argues that even if it were, Pamphilus's martyrdom would not justify Origen's errors.
84.12Jerome concludes that he has written reluctantly against Origen to protect his faith, and sends his own literal translation of On First Principles.
85.1Jerome apologizes to Paulinus of Nola for the brevity and plainness of his letters, written in haste at the sailing season.
85.2Jerome states Paulinus's two questions: on the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and free will, and on the holiness of children of believers.
85.3Jerome refers Paulinus to Origen's treatment of free will in On First Principles, which he has just translated literally at Pammachius's request, and explains the delay of his commentary on Daniel.
85.4Jerome insists that he rejects only Origen's false doctrines, not all his writings.
85.5Jerome explains that the children of believers are called 'holy' in the sense of being clean and set apart, as vessels in the tabernacle are called holy.
85.6Jerome asks Paulinus to excuse the delay and thanks him for the gift of a small cloak.
86.1Jerome congratulates Theophilus of Alexandria on his action against the Origenists and asks him not to blame John of Jerusalem for receiving someone Theophilus had condemned.
87.1Theophilus informs Jerome that he has suppressed the Origenist monks of Nitria.
87.2Theophilus urges Jerome to join in correcting those deceived by Origenism.
88.1Jerome replies to Theophilus, rejoicing at his condemnation of the Origenist heresy.
88.2Jerome tells Theophilus he has already warned the West against the Origenists and asks for copies of his synodal letters.
88.3Jerome passes on greetings from Vincent and urges Theophilus to keep writing to the Western bishops.
89.1Theophilus commends to Jerome the monk Theodore, who can report the restoration of peace in Nitria after the expulsion of the Origenists.
89.2Theophilus warns Jerome against secret Origenists in Palestine.
90.1Theophilus tells Epiphanius of Salamis that the Origenist monks of Nitria have been expelled.
90.2Theophilus asks Epiphanius to convene the bishops of Cyprus and send synodal letters condemning Origen by name.
90.3Theophilus warns that the leaders of the Nitrian monks have gone to Constantinople and asks Epiphanius to alert the bishops of Asia Minor.
90.4Theophilus asks Epiphanius to send a messenger to Constantinople and to pray for victory.
91.1Epiphanius of Salamis sends Jerome Theophilus's general letter condemning Origenism.
91.2Epiphanius compares Theophilus's condemnation of Origen to Israel's victory over Amalek.
91.3Epiphanius encloses Theophilus's letters and urges Jerome to write against the Origenists in Latin.
92.1Theophilus's synodal letter tells the bishops of Palestine and Cyprus that Origenist monks from Nitria have fled to them, and that Origen's books were condemned at a synod in Nitria.
92.2Theophilus lists doctrines ascribed to Origen (the Son inferior to the Father, the end of Christ's kingdom, the devil's restoration, prayer to the Father alone, a non-lasting resurrection body, angels fallen into their offices) for which his books were condemned.
92.3Theophilus accuses the presbyter Isidore, protector of the Nitrian monks, of evading a trial on a woman's grave accusation, and describes a riot staged against him in Alexandria.
92.4Theophilus charges Origen with tolerating magic, denying that the Word himself took flesh, and teaching that Christ will suffer again for demons.
92.5Theophilus asks the bishops to call the expelled monks to repentance and to protect their flocks from them.
92.6Theophilus describes how the Nitrian monks seized their church and plotted violence, and asks for prayers for the church's peace.
93.1The bishops of Palestine assure Theophilus that their province is almost free of heresy, apart from a few Apollinarians.
93.2The Palestinian bishops reject the Origenist teachings that Christ's kingdom will end and that the devil will be restored.
93.3The Palestinian bishops anathematize those who teach the Son's inferiority, all who contradict the Nicene faith, and Apollinaris's teaching that Christ assumed an incomplete humanity.
93.4The Palestinian bishops confess the eternal Trinity and promise not to receive those whom Theophilus has excommunicated.
94.1Dionysius, bishop of Lydda, congratulates Theophilus on expelling the Origenists.
94.2Dionysius urges Theophilus to continue opposing Origen, 'the master of Arius'.
95.1Pope Anastasius praises Theophilus's vigilance against Origen's writings.
95.2Anastasius tells Simplician that, as bishop of Rome, he has condemned whatever in Origen's writings is contrary to the faith.
95.3Anastasius says the presbyter Eusebius brought him extracts from Origen, which he has condemned together with their author.
96.1Theophilus opens his Easter letter of 401 by calling the faithful to celebrate the feast with good works and the study of Scripture.
96.2Theophilus urges the faithful to lift their minds to the heavenly city, and says that Christ spoke not as a prophet but as God.
96.3Theophilus teaches that Christ is one Son, true God and true man, not divided into two, as his miracles show.
96.4Theophilus teaches that the Word remained God when he became man, unlike the prophets, who lamented their human weakness.
96.5Theophilus rejects the Origenist teaching that Christ's kingdom will end, citing Christ's unity with the Father.
96.6Theophilus condemns Origen for following philosophy rather than Scripture and argues from the Gospels and Paul that Christ's kingdom is everlasting.
96.7Theophilus argues that to end Christ's kingdom would be to end his divinity, and affirms the eternal unity of Father and Son.
96.8Theophilus attacks Origen's teaching that the devil will be restored and Christ's reign end, citing Christ's promise of an everlasting kingdom.
96.9Theophilus compares Origen's denial of Christ's eternal kingship to the Jews' objection to Pilate's title, and rejects the idea that the saved may fall again.
96.10Theophilus rejects the Origenist idea that Christ will suffer again for the demons, arguing that Christ suffered once, for human sins, according to the Scriptures.
96.11Theophilus argues that if Christ suffered for demons, they would share in the Eucharist, which Scripture forbids.
96.12Theophilus denounces Origen in a string of biblical invectives for teaching that Christ will be crucified again for demons.
96.13Theophilus rejects the idea that risen bodies will again be mortal, since Christ has conquered death.
96.14Theophilus condemns Origen's teaching that prayer should be addressed to the Father alone, citing Scripture for prayer to Christ.
96.15Theophilus argues from Romans 6 and 1 Corinthians 15 that risen bodies will be incorruptible and immortal, not dissolved into nothing.
96.16Theophilus condemns Origen's statement that magic is not evil, arguing that magic and idolatry stand or fall together.
96.17Theophilus rejects Origen's teachings that souls fell into bodies, that the cosmos arose from sin, and that bodily nature is 'vanity'.
96.18Theophilus argues that the Origenist idea that souls fall from heaven into bodies would make marriage and childbearing evil, contrary to Scripture's blessings.
96.19Theophilus argues that God blessed the first human beings before they sinned, so bodies do not result from the sin of souls, and urges Origen's followers to accept correction.
96.20Theophilus closes by urging repentance, prayer, almsgiving, and care for the sick and imprisoned, confesses the Trinity, and announces the dates of Lent and Easter for 401.
96.21Theophilus closes his Easter letter with greetings.
97.1Jerome sends Pammachius and Marcella his translation of Theophilus's Easter letter, praising Theophilus for driving out Origen as Demetrius once did.
97.2Jerome attacks the Origenists for hypocrisy and for slandering Theophilus in Constantinople instead of openly defending or renouncing their views.
97.3Jerome describes his translation of Theophilus's Easter letter of 402 and outlines its four parts.
97.4Jerome hopes Rome will welcome Theophilus's letter and praises Pope Anastasius for condemning the Origenists in the West.
98.1Theophilus opens his Easter letter of 402 by calling the faithful to cleanse their souls through Scripture and join the angels' feast.
98.2Theophilus urges the negligent to seek the joys of the feast and the future city, and to avoid the snares of heretics.
98.3Theophilus says heretics have no share in the feast, and describes how humanity, before Christ, fell into worshipping rulers as gods.
98.4Theophilus teaches that the Word became fully human without ceasing to be God, and rejects the Apollinarian view that Christ lacked a human rational soul.
98.5Theophilus refutes the Apollinarian claim that Christ's soul was 'the mind of the flesh', distinguishing the soul from its faculties.
98.6Theophilus argues that Apollinaris's orthodox writings do not excuse his error about Christ's soul, and that Christ took a complete human soul.
98.7Theophilus argues from Christ's descent to hell and his words that he laid down and took up a complete human soul.
98.8Theophilus teaches that Christ took a complete human body and soul at his birth from Mary, rejecting the Origenist view that his soul pre-existed in heaven.
98.9Theophilus declares that followers of Origen, 'the hydra of all heresies', have no part in the Easter feast.
98.10Theophilus rejects Origen's teaching that the material world and bodies came into being because of the fall of rational beings.
98.11Theophilus affirms that risen bodies will never die again, since Christ saved the whole human being.
98.12Theophilus rejects Origen's view that the angelic ranks earned their names by merit after creation, citing Colossians 1:16.
98.13Theophilus rejects Origen's teaching that the Spirit and the Word act only in rational beings, citing the consecration of baptismal water and the eucharistic elements and Christ's miracles.
98.14Theophilus rejects Origen's reading of Philippians 2, in which the Saviour's soul, not the Word, emptied itself, arguing that it makes the soul equal to God.
98.15Theophilus argues that Origen's derivation of 'soul' (psyche) from 'cooling' would imply that Christ's soul too had cooled from the love of God.
98.16Theophilus argues that Origen contradicts himself by making Christ's soul one with the Son as the Son is one with the Father, while also calling it inferior to the Word.
98.17Theophilus rejects Origen's claim that God created only as many rational beings as he could govern, arguing that God's power exceeds all that he made.
98.18Theophilus continues that God's power is not limited by the matter or number of creatures he made.
98.19Theophilus calls Origen's followers to leave error and come to Christ like the magi, and describes the church's safe voyage through heresy to the harbour of Scripture.
98.20Theophilus urges that knowledge and faith be completed in good works, for which all will give account at the judgement.
98.21Theophilus urges Origen's followers to flee 'Babylon', whose golden cup of eloquent error leads to ruin, and to guard the soul by continence.
98.22Theophilus rebukes the exiled Nitrian monks for slandering the church before the powerful and urges them to silence befitting monks.
98.23Theophilus asks the faithful to pray for the Origenist monks and offers to receive them back if they repent.
98.24Theophilus hopes the monks will return to the church, warns them of Deuteronomy's penalty for rejecting the priest, and warns the faithful to guard themselves.
98.25Theophilus closes with an exhortation to repentance and virtue and announces the dates of Lent and Easter for 402.
98.26Theophilus closes with greetings and announces the names of three newly ordained Egyptian bishops.
99.1Jerome tells Theophilus that grief, anxiety, and fever delayed his Latin translation of Theophilus's paschal letter, which he has tried to render with equal elegance.
99.2Jerome praises the philosophy, rhetoric, and scriptural grounding of Theophilus's paschal book, pleads Paula's death as the cause of his delay, and asks for Theophilus's other books.
100.1Theophilus's paschal letter opens by calling the faithful to prepare for Easter by fasting, confession, and repentance, which cut off vices before they grow.
100.2Those who could restrain sinners and do not share their guilt; remembering the law and the judgment keeps sin from beginning, while vices drag the soul down to earthly things.
100.3Theophilus answers the sinner who wants to change: cease from sin, fast, and meditate on the law, since we are free to do good and the law both punishes and invites the penitent back.
100.4Theophilus urges those keeping the Pascha to prepare by fasting and knowledge of the Scriptures for the heavenly feast with the angels, where only the fully mature and properly clothed enter.
100.5Theophilus calls the church, the true 'house of Judah', to keep the feast with the cross, sobriety, and watchfulness, like Daniel, anticipating victory over pleasure.
100.6Theophilus insists that Lent be kept without wine or meat, rebuking those who feast secretly while fasting in public, and cites Christ's warning against gluttony and drunkenness.
100.7Theophilus holds up Daniel and the three youths, who refused the Babylonian king's food and wine and lived on vegetables and water, as models of fasting.
100.8The example of Daniel and his companions shows that during fasts Christians should abstain from wine and meat and live on vegetables and water.
100.9Theophilus cites the Maccabean martyrs, who endured torture rather than eat unlawful food, as proof that a mind fortified by faith overcomes the body's weakness.
100.10Fasting is the angelic life with an eternal reward; Theophilus then describes the ordered alternation of day and night, the moon's phases, and the sun's yearly course, which he finds in Ecclesiastes.
100.11The eternal festival is anticipated in praise of the incarnate Word, who took all our nature except sin, suffered in the flesh while impassible in his Godhead, and overthrew idolatry and, Theophilus adds, the Origenists.
100.12Against Origen's teaching that bodies are prisons for fallen souls, Theophilus argues from Paul's commendation of marriage and God's blessing of Adam and Eve that bodies, marriage, and childbearing are blessings, not punishments.
100.13Theophilus likens Origen's treatises to pagan idols and urges the church's teachers to build their doctrine, like careful masons, on the Scriptures and on Christ the cornerstone.
100.14As pilots steer through waves, Christians should steer by God's law through heresy and changing fortunes, and not turn on former patrons when they fall, as Job's friends reproached him.
100.15Theophilus condemns avarice as insatiable like hell itself, breeding slander, strife, and murder, and bids Christians bear wealth and poverty with an even mind.
100.16Theophilus urges faith in the one Godhead of Father, Son, and Spirit and in the incorruptible resurrection, prayer for the emperors, and fasting through which virtue governs the body and lifts the soul to heaven.
100.17Theophilus announces the dates of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter for the year and urges charity, prayer for enemies, and firm church discipline through Pentecost.
100.18Theophilus closes with greetings and lists the new bishops appointed to Egyptian sees in place of those who had died.
101.1Augustine, having had no reply to his earlier letter, assumes some hindrance and prays that Jerome's answer may reach him.
101.2Augustine denies writing a book against Jerome and sending it to Rome, explains that any disagreement in his writings was not aimed at Jerome, and asks for brotherly correction.
101.3Augustine wishes he could live near Jerome, asks him to keep up their friendship by letter, and sends greetings to Jerome's brother and community.
102.1Jerome tells Augustine that an unsigned letter attributed to him, urging Jerome to retract his view of a passage of Paul, has circulated, and asks Augustine to acknowledge it or send an authentic copy.
102.2Jerome disclaims any wish to criticize Augustine's books, asks him not to provoke an old man, and warns, with the example of the aged boxer Entellus, that a tired ox treads hardest.
102.3Jerome mentions his reply to the attacks of 'Calpurnius Lanarius' (Rufinus), sends Augustine a copy, and closes with protestations of affection.
103.1Jerome commends the deacon Praesidius, the bearer of his letter, to Augustine's friendship.
103.2Jerome speaks of troubles in his monastery, trusts in Christ's victory, and sends greetings to Alypius.
104.1Augustine commends the deacon Cyprian as a trustworthy courier and hopes through him to receive Jerome's reply.
104.2Augustine explains that his earlier letters, including the first entrusted to Profuturus, who became a bishop and died, may not have arrived, and sends them again.
104.3Augustine asks why Jerome's new translation of Job from the Hebrew does not reproduce the minute accuracy that his earlier revision from the Greek, with asterisks and obelisks, seemed to show.
104.4Augustine urges Jerome to translate the Septuagint instead of the Hebrew, fearing division between Latin and Greek churches and the difficulty of verifying Hebrew readings.
104.5Augustine reports a riot at Oea when a bishop read Jerome's new rendering in Jonah, and the local Jews supported the old reading, suggesting Jerome may sometimes err.
104.6Augustine thanks Jerome for his revision of the Gospels from the Greek, asks why the Hebrew and the Septuagint differ, and urges a corrected Latin version of the Septuagint.
105.1Jerome wonders how Augustine's letter to him, never received, is known at Rome and throughout Italy, having been found by Sisinnius on an Adriatic island five years before.
105.2Jerome reports that friends suspected Augustine of seeking glory at his expense, and explains that he did not answer because he doubted the letter's authenticity and did not wish to reply rudely to a fellow bishop.
105.3Jerome asks Augustine either to send the signed letter or to stop provoking an old man, recalling Fabius Maximus against Hannibal, Virgil's lines on age, and Barzillai's refusal of David's favours.
105.4Jerome answers Augustine's denial: if Augustine did not write the letter, he should stop asking for a reply; if he did, he should admit it, so that the blame for any rejoinder falls on him.
105.5Jerome declines to criticize Augustine's works, which he has barely read, though he hints that Augustine's Psalm commentaries depart from the Greek interpreters, and asks that future letters reach him first.
106.1Jerome rejoices that Goths ('Getae') like Sunnia and Fretela now study the Hebrew truth of Scripture, fulfilling the prophecies that the nations would turn from war to peace.
106.2Jerome distinguishes the popular 'common' (Lucianic) Greek text from Origen's Hexaplaric Septuagint, which he translated, and states his principle of going back to the Hebrew where Greek and Latin disagree.
106.3On Ps 5:4 Jerome defends the Latin 'dwell' for the Greek 'sojourn', stating the rule that a good translator renders idioms by the proper usage of his own language, as Cicero and the Latin comic poets did.
106.4On Ps 5:8 Jerome shows from the Hebrew that 'direct your way in my sight' is correct, explaining it by analogy with 'hallowed be your name' in the Lord's Prayer.
106.5On Ps 6:10 Jerome confirms 'greatly' from the Hebrew and the other Greek versions.
106.6On Ps 7:8 Jerome shows from the Hebrew that 'my righteousness' is right and supports it with parallel Psalms and Genesis.
106.7On Ps 8:3 Jerome explains that 'your' was added under an asterisk and describes Origen's system of asterisks and obeli.
106.8Jerome settles three readings in Ps 17 (LXX 16): 'your eyes', 'keep me' without 'Lord', and the singular 'him', which he takes as the devil.
106.9Jerome settles six readings in Ps 18 (LXX 17), admitting in the last that the Latin 'nations' is a corruption for 'enemies'.
106.10On Ps 19:5 Jerome notes that 'his' stands under the obelus and is not in the Hebrew.
106.11On Ps 20 (LXX 19) Jerome judges 'Lord' superfluous in verse 4 and upholds 'in the day' in verse 9 from the Hebrew.
106.12On Ps 22 (LXX 21) Jerome accepts 'my help' as the correct reading and explains why the Latin keeps 'magnify' for the Greek 'glorify'.
106.13On Ps 23:5 Jerome upholds 'my cup' from the Hebrew against the common Greek edition.
106.14On Ps 25 (LXX 24) Jerome marks 'all' and 'Lord' as additions.
106.15On Ps 27 (LXX 26) Jerome rejects 'behold' and prefers 'my face has sought' without 'you'.
106.16On Ps 28:2 Jerome marks 'Lord' as an addition.
106.17On Ps 29 (LXX 28) Jerome defends 'everyone' against a literal 'every whoever' and explains his rendering 'makes the flood to be inhabited', which he refers to baptism.
106.18On Ps 31 (LXX 30) Jerome notes the frequent addition of 'Lord' and 'God' and explains his rendering 'in the ecstasy of my mind'.
106.19On Ps 32 (LXX 31) Jerome upholds 'in his spirit' and 'my distress' from the Hebrew.
106.20On Ps 35:10 Jerome notes that many Hebrew copies lack 'Lord' altogether.
106.21On Ps 37:23 Jerome marks 'greatly' as an addition.
106.22On Ps 39:6 Jerome explains that errors arise because copyists have dropped Origen's critical signs.
106.23On Ps 40 (LXX 39) Jerome grants that the Hebrew says 'belly' though the Latin says 'heart', and upholds 'look to my help'.
106.24On Ps 41:6 Jerome shows that 'if' is in the Hebrew and the Septuagint.
106.25Jerome settles three readings in Ps 42 (LXX 41), and the same refrain in Ps 43 (LXX 42).
106.26Jerome settles three readings in Ps 44 (LXX 43), noting that the Hebrew reads 'a byword among the nations'.
106.27On Ps 45:5 Jerome shows that 'O most mighty' was carried over from verse 3.
106.28Jerome settles three readings in Ps 48 (LXX 47), upholding 'the kings', 'so we have seen', and 'your temple' from the Hebrew.
106.29Jerome settles three readings in Ps 49 (LXX 48), defending 'righteous' for 'upright' as a matter of sense rather than syllables.
106.30Jerome settles three readings in Ps 50 (LXX 49), again insisting that a translator should follow the idiom of his own language where the sense is unharmed.
106.31Jerome settles three readings in Ps 55 (LXX 54), noting that the Hebrew and the other Greek versions read 'wind' where the Septuagint has 'faintness of spirit'.
106.32Jerome settles two readings in Ps 56 (LXX 55), tracing the Latin 'break' to a confusion of two similar Greek verbs where the Hebrew means 'bring down'.
106.33Jerome settles five readings in Ps 59 (LXX 58) against the Greek his correspondents used.
106.34On Ps 60:9 Jerome rejects the Greek 'or'.
106.35Jerome settles two readings in Ps 61 (LXX 60).
106.36On Ps 62:8 Jerome marks 'for ever' as obelized.
106.37On Ps 63:1 Jerome upholds 'for you' from the Hebrew.
106.38On Ps 64:7 Jerome explains the Latin plural 'arrows' and gives the Hebrew sense.
106.39Jerome settles two readings in Ps 65 (LXX 64).
106.40Jerome settles two readings in Ps 66 (LXX 65).
106.41Jerome settles six readings in Ps 68 (LXX 67), explaining its syntax and correcting his correspondents' Greek against the Hebrew.
106.42On Ps 69:30 Jerome rejects 'my'.
106.43Jerome settles three readings in Ps 71 (LXX 70).
106.44Jerome settles three readings in Ps 72 (LXX 71), seeing the Trinity in the threefold 'Lord God, God of Israel'.
106.45Jerome settles five readings in Ps 73 (LXX 72) against his correspondents' Greek.
106.46Jerome settles five readings in Ps 74 (LXX 73), explaining at length how his marginal note on 'let us burn' against 'let us make cease' was wrongly copied into the text.
106.47On Ps 75:1 Jerome rejects the Greek reading.
106.48Jerome settles two readings in Ps 76 (LXX 75).
106.49On Ps 77 (LXX 76) Jerome explains 'I swept my spirit' as a hoeing metaphor for searching one's thoughts, and rejects an added phrase.
106.50Jerome settles eight readings in Ps 78 (LXX 77), defending the Latin by Hebrew, the other Greek versions, and Latin idiom.
106.51On Ps 79:1 Jerome explains the Greek 'watch-hut' and Aquila's 'heap of stones'.
106.52On Ps 80:9 Jerome rejects 'from here'.
106.53On Ps 83:12 Jerome dismisses a question as superfluous.
106.54Jerome settles three readings in Ps 84 (LXX 83) and asks his correspondents to drop pedantic disputes where the sense is unchanged.
106.55On Ps 85 (LXX 84) Jerome again states his rule that sense matters more than word-for-word rendering, and explains an obelized 'each other'.
106.56Jerome settles two readings in Ps 86 (LXX 85).
106.57Jerome settles three readings in Ps 89 (LXX 88), defending 'dreadful' from Virgil's usage and tracing 'looked upon' to a one-letter slip for 'despised'.
106.58Jerome settles two readings in Ps 90 (LXX 89).
106.59On Ps 91:2 Jerome notes that 'you are' is added for euphony.
106.60Jerome settles two readings in Ps 94 (LXX 93).
106.61On Ps 98:3 Jerome rejects the added 'Jacob'.
106.62On Ps 101:6 Jerome rejects a word-for-word rendering as clumsy.
106.63On Ps 102 (LXX 101) Jerome explains the flat roofs of the East, identifies the Septuagint's 'night-raven' as an owl, and settles two further readings.
106.64On Ps 103:9 Jerome explains the range of the Hebrew word.
106.65On Ps 104 (LXX 103) Jerome argues for the second person throughout ('you who make your angels spirits') and explains several Hebrew words, including the kite and the rock-badger.
106.66Jerome settles three readings in Ps 105 (LXX 104).
106.67Jerome settles four readings in Ps 106 (LXX 105), again mocking pedantic word-for-word renderings.
106.68Jerome settles two readings in Ps 107 (LXX 106).
106.69On Ps 108 (LXX 107) Jerome traces two readings to the parallel Psalms 57 and 60.
106.70Jerome settles two readings in Ps 110 (LXX 109).
106.71On Ps 111:1 Jerome rejects 'my'.
106.72On Ps 115:3 (LXX 113:11) Jerome rejects 'and on earth'.
106.73Jerome settles two readings in Ps 116 (LXX 114).
106.74On Ps 118:10 Jerome marks 'for' with an asterisk.
106.75Jerome settles eight readings in Ps 119 (LXX 118), explaining 'my soul is in my hands' as constant danger borne faithfully.
106.76On Ps 120:2 Jerome rejects 'and'.
106.77On Ps 127:5 Jerome upholds 'man'.
106.78On Ps 130:4 Jerome traces the variants 'law', 'name', and 'fear' to the Hebrew and the confusion of two Hebrew letters.
106.79On Ps 132:2 Jerome defends 'vowed' for a Greek word meaning both 'pray' and 'vow'.
106.80On Ps 136:7 Jerome shows that 'alone' comes from verse 4.
106.81On Ps 138:2 Jerome compares the Hebrew and the Septuagint and reads the verse christologically of the Son exalted above every name.
106.82On Ps 139:4 Jerome upholds 'word' against 'guile'.
106.83Jerome settles two readings in Ps 140 (LXX 139).
106.84On Ps 141:7 Jerome upholds 'our bones'.
106.85On Ps 147:10 Jerome rejects 'the Lord'.
106.86Jerome closes by explaining several Greek words of the Psalter: new moon, desert, throne, night-raven, dog-fly, and chisel.
107.1Writing to Laeta, daughter of the pagan pontiff Albinus and wife of Toxotius, Jerome cites Paul on mixed marriages, rejoices in her Christian household and daughter Paula, and hopes her father too will convert as Rome turns from its temples.
107.2Jerome urges Laeta not to despair of her father's conversion, citing the penitent thief, Nebuchadnezzar, the prefect Gracchus who destroyed a Mithraeum, and the spread of Christianity among the nations.
107.3Jerome turns to his purpose, advice on raising little Paula, who was vowed to Christ before birth, comparing her to Samuel, Samson, and John the Baptist.
107.4Jerome gives detailed advice on teaching the little girl her letters through play and praise, choosing a learned teacher and sober nurses, and guarding her from early bad habits, which are hard to unlearn.
107.5Jerome forbids jewels, cosmetics, and dyed hair for the consecrated girl, and tells how Praetextata, who dressed up the young Eustochium against her vow, died after a warning vision.
107.6Jerome argues that parents answer for the upbringing of children not yet able to judge, including their baptism, and that a child vowed to God must be guarded with special care.
107.7As the girl grows, she should, like the boy Jesus, remain in the 'temple' of the Scriptures and, like Mary and the bride of the Song of Songs, keep to her chamber.
107.8Jerome counsels a simple diet without wine for the girl, allowing moderate food, baths, and even meat until she is grown, and forbids her all musical entertainment.
107.9Jerome prescribes daily Scripture study, Greek then Latin, the parents' example, constant supervision, a grave older companion, and a round of prayer at the set hours.
107.10Jerome wants the girl to learn spinning, dress simply, eat sparingly but steadily, and avoid long immoderate fasts, keeping Lent more strictly without exhausting herself.
107.11Jerome says the girl should always stay with her mother, avoid worldly company and servants' festivities, and, once grown, avoid the baths altogether.
107.12Jerome sets out a reading plan through the Scriptures, from the Psalms to the Song of Songs last, warns against the apocrypha, and recommends Cyprian, Athanasius, and Hilary.
107.13If Laeta cannot keep these rules at Rome, Jerome urges her to send Paula to her grandmother and aunt at Bethlehem, where he himself will teach her, while Laeta, bound by marriage, gives to God in her daughter what she cannot give in herself.
108.1Jerome opens his epitaph for Paula by praising her noble Roman lineage and her choice of Bethlehem over Rome, and recalls the Scriptures she used to repeat as a pilgrim longing for heaven.
108.2Jerome swears to the truth of his praise and sums up Paula's virtue: she died poorer than the poor she helped, leaving even her daughter Eustochium rich only in faith.
108.3Jerome passes over Paula's famous ancestry to praise her own virtues, noting that by giving up Rome she became celebrated throughout the world, and that her humility earned the glory she fled.
108.4Jerome notes that Paula married Toxotius, of the Julian line, and bore five children, Blesilla, Paulina, Eustochium, Rufina, and Toxotius, after which she ceased childbearing.
108.5Widowed, Paula gave almost all her wealth to the poor and sick of Rome, telling relatives that Christ's mercy was a better inheritance for her children.
108.6Inspired by the bishops Paulinus and Epiphanius, whom she met at Rome, Paula left her home and weeping children at the harbour and sailed for the East with Eustochium.
108.7Paula's voyage took her past Domitilla's place of exile, through the Greek islands to Cyprus, where she visited Epiphanius and the monasteries, and on to Antioch, whence she set out on a donkey in midwinter.
108.8Jerome traces Paula's route down the coast and inland to Jerusalem, naming the biblical sites she visited from Zarephath and Caesarea to Emmaus, Beth-horon, and Gibeah.
108.9At Jerusalem Paula chose a humble cell over the governor's residence and visited the Cross, the Holy Sepulchre, and Mount Zion with the pillar of the scourging and the place of Pentecost.
108.10At Bethlehem Paula visited Rachel's tomb and the cave of the Nativity, where she saw with the eyes of faith the events of Christ's birth and poured out a prayer weaving together the prophecies of Bethlehem, and then visited the shepherds' Tower of Eder.
108.11Paula travelled the Gaza road recalling the Ethiopian eunuch, visited Eshcol, Mamre, and Hebron, and looked out over the land of Sodom, drawing spiritual lessons from each place.
108.12Returning by Jerusalem, Paula visited the Mount of Olives, Bethany, and Bethphage, went down the Jericho road recalling the Good Samaritan and Zacchaeus, and reached Gilgal and the Jordan, whose events Jerome interprets as figures of Christ and baptism.
108.13Jerome briefly lists more places Paula visited: Achor, Bethel, the tombs of Joshua and Eleazar, Shiloh, Jacob's well, Samaria with its possessed crowds at the saints' tombs, Nazareth, Galilee, Tabor, and Nain.
108.14Paula travelled to Egypt, visited the monks of Nitria, whom she honoured as images of Christ, and then returned to Bethlehem, where after three years she built monasteries and a pilgrims' hostel.
108.15Jerome describes Paula's humility, austerity, tears of penitence, and boundless almsgiving, which he confesses he tried to moderate, and which left Eustochium in debt.
108.16Paula gave to all the poor according to need rather than to flatterers, citing Scripture on almsgiving, and preferred to build with 'living stones' rather than buildings.
108.17Almsgiving alone is common, Jerome says; Paula also gave her body, fasting so strictly that she took no oil except on feast days.
108.18Paula met the envy and hostility she suffered at Bethlehem not by flight, as Jerome advised, but by patience and humility, sustained by many Scriptures on endurance.
108.19In sickness, loss of property, anxiety for her children, and slander that called her mad, Paula comforted herself with the Scriptures and armed herself with patience against envy.
108.20Jerome describes the rule of Paula's convent at Bethlehem: three companies of women united in prayer at the set hours, common dress and property, strict separation from men, graded correction, and tender care of the sick.
108.21Jerome admits Paula's excessive austerity: even Epiphanius could not persuade her to take wine in sickness, and her grief for her dead children nearly killed her; he insists he writes history, not panegyric.
108.22Paula has finished her course and now enjoys the reward she longed for, having exchanged earthly tears for heavenly joy.
108.23Jerome tells how an Origenist questioner tried to unsettle Paula about the resurrection body and the pre-existence of souls, and how Jerome confronted him, arguing that the same bodies, with their sex, will rise, though without marriage.
108.24Jerome continues his argument from the risen Christ, who had a real male body that could be touched and could eat, explaining the closed doors and the walking on water as God's power, not a change of the body's nature.
108.25Jerome ends his argument by appealing to God's unsearchable judgments and teaching that all will rise at the age of Christ's fullness; Paula thereafter publicly rejected the questioner and his fellow Origenists.
108.26Paula was an eager student who made Jerome expound the whole Bible to her, preferring its spiritual sense, and even learned Hebrew; she rejoiced at her granddaughter's dedication and her daughter-in-law's continence.
108.27Jerome turns reluctantly to Paula's last illness, describing Eustochium's devoted nursing and reflecting that without faith in Christ death would make humans no different from beasts.
108.28Paula died peacefully, repeating verses of the Psalms, saying in Greek that all was calm, and signing her lips with the cross, surrounded by bishops, clergy, and monks.
108.29Paula's funeral was a triumph of psalmody in three languages: bishops carried her bier, crowds from all Palestine attended, the poor mourned their mother, and she was buried beside the cave of the Nativity.
108.30Paula left Eustochium nothing but debts and a great community to support, having given all to the poor; now she enjoys heavenly riches, and further mourning would seem to begrudge her glory.
108.31Jerome consoles Eustochium: her mother, who like Abraham left her homeland and never looked back, has won the crown of a lifelong 'white' martyrdom.
108.32Jerome apologizes that grief allowed him only two nights' dictation and an unpolished style.
108.33Jerome bids Paula farewell, asks her prayers, and records the two verse inscriptions he composed for her tomb.
108.34Paula died on 26 January 404 and was buried on 28 January, aged fifty-six, having lived the ascetic life five years at Rome and twenty at Bethlehem.
109.1Jerome answers Riparius that Vigilantius wrongly calls the veneration of martyrs' relics idolatry: Christians honor the relics in order to adore Christ, and dead saints' bodies are not unclean.
109.2Jerome urges Vigilantius's bishop to discipline him and argues from Scripture that the bodies of the saints are honored, not unclean.
109.3Jerome defends his zeal by biblical examples, and defends the night vigils from Christ's command to watch and the practice of the prophets and apostles.
109.4Jerome offers to write a full refutation of Vigilantius if Riparius sends him his books.
110.1Augustine replies to Jerome's letter brought by Asterius, puzzled that Jerome both fears hurting him and seems ready to hurt him, and declares himself glad to be corrected.
110.2Augustine reasons that Jerome would not expect him to be hurt unless Jerome himself felt hurt, and would not think him so foolish without cause.
110.3Augustine acknowledges that his letter gave the first offense, asks Jerome's pardon by the gentleness of Christ, and asks him still to point out his errors in charity.
110.4Augustine welcomes Jerome's correction as medicine and invites him, as the tired ox on the Lord's threshing floor, to tread firmly on his faults.
110.5Augustine echoes Jerome's wish to meet, laments the distance and the lost letter, and proposes sending a student to Jerome.
110.6Augustine grieves over the quarrel between Jerome and Rufinus, which shows that no friendship is secure, since no one knows even his own future.
110.7Augustine asks Jerome how the devil could have been blessed if angels foreknow their future, and repeats Jerome's wish to meet.
110.8Augustine laments that the bitterness between Jerome and Rufinus arose among friends who had lived together in the Holy Land, and begs them not to publish attacks that would prevent reconciliation.
110.9Augustine proposes that they either discuss Scripture without bitterness or stop, and promises to ask pardon whenever Jerome is offended.
110.10Augustine explains that he rests securely in friendships founded on Christian love, since God is love, and hopes for the reconciliation of Jerome and Rufinus.
111.1Augustine asks Praesidius to forward his letter to Jerome, sends him copies of their correspondence, and asks to be corrected himself if he has written wrongly.
112.1Jerome acknowledges Augustine's three letters and explains that he must answer them hastily, in a letter dictated within three days.
112.2Jerome takes up the armor of God, like David against Goliath, and prays that truth may win between him and Augustine before turning to the questions.
112.3Jerome explains that his catalogue of Christian writers is called On Illustrious Men, not Epitaph, since an epitaph is written only for the dead.
112.4Jerome answers that his view of the dispute between Peter and Paul at Antioch came from Origen and other Greek commentators, as his preface said, and was offered for the reader's judgment.
112.5Jerome mocks Augustine's view that Jewish believers remained bound to the law and says that as a monk he merely reports his predecessors' interpretations.
112.6Jerome explains that the interpretation came from Origen, was meant to answer Porphyry's attack on Paul, and was followed by John Chrysostom, so that he errs in good company.
112.7Jerome cites Acts 10–11 and 15 to show that Peter was the first to hold that Gentiles are free from the law.
112.8Jerome argues from Galatians that Peter had first taught freedom from the law and at Antioch withdrew from the Gentiles only out of fear of losing the Jewish believers.
112.9Jerome points out that Paul himself circumcised Timothy and took a Nazirite vow at Cenchreae out of regard for the Jews.
112.10Jerome cites Paul's purification in the temple at James's request (Acts 21) as a further case in which Paul observed the law to avoid offending Jewish believers.
112.11Jerome says that the earlier interpreters, answering Porphyry, taught an honorable policy rather than a lie, and challenges Augustine to offer a better explanation.
112.12Jerome quotes Augustine's explanation that Paul kept Jewish rites out of compassion, not pretense, and summarizes Augustine's view of the dispute at Antioch.
112.13Jerome objects that Augustine's view would revive the heresy of Cerinthus, Ebion, and the Nazarenes, who mixed the law's ceremonies with the gospel.
112.14Jerome insists that Jewish ceremonies are deadly to Christians of any origin, citing Scripture that Christ is the end of the law and that the new covenant replaces the old.
112.15Jerome challenges Augustine as a bishop to accept a Jewish Christian who keeps circumcision, sabbath, and Passover, and quotes Augustine's account of what Paul had given up.
112.16Jerome argues that the law's ceremonies cannot be morally indifferent, as Augustine's view implies, and that Augustine escapes Porphyry only to fall into the error of Ebion.
112.17Jerome answers Augustine's argument from 1 Cor 9 that Paul acted from compassion, holding that Paul's conduct among Jews and Gentiles alike was a pretense for their sake.
112.18Jerome asks Augustine to pardon his disputation, denies teaching falsehood, and complains that Augustine's letters reach Rome before they reach him.
112.19Jerome explains that his earlier version, made from Origen's corrected Septuagint, carried obeli and asterisks, whereas his new one was translated directly from the Hebrew.
112.20Jerome turns Augustine's syllogism against his own commentary on the Psalms and defends his translation from the Hebrew as a help, not a replacement, to be checked against Hebrew speakers.
112.21Jerome recounts, quoting Augustine, the uproar at Oea when a bishop had his new version of Jonah read and the local Jews confirmed the old reading.
112.22Jerome defends his rendering 'ivy' for the plant in Jonah 4:6 as the nearest equivalent to the Hebrew qiqayon, and asks Augustine to leave an old man in peace.
113.1Theophilus tells Jerome that John Chrysostom deserved his downfall, above all for favoring the Origenists and grieving Epiphanius.
113.2The letter of Theophilus breaks off after quoting Christ's command to judge rightly.
114.1Jerome explains to Theophilus that raids, famine, winter, and a grave illness delayed his Latin translation of Theophilus's book.
114.2Jerome praises Theophilus's book for teaching reverence for the altar and its vessels, which share in the holiness of the Lord's body and blood.
114.3Jerome sends Theophilus the translation, explaining that he rendered sense rather than word for word, and has prefixed Theophilus's letter to it.
115.1Jerome greets Augustine through their brother Firmus and excuses his earlier reply as provoked.
115.2Jerome asks that their correspondence now be one of love rather than disputes, and sends greetings, especially to Alypius.
115.3Jerome refers Augustine to his commentary on Jonah and asks him to blame his accuser rather than himself, proposing that they 'play' in the field of Scripture without wounding each other.
116.1Augustine asks whether Jerome received his letter lamenting the quarrel with Rufinus and whether he has forgiven him.
116.2Augustine takes up Jerome's image of play in the field of Scripture and asks how friends can disagree frankly without being suspected of boasting or of honeyed hostility.
116.3Augustine states that he believes only the canonical Scriptures to be free from all error, reading all other writers critically, and assumes Jerome wants his own books read the same way.
116.4Augustine argues that if Paul's account of rebuking Peter was a pretense, nothing Paul wrote could be trusted, since he swore that he was not lying.
116.5Augustine rejects the view that it is better to suppose Paul untruthful than Peter at fault, since by that logic one would have to deny the Gospels' account of Peter's denial and the account of David's sin.
116.6Augustine warns that admitting that the apostles wrote falsehoods would give the Manichaeans the weapon they lack when they claim the Scriptures were corrupted.
116.7Augustine insists that the question is what Paul wrote, not what he did: if Peter acted rightly, Paul's canonical letter would contain a lie.
116.8Augustine holds that Peter really erred at Antioch, while Paul kept certain Jewish rites not as necessary for salvation but to show that what God had commanded through Moses was not idolatry.
116.9Augustine interprets James's advice in Acts 21 as meant to show that Paul did not condemn the law as sacrilegious, while he taught that salvation comes by grace, not by the law's rites.
116.10Augustine argues from James's words 'all will know' that Paul's observance was sincere, and that after the Jerusalem decree Peter's pretense at Antioch rightly drew Paul's rebuke.
116.11Augustine holds that Peter already shared Paul's view and was rebuked only for a pretense that lent support to those who made the law necessary for salvation.
116.12Augustine explains that Paul circumcised Timothy to show that circumcision was not idolatry, but refused to circumcise Titus so as not to concede that it was necessary for salvation.
116.13Augustine answers Jerome's argument that the law's ceremonies cannot be indifferent, observing that Jerome's own commentary had compared the apostles to lying advocates, a worse precedent than the philosophers.
116.14Augustine argues that the old rites were neither good nor evil, citing Ezek 20:25 and the varied custom of fasting on Saturday as an example of an observance that is neither commanded nor sinful.
116.15Augustine explains that the old rites, given to foreshadow Christ, were to be laid aside gradually and honorably, so that Paul could observe them sincerely then, though no Christian may observe them now.
116.16Augustine turns Jerome's charge back on him, and argues that the Jewish rites, now dead, had to be escorted with reverence to their burial, so that to revive them now would be to violate the grave.
116.17Augustine concedes that he should have said the old rites were harmless only when grace was first revealed, and assures Jerome that he has never held that Jewish Christians may keep them now.
116.18Augustine agrees that Jewish ceremonies are now deadly for Christians, whether kept truly or in pretense, but argues from Christ's own circumcision, his command to the leper, and his going up to the feast that such observance was once sincere.
116.19Augustine answers Jerome's use of Gal 5:2 and 5:4 by arguing that Paul condemned circumcision only when sought as necessary for salvation.
116.20Augustine explains that to be 'under the law' in Paul's blameworthy sense is to try to keep God's commands by one's own strength without grace; the old rites could justify no one but were to be laid aside with honor.
116.21Augustine asks what Jerome's 'policy' can mean except a 'useful lie', and notes that whether a Christian may ever lie is itself a great question.
116.22Augustine insists that the canonical writers never lied, so that Paul's account is true, and holds up Peter's humility in accepting correction as the better answer to Porphyry.
116.23Augustine answers Jerome's list of authorities by noting that Jerome himself rejects four of them, leaving only Eusebius of Emesa, Theodore of Heraclea, and John Chrysostom.
116.24Augustine appeals to Ambrose and Cyprian but above all to Paul himself, who swore before God that his account of the dispute with Peter was no lie.
116.25Augustine denies that his view makes Paul share the Jews' error, since Paul kept the old rites as God's prophetic institutions while preaching that they were neither binding on Gentiles nor necessary for justification.
116.26Augustine clarifies that by 'compassion' he meant Paul's sincere accommodation, as true in his conduct among Jews as Jerome admits it was among Gentiles.
116.27Augustine argues that Paul's accommodation to Jews, like his accommodation to Gentiles, was sincere, since he owed both love from a pure heart and unfeigned faith.
116.28Augustine explains that Paul's compassion toward the Jews lay in seeking to free them from error as he would wish to be freed himself, not in feigning their rites.
116.29Augustine illustrates Paul's compassion from Gal 6:1: to become like one who has fallen is to help him as one would wish to be helped, not to feign his fault.
116.30Augustine recalls Jerome's own words about keeping nothing in his mind that differs from his lips, and applies them to Paul's letters.
116.31Augustine asks Jerome not to resent his frank criticism, holding that true Christian friends rebuke to one's face rather than behind one's back.
116.32Augustine assures Jerome's friends that his earlier letter circulated without his consent, and asks them not to suspect him of malice.
116.33Augustine explains that he sent no 'book' against Jerome to Rome, disclaims flattery, clarifies his reference to Stesichorus, and asks Jerome, though only a presbyter, to correct him freely.
116.34Augustine asks which Jews Jerome thinks corrupted the Scriptures, requests his translation from the Septuagint and his book On the Best Kind of Translating, and observes that varied interpretations can agree in one faith.
116.35Augustine explains that he opposes reading Jerome's Hebrew version in church only to avoid offending congregations accustomed to the Septuagint, and prefers 'gourd' in Jonah 4:6.
116.36Augustine closes by promising that his letters will reach Jerome first and asking for friendship that allows mutual frank criticism, or at least love without it.
117.1Jerome recounts how a brother from Gaul asked him to write to his estranged mother and sister, each of whom lived with a cleric, and how he reluctantly agreed.
117.2Jerome tells the mother and daughter that he writes to prevent scandal, not from suspicion, and holds up Christ's obedience to his parents.
117.3Jerome urges the daughter to return to her mother: if she is a virgin she need not fear her mother's watch, and if she has fallen she should marry openly.
117.4Jerome answers the daughter's complaints about her worldly mother: she should bear with her, or live among virgins, but not leave her mother for a man.
117.5Jerome insists that a truly holy man would never separate a daughter from her mother, and that her brother, a monk, should be her protector rather than a stranger.
117.6Jerome warns the daughter of the dangers to her chastity at the country houses and banquets she visits with relatives, where flattery and temptation abound.
117.7Jerome describes how even dark, plain clothing can be worn to allure, warning the daughter that feasting and baths inflame desire.
117.8Jerome tells the daughter that her brother's tears revealed the situation, and that her servants spread tales about the young cleric who runs her household.
117.9Jerome urges the daughter to be reconciled with her family or at least to live apart from the cleric, whose public ministry as a reader draws all eyes to her.
117.10Jerome rebukes the daughter for living with a beardless young man and warns that he will leave her for a richer or younger woman.
117.11Jerome urges the mother not to answer her daughter's fault with her own, but to dismiss her companion and bring the family together under one roof with her son the monk.
117.12Jerome explains that he dictated the letter in one evening, as an exercise, and asks pardon for its haste.
118.1Jerome explains that he dictated this letter to Julian in haste as Ausonius was leaving, and turns from rhetoric to Scripture for consolation.
118.2Jerome lists Julian's bereavements and losses and compares them with Job's greater trials, which Job bore with worship and patience.
118.3Jerome explains from Job 1–2 that Julian has so far lost only external goods, 'skin for skin', and has not yet been tried in his own body as Job was.
118.4Jerome, refusing flattery, urges Julian to sell all and follow Christ as the rich young man was told, and to give his dead daughters' shares to the poor.
118.5Jerome urges Julian to follow Pammachius and Paulinus in giving not only his goods but himself to God, citing the poor widow, Abraham, and the apostles.
118.6Jerome urges Julian not to be half monk and half worldling, reminding him that life is short and that Lazarus, not the rich man, was comforted after death.
118.7Jerome answers the objection that he does not practice what he urges, holds up Jacob's ladder as a picture of rising and falling, and closes by commending Vera's example.
119.1Jerome explains that, pressed by the messenger's sudden departure, he is sending the opinions of earlier commentators instead of his own full answer.
119.2Jerome states the two readings of 1 Cor 15:51 and quotes Theodore of Heraclea, who held that the saints alive at the end will be changed without dying.
119.3Diodore of Tarsus suggests that incorruption is common to all but the change into glory belongs to the righteous.
119.4Apollinaris agrees with Theodore that some will pass into the future life without dying.
119.5Jerome translates Didymus, who reads 'we shall all sleep, but not all be changed' and explains the moment, the last trumpet, and the difference between incorruption and immortality.
119.6Jerome quotes Acacius of Caesarea on the reading 'we shall all sleep': all rise incorruptible, but only the saints are changed into glory.
119.7Acacius discusses the other reading, 'we shall not all sleep,' rejects the view that Paul expected to survive to the end, interprets sleep as sin after baptism, and still prefers the first reading.
119.8On 1 Thess 4:15-17 Jerome quotes Diodore, who holds that many will be found alive in the body when Christ comes.
119.9Jerome translates Origen, who reads 'we who are alive' of those who have put their flesh to death, or of the believing remnant of Israel.
119.10Continuing Origen, Jerome gives an allegorical reading of 1 Thess 4:15-17: the sleeping and dead are those who sinned and repented, the trumpets and archangel prepare Christ's way, and the clouds are the prophets and apostles.
119.11Jerome defends reading commentators whose doctrines he rejects, testing everything and holding to the faith of the catholic church.
119.12Jerome closes, promising further answers later, and notes that the Latin reading 'we shall all rise' is not in the Greek.
120.1Answering Hedibia's first question, Jerome urges a childless widow who wishes to be perfect to sell her goods and give to the poor, especially to believers, while allowing a lesser path.
120.2Jerome rejects a millenarian reading of Matt 26:29 and interprets the new wine as the Eucharist drunk in the church.
120.3Jerome reconciles Matthew and Mark on the time of the resurrection, noting that the ending of Mark is missing from almost all Greek manuscripts.
120.4Jerome reconciles the times given by Matthew and John for Mary Magdalene's visits to the tomb and discusses the several Marys of the Gospels.
120.5Jerome explains why Mary Magdalene, who had embraced the risen Lord's feet, was later told 'Do not touch me', attributing it to her failure of faith at the tomb.
120.6Jerome explains that the guards, struck down with terror at the angel and the earthquake, could not prevent the disciples from entering the tomb.
120.7Jerome distinguishes Christ's brief appearances in Jerusalem from his longer, familiar presence with the disciples in Galilee.
120.8Jerome explains the signs at Christ's death (the torn veil, earthquake, split rocks, opened tombs) literally and spiritually, and says Jerusalem lost the name of holy city after its destruction.
120.9Jerome reconciles John 20:22 and the promise of Pentecost: the apostles first received the grace to forgive sins, then at Pentecost the fuller gifts of power and tongues; he rejects the Montanist claim and argues for the Spirit's divinity.
120.10Jerome interprets Rom 9:14-29, rejecting the idea of souls punished for sins before birth and arguing that God's choice rests on human free will to believe or refuse.
120.11Jerome explains 2 Cor 2:12-17: Paul sought Titus as his interpreter, God triumphs in the sufferings of the martyrs, and the one gospel becomes life or death according to the hearers' free choice.
120.12Jerome explains 1 Thess 5:23: the 'spirit' kept whole is the Spirit's gifts in us, the whole body is the church, and he adds a reading based on the threefold sense of Scripture.
121.1Answering Algasia's first question, Jerome explains why John the Baptist, who had pointed out Christ, sent disciples to ask whether he was the one to come.
121.2Jerome compares Matthew's citation of Isa 42:1-4 with the Septuagint and the Hebrew, and interprets the bruised reed as Israel and the smoking flax as the Gentiles.
121.3Jerome explains that denying oneself means leaving one's former sinful self behind daily, not only in martyrdom, and being crucified with Christ.
121.4Jerome notes the literal reading of Matt 24:19-20 (the Antichrist, or the Roman siege of Jerusalem) and gives a spiritual one: souls newly pregnant with faith are endangered by heresy in the church.
121.5Jerome explains why the Samaritans refused Jesus (their enmity with the Jews, and Christ's own will to hasten to his passion) and why he rebuked the apostles' wish for vengeance.
121.6Jerome interprets the parable of the unjust steward as an encouragement to mercy, and quotes Theophilus of Antioch's allegory of Paul as the steward who reduced the debts of Gentiles and Jews.
121.7Jerome rejects Marcionite and Arian readings of Rom 5:7 and explains that Paul contrasts the rarity of dying for a just man with Christ's dying for the ungodly.
121.8Jerome expounds Rom 7:7-25: the law reveals sin, several kinds of 'law' appear in Scripture including the natural law, and Paul speaks in the person of the repentant sinner.
121.9Jerome explains Paul's wish to be accursed for Israel as the self-giving love of a shepherd like Moses, willing to perish in the flesh so that others may be saved.
121.10Jerome paraphrases Col 2:16-23, explains Paul's Cilician idioms, and reads the passage as a warning against Jewish-Christian observance of food laws, festivals, and traditions.
121.11Jerome explains 2 Thess 2: before Christ's return the Roman empire must fall and the Antichrist appear, whom Christ will destroy by his coming.
122.1At the request of Hedibia and of Artemia, Rusticus’s wife, Jerome urges Rusticus to repent, gathering prophetic calls to return and warning that despair is itself unbelief.
122.2God’s mercy calls sinners back even after great sins, as Jeremiah, Isaiah, Joel, Hosea and David show.
122.3Scripture’s examples—David, Ahab, Nineveh, the prodigal son, the sinful woman—show that repentance restores even great sinners, since no one is without sin.
122.4Jerome recounts how Rusticus broke the vow of continence he shared with Artemia and failed to follow her to the holy places, and urges him to keep his oath and repent.
123.1Jerome introduces his letter to the young widow Geruchia and the widows of her family—her grandmother, mother and aunt—who model widowhood for her.
123.2Jerome argues that Geruchia owes her family a single marriage, having an heir already, and praises her for refusing suitors from the palace.
123.3Jerome sets out Paul’s instruction in 1 Timothy 5 that younger widows should remarry, and reads it as a concession to prevent sexual immorality, not a command.
123.4Jerome explains each clause of 1 Timothy 5:14 as a safeguard against sexual immorality, concluding that second and even third marriages are allowed the incontinent only as the lesser evil.
123.5Reading 1 Corinthians 7 and 1 Timothy 5, Jerome argues that widowhood is a freedom, that Paul counsels widows to remain unmarried, that young widows should support themselves, and that the once-married rule binds laity as well as clergy.
123.6Jerome distinguishes what Paul wills (remaining unmarried) from what he is compelled to allow (second marriage), and cites the Levitical rules on the priests’ widowed daughters.
123.7Jerome cites pagan examples of priestly monogamy and of women who died rather than take another man, including the Teuton matrons after Aquae Sextiae.
123.8Jerome says the church does not condemn second marriages or expel the twice-married, but ranks a second marriage outside the hundredfold, sixtyfold and thirtyfold harvest.
123.9Jerome recalls a Roman couple, a man who had buried twenty wives and a woman married twenty-two times, whose funeral contest the city watched like a game.
123.10Jerome urges Geruchia to read the Scriptures that crown chastity, not those that concede remarriage, and to take widowhood as a God-given freedom.
123.11Jerome argues from Adam and Eve, Christ and the one church, the Song of Songs and Noah’s ark that Scripture favors a single marriage.
123.12Jerome answers the objection from the patriarchs’ many wives: the command to multiply belonged to an earlier time, and these Old Testament marriages are types of the synagogue and the church.
123.13Using Dido’s story Jerome answers the arguments for remarriage from desire for children and from the need of a man to manage property.
123.14Jerome warns Geruchia against compromising company and against anxiety over property, citing Paul’s care for his reputation, Jacob, and the poverty of the apostles.
123.15Jerome turns to the barbarian invasions of Gaul, listing the peoples and the ruined cities, as signs of the approaching end.
123.16Jerome laments that Rome, once feared by Brennus, Hannibal and Pyrrhus, now buys its life with gold, betrayed by a half-barbarian traitor.
123.17Jerome asks Geruchia whom she could marry amid the invasions, says his warnings are really aimed at women who promote remarriage, and recommends his letters to Eustochium, Furia and Salvina.
124.1Jerome explains how his literal translation of Origen’s On First Principles, made for Pammachius, was secretly copied and circulated in a corrupt form, and sends Avitus his own copy.
124.2Jerome lists the teachings on the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in book 1 of Origen’s On First Principles that he regards as heretical, especially the subordination of the Son and Spirit.
124.3Jerome reports Origen’s teaching that rational beings fell into bodies through negligence and can pass repeatedly between angel, human and demon in successive worlds.
124.4Jerome reports Origen’s views that bodies will be dissolved or refined, that the stars are ensouled, and that fallen beings may even pass into animal bodies, which Origen offered only as speculation.
124.5Jerome quotes book 2 of On First Principles on successive worlds, the possible dissolution of all bodies when all are subject to God, and three possible accounts of the end.
124.6Jerome quotes Origen on God’s invisibility even to the Son, on the soul of Christ, on souls as fallen minds, on Esau’s prior sins and on the souls of the stars.
124.7Jerome reports that Origen placed the fire of hell in the sinner’s conscience and spoke of rebirth into other worlds and of a final bodiless perfection.
124.8Jerome quotes book 3 of On First Principles, where Origen explains Jacob and Esau, vessels of honor and dishonor, and possessed children by the merits of souls before birth.
124.9Jerome quotes Origen on worlds before and after this one, on the fall of rational creatures into bodies, on the stars as ensouled ministers, and on an incorporeal end in which the saints share God’s life.
124.10Jerome quotes Origen on the renewal of matter and worlds after intervals of time, on a future devil drawn from the most wicked, and on bodily nature being taken up into the divine substance.
124.11Jerome reports Origen’s view in book 4 that souls descend from the heavenly Jerusalem as if dying into lower worlds, so that hell and heaven are relative, and that the saints will fight hostile powers at the end.
124.12Jerome charges that Origen spoke of an eternal Gospel in heaven and of Christ suffering again in the heavenly places for the salvation of demons, and quotes the passage.
124.13Jerome quotes Origen’s argument that the Father comprehends the Son but the Son cannot fully comprehend the Father.
124.14Jerome reports Origen’s view that bodies are made and dissolved as rational creatures fall and rise, and that God, angels and human souls are “in a certain way” of one substance.
124.15Jerome condemns the translator who altered only Origen’s statements on the Son and Spirit and praised the rest, and offers this letter as a guide for readers of On First Principles.
125.1Opening his letter to the young monk Rusticus, Jerome shows by examples that a Christian can rise from the lowest state or fall from the highest, and warns him that his path is slippery.
125.2Jerome says Rusticus, already committed like Peter on the rooftop, needs not praise of virtue but a sailor’s warning about the dangers ahead: unchastity, avarice and detraction.
125.3Jerome describes the perilous voyage of merchants across the Red Sea to India for gems and gold, guarded by monsters, as an image of avarice.
125.4If merchants risk so much for perishable wealth, the merchant of Christ should give everything for the pearl and the hidden treasure.
125.5Jerome forestalls offense: he attacks vices in general and names no one.
125.6Jerome tells Rusticus to honor his widowed mother and warns against ascetics who form suspect partnerships with women under the name of spiritual kinship.
125.7Jerome gives Rusticus rules of monastic life—plain dress, moderate fasting, caution even in visiting his mother’s house—with John the Baptist and the sons of the prophets as models.
125.8Jerome praises solitude and urges Rusticus, if he aspires to the clergy, first to learn as a monk before he teaches.
125.9Jerome advises Rusticus to live in a community rather than alone, since untested solitaries fall into pride and self-will, and reserves the solitary life for those proved in the monastery.
125.10Jerome recalls a monk whose hoarded wealth, collected as alms for the poor, came to light at his death and was left to his heirs.
125.11Jerome tells Rusticus not to live with his mother, to read and pray constantly, and to keep busy with manual work—gardening, basket-weaving, bee-keeping, copying books—as the Egyptian monasteries require.
125.12Jerome recalls how in the desert he tamed his thoughts by learning Hebrew from a converted Jew.
125.13Jerome tells how an Egyptian abbot cured a young monk’s lust by having him falsely accused and harassed for a year.
125.14Against the philosophers’ cure of one passion by another, Jerome urges overcoming vices by love of virtue and by pursuing peace.
125.15Since every art and society needs one head, Jerome urges Rusticus to live in a monastery under one father, and lists the obedience and humility community life teaches.
125.16Jerome satirizes false monks who keep their wealth, pose in public, trade for profit or fall into melancholy, and says monastery life will train Rusticus out of such habits.
125.17Jerome says he is instructing a monk, not judging clergy, and urges Rusticus to live so that he may worthily be made a cleric later.
125.18Jerome warns Rusticus against hasty writing, flatterers and detraction, and caricatures a pompous teacher he calls Grunnius.
125.19Jerome warns against detraction and listening to it, and urges open rebuke in the manner the Lord commanded instead of secret slander.
125.20Jerome commends Rusticus to Bishop Proculus of Marseilles and to the example of Bishop Exuperius of Toulouse, who gave all to the poor, and urges him to follow the naked Christ.
126.1Jerome thanks Marcellinus and Anapsychia for their letter, lists the views on the soul's origin, and refers them to his books against Rufinus and to Augustine.
126.2Jerome explains that the sack of Rome and a barbarian raid have delayed his Commentary on Ezekiel.
126.3Jerome commends Oceanus as able to answer their questions and closes with a blessing.
127.1Jerome agrees to Principia's request to write the memory of Marcella and says he will praise her virtue, not her noble descent.
127.2Marcella, widowed after seven months, refuses a rich elderly consular suitor, and Jerome compares her with the widow Anna in Luke.
127.3Marcella keeps her reputation spotless in slanderous Rome, and her modest dress and conduct show the pagans what Christian widowhood is.
127.4Marcella loves Scripture and puts it into practice, lives with moderate asceticism, avoids society, and obeys her mother even in giving her property to rich relatives.
127.5Marcella was the first noble Roman woman to take up the monastic life, learning of it from Athanasius and Peter of Alexandria; Jerome defends praising women.
127.6Marcella lives as one always ready to die, as Plato, Scripture, and even the satirist urge.
127.7When Jerome was in Rome, Marcella questioned him constantly about Scripture and became the judge of scriptural disputes after he left, though she always presented her answers as others'.
127.8Principia takes Jerome's place as Marcella's companion; their retreat near Rome encourages many monasteries, and Marcella keeps up correspondence with Jerome.
127.9The Origenist controversy reaches Rome with Rufinus's translation of On First Principles, and Marcella publicly opposes it.
127.10Marcella's evidence leads to the condemnation of the Origenists at Rome under Bishop Anastasius.
127.11The Origenist storm passes to the East, where Jerome's party is persecuted until God ends it.
127.12Jerome laments the siege, famine, and sack of Rome in 410.
127.13Marcella, beaten by the Goths who sought her gold, protects Principia, rejoices in her poverty, and dies some months later.
128.1Jerome says a letter to the infant Pacatula must wait until she can read, and sets out how to teach her letters, spinning, and psalms with rewards.
128.2Two views on dressing a girl vowed to virginity: plainly from the start, or with finery so that she learns to despise it; Jerome reports the second side's arguments.
128.3Jerome rejects indulging youth, reads 1 Cor 7 allegorically of virginity and marriage, and warns virgins, men and women, against living or sitting alone with the opposite sex.
128.4Jerome sets out Pacatula's upbringing: seclusion from boys, obedience to her mother, the Psalter and Scripture from age seven, a sober governess; he warns of seducers and of women who desert their husbands.
128.5Jerome laments the fall of Rome and the church's continuing avarice, recalls intercessors like Aaron and Moses, and describes the times into which Pacatula was born.
129.1Answering Dardanus, Jerome argues that the true land of promise is the “land of the living” of the Psalms and the Beatitudes, not the land of Judaea that David already ruled.
129.2Jerome identifies the land of the living with paradise, opened by Christ's blood, and supports a spiritual reading from Malachi, Isaiah, the Psalms, Ezekiel, and Proverbs.
129.3The saints are strangers in the earthly land, as Abraham and the patriarchs were according to Acts and Hebrews; Jerome defends receiving both Hebrews and the Apocalypse as canonical.
129.4Jerome measures the small extent of the land Israel actually held and mocks the Jewish boast in it.
129.5Even the borders of Numbers 34 were promised on condition of obedience, and Israel lost them through idolatry and never drove out the Canaanites.
129.6Jerome denies disparaging Judaea or history and argues that the promises of land were types fulfilled in the church of the nations.
129.7Jerome recounts Israel's past captivities and deliverances and attributes the present long ruin of Jerusalem to the rejection of Christ, until all Israel is saved.
129.8Jerome apologizes to Dardanus for his hasty reply, written the same day the letter arrived.
130.1Jerome says that writing to the noble virgin Demetrias is the hardest task of his life, undertaken at the insistence of her grandmother and mother.
130.2Jerome breaks off his commentary on Ezekiel's temple to write to Demetrias, recently veiled as a virgin, as one who waters what her family has planted.
130.3Jerome declines the rhetorical praise of ancestry, but briefly honours Demetrias's late father Olybrius.
130.4Demetrias, raised in luxury, longed for a life of fasting and virginity after biblical models, and prayed in secret that her family would allow it.
130.5On the eve of her wedding Demetrias resolved on virginity, put off her finery, and threw herself at her grandmother's feet.
130.6Jerome describes the joy of Demetrias's family, of Africa, Italy, and the East at her profession, and contrasts parents who give only their unmarriageable or poorly dowered daughters to virginity.
130.7Jerome praises Proba's generosity amid the sack of Rome and the extortions of the count of Africa, and begins his counsel to Demetrias: love Scripture and keep her baptismal renunciation.
130.8Jerome urges Demetrias to hold her ground against temptation and to crush sinful thoughts before they become deeds.
130.9Jerome urges Demetrias to guard her heart with the sign of the cross; penance is the plank after shipwreck, but a virgin should keep the ship whole.
130.10Fasting, modelled by Moses, Elijah, and Christ, quenches the heat of youth and makes a virgin's life like that of the angels.
130.11Jerome warns against excessive fasting: virtue lies in measure, and fasting is the foundation of the virtues, not their completion.
130.12Demetrias should obey her grandmother and mother, from whom she learned virginity, and remain humble, since all is by God's grace.
130.13Demetrias should choose servants for their character, avoid levity and indecent talk, and govern rather than try to eliminate her passions.
130.14Jerome urges Demetrias to use her wealth for the poor, monasteries, and the servants of God rather than for building ornate churches.
130.15Jerome sets out a daily rule for Demetrias: fixed hours of prayer, memorizing and reading Scripture, and working wool with her own hands.
130.16Jerome warns Demetrias to hold the faith of Pope Innocent and reject the Origenist teaching that souls pre-existed and were sent into bodies for earlier sins.
130.17Jerome advises community life rather than solitude for a virgin, warning against excessive abstinence and self-taught presumption in Scripture.
130.18Demetrias should avoid married women's gossip and vain girls, and choose grave widows and virgins as companions.
130.19Jerome warns virgins against dandified young men, going out alone, and lax living, recalls his earlier treatise on virginity, and urges perseverance in the chosen life.
130.20Jerome closes by repeating his first counsel: love the holy Scriptures and imitate her grandmother and mother.
131.1Augustine, now old himself, writes to consult Jerome on questions he cannot resolve, regretting the distance between them.
131.2Augustine introduces Orosius, a young Spanish presbyter, whom he has sent on to Jerome and who is to carry this letter.
131.3Augustine states his firm convictions: the soul is immortal in its own way, but it is not a part of God, since it is changeable.
131.4Augustine argues that the soul, whatever it is called, is not a body extended in space, since it is present whole in every part of the body.
131.5Augustine states that the soul sinned by its own will and can be saved only by Christ's grace and sacrament, without which it faces condemnation.
131.6Augustine asks Jerome where an infant's soul contracts the guilt from which baptism frees it, noting that Jerome affirms original sin.
131.7Augustine recalls treating four views of the soul's origin in On Free Will against the Manichees, and asks Jerome which of them is true.
131.8Augustine notes that Jerome holds that God creates each soul anew, and says he would like to hold this view too but cannot yet affirm it.
131.9Augustine asks Jerome to teach him, since Christ alone is the true teacher and speaks through whoever speaks the truth.
131.10Augustine sets out the difficulty: if each soul is newly created, how can infants dying unbaptized justly be condemned for Adam's sin?
131.11Augustine sets out the objection that God rested after creation and so does not create new souls, with its answer that he still governs what he made.
131.12Augustine answers that creating each new soul multiplies what God already made on the sixth day and so does not contradict his rest.
131.13To the objection about infants who die soon, Augustine answers that God orders every life's length like the measures of a song.
131.14Augustine rejects the argument that only what existed before time can be immortal, citing Christ's risen flesh.
131.15Augustine accepts Jerome's answer that God's creating souls for children of adultery is no more unworthy than the earth nourishing stolen seed.
131.16Augustine confesses that he cannot explain, on this view, why infants suffer sickness and afflictions in this life and condemnation without baptism.
131.17Augustine asks how the differences in natural ability among people can be explained if each soul is newly created.
131.18Augustine quotes his own earlier discussion in On Free Will of why infants suffer.
131.19Augustine explains that his earlier argument was meant to hold under any view of the soul's origin and does not settle the present question.
131.20Augustine explains that his earlier argument about compensation for suffering infants does not cover infants who die unbaptized.
131.21Augustine argues from 1 Cor 15:22 that no one is made alive except in Christ, so unbaptized infants remain under Adam's condemnation.
131.22Augustine considers the suggestion that an unbaptized infant's soul is saved while only its flesh fails to rise.
131.23Augustine rejects that suggestion from the resurrection of all to life or judgment, and cites Cyprian's ruling that infants may be baptized at once to save their souls.
131.24Augustine insists that the apostolic faith and the church's practice of infant baptism show that baptism is for the soul.
131.25Augustine asks Jerome to reconcile the creation of new souls with the condemnation of unbaptized infants, or else abandon it.
131.26Augustine warns that proof texts about God forming the spirit do not settle the question, and some even favour the view that souls descend from Adam's.
131.27Augustine shows that the same difficulty besets the view that souls pre-exist, and rejects the idea that souls are imprisoned in bodies for sins of a former life.
131.28Augustine closes by hoping Jerome can resolve the question, but resolving to accept ignorance rather than any view that denies infants need Christ's grace.
132.1Augustine asks Jerome how to understand James 2:10, that whoever offends in one point of the law is guilty of all.
132.2Augustine explains that, unlike the soul's origin, the meaning of James 2:10 bears directly on how Christians must live.
132.3Augustine sets James 2:10 in its context of favouring the rich over the poor, and asks whether it really makes such a person guilty of every sin.
132.4Augustine notes that even if the virtues are inseparable, it does not follow, as the Stoics held, that all sins are equal.
132.5Augustine sets out the philosophical argument that the four cardinal virtues are inseparable.
132.6Augustine distinguishes vices openly contrary to the virtues from vices that imitate them, such as cunning, stinginess, and obstinacy.
132.7Augustine illustrates with Catiline, whose endurance was not true fortitude because it lacked the other virtues.
132.8Augustine argues that since each virtue has two opposed vices, vices outnumber virtues and are not simply inseparable as the virtues are.
132.9Augustine observes that vices can replace one another, but a virtue, bringing the others with it, drives out all vices.
132.10Augustine questions the philosophers' doctrine, since faithful married people truly have the virtue of chastity yet, like all, still sin, as James 3:2 says.
132.11Augustine suggests that charity, the fullness of the law, is the virtue that contains all others, so that virtue grows as charity grows.
132.12Augustine describes the Stoic view that a person progressing toward wisdom has no wisdom until he is perfect, like a drowning man who is either under water or out.
132.13Augustine prefers the scriptural image of darkness and light: the soul is enlightened gradually, so the saints are righteous in varying degrees yet none is without sin.
132.14Augustine concludes that sins are not equal, and that a person can have more or less of each virtue as charity enlightens him more or less.
132.15Augustine defines virtue as charity, which is never perfect in this life, so that all must pray for forgiveness; the commandments show us our need of grace.
132.16Augustine proposes that one who offends in one point is guilty of all because every sin violates charity, on which the whole law hangs.
132.17Augustine explains that all sin offends against charity and so makes one guilty of all, yet sins differ in gravity according to how far they oppose charity.
132.18Augustine notes that favouring the rich is a grave sin if it concerns church offices, and in daily life when one inwardly values people by their wealth.
132.19Augustine explains that James goes on to offer mercy as the daily remedy for the many offences all commit.
132.20Augustine concludes that works of mercy and forgiveness are the daily remedy by which the many small sins of all are expiated.
132.21Augustine asks Jerome to correct him and to share any better interpretation of James 2:10.
133.1Jerome tells Ctesiphon that the new claim that a man can be free of sin and passion comes from the Stoic and Pythagorean philosophers and is refuted by Paul and common experience.
133.2Jerome cites Scripture to show that no one is without sin, rejecting the claim that a sinless life is possible though it has never existed.
133.3Jerome traces the Pelagian claim of sinlessness to Manichaeans, Priscillian, Evagrius, the Sentences of Sextus, Origen, and Jovinian.
133.4Jerome lists heresiarchs who were aided by women and warns that the same is happening now.
133.5Jerome argues that the Pelagian view of grace as merely the gift of free will makes prayer and fasting pointless, quoting one of Pelagius's disciples.
133.6Jerome insists that free will itself depends on God's continual help, so Christians must always pray and give thanks, and no one is perfect in this life.
133.7Jerome mocks a Pelagian's claim that ordinary actions need no divine help, and argues that the commandments cannot be both easy and never fulfilled.
133.8Jerome argues that the Pelagian formula 'without sin if he wills' makes grace superfluous, and cites Romans 7–8 on the weakness of the flesh.
133.9Jerome denies holding the Manichaean view of an evil nature, appealing to Paul on the frailty of the flesh and to God's inscrutable justice.
133.10Jerome affirms free choice but insists it needs God's help, and presses his opponent with the dilemma of his own confessed sinfulness.
133.11Jerome ridicules the distinction between being sinless and being able to be sinless, and challenges his opponents to state openly what they teach in private.
133.12Jerome invites scrutiny of his own writings and calls on the Pelagian teacher either to defend his views openly or to confess his error for the sake of unity.
133.13Jerome explains that biblical saints are called righteous for the greater part of their virtues, not for sinlessness, and warns Ctesiphon's patrons against supporting the Pelagians.
134.1Jerome tells Augustine that the troubles in Palestine have kept him from answering his two treatises, and urges common action against the Pelagian heresy.
134.2Jerome sends greetings from Eustochium and the younger Paula and asks Augustine to forward a letter to the presbyter Firmus.
135.1Pope Innocent asks Aurelius of Carthage to forward his letter to Jerome promptly.
136.1Pope Innocent consoles Jerome after the attack on his monasteries, offers to appoint judges if he names the culprits, and says he has written to Bishop John of Jerusalem.
137.1Pope Innocent rebukes Bishop John of Jerusalem for failing to protect the monasteries of Eustochium and Paula from the violence done to them.
138.1Jerome tells Riparius that the Pelagian leader has been driven out of Palestine, though his followers remain at Joppa, and urges him to continue the fight.
139.1Jerome encourages Apronius in his struggle, invites him to the East, where the heretics are now silent, and says his own house, though ruined, is rich in spirit.
140.1Jerome agrees to explain Psalm 90 (89 in the Greek and Latin numbering) plainly for the presbyter Cyprian.
140.2Jerome discusses the psalm's title, 'A prayer of Moses, the man of God', and holds that Moses wrote the eleven psalms 90–100 (89–99 in the Greek numbering).
140.3Jerome lists the psalms entitled 'prayer', refers David and the 'poor man' to Christ, and presents Psalm 90 as Moses' prayer on the whole human condition.
140.4Jerome explains the word 'prayer', the fivefold division of the Psalter, and why a psalm naming Samuel can still be by Moses.
140.5On Ps 90:1 Jerome notes that the Hebrew means 'dwelling', and teaches that man can do no good work without God's grace in each act.
140.6On Ps 90:2 Jerome rejects a punctuation used to support the pre-existence of souls, and notes that Prov 8:22 in Hebrew speaks of Wisdom (Christ) as 'possessed', not 'created'.
140.7On Ps 90:3 Jerome explains both the Hebrew ('turn man back to contrition') and the Greek, as God's sentence of death and his call to repentance.
140.8On Ps 90:4 Jerome explains that a thousand years are as a night watch to God, and mentions the reckoning of the world's ages as six thousand years followed by the seventh and eighth.
140.9On Ps 90:5–6 Jerome compares human life to a dream and to grass that flourishes in the morning and withers by evening.
140.10On Ps 90:7 Jerome prefers the Hebrew sense 'we have hastened', showing the brevity of life, and cites Virgil.
140.11On Ps 90:8 Jerome discusses the Hebrew word for 'hidden sins' and teaches that God sees even faults committed in ignorance.
140.12On Ps 90:9 Jerome compares life to a spoken word that vanishes, explains God's 'anger' as judgment, and likens heretics to spiders' webs.
140.13On Ps 90:10 Jerome explains the span of seventy or eighty years, quotes Ecclesiastes 12 on old age, and sets aside an allegorical reading as unnecessary.
140.14On Ps 90:10b Jerome compares the Hebrew ('we pass swiftly') with the Greek ('gentleness has come and we shall be corrected') and explains both.
140.15On Ps 90:11 Jerome notes the differing punctuation of the Hebrew and Greek and explains that God's anger aims at correction, not destruction.
140.16On Ps 90:12 Jerome explains the Greek mistranslation 'right hand' from the Hebrew for 'our days', and urges remembrance of death so as to live wisely.
140.17On Ps 90:13 Jerome explains the plea 'Return, Lord; how long?' as the cry of the penitent for God's help.
140.18On Ps 90:14 Jerome notes that the Greek puts future petitions in the past, and reads the 'morning mercy' as the hope of resurrection.
140.19On Ps 90:15 Jerome teaches that present afflictions will be rewarded with joy after the resurrection.
140.20On Ps 90:16 Jerome explains that God works in his servants, and that their 'children' are chiefly their disciples.
140.21On Ps 90:17 Jerome argues against the Pelagians that even the risen saints pray for God to direct and confirm their works.
141.1Jerome praises Augustine for standing firm against the Pelagians.
141.2Jerome tells Augustine that Catholics honour him and heretics hate them both.
142.1Jerome tells Augustine that many still cling secretly to their former error.
142.2Jerome sends greetings to Alypius and Evodius and laments in a biblical figure the state of Jerusalem.
143.1Jerome writes to Alypius and Augustine rejoicing that the Caelestian heresy has been crushed by their efforts.
143.2Jerome explains that illness and Eustochium's death have delayed his reply to Anianus's defence of Pelagius, and sends greetings from Albina, Pinianus, Melania, and Paula.
144.1Augustine tells Optatus that he has had no reply to the question on the soul's origin he sent to Jerome nearly five years ago.
144.2Augustine explains that he will not publish his question without Jerome's answer, lest he seem to boast.
144.3Augustine quotes Jerome's letter explaining that the troubles of the time had kept him from answering.
144.4Augustine explains that he hopes to publish both his question and Jerome's answer, as an example of friendly inquiry.
144.5Augustine fears that publishing his question alone might let ill-wishers misrepresent his intentions toward Jerome.
144.6Augustine says he has not yet found how the soul inherits Adam's sin without itself being derived from Adam, and prefers to inquire rather than assert rashly.
144.7Augustine asks Optatus to state the grounds of the view he claims is 'full of truth', against the older clergy who held the soul is inherited.
144.8Augustine asks Optatus from what God makes souls, if not by propagation, and rejects the view that souls are embodied for sins of a former life.
144.9Augustine asks Optatus to send his statement of faith and the scriptural testimonies he claims to have.
144.10Augustine points out that proving God makes souls does not refute those who hold that he makes them from the parents, as he does bodies.
144.11Augustine quotes Optatus's question to the bishops of Caesarea, which set inheritance of souls against God's being the author of all.
144.12Augustine argues that belief in the inheritance of souls is no more incompatible with God's authorship than the inheritance of bodies.
144.13Augustine urges Optatus to refute those who deny that God makes souls, but to seek clear Scripture before condemning those who hold that souls are inherited yet made by God.
144.14Augustine distinguishes whether God makes all souls (certain) from how he makes them (open), and warns Optatus not to fall into Pelagianism by denying the inheritance of souls.
144.15Augustine defends suspending judgment on the soul's origin, following Paul's 'I do not know; God knows'.
144.16Augustine says he would rather know the time of Christ's coming than the origin of his soul, and is not even sure it is given us to know the latter.
144.17Augustine lists what he knows about the soul, including that all are born in sin and need rebirth, but confesses that he does not know how souls originate.
144.18Augustine turns the question back on Optatus: how can a soul inherit Adam's sin if it is not itself derived from Adam?
144.19Augustine adds that he could equally show the defenders of inherited souls that their view is not proven.
144.20Augustine explains that only one of the two books he sent Jerome concerned the soul, and warns Optatus against the Pelagian denial of original sin.
145.1Jerome greets Exuperantius, a soldier he knows only through his brother Quintilian, and asks him to correspond.
145.2Jerome reminds Exuperantius of Paul's advice that the unmarried should not seek a wife.
145.3Jerome urges Exuperantius to leave worldly ties behind and follow Christ without looking back.
145.4Jerome warns Exuperantius against amassing wealth that Christ commands to be given away.
145.5Jerome urges Exuperantius to give away what he has and join him with his brother.
146.1Jerome argues from Scripture and Alexandrian custom that presbyters and bishops were originally the same office and that deacons rank below presbyters.
146.2Jerome rejects the Roman custom as grounds for exalting deacons and compares bishops, presbyters and deacons to Aaron, his sons and the Levites.
147.1Jerome begins his rebuke of the deacon Sabinianus, comparing him to Pharaoh and to the prosperous wicked of Psalm 73.
147.2Jerome applies Psalm 73 and Malachi 3 to Sabinianus, who slanders the servants of God.
147.3Jerome warns Sabinianus from Amos, Ezekiel and Isaiah that God pardons the penitent but turns away from the impenitent.
147.4Jerome recalls Sabinianus's earlier sins and charges him with trying to seduce a virgin in the cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem.
147.5Jerome explains the custom by which consecrated women in Eastern monasteries have their hair cut and keep their heads veiled.
147.6Jerome describes Sabinianus's secret vows to the virgin in the cave and his planned elopement, which was discovered.
147.7Jerome says he has read and kept Sabinianus's shameless letters to the virgin.
147.8Jerome says he forgave Sabinianus and urged repentance, but Sabinianus turned to abusing him and lives in vanity.
147.9Jerome urges Sabinianus to repent, citing the healings of Christ and examples from Genesis, Numbers, Samuel and Kings.
147.10Jerome denies that Sabinianus's ordination by a good bishop protects him, citing the sons of Samuel and Eli and the fate of Uzzah.
147.11Jerome recounts Sabinianus's adultery with the wife of a powerful barbarian in Italy, his flight, and his arrival in the East pretending to be a monk.
147.12Jerome concludes by warning Sabinianus, from Hebrews 6, not to presume on God's mercy.
148.1The writer explains that, despite his reluctance, he will answer Celantia's request for guidance.
148.2The writer agrees to give Celantia a rule of life from Scripture and insists that faith must be joined to obedience.
148.3The writer argues from Scripture that confessing God as Lord while ignoring his commands is empty.
148.4The writer urges that love for Christ is shown by keeping his commandments.
148.5The writer explains that God's commands both forbid evil and require good, and bind everyone equally.
148.6The writer rejects the Stoic view that all sins are equal but urges fear even of small sins.
148.7The writer tells Celantia to build her life on innocence, harming no one in deed or intention and also doing good.
148.8The writer warns Celantia not to follow the crowd or nominal Christians, but to show her faith by a distinct life.
148.9The writer says Christians, who expect Christ's judgment, must live apart from the vices of unbelievers.
148.10The writer applies Christ's teaching on the broad and narrow ways to the conduct of life.
148.11The writer lists the vices that mark the broad way and the virtues that mark the narrow way.
148.12The writer points to the apostles and above all to Christ as the pattern to follow.
148.13The writer urges Celantia to study God's law constantly, recalling the fringes commanded by Moses and misused by the Pharisees.
148.14The writer urges constant reading of Scripture and commends the Golden Rule as a summary of all righteousness.
148.15The writer presents the Golden Rule as a mirror for every act and rejects the complaint that God's commands are impossible.
148.16The writer warns Celantia against speaking ill of others and against listening to slander.
148.17The writer warns against flattery and tells Celantia to seek praise from God rather than from people.
148.18The writer urges Celantia to guard her speech and to bless rather than curse.
148.19The writer forbids lying and swearing and urges Celantia to keep her mind pure as God's temple.
148.20The writer commends true humility and warns against a feigned humility that hides pride.
148.21The writer tells Celantia that noble birth counts for nothing before God, since all are redeemed by Christ's blood.
148.22The writer teaches that fasting is a help to holiness, not holiness itself, and is worthless if the soul is proud.
148.23The writer urges Celantia to guard her reputation as well as her conscience, giving no occasion for slander.
148.24The writer advises Celantia to set aside a quiet place in her house for reading and prayer.
148.25The writer tells Celantia to govern her household with kindness and to keep the apostolic order in marriage.
148.26The writer tells Celantia to honour her husband's authority, as Paul and Peter teach.
148.27The writer, citing Peter and Paul, tells Celantia to dress simply and to adorn herself with a quiet spirit and good works.
148.28The writer rebukes Celantia for vowing continence without her husband's consent, since Paul gives each spouse power over the other's body.
148.29The writer expounds 1 Corinthians 7:1–7 as teaching that continence in marriage should be undertaken by mutual consent.
148.30The writer warns that Celantia is caught between breaking her vow and defying her husband, and urges her to win his consent so that both may keep continence.
148.31The writer sets the rewards of the righteous and the judgment of the careless before Celantia, urging watchfulness.
148.32The writer closes by urging Celantia to persevere daily in righteousness to the end.
149.1The writer, asked to explain the Jewish feasts spiritually, first addresses those who insist on keeping them according to the letter.
149.2The writer argues from the prophets, Paul and the Gospels that the Jewish feasts and sacrifices are not to be kept according to the letter.
149.3The writer explains how Christ fulfilled and changed the Passover, and interprets the paschal lamb spiritually.
149.4The writer interprets the sabbath as rest from sin and Pentecost as the offering of our works, made acceptable through Christ the high priest.
149.5The writer interprets the autumn feasts of trumpets, atonement and tabernacles as pointing to gospel preaching, Christ's blood and the reward of the persecuted.
149.6The writer interprets the new moons and the sacrificial animals spiritually and closes by warning against schism.
151.1Jerome praises his correspondent for fighting heretics who are troubling Gaul, Italy and Palestine.
151.2Jerome tells his friend of the death of Eustochium and of his own weakness in old age.
151.3Jerome sends greetings, commends the deacon Theon, and asks for news.
152.1Jerome dismisses the writings of Julian, Pelagius and Caelestius and declines, because of age and illness, to write against them.
153.1Jerome congratulates a newly ordained bishop of Rome, tells of Eustochium's death and the care of the young Paula, and urges him to act against the heretics.
154.1Jerome says the heretics' repentance cannot be trusted and urges that they be cut off spiritually, hoping that Bishop Boniface will root them out.
154.2Jerome reports that Eustochium died faithful, having preferred exile to communion with heretics.
154.3Jerome sends greetings to Marius Mercator and others and urges them to oppose the Pelagians.

About this work

Author: Jerome
Attribution: authentic · Jerome's correspondence as collected in Hilberg's edition (154 letters, some sent to Jerome rather than by him, e.g. from Augustine, Damasus, and Theophilus of Alexandria).
Standing: Honoured by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. Honoured as a saint or in a church calendar by: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant.
Older English translation: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 6 (1893) (public domain, at CCEL; for comparison: our translation is made from the original first and checked against it afterwards) · W. H. Fremantle's translation; NPNF² 6 does not include every letter in Hilberg's collection.
Date: ca. 370–419 (approximate)
Written at: Bethlehem, Palestine (probable)
Language: Latin
Genre: letter
Reference system: letter.chapter, in Hilberg's numbering and chapter division (CSEL 54–56); the digital text's finer numbered sections within each chapter are not the traditional citation and are merged into their chapter. Letters 18A and 18B (to Damasus) are not yet staged (non-numeric division ids in the digital text).
SBL abbreviation: Ep.
Clavis: CPL 620 (not yet checked)
Text from: Isidor Hilberg, ed., Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, CSEL 54–56 (Vienna: Tempsky; Leipzig: Freytag, 1910–1918) (Printed edition in the public domain; digital text CC BY-SA 4.0)
Critical editions: Jérôme Labourt, ed. and trans., Saint Jérôme: Lettres, 8 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1949–1963) (cited, not reproduced)
CTS URN: urn:cts:latinLit:stoa0162.stoa004

Letters

Contents

About this work