jerome was not a great theologian and could hardly be called an original thinker;
even his commentaries contain rather a collection of the views of the best authorities
than any new ideas of his own.
nor was he mixed up with any of the great historical events of his time.
nor was he apparently of a very lovable disposition.
yet he did more than any other man, more perhaps than even the great augustine himself,
to shape the tendency and direct the current of the western church.
so that he is said to have 'lived and reigned a 1000 years'.
he was one of the four great doctors of the west,
his claim to the title being fully justified by his latin translation of the bible.
the other three were ambrose, augustine and gregory the great,
of whom the last does not come within the date limit of this book.
...eusebius hieronymus sophronius, known as jerome in france and england;
giolamo in italy and hieronymus for literary purposes,
was born according to the best authorities in 346 at strido, near aquileia, the capital of venetia.
...from 363-366 he was educated at rome, where after a short period of dissipation,
he became serious and was baptized, probably by pope liberius.
..from 370 to 373 he was at aquileia, where he had his first experience of a sort of monastic life
...the few young men who joined him here in what turned out rather an unsuccessful experiment,
were discouraged by the bishop, whom J consequently describe as
'the ignorant, brutal, wicked, unskilful pilot of a crazy bark'.
evagrius, a priest of antioch, who came to aquileia..persuaded him to return with him to the east
and learn about monasticism in it own home
..in 374 J travelled through the east, made his first visit to jerusalem
and then retired into the desert of chalicis for about five years,
practicing the most intense asceticism,
but perpetually haunted by reminiscences of the world and the flesh.
he took, however, his classical library with him
and comforted himself with greek and latin;
till one night he dreamed that a judge before whom he aw brought,
burnished him for being a ciceronian and not a christian.
whereupon (in his dream apparently) he vowed to devote his intellect entirely to the scriptures
and on waking proceeded to learn hebrew.
but his health broke down and we find him in 379 at antioch, where paulinus ordained him priest,
but so much against his will, that he is believed to
have never exercised priestly functions.
in the following year, 380, he gratified his great wish to hear gregory of nazianzus by going to constantinople
and in 382 returned to rome, having been present at the second council.
from 382-5 in rome he is conspicuous for two things:
for his close friendship with pope damasus, to whom he acted as literary adviser and perhaps papal secretary
and for his friendship with several noble ladies, who had devoted themselves to the ascetic life.
he became, however, so unpopular in rome, owing to his encouragement of asceticism,
that he declared he was 'singing the Lord's song in a strange land', and so resolved
to finish his life in the east.
in 386 therefore, after spending some time in alexandria and listening to the lectures of didymus,
the blind head of the catechetical school,
he went to jerusalem
and established himself at bethlehem till420, when he died.
almost all the best work of J was done during these 34 years at bethlehem.
..it is not true that jerome Founded western monasticism, though he did so much to encourage it.
even before the time of constantine some of the roman ladies had withdrawn into ascetic retirement.
the visit of athanasius, however, to rome in 341 with two monks
first awakened public interest in the ascetic movement of the east.
similarly his long stay at treves introduced the idea into gaul.
in the latter country it was rapidly developed under the influence of st martin and others,
and the convent of marmontier, till the time of the revolution one of the most important in france,
dates back from the middle of the fourth century.
but in rome, when jerome came, the formation of actual communities had hardly commenced;
although several prominent ladies had devoted themselves to an ascetic and charitable life.
however, Marcella, who had been the beauty of her time,
gave up her palace on the aventine as a meeting place for others like herself
and with them formed something like a community.
J was called in as a sort of director and used to speak of her house as the 'domestic church'.
about this time also melania, losing her husband and two of her three children,
resolved to sacrifice all her wealth and spend the rest of her life in the holy land,
leaving her remaining childtobe provided for by God.
this was the beginning of the great 'roman emigration to the holy land,
in which J and paula presently played the chief part.
the desertion of her child by melania provoked an outburst of indignation in rome,
especially against J, who took her part;
it was, in fact, the moment at which his popularity began to wane.
the current began to set strongly against all this asceticism.
the more strongly because among the old families of senatorial rank
there still lingered a strong remnant of paganism,
resting not so much of religious conviction as a conservative support of the religion of ancient rome.
many of the senators, in fact, held priestly offices,
and it must have been a great mortification to them
to see their women folk not only christians,
but sacrificing both their wealth and their social position.
as for melania, she met in egypt rufinus, the former companion of J,
went with him to palestine and on the mount of olives they jointly founded
a monastery and a nunnery.
up to this time the learned J, the friend of the pope, had been marked out as his successor;
but in 384 (december) damasus died and siricius was elected by popular acclamation.
J's popularity was then dead.
the new pope discouraged asceticism.
blesilla, the widowed daughter of paula, J's special ally,
died from the effects of much fasting and popular indignation knew no bounds.
J was, they said, 'too free with his tongue, uncharitable, sly, a hypocrite, the arch monk..
to the tiber (river) with all the monks'.
so he decided to spend the rest of his days in the holy places of palestine
and the saintly paula and her daughter eustochium agreed to meet him there.
...(jerome's) monastery was rather a hostelry, to which the world might come and rest;
and it is here probably that J's influence on western monasticism is to be found.
he created an object lesson on monasticism at the most sacred spot in the world
and he invited the world to come and learn.
and the world came, for his hostelry was continually filled
with travellers from the west.
in consequence three great features of the catholic west appear now,
which have continued ever since:
the reverence for the monastic life
the reverence for sacred places and sacred things
and the habit of pilgrimages.
but there is no rule of st. jerome,
as the is of st. pachomius, st. basil or st. benedict
and no monastic order was named after him.
paula, on the contrary, though she followed mainly the rule of pachomius,
was practically the founder of nunneries,
and her convent served as a model for all time.
the psalter was repeated every day
five offices were held during the day and one in the night
potions of scripture had to be regularly learnt
the costume was woollen and uniform
mortification was enjoined
work was essential, consisting chiefly of the copying of MSS and the making of clothes for the poor.
lastly, all communication with the outside world was strictly forbidden.
what jerome did for the religious life was to press it on his followers,
to advise on it, to display it, but not to organize it.
still less did he do, like st. martin, missionary work in connection with it.
yet the western church looks back to him as being mainly responsible for it.
there are other ways also in which the great learning and influence of jerome
seems to have directed the current of western catholicism,
especially as regards the respect for authority,
of the pope in the first place
but also of the priesthood generally.
...the volume of J in the lille edition quotes at great length
a devotional passage to the blessed virgin,
which is quite like mediaeval or modern devotion;
making her not only Mother of God,
but also Queen of Heaven, pattern an protectress of mankind;
whose aid is to be directly invoked
and even calling her the living image of God...according to migne the letter is spurious.
as regards the need of the monks in the church, montalambert says,
'the roman empire without the barbarians was an abyss of servitude and corruption;
the barbarians with the monks were chaos.
the barbarians and the monks united recreated a world which was to be called christendom'.
we are apt to suppose that in the monasteries great masses of men
were hidden away in seclusion,
who might have been more actively employed in fighting for the cause of the church;
but besides holding up a high standard,
they were always at work
and when the occasion justified it, they emerged,
sometimes individually, sometimes collectively,
from their retreats to join in the fight.
thus st. antony came to alexandria on the invitation of athanasius, to preach against the arians.
when antioch was under the sentence of theodosius,
the monks came EN MASSE out of the desert and caused the suspension of the sentence.
sometimes less wisely they came into the cities and joined in a religious riot.
telemachus, when honorius revived the gladiatorial contests at rome,
came all the way from the east, and threw himself between the gladiators.
he was stoned to death by the populace, but the contests were never again revived.
many of the great bishops of the age also had served their time in retreats
and J with his controveries and commentaries
was a living power all through the bethlehem period.
in 383, jerome replied to a pamphlet by one, helvidius,
claiming that the brethren of Jesus were really His brothers
and that the virgin did not always remain so,
arguing that the state of virginity was therefore less blessed than that of marriage.
J replied at great length that the brethren were cousins or kinsfolk (bible?)
and that virginity was the highest state.
(note: he then called helvidius names.) with this exception
most of his controversial work came from his retreat at bethlehem
...in one response J noted that 'many bishops refused to ordain an unmarried man,
which refusal became subsequently the general greek custom.
also we read that it was universal in the eastern churches,
to light candles as a sign of joy at the gospel...'
jerome was a voracious reader, gifted apparently with a wonderful memory;
he was also a most industrious writer and a patient scholar;
for he acquired a complete knowledge of both hebrew and aramaic.
but he had no talent for historical criticism, nor did he care much for theology.
...but in his translations he had absolute confidence in his own judgment
and maintained strictly his independence.
thierry says that he was the last great man of the early church;
augustine certainly survived him for a few years, but was practically his contemporary
and when both had died, 'darkness fell on the west'.
the main interest lies in his 150 Letters
and his translation of the bible into latin, known ever since as the Vulgate.
the letters, with the exception of those that were controversial or exegetic,
form really an autobiography
and practically everything we know of the personal incidents of his life comes from them,
especially his relation to his various friends and enemies.
at the request of damasus, he revised the current translation of the new testament
and also the psalm by reference to the septuagint,
and his translation of the psalms was at once adopted as the roman psalter.
during his first jew years at bethlehem he made a further collation of the bible,
with the help of origen's hexapla and by reference to the hebrew.
probably he dealt with the whole bible, but this is uncertain,
as only job, the psalms and a preface to the books of solomon have come down to us.
but this translation of the psalms was soon adopted in gaul for general use
and was therefore known as the gallican psalter.
in rome it was not brought into church use till 1566,
but it found its place early in the vulgate
to the exclusion of J's direct translation from the hebrew.
the final work, the vulgate itself, came from his recognition of
the insufficiency of all translations from the greek
and in order to carry it out he perfected his previous moderate knowledge of hebrew...
...greatest work..the bible correctly translated into the vulgar tongue (the Vulgate).
for not only was latin at that time the general language of the west,
but right through the middle ages it was the language of the educated,
so that any one who could read at all could probably read latin.
he had the advantage not only of the environment of the sacred places,
or his own profound learning and constant study,
but also the aid of the rabbinical college at tiberias.
the earliest latin translation seems to have come,
like all other beginnings of latin christianity,
in the middle of the second century from africa;
but owing to its provincialism,a new version of at any rate the gospels
was issued by authority in north italy in the fourth century and known as the itala.
many minor revisions were also made without authority,
so that in the time of J there was great confusion in the MSS.
and now that east and west were drifting apart both in church and state,
it was of the utmost importance that a correct bible would be secured for the west in time.
jerome was the one man best suited for this work
and devoted 14 years of his life to doing it.
finally the east profited also, as sophronius translated the vulgate into greek.
the new testament of j was not a new translation,
but a correction of the old latin by recourse to the greek.
the apocrypha J repudiated.
consequently this remained in the language of the old version..
but the canonical old testament was entirely re edited from the hebrew.
naturally it met with a great deal of opposition
and he was accused of innovating and of upsetting the very foundations of the faith.
even augustine preferred to go on expounding the old version,
to which his hearers were accustomed
and wrote to J advising him to revise the septuagint translations
rather than translate afresh.
J's bible gradually made its way, tolerated at first rather than adopted.
but even in the eight century it had hardly come into general use.
and, further, corruptions crept into it, as into the old versions.
in 802 alcuin was ordered by charlemagne, who is thought to have personally assisted in the work,
to restore the vulgate itself to its original state;
which he did with fair accuracy.
in 1546 the council of trent decreed that all MSS, but especially the vulgate
or old and common edition,
should be printed as correctly as possible.
in 1590 sixtus V brought out a new revision,
which he ordered to be the only authorized version of the roman catholic church.
as has already been said, till the sixteenth century (1566)
J's translation of the psalms, known as the gallican psalter,
was not taken over by the roman church,
so that up to that time the old roman psalter (his revision from the septuagint)
remained in church uses although the gallican psalter had got into the vulgate.
the version of the psalms in the english prayer book is taken from the 'Great english bible' of 1540,
which was a translation of the vulgate,
and therefore differs from the authorized version (kjv).
in either case (rome of the 4th and england of the 16th century)
there was a reluctance to give up familiar versions,
in everyday use and learnt by heart,
in favour of later direct translations.
jerome's view of the bible was this:
'all that we read in the scripture is light;
even when we do not go below the surface.
but it is in its marrow that its great treasures are hidden.
you must break the shell in order to reach the kernel'..
in 404 the vulgate was finished and paula was dead.
during the remaining 16 years of his life, jerome saw much trouble,
although his influence on the church deepened
and the range of his correspondence widened.
the private means of both paula and himself were exhausted
and it became difficult to make both ends meet,
especially to maintain the hospitality that was expected of him.
when the terrible sack of rome by alaric and his goths came in 410
and numbers of romans fled to palestine,
the burden became still more serious.
...pelagian monks attacked and partially destroyed the monasteries at bethlehem.
then J's health and eyesight failed him and in 418 eustochium died.
he seemed to have outlived all his early friends and associates.
at last, in 420, after an illness of twelve months, J died too
(...augustine's friendship of his last years hopefully cheered and encouraged him).
up to the end he continued his commentaries with unabated vigour,
and when he died he left that on jeremiah unfinished.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment