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JEROME’S PREFACE.

Haggai

Haggai is festive and joyful; he is one who "sowed in tears so that he might reap in joy." original: qui seminavit in lacrymis, ut in gaudio meteret. A reference to Psalm 126:5. He rebuilds the destroyed temple and introduces God the Father speaking: "Yet once more, in a little while, and I will shake the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will move all nations, and the Desired One shall come to all nations." Haggai 2:6-7. Jerome interprets the "Desired One" as Christ.

Zechariah

Zechariah, mindful of his Lord, is complex in his prophecy. He sees Jesus In the Latin Vulgate, the name "Joshua" (the High Priest) is written as "Jesus," allowing Jerome to see him as a symbol of Christ. clothed in filthy garments, and a stone with seven eyes; he sees a golden lampstand with as many lamps as there are eyes. He also beholds two olive trees on the left and right of the lamp. Thus, after visions of horses—black, red, white, and dappled—and the scattered chariots from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, he prophesies and proclaims a "poor king" sitting upon the foal of a donkey, the offspring of a beast of burden.

Malachi

Malachi speaks clearly, and as the last of all the prophets, he speaks of the rejection of Israel and the calling of the Gentiles: "I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not receive an offering from your hand. For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, my name is great among the Gentiles; and in every place, a pure offering is sacrificed and offered to my name."

Isaiah

Who can either understand or explain Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel? Of these, the first seems to me not to be weaving a prophecy, but an Evangel The Gospel..

Jeremiah

The second, Jeremiah, sees a rod of almond and a boiling pot facing away from the north; he depicts a leopard stripped of its colors, and weaves a fourfold alphabet in various meters. Jeremiah refers here to the book of Lamentations, which contains four acrostic poems where each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Ezekiel

The third, Ezekiel, has beginnings and endings involved in such great obscurities that, among the Hebrews, these parts—along with the start of Genesis—are not read by anyone under the age of thirty.

Daniel

The fourth, Daniel, who is the final one among the four major prophets, is conscious of the times and announces the phasin original: φάσιν. A Greek term meaning "appearance," "phase," or "unfolding order," here referring to the sequence of world empires. of the whole world. In clear speech, he proclaims the stone cut from the mountain without hands, which subverts all kingdoms.

David

David is our Simonides, Pindar, and Alcaeus, our Horace original: Flaccus. The Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus., Catullus, and Serenus; he makes Christ resound upon his lyre, and on the ten-stringed psaltery, he summons the rising Christ from the depths.

Proverbs. Ecclesiastes. Song of Songs. Esther.

Solomon, the peaceable and the beloved of the Lord, corrects morals, teaches the nature of things, joins the Church and Christ, and sings a sweet wedding song original: epithalamium. for their holy marriage.
Esther, as a symbol of the Church, delivers her people from danger; after Haman (whose name means "iniquity") is slain, she passes down the parts of the feast and a day of celebration to posterity.

Chronicles

The book of Chronicles original: Paralipomenon. From the Greek meaning "things omitted," as these books supplement the books of Kings., that is, an epitome original: ἐπιτομή. A summary or abridgment. of the Old Testament, is of such importance that if anyone wishes to claim knowledge of the Scriptures without it, he only mocks himself. Indeed, through individual names and the connections of words, histories omitted in the books of Kings are touched upon, and innumerable questions regarding the Gospel are explained.

Ezra. Nehemiah.

Ezra and Nehemiah—the "helper" and "comforter" from the Lord—are compressed into a single volume. They restore the temple and build the walls of the city. All that crowd of people returning to their fatherland, the descriptions of the priests, the Levites of Israel, and the proselytes, and the work on the walls and towers divided among individual families—these things present one thing on the "bark" The outer surface or literal meaning. but hold another in the "marrow" The inner spiritual or allegorical meaning.. You see that I have been seized by the love of the Scriptures and have exceeded the limits of a

letter, and yet I have not fulfilled what I intended. We have heard only what we ought to know and desire, so that we also might be able to say:

Ps. 118.

"My soul has longed to desire your justifications at all times." For the rest, that Socratic saying is fulfilled in us: "This only I know: that I know nothing."

Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John.

I shall also briefly touch upon the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the "chariot of the Lord" and the true Cherubim (which means "a multitude of knowledge"). They are covered with eyes over their whole bodies; sparks flash, lightnings run to and fro, they have straight feet pointing upward, and winged backs flying everywhere. They hold one another and are intertwined, and like "a wheel within a wheel" they roll on, proceeding wherever the breath of the Holy Spirit leads them.

Paul the Apostle.

Paul the Apostle wrote to seven churches; for the eighth, the letter to the Hebrews, is placed outside that number by many. He instructs Timothy and Titus, and intercedes for a runaway slave with Philemon. Concerning him, I think it is better to remain silent than to write too little.

Acts of the Apostles. 2 Cor. 8.

The Acts of the Apostles seem to sound like a bare history and to weave the infancy of the nascent Church; but if we realize their writer is Luke the physician (whose praise is in the Gospel), we will similarly notice that all his words are medicine for a languishing soul.

James. Peter. John. Jude.

James, Peter, John, and Jude published seven epistles, as mystical as they are succinct; they are both brief and long—brief in words, but long in meaning—so that there are few who do not find themselves blind while reading them.

Revelation

The Revelation of John has as many mysteries original: sacramenta. as it has words. I have said too little, for all praise is inferior to the merit of the volume. Multiple layers of understanding lie hidden in every single word. I pray you, dearest brother, to live among these things, to meditate upon them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else. Does it not seem to you that this is already a dwelling place of the heavenly kingdom here on earth? I do not want you to be offended by the simplicity and, as it were, the lowliness of the language in the Holy Scriptures, which was brought forth this way—either by the fault of translators or by design—so that it might more easily instruct a simple congregation, and that in one and the same sentence, the learned might hear one thing and the unlearned another. I am not so bold or dull as to promise that I know these things and can harvest their fruits, for their roots are fixed in heaven; but I confess that I want to. I place myself before one who sits idle; while refusing to be a master, I promise to be a companion. "To him who asks, it is given; to him who knocks, it is opened; he who seeks, finds."

Matt. 7. Luke 11.

Let us learn on earth those things whose knowledge will remain with us in heaven. I will receive you with open arms, and—to speak somewhat foolishly and with the "swelling" vanity of a rhetorician like Hermagoras—whatever you seek, I will strive to know it along with you. You have here your most loving brother Eusebius, who has doubled the grace of your letters to me. He tells of the honesty of your character, your contempt for the world, your faithfulness in friendship, and your love for Christ. For as for your wisdom and the beauty of your eloquence, even without him, your letter itself displayed those. Hurry, I beg you, and rather cut than untie the rope of your little boat stuck in the surf. No one who is about to renounce the world can well sell the things he has despised in order to sell them. Whatever you take from your own funds for expenses, count it as profit. It is an ancient saying: "The miser lacks what he has as much as what he does not have." To the believer, the whole world is a treasury of riches; but the unfaithful man lacks even a penny. Let us live so...

VIII.

Prov. 17. 2 Cor. 6.