Prologue.

Column 1

Jerome’s Letter to Paulinus

Why should I speak of worldly men, when the apostle Paul—a vessel of election original: "vas electionis," a traditional title for St. Paul based on Acts 9:15 and teacher of the nations—who spoke from the consciousness of such a great guest within himself, saying: "Do you seek proof of him who speaks in me, Christ?" After wandering through Damascus and Arabia, he went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and stayed with him for fifteen days. For by this mystery of the seven and the eight Jerome is using numerological symbolism: 7+8=15. The "ogdoad" or eighth day often symbolizes the new creation or resurrection he, the future preacher to the nations, was to be instructed. And again, after fourteen years, taking Barnabas and Titus with him, he set forth the Gospel to the apostles, lest perhaps he should run, or had run, in vain. The act of the living voice has a certain hidden energy, and it sounds more forcefully when poured from the mouth of the author into the ears of the disciple. Hence, when Aeschines was in exile at Rhodes and that speech of Demosthenes was being read which he had delivered against him, while everyone was marveling and praising it, he said with a sigh: "What if you had heard the beast himself roaring his own words?"

And I say this, not because there is anything in me of such a kind that you could hear from me or would wish to learn, but because your ardor and zeal for learning ought to be proven by itself even without us. A teachable mind is praiseworthy even without a teacher. We consider not what you find, but what you seek. Soft wax is easy to mold even if the hands of the craftsman and modeler are still; yet, whatever it can become is entirely a matter of potential. The apostle Paul glories that he learned the law of Moses and the prophets at the feet of Gamaliel, so that, armed with spiritual weapons, he might afterward teach with confidence. "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but powerful to God for the destruction of fortresses," and for destroying thoughts and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing every intellect into captivity to obey Christ, and being ready to subdue all disobedience. He writes that Timothy was instructed in the holy scriptures from infancy, and exhorts him to the study of reading, lest he neglect the grace given to him through the laying on of hands by the priesthood. He instructs Titus that, among the other virtues of a bishop—which he depicted in a short discourse—he should not neglect the knowledge of the scriptures, saying that he should hold fast to the faithful word according to doctrine, so that he may be powerful to exhort in sound doctrine and to convince those who contradict it.

For indeed, a holy rusticity Jerome coins the term "sancta rusticitas" to describe a simple, uneducated faith that is pious but unable to defend the faith intellectually profits only itself; and as much as it builds up the church of Christ by the merit of its life, it does just as much harm if it does not resist those who would destroy it. The prophet Malachi—or rather the Lord through Malachi—questioned the priests about the law. To such an extent is it the duty of a priest to answer when questioned about the law. And in Deuteronomy we read: "Ask your father and he will announce it to you; your elders and they will tell you." Also in Psalm 118: "Your justifications were my songs in the place of my pilgrimage." And in the description of the righteous man, when David compared him to the tree of life which is in paradise, among other virtues he added this: "His will is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he will meditate day and night." Daniel, at the end of his most sacred vision, says: "The righteous shall shine like stars, and the intelligent (that is, the learned) like the firmament." You see how much distance there is between righteous rusticity and learned righteousness. Some are compared to stars, others to the heavens. Although according to the Hebrew Truth original: "hebraicam veritatem," Jerome’s term for the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament both can be understood as referring to the learned. For thus we read among them: "But those who have been learned shall shine like the splendor of the firmament; and those who instruct many unto righteousness, like stars for perpetual eternities." Why is Paul the apostle called a vessel

Column 2

of election? Surely because he was an armory of the law and of the holy scriptures. The Pharisees are stunned by the doctrine of the Lord, and they marvel at Peter and John, how they know the law since they have not learned letters. For whatever practice and daily meditation in the law usually grants to others, the Holy Spirit suggested to them. And they were (according to what is written) "taught by God." The Savior had reached twelve years of age, and sitting in the temple questioning the teachers on the law, he teaches more while he wisely questions. Unless perhaps we say that Peter was rustic and John was rustic—both of whom could say: "Even if I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not so in knowledge." John, the rustic, the unlearned fisherman—and from where, I ask, came that voice: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word"? Logos original Greek: λόγος in Greek signifies many things. For it is Word, and Reason, and Calculation, and the Cause of each thing, through which all individual things exist; all of which we rightly understand in Christ.

How? Plato did not know this; the eloquent Demosthenes was ignorant of it. "I will destroy," he says, "the wisdom of the wise, and I will reject the prudence of the prudent." True wisdom will destroy false wisdom. And although there is the "foolishness of preaching" in the cross, yet Paul speaks wisdom among the perfect. "But not the wisdom of this world, which is being destroyed, nor of the princes of this world; but he speaks the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, which God predestined before the ages." The wisdom of God is Christ. For Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This wisdom is hidden in a mystery, which is also noted in the title of a certain psalm, "for the hidden things of the son." In him are all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God hidden. And he who was hidden in a mystery was predestined before the ages; predestined, moreover, and prefigured in the law and the prophets. Hence the prophets were also called "seers," because they saw him whom others did not see. Abraham saw his day and rejoiced. The heavens were opened to Ezekiel, which were closed to a sinful people. "Open my eyes," says David, "and I will consider the wonders of your law." For the law is spiritual, and there is need of revelation so that it may be understood and that we may contemplate the glory of God with an unveiled face. In the Apocalypse, a book is shown sealed with seven seals; if you give it to a man who knows letters to read, he will answer you: "I cannot, for it is sealed." How many today think they know letters, yet they hold a sealed book and cannot open it unless he unlocks it who has the key of David, who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens. In the Acts of the Apostles, the holy eunuch—or rather, the holy man (for so the scripture names him)—when he was reading the prophet Isaiah, was asked by Philip: "Do you think you understand what you read?" He replied: "How can I, unless someone teaches me?" To speak of myself for a moment: I am neither holier than this eunuch nor more studious, who came from Ethiopia (that is, from the ends of the earth) to the temple, left the royal court, and was such a lover of the law and of divine knowledge that he read the sacred scriptures even in his carriage. And yet, while he held the book and conceived the words of the Lord in his thought, turned them with his tongue, and sounded them with his lips, he was ignorant of him whom he worshiped in the book without knowing it. Philip came and showed him Jesus, who lay hidden, enclosed in the letter. Oh, wonderful power of the teacher! In the same hour the eunuch believed, is baptized, becomes faithful and holy, and a teacher instead of a disciple; he found more in the desert fountain of the Church than in the gilded temple of the synagogue.