Prologue.

Column 1

These things have been touched upon briefly by me. For the constraints of a letter did not allow me to wander further; I wanted you to understand that you cannot enter the Holy Scriptures without a guide to show you the path. I say nothing of grammarians, rhetoricians, philosophers, geometricians, logicians, musicians, astronomers, astrologers, or physicians, whose knowledge is quite useful to mortals and is divided into three parts: theory, reasoning, and practice. I will turn to the lesser arts, which are managed not so much by the tongue as by the hand. Farmers, masons, blacksmiths, woodcutters, even wool-workers and launderers, and others who manufacture various household goods and cheap trifles, cannot become what they desire without a teacher. "Physicians promise what belongs to physicians; smiths handle the tools of the smith." Jerome is quoting the Roman poet Horace (Epistles 2.1.115-116) to argue that while every craft requires training, people wrongly assume the Bible requires none. Only the art of the Scriptures is one which everyone everywhere claims for themselves. "Learned and unlearned alike, we write poems everywhere." Another quote from Horace (Epistles 2.1.117). The chatty old woman, the doting old man, the wordy sophist—everyone presumes to master it, tears it apart, and teaches it before they have even learned it. Some, with knit brows, weighing out grand words, philosophize about the Holy Letters among groups of women. Others learn (for shame!) from women what they would teach to men. And as if this were not enough, with a certain fluency of words—or rather, audacity—they explain to others what they do not understand themselves. I say nothing of those like me, who, if they happen to come to the Holy Scriptures after studying secular literature, and have charmed the ears of the people with a polished speech, think that whatever they say is the law of God. They do not deign to know what the prophets or apostles intended, but fit incongruous testimonies to their own meaning; as if it were a grand thing, rather than a most faulty style of speaking, to corrupt sentences and drag Holy Scripture to one’s own will even when it resists. As if we had not read the "Homer-Centos" or "Virgil-Centos" A "Cento" was a poem made by stitching together lines from famous authors like Homer or Virgil to create a new story. Jerome compares bad Bible interpreters to these literary "patchwork" poets., or as if we could not call Virgil a "Christian without Christ" because he wrote: "Now the Virgin returns, the reign of Saturn returns; now a new offspring is sent down from high heaven," original: "Iam redit & virgo..." from Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, often interpreted by medieval Christians as a prophecy of the Virgin Birth. or portrayed the Father speaking to the Son: "Son, my strength, my great power alone," original: "Nate meæ vires..." from the Aeneid. and after the words of the Savior on the cross: "Such things he persisted in saying, and remained fixed." original: "Talia perstabat..." from the Aeneid. These things are childish and similar to the tricks of street performers: to teach what you are ignorant of—indeed (to speak with some irritation), not even to know that you do not know.

Chapter vii.

Clearly, Genesis is manifest, in which the creation of the world, the beginning of the human race, the division of the earth, and the confusion of tongues are described, down to the descent of the Hebrews into Egypt. Exodus is open with its ten plagues, the Decalogue, and its mystical and divine precepts. The book of Leviticus is at hand, in which every single sacrifice—indeed, almost every single syllable—and the garments of Aaron, and the entire Levitical order, breathe forth heavenly mysteries. Do not Numbers, indeed, contain the mysteries of all arithmetic, and the prophecy of Balaam, and the forty-two stations through the wilderness? Deuteronomy, indeed, the "Second Law" and a prefigurement of the Gospel law, does it not so contain the things that came before that all things from the old are nevertheless new? Thus far Moses; thus far the Pentateuch The first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy., with which "five words" the Apostle [Paul] boasts he wishes to speak in the church. Job, the model of patience, what mysteries does he not embrace in his speech? It begins in prose, glides into verse, and ends in prose; and it determines all the laws of logic by proposition, assumption, confirmation, and conclusion. Every single word in it is full of meaning. And to be silent about the rest, he so prophesies the resurrection of bodies that no one has written of it more clearly or carefully:

Column 2

"I know," he says, "that my Redeemer lives, and on the last day I shall rise from the earth; and again I shall be clothed with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see God: whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. This hope is laid up in my bosom." Jerome quotes Job 19:25-27 as a definitive proof of the physical resurrection. I come to Joshua original: "Iesum Naue" (Joshua son of Nun). In Latin and Greek, the names Joshua and Jesus are the same, leading Jerome to see Joshua as a "type" or foreshadowing of Christ., who bears a type of the Lord not only in his deeds but even in his name. He crosses the Jordan, subverts the kingdoms of enemies, and divides the land among the victorious people; and through every city, village, mountain, river, torrent, and border, he describes the spiritual kingdoms of the Church and the heavenly Jerusalem. In the book of Judges, there are as many figures as there are leaders of the people. Ruth the Moabite fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah, saying: "Send forth the lamb, O Lord, the ruler of the earth, from the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Zion." Samuel, in the death of Eli and the killing of Saul, shows the Old Law abolished. Furthermore, in Zadok and David, he witnesses the mysteries of a new priesthood and a new empire. Kings original: "Malachim," the Hebrew title for the Books of Kings., that is the third and fourth books of Kings, describes the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel from Solomon to Jeconiah, and from Jeroboam son of Nebat to Hoshea, who was led away to the Assyrians. If you look at the history, the words are simple; if you look at the hidden sense in the letters, the smallness of the Church and the wars of heretics against the Church are narrated. The Twelve Prophets, compressed into the narrow space of a single volume, prefigure much else than what they sound like in the literal letter.

Hosea frequently names Ephraim, Samaria, Joseph, Jezreel, and the fornicating wife and the children of fornication, and the adulteress shut in her husband's chamber, sitting a widow for a long time, waiting under mourning clothes for the return of her husband to her. Joel son of Pethuel describes the land of the twelve tribes consumed and wasted by the palmerworm, the cankerworm, the locust, and the blight; and after the overturning of the former people, he says the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon the servants and handmaids of God—that is, upon the names of the one hundred and twenty believers—and poured out in the Upper Room of Zion. Those one hundred and twenty, rising gradually and by increments from one to fifteen, make up the number of the fifteen steps Jerome links the 120 believers at Pentecost (Acts 1:15) to the fifteen "Psalms of Ascent" (Psalms 120–134) sung by pilgrims going up to the Temple., which is mystically contained in the Psalter. Amos, a shepherd and a rustic, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit, cannot be explained in a few words. For who can worthily express the "three and four crimes" of Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, and the children of Ammon and Moab, and in the seventh and eighth degree, of Judah and Israel? He speaks to the fat cows that are in the mountain of Samaria, and witnesses that the greater and lesser house will fall. He himself sees the maker of the locust, and the Lord standing upon a plastered or adamantine wall, and the one drawing a hook of fruit, bringing punishments upon sinners; and a famine in the land—not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of God. Obadiah, which is interpreted as "servant of the Lord," thunders against Edom and the bloody and earthly brother; he also strikes with a spiritual spear the brother of Jacob, who was always a rival. Jonah, the most beautiful dove, prefiguring the Passion of the Lord by his own shipwreck, calls the world back to repentance and announces salvation to the nations under the name of Nineveh. Micah of Moresheth, a co-heir of Christ, announces the devastation of the "daughter of the robber," and places a siege against her because she struck the jaw of the judge of Israel. Nahum, the "comforter" of the world, rebukes the "city of bloods," and after its overturning, speaks: "Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that brings good tidings and announces peace." Habakkuk, a strong and rigid wrestler, stands upon his watchtower and fixes his step upon the fortification so that he may contemplate Christ on the cross and say: "His glory covered the hea—"