PROLEGOMENA TO JEROME.

I. INTRODUCTORY.

St. Jerome’s importance lies in the facts: (1) that he was the author of the Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin; (2) that he played a primary role in introducing the ascetic life A life characterized by self-discipline and abstention from worldly indulgences, often for religious reasons. into Western Europe; (3) that his writings, more than those of any other Church Father, reveal both the general and the ecclesiastical life of his time. It was a period of special interest—the final age of the old Greco-Roman civilization and the dawn of an altered world. This period included the reigns of Julian (361–363), Valens (364–378), Valentinian (364–375), Gratian (375–383), Theodosius (379–395) and his sons, the definitive establishment of orthodox Christianity in the Empire, and the sack of Rome by Alaric (410).

It was the age of the great Church Fathers: Ambrose and Augustine in the West; Basil, the Gregories, and Chrysostom in the East. Jerome had personal contact with several of these. He often speaks of Ambrose in his writings (see Apology i. 2, iii. 14; also this volume, pp. 74 and 496, Preface to Origen and St. Luke; the Preface to Didymus on the Holy Spirit; and On Illustrious Men, ch. 124). He carried on an important correspondence with Augustine (see Table of Contents). He studied under Gregory Nazianzen at the time of the Council of Constantinople in 381. He was acquainted with Gregory of Nyssa, and he translated the diatribe of Theophilus of Alexandria against Chrysostom.

Jerome ranks as one of the four Doctors of the Latin Church, and his influence has been the most enduring. Although he was not a great original thinker like Augustine, nor a champion like Ambrose, nor an organizer and spreader of Christianity like Gregory, his influence outlasted theirs. Their impact in the Middle Ages was confined to a relatively small circle, whereas the monastic institutions Jerome introduced, the value he placed on relics and sacred places, and the deference he showed for episcopal authority—especially that of the Roman Pontiff—remained the defining features of the Christian system for a thousand years. His Vulgate became the Bible of Western Christendom until the Reformation. To the theologian, he is interesting more for what he records than for any independent contribution to science, but to the historian, his vivid descriptions of people and events during an important and melancholic epoch are of inestimable value.

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II. CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.

*The references in this section, where numbers alone are given, are to the year A.D.*

It is useful to preface this introduction with an account of St. Jerome’s era. General history and ecclesiastical history should not be kept too far apart.

Jerome was born during the troubled times following the death of Constantine (337), before Constantius became sole Emperor (353). He was still a schoolboy during the reign of Julian (361–363) and when he heard of his death. During his student life at Rome, Jovian and Valentinian were Emperors; at Trier (Treves), where he later stayed, the latter Emperor held his court. His first letter refers to a scene in which Ambrose, then Prefect of Liguria, appears to have taken part (370). His settlement at Aquileia corresponds with the law of Valentinian restraining legacies to the clergy (370). He traveled to the East in the year of the death of Athanasius (373). During his time in the desert and at Antioch (374–380), the death of Valentinian occurred, as did the defeat and death of his brother Valens at the Battle of Adrianople, the elevation of Theodosius to the imperial purple, and the call of Gregory Nazianzen to Constantinople.

He was ordained by Paulinus, one of the three Bishops of Antioch, and studied under Apollinaris, thus touching on both of the chief points for which the Council of Constantinople was called (381). He was likely present at that Council as a disciple of its president, Gregory Nazianzen. He was also present at the Western Council held the following year in Rome under Pope Damasus, whose trusted counselor he became (pp. 233, 255). His later life, spent in Bethlehem (386–420), witnessed the division of the...