Complete Works of Saint Jerome, Vol. VII

COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. PROLOGUE.

A They themselves saw from the beginning the word, and served it Luke 1:1, 2: and the endurance of monuments down to the present time declares this, which, being published by diverse authors, were the beginnings of diverse heresies, such as that according to the Egyptians, and Thomas, and Matthias, and Bartholomew, and also the twelve apostles, and Basilides and Apelles, and the rest, whom it would be too long to enumerate: since it is necessary for the present to say only this, that certain men existed who, without the spirit and grace of God, attempted to organize a narrative rather than to weave the truth of history. To whom that prophetic word may justly be applied:

Woe to them who prophesy out of their own heart: who walk after their own spirit, who say: the Lord says this, and the Lord did not send them Ezekiel 13:3, 6. Of whom the Savior also speaks in the Gospel of John:

B > All who came before me were thieves and robbers John 10:8. Who "came": not those who were sent. For he himself says:

They were coming and I did not send them Jeremiah 14:14; 23:21. In those who came, there is the presumption of temerity; in those who were sent, there is the obedience of servitude. But the Church, which is founded upon the rock by the voice of the Lord, which the king introduced into his chamber Canticles 1:3, and to which he sent his hand through the hole of the secret descent Canticles 5:4, similar to a fawn and the young of hinds Canticles 2:9, belching forth the four rivers of paradise like Genesis 2:10, has four corners and four rings, through which, as if it were the Ark of the Covenant and the guardian of the Law of the Lord, it is carried by immobile unmoving/fixed poles Exodus 25:10.

C The first of all is Matthew, a tax collector by the name of Levi, who published the Gospel in Judea in the Hebrew Aramaic/Syriac tongue, especially for the sake of those who believed in Jesus from among the Jews, and who in no way observed the shadow of the Law, with the truth of the Gospel succeeding it. Second is Mark, the interpreter of the apostle Peter, and the first bishop of the Alexandrian Church, who indeed did not see the Lord the Savior himself, but narrated those things he had heard the master preaching, according to the faith of the deeds rather than their order. Third is Luke, a physician, a Syrian by nation from Antioch (whose praise is in the Gospel 2 Corinthians 8:18), who was himself a disciple of the apostle Paul, and in the parts of Achaia and Boeotia composed a volume, repeating some things from a higher source, and, as he himself confesses in the prologue, describing things heard rather than seen. D The last is John, the apostle and evangelist, whom Jesus loved most, who, reclining upon the breast of the Lord John 13:23; 21:25, drank from the purest streams of doctrine,