lations from the wTitings of the early Greek fathers, among which the most important are the Chronicle of Eusebius, and the homilies of Origen on Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It cost Jerome no small sacrifice to tear him- self away from his friend and instructor to return in 382 to Kome as mediator in the INIeletiau schism, which greatly agitated the Church of Antioch at this time. In a council which was convened at Rome Jerome took a prominent part, and afterwards acted as secretary to the Roman pontiff. By his adherence to Damasus, a close friendship sprang up between these two great men, which was broken only by the death of the pon- tiff. Some writers have criticised the conduct of Je- rome against the Eastern churches, and believe that Damasus purchased tlie influence of Jerome for his party ; but for this opinion, as well as for that of others, that the domineering manner of Damasus made Jerome pliant and servile, tliere are no good grounds; indeed, Jerome was too indepenilent and determined in char- acter ever to be swaj-ed in his opinion by the will of others. It is more likely that the flattery Avhich Dam- asus bestowed on Jerome by recognising his abilities as superior, and urging him to undertake those vast ex- egetical labors which finally resulted in presenting the Church \vitli a revised Latin version of the Bible (see below on the Vulriale), was what drew Jerome to Dam- asus, and made him one of the bishop's most faithful adherents.
Jerome's fame as a man of eloquence, learning, and sanctity was at this period in its zenith, and he im- proved his advantages to further the interests of mo- i nasticism. Everywhere he extolled the merit of that mode of life, though it liad hitherto found few ad- vocates at Rome, and the clergy had even violently opposed it. He commended monastic seclusion even against the will of i);irents, interpreting the word of the Lord about forsaking father and mother as if mo- nasticism and Christianity were the same. "Though thy mother, with flowing hair and rent garments, should show thee the breasts which have nourished thee; though thy father should lie upon the threshold ; yet depart thou, treading over thy father, and fly with dry eyes to the standard of the cross. . . . The love of God and the fear of hell easily rend the bonds of the household asunder. The holy Scripture indeed enjoins obedience to parents, but he who loves them more than Christ loses his soul. . . . O desert, -where the flowers of Christ are blooming! O solitude, where the stones for the new Jerusalem are prepared ! O re- treat, which rejoices in the friendship of God! What doest thou in the world, my brother, with thy soul greater than the world? How long wilt thou remain in the shadow of roofs, and in the smoky dungeon of cities? Believe me, I see here more of the light" (Ep. xiv). ]Many pious persons placed themselves under his spiritual direction; "even the senator Pammachius, son-in-law to Paula (one of Jerome's most celebrated female converts), and heir to a fortune, gave his goods to the poor, exchanged the jiurple for the cowl, exposed himself to the mockery of his colleagues, and became, in the flattering language of Jerome, the general-in- chief of Roman monks, the first of monks in the first of cities" (Schaff, ii, 211). His converts for the monastic life were, however, mainly of the female sex, and mostly daughters and widows of the most wealthy and honora- ble classes of Rome. These patrician converts " he gathered as a select circle around him ; he expounded to them the holy Scriptures, in which some of those Roman ladies were very well read; lie answered their questions of conscience ; he incited them to celibate life, lavish beneficence, and enthusiastic asceticism ; and flat- tered their spiritual vanity by extravagant praises. He was the oracle, biographer, admirer, and eulogist of these holy women, who constituted the spiritual nobility of Catholic Rome." . . . But " his intimacy with these distinguished women, whom he admired more, perhaps, than they admired him, together with his unsparing at-
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tacks upon the immoralities of the Roman clerjry and of the higher classes, drew upon liim much unjust cen- sure and groundless calumny, whicli he met ratlier with indignant scorn and satire than with (iiiict dignity and Christian meekness;" and when his patron Uamasus died, in A.D. 384, he found it necessary, or, at least, thought it the more prudent course, to ciuit IJomc, and to seek a home in the East. As " tlie solitudes of Europe were not yet sufficiently sanctified to satisfy a passion for holj^ seclusion," by which Jerome was now wliolly controlled, and "as the celebrity attending on ascetic privations was still cliietly confined to the Eastern •world, Jerome bade adieu to his native hills, to his he- reditary property, to pontifical Rome herself," and, after touching at Rhegium and Cyprus, where he enjoyed a visit with Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, and a short stay at Antioch, he continued his journey to the Holy Land, and finally settled in 38(5 at IJethlehem. " In a retreat so well qualified to nourish religious emotion even in the most torpid heart, the zeal of Jerome did not slumber, but rather seemed to catch fresh fire from the objects and the recollections whicli surroiuided him. . . . In that peacefid, pure, and pious solitude, where it ^vas natural enough that he should exaggerate the mer- its of mortification, and fasting, and celibacy, and pil- grimage, and disparage the substantial virtues, which he could rarely witness, and which he could never prac- tice," he gave himself up wholly to the further study of the sacred language, and here completed the great lit- erary labor of his life, the translation of the Scriptures. He was followed to this place by several of his lady friends, one of whom, Paula (q. v.), founded here four con- vents—three for nuns, one for monks — the last of which she placed under the care of Jerome. But his life, even in this retreat, was by no means a quiet or peaceful one : wild and awful as the abode was, it did not deter him from sending forth from these solitudes fiery and vehe- ment invectives not only against the opponents of Church orthodoxy, like Helvidius (against whom he had appeared before in 384), Jovinian (q. v.), Vigilan- tius (q. v.), and the Pelagians (q. v.), but he engaged in controversies even with his form3r friend Rufinus (q. v. ; see also Okigexistic Controversy), and in a moder- ate form even with St. Augustine (see Miihler, Vermischle Schriften, i, 1 sq. ; Hieron. Optra, ed. Yall,. i, 632 sq.) By his controversy with the Pelagians he had endan- gered his life, and he was obliged to flee from Bethle- hem, and to live in concealment for over two years. In 418 he returned again to his monastery at Bethlehem, worn out in body and mind by unceasing toil, privations, and anxieties, and, seized by sickness, his feeble frame soon gave way, and he died in 419 or 420 (some sav Sept. 30, 420)."