Tlie inrtuence which Jerome exerted on his contem- poraries, the prominence which they assigned him, and the regard which the Christian Church has ever since bestowed upon him, may be justifieil in view of the customs of the period in which he lived. It is by considering both the sunny and shadow}'- side, not only of his own life, but also of the Ciiristian Church in the 4th century, that we can accord to him a place among the great teachers and holy men of the early Church, and can afford to overlook the glaring incon- sistencies and violent passions which disfigure him so greatly, and which have inclined Protestant writers not unfrequently to call him " a Church father of doubtful character." We think Dr.Vilmar {Juhrbiicher deutsch- er Theol. x, 746) has best delineated Jerome's character when he says, " Jerome yielded to the spirit which an- imated the Church in his day, and willingly intrusted his spiritual development to her care in so far as he lacked independent judgment. And it is in tliis that his greatness consists, in his ability well to discern the true wants and opinions of his day from the vacillating views of the masses, and the capricious inclinations of the men of momentary power. No opposition could move him from the defence of anything when once dis-
cerned by him as a truth. . . . Where he judged him- self to be in the right, he manifested the energy worthy of a Roman, even though the world was against him." 'I'hus he hesitated not to encounter the opposition of all Rome when once he believed it to be his duty to come forward as a promoter of monasticism "in a country where it was as yet but little loved, in the great cai)ital, where the rigidly ascetic tendency came into collision with the propensities and uiterests of many," and where " he coidd not fail, even on this score, to incur the ha- tred of numbers, both of the clergy and laity" (Neander, ii, 683). Still, to his praise be it said, that however greatly we regret this attitude of Jerome in behalf of monachism, which, at this early ])eriod of the life of the Christian Church, may be pardoned on the ground that such great personal sacrifices and privations were the only proofs which the young convert could bring to evince his earnestness and zeal for the cause of his blas- ter, yet " no one has denounced, no one has branded more energetically than he the false monks, the false penitents, the false widows and virgins. lie points out with a bold hand all the faults and dangers of the institution," so far, of course, as an advocate of monasticism could have ventured to do it at all (compare Jlontalembcrt, Monks of the West, i, 406 sq. ; Lea, Celibacy, p. 72 sq.). Jerome, in short, was in the service of the popular opin- ion, and yet never yielded to the opinion of the day. In the opinion of Neander, Jerome's "better qualities were obscured by the great defects of his character, by his mean passions, his easily offended vanity, his love of controversy and of rule, his pride, so often concealed under the garb of humility." Much milder is the judg- ment of Dr. SchafF, who pronoimces Jerome " indeed an accomplished and most serviceable scholar, and a zealous enthnsiust for all ivhich his age counted holy . . , . and that he reflected with the virtues the fail- ings also of his age and of the monastic system," adding in a foot-note that "among later Protestant historians opinion has become somewliat more favorable," though he again modifies this statement by saying that tliis has reference "rather to his learning than to his moral character."
The Vulgate. — Jerome gave also great offence to his contemporaries by his attempt to correct the Latin ver- sion of the Bible, then " become greatly distorted by the blending together of different translations, the mixing up with each other of ttie different tiospels, and the igno- rance of transcribers." Tliis he successfully completed, and it is regarded by all Biblical sdiolars as "by far the most important anil valuai)le" work of Jerome, in it- self constituting "an immortal service"' to the Clnistian Church. "Above all his contcuiiioraries, and even all his successors down to tlie lOth century, Jerome, by his linguistic knowledge, his Oriental travel, and his entire culture, was best fitted, and, in fact, the only man to un- dertake and successfully execute so gigantic a task — a task which just then, with the approaching separa- tion of East and West, antl the decay of the knowledge of the original languages of the Bible in Latin Christen- dom, was of the highest necessity. Here, as so often in history, we ])lainly discern the hand of divine Prov- idence" (Schafi'). He had been urged to undertake this work by bishop Damasus, and it was commenced, as already noted, while Jerome was yet a resident at Rome, and had there amended the translation of the Gospels and the Psalms. In his retreat at Bethlehem he extended this work to the whole Bible, supjiorted in his task, it is generally believed, by the Hexapla of Or- igen, which he is supposed to have obtained from the library at Cicsarea. " Even this was a bold inidertak- ing, by which he must expose himself to being loaded with reproaches on the part of those who, in their igno- rance, which they identified with a pious simplicity, were wont to condemn every deviation from the traditional text, however necessary or salutary it might be. They were very ready to see, in any change of the only text which was known to them, a falsification, without in-