The Empire of the West might now be compared to a ship heaving to and fro in a troubled sea, encompassed by enemies and without captain or rudder. Britain had revolted in 409. From 409 to 413 Gaul was a prey to revolutions, and the usurper Constantine was with difficulty overcome by the Roman General Constantius, only to be followed by fresh usurpers, Jovinus, Sebastian, and Attalus. The Count Heraclian dared to invade Rome itself in 413, though defeat and death were the penalty. One by one the provinces of the Empire passed into the hands of the barbarians. The Goths settled in Aquitaine and in Spain; the Vandals turned down into Africa; the Burgundians settled in the East and North of France, and the Franks in the centre. The ruin of the Empire of the West was practically consummated at the time of Jerome's death in 419, though sixty years of disaster and disgrace intervened before its final extinction.
Meanwhile the distressed condition of Italy had driven large numbers of persons, especially of the clergy and the upper classes of society, to take refuge in the East, so as almost to justify Thierry's designation of the movement as an emigration to the Holy Land. Jerome and his friends received this tide of fugitives at Bethlehem, and corresponded with those left behind; and thus the evils of the time made the Solitary of the East the chief Doctor of the West.
III.--Life of Jerome.
The figures in parentheses, when not otherwise indicated, refer to the pages in this volume.
For a full account of the Life, the translator must refer to an article (Hieronymus) written by him in Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography. A shorter statement may suffice here, since the chief sources of information are contained in this volume, and to these reference will be continually made.
Childhood and Youth. A.D. 345. Jerome was born at Stridon, near Aquileia, but in Pannonia, a place which was partially destroyed in the Gothic invasion of 377 (On Illustrious Men, 135, Vol. iii. p. 304). Jerome's own property, however, remained, though in a ruinous state, in 397 (140). His father Eusebius (Ill. Men, as above) and his mother were Catholic Christians (492), but he was not baptised in infancy. The family was moderately wealthy, possessing houses (140) and slaves (Apol. i. 30, Vol. iii. p. 498), and was intimate with the richer family from which sprang Bonosus, Jerome's foster brother and friend (6). The parents were living in 373 when Jerome first went to the East (35), but probably died at the destruction of Stridon. He had a brother, Paulinian, twenty years his junior (140, 173), and we read of a sister (8, 9), and an aunt named Castorina (13).
He received a good education, but declares that he was an idle boy (Vol. iii. 498). He was at a grammar school when the Emperor Julian died (Comm. on Habakkuk iii. 14) and soon after went to Rome with his friend Bonosus (6), where he studied rhetoric (at that time the all-embracing pursuit) under Ælius Donatus (Vol. iii. 491), and frequented 363 the law-courts (Comm. on Gal., ii. 13).
363-66. He fell into sin (9, 15, 78), but was drawn into the company of young Christians who on Sundays visited the tombs of the martyrs in the Catacombs (Com. on Ezek., ch. 40, v. 5), and is believed to have been baptised by the Pope Liberius in 366 (20). He was already a keen student, though as yet having little knowledge of Greek (Rufinus Apol. ii. 9, Vol. iii. p. 464), and had begun the acquisition of a library (35).
366-70. From Rome Jerome went with Bonosus to Gaul, passing, however, through Northern Italy, where they made acquaintance with Rufinus, probably at his native place, Concordia (Ep. v. 2, comp. with iii. 3, pp. 7, 11). He stayed at Treves (7), and travelled in its neighbourhood (394), and copied mss., and wrote a mystical Commentary on Obadiah (401).
Aquileia. Returning probably by Vercellæ (1) to Italy he was for three years at Aquileia, where he entered definitively upon the twin pursuits of his life, Scriptural study and the fostering of asceticism.
370-73. A society of congenial minds gathered round him, comprising Rufinus, Bonosus, Heliodorus (afterwards Bishop of Altinum), Chromatius (afterwards Bishop of Aquileia), and his brother Eusebius, and the Archdeacon Jovinus, the monk Chrysogonus, the sub-deacon Niceas, Innocentius, and Hylas, the freedman of the wealthy but ascetic Roman lady, Melania, together with Evagrius (afterwards Bishop of Antioch), who had come to Italy with Eusebius, Bishop of Vercellæ, on his return from exile. For the mention of these in various parts of Jerome's works, the Index must be consulted. These ascetics did not form a monastery. There were as yet no Orders or Rules. The vow was merely a "purpose" (propositum) which each privately took on himself and the terms of which each man freely prescribed. The Greek word Monachus (Monk) was used, but only implied living a single or separate life. Some were hermits (5, 9, 247), some lived in cities (121, 250). Jovinian was a monk, though antiascetic (378); Heliodorus (91) and John of Jerusalem (174) were monks, though Bishops. Some members of the ascetic society at Aquileia may have resided in the same house; but there was no cenobitic discipline. Jerome visited Stridon and the neighbouring town of Æmona (12), and perhaps resided at his native place for a time, but he complains of the worldliness of the people of his native town and of the opposition of their Bishop, Lupicinus (8 n. 10). The friends at Aquileia were united in the closest friendship.
373. Rufinus' baptism (7, Ruf. Ap. i. 4, Vol. iii. 436) and the writing of Jerome's first letter on "the woman seven times struck with the axe" are the only incidents which have come down to us of this period. We only know that the society was broken up by some event which Jerome speaks of as "a sudden storm," and "a monstrous rending asunder" (5).
Jerome determined on going to the East with Evagrius and Heliodorus; Innocentius, Niceas, and Hylas accompanied him (1, 5, 6, 10). Chromatius, Eusebius, and Jovinus remained in Italy. Bonosus retired to an island in the Adriatic, where he lived the life of a hermit (5, 9). Rufinus went to Egypt and subsequently to Palestine in the company of Melania (6, 7). Jerome and his companions travelled through Thrace, Pontus, Bithynia, Galatia, at the capital of which (Ancyra) he appears to have stayed (497), Cappadocia, and Cilicia, to Antioch, their haven of rest (5). But they did not long remain together. Heliodorus made a journey to Jerusalem, where he was the guest of Florentius (6).
374. Jerome was in ill health, and at length, in the middle of Lent (36), fell into a fever of which he nearly died. To this illness belongs his anti-Ciceronian dream (36, Apol. ii. 6, Vol. iii. 462), which finally determined him to abandon secular learning and devote himself to sacred studies. The successive deaths of Innocentius and Hylas left Jerome alone with Evagrius, at whose country house he fell in with the ancient hermit Malchus (315), and was encouraged by him in the ascetic tendency. He hoped to see Rufinus, wrote to him through Florentius (4, 6), but he did not come; and he determined to embrace the life of solitude. Heliodorus had some thought of accompanying him, but, to Jerome's great chagrin) felt the call to pastoral work to be the stronger, and returned to Italy (8, 13, 123).
The Desert. 374-379. Jerome spent the next five years in the Desert of Chalcis, to the east of Antioch (7). It was peopled by hermits who, though living apart for most purposes, were under some kind of authority (4, 21). Jerome wrote to their head, Theodosius, begging to be admitted into their company (4). His life while in the desert was one of rigorous penance, of tears and groans alternating with spiritual ecstasy, and of temptations from the haunting memories of Roman life (24, 25); he lived in a cell or cavern; he earned his daily bread, and was clad in sackcloth (21, 24), but he was not wholly cut off from converse with men. He saw Evagrius frequently (7, 8); he wrote and received letters and books (7, 11); he learned Hebrew from a converted Jew (Ep. xviii. 10), and copied and translated the Gospel according to the Hebrews (Ill. Men, 2, 3, Vol. iii. 362), and his brother solitaries he found only too accessible (Ep. xvii. 3). Towards the close of his sojourn he became involved in the controversies then agitating the Church at Antioch, where Arian Vitalis, the orthodox but Arian-ordained Meletius, and the Western Paulinus disputed the possession of the bishopric (20). Jerome found himself beset with demands for a confession of faith in terms strange to his Western education (19, 20). He appealed to Pope Damasus for advice (19, 20); but he and his friends found his position intolerable. They would rather, he says, live among wild beasts than among Christians such as those about them. In the autumn of 378 he wrote to Marcus, then head of the eremite community, to say that he only begged for the "hospitality of the desert" for a few months: in the spring he would be gone (21).
379. Accordingly, in the spring of 379 he came to Antioch and attached himself to the party of Paulinus, the Western and orthodox Bishop, who ordained him presbyter, though he then and always afterwards declined the active ministry (446). He pursued his studies under the celebrated Apollinarius of Laodicæa, though not accepting his views (176), and wrote his "Dialogue against the Luciferians" (319-334).
Constantinople. 380. The next year Jerome went, with his Bishop, Paulinus, to Constantinople, and was there during the Second General Council, at which the views of his teacher, Apollinarius, were condemned, and sentence was passed in the cause of his Bishop. He placed himself under the teaching of Gregory Nazianzen (80, 93, 357; Ill. Men, 117), and became acquainted with Gregory of Nyssa (Ill. Men, 128); he translated the Chronicle of Eusebius and dedicated it to Vincentius and Gallienus, the former of whom became henceforward his companion (483, 444-446); he imbibed his admiration for Origen, translating his Homilies on Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and writing to Damasus on the meaning given by Origen to the Seraphim in Is. vi. (22).
381. These literary labours were carried on under the disadvantage of a weakness of the eyes, from which he henceforward constantly suffered. But there is in his writings not a single reference to the Council of Constantinople, and only cursory references to that held the next year at Rome, in which he was certainly called to take part (233; Ruf. Epil. to Pamph., Vol. iii. 426, 513).
Rome. 382-5. He went to Rome with his Bishop, Paulinus, and with Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus. At the Council which was there held he was present as a learned man whose help the Pope required. There is no ground for the notion that he became his official secretary. But for the two main objects of Jerome's life his sojourn in Rome presented great opportunities. Damasus thoroughly appreciated his eminence as a biblical scholar. He constantly sent him questions, the replies to which form short exegetical treatises, such as those reckoned among Jerome's letters on the word Hosanna and the Prodigal Son. It was also for Pope Damasus that he undertook a revised version of the Psalms, a version which was used in the Roman Church for more than eleven centuries (492, 494), and also a revised version of the New Testament, the preface to which is of much critical value (487, 488; see also p. 357, where a whole clause in 1 Cor. vii. 35 is said to have been omitted in the old version because of the difficulty of translation). He further began the collation of the various texts of the LXX. and the other Greek versions of the Old Testament, and began to form the convictions which afterwards led to his translation direct from the Hebrew (484). These biblical studies made him acquainted with the works of Origen, and he conceived a great and almost passionate admiration for that "brazen-hearted" (Chalchenterus) worker and teacher of the Church (46), and he permitted himself to use expressions too indiscriminate in praise of him and too contemptuous towards his adversaries, which were afterwards thrown in his teeth (Ruf. Ap. ii. 14, Vol. iii. 467).
For the promotion of asceticism he found in Rome a congenial soil. Epiphanius, him- self the pupil of the hermits Hesychias and Hilarion (Sozom. vi. 32, Vol. ii. 369, 370), was the guest of the noble and wealthy lady Paula, the heiress of the Æmilian race (196), who was already disposed to the ascetic life. To the circle of her family and friends Jerome was soon admitted, and she became his devoted disciple and friend during the remainder of her life (Letter cviii.). Her son, Toxotius, and her daughters, Blesilla, the young widow (47-49), Paulina, the wife of Jerome's friend, the ascetic Senator Pammachius (135), and Julia Eustochium (196), each in special ways affected the life of Jerome. Her friends, Marcella and Principia (253), Asella (42, 58), Lea (42), Furia and Titiana, Marcellina and Felicitas (60) and Fabiola, all of them belonging to the highest Roman families, formed a circle of renuntiants who sought refuge in the ascetic life from the wastefulness and immorality of those of their own quality. Marcella's house on the Aventine was their meeting place (41, 58). There they prayed and sang psalms in the Hebrew, which they had learned for the purpose (210), and read the Scriptures under the guidance of their teacher (41, 255), who wrote for them many of his expository letters, whose ascetic writings they committed to memory, and whose private letters to them (Letters xxiii.-xlvi.) reveal the various phases of the new Roman and Christian life. These are concentrated in the Treatise on the Preservation of Virginity which he addressed to Eustochium (Letter xxii.). This period also produced the first of Jerome's controversial treatises, that against Helvidius on the perpetual virginity of Mary (334-346).