[108] Psa. cxxxvii. 3; cxlvi. 7, 8.
[109] 1 Cor. iii. 6.
[110] Virg. A. iv. 298.
[111] Jerome again refers to his own frailty in Letters XIV. § 6, XVIII. § 11, and XLVIII. § 20.
[112] 1 Cor. xiii. 7.
[113] Papa. The word "pope" was at this time used as a name of respect ("father in God") for bishops generally. Only by degrees did it come to be restricted to the bishop of Rome. Similarly the word "imperator," originally applied to any Roman general, came to be used of the Emperor alone.
[114] Bishop of Aquileia.
[115] Phi. iii. 19.
[116] Sacerdos. In the letters this word generally denotes a bishop. Lupicinus held the see of Stridon.
[117] Cic. de Fin. v. 30.
[118] Matt. xxv. 4.
[119] Luke ii. 36; Acts xxi. 9; 1 Sam. ii. 18.
[120] 2 Macc. vii.
Letter VIII. To Niceas, Sub-Deacon of Aquileia.
Niceas, the sub-deacon, had accompanied Jerome to the East but had now returned home. In after-years he became bishop of Aquileia in succession to Chromatius. The date of the letter is 374 a.d.
The comic poet Turpilius [121] says of the exchange of letters that it alone makes the absent present. The remark, though occurring in a work of fiction, is not untrue. For what more real presence--if I may so speak--can there be between absent friends than speaking to those whom they love in letters, and in letters hearing their reply? Even those Italian savages, the Cascans of Ennius, who--as Cicero tells us in his books on rhetoric--hunted their food like beasts of prey, were wont, before paper and parchment came into use, to exchange letters written on tablets of wood roughly planed, or on strips of bark torn from the trees. For this reason men called letter-carriers tablet-bearers, [122] and letter-writers bark-users, [123] because they used the bark of trees. How much more then are we, who live in a civilized age, bound not to omit a social duty performed by men who lived in a state of gross savagery, and were in some respects entirely ignorant of the refinements of life. The saintly Chromatius, look you, and the reverend Eusebius, brothers as much by compatibility of disposition as by the ties of nature, have challenged me to diligence by the letters which they have showered upon me. You, however, who have but just left me, have not merely unknit our new-made friendship; you have torn it asunder--a process which Lælius, in Cicero's treatise, [124] wisely forbids. Can it be that the East is so hateful to you that you dread the thought of even your letters coming hither? Wake up, wake up, arouse yourself from sleep, give to affection at least one sheet of paper. Amid the pleasures of life at home sometimes heave a sigh over the journeys which we have made together. If you love me, write in answer to my prayer. If you are angry with me, though angry still write. I find my longing soul much comforted when I receive a letter from a friend, even though that friend be out of temper with me.
[121] Turpilius, who appears to have been a dramatist of some note, died in 101 b.c. He is mentioned by Jerome in his edition of the Eusebian Chronicle.
[122] Tabellarii, from tabella, a small tablet.
[123] Librarii, from liber, bark.
[124] Cic. Lælius, 76.
Letter IX. To Chrysogonus, a Monk of Aquileia.
A bantering letter to an indifferent correspondent. Of the same date as the preceding.
Heliodorus, [125] who is so dear to us both, and who loves you with an affection no less deep than my own, may have given you a faithful account of my feelings towards you; how your name is always on my lips, and how in every conversation which I have with him I begin by recalling my pleasant intercourse with you, and go on to marvel at your lowliness, to extol your virtue, and to proclaim your holy love.
Lynxes, they say, when they look behind them, forget what they have just seen, and lose all thought of what their eyes have ceased to behold. And so it seems to be with you. For so entirely have you forgotten our joint attachment that you have not merely blurred but erased the writing of that epistle which, as the apostle tells us, [126] is written in the hearts of Christians. The creatures that I have mentioned lurk on branches of leafy trees and pounce on fleet roes or frightened stags. In vain their victims fly, for they carry their tormentors with them, and these rend their flesh as they run. Lynxes, however, only hunt when an empty belly makes their mouths dry. When they have satisfied their thirst for blood, and have filled their stomachs with food, satiety induces forgetfulness, and they bestow no thought on future prey till hunger recalls them to a sense of their need.
Now in your case it cannot be that you have already had enough of me. Why then do you bring to a premature close a friendship which is but just begun? Why do you let slip what you have hardly as yet fully grasped? But as such remissness as yours is never at a loss for an excuse, you will perhaps declare that you had nothing to write. Had this been so, you should still have written to inform me of the fact.
[125] See introd. to Letter XIV.
[126] 2 Cor. iii. 2.