12. From my youth up until now I have spent many years in writing various works and have always tried to teach my hearers the doctrine that I have been taught publicly in church. I have not followed the philosophers in their discussions but have preferred to acquiesce in the plain words of the apostles. For I have known that it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent," [3871] and "the foolishness of God is wiser than men." [3872] This being the case, I challenge my opponents thoroughly to sift all my past writings and, if they can find anything that is faulty in them, to bring it to light. One of two things must happen. Either my works will be found edifying and I shall confute the false charges brought against me; or they will be found blameworthy and I shall confess my error. For I would sooner correct an error than persevere in an opinion proved to be wrong. And as for you, illustrious doctor, go you and do likewise: either defend the statements that you have made, and support your clever theories with corresponding eloquence, and do not when the whim takes you disown your own words; or if, as a man may do, you have made a mistake, confess it frankly and restore harmony where there has been disagreement. Recall to mind how even the soldiers did not rend the coat of the Saviour. [3873] When you see brothers at strife you laugh; and are glad that some are called by your name and others by that of Christ. Better would it be to imitate Jonah and say: "If it is for my sake that this great tempest is upon you, take me up and cast me forth into the sea." [3874] He in his humility was thrown into the deep that he might rise again in glory to be a type of the Lord. [3875] But you are lifted up in your pride to the stars, only that of you too Jesus may say: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." [3876]
13. It is true that in the holy scriptures many are called righteous, as Zacharias and Elizabeth, Job, Jehosaphat, Josiah, and many others who are mentioned in the sacred writings. Of this fact I shall, if God gives me grace, give a full explanation in the work which I have promised [3877] ; in this letter it must suffice to say that they are called righteous, not because they are faultless but because their faults are eclipsed by their virtues. [3878] In fact Zacharias is punished with dumbness, [3879] Job is condemned out of his own mouth, [3880] and Jehoshaphat and Josiah who are beyond a doubt described as righteous are narrated to have done things displeasing to the Lord. The first leagued himself with the ungodly Ahab and brought upon himself the rebuke of Micaiah; [3881] and the second--though forbidden by the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah--went against Pharaoh-Nechoh, king of Egypt, and was slain by him. [3882] Yet they are both called righteous. Of the rest this is not the time to write; for you have asked me not for a treatise but for a letter. For a complete refutation I require leisure and then I hope to destroy all their cavils by the help of Christ. For this purpose I shall rely on the holy scriptures in which God every day speaks to those who believe. And this is the warning which I would give through you to all who are assembled within your holy and illustrious house, that they should not allow one or at the most three mannikins to taint them with the dregs of so many heresies and with the infamy--to say the least--attaching to them. A place once famous for virtue and holiness must not be defiled by the presumption of the devil and by unclean associations. And let those who supply money to such men know that they are adding to the ranks of the heretics, raising up enemies to Christ and fostering his avowed opponents. It is idle for them to profess one thing with their lips when by their actions they are proved to think another.
[3772] Isa. xiv. 13, 14.
[3773] Cf. Letter LXXIX. § 9.
[3774] Rom. vii. 24.
[3775] Virgil, Æneid, vi. 733, 734.
[3776] Horace, Sat. I. iii. 68, 69.
[3777] Tertullian, against Hermogenes, c. ix.
[3778] Ecclus. x. 9.
[3779] Rom. vii. 23.
[3780] Rom. vii. 19.
[3781] Eccles. i. 9. Jerome inverts the words of the Preacher.
[3782] Rom. xi. 32.
[3783] Rom. iii. 23.
[3784] Eccles. vii. 20.
[3785] 1 Kings viii. 46.
[3786] Prov. xx. 9.
[3787] Ps. li. 5.
[3788] Ps. cxliii. 2.
[3789] 1 Sam. xvi. 7.
[3790] Ps. xliv. 21; Heb. iv. 13.
[3791] Ps. i. 2.
[3792] Jerome here addresses Pelagius.
[3793] Matt. xiii. 3, 11.
[3794] Virgil, Georg. ii. 325-327.
[3795] See note on Letter LXXV. § 3.
[3796] He was condemned by a council at Saragossa in 380-381 a.d. and was put to death by Maximus at Trêves in 385 a.d. at the instigation of the Spanish bishops. Martin of Tours tried to save his life in vain.
[3797] According to Sozomen (H. E. vi. c. 30) Evagrius was in his youth befriended by Gregory of Nyssa, who left him in Constantinople to assist Nectarius in dealing with theological questions. Being in danger, both as to his chastity and as to his personal safety on account of an acquaintance he had formed with a lady of rank, he withdrew to Jerusalem, where he was nursed through a severe illness by Melanium. The rest of his life he spent as an ascetic in the Egyptian desert. See also Pallad. Hist. Laus., § lxxxvi.
[3798] Viz., Melanium, who having sided with Rufinus in his controversy with Jerome, incurred the latter's displeasure. The name means black.' See Letter IV. § 2.
[3799] Viz., Rufinus of Aquileia, Jerome's former friend.
[3800] These three were known as the long brothers.' Their expulsion from Egypt by Theophilus was one of the causes which led to the downfall of John of Chrysostom.
[3801] A contemporary Egyptian monk of great celebrity.
[3802] See Letter XCII. and note.
[3803] Lucretius, i. 935-937.
[3804] Viz., John of Lycopolis, an Egyptian hermit of the latter half of the fourth century. His reputation for sanctity was only second to that of Antony. The book about monks here spoken of does not occur in the list of the writings of Evagrius in the Dict. of Chr. Biog., taken from Socrates, Gennadius and Palladius. Rufinus' History of the Monks bears a close affinity to the Historia Lausiaca of Palladius, who was closely allied to Evagrius; and it is possible that Jerome may have attributed Palladius' work to Evagrius. See Prolegomena to Rufinus, and comp. Ruf. Hist. Mon. i. with Pall. Hist. Laus., xliii.
[3805] In his references (here and in his comm. on Jeremiah, book iv., ch. 22) to the Gnomes of Sixtus or Xystus, Jerome is both inaccurate and unfair. For Rufinus merely states that the author was traditionally identified with Sixtus, bishop of Rome and martyr; and he does not endorse the statement. In its present form the book is so strongly Christian in tone and language that it is strange to find it described as Christless and heathen. Of its origin nothing certain is known, but probably it is "the production of an early Christian philosopher working up heathen material with a leaven of the Gospel" (Dict. Chr. Biog. s. v. Xystus).
[3806] It is not clear which Sixtus is meant. Sixtus I. is not known to have been a martyr and Sixtus II. can hardly be intended. For though his claim to the title is undisputed he can scarcely have written what Origen already quotes as well known.
[3807] Jerome elsewhere twits Rufinus with the same mistake (see Comm. on Jer., book iv., ch. 22). He was not, however, alone in making it, for even Augustine was for a time similarly deceived (see his Retractations, ii. 42).
[3808] Cf. Against Rufinus, i. 8, 9. There is now no doubt that Jerome was wrong and Rufinus right as to the authorship of the book. See the article entitled Eusebius in the Dict. of Christian Biog. and the prolegomena to his works as issued in this series.
[3809] Ps. xvi. 7 and Origen's Comm. ad loc.
[3810] See Against Jovinian, book ii. 1. His second position is that "persons baptized with water and the spirit cannot be tempted of the devil."
[3811] Eph. iv. 14; 2 Tim. iii. 6, 7.
[3812] 2 Tim. iv. 3.
[3813] Ezek. xiii. 10-16.
[3814] This legendary companion and disciple of Simon Magus is said to have been identified by him with Helen of Troy. According to Justin Martyr she had been a prostitute at Tyre.
[3815] Cf. Epiphanius, Adv. Hær. lib. i. tom. ii, p. 76, ed. Migne.
[3816] Jerome is alone in speaking of this emissary. It has been suggested that he may have had in mind the gnostic Marcellina, who came to Rome during the episcopate of Anicetus.
[3817] Apelles, the most famous of the disciples of Marcion, lived and taught mainly at Rome. Philumena was a clairvoyante whose revelations he regarded as inspired.
[3818] See Letter XLI.
[3819] Constantia, sister of Constantine the Great.
[3820] Lucilla, a wealthy lady of Carthage, having been condemned by its bishop Cæcilianus, is said to have procured his deposition by bribing his fellow-bishops.
[3821] Agape, a Spanish lady, was a disciple of the gnostic Marcus of Memphis (cf. Letter LXXV. § 3). She was thus one of the links between the gnosticism of the East and the Priscillianism of Spain. Elpidius was a rhetorician who spread in Spain the Zoroastrian opinions which culminated in Priscillianism.
[3822] Of these sisters nothing further is known.
[3823] 2 Th. ii. 7.
[3824] Jer. xvii. 11, Vulg.
[3825] Viz., "A man may be without sin." See for this and the other statements of Pelagius, Aug. de Gestis Pelagii, esp. c. 2 and 6. Jerome's Anti-Pelagian Dialogue takes these words as containing the essence of Pelagianism.
[3826] Isa. viii. 20, LXX.
[3827] Celestius is meant, after Pelagius the principal champion of free will.
[3828] 1 Cor. iv. 7.
[3829] Rom. ix. 16.
[3830] Phil. ii. 13.
[3831] John v. 17.
[3832] Ps. xxxiv. 8.
[3833] Ps. cxi. 10.
[3834] 1 Joh. iv. 18.
[3835] Luke xvii. 10.
[3836] Phil. iii. 12, 13.
[3837] Isa. lxv. 5, LXX.
[3838] 1 Cor. x. 31.
[3839] Jas. iv. 13-16.
[3840] Ps. xxv. 15.
[3841] Jer. x. 23.
[3842] Prov. xvi. 9.
[3843] Ps. xciv. 20, LXX and Vulg.
[3844] Ps. xvii. 4, LXX.
[3845] Matt. vii. 13.
[3846] Matt. v. 44.
[3847] autarkes, self-determined.
[3848] 1 Pet. ii. 22.
[3849] Rom. viii. 3.
[3850] Rom. iii. 20.
[3851] Rom. vii. 22-25. In the Latin as in the Greek one word does duty for grace' and thanks.'
[3852] R.V.
[3853] Rom. vii. 14-20.
[3854] This is the well known dualism of Manes (Manichæus), who held that the physical world and the human body are essentially evil.
[3855] cf. Matt. xxvi. 41.
[3856] Gal. v. 17.
[3857] Rom. vii. 19.
[3858] Rom. ix. 20, 21.
[3859] Mal. i. 2, 3; Rom. ix. 13.
[3860] Josh. vii.
[3861] 1 Sam. iv.
[3862] 2 Sam. xxiv.
[3863] This objection is dealt with at length by Augustine (Letter CXI. §§ 8-15. See Vol. I. Series I. of this Library).
[3864] Eph. ii. 5.
[3865] Ps. xxxii. 1.
[3866] Matt. xxvi. 41.
[3867] Ps. l. 16, 17.
[3868] Or rather, mock humility.
[3869] cf. 1 Cor. iii. 2.
[3870] Hos. ix. 11, 14, partly after the LXX., partly from memory.
[3871] Isa. xxix. 14, as quoted by Paul, 1 Cor. i. 19.
[3872] 1 Cor. i. 25.
[3873] Joh. xix. 23, 24.
[3874] Jon. i. 12.
[3875] Matt. xii. 39, 40.
[3876] Luke x. 18.
[3877] The Anti-Pelagian Dialogue, to which this letter is a kind of prelude.
[3878] Cf. Letter CXXIII. § 3.
[3879] Luke i. 20-22.
[3880] Job xlii. 6.
[3881] 1 Kings xxii. 19.
[3882] 2 Chr. xxxv. 20-24.