§ 41. ST. JEKOME AS A MONK. 203
protest against the execution of the Priscillianists in Ti-ovea. Martin died in 397 or 400 : his funeral was attended by two thousand monks, besides many nuns and a great multitude i people ; and his grave became one of the most frequented cen tres of pilgrimage in France.
In Southern Gaul, monasticism spread with equal rapidity. John Cassian, an ascetic writer and a Semipelagian (f 432), founded two cloisters in Massilia (Marseilles), where literary studies also were carried on ; and Honoratus (after 426, bishop of Aries) established the cloister of St. Honoratus on the island of Lerina.
§ 41. St. Jerome as a Moiik.
S. Eus. HiERONTMi : Opera omnia, ed. Erasmus (assisted by (Ecolampadius), Bas. 1516-'20, 9 vols. fol. ; ed. (Bened.) Martianay, Par. 1693-1Y06, 5 vols. fol. (incnrnplete) ; ed. Vallarsi and Maifei, Veron. 1734— '42, 11 vols, fol., also Venet. 1766 (best edition). Comp. especially the 150 Epistles, often separately edited (the chronological order of which Vallarsi, in torn. i. of his edition, has finally established).
For extended works on the liffe of Jerome see Du Pm (Nouvelle Biblioth. des auteurs eccles. torn. iii. p. 100-140) ; Tillemont (torn. xii. 1-356) ; Martianay (La vie de St. Jerome, Par. 1706) ; Joh. Stiltixg (in the Acta Sanctorum, Sept. torn. viii. p. 418-6S8, Antw. 1762) ; Butleb (sub Sept. 30) ; Vallarsi (in Op. Hieron., tom. xi. p. 1-240) ; Soukookh (viii. 359 sqq., and especially xi. 3-254) ; Engelstoft (Hieron. Stridonensis, interpres, criticus, exegeta, apologeta, bistoricus, doctor, mocachns, Havn. 1798); D. v. Oolln (in Ersch and Gruber's Encycl. sect. ii. vol. 8) ; Oollombet (Histoire de S. Jer6me, Lyons, 1844) ; and O. ZocKLER (Hieronymus, sein Leben und Wirkeu. Gotha, 1865).
The most zealous promoter of the monastic life among the church fathers was Jerome, the connecting link between Eastern and Western learning and religion. His life belongs almost with equal right to the history of theology and the history of monasticism. Hence the church art generally represents him as a penitent in a reading or writing posture, with a lion and a skull, to denote the union of the literary and anchoretic modes of life. He was the first learned divine who not only recommended but actually embraced the monastic mode of life, and his
2(>t! THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311--590.
example exerted a great influence in making monarticism avail able for tlie promotion of learning. To rare talents and attain ments,' indefatigable activity of mind, ardent faith, immortal merit in the translation and interpretation of the Bible, and earnest zeal for ascetic piety, he united so great vanity and ambition such irritability and bitterness of temper, such vehemence of uncontrolled passion, such an intolerant and persecuting spirit, and such inconstancy of conduct, that we find ourselves alternately attracted and repelled by his character, and now tilled with admiration for his greatness, now with contem])t or pity for his weakness.
Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus was born at Stridon,^ on the borders of Dalmatia, not far from A quileia, between the years 331 and 342.° He was the son ( f wealthy Christian parents, and was educated in Rome under the direction of the celebrated heathen grammarian Donatus, and the rhetorician Victorinus. lie read witli great diligence and profit tlie classic poets, orators, and philosophers, and collected a considerable
' As he himself boasts in liis second apology *o Rnfinus : " Ego philosophus (?), rhetor, grammaticus, dialccticus, hebraeus, grfccus, latinus, trilinguis." The celebrated Erasmus, the first editor of his works, and a very competent judge in matters of literary talent and merit, places Jerome above all the fathers, even St. Augustine (with whose doctrines of free grace and predestination he could not sympathize), and often gives eloquent expression to his admiration for him. In a letter to Pope Leo X. (Ep. ii. 1, quoted in Vallarsi's ed. of Jerome's works, torn. xi. 290), he says: " Divus Hieronymus sic apud Latinos est thcologorum princeps, ut hunc prope solum habeamus theologi dignum nomine. Non quod cicteros damnem, sed quod illustrcs alioqui, si cum hoc conferantur, ob huius eminentiam velut obscurentur. Denique tot egregiis est cumulatus dotibus, ut vix ullum habcat et ipsa docta Graecia, quem cum hoc viro queat componere. Quantum in illo Komanae facundia; ! quanta linguarum peritia ! quanta omnis antiquitatis omnium historiarum notitia ! quam fida mcmoria ! quam felix rerum omnium mixtura ! quam absoluta mysticarum literarum cognitio ! super omnia, quis ardor ille, quam admirabilis divini pectoris afflatus ? nt una et plurimum delectet eloquentia, et doceat eruditionc, et rapiat sanctimonia."
^ Hence called Stridoncnsis ; also in distinction from the contemporary but littlo known Greek Jerome, who wa.s probably a presbyter in Jerusalem.
* Martinnay, Stilting, Cave, Schrockh, Hagcnbach, and others, place his birth, according to Prosper, Chron. ad ann. 33 , in the year 331 ; Baroniua, Du Pin, and Tillemont, with greater probability, in the year 342. The last infers from variotis circumstances, that Jerome lived, not ninety-one years, as Prosper states, but only Bcvcnty-cight. Vallarsi (t. xi. 8) places his birth still later, in the year 346. Hi* death is placed in the year 419 or 420.