§ 177. THE WORKS OF .JEROME. 977
Homilies of Oi'igen on Jeremiah and Ezekiel, on the Gospel of Luke, and on the Song of Solomon. Of the last he says: " While Origen in his other writings has surpassed all others^ on the Song of Solomon he has surpassed himself." '
His best exegetical labors are those on the Prophets (particularly his Isaiah, written a. d. 408-410 ; his Ezekiel, A. D. 410-415 ; and his Jeremiah to chap, xxxii., interrupted by his death), and those on the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, and Titus (written in 388), together with his critical Questions (or investigations) on Genesis. But they are not uniformly carried out ; many parts are very indifferent, others thrown off with unconscionable carelessness in reliance on his genius and his reading, or dictated to an amanuensis as they came into his head.'' He not seldom surprises by clear, natnral, and conclusive expositions, while just on the difficult passages he wavers, or confines himself to adducing Jewish traditions and the exegetical opinions of the earlier fathers, especially of Origen, Ensebius, Apollinaris, and Didymus, leaving the reader to judge and to choose. His scholarly industry, taste, and skill, however, always afford a certain compensation for the defect of method and consistency, so that his commentaries are, after all, the most instructive we have from the Latin church of that day, not excepting even those of Augustine, which otherwise greatly surpass them in theological depth and spiritual unction. He justly observes in the Preface to his Commentary on Isaiah : " He who does not know the Scriptures, does not know the power and wisdom of God ; ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ." ^
' Proef. in Homil. Orig. in Cantic. Cant. torn. iii. 500. Rufinus, during tha Origenistic controversy, did not forget to remind him of this sentence.
- He frequently excuses this -' dictare quodcunque in buccam venerit," by his want of time and the weakness of his eyes. Comp. Preface to the third book of hia Comment, in Ep. ad Galat. (torn. vii. 486). At the close of the brief Preface to the second book of his Commentary on the Ep. to the Ephesians (tom. vii. 586), he says that he often managed to write as many as a thousand lines in one day (" interdum per singulos dies usque ad numerum raille versuura — i. e., here o-ti'xoi — pervenire").
" " Qui nescit Seripturas, nescit Dei virtutem ejusquo sapientiam ; ignoratio S«ripturarum ignoratio Christi est."
978 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Jerome had the natural talent and the acquired knowledge to make him the father of grammatico-historical interpretation, upon which all sound study of the Scriptures must proceed. He very rightly felt that the expositor must not put his own fancies into the word of God, but draw out the meaning of that word, and he sometimes finds fault with Origen and the allegorical method for roaming in the wide lields of imagination, and giving out the writer's own thought and fancy for the hidden wisdom of the Scriptures and the church.' In this healthful exegetical spirit he excelled all the fathers, except Chrysostom and Theodoret. In the Latin church no others, except the heretical Pelagius (whose shoi't exposition of the Epistles of Paul is incorporated in the works of Jerome), and the unknown Amhrosi aster (whose commentary has found its way among the works of Amhrose), tliought like him. But he was far from being consistent ; he committed the very fault lie censures in Eusebius, who in the superscription of his Commentary on Isaiah promised a historical exposition, but, forgetting the promise, fell into the fashion of Origen. Though he often makes very bold utterances, such as that on the original identity of presbyter and bishop,''' and even shows traces of a loose view of inspiration,^ yet he had not the courage, and was too scrupulously concerned for his orthodoxy, to break with the traditional exegesis. He could not resist the impulse to indulge, after giving the historical sense, in fantastic allegorizing, or, as he expresses himself, " to spread the sails of the spiritual understanding."*
' Comp. particularly the Preface to the fifth book of his Commentary on Isaiah, and Ep. 5o ad Pauliiiura, c. 7.
' In tlic Comin. on Tit. i. 5, and elsewhere, e. <^., Epist. 60 ad Occanum, c. o, and Epist. 146 ad Evangelum, c. 1. Such assertions, which wc find also in Anibroeiastcr, Chrysostom, and Theodoret, were not dispiited at that time, but subsequently they gave rise to violent disputes between Episcopalians and Presbyterians. Comp. my Distory of the Apostolic CImrch, § 132, p. 521 f.
' He admits, for instance, chronological contradictions, or, at least, inexplicable difficulties in the (Jospel history (Ep. 57 ad Pammach. c. 7 and 8), and he even ventures unjustly to censure St. Paul for supposed solecisms, barbarisms, and weak arguments (Ep. 121 ad A.ag. ; Comment, in Gal. iii. 1 ; iv. 24; vi. 2; Comment, in Eph. iii. 3, 8, 13; Comment, in Tit. i. 3).
* '' Spiritualis iiitelligcntia; vela pandere," or " spirituale ajdificium super historiaj