§ 177. THE WORKS OF JEROME. 981
II. TJie HISTORICAL works, some of wliicli we liavu already elsewhere touched, are important to the history of the fatheri and the saints, to Christian literature, and to the history ot morals.
First among them is a free Latin reproduction and contin aation of the Greek Chronicle of Eusebius; i. e., chronological tables of the most important events of the history of the world and the church to tlie year 379.' Jerome dictated this work quite fugitively during his residence with Gregory Nazianzen in Constantinople (a, d. 380). In spite of its many errors, it formed a very useful and meritorious contribution to Latin literature, and a principal source of the scanty historical information of Western Christendom throughout the middle age. Prosper A quit anus, a friend of Augustine and defender of the doctrines of free grace against the Semi-Pelagians in Gaul, continued the Chronicle to the 3-ear 449 ; later authors brouglit it down to the middle of the sixth century.
More original is the Catalogue of Illustrious Authors," which Jerome composed in the tenth year of Theodosins (a. d. 392 and 393),^ at the request of his friend, an officer. Dexter. It is tlie pioneer in the history of theological literature, and gives, in one hundred and thirty-five chapters, short biographical notices of as many ecclesiastical writers, from the
Comp. Clkricus: Eusebii Onomasticon cum versioue Hieronymi, Amstel. lYOV, and a modern convenient edition in Greek and Latin by F. Larsovv and G. Parthey, Berlin, 1862.
' Opera, viii. 1-820, including the Greek fragments. There is added also the Chronicon of Prosper Aquitancs (pp. 821-856), and the Apparatus, Castigationes et Notae of Arn. Pontac. We must mention also the famous separate edition of Jerome's Chronicle and its continuators by Joseph Scaliger: Thesaurus temporum Eusebii Pamphili, Hieronymi, Prosperi, etc., Lugd. Bat. 1606, ed. altera Amstel. 1658. Scaliger and Vallarsi have spent immense industry and acuteness in editing this work made very difficult by the many chronological and other blunders and the corruptions of the text caused by ignoraiit and careless transcribers. The Chronicle of Eusebius is now known also in an Armenian translation, edited by Angelo Mai, Rome, 1833. The Greek original is lost with the exception of a few fragments of Syncellus.
' Liber de illustribus viris, or De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, frequently quoted by the title Catalogus. See Opera, ed. Vallarsi, tom. ii. 821-956, together with th* Greek translation of Pseudo-Sophronius.
' This date is given by himself, cap. 135, in which he speaks of his own writings
982 THIRD PERIOD, A.D. 311-590.
apostles to Jerome himself, with accounts of their most importdut works. It was partly designed to refute the charge of ignorance, vvhii;li Celsus, Porphyry, Julian, and other pagans, made against the Christians. Jerome, at that time, was not yet so violent a lieretic-hater, and was (piite fair and liberal in his estimate of snch men as Origen and Eusebius." But many of his sketches are too short and meagre ; even those, for example, of so important men as Cyprian, Athanasins, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius, Ambi'ose, and Clirysostom (t 407).' His junior cotemporary, Augustine, who had at that time already written several philosophical, exegetical, and polemic works, he entirely omits.
The Catalogue was afterwards continued in the same spirit by the Semi-Pelagian Gennadius of Marseilles, by Isidore of Seville, by Ildefoxsus, and by others, into the middle age.
Jerome wrote also biographies of celebrated hermits, Paul of Thebes (a. d. 375), Hilarion, and the imprisoned Malchus (a. d. 390), in very graceful and entertaining style, but with many fabulous and superstitious accompaniments, and with extravagant veneration of the monastic life, which he aimed by these writings to promote.' They were read at tiiat time aa eagerly as novels. These biographies, and several necrological letters in honor of deceased friends, such as Nepotian, Luciuius,
' lu the very first chapter he says of the Second Epistle of Peter that it was by most rejected as spurious '' propter styli cum priore dissonantiam." A thorough ijivestigatiou, however, leads to a more favorable result as to the genuineness of this Epistle. lie admits in his catalogue even heretics, as Tatian, Bardesanes, and Priscillian, also the Jews Philo and Josephus, and the heathen philosopher ISenecai
^ Of Chrysostom he merely says, cap. 129: "Joannes Antiochente ecclesiaj presbyter, Eusebii Emiseni Diodorique sectator, multa componere dicitur, de quibua irepl lepwavvTii tantum legi." But afterwards, during the Origenistic controversies, he translated a passionate libel of Theophilus of Alexandria against Chrysostom, and praised it as a valuable book (comp. Ep. 114 ad Thcopliilum, written 405). Fragments of this miserable Libellus Theophili contra Joanncm Chrysost. are pre served in the Defensio triiim rapp. 1. vi. by Facundus of Heruiiane.
' Opera, tom. ii. 1 sqq. In most of the former editions these Vitie are wrongly placed among the Epistles. To the same class of writings belongs the translation of the Regula PachomiL Characteri.-tic is the judgment of Gibbon (ch. xxxvii. ail ttun. 370) : " The stories of Paul, Ililarion, and Malchus by Jerome nre admirably told : and the only defect of these pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense."