est qui ditior;" and, worse than all, Lupicinus the priest was "the feeble pilot of a leaky ship, a blind man leading the blind into the pit."* Rome had at first sight more attraction; there was a church founded by an apostle, and the trophies of apostles and martyrs. But Rome was the Babylon of the Apocalypse, the "mulier purpurata," on whose forehead blasphemy was inscribed, and God had said, "Come out of her, my people."+ Besides, how could the monastic life be carried on amidst the din and bustle of a great city? "You must either admit visitors, or be thought proud if you decline; if you return the visit, you must wait at the gilded doors for admission, exposed to the impertinence of servants." Long after, in his old age, he gave the same advice to Paulinus, the celebrated Bishop of Nola, the inventor of church bells. "If," he said, "you wish to exercise the office of a presbyter, if the work or honour of the bishopric should perchance delight you, live in cities, and sacrifice your own soul for the salvation of others; but if you wish to be, what your name of monachus implies, a solitary, what have you to do amidst the crowds of cities?"‡ He chose, therefore, the Holy Land as the place in which he could exercise the monastic virtues in the highest perfection. It had, no doubt, another attraction for him, the opportunity which it would afford him of visiting the places which had been the scene of sacred history. From the glowing description which he afterwards gave to Marcella of the delight which he anticipated for her in visiting them, we may judge how powerfully the prospect of dwelling among them would influence him in the choice of his future abode. S "Will that day come, when we shall enter the cave of the Saviour; weep with his mother and her sister in his sepulchre; kiss the wood of the cross and climb to the Mount of Olives, that thence our prayers and thoughts may soar upward with the ascending Lord? Shall we see Lazarus come forth in his graveclothes, and the waters of Jordan made purer by the baptism of the Lord? Shall we go then to the huts of the shepherds, * Ad Chromatium, i. 285. Ep. ad Paulinum, xiii. i. 121. + Ad Marcellam, i. 157. § The epistle (xvii.) is written in the name of two of Jerome's female disciples, Paula and Eustochium, but the style proves plainly that it was indited by himself. pray in the mausoleum of David, and see Amos the prophet still sounding his shepherd's horn from the summit of his rock? Shall we see the tents in which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob dwelt with their wives, or at least the places where their memories remain Shall we go to Samaria, and see the ashes of John the Baptist and Elisha and Obadiah, and enter the caves in which the companies of the prophet were sheltered and fed in the times of persecution? We will go also to Nazareth and see the place which, according to the meaning of the name, is the flower of Galilee, and Cana, not far off, where water was turned into wine. We will go to Tabor and see the tabernacles of the Saviour, not now joined, as Peter once desired, with Moses and Elias, but with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Thence we will go to the lake of Genezareth and see 5000 and 4000 men fed in the desert with five and seven loaves. Nain shall be visited, at whose gate the widow's son was raised, and Hermon and the torrent Endor, where Sisera was defeated, and Capharnaum, familiar with the mighty works of the Lord." Jerome was probably somewhat more than thirty years of age when the great change in his feelings took place which decided the colour of his future life. It was quite natural that, with his vehement temper, which knew no cold medium in love or hate, in self-indulgence or self-denial, and pursued with some remorse for his former life, he should push the monastic discipline of prayer, fasting and penance to its utmost length. He had begun his course of severities at Rome, but he was not yet thoroughly weaned from his love of the classics. During the fast of Lent he had amused himself with reading Plautus, when he fell into a trance from feverish weakness; and while those around him deemed him dead, and were preparing his funeral, he was carried in the spirit before the heavenly tribunal. Being asked what he was, he answered, "A Christian;" but the judge replied, "Thou liest; thou are not a Christian; thou art a Ciceronian: where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also;" and commanded him to be scourged. The spirits who stood round implored mercy upon him on the ground of his youth, and begged that his error might be overlooked, and his full sentence not be inflicted unless he again read heathen books. Upon his confessing that to have had or read worldly books was to deny the Lord, he was dismissed, and came back to his sorrowing friends with the marks of the scourge on D his shoulder-blades.* There was something evasive in his answer, but there can be no doubt that from this time sacred literature occupied the chief place in his thoughts. He was accompanied to Syria by several friends, who gradually dropped off in the devious journey through Thrace and Asia Minor, and finally took up his abode in the desert of Chalcis between Antioch and the Euphrates. Till this time he seems to have been ignorant of Hebrew. In his Preface to his Commentary on Obadiah, he tells us that when a youth he had fancied himself competent to unfold the mystical sense of the prophet, before he understood the literal. He had become ashamed of his juvenile performance and meant to burn it, when a copy was brought to him by a young man from Italy, who praised it highly. Jerome's remark is singularly applicable to those who write commentaries on prophecy: "I confess I was astonished, that let a man write ever so ill, he finds a reader like himself." He was so ashamed of the praises bestowed on his crude performance, that he wrote the learned Commentary which we now have. While he was sojourning in the desert, and undergoing those mental conflicts which we have described before, finding that no fasting availed to give him tranquillity of mind, he determined to try the sedative effect of learning Hebrew, and became the pupil of Barhanina, a converted Jew. He may find sympathy perhaps with some of our readers when he exclaims, "Quid ibi laboris insumpserim, quid sustinuerim difficultatis, quoties desperaverim, quotiesque cessaverim et contentione discendi rursus inceperim, testis est tam mea qui passus sum quam eorum qui mecum duxerunt vitam conscientia; et gratias ago Domino, quod de amaro semine literarum dulces fractus carpo."+ The theological student has reason to rejoice with Jerome in the good fruits which sprung from this bitter root. With the exception of Origen, none of the Christian writers has rendered such services to biblical criticism; and time has dealt more favourably with him than with Origen, the most precious of whose critical works have come down to us only in fragments. Jerome was at this time only a layman, and though he * Ad Eustochium, i. 185. Adv. Ruffin. ii. 309. + Ad Rusticum, i. 45. * took priest's orders at Antioch, being strongly urged to it by Paulinus, it was with the express stipulation that he should have no cure of souls imposed on him, but be left to solitude and study and penance. Beyond the rank of priest he never advanced: it is one of the curious anachronisms of the Italian painters, that they sometimes represent him with the scarlet robes and tasselled hat of a cardinal-a dignity and costume not known in the Roman Church till a much later age. He had been called from his retreat to Antioch by the disputes in the church in that city, and he left it to go to Constantinople. His residence of three years in that capital of Greek learning had a most important influence upon his future labours. Hitherto it should seem as if his knowledge of Greek had been limited, and his study of the Scriptures more mystical than philological. To Gregory of Nazianzus, Patriarch of Constantinople, whom he calls his preceptor," virum valde eloquentem et in scripturis apprime eruditum," he appears to have been indebted for sound instruction in sacred criticism.* From Constantinople he probably went (the chronology of his life is not easily fixed) to Rome, where Pope Damasus made him his confidential secretary, and where the fame of his learning, eloquence and orthodoxy, drew to him the admiration of some wealthy ladies, who afterwards followed him to Palestine. His intimacy with them brought upon him some unfounded suspicions; and on the death of Damasus he withdrew from Rome, accompanied by a considerable body of monks, visiting Cyprus, Alexandria, and the monks of the Nitrian Desert, on his way to Palestine. At his return to Syria he established himself at Bethlehem. He had before been an eremite; he now became a cœnobite, forming there a monastic establishment, to which an inn (diversorium) was added, that the pilgrims who flocked from all parts might not find themselves in the condition of Joseph and Mary when they entered Bethlehem. Jerome's whole property appears to have consisted in his library, which he had carried with him in his various removals; and finding himself, as he says, in danger of being in the condition of the man in the parable, who began to build * Ad Esaiam, cap. 6. From a passage in Jerome's Epistle to Nepotianus, it seems that the σάββατον δευτεροπρῶτον (Luke vi. 1) was as great a puzzle to theologians as it still remains. Gregory evaded his question about its meaning. without counting the cost, he sent his brother to Pannonia, to collect what was left of his patrimony, wasted by the invasion of the Goths. Monks and pilgrims were not the only persons who claimed the hospitality of Bethlehem; every day saw men and women of noble birth and once wealthy, arrive, stripped of everything by the barbarians who had ravaged Italy and sacked Rome. In this latter portion of Jerome's life, his most important biblical works were executed, and it would have been well had he confined himself to them. But he could not rest while there was a heresy to be refuted; his controversial style was one of concentrated bitterness, and he spared no harshness of imputation against his antagonists. The Pelagians threatening him with personal violence, he was compelled for some time to leave his convent. The keen blade at length wore through the scabbard, though the energetic spirit struggled manfully against the infirmities of the body. His death took place on Sept. 30, A.D. 420. He had been reduced to such weakness that he had to raise himself to join in prayer by means of a rope fixed to the beam of his cell. His remains were buried at Bethlehem, but (we are told) were conveyed to Rome along with the manger-cradle (presepio), the procession with which, at Santa Maria Maggiore, on Christmaseve, is well known to sight-seers in that metropolis. If we may believe the legend, even after death he continued to bear his testimony against heresy. The doctrine of purgatory was called in question, and Jerome, appearing to his disciple Eusebius, desired him to bring three bodies of men who had lately died to the cave of Bethlehem, and lay them on the sackcloth in which the saint had been clothed. The unbelievers were invited to be present. Eusebius prayed that, through the merits and intercession of Jerome, the souls of the dead men might re-enter their bodies and relate their experience of the other world. The prayer was granted. The men revived, and told the spectators that Jerome had conducted them through paradise, purgatory and hell.† Besides the suppression of heresies, which are said to have vanished before him, like mists before the sun, two subjects engaged Jerome's most strenuous exertions-the * Vita S. Hieronymi, appended to his works. + Epist. Cyrilli Episcopi Hiersolymitani ad Augustinum. |