Jerome’s Epistolary Portraits of Holy Women: Some Remarks about Their Alleged Multilingualism

Abstract

This paper considers women either directly or indirectly portrayed in Jerome’s letters with a focus on the culture with which they are endowed and especially their knowledge of languages. Their multilingualism obviously serves Jerome’s purpose of implicitly legitimating himself as a spiritual guide, and enhancing his own scriptural and doctrinal authority. Nonetheless it should not be considered a strictly literary topos, stemming from the classical tradition of the rhetorical praise of paideia . Moreover, if the knowledge of Greek stands out as a feature common to both Christians and pagans of the fourth-century aristocratic elite, Jerome’s women’s multilingualism in some respects must be related to a specifically Christian cultural background.