Jerome, Vita Malchi. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary by Christa Gray

Abstract

Reviewed by: Jerome, Vita Malchi. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary by Christa Gray Alison Orlebeke Jerome, Vita Malchi. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary Christa Gray Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xviii + 365. ISBN 978–0-19–872372–1 Silhouetted in darkness, conjoined faces stare from a cave as a lioness mauls a man dressed in high boots and a red robe. This scene on the front cover depicts the final climax of the Vita Malchi (VM), or to use Jerome’s words, de captivo monacho (95). After Jerome provides the circumstances of his encounter with a remarkable old man and woman who were frequent visitors to a village church in Syria, he turns the narrative over to Malchus, a fabulous raconteur who infuses his adventures with lively commentary, rhetorical flourishes, and some realistic details. Curious, Jerome asks the locals about the elderly couple’s relationship. They report both that the pair is holy and “amazing things.” Jerome longs to know if what he hears is true: “Lured by desire, I confronted the man and questioned him more inquisitively about the trustworthiness of the accounts” (VM 2.3). Malchus also raises the problem of credulity. Just at the moment his master has been seized by the lioness, he exclaims, “Who would ever believe this, that in front of our faces a wild beast was fighting for us?” (VM 9.9) As readers explore this unique text, they will frequently consult and greatly appreciate Christa Gray’s valuable contribution to Hieronymian scholarship. The author offers this new edition as a resource for further study: “I have sought to be attentive to the text above all, and to contextualize it as fully as possible in order to facilitate interpretations that go beyond my own conclusions” (3). The single word “contextualize” epitomizes the book’s construction of a rich and detailed framework for comprehending the meaning and significance of its subject. Engaged throughout with modern scholarship, it also provides generous summary and critique of the contributions of experts in a wide range of fields and an extensive bibliography. Three distinct indices, comprising loci, names [End Page 549] and subjects, and Latin words, facilitate searches within the volume. One of the monograph’s aims is “to contribute to an understanding of Jerome’s rhetorical habits” (1), and it succeeds laudably in its assiduous attention to diction, syntax, and grammar. Rhetorical devices, such as alliteration, anaphora, and oxymoron, are frequently noted along with more elaborate verbal patterns. A second aim is “to examine the VM in terms of the information it provides about its historical and literary backgrounds” (3). There is no shortage of material requiring explication in Jerome’s parvum opus (VM 1.2), and again, this volume delivers. Copious citations and quotations from classical and Christian sources provide parallels, echoes and probable direct borrowings. At the same time, frequent juxtaposition of the text’s language with what is found elsewhere illuminates special features, such as when Jerome chooses the adverb firmiter over firme (101), or when Malchus uses the vocative nate instead of fili (133–34), or opts to refer to his master as erus rather than dominus (211). The many compact scholarly essays in the commentary are especially informative and cover a vast range of topics, from the naval exercise as literary metaphor (96–99), pudicitia (141–44), postliminium (177–80), Saracens (167–69), proskynesis (189–92), depictions of ants (250–54), the use of goatskins as floats (269–71), and many more. A thorough introduction doubles as a synopsis of the findings of the commentary. The first six sections, though just one or two pages each, embed the text in time, place, and Jerome’s life and mi-lieu. “Audiences” identifies Jerome and Paula’s acolytes in Bethlehem, the bishop Evagrius and other potential patrons, Christian men and women in Rome, and even regular Roman citizens, for whom “the VM would be an escapist literary adventure” (12). “Purpose” argues that Malchus’ life story promotes monasticism, provides a precedent for Jerome’s platonic friendship with Paula, and permits “the possibility that the benefits of virginity can be regained by a chaste life even after virginity in its literal sense is lost” (13...