Abstract
This article explores, in the first place, Jerome’s creation of pro-virginal propaganda in a selection of his treatises and letters, through the employment of scriptural justification by means of ascetic exegesis and rhetorical strategies. The study focuses, in particular, on his Epistulae 22 and 130, both addressed to virgins, and his treatise Adversus Iovinianum. Jerome interpreted and deployed carefully selected biblical texts and employed classical rhetorical conventions to construct his ascetic ideal mainly based on sexual renunciation. The article argues that by extolling the virginal body through metaphorical figurations and careful textualisation, this ‘apostle of virginity’ aimed to create, in the first instance, for ascetically minded virgins, a means of achieving perfection and union with God, and receiving the awards of heaven. The analysis of the selected works and of Jerome’s ascetic exegesis, however, also reveals some significant markers, indicating his own carefully disguised quest for personal redemption and regaining paradise.
Highlights
His stated intention was not to praise virginity but to warn Eustochium about the dangers she would face to preserve her virginity in the context of Roman elite society, and about the possible efforts of family members to dissuade her from her chosen path
While describing to Eustochium his struggles with the ‘bubbling fires of lust’ in the desert, he cast himself in the role of the sinful woman of Luke 7:35–50: ‘Helpless, I cast myself at the feet of Jesus, I watered them with my tears, I wiped them with my hair ...’70 – an example of gender-bending, and a step in his identification with the female virgin
In his letter to Demetrias, some 30 years later, he repeated that the love of and for Christ is the key to Paradise: Happy is the soul, happy is the virgin in whose heart there is room for no other love than the love of Christ. (Epistula 130.19 [CSEL 56.199–201])
Summary
In his famous treatise on virginity (Epistula 22: Libellus de servanda virginitate), addressed to Eustochium in 384 CE, Jerome painted a vivid picture in words of his inner struggle between the sexual desires of his mind and body on the one hand, and the redemption, the ascetic ideal and paradise of virginity which he so passionately desired and pursued on the other hand: How often, when I was living in the desert, in the vast solitude which gives to hermits a savage dwelling place, parched by a burning sun, how often did I fancy myself among the pleasures of Rome! ... in my fear of hell I had consigned myself to this prison where I had no companions but scorpions and wild beasts, I often felt myself amid bevies of girls. I further argue that his works contain carefully ‘hidden’ markers of his own pursuit of redemption and regaining Paradise for himself Following this introduction and some notes on the selection of Jerome’s Epistulae 22 and 130 as well as on his ascetic ideal and the crown of virginity, the main body of the article focuses on this ‘apostle of virginity’s’ ideas on sexual renunciation and the crown of virginity and on his ascetic exegesis of the Bible to find scriptural justification for his arguments. The letter abounds with references to biblical texts and examples of his ascetic exegesis thereof to support his arguments and exhortations His stated intention was not to praise virginity but to warn Eustochium about the dangers she would face to preserve her virginity in the context of Roman elite society, and about the possible efforts of family members to dissuade her from her chosen path.. In his letter to Demetrias, some 30 years later, he repeated that the love of and for Christ is the key to Paradise: Happy is the soul, happy is the virgin in whose heart there is room for no other love than the love of Christ. (Epistula 130.19 [CSEL 56.199–201])
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