Jerome's Letters Research Articles

Manuscript Miscellanies, Jerome's Letters to Women, and the Dominican Observant Reform in Fifteenth-Century Italy

This article examines the manuscripts into which compilers bound Dominican letters of spiritual direction in fifteenth-century Italy. It argues that manuscript compilers sought to model Observant Dominican sanctity after Jerome's late antique practice of writing letters of spiritual direction to women. The paper aims to contribute to the growing conversation around the development and spread of an Observant Dominican identity by demonstrating that compilers modeled Observant beati after Jerome's authoritative persona in order to argue for the ancient precedent of the reformers’ often controversial agendas, chief among them their active ministry to women.

Types and figures: comments on Lawrence Venuti’s reading of Jerome

ABSTRACTLawrence Venuti’s discussion of Jerome's Letter to Pammachius falls short of accounting for Jerome’s situation as an orthodox author in late antiquity. Venuti’s conceptualization of Jerome’s ‘instrumental model of translation’ may be seen as a construct rather than a reconstruction. The apparent gaps of Jerome’s theory may be explained based on a different modality of communication, reflecting an attitude to language that differs from our own. This is important because Venuti purports to present the instrumental model as generative. Meanwhile, radical ‘instrumentalism’ should be seen as an abstract type. Theoretical comments of the Polish Bible translator Szymon Budny (1530–1596) count as one example of such instrumentalism.

Albert, Jerome and Crusader Monks: Exploring the Military Imagery of the Formula of Life

The extended use of the spiritual armour image is a distinctive feature of St Albert's Formula of Life, and the inspiration and motives for this aspect of his text remain unclear. It has previously been proposed that better understanding of both the patristic sources for Albert's biblical citations, and of the Carmelites' historical and geographical origins, are key entry points for understanding the Formula. Taking up these suggestions, this study explores the role of St Jerome's letter to Rusticus in proposing the military theme to Albert, and suggests that the context of crusader spirituality made the image a useful tool for addressing the particular needs of the new Carmelites via images and themes significant to them from their former way of life.

‘If You Wish to be My Mother, Take Care to Please Christ’: The Posthumous Speech of Blesilla in Jerome's Letter 39

ABSTRACTJerome's consolation to Paula on the death of her daughter Blesilla (letter 39) is the only one of his consolatory letters in which the letter's recipient is directly apostrophized by the deceased. This article sets the posthumous speech of Blesilla in the context of comparable features from Jerome's other consolatory letters, and demonstrates that it is one of the textual strategies by which Jerome seeks to achieve the letter's underlying purpose: to persuade Paula to moderate her public grief before it damages the reputation of Jerome's ascetic ideology. It explores how Blesilla's speech appeals to the emotional and affective qualities of Paula's maternal identity, and implies the susceptibility of the dead to the actions of the living—an idea with contemporary parallels in Jerome's works and elsewhere. It also argues that its secondary function is to emphasize Jerome's own role in providing access to the dead Blesilla and shaping her posthumous memory.

Un fragment de parchemin en semi-onciale du vie siècle (lettres de S. Jérôme, Vie de Malchus)

The binding of a sixteenth-century publication of unknown provenance which was found in the library of a priest of Brussels had been reinforced by a sheet of parchment taken from a volume containing Jerome's letters and hisVita of Malchus. The handwriting is semi-uncial of the 6th century. A study of the text reveals that the editions of the Vita of Malchus which are currently available are unsatisfactory.

Herculean Labours: Erasmus and the Editing of St. Jerome's Letters in the Renaissance

Herculean Labours: Erasmus and the Editing of St. Jerome's Letters in the Renaissance

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Genealogies of Translation Theory: Jerome

This article offers a historical examination and ideological critique of Jerome's famous Letter to Pammachius (395 CE), exploring its complex relations to the Roman translation tradition, on the one hand, and to an emerging Christian tradition, on the other hand, with examples taken from the New Testament and Jerome's own translating. Jerome's letter is the most influential statement of what can be called the instrumental model of translation, the notion that translation is the reproduction or imitation of an invariant contained in or caused by the source text. Attention is given to modern theoretical developments like Eugene Nida's concept of dynamic equivalence. The aim is to formulate and argue for the comprehensiveness and ethical value of a hermeneutic model, the notion that translation is a variable interpretation that is culturally and historically contingent. The ethics of translation proposed here draws on the work of the French philosopher Alain Badiou.

Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 B.C.—A.D. 250 by John R. Clarke

426 PHOENIX engaged in sporting activities) communicate about the childhood experience. Collectively, these articles illustrate how indispensable case studies of material culture are in mapping ancient childhood. Not all contributions, however, focus on archaeological or art-historical evidence. Louise Pratt's discussion centers on mythological parent-child (and pseudo-parent-child) relationshipsin Homer's Iliad thatconveyand exemplify culturally significant ideasabout personal sacrifice. In two particularly welcome contributions, Lisa Alberici, Mary Harlow, and Phyllis Katz attempt to illuminate further our rather limited picture of late antique childhood.Alberici andHarlow analyze the work ofmedical, legal,and patristic writers, from the second through seventh centuries a.d., in an effort to understand better the life course of females. They are especially interested to know what signaled a girl's transition from childhood to adulthood, and whether this transition was immediate or gradual. In classical Rome, marriage had traditionally marked this change and this belief seems to have carriedover intolateantiquity. Butwhat happenedwhen girls intheChristian community did notmarry and insteadchose to devote theirlives toChrist? How and atwhat age did theybecome adults in the eyesof thecommunity?PhyllisKatz also toucheson the life-course ofwomen in her rigorous and insightful reassessment of Jerome's letter to Laeta (Epistle107),who had soughthis adviceon the futureeducationofher infant daughter Paula. Katz argues, contrary to conventional views, that the unusual curriculum Jerome recommends demonstrates no real understanding of children's development, nor a genuine fondness for Laeta's baby daughter. Instead, it reveals his fervent desire to prepare another femalefora lifeof celibacyand servicetoChrist. Some readers will undoubtedly have reservations about the choice and treatment of the art-historical and archaeological evidence, finding it too selective to be meaningful or perhaps too controversial. Others may consider certain contributions to be more descriptive than analytical. For the most part, however, this collection has only one limitation, and thisshortcoming isone readilyacknowledgedby theeditorsthemselves: Roman childhood is not well represented here. A disproportionate number of articles focus on Greek and Aegean society from the Bronze Age to the hellenistic period, and this imbalance gives a false impression about the state of research on ancient children's history.1 In spite of this weakness, Constructions ofChildhood offers the present generation of scholars a great deal to digest, and is bound to influence, in a highly positive manner, future research on children and childhood in the ancient Mediterranean. Mount Allison University Leslie Shumka Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 b.c.-a.d. 250. By John R. Clarke. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2007. Pp. xi, 322. Most who have studied Rome have some understanding of Roman humour. But while we have a sense of what the Romans found humorous, it is a more difficult matter 1As a remedy see the collections of V. Dasen (ed.), Naissance etpetite enfance dans lAntiquite: Actes du colloque deFribourg, 28 novembre-ler decembre 2001 (Fribourg 2004) and K. Mustakallio etal. (eds.), Hoping for Continuity: Childhood, Education, and Death in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae 33; Rome 2005). BOOKREVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 427 to explain it.What made Romans laugh? Putting asidemodern notions of political correctness and recognizing that different strata of society will find different words and images amusing, Clarke attempts to answer that question, always taking care to explain Roman humour in a Roman social context. Clarke's study treats humour under three headings:VisualHumor (Chapters One toFour), SocialHumor (ChaptersFive toSeven), and SexualHumor (ChaptersEight toNine). The volume iswell-illustrated,including twenty-four colour plates at the end of Part 2. As one would expect, while he touches on a wide range ofmaterial, Clarke's main focus is on visual images, and those familiar with his earlier works will notice the return of some familiar "faces," for example, the hyperphallic Aethiops fromthebaths. The first chapter,"Words or Images?Degrees ofVisuality inRoman Humor," looks first at verbal humour, situating it largely within the context of the elite classes of Graeco Roman society, and emphasizing its use in political oratory. Some of the themes towhich Clarke will return throughout the study are introduced here: humour based on physical peculiarities, apotropaic laughter, and role reversal. For the last, he invokes the Saturnalia, and with that brief examination...

Herculean Labours: Erasmus and the Editing of St. Jerome's Letters in the Renaissance

Herculean Labours: Erasmus and the Editing of St. Jerome's Letters in the Renaissance

Erasmus, Willem Vorsterman, and the Printing of St Jerome's Letters

AbstractWillem Vorsterman was a leading printer in Antwerp in the first half of the sixteenth century. He printed two anthologies of the letters of St. Jerome, one in 1515, the other in 1533. These deserve attention in connection with Erasmus of Rotterdam, the renowned humanist champion and editor of Jerome. In its preface, the first anthology takes up the cause of humanist theology and invokes Erasmus' authority on the eve of his celebrated edition of Jerome. His name adds value to the anthology. The second anthology does not refer to Erasmus at all; nevertheless it yields traces of his editorial influence.

Vox clamantis in deserto: Rhetoric, Reproach, and the Forging of Ascetic Authority in Jerome's Letters from the Syrian Desert

In eight letters (Epp. 6-9, 11-13, 16) that Jerome sent from his monastic retreat in the Syrian desert between c.375 and c.377, he sharply criticized friends who were not as faithful in writing to him as he had been to them. John Kelly, in his influential biography of Jerome (1975), famously read these letters as the petty outbursts of a neurotic curmudgeon who was bitter and resentful about being snubbed; other scholars since have followed suit with this face-value interpretation. The present article challenges this widely accepted psychologizing reading as being uncritical and unappreciative of the letters as literary artefacts. It is demonstrated first that they are stylish specimens of the epistolary genre of reproach. It is then argued that these letters, inasmuch as they portray Jerome as being shunned by human society, were important components of a book of collected personal correspondence that Jerome released in Rome in the early 380s to promote himself as the consummate hermit and hero of desert asceticism.

Letters to Demetrias: A Sidebar in the Pelegian Controversy Helenae, amicae meae

In 412 an event occurred which Jerome described as lessening "the calamity of the fall of Rome," an event on account of which "every church in Africa danced for joy, every island between Africa and Italy was full of glad tidings, [and] Italy put off her mourning. " The occasion for this extravagant jubilation was not the reconquest of Italy, not a military victory of any kind, but a decision a fourteen-year-old girl had taken to live a life of celibacy. Such a choice was far from uncommon among late fourth- and fifth-century Christians, and possibly made more attractive at this time by the turbulent conditions in Europe and North Africa. Why, then, the exuberant language? And why are not only Jerome's letter, but those of Augustine and Pelagius, still of interest today?

Jerome and the Sham Christians of Rome

This rhetorical question was poseu by Jerome in AD 411 to challenge a young man of good family from Toulouse who was contemplating the responsibilities of monastic life. The old man of Bethlehem wrote on city life with some authority; he had achieved fame and notoriety simultaneously at the court of Pope Damasus in Rome in the 380s.2 And yet, as both men knew well, the moral and physical dangers of the city, the latter resoundingly demonstrated by the Gothic capture of Rome in the previous year, had not prompted the rejection of urban life by western Christians, save by a small and eccentric group of extreme ascetics. Jerome's praise for this group is well known, and his criticism of less committed Christians in Rome is legendary. But when one examines the uniquely vivid testimony of Jerome's letters, one can detect beneath the praise and polemic a vigorous struggle for the support of the city's elite. The social background to the struggle as revealed in Jerome's writings is the subject of this article. What emerges is a complex, contradictory and divided Christian community which Jerome unsuccessfully attempted to influence, a failure that brought final and ignominious exile from Rome.

Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60 (review)

Reviewed by: Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60 P. L. Buck J. H. D. Scourfield . Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60 is intended "as a contribution to the study of an author whose enormous literary output has not received the degree of scholarly attention it deserves." With very few exceptions, writes Scourfield, "no commentary on anything like the scale attempted in this book has ever been published [on a work of Jerome]." This book derives from the author's D.Phil, thesis which was submitted to the University of Oxford in 1983. Since then, he states in his Preface, the introduction and commentary have been considerably revised, the appendices have been expanded, and a text and translation of Letter 60 have been added. The book falls naturally into three sections: an introduction to Jerome and the consolatory tradition, a text and translation of Letter 60, and a lengthy literary commentary. The two appendices examine respectively the date of the letter and the use of prose-rhythm in Jerome's writings. In his Introduction, Scourfield gives a brief overview of Jerome's life and work which, as he himself admits, is heavily dependent on the biography of Jerome written by J. N. D. Kelly in 1975. This is followed by a general treatment of Letter 60 and the consolatory tradition. Here Scourfield cites many and varied instances of earlier consolatory literature by Greek and Latin authors, both pagan and Christian, which will no doubt prove to be a useful and convenient resource for literary scholars. One can only wish, however, that the author had considered these earlier works more fully in their wider context, i.e., as part of what he himself sees as an established consolatory tradition from early Antiquity to the Middle Ages. As they stand, these numerous examples are treated rather too cursorily to convey any sense of continuity or progression from one to the other, and they are too wide-ranging to provide an adequate notion of where Letter 60 falls within the tradition. An introduction which treated more precisely and in greater depth the epistolary antecedents of Jerome would have been more useful in a study as specific as this. The text and translation, on facing pages, make for ease of reference and study. Scourfield uses the text based on that of I. Hilberg in the Vienna corpus, which as yet "has not been superseded." Although the author himself has not done any original work on the manuscripts of Letter 60, he duly considers the variant readings noted in Hilberg's apparatus and at times offers a divergent text in order to avoid awkwardness or obscurity. He also examines in depth the various textual problems which he encounters. [End Page 223] Scourfield's translation of Letter 60 is on the whole straightforward and clear. It is worth asking, however, whether another English translation of this letter is really needed. The most recent previous translation was by F. A. Wright (Loeb Classical Library, 1933) who, according to Scourfield himself, "misunderstands the Latin" in some instances, and "seems to hit the mark exactly" in others so that it is not even necessary to alter his wording. Indeed many of Jerome's writings have no English translation at all, and it is regrettable that Scourfield's energies could not have been directed to one of these works. The commentary on Letter 60 comprises the bulk of this work. It is first and foremost a literary commentary, and thus the author offers many helpful suggestions to aid translation and explores the finer points of Latin literary style in some detail. He also provides numerous Latin and Greek parallel passages in both pagan and Christian literature and frequently quotes them at great length. Sadly, however, herein lies one of the major defects of the commentary, for very often too little attempt is made to decipher, interpret, and evaluate Jerome's letter in the light of these analogous texts. A marked example can be found at 1.3 (rerum . . . senes), where the author cites a plethora of ancient texts echoing the notion that people naturally and...

The Martyrdom of Jerome

The Martyrdom of Jerome Mont Allen (bio) In The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism, Geoffrey Harpham states that "the unrelenting ambition of these people [the early ascetics] was precisely to eliminate the 'hors-texte' from their existence, to become their own texts" (15). Patricia Cox Miller supports this claim by demonstrating in her article "The Blazing Body: Ascetic Desire in Jerome's Letter to Eustochium" (J. Early Christian Studies 1 [1993]: 21-45) that Jerome, exhorting Eustochium to virginity, transforms her into a text, (re)writing her body by figuring her as an embodiment of Scripture from the Song of Songs. Miller states, however, that Jerome encountered problems when he tried to rewrite his own body into a text using feminine virginal Scriptural tropes as he had for Eustochium: "[The Songs of Songs] was not a language that was available to Jerome for the erotic textualization of his own body. . . . He did not have available to him the kind of erotically-charged metaphor of desire that he used to construct Eustochium's body as ascetic text." She claims that Jerome was unable "to find a Scriptural metaphor that would, by textualizing his body, safely remove him from the fiery libido of the flesh", because the metaphor of the virginal bride of Christ was not easily applicable to his male body (32-33). However, I think that Jerome indeed did find a "Scriptural metaphor" suitable for writing himself a pure virginal body. Harpham provides essential insight when he says that "for the early Christians textuality was closely linked with martyrdom" (14). I would like to propose that the trope with which Jerome chose to inscribe himself revolved around the notion of martyrdom, specifically the martyrdom of Christ. That Jerome martyrs himself by becoming text is obvious. For one thing, he effectively kills his physical presence to Eustochium simply by writing to her. Jerome is "motivated by the desire to die to the world, to be transfigured into another, purer mode of being. Speaking, he is all too human; writing, he communicates through the dead letter, as though he were already dead" (Harpham 15). Jerome could easily have chosen instead [End Page 211] to speak to Eustochium (Miller 32), but by writing her he martyrs himself, following the example of his martyred Christ. Jerome martyrs himself by becoming text in another, more indirect, way as well. "Unable to give up his beloved library, [Jerome] would fast—only to be able afterwards to read Cicero as a reward for his labors" (Miller 39). Then one day, Jerome relates, I was caught up in the spirit and dragged up to the tribunal of a judge. . . . Asked about my identity, I replied "I am a Christian." And he who sat [behind the tribunal] said, "You are lying; you are a Ciceronian, not a Christian; for where your treasure is, there is where your heart is also." Immediately I became mute, and, amid the floggings—for he had ordered that I be beaten—I was tortured more strongly. . . . Dismissed, I returned to the upper world. . . . This was not an idle dream. . . . My shoulders were black and blue, and I felt the bruises after I awoke from sleeping. (Epistle 22.30) In this we see that Jerome's identity is defined by the texts he reads: he is initially a "Ciceronian", and becomes a "Christian" by switching to more wholesome reading material. Jerome is the text he reads—and thus martyrs his fleshy body by showing his textual identity through his vision, reinforcing the martyrdom he achieved by choosing to write to Eustochium instead of speaking to her. So far we have shown that Jerome martyrs himself in a general manner simply by becoming text. But he takes his textual self-transformation a step further by writing himself specifically as the martyred Christ—and he does so in the passage just quoted, the most important passage for Jerome's (re)writing of himself. The most striking thing about this vision is that it puts Jerome squarely in the role of the crucified Christ, and its sequence of events exactly replicates the sequence of the trial and crucifixion as presented in Matthew, Mark, and Luke: Jerome appears...

The Blazing Body: Ascetic Desire in Jerome's Letter to Eustochium

This essay explores the theory of sexuality that Jerome sets forth in his Ep. 22. Focusing on the manner in which sexuality is discussed in terms of erotic metaphors of the female virginal body, the essay argues that Jerome's view of asceticism was founded on a paradox wherein erotic sensibilities are both denied and intensified. Perspectives drawn from contemporary literary-critical theory are used to uncover a figural movement in Jerome's text in which an attempt is made to "erase" the literal body and its dangerous sexual passions by "rewriting" it with Scriptural tropes. The essay proposes that Jerome's ascetic theory foundered on an interpretive problematic, namely, his figuration of asceticism in terms of linguistic metaphors of desire.

Jerome, Alcuin and Vergil's ‘Old entellus’

In 798, Alcuin quarreled with Charlemagne's court scholars over the calculation of the lunar saltus. In Epistola 145, an important source for this argument, Alcuin called his rivals the ‘Egyptian boys’, because they wanted to follow Alexandrian custom, which began the Easter cycle on 1 September instead of the Roman 1 January. Alcuin expressed his anger with the ‘boys’ over their violation of Roman custom by quoting aptly from Jerome's letters. Jerome's warning to Augustine in Epistola 102.2, to remember Vergil's Dares and Entellus, suggested to Alcuin that his scholarly debate with the ‘boys’ should become a boxing match. Accordingly, Alcuin became ‘old Entellus’, whom Charlemagne's young scholars had hit unfairly with their criticism. In Epistola 145, Alcuin jabbed at the weak logic of the ‘Egyptians’ and satirized their ignorance. Besides revealing Alcuin's literary techniques, Epistola 145 is important for illuminating the tensions in Alcuin's relationship with Charlemagne.

The Cenobitic Life: A Digression in Jerome's Letter Twenty-Two to Eustochium

The Cenobitic Life: A Digression in Jerome's Letter Twenty-Two to Eustochium

On Some Figurative Expressions in Jerome's 22nd Letter

On Some Figurative Expressions in Jerome's 22nd Letter