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| From Jerome
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Letter LXVIII.
(a.d. 402.)
To Augustin, My Lord, Truly Holy
and Most Blessed Father,1878
Jerome Sends
Greeting in Christ.
1. When my kinsman, our holy son Asterius,
subdeacon, was just on the point of beginning his journey, the
letter of your Grace arrived, in which you clear yourself of the
charge of having sent to Rome a book written against your humble
servant.1879
I had not
heard that charge; but by our brother Sysinnius, deacon, copies of
a letter addressed by some one apparently to me have come hither.
In the said letter I am exhorted to sing the παλινωδία, confessing mistake in regard
to a paragraph of the apostle’s writing, and to imitate
Stesichorus, who, vacillating between disparagement and praises of
Helen, recovered, by praising her, the eyesight which he had
forfeited by speaking against her.1880
| 1880 See Letter XL. sec. 7, p. 274. | Although the style and the method
of argument appeared to be yours, I must frankly confess to your
Excellency that I did not think it right to assume without
examination the authenticity of a letter of which I had only seen
copies, lest perchance, if offended by my reply, you should with
justice complain that it was my duty first to have made sure that
you were the author, and only after that was ascertained, to
address you in reply. Another reason for my delay was the
protracted illness of the pious and venerable Paula. For, while
occupied long in attending upon her in severe illness, I had almost
forgotten your letter, or more correctly, the letter written in
your name, remembering the verse, “Like music in the day of
mourning is an unseasonable discourse.”1881
Therefore, if it is your letter,
write me frankly that it is so, or send me a more accurate copy, in
order that without any passionate rancour we may devote ourselves
to discuss scriptural truth; and I may either correct my own
mistake, or show that another has without good reason found fault
with me.
2. Far be it from me to presume to attack anything
which your Grace has written. For it is enough for me to prove my
own views without controverting what others hold. But it is well
known to one of your wisdom, that every one is satisfied with his
own opinion, and that it is puerile self-sufficiency to seek, as
young men have of old been wont to do, to gain glory to one’s own
name by assailing men who have become renowned. I am not so foolish
as to think myself insulted by the fact that you give an
explanation different from mine; since you, on the other hand, are not
wronged by my views being contrary to those which you maintain. But
that is the kind of reproof by which friends may truly benefit each
other, when each, not seeing his own bag of faults, observes, as
Persius has it, the wallet borne by the other.1882
| 1882 “Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere, nemo; Sed
præcedenti spectatur mantica tergo.”—Sat. iv. 29. See
also Phædrus, iv. 10. | Let me say further, love one who
loves you, and do not because you are young challenge a veteran in
the field of Scripture. I have had my time, and have run my course
to the utmost of my strength. It is but fair that I should rest,
while you in your turn run and accomplish great distances; at the
same time (with your leave, and without intending any disrespect),
lest it should seem that to quote from the poets is a thing which
you alone can do, let me remind you of the encounter between Dares
and Entellus,1883
| 1883 Virgil, Æneid, v. 369 seq. | and of the
proverb, “The tired ox treads with a firmer step.” With sorrow
I have dictated these words. Would that I could receive your
embrace, and that by converse we might aid each other in
learning!
3. With his usual effrontery, Calphurnius,
surnamed Lanarius,1884
has sent me his execrable
writings, which I understand that he has been at pains to
disseminate in Africa also. To these I have replied in past, and
shortly; and I have sent you a copy of my treatise, intending by
the first opportunity to send you a larger work, when I have
leisure to prepare it. In this treatise I have been careful not to
offend Christian feeling in any, but only to confute the lies and
hallucinations arising from his ignorance and madness.
Remember me, holy and venerable father. See how
sincerely I love thee, in that I am unwilling, even when
challenged, to reply, and refuse to believe you to be the author of
that which in another I would sharply rebuke. Our brother Communis
sends his respectful salutation.
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