Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| From Jerome
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Letter LXXV.
(a.d. 404.)
Jerome’s answer to Letters XXVIII., XL., and LXXI.
To Augustin, My Lord Truly Holy,
and Most Blessed Father, Jerome Sends Greeting in
Christ.
Chap. I.
1. I have received by Cyprian, deacon, three
letters, or rather three little books, at the same time, from your
Excellency, containing what you call sundry questions, but what I
feel to be animadversions on opinions which I have published, to
answer which, if I were disposed to do it, would require a pretty
large volume. Nevertheless I shall attempt to reply without
exceeding the limits of a moderately long letter, and without
causing delay to our brother, now in haste to depart, who only
three days before the time fixed for his journey asked earnestly
for a letter to take with him, in consequence of which I am
compelled to pour out these sentences, such as they are, almost
without premeditation, answering you in a rambling effusion,
prepared not in the leisure of deliberate composition, but in the
hurry of extemporaneous dictation, which usually produces a
discourse that is more the offspring of chance than the parent of
instruction; just as unexpected attacks throw into confusion even
the bravest soldiers, and they are compelled to take to flight
before they can gird on their armour.
2. But our armour is Christ; it is that which
the Apostle Paul prescribes when, writing to the Ephesians, he
says, “Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able
to withstand in the evil day;” and again, “Stand, therefore,
having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the
breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of
faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of
the wicked: and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God.”1902
Armed with these weapons, King
David went forth in his day to battle; and taking from the
torrent’s bed five smooth rounded stones, he proved that, even
amidst all the eddying currents of the world, his feelings were
free both from roughness and from defilement; drinking of the brook
by the way, and therefore lifted up in spirit, he cut off the head
of Goliath, using the proud enemy’s own sword as the fittest
instrument of death,1903
smiting the profane boaster on the
forehead and wounding him in the same place in which Uzziah was
smitten with leprosy when he presumed to usurp the priestly
office;1904
the same also in
which shines the glory that makes the saints rejoice in the Lord,
saying, “The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us, O
Lord.”1905
| 1905 Ps. iv. 7, according to the LXX. | Let us
therefore also say, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed:
I will sing and give praise: awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery
and harp; I myself will awake early;”1906
that in us may be fulfilled that
word, “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it;”1907
and,
“The Lord shall give the word with great power to them that
publish it.”1908
| 1908 Ps. lxviii. 11, in LXX. version. | I am well
assured that your prayer as well as mine is, that in our
contendings the victory may remain with the truth. For you seek
Christ’s glory, not your own: if you are victorious, I also gain
a victory if I discover my error. On the other hand, if I win the
day, the gain is yours; for “the children ought not to lay up for
the parents, but the parents for the children.”1909
We read,
moreover, in Chronicles, that the children of Israel went to battle
with their minds set upon peace,1910
seeking even amid swords and
bloodshed and the prostrate slain a victory not for themselves, but
for peace. Let me therefore, if it be the will of Christ, give an
answer to all that you have written, and attempt in a short
dissertation to solve your numerous questions. I pass by the
conciliatory phrases in your courteous salutation: I say nothing of
the compliments by which you attempt to take the edge off your
censure: let me come at once to the matters in debate.
Chap. II.
3. You say that you received from some brother
a book of mine, in which I have given a list of ecclesiastical
writers, both Greek and Latin, but which had no title; and that
when you asked the brother aforesaid (I quote your own statement)
why the title-page had no inscription, or what was the name by
which the book was known, he answered that it was called
“Epitaphium,” i.e. “Obituary Notices:” upon which
you display your reasoning powers, by remarking that the name
Epitaphium would have been properly given to the book if the reader
had found in it an account of the lives and writings of deceased
authors, but that inasmuch as mention is made of the works of many
who were living when the book was written, and are at this day
still living, you wonder why I should have given the book a title
so inappropriate. I think that it must be obvious to your own
common sense, that you might have discovered the title of that book
from its contents, without any other help. For you have read both
Greek and Latin biographies of eminent men, and you know that they
do not give to works of this kind the title Epitaphium, but simply
“Illustrious Men,” e.g. “Illustrious Generals,” or
“philosophers, orators, historians, poets,” etc., as the case
may be. An Epitaphium is a work written concerning the dead; such
as I remember having composed long ago after the decease of the
presbyter Nepotianus, of blessed memory. The book, therefore, of
which you speak ought to be entitled, “Concerning Illustrious
Men,” or properly, “Concerning Ecclesiastical Writers,”
although it is said that by many who were not qualified to make any
correction of the title, it has been called “Concerning
Authors.”
Chap. III.
4. You ask, in the second place, my reason for
saying, in my commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, that Paul
could not have rebuked Peter for that which he himself had done,1911
and could
not have censured in another the dissimulation of which he was
himself confessedly guilty; and you affirm that that rebuke of the
apostle was not a manœuvre of pious policy,1912
but real; and you say that I ought
not to teach falsehood, but that all things in Scripture are to be
received literally as they stand.
To this I answer, in the first place, that
your wisdom ought to have suggested the remembrance of the short
preface to my commentaries, saying of my own person, “What then?
Am I so foolish and bold as to promise that which he could not
accomplish? By no means; but I have rather, as it seems to me, with
more reserve and hesitation, because feeling the deficiency of my
strength, followed the commentaries of Origen in this matter. For
that illustrious man wrote five volumes on the Epistle of Paul to
the Galatians, and has occupied the tenth volume of his
Stromata with a short treatise upon his explanation of the
epistle. He also composed several treatises and fragmentary pieces
upon it, which, if they even had stood alone, would have sufficed.
I pass over my revered instructor Didymus1913
| 1913 “Videntem meum Didymum,”—Didymus of
Alexandria, who, at the time when Jerome wrote his book on
ecclesiastical writers (A.D. 392), was
above ninety-three years of age. He became blind when he was five
years old, but by perseverance attained extraordinary learning, and
was much esteemed. | (blind, it is true, but
quick-sighted in the discernment of spiritual things), and the
bishop of Laodicea,1914
| 1914 The younger Apollinarius, who in 380 was
excommunicated for error regarding the Incarnation. His works were
valuable, but have been almost all lost, being not transcribed
because of his lapsing into heresy. | who has recently left the Church,
and the early heretic Alexander, as well as Eusebius of Emesa and
Theodorus of Heraclea, who have also left some brief disquisitions
upon this subject. From these works if I were to extract even a few
passages, a work which could not be altogether despised would be
produced. Let me therefore frankly say that I have read all these; and storing
up in my mind very many things which they contain, I have dictated
to my amanuensis sometimes what was borrowed from other writers,
sometimes what was my own, without distinctly remembering the
method, or the words, or the opinions which belonged to each. I
look now to the Lord in His mercy to grant that my want of skill
and experience may not cause the things which others have well
spoken to be lost, or to fail of finding among foreign readers the
acceptance with which they have met in the language in which they
were first written. If, therefore, anything in my explanation has
seemed to you to demand correction, it would have been seemly for
one of your learning to inquire first whether what I had written
was found in the Greek writers to whom I have referred; and if they
had not advanced the opinion which you censured, you could then
with propriety condemn me for what I gave as my own view,
especially seeing that I have in the preface openly acknowledged
that I had followed the commentaries of Origen, and had dictated
sometimes the view of others, sometimes my own, and have written at
the end of the
Chapter with which you find fault: “If any one be
dissatisfied with the interpretation here given, by which it is
shown that neither did Peter sin, nor did Paul rebuke
presumptuously a greater than himself, he is bound to show how Paul
could consistently blame in another what he himself did.” By
which I have made it manifest that I did not adopt finally and
irrevocably that which I had read in these Greek authors, but had
propounded what I had read, leaving to the reader’s own judgment
whether it should be rejected or approved.
5. You, however, in order to avoid doing what
I had asked, have devised a new argument against the view proposed;
maintaining that the Gentiles who had believed in Christ were free
from the burden of the ceremonial law, but that the Jewish converts
were under the law, and that Paul, as the teacher of the Gentiles,
rightly rebuked those who kept the law; whereas Peter, who was the
chief of the “circumcision,”1915
was justly rebuked for commanding
the Gentile converts to do that which the converts from among the
Jews were alone under obligation to observe. If this is your
opinion, or rather since it is your opinion, that all from among
the Jews who believe are debtors to do the whole law, you ought, as
being a bishop of great fame in the whole world, to publish your
doctrine, and labour to persuade all other bishops to agree with
you. As for me in my humble cell,1916
along with the monks my
fellow-sinners, I do not presume to dogmatize in regard to things
of great moment; I only confess frankly that I read the writings of
the Fathers,1917
and,
complying with universal usage, put down in my commentaries a
variety of explanations, that each may adopt from the number given
the one which pleases him. This method, I think, you have found in
your reading, and have approved in connection with both secular
literature and the Divine Scriptures.
6. Moreover, as to this explanation which
Origen first advanced,1918
| 1918 In the tenth book of his Stromata, where he
expounds the Epistle to the Galatians. | and which all the other
commentators after him have adopted, they bring forward, chiefly
for the purpose of answering, the blasphemies of Porphyry, who
accuses Paul of presumption because he dared to reprove Peter and
rebuke him to his face, and by reasoning convict him of having done
wrong; that is to say, of being in the very fault which he himself,
who blamed another for transgressing, had committed. What shall I
say also of John, who has long governed the Church of
Constantinople, and holding pontifical rank,1919
| 1919 This year (404) was the year of John
Chrysostom’s banishment from Constantinople, after being pontiff
there for ten years. | who has composed a very large book
upon this paragraph, and has followed the opinion of Origen and of
the old expositors? If, therefore, you censure me as in the wrong,
suffer me, I pray you, to be mistaken in company with such men; and
when you perceive that I have so many companions in my error, you
will require to produce at least one partisan in defence of your
truth. So much on the interpretation of one paragraph of the
Epistle to the Galatians.
7. Lest, however, I should seem to rest my answer to
your reasoning wholly on the number of witnesses who are on my
side, and to use the names of illustrious men as a means of
escaping from the truth, not daring to meet you in argument, I
shall briefly bring forward some examples from the Scriptures.
In the Acts of the Apostles, a voice was heard by
Peter, saying unto him, “Rise, Peter, slay and eat,” when all
manner of four-footed beasts, and creeping things, and birds of the
air, were presented before him; by which saying it is proved that
no man is by nature [ceremonially] unclean, but that all men are
equally welcome to the gospel of Christ. To which Peter answered,
“Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or
unclean.” And the voice spake unto him again the second time,
“What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.” Therefore
he went to Cæsarea, and having entered the house of Cornelius,
“he opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is
no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him
and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.” Thereafter “the
Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word; and they of the
circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with
Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of
the Holy Ghost. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that
these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as
well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the
Lord.”1920
“And the
apostles and brethren that were in Judea heard that the Gentiles
had also received the word of God. And when Peter was come up to
Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him,
saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with
them.” To whom he gave a full explanation of the reasons of his
conduct, and concluded with these words: “Forasmuch then as God
gave them the like gift as He did unto us who believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ, what was I, that I could withstand God? When they
heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God,
saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto
life.”1921
Again,
when, long after this, Paul and Barnabas had come to Antioch, and
“having gathered the Church together, rehearsed all that God had
done with them, and how He had opened the door of faith unto the
Gentiles, certain men which came down from Judea taught the
brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of
Moses, ye cannot be saved. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no
small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that
Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to
Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. And
when they were come to Jerusalem, there rose up certain of the sect
of the Pharisees which believed, saying that it was needful to
circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.”
And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, with his
wonted readiness, “and said, Men and brethren, ye know how that a
good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my
mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God,
which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy
Ghost, even as He did unto us; and put no difference between us and
them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye
God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that, through
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as
they. Then all the multitude kept silence;” and to his opinion
the Apostle James, and all the elders together, gave consent.1922
8. These quotations should not be tedious to
the reader, but useful both to him and to me, as proving that, even
before the Apostle Paul, Peter had come to know that the law was
not to be in force after the gospel was given; nay more, that Peter
was the prime mover in issuing the decree by which this was
affirmed. Moreover, Peter was of so great authority, that Paul has
recorded in his epistle: “Then, after three years, I went up to
Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.”1923
In the
following context, again, he adds: “Then, fourteen years after, I
went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me
also. And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that
gospel which I preach among the Gentiles;” proving that he had
not had confidence in his preaching of the gospel if he had not
been confirmed by the consent of Peter and those who were with him.
The next words are, “but privately to them that were of
reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.”
Why did he this privately rather than in public? Lest offence
should be given to the faith of those who from among the Jews had
believed, since they thought that the law was still in force, and
that they ought to join observance of the law with faith in the
Lord as their Saviour. Therefore also, when at that time Peter had
come to Antioch (although the Acts of the Apostles do not mention
this, but we must believe Paul’s statement), Paul affirms that he
“withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For,
before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles:
but when they were come, he withdrew, and separated himself,
fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews
dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was
carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw,” he says,
“that they walked not up-rightly, according to the truth of the
gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew,
livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why
compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?”1924
etc. No
one can doubt, therefore, that the Apostle Peter was himself the
author of that rule with deviation from which he is charged. The
cause of that deviation, moreover, is seen to be fear of the Jews.
For the Scripture says, that “at first he did eat with the
Gentiles, but that when certain had come from James he withdrew,
and separated himself, fearing them which were of the
circumcision.” Now he feared the Jews, to whom he had been
appointed apostle, lest by occasion of
the Gentiles they should go back from the
faith in Christ; imitating the Good Shepherd in his concern lest he
should lose the flock committed to him.
9. As I have shown, therefore, that Peter was
thoroughly aware of the abrogation of the law of Moses, but was
compelled by fear to pretend to observe it, let us now see whether
Paul, who accuses another, ever did anything of the same kind
himself. We read in the same book: “Paul passed through Syria and
Cilicia, confirming the churches. Then came he to Derbe and Lystra:
and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son
of a certain woman which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father
was a Greek: which was well reported of by the brethren that were
at Lystra and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him;
and he took and circumcised him, because of the Jews which were in
those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek.”1925
O blessed
Apostle Paul, who hadst rebuked Peter for dissimulation, because he
withdrew himself from the Gentiles through fear of the Jews who
came from James, why art thou, notwithstanding thine own doctrine,
compelled to circumcise Timothy, the son of a Gentile, nay more, a
Gentile himself (for he was not a Jew, having not been
circumcised)? Thou wilt answer, “Because of the Jews which are in
these quarters?” If, then, thou forgiveth thyself the
circumcision of a disciple coming from the Gentiles, forgive Peter
also, who has precedence above thee, his doing some things of the
same kind through fear of the believing Jews. Again, it is written:
“Paul after this tarried there yet a good while, and then took
his leave of the brethren, and sailed thence into Syria, and with
him Priscilla and Aquila; having shorn his head in Cenchrea, for he
had a vow.”1926
Be it
granted that he was compelled through fear of the Jews in the other
case to do what he was unwilling to do; wherefore did he let his
hair grow in accordance with a vow of his own making, and
afterwards, when in Cenchrea, shave his head according to the law,
as the Nazarites, who had given themselves by vow to God, were wont
to do, according to the law of Moses?
10. But these things are small when compared
with what follows. The sacred historian Luke further relates:
“And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us
gladly;” and the day following, James, and all the elders who
were with him, having expressed their approbation of his gospel,
said to Paul: “Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews
there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law: and
they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which
are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not
to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.
What is it therefore? The multitude must needs come together: for
they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to
thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; them take, and
purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they
may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof
they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou
thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law. Then Paul took
the men, and the next day purifying himself with them, entered into
the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of
purification, until an offering should be offered for every one of
them.”1927
O Paul,
here again let me question thee: Why didst thou shave thy head, why
didst thou walk barefoot according to Jewish ceremonial law, why
didst thou offer sacrifices, why were victims slain for thee
according to the law? Thou wilt answer, doubtless, “To avoid
giving offence to those of the Jews who had believed.” To gain
the Jews, thou didst pretend to be a Jew; and James and all the
other elders taught thee this dissimulation. But thou didst not
succeed in escaping, after all. For when thou wast on the point of
being killed in a tumult which had arisen, thou wast rescued by the
chief captain of the band, and was sent by him to Cæsarea, guarded
by a careful escort of soldiers, lest the Jews should kill thee as
a dissembler, and a destroyer of the law; and from Cæsarea coming
to Rome, thou didst, in thine own hired house, preach Christ to
both Jews and Gentiles, and thy testimony was sealed under Nero’s
sword.1928
| 1928 Acts xxiii. 23, xxviii. 14, 30. |
11. We have learned, therefore, that through
fear of the Jews both Peter and Paul alike pretended that they
observed the precepts of the law. How could Paul have the assurance
and effrontery to reprove in another what he had done himself? I at
least, or, I should rather say, others before me, have given such
explanation of the matter as they deemed best, not defending the
use of falsehood in the interest of religion,1929
| 1929 Officiosum mendacium. | as you charge them with doing, but
teaching the honourable exercise of a wise discretion;1930
| 1930 Honestam dispensationem. | seeking
both to show the wisdom of the apostles, and to restrain the
shameless blasphemies of Porphyry, who says that Peter and Paul
quarrelled with each other in childish rivalry, and affirms that
Paul had been inflamed with envy on account of the excellences of
Peter, and had
written boastfully of things which he either had not done, or, if
he did them, had done with inexcusable presumption, reproving in
another that which he himself had done. They, in answering him,
gave the best interpretation of the passage which they could find;
what interpretation have you to propound? Surely you must intend to
say something better than they have said, since you have rejected
the opinion of the ancient commentators.
Chap. IV.
12. You say in your letter:1931
| 1931 Letter XL. 4, p. 273. | “You do not require me to teach
you in what sense the apostle says, ‘To the Jews I became as a
Jew, that I might gain the Jews;’1932
and other such things in the same
passage, which are to be ascribed to the compassion of pitying
love, not to the artifices of intentional deceit. For he that
ministers to the sick becomes as if he were sick himself, not
indeed falsely pretending to be under the fever, but considering
with the mind of one truly sympathizing what he would wish done for
himself if he were in the sick man’s place. Paul was indeed a
Jew; and when he had become a Christian, he had not abandoned those
Jewish sacraments which that people had received in the right way,
and for a certain appointed time. Therefore, even when he was an
apostle of Christ, he took part in observing these, but with this
view, that he might show that they were in no wise hurtful to those
who, even after they had believed in Christ, desired to retain the
ceremonies which by the law they had learned from their fathers;
provided only that they did not build on these their hope of
salvation, since the salvation which was fore-shadowed in these has
now been brought in by the Lord Jesus.” The sum of your whole
argument, which you have expanded into a most prolix dissertation,
is this, that Peter did not err in supposing that the law was
binding on those who from among the Jews had believed, but departed
from the right course in this, that he compelled the Gentile
converts to conform to Jewish observances. Now, if he compelled
them, it was not by use of authority as a teacher, but by the
example of his own practice. And Paul, according to your view, did
not protest against what Peter had done personally, but asked
wherefore Peter would compel those who were from among the Gentiles
to conform to Jewish observances.
13. The matter in debate, therefore, or I
should rather say your opinion regarding it, is summed up in this:
that since the preaching of the gospel of Christ, the believing
Jews do well in observing the precepts of the law, i.e. in
offering sacrifices as Paul did, in circumcising their children, as
Paul did in the case of Timothy, and keeping the Jewish Sabbath, as
all the Jews have been accustomed to do. If this be true, we fall
into the heresy of Cerinthus and Ebion, who, though believing in
Christ, were anathematized by the fathers for this one error, that
they mixed up the ceremonies of the law with the gospel of Christ,
and professed their faith in that which was new, without letting go
what was old. Why do I speak of the Ebionites, who make pretensions
to the name of Christian? In our own day there exists a sect among
the Jews throughout all the synagogues of the East, which is called
the sect of the Minei, and is even now condemned by the Pharisees.
The adherents to this sect are known commonly as Nazarenes; they
believe in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary; and they
say that He who suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, is
the same as the one in whom we believe. But while they desire to be
both Jews and Christians, they are neither the one nor the other. I
therefore beseech you, who think that you are called upon to heal
my slight wound, which is no more, so to speak, than a prick or
scratch from a needle, to devote your skill in the healing art to
this grievous wound, which has been opened by a spear driven home
with the impetus of a javelin. For there is surely no proportion
between the culpability of him who exhibits the various opinions
held by the fathers in a commentary on Scripture, and the guilt of
him who reintroduces within the Church a most pestilential heresy.
If, however, there is for us no alternative but to receive the Jews
into the Church, along with the usages prescribed by their law; if,
in short, it shall be declared lawful for them to continue in the
Churches of Christ what they have been accustomed to practise in
the synagogues of Satan, I will tell you my opinion of the matter:
they will not become Christians, but they will make us
Jews.
14. For what Christian will submit to hear what is
said in your letter? “Paul was indeed a Jew; and when he had
become a Christian, he had not abandoned those Jewish sacraments
which that people had received in the right way, and for a certain
appointed time. Therefore, even when he was an apostle of Christ,
he took part in observing these; but with this view, that he might
show that they were in no wise hurtful to those who, even after
they had believed in Christ, desired to retain the ceremonies which
by the law they had learned from their fathers.” Now I implore
you to hear patiently my complaint. Paul, even when he was an
apostle of Christ, observed Jewish ceremonies; and you affirm that
they are in no wise hurtful to those who wish to retain them as
they had received them from their fathers by the law. I, on the
contrary, shall maintain, and, though the world
were to protest against my view, I
may boldly declare that the Jewish ceremonies are to Christians
both hurtful and fatal; and that whoever observes them, whether he
be Jew or Gentile originally, is cast into the pit of perdition.
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one
that believeth,”1933
that is, to both Jew and Gentile;
for if the Jew be excepted, He is not the end of the law for
righteousness to every one that believeth. Moreover, we read in the
Gospel, “The law and the prophets were until John the
Baptist.”1934
Also, in
another place: “Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him,
because He had not only broken the Sabbath, but said also that God
was His Father, making Himself equal with God.”1935
Again:
“Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace; for
the law was given Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ.”1936
Instead of
the grace of the law which has passed away, we have received the
grace of the gospel which is abiding; and instead of the shadows
and types of the old dispensation, the truth has come by Jesus
Christ. Jeremiah also prophesied thus in God’s name: “Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with
the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to
the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I
took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt.”1937
Observe
what the prophet says, not to Gentiles, who had not been partakers
in any former covenant, but to the Jewish nation. He who has given
them the law by Moses, promises in place of it the new covenant of
the gospel, that they might no longer live in the oldness of the
letter, but in the newness of the spirit. Paul himself, moreover,
in connection with whom the discussion of this question has arisen,
delivers such sentiments as these frequently, of which I subjoin
only a few, as I desire to be brief: “Behold, I Paul say unto
you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.”
Again: “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you
are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” Again: “If
ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”1938
From which
it is evident that he has not the Holy Spirit who submits to the
law, not, as our fathers affirmed the apostles to have done,
feignedly, under the promptings of a wise discretion,1939
but, as
you suppose to have been the case, sincerely. As to the quality of
these legal precepts, let us learn from God’s own teaching: “I
gave them,” He says, “statutes that were not good, and
judgments whereby they should not live.”1940
I say these things, not that I
may, like Manichæus and Marcion, destroy the law, which I know on
the testimony of the apostle to be both holy and spiritual; but
because when “faith came,” and the fulness of times, “God
sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem
them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of
sons,”1941
and might
live no longer under the law as our schoolmaster, but under the
Heir, who has now attained to full age, and is Lord.
15. It is further said in your letter: “The
thing, therefore, which he rebuked in Peter was not his observing
the customs handed down from his fathers, which Peter, if he
wished, might do without being chargeable with deceit or
inconsistency.”1942
| 1942 Letter XL. sec. 5, p. 273. | Again I say: Since you are a
bishop, a teacher in the Churches of Christ, if you would prove
what you assert, receive any Jew who, after having become a
Christian, circumcises any son that may be born to him, observes
the Jewish Sabbath, abstains from meats which God has created to be
used with thanksgiving, and on the evening of the fourteenth day of
the first month slays a paschal lamb; and when you have done this,
or rather, have refused to do it (for I know that you are a
Christian, and will not be guilty of a profane action), you will be
constrained, whether willingly or unwillingly, to renounce your
opinion; and then you will know that it is a more difficult work to
reject the opinion of others than to establish your own. Moreover,
lest perhaps we should not believe your statement, or, I should
rather say, understand it (for it is often the case that a
discourse unduly extended is not intelligible, and is less censured
by the unskilled in discussion because its weakness is not so
easily perceived), you inculcate your opinion by reiterating the
statement in these words: “Paul had forsaken everything peculiar
to the Jews that was evil, especially this, that ‘being ignorant
of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own
righteousness, they had not submitted themselves to the
righteousness of God.’1943
In this, moreover, he differed
from them, that after the passion and resurrection of Christ, in
whom had been given and made manifest the mystery of grace,
according to the order of Melchizedek, they still considered it
binding on them to celebrate, not out of mere reverence for old
customs, but as necessary to salvation, the sacraments of the old
dispensation; which were indeed at one time necessary, else had it
been unprofitable and vain for the Maccabees to suffer martyrdom
as they
did for their adherence to them.1944
Lastly, in this also Paul differed
from the Jews, that they persecuted the Christian preachers of
grace as enemies of the law. These, and all similar errors and
sins, he declares that he counted but loss and dung, that he might
win Christ.”1945
16. We have learned from you what evil things
peculiar to the Jews Paul had abandoned; let us now learn from your
teaching what good things which were Jewish he retained. You will
reply: “The ceremonial observances in which they continued to
follow the practice of their fathers, in the way in which these
were complied with by Paul himself, without believing them to be at
all necessary to salvation.” I do not fully understand what you
mean by the words, “without believing them to be at all necessary
to salvation.” For if they do not contribute to salvation, why
are they observed? And if they must be observed, they by all means
contribute to salvation; especially seeing that, because of
observing them, some have been made martyrs: for they would not be
observed unless they contributed to salvation. For they are not
things indifferent—neither good nor bad, as philosophers say.
Self-control is good, self-indulgence is bad: between these, and
indifferent, as having no moral quality, are such things as
walking, blowing one’s nose, expectorating phlegm, etc. Such an
action is neither good nor bad; for whether you do it or leave it
undone, it does not affect your standing as righteous or
unrighteous. But the observance of legal ceremonies is not a thing
indifferent; it is either good or bad. You say it is good. I affirm
it to be bad, and bad not only when done by Gentile converts, but
also when done by Jews who have believed. In this passage you fall,
if I am not mistaken, into one error while avoiding another. For
while you guard yourself against the blasphemies of Porphyry, you
become entangled in the snares of Ebion; pronouncing that the law
is binding on those who from among the Jews have believed.
Perceiving, again, that what you have said is a dangerous doctrine,
you attempt to qualify it by words which are only superfluous:
viz., “The law must be observed not from any belief, such as
prompted the Jews to keep it, that this is necessary to salvation,
and not in any misleading dissimulation such as Paul reproved in
Peter.”
17. Peter therefore pretended to keep the law;
but this censor of Peter boldly observed the things prescribed by
the law. The next words of your letter are these: “For if Paul
observed these sacraments in order, by pretending to be a Jew, to
gain the Jews, why did he not also take part with the Gentiles in
heathen sacrifices, when to them that were without law he became as
without law, that he might gain them also? The explanation is found
in this, that he took part in the Jewish rites as being himself a
Jew; and that when he said all this which I have quoted, he meant
not that he pretended to be what he was not, but that he felt with
true compassion that he must bring such help to them as would be
needful for himself if he were involved in their error.1946
| 1946 Letter XL. 6, p. 274. | Herein he
exercised not the subtlety of a deceiver, but the sympathy of a
compassionate deliverer.” A triumphant vindication of Paul! You
prove that he did not pretend to share the error of the Jews, but
was actually involved in it; and that he refused to imitate Peter
in a course of deception, dissembling through fear of the Jews what
he really was, but without reserve freely avowed himself to be a
Jew. Oh, unheard of compassion of the apostle! In seeking to make
the Jews Christians, he himself became a Jew! For he could not have
persuaded the luxurious to become temperate if he had not himself
become luxurious like them; and could not have brought help, in his
compassion, as you say, to the wretched, otherwise than by
experiencing in his own person their wretchedness! Truly wretched,
and worthy of most compassionate lamentation, are those who,
carried away by vehemence of disputation, and by love for the law
which has been abolished, have made Christ’s apostle to be a Jew.
Nor is there, after all, a great difference between my opinion and
yours: for I say that both Peter and Paul, through fear of the
believing Jews, practised, or rather pretended to practise, the
precepts of the Jewish law; whereas you maintain that they did this
out of pity, “not with the subtlety of a deceiver, but with the
sympathy of a compassionate deliverer.” But by both this is
equally admitted, that (whether from fear or from pity) they
pretended to be what they were not. As to your argument against our
view, that he ought to have become to the Gentiles a Gentile, if to
the Jews he became a Jew, this favours our opinion rather than
yours: for as he did not actually become a Jew, so he did not
actually become a heathen; and as he did not actually become a
heathen, so he did not actually become a Jew. His conformity to the
Gentiles consisted in this, that he received as Christians the
uncircumcised who believed in Christ, and left them free to use
without scruple meats which the Jewish law prohibited; but not, as
you suppose, in taking part in their worship of idols. For “in
Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor
uncircumcision, but the keeping of the commandments of God.”1947
| 1947 Gal. v. 6 and vi. 15. |
18. I ask you, therefore, and with all urgency press the request, that
you forgive me this humble attempt at a discussion of the matter;
and wherein I have transgressed, lay the blame upon yourself who
compelled me to write in reply, and who made me out to be as blind
as Stesichorus. And do not bring the reproach of teaching the
practice of lying upon me who am a follower of Christ, who said,
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”1948
It is impossible for me, who am a
worshipper of the Truth, to bow under the yoke of falsehood.
Moreover, refrain from stirring up against me the unlearned crowd
who esteem you as their bishop, and regard with the respect due the
priestly office the orations which you deliver in the church, but
who esteem lightly an old decrepit man like me, courting the
retirement of a monastery far from the busy haunts of men; and seek
others who may be more fitly instructed or corrected by you. For
the sound of your voice can scarcely reach me, who am so far
separated from you by sea and land. And if you happen to write me a
letter, Italy and Rome are sure to be acquainted with its contents
long before it is brought to me, to whom alone it ought to be
sent.
Chap. V.
19. In another letter you ask why a former
translation which I made of some of the canonical books was
carefully marked with asterisks and obelisks, whereas I afterwards
published a translation without these. You must pardon my saying
that you seem to me not to understand the matter: for the former
translation is from the Septuagint; and wherever obelisks are
placed, they are designed to indicate that the Seventy have said
more than is found in the Hebrew. But the asterisks indicate what
has been added by Origen from the version of Theodotion. In that
version I was translating from the Greek: but in the later version,
translating from the Hebrew itself, I have expressed what I
understood it to mean, being careful to preserve rather the exact
sense than the order of the words. I am surprised that you do not
read the books of the Seventy translators in the genuine form in
which they were originally given to the world, but as they have
been corrected, or rather corrupted, by Origen, with his obelisks
and asterisks; and that you refuse to follow the translation,
however feeble, which has been given by a Christian man, especially
seeing that Origen borrowed the things which he has added from the
edition of a man who, after the passion of Christ, was a Jew and a
blasphemer. Do you wish to be a true admirer and partisan of the
Seventy translators? Then do not read what you find under the
asterisks; rather erase them from the volumes, that you may approve
yourself indeed a follower of the ancients. If, however, you do
this, you will be compelled to find fault with all the libraries of
the Churches; for you will scarcely find more than one Ms. here and there which has not these
interpolations.
Chap. VI.
20. A few words now as to your remark that I
ought not to have given a translation, after this had been already
done by the ancients; and the novel syllogism which you use: “The
passages of which the Seventy have given an interpretation were
either obscure or plain. If they were obscure, it is believed that
you are as likely to have been mistaken as the others; if they were
plain, it is not believed that the Seventy could have been
mistaken.”1949
| 1949 Letter XXVIII. ch. ii. p. 251. |
All the commentators who have been our
predecessors in the Lord in the work of expounding the Scriptures,
have expounded either what was obscure or what was plain. If some
passages were obscure, how could you, after them, presume to
discuss that which they were not able to explain? If the passages
were plain, it was a waste of time for you to have undertaken to
treat of that which could not possibly have escaped them. This
syllogism applies with peculiar force to the book of Psalms, in the
interpretation of which Greek commentators have written many
volumes: viz. 1st, Origen: 2d, Eusebius of Cæsarea;
3d, Theodorus of Heraclea; 4th, Asterius of
Scythopolis; 5th, Apollinaris of Laodicea; and, 6th,
Didymus of Alexandria. There are said to be minor works on
selections from the Psalms, but I speak at present of the whole
book. Moreover, among Latin writers the bishops Hilary of Poitiers,
and Eusebius of Verceil, have translated Origen and Eusebius of
Cæsarea, the former of whom has in some things been followed by
our own Ambrose. Now, I put it to your wisdom to answer why you,
after all the labours of so many and so competent interpreters,
differ from them in your exposition of some passages? If the Psalms
are obscure, it must be believed that you are as likely to be
mistaken as others; if they are plain, it is incredible that these
others could have fallen into mistake. In either case, your
exposition has been, by your own showing, an unnecessary labour;
and on the same principle, no one would ever venture to speak on
any subject after others have pronounced their opinion, and no one
would be at liberty to write anything regarding that which another
has once handled, however important the matter might be.
It is, however, more in keeping with your
enlightened judgment, to grant to all others the liberty which you
tolerate in yourself for in my attempt to translate into Latin, for
the benefit of those who speak the same language with myself, the
corrected Greek version of the Scriptures, I
have laboured not to supersede what
has been long esteemed, but only to bring prominently forward those
things which have been either omitted or tampered with by the Jews,
in order that Latin readers might know what is found in the
original Hebrew. If any one is averse to reading it, none compels
him against his will. Let him drink with satisfaction the old wine,
and despise my new wine, i.e. the sentences which I have
published in explanation of former writers, with the design of
making more obvious by my remarks what in them seemed to me to be
obscure.
As to the principles which ought to be
followed in the interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures, they are
stated in the book which I have written,1950
| 1950 De optimo genere interpretandi. | and in all the introductions to
the divine books which I have in my edition prefixed to each; and
to these I think it sufficient to refer the prudent reader. And
since you approve of my labours in revising the translation of the
New Testament, as you say,—giving me at the same time this as
your reason, that very many are acquainted with the Greek language,
and are therefore competent judges of my work,—it would have been
but fair to have given me credit for the same fidelity in the Old
Testament; for I have not followed my own imagination, but have
rendered the divine words as I found them understood by those who
speak the Hebrew language. If you have any doubt of this in any
passage, ask the Jews what is the meaning of the
original.
21. Perhaps you will say, “What if the Jews
decline to answer, or choose to impose upon us?” Is it
conceivable that the whole multitude of Jews will agree together to
be silent if asked about my translation, and that none shall be
found that has any knowledge of the Hebrew language? Or will they
all imitate those Jews whom you mention as having, in some little
town, conspired to injure my reputation? For in your letter you put
together the following story:—“A certain bishop, one of our
brethren, having introduced in the Church over which he presides
the reading of your version, came upon a word in the book of the
prophet Jonah, of which you have given a very different rendering
from that which had been of old familiar to the senses and memory
of all the worshippers, and had been chanted for so many
generations in the Church. Thereupon arose such a tumult in the
congregation, especially among the Greeks, correcting what had been
read, and denouncing the translation as false, that the bishop was
compelled to ask the testimony of the Jewish residents (it was in
the town of Oea). These, whether from ignorance or from spite,
answered that the words in the Hebrew Mss.
were correctly rendered in the Greek version, and in the Latin one
taken from it. What further need I say? The man was compelled to
correct your version in that passage as if it had been falsely
translated, as he desired not to be left without a
congregation,—a calamity which he narrowly escaped. From this
case we also are led to think that you may be occasionally
mistaken.”1951
| 1951 Letter LXXI., sec. 5, p. 327. |
Chap. VII.
22. You tell me that I have given a wrong
translation of some word in Jonah, and that a worthy bishop
narrowly escaped losing his charge through the clamorous tumult of
his people, which was caused by the different rendering of this one
word. At the same time, you withhold from me what the word was
which I have mistranslated; thus taking away the possibility of my
saying anything in my own vindication, lest my reply should be
fatal to your objection. Perhaps it is the old dispute about the
gourd which has been revived, after slumbering for many long years
since the illustrious man, who in that day combined in his own
person the ancestral honours of the Cornelii and of Asinius
Pollio,1952
| 1952 The critic here referred to was Canthelius, whom
Jerome abuses in his commentary on the passage, insinuating that
the reason why the gourds found in this scion of a noble house a
champion so devoted, was that they had often rendered him a service
which ivy could not have done, screening his secret potations from
public notice. | brought
against me the charge of giving in my translation the word
“ivy” instead of “gourd.” I have already given a sufficient
answer to this in my commentary on Jonah. At present, I deem it
enough to say that in that passage, where the Septuagint has
“gourd,” and Aquila and the others have rendered the word
“ivy” (κίσσος), the
Hebrew Ms. has “ciceion,” which is in
the Syriac tongue, as now spoken, “ciceia.” It is a kind of
shrub having large leaves like a vine, and when planted it quickly
springs up to the size of a small tree, standing upright by its own
stem, without requiring any support of canes or poles, as both
gourds and ivy do. If, therefore, in translating word for word, I
had put the word “ciceia,” no one would know what it meant; if
I had used the word “gourd,” I would have said what is not
found in the Hebrew. I therefore put down “ivy,” that I might
not differ from all other translators. But if your Jews said,
either through malice or ignorance, as you yourself suggest, that
the word is in the Hebrew text which is found in the Greek and
Latin versions, it is evident that they were either unacquainted
with Hebrew, or have been pleased to say what was not true, in
order to make sport of the gourd-planters.
In closing this letter, I beseech you to have some
consideration for a soldier who is now old and has long retired
from active service, and not to force him to take the field and
again expose his
life to the chances of war. Do you, who are young, and who have
been appointed to the conspicuous seat of pontifical dignity, give
yourself to teaching the people, and enrich Rome with new stores
from fertile Africa.1953
| 1953 Alluding to the extent to which Rome was indebted
to Africa for corn. | I am contented to make but little
noise in an obscure corner of a monastery, with one to hear me or
read to me.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
