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| To Lucinius.
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Letter
LXXI. To Lucinius.
Lucinius was a wealthy Spaniard of Bætica who in
conformity with the ascetic ideas of his time had made a vow of
continence with his wife Theodora. Being much interested in the study
of scripture he proposed to visit
Bethlehem, and in a.d. 397 sent several
scribes thither to transcribe for him Jerome’s principal
writings. To these on their return home Jerome now entrusts the
following letter. In it he encourages Lucinius to fulfil his purpose of
coming to Bethlehem, describes the books which he is sending to him,
and answers two questions relating to ecclesiastical usage. He also
sends him some trifling presents.
Shortly after receiving the letter (written in 398 a.d.) Lucinius died and Jerome wrote to Theodora to
console her for her loss (Letter LXXV).
1. Your letter which has suddenly arrived was not
expected by me, and coming in an unlooked for way it has helped to
rouse me from my torpor by the glad tidings which it conveys. I hasten
to embrace with the arms of love one whom my eyes have never seen, and
silently say to myself:—‘“oh that I had wings like a
dove! for then would I flee away and be at rest.”’2202
Then would I find him “whom my soul
loveth.”2203
In you the
Lord’s words are now truly fulfilled: “many shall come from
the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham.”2204
In those days the faith of my Lucinius was
foreshadowed in Cornelius, “centurion of the band called the
Italian band.”2205
And when the
apostle Paul writes to the Romans: “whensoever I take my journey
into Spain I will come to you: for I trust to see you in my journey,
and to be brought on my way thitherward by you;”2206
he shews by the tale of his previous
successes what he looked to gain from that province.2207
Laying in a short time the foundation of
the gospel “from Jerusalem and round about unto
Illyricum,”2208
he enters Rome
in bonds, that he may free those who are in the bonds of error and
superstition. Two years he dwells in his own hired house2209
that he may give to us the house eternal
which is spoken of in both the testaments.2210
| 2210 Utriusque instrumenti
æternam domum. The ‘twofold record’ is that of the old
and new testaments both of which speak of the church under the figure
of a house. For the term “instrument” see note on
Letter. |
The apostle, the fisher of men,2211
has cast
forth his net, and, among countless kinds of fish, has landed you like
a magnificent gilt-bream. You have left behind you the bitter waves,
the salt tides, the mountain-fissures; you have despised Leviathan who
reigns in the waters.2212
Your aim is to
seek the wilderness with Jesus and to sing the prophet’s song:
“my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry
and thirsty land where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so
as I have seen thee in the sanctuary,”2213
or, as he sings in another place,
“lo, then would I wander far off and remain in the wilderness. I
would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.”2214
Since you have left Sodom and are
hastening to the mountains, I beseech you with a father’s
affection not to look behind you. Your hands have grasped the handle of
the plough,2215
the hem of the Saviour’s
garment,2216
and His locks wet with the dew of
night;2217
do not let them go. Do not come
down from the housetop of virtue to seek for the clothes which you wore
of old, nor return home from the field.2218
Do not like Lot set your heart on the
plain or upon the pleasant gardens;2219
for these
are watered not, as the holy land, from heaven but by Jordan’s
muddy stream made salt by contact with the Dead Sea.
2. Many begin but few persevere to the end. “They
which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the crown.”2220
| 2220 Jerome quoting from
memory substitutes ‘crown’ for ‘prize.’ | But of us on the other hand it is said:
“So run that ye may obtain.”2221
Our master of the games is not grudging; he does not give the palm to
one and disgrace another. His wish is that all his athletes may alike
win garlands. My soul rejoices, yet the very greatness of my joy makes
me feel sad. Like Ruth2222
when I try to
speak I burst into tears. Zacchæus, the convert of an hour, is
accounted worthy to receive the Saviour as his guest.2223
Martha and Mary make ready a feast and
then welcome the Lord to it.2224
A harlot washes
His feet with her tears and against His burial anoints His body with
the ointment of good works.2225
Simon the leper
invites the Master with His disciples and is not refused.2226
To Abraham it is said: “Get thee
out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father’s
house, unto a land that I will shew thee.”2227
He leaves Chaldæa, he leaves
Mesopotamia; he seeks what he knows not, not to lose Him whom he has
found. He does not deem it possible to keep both his country and his
Lord; even at that early day he is already fulfilling the prophet
David’s words: “I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner,
as all my fathers were.”2228
He is called
“a Hebrew,” in Greek περάτής, a
passer-over, for not content with present excellence but forgetting
those things which are behind he reaches forth to that which is
before.2229
He makes his own the words of the
psalmist: “they shall go from strength to strength.”2230
Thus his name has a mystic meaning and he
has opened for you a way to seek not your own things but those of
another. You too must leave your home as he did, and must take for your
parents, brothers, and relations only those who are linked to you in Christ.
“Whosoever,” He says, “shall do the will of my
father…the same is my brother and sister and mother.”2231
3. You have with you one who was once your partner in
the flesh but is now your partner in the spirit; once your wife but now
your sister; once a woman but now a man; once an inferior but now an
equal.2232
Under the same yoke as you she
hastens toward the same heavenly kingdom.
A too careful management of one’s income, a too
near calculation of one’s expenses—these are habits not
easily laid aside. Yet to escape the Egyptian woman Joseph had to leave
his garment with her.2233
And the young
man who followed Jesus having a linen cloth cast about him, when he was
assailed by the servants had to throw away his earthly covering and to
flee naked.2234
Elijah also when he was carried
up in a chariot of fire to heaven left his mantle of sheepskin on
earth.2235
Elisha used for sacrifice the oxen
and the yokes which hitherto he had employed in his work.2236
We read in Ecclesiasticus: “he
that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith.”2237
As long as we are occupied with the
things of the world, as long as our soul is fettered with possessions
and revenues, we cannot think freely of God. “For what fellowship
hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light
with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part
hath he that believeth with an infidel?”2238
“Ye cannot,” the Lord
says, “serve God and Mammon.”2239
Now the laying aside of money is for
those who are beginners in the way, not for those who are made perfect.
Heathens like Antisthenes2240
| 2240 A disciple of
Socrates, subsequently the founder of the Cynic School. Fl. 366 b.c. | and Crates2241
| 2241 See note on Letter
LXVI. § 8. | the Theban have done as much before now.
But to offer one’s self to God, this is the mark of Christians
and apostles. These like the widow out of their penury cast their two
mites into the treasury, and giving all that they have to the Lord are
counted worthy to hear his words: “ye also shall sit upon twelve
thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”2242
4. You can see for yourself why I mention these things;
without expressly saying it I am inviting you to take up your abode at
the holy places. Your abundance has supported the want of many that
some day their riches may abound to supply your want;2243
you have made to yourself
“friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that they may receive
you into everlasting habitations.”2244
Such conduct deserves praise and merits
to be compared with the virtue of apostolic times. Then, as you know,
believers sold their possessions and brought the prices of them and
laid them down at the apostles’ feet:2245
a symbolic act designed to shew that men must trample on covetousness.
But the Lord yearns for believers’ souls more than for their
riches. We read in the Proverbs: “the ransom of a man’s
soul are his own riches.”2246
We may,
indeed, take a man’s own riches to be those which do not come
from some one else, or from plunder; according to the precept:
“honour God with thy just labours.”2247
But the sense is better if we
understand a man’s “own riches” to be those hidden
treasures which no thief can steal and no robber wrest from him.2248
5. As for my poor works which from no merits of theirs
but simply from your own kindness you say that you desire to have; I
have given them to your servants to transcribe, I have seen the
paper-copies made by them, and I have repeatedly ordered them to
correct them by a diligent comparison with the originals. For so many
are the pilgrims passing to and fro that I have been unable to read so
many volumes. They have found me also troubled by a long illness from
which this Lent I am slowly recovering as they are leaving me. If then
you find errors or omissions which interfere with the sense, these you
must impute not to me but to your own servants; they are due to the
ignorance or carelessness of the copyists, who write down not what they
find but what they take to be the meaning, and do but expose their own
mistakes when they try to correct those of others. It is a false rumour
which has reached you to the effect that I have translated the books of
Josephus2249
| 2249 See note on Letter
XXII. § 35. | and the volumes of the holy men
Papias2250
| 2250 A writer of the
sub-apostolic age who had been a disciple of the apostle John. He was
bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia. | and Polycarp.2251
| 2251 Another
sub-apostolic writer who was also a disciple of John. He became bishop
of Smyrna and underwent martyrdom at the age of 86. |
I have neither the leisure nor the ability to preserve the charm of
these masterpieces in another tongue. Of Origen2252
| 2252 See note on Letter
XXXIII. |
and Didymus2253
| 2253 The blind
theologian of Alexandria by whose teaching Jerome had himself profited.
See Letter XXXIV. § 3. | I have translated a few things, to
set before my countrymen some specimens of Greek teaching. The canon of
the Hebrew verity2254
| 2254 The old testament
as translated direct from the Hebrew. | —except the
octoteuch2255
| 2255 The first eight
books. | which I have at present in
hand—I have placed at the disposal of your slaves and copyists.
Doubtless you already possess the version from the septuagint2256
| 2256 This work Jerome
accomplished between the years 383 and 390 a.d. Only the Psalter and Job are extant. | which
many years ago I diligently revised for the use of students. The new
testament I have restored to the authoritative form of the Greek
original.2257
| 2257 This task he
undertook at the request of pope Damasus in 383 a.d. See Letter XXVII. | For as the true text of the old
testament can only be tested by a reference to the Hebrew, so the true
text of the new requires for its decision an appeal to the Greek.
6. You ask me whether you ought to fast on the Sabbath2258
and to receive the eucharist daily
according to the custom—as currently reported—of the
churches of Rome and Spain.2259
| 2259 At this time the
communion was celebrated daily at Constantinople, in Africa, and in
Spain. At Rome it was celebrated on every day of the week except
Saturday (the Sabbath). See Socrates, H. E. v. 22. | Both these
points have been treated by the eloquent Hippolytus,2260
| 2260 A leading Roman
churchman, bishop of Portus, in the early part of the third century,
the rival and enemy of pope Callistus and author of many theological
treatises, one of which—the Refutation of all
Heresies—has recently become famous. | and several writers have collected
passages from different authors bearing upon them. The best advice that
I can give you is this. Church-traditions—especially when they do
not run counter to the faith—are to be observed in the form in
which previous generations have handed them down; and the use of one
church is not to be annulled because it is contrary to that of
another.2261
| 2261 Compare the similar
advice given by Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury (Bede, H.
E. 1. 27). | As regards fasting, I wish that we
could practise it without intermission as—according to the Acts
of the Apostles2262
| 2262 Nothing in the
book of Acts bears out this statement. Fasting at the times mentioned
was forbidden in Jerome’s day. | —Paul did
and the believers with him even in the season of Pentecost and on the
Lord’s Day. They are not to be accused of manichæism, for
carnal food ought not to be preferred before spiritual. As regards the
holy eucharist you may receive it at all times2263
| 2263 Daily if you will
and on fast days as well as on feast days. | without qualm of conscience or
disapproval from me. You may listen to the psalmist’s
words:—“O taste and see that the Lord is good;”2264
you may sing as he does:—“my
heart poureth forth a good word.”2265
But do not mistake my meaning. You are not to fast on feast-days,
neither are you to abstain on the week days in Pentecost.2266
| 2266 i.e. the
period of fifty days between Easterday and Whitsunday. See Letter XLI.
§3. | In such matters each province may follow
its own inclinations, and the traditions which have been handed down
should be regarded as apostolic laws.
7. You send me two small cloaks and a sheepskin mantle
from your wardrobe and ask me to wear them myself or to give them to
the poor. In return I send to you and your sister2267
| 2267 i.e. his
wife Theodora. | in the Lord four small haircloths
suitable to your religious profession and to your daily needs, for they
are the mark of poverty and the outward witness of a continual
penitence. To these I have added a manuscript containing Isaiah’s
ten most obscure visions which I have lately elucidated with a critical
commentary. When you look upon these trifles call to mind the friend in
whom you delight and hasten the voyage which you have for a time
deferred. And because “the way of man is not in himself”
but it is the Lord that “directeth his steps;”2268
if any hindrance should
interfere—I hope none may—to prevent you from coming, I
pray that distance may not sever those united in affection and that I
may find my Lucinius present in absence through an interchange of
letters.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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