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Letter
LXXV. To Theodora.
Theodora the wife of the learned Spaniard Lucinius (for
whom see Letter LXXI.) had recently lost her husband, a bereavement which suggested the present
letter. In it Jerome recounts the many virtues of Lucinius and
especially his zeal in resisting the gnostic heresy of Marcus which
during his life was prevalent in Spain. The date of the letter is 399
a.d.
1. So overpowered am I by the sad intelligence of the
falling asleep of the holy and by me deeply revered Lucinius that I am
scarcely able to dictate even a short letter. I do not, it is true,
lament his fate, for I know that he has passed to better things: like
Moses he can say: “I will now turn aside and see this great
sight,”2269
but I am
tormented with regret that I was not allowed to look upon the face of
one, who was likely, as I believed, in a short time to come hither.
True indeed is the prophetic warning concerning the doom of death that
it divides brothers,2270
| 2270 Hos. xiii. 15, Vulg. Quia ipse inter fratres dividet.
A.V. follows the Hebrew. | and with harsh
and cruel hand sunders those whose names are linked together in the
bonds of love. But we have this consolation that it is slain by the
word of the Lord. For it is said: “O death, I will be thy
plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction,” and in the next
verse: “An east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord shall come
up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his
fountain shall be dried up.”2271
For, as
Isaiah says, “there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of
Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots”:2272
and He says Himself in the Song of
Songs, “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the
valley.”2273
Our rose is
the destruction of death, and died that death itself might die in His
dying. But, when it is said that He is to be brought “from the
wilderness,” the virgin’s womb is indicated, which without
sexual intercourse or impregnation has given to us God in the form of
an infant able to quench by the glow of the Holy Spirit the fountains
of lust and to sing in the words of the psalm: “as in a dry and
pathless and waterless land, so have I appeared unto thee in the
sanctuary.”2274
Thus when we
have to face the hard and cruel necessity of death, we are upheld by
this consolation, that we shall shortly see again those whose absence
we now mourn. For their end is not called death but a slumber and a
falling asleep. Wherefore also the blessed apostle forbids us to sorrow
concerning them which are asleep,2275
telling us
to believe that those whom we know to sleep now may hereafter be roused
from their sleep, and when their slumber is ended may watch once more
with the saints and sing with the angels:—“Glory to God in
the highest and on earth peace among men of good will.”2276
In heaven where there is no sin, there
is glory and perpetual praise and unwearied singing; but on earth where
sedition reigns, and war and discord hold sway, peace must be gained by
prayer, and it is to be found not among all but only among men of good
will, who pay heed to the apostolic salutation: “Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”2277
For “His abode is in peace and
His dwelling place is in Zion,”2278
that is, on a watch-tower,2279
| 2279 See
Jerome’s Book of Hebrew Names. Cf. also Letter CVIII.
§ 9. | on a height of doctrines and of
virtues, in the soul of the believer; for the angel of this latter
daily beholds the face of God,2280
and
contemplates with unveiled face the glory of God.
2. Wherefore, though you are already running in the way,
I urge a willing horse, as the saying goes, and implore you, while you
regret in your Lucinius a true brother, to rejoice as well that he now
reigns with Christ. For, as it is written in the book of Wisdom, he was
“taken away lest that wickedness should alter his
understanding…for his soul pleased the Lord…and he…in
a short time fulfilled a long time.”2281
We may with more right weep for
ourselves that we stand daily in conflict with our sins, that we are
stained with vices, that we receive wounds, and that we must give
account for every idle word.2282
Victorious
now and free from care he looks down upon you from on high and supports
you in your struggle, nay more, he prepares for you a place near to
himself; for his love and affection towards you are still the same as
when, disregarding his claim on you as a husband, he resolved to treat
you even on earth as a sister, or indeed I may say as a brother, for
difference of sex while essential to marriage is not so to a continent
tie. And since even in the flesh, if we are born again in Christ, we
are no longer Greek and Barbarian, bond and free, male and female, but
are all one in Him,2283
how much
more true will this be when this corruptible has put on incorruption
and when this mortal has put on immortality.2284
“In the resurrection,” the
Lord tells us, “they neither marry nor are given in marriage but
are as the angels…in heaven.”2285
Now when it is said that they neither
marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels in heaven, there
is no taking away of a natural and real body but only an indication of
the greatness of the glory to come. For the words are not “they
shall be angels” but “they shall be as the angels”:
thus while likeness to the angels is promised identity with them is refused. “They
shall be,” Christ tells us, “as the angels,” that is
like the angels; therefore they will not cease to be human. Glorious
indeed they shall be, and graced with angelic splendour, but they will
still be human; the apostle Paul will still be Paul, Mary will still be
Mary. Then shall confusion overtake that heresy2286
which holds out great but vague
promises only that it may take away hopes which are at once modest and
certain.
3. And now that I have once mentioned the word
“heresy,” where can I find a trumpet loud enough to
proclaim the eloquence of our dear Lucinius, who, when the filthy
heresy of Basilides2287
| 2287 Probably as
revived by Priscillian, who was put to death 385. See Jerome On
Illustrious Men, c. 121. | raged in
Spain and like a pestilence ravaged the provinces between the Pyrenees
and the ocean, upheld in all its purity the faith of the church and
altogether refused to embrace Armagil, Barbelon, Abraxas, Balsamum, and
the absurd Leusibora. Such are the portentous names which, to excite
the minds of unlearned men and weak women, they pretend to draw from
Hebrew sources, terrifying the simple by barbarous combinations which
they admire the more the less they understand them.2288
| 2288 These terms,
the meanings of which are very uncertain, are either the names of
æons or magical formulæ used by the Marcosians in the
celebration of their mysteries. | The growth of this heresy is
described for us by Irenæus, bishop of the church of Lyons, a man
of the apostolic times, who was a disciple of Papias the hearer of the
evangelist John. He informs us that a certain Mark,2289
| 2289 A gnostic of the
school of Valentinus, who taught in the middle of the second century.
Jerome is in error when he describes him as a disciple of
Basilides. | of the stock of the gnostic Basilides,
came in the first instance to Gaul, that he contaminated with his
teaching those parts of the country which are watered by the Rhone and
the Garonne, and that in particular he misled by his errors high-born
women; to whom he promised certain secret mysteries and whose affection
he enlisted by magic arts and hidden indulgence in unlawful
intercourse. Irenæus goes on to say that subsequently Mark crossed
the Pyrenees and occupied Spain, making it his object to seek out the
houses of the wealthy, and in these especially the women, concerning
whom we are told that they are “led away with divers lusts, ever
learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”2290
All this he wrote about three hundred
years ago2291
| 2291 An error for
‘two hundred years ago.’ | in the extremely learned and
eloquent books which he composed under the title Against all
heresies.
4. From these facts you in your wisdom will realize how
worthy of praise our dear Lucinius shewed himself when he shut his ears
that he might not have to hear the judgement passed upon blood
shedders,2292
| 2292 Is. xxxiii. 15. Jerome’s allusion may be to the
execution of Priscillian in 385. Lucinius may have shared the views of
Ambrose and Martin against the shedding of blood. | and dispersed all his substance
and gave to the poor that his righteousness might endure for ever.2293
And not satisfied with bestowing his
bounty upon his own country, he sent to the churches of Jerusalem and
Alexandria gold enough to alleviate the want of large numbers. But
while many will admire and extol in him this liberality, I for my part
will rather praise him for his zeal and diligence in the study of the
scriptures. With what eagerness he asked for my poor works! He actually
sent six copyists (for in this province there is a dearth of scribes
who understand Latin) to copy for him all that I have ever dictated
from my youth until the present time. The honour was not of course paid
to me who am but a little child, the least of all Christians, living in
the rocks near Bethlehem because I know myself a sinner; but to Christ
who is honoured in his servants2294
and who
makes this promise to them, “He that receiveth you receiveth me,
and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.”2295
5. Therefore, my beloved daughter, regard this letter as
the epitaph which love prompts me to write upon your husband, and if
there is any spiritual work of which you think me to be capable, boldly
command me to undertake it: that so ages to come may know that He who
says of Himself in Isaiah, “He hath made me a polished shaft; in
his quiver hath he hid me,”2296
has with
His sharp arrow so wounded two men severed by an immense interval of
sea and land, that, although they know each other not in the flesh,
they are knit together in love in the spirit.
May you be kept holy both in body and spirit by the
Samaritan—that is, saviour and keeper—of whom it is said in
the psalm, “He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor
sleep.”2297
May the
watcher and the holy one who came down to Daniel2298
| 2298 Dan. iv. 13. Lit. May Hir, that is the
watcher, Hir being the Hebrew word. | come also to you, that you too may be
able to say, “I sleep but my heart waketh.”2299
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