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| To Chromatius, Jovinus, and Eusebius.
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Letter VII. To Chromatius,
Jovinus, and Eusebius.91
| 91 Jovinus was archdeacon of
Aquileia. All three became bishops—Chromatius of Aquileia, the
others of unknown sees. |
This letter (written like the preceding in 374 a.d.) is addressed by Jerome to three of his former
companions in the religious life. It commends Bonosus (§3), asks
guidance for the writer’s sister (§4), and attacks the
conduct of Lupicinus, Bishop of Stridon (§5).
1. Those whom mutual affection has joined together, a
written page ought not to sunder. I must not, therefore, distribute my
words some to one and some to another. For so strong is the love that
binds you together that affection unites all three of you in a bond no
less close than that which naturally connects two of your number.92
| 92 Chromatius and Eusebius
were brothers. | Indeed, if the conditions of writing would
only admit of it, I should amalgamate your names and express them under
a single symbol. The very letter which I have received from you
challenges me in each of you to see all three, and in all three to
recognize each. When the reverend Evagrius transmitted it to me in the
corner of the desert which stretches between the Syrians and the
Saracens, my joy was intense. It wholly surpassed the rejoicings felt
at Rome when the defeat of Cannæ was retrieved, and Marcellus at
Nola cut to pieces the forces of Hannibal. Evagrius frequently comes to
see me, and cherishes me in Christ as his own bowels.93
Yet as he is separated from me by a long distance, his departure has
generally left me as much regret as
his arrival has brought me joy.
2. I converse with your letter, I embrace it, it talks
to me; it alone of those here speaks Latin. For hereabout you must
either learn a barbarous jargon or else hold your tongue. As often as
the lines—traced in a well-known hand—bring back to me the
faces which I hold so dear, either I am no longer here, or else you are
here with me. If you will credit the sincerity of affection, I seem to
see you all as I write this.
Now at the outset I should like to ask you one petulant
question. Why is it that, when we are separated by so great an interval
of land and sea, you have sent me so short a letter? Is it that I have
deserved no better treatment, not having first written to you? I cannot
believe that paper can have failed you while Egypt continues to supply
its wares. Even if a Ptolemy had closed the seas, King Attalus would
still have sent you parchments from Pergamum, and so by his skins you
could have made up for the want of paper. The very name parchment is
derived from a historical incident of the kind which occurred
generations ago.94
| 94 See Pliny, H. N. xiii.
21. | What then? Am I to suppose the
messenger to have been in haste? No matter how long a letter may be, it
can be written in the course of a night. Or had you some business to
attend to which prevented you from writing? No claim is prior to that
of affection. Two suppositions remain, either that you felt disinclined
to write or else that I did not deserve a letter. Of the two I prefer
to charge you with sloth than to condemn myself as undeserving. For it
is easier to mend neglect than to quicken love.
3. You tell me that Bonosus, like a true son of the
Fish, has taken to the water.95
| 95 The Greek word ΙΧΘΥΣ represented to the
early Christians the sentence ᾽Ιησοῦς
Χριστὸς Θεοῦ
`Υὼς Σωτήρ.
Hence the fish became a favorite emblem of Christ. Tertullian connects
the symbol with the water of baptism, saying: “We little fishes
are born by our Fish, Jesus Christ, in water and can thrive only by
continuing in the water.” The allusion in the text is to the
baptism of Bonosus. See Schaff, “Ante-Nicene Christianity,”
p. 279. | As for me who am still
foul with my old stains, like the basilisk and the scorpion I haunt the
dry places.96
Bonosus has his heel already on the
serpent’s head, whilst I am still as food to the same serpent
which by divine appointment devours the earth.97
He
can scale already that ladder of which the psalms of degrees98
are a type; whilst I, still weeping on its
first step, hardly know whether I shall ever be able to say: “I
will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
help.”99
Amid the threatening billows of the
world he is sitting in the safe shelter of his island,100
that is, of the church’s pale, and it may
be that even now, like John, he is being called to eat God’s
book;101
whilst I, still lying in the sepulchre of my
sins and bound with the chains of my iniquities, wait for the
Lord’s command in the Gospel: “Jerome, come forth.”102
But Bonosus has done more than this. Like the
prophet103
he has carried his girdle across the
Euphrates (for all the devil’s strength is in the loins104
), and has hidden it there in a hole of the
rock. Then, afterwards finding it rent, he has sung: “O Lord,
thou hast possessed my reins.105
Thou hast broken my
bonds in sunder. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of
thanksgiving.”106
But as for me,
Nebuchadnezzar has brought me in chains to Babylon, to the babel that
is of a distracted mind. There he has laid upon me the yoke of
captivity; there inserting in my nostrils a ring of iron,107
he has commanded me to sing one of the songs
of Zion. To whom I have said, “The Lord looseth the prisoners;
the Lord openeth the eyes of the blind.”108
To
complete my contrast in a single sentence, whilst I pray for mercy
Bonosus looks for a crown.
4. My sister’s conversion is the fruit of the
efforts of the saintly Julian. He has planted, it is for you to water,
and the Lord will give the increase.109
Jesus Christ has
given her to me to console me for the wound which the devil has
inflicted on her. He has restored her from death to life. But in the
words of the pagan poet, for her
There is no safety that I do not fear.110
You know yourselves how slippery is the path of
youth—a path on which I have myself fallen,111
| 111 Jerome again refers to
his own frailty in Letters XIV. § 6, XVIII. § 11, and XLVIII.
§ 20. |
and which you are now traversing not without fear. She, as she enters
upon it, must have the advice and the encouragement of all, she must be
aided by frequent letters from you, my reverend brothers. And—for
“charity endureth all things,”112
—I beg you to get from Pope113
| 113 Papa. The word
“pope” was at this time used as a name of respect
(“father in God”) for bishops generally. Only by degrees
did it come to be restricted to the bishop of Rome. Similarly the word
"imperator,” originally applied to any Roman general, came
to be used of the Emperor alone. | Valerian114
a letter to
confirm her resolution. A girl’s courage, as you know, is
strengthened when she realizes that
persons in high place are interested in her.
5. The fact is that my native land is a prey to
barbarism, that in it men’s only God is their belly,115
that they live only for the present, and that
the richer a man is the holier he is held to be. Moreover, to use a
well-worn proverb, the dish has a cover worthy of it; for Lupicinus is
their priest.116
| 116 Sacerdos. In the
letters this word generally denotes a bishop. Lupicinus held the see of
Stridon. | Like lips like lettuce, as the saying
goes—the only one, as Lucilius tells us,117
at
which Crassus ever laughed—the reference being to a donkey eating
thistles. What I mean is that an unstable pilot steers a leaking ship,
and that the blind is leading the blind straight to the pit. The ruler
is like the ruled.
6. I salute your mother and mine with the respect which,
as you know, I feel towards her. Associated with you as she is in a
holy life, she has the start of you, her holy children, in that she is
your mother. Her womb may thus be truly called golden. With her I
salute your sisters, who ought all to be welcomed wherever they go, for
they have triumphed over their sex and the world, and await the
Bridegroom’s coming,118
their lamps
replenished with oil. O happy the house which is a home of a widowed
Anna, of virgins that are prophetesses, and of twin Samuels bred in the
Temple!119
| 119 Luke ii. 36; Acts xxi. 9; 1 Sam. ii.
18. | Fortunate the roof which shelters the
martyr-mother of the Maccabees, with her sons around her, each and all
wearing the martyr’s crown!120
For although you
confess Christ every day by keeping His commandments, yet to this
private glory you have added the public one of an open confession; for
it was through you that the poison of the Arian heresy was formerly
banished from your city.
You are surprised perhaps at my thus making a fresh
beginning quite at the close of my letter. But what am I to do? I
cannot refuse expression to my feelings. The brief limits of a letter
compel me to be silent; my affection for you urges me to speak. I write
in haste, my language is confused and ill-arranged; but love knows
nothing of order. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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