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| To Pope Damasus.
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Letter
XVI. To Pope Damasus.
This letter, written a few months after the preceding,
is another appeal to Damasus to solve the writer’s doubts. Jerome
once more refers to his baptism at Rome, and declares that his one
answer to the factions at Antioch is, “He who clings to the chair
of Peter is accepted by me.” Written from the desert in the year
377 or 378.
1. By her importunity the widow in the gospel at last
gained a hearing,294
and by the same
means one friend induced another to give him bread at midnight, when
his door was shut and his servants were in bed.295
The
publican’s prayers overcame God,296
although God is invincible. Nineveh was saved by its tears from the
impending ruin caused by its sin.297
To what end,
you ask, these far-fetched references? To this end, I make answer; that
you in your greatness should look upon me in my littleness; that you,
the rich shepherd, should not despise me, the ailing sheep. Christ
Himself brought the robber from the cross to paradise,298
and, to show that repentance is never
too late, He turned a murderer’s death into a martyrdom. Gladly
does Christ embrace the prodigal son when he returns to Him;299
and, leaving the ninety and nine, the good
shepherd carries home on His shoulders the one poor sheep that is
left.300
From a persecutor Paul becomes a preacher.
His bodily eyes are blinded to clear the eyes of his soul,301
and he who once haled Christ’s
servants in chains before the council of the Jews,302
lives afterwards to glory in the bonds of
Christ.303
2. As I have already written to you,304
I, who have received Christ’s garb in
Rome, am now detained in the waste that borders Syria. No sentence of
banishment, however, has been passed upon me; the punishment which I am
undergoing is self-inflicted. But, as the heathen poet says:
They change not mind but sky who cross the sea.305
| 305 Hor. Epist. i. 11,
27. |
The untiring foe follows me closely, and the assaults that I suffer
in the desert are severer than ever. For the Arian frenzy raves, and
the powers of the world support it. The church is rent into three
factions, and each of these is eager to seize me for its own. The
influence of the monks is of long standing, and it is directed against
me. I meantime keep crying: “He who clings to the chair of Peter
is accepted by me.” Meletius, Vitalis, and Paulinus306
| 306 The three rival
claimants of the see of Antioch. Paulinus and Meletius were both
orthodox, but Meletius derived his orders from the Arians and was
consequently not recognized in the West. In the East, however, he was
so highly esteemed that some years after this he was chosen to preside
over the Council of Constantinople (a.d. 391).
Vitalis, the remaining claimant, was a follower of Apollinaris, but
much respected by the orthodox on account of his high character. | all profess to cleave to you, and I could
believe the assertion if it were made by one of them only. As it is,
either two of them or else all three are guilty of falsehood. Therefore
I implore your blessedness, by our Lord’s cross and passion,
those necessary glories of our faith, as you hold an apostolic office,
to give an apostolic decision. Only tell me by letter with whom I am to
communicate in Syria, and I will pray for you that you may sit in
judgment enthroned with the twelve;307
that when you
grow old, like Peter, you may be girded not by yourself but by
another,308
and that, like Paul, you may be
made a citizen of the heavenly kingdom.309
Do
not despise a soul for which Christ died.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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