Saint Jerome

“ Jerome not only hears in his vision the sound of the last trump, he sees the dead arise from their graves around him. Lastly, by way of climax, I may mention a picture in the Louvre, by a modern French painter, Sigalon: St. Jerome is in a convulsive fit, and the three angels, blowing their trumpets in his ears, are like furies sent to torment and madden the sinner, rather than to rouse the saint. ”

“ To pray, to adore, to wander, to suffer, is not enough. We must lighten the burdens of the toilers and bring a little joy into their lives. Suffering has its place, but too much suffering would destroy the race.
Only one other man had Benedict ever heard of, who put forth this argument, and that was Saint Jerome; and many good men in the Church regarded Saint Jerome as little better than an infidel. Saint Jerome was a student of the literature of Greece and Rome—"Pagan Books," they were called, "rivals of the Bible." ”

“ Jerome is dying alone in his cell (this version of the subject is contrary to all authority and precedent) : he presses to his bosom the Gospel and the crucifix; the lion looks up in his face roaring, and angels bear away his soul to heaven.
[Pg 299]
11. ‘The Obsequies of St. Jerome.’ In the picture by Vittore Carpaccio, the saint is extended on the ground before the high altar, and the priests around are kneeling in various attitudes of grief or devotion. The lion is seen on one side. [266] ”

“ Besides, he that spares no sort of men cannot be said to be angry with anyone in particular, but the vices of all. And therefore, if there shall happen to be anyone that shall say he is hit, he will but discover either his guilt or fear. Saint Jerome sported in this kind with more freedom and greater sharpness, not sparing sometimes men's very name. ”

“ Harun had prowled away into the forest. Presently Jerome arose, cast a fresh branch on the fire, and stole into the hut. “I must see if she is safe and warm.”
Through the doorway crept a silver-sandalled moonbeam. It touched on something round and white,—the face of the little maid. All Jerome’s veins seemed turned to fire, yet all that fire was ineffably sweet. [57] He knew the glow and ecstasy of the soul born into highest heaven. A power not sprung of self compelled him. ”

“ Jerome’s version is from the Aramaic, or, as it used to be called, the Chaldee. It cost the saint one day’s work. He describes in his preface the method of its production. He procured the services of a man who was familiar with Chaldee and Hebrew. This man translated to him out of Chaldee into Hebrew, while Jerome dictated to a shorthand writer his own translation into Latin. The work was done at the request of two Christian bishops, Chromatius and Heliodorus. Jerome does not mention the Italo, but it is plain that he was indebted to it. The Syriac text is said to be based on a Greek version. ”

“ But seeing that no single writer before Jerome seems to know even the name of Paul of Thebes and also that the Vita Antonii ascribed to Athanasius knows nothing at all of such a wonderful expedition of the saint, Weingarten (§ 44) has denied that there ever existed such a man as this Paul, and has pronounced the story of Jerome to be a monkish Robinson Crusoe, such as the popular taste then favoured, which the author put forth as true history ad majorem monachatus gloriam. ”

“ Then supper, and after it the old monk carried Gerard to his cell, and they had an eager chat, and the friar incidentally revealed the cause of his pantomime in the corridor. "Ye had well-nigh fallen into Brother Jerome's clutches. Yon was his cell."
"Is Father Jerome an ill man, then?"
"An ill man?" and the friar crossed himself; "a saint, an anchorite, the very pillar of this house! He had sent ye barefoot to Loretto. [179] Nay, I forgot, y'are bound for Italy: the spiteful old—saint upon earth, had sent ye to Canterbory or Compostella. But Jerome was born old and with a cowl ”

“ They are as inexhaustible as the widow’s cruise of oil, pieces of the True Cross, 294or relics of the saints in Roman Catholic churches. When the traveller of experience has seen the skull of St. Jerome in one place, he is not surprised „to be shown another somewhere else, for he has already seen five thigh bones of some other saint at different shrines, and knows that, if he perseveres, he will probably find some more. Just in the same way, there is always another postboy when the last has died. ”

“ The hermit did not reply. In his heart he was repeating an awful warning, “Fear the Tempter now, Jerome; you lead by your hand—a woman!”
“Who are you?” repeated the little maid; “for I think you are surely God, since God looks like a tall and noble man with a long white beard, and all the wicked like Baron Ulrich haste to obey him.”
“Do not blaspheme,” commanded Jerome, [35] swift as an arrow, almost casting off her hand; “I am the most sinful creature under heaven.”
“Then you are the Devil. ”

“ Pennycoop. "I do not pretend to be a saint, but whatever I say I am always sorry for it afterwards—you know I am, George."
"It's what I am saying," explained her husband. "A vicar who has contrived in three years to make every member of his congregation hate the very sight of a church—well, there's something wrong about it somewhere." ”

“ But you, with no less adroitness than perversity, make the life of this world illustrate that of the world to come, although we know full well that here unrighteousness prevails, there, righteousness: [1] "until we go into the sanctuary of God, and understand the end of those men." The saint does not die one way, the sinner another. Those who sail the same sea have the same calm and storm. A violent death is not one thing to the robber, another to the martyr. Children are not born one way of adultery and prostitution, in another of pure marriage. ”

“ Jerome returned to Palestine, and took up his residence in a monastery he had founded at Bethlehem. When, in extreme old age, he became sensible of the approach of death, he raised with effort his emaciated limbs, and, commanding himself to be carried into the chapel of the monastery, he received the Sacrament for the last time from the hands of the priest, and soon after expired. He died in 420, leaving, besides his famous translation of the Scriptures, numerous controversial writings, epistles, and commentaries. ”

“ Placing himself with awe in the presence of God and his angels, St. Jerome says: "I call to witness our Lord Jesus Christ and his saints, and the guardian angel of this incomparable woman, that what I say is simple truth, and that my words are unworthy of those virtues celebrated throughout the world, which have been the admiration of the church, and which the poor yet weep for. Noble by birth, more noble still by her holiness; powerful in her opulence, but more illustrious afterward in the poverty of Christ ”

“ The penitent St. Jerome seems to have been adopted throughout the Christian Church as the approved symbol of Christian penitence, self-denial, and self-abasement. No devotional subject, if we except the ‘Madonna and Child’ and the ‘Magdalene,’ is of such perpetual recurrence. In the treatment it has been infinitely varied. The scene [Pg 293] is generally a wild rocky solitude: St. Jerome, half naked, emaciated, with matted hair and beard, is seen on his knees before a crucifix, beating his breast with a stone. The lion is almost always introduced, sometimes asleep, or crouching at his feet ”

“ Others were of opinion that Christ was Jeremiah, because Jeremiah was a most holy man, and a mirror of patience and charity; and because some thought Jeremiah would return with Elias to preach to the Jews, being moved by those words, “I have given thee for a prophet to the Gentiles.” (Jer. i. 5.)
Jesus saith to them, but whom do ye, &c. From the words but you, S. Jerome gathers that Christ here tacitly, as it were, calls the Apostles gods. “They indeed, because they are men have human ideas, but ye, who are gods, whom do ye think that I am?” ”

“ He was a scholar, with a scholar’s tastes and cravings for knowledge, easily excited, bent on scholarly discoveries. From Strido he went to Aquileia, where he formed some friendships among the monks of the large monastery, notably with Rufinus, with whom he was destined to quarrel bitterly over the question of Origen’s orthodoxy and worth as a commentator; for Jerome was a man who always sacrificed a friend to an opinion, and when he changed sides in a controversy expected his acquaintances to follow him. ”

“ At intervals another warning voice is heard, sounding, with the vehemence of the Baptist's cry, from the holy precincts of Bethlehem. S. Jerome is meditating and commenting, in his convent cell, on the prophecy of Ezekiel. As he ponders on the judgments of God on Jerusalem of old, he cannot but think of Rome in his own day. As the images of ruin and destruction grow before his mind, and his great heart burns with compassion for sinful, sinning man, he pauses in his reading, and lifts his voice in warning of the vials of wrath that are about to be poured out upon the empire. ”

“ When they returned to Palestine they all settled at Bethlehem, where Paula built four monasteries, three for nuns and one for monks. She was at the head of the nunneries until her death in 404, when Eustochium succeeded her; Jerome presided over the fourth monastery. Here he did most of his literary work and, throwing aside his unfinished plan of a translation from Origen’s Hexaplar text, translated the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew, with the aid of Jewish scholars. ”

“ Notwithstanding the labour involved in translating the Scriptures, Jerome found time to do a great deal of literary work, and also to indulge in violent controversy. Earlier in life he had a great admiration for Origen, and translated many of his works, and this lasted after he had settled at Bethlehem, for in 389 he translated Origen’s homilies on Luke; but he came to change his opinion and wrote violently against two admirers of the great Alexandrian scholar, John, bishop of Jerusalem, and his own former friend Rufinus. ”

“ He was the very man to be made a hero of. Whatever there was in the circle of Gentile philosophy he knew. St. Jerome calls {44} him the "most learned of the writers of the Church," and St. Jerome must have spoken with the sons of those who had heard him lecture—noble Christian patricians, perchance, whose fathers had often told them how, in fervent boyhood, they had been spell-bound by his words in the Christian school of Alexandria, or learned bishops of Palestine, who had heard of him from Origen at Caesarea or St. Alexander at Jerusalem. ”

“ Instead of leading a miserable and wretched life here in the cloister, return to the world and enjoy life while it lasts, for in either case there is nothing to hope for in the future."
Jerome took counsel of the Abbot, an old, wise, and experienced Christian, who at once detected the cloven hoof in the temptation, and was successful in convincing the tempted one of the fact, advising him to go on in the course he was pursuing, assuring him that there was mercy for the vilest of sinners if penitent, which afforded him great consolation. ”

“ The day was very dull and cold; snow threatened, should the weather moderate. Overhead was a suspended drift of gray clouds. The earth was stark as a corpse in utter silence. The stillness of the frozen air was like the stillness of death and despair. A fierce blast would have given at least the sense of life and fighting power. “Suppose she dies,” thought Jerome—“suppose she dies.”
He tried to imagine the world without Lucina, but he could not, for with all his outgoing spirit his world was too largely within him. ”

“ He returned again to the prison, to be kept as food for the lions. A very big and strong lion was let loose upon him, and having run up to his feet, lay down, and though many more beasts were let loose upon him, none would touch the holy body, which was supported and strengthened by prayer. While this was going on, an awful hailstorm came and crushed the heads of many men and of the wild beasts. Jerome too was hit by a hailstone, and in consequence of this he turned with his followers to the God of Paul, and received baptism. ”

“ Across the young springing grass went Jerome—a slender little lad moving with an awkward rustic lope. It was the gait of the homely toiling men of the village which his young muscles had caught, as if they had in themselves powers of observation and assimilation. Jerome at twelve walked as if he had held plough-shares, bent over potato hills, and hewn wood in cedar swamps for half a century. ”

“ Step by step the inevitable progress was made, and men easily found specious arguments to justify the indulgence of their passions. The fiery Jerome, when his wrath was excited by Vigilantius forbidding the adoration of relics, expressed his wonder that the bishop of the hardy heretic had not destroyed him in the flesh for the benefit of his soul, and argued that piety and zeal for God could not be cruelty; rigor, in fact, he argues in another place, is the most genuine mercy, since temporal punishment may avert eternal perdition. ”

“ Now and then a gust of cold wind, sweet with unseen blossoms, smote him powerfully, bending his slender body before it like a sapling. A bird flashed past him with a blue dazzle of wings, and Jerome stopped and looked after it. It lit on the fence in front of the house, and shone there in the sunlight like a blue precious stone. The boy gazed at it, leaning on his spade. Jerome always looked hard out of all his little open windows of life, and saw every precious thing outside his daily grind of hard, toilsome childhood which came within his sight. ”