SOURCE: "St. Jerome as an Exegete" in A Monument to Saint Jerome: Essays on Some Aspects of His Life, Works, and Influence, edited by Francis X. Murphy, Sheed & Ward, 1952, pp. 37-81.

[In the following essay, Hartmann discusses and critically evaluates Jerome's method as a scriptural interpreter, especially as evidenced in his commentaries.]

For many reasons the writings of St. Jerome have won just fame for their author. He is renowned as a master of Latin prose, a vigorous controversialist, an ardent advocate of Christian asceticism, and as a source of much useful historical information. But it is especially as a Scripture scholar that Jerome has won immortal laurels, and earned for himself not only the title of "Doctor of the Church" but that of Doctor Maximus sacris Scripturis explanandis—its greatest doctor in interpreting Sacred Scripture. This honor has been conferred upon him primarily because of his great masterpiece, his monumentum aere perennius, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin, which not only became the "commonly accepted," or Vulgate, Bible in the Western Church, but was solemnly proclaimed by the Council of Trent as the "authentic" Bible of the Latin Church, "because it was approved by centuries of use in the Church itself."¹

Dealing with Jerome as an exegete, as we are in this essay, we are not directly concerned with the Latin Vulgate. Yet after all, we cannot do full justice to St. Jerome as an exegete if we ignore his translation of the Sacred Scriptures. For every translation, unless it is a merely mechanical word-for-word rendering of the original, must be based on and include an interpretation of the mind of the original author. A translation is essentially a condensed form of exegesis. It sets forth the result of a process of reasoning about the mind of the author, without discussing the critical reasons for this conclusion. Jerome himself, as an expert translator, was fully aware of this truth. Thus in the preface to his translation of the Book of Job from the Hebrew, he tells us that he hired a Jewish rabbi to give him an exegesis of this difficult Book, and adds, "I do not know if I gained anything from his instruction. I only know that I cannot translate anything unless I first understand it."²

I. Jerome's Exegetical Works

Before undertaking a critical judgment of the nature and value of Jerome's achievements as an exegete, it seems well to enumerate his principal works in the field of Biblical studies. By treating them in the chronological order of their production we can note a certain progress in his aims and methods.

It is hard to say what external influences may have first led the young Roman scholar into this particular field of ecclesiastical studies, for which he was so eminently qualified by natural talents and disposition.³ At any rate, shortly after he finished his course in the profane classics at Rome, he set out to apply his newly acquired literary skill to the composition of an exegesis of Abdias, the shortest Book of the Old Testament. Published surreptitiously by one of his friends, this juvenile production, which indulged in the then very popular allegorical style of interpretation, won for its youthful author no little notoriety. But no trace of it now remains, except perhaps inasmuch as parts of it may be incorporated in the saint's later commentary on this Prophet. In fact, it is only from the prologue of this much more mature work, written about a quarter of a century later, that we learn of the opuscule of his early years. "In my youth," he there confesses to his shame, "led by an ardent love for the study of the Scriptures, I made an allegorical interpretation of the Prophet Abdias, the historical sense of which I did not then understand."⁴

Only after several years of preparatory study in the East did Jerome again produce a work on Sacred Scripture. But this time he followed the safer course of confining himself to translating the works of others. At Constantinople in 380-381, while attending the lectures of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and no doubt under the influence of this great admirer of the Alexandrian school of exegesis, Jerome translated several homilies of Origen into Latin: fourteen on Jeremias and fourteen on Ezechiel,⁵ nine on Isaias,⁶ and two on the Canticle of Canticles.⁷

Apparently not fully satisfied with Origen's explanation of Isaias's vision of the Seraphim (Is. 6:1-8), Jerome published his own treatise on this passage.⁸ This is his earliest Biblical work, apart from translations, that has come down to us, and it already shows the exegetical method that he was to follow more or less closely in all his subsequent work: a large dependence on previous commentators combined with a certain independent judgment of his own. Here, for instance, he borrowed freely from Origen; yet, at least in one important point (the interpretation of the two Seraphim as signifying God the Son and the Holy Ghost), he rejected the exegesis of the Alexandrian sage. This rejection was to prove very useful to him when, some years later, he was accused of being a blind follower of Origen (cfr. Ep. 84, 3). It is also to be noted that, although Jerome already possessed a good working knowledge of Hebrew, and used it occasionally in discussing the meaning of certain words, still his interpretation in this as well as in his other writings of the next few years is based not on the Hebrew text but on the Greek Septuagint, in the form of the Old Latin Version. To this he often adds a Latin translation of the later Greek versions—of Aquila, Theodotion and Symmachus.

During his stay in Rome from 382 to 385 Jerome produced no major work on the Scriptures. Yet several interesting little treatises, in the form of letters, show that during this time he was not occupied solely with the spiritual direction of pious ladies or with secretarial work for his good friend Pope St. Damasus. These minor works treat of the meaning of certain foreign words that had been left untranslated in the Latin Version, such as Hosanna (Ep. 20), Alleluja, Amen, Maran Atha (Ep. 26), Diapsalma (Ep. 28), Ephod, Theraphim (Ep. 28), and of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in connection with the Alphabetic Psalms (Ep. 30). To this period also belongs his interpretation of the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32; Ep. 21), of Psalm 126 (Ep. 36), as well as his adverse criticism of the commentary of St. Reticius of Autun on the Canticle of Canticles (Ep. 37). This last-mentioned epistle is noteworthy as one of the earliest examples, in the field of Biblical studies, of a "book review" (in quite a modern sense) by an eminently qualified critic. Here Jerome likewise states his own views on what constitutes good exegesis. After giving some examples of the absurd interpretations contained in this book under review, Jerome concludes with this remark: "Innumerable are such defects, which, it seems to me, make his commentary worthless. It is indeed written in an ornate style, fluent with Gallic pomposity. But what has this to do with exegesis? The prime concern of an exegete is not to show off his own eloquence but to help the reader understand the sense of the original author."⁹

It was also during this period that Jerome undertook, at the request of Pope Damasus, a work which was destined to have a profound influence upon all the following generations in the Western Church and, at the same time, no small influence upon the type of his own subsequent work. This was his revision of the Old Latin Version of the New Testament, which he made in accordance with the best Greek manuscripts at his disposal. Even though his zeal in correcting the Vetus Latina seems to have gradually slackened, so much so that it is uncertain whether his revision reached beyond the four Gospels, still this work—our present Vulgate New Testament—is on the whole based on an excellent critical text of the original Greek Gospels and is rightly considered one of the glories of the Latin Church. His first revision of the Old Latin Psalter, made at this time, following a few Septuagint manuscripts, proved less successful and never gained much popularity outside the Eternal City. It is now used only at St. Peter's, Rome, and in a few odd texts of the Roman Missal and Breviary. Hence it is usually referred to as "the Roman Psalter."^9a

These labors on the text of the Bible gave Jerome a deeper realization of the value of textual criticism and the importance of getting back to the original texts. Therefore, when he left Rome shortly after the death of Damasus and became a voluntary exile in Palestine for the rest of his life, he spent his first years there in perfecting his knowledge of Hebrew and in preparing a better Latin edition of the Old Testament. Apparently because he did not yet feel competent to make an original Latin translation direct from the Hebrew, or at least because he did not yet wish to run the risk of meeting with opposition to so novel a translation, he at first undertook only a revision of the Old Latin Version of the Old Testament, made in accordance with Origen's Hexaplar Text. This latter he thought to be superior to the common Septuagint text from which the Old Latin had been made. How far he proceeded in this work it is difficult to say, but he seems to have published the revised text of only Paralipomenon (lost, except the Preface¹⁰), the so-called Books of Solomon—Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticle of Canticles (the Preface¹¹ and a few fragments preserved), Job¹² and the Psalms. This second revision of the Psalms, now usually called "the Gallican Psalter" from its early popularity in Gaul, is still the Psalter of the official Latin Vulgate.¹³ Despite its many defects, it has been used in the Roman Breviary up to the present, although now the new, much better Latin Psalter, recently made directly from the original texts and issued by the Holy See in 1945, may be used in its place.

During these first years in Palestine, 386-390, Jerome was still so faithful a follower of Origen that he interrupted his Hebrew studies in order to translate, at the request of Paula and Eustochium, thirty-nine Homilies of Origen on certain passages in St. Luke's Gospel.¹⁴ Shortly before doing this work, and likewise as a favor for these same ladies, he composed his only commentaries on the Pauline Epistles, in the order of Philemon, Galatians, Ephesians and Titus.¹⁵ These commentaries also depend to a large extent on Origen's work and, except for the one on Philemon, abound in allegorical interpretations.

A much more original work is the Commentary on Ecclesiastes,¹⁶ which Jerome published about the year 389. It marks an important milestone in the history of exegesis, inasmuch as it is the first original Latin commentary to take cognizance of the Hebrew text. The text which Jerome here comments on is not indeed his definitive translation of Ecclesiastes that is now found in our Vulgate. This final rendering of the text he had not yet made at this date. The text of this commentary is basically that of the Old Latin Version (an early translation made by an unknown author from the Greek Septuagint) but corrected according to the Hebrew text. "I must briefly note," says the exegete in his Preface, "that here I am not following any authority [i.e., any standard text] but, while making use of the Hebrew, I am accommodating myself rather to the customary readings of the Septuagint [i.e., the Old Latin], at least in those passages which do not differ too much from the Hebrew. Sometimes I also record the readings of Aquila, of Symmachus and of Theodotion, in order not to scare away the reader's interest by too novel a text of my own, although on the other hand I would not want to go against my conscience by following up these rivulets of conjectures at the cost of thereby abandoning the source of truth [i.e., the Hebrew text]."

About this time, probably in 390, Jerome published his very interesting Liber Hebraicarum Quaestionum in Genesim.¹⁷ The title "Hebrew Questions" hardly gives an adequate idea of the nature of this valuable work. We might describe it as a series of notes made on various short passages of the Book of Genesis while the author was studying the Hebrew text of this Book in preparation for his new Latin version direct from the original. These notes, therefore, are intended partly to show where and why the Old Latin needed correction, and partly to explain the meaning of those proper names which could not well be translated, but whose etymology is alluded to in the text. But besides this, these "Hebrew Questions" also record the current Jewish exegesis of various passages of this Book. This work therefore forms a veritable treasure-house of curious Rabbinical interpretations. Many of these were later on preserved in the Talmud, but others are not recorded elsewhere. It is a pity that Jerome did not complete and publish his "Hebrew Questions" on the other Books of the Old Testament.¹⁸

While engaged on this task, he issued two other works which he hoped would prove useful to Latin readers of the Bible: his Book on Hebrew Names and his Book on the Sites and Names of Hebrew Places.^18a The former, which was the main source whence the Latin writers of the Middle Ages drew their knowledge of the meaning of Hebrew proper names, has now not much more value than a museum curio. It attempts to give the meaning of almost all the proper names occurring in the Old and the New Testament, but, based largely on the works of Philo and Origen, it offers in most cases mere fanciful and popular etymologies devoid of scientific exactness.

On the other hand, his work on Biblical place-names will always retain a certain scientific value. Many of the identifications with modern sites are indeed somewhat inexact, and a few are far from correct. But they represent the traditions of the fourth-century Christians and Jews who lived in Palestine, and as such they must be taken into consideration by any modern author who would write on the topography of ancient Palestine. This work is, of course, essentially a translation of the Greek Onomastikon of Eusebius of Caesarea. But Jerome, who was well acquainted with Palestinian geography from his long sojourn and many journeys in the Holy Land, added his own corrections, additions and observations to a fairly appreciable degree.¹⁹

The next fifteen years, from 391 to 406, formed the most productive period in the industrious life of Jerome. During these years he published his new Latin translation of all the Books of the Hebrew Bible, besides writing numerous commentaries and shorter treatises.

This is not the place to treat either of the great merits or the small defects of this justly famous version of the Sacred Scriptures, which had such a profound influence on all later ages in the Latin Church. It is sufficient to point out here, in passing, that this work won its subsequent popularity not merely because of the illustrious name of its author, but more particularly because of its own intrinsic value. We must not forget that it was undertaken without any official authorization on the part of the Church, and even in the face of no slight opposition from high-standing ecclesiastics who, like St. Augustine,²⁰ feared that it would undermine the value of the Septuagint—which, after all, had the approval of the Apostles. Augustine felt that it would, at the same time, disturb the simple faith of ordinary Christians, whose Old Latin Version seemed to them the ipsissima verba Dei. Others, from less sincere motives, even accused Jerome of wanting to Judaize the Church of Christ.²¹ Yet within a few centuries his new translation gradually succeeded in supplanting all the Protocanonical Books of the Vetus Latina Old Testament, with the sole exception of the Psalms. The "Gallican Psalter" still remains the Psalter of the Vulgate, while the superior translation of the Psalms which Jerome made directly from the Hebrew has come down to us in only a few manuscripts.²² Of the seven Deuterocanonical Books—those not found in the Hebrew Canon of the Sacred Scriptures—he translated only two; the other five have been carried over into our Vulgate just as they were in the Old Latin Version. Even the translation of the two, Tobias and Judith, which Jerome made from the Aramaic merely to satisfy the request of his friends, was done in a halfhearted and hasty manner.

While Jerome was engaged in the publication of this new translation of the Scriptures, he also composed commentaries on each of the twelve minor Prophets.²³ These commentaries, in which his new Latin Version is used as the basic text to be explained, are rightly reckoned among the most valuable of his exegetical works. The numerous difficulties in these short but often very obscure Prophetical Books offered the exegete of Bethlehem a broad field on which to display his vast erudition. Of much less worth is his Commentary on St. Matthew's Gospel.²⁴ It is rather a series of brief notes on the Gospel than a commentary in the strict sense. According to its prologue, this work was written at the urgent entreaty of his friend Eusebius of Cremona, in the short space of two weeks while Jerome was recuperating from a three-months illness.

Of a similar nature of brief notes, or scholia, are his Commentarioli in Psalmos, which he wrote sometime before 402.²⁵ This long-lost work was discovered by Dom G. Morin and published by him in 1895.²⁶ To the same learned Benedictine we owe our knowledge of St. Jerome as a homilist; he published seventy-four of his homilies on the Psalms, ten on St. Mark's Gospel, and ten on other passages of the Bible.²⁷ These homilies were preached to the monks at Bethlehem in the years 392-401.

During these same fifteen years Jerome wrote, in the form of epistles, many smaller treatises on Biblical subjects, such as "On the Study of Sacred Scripture" (Ep. 53), in which he not only exhorts Paulinus to devote himself to a deeper knowledge of the Bible but also rejects with no little vehemence the pretensions of rank amateurs and dilettantes to usurp the authority of specialists in Scripture. Another valuable opuscule of his is his essay "On the Right Way to Make a Translation" (Ep. 57), in which he justifies the sane use of free translation as long as it is faithful to the thoughts of the original author. Of less value, because of the excessive use of allegorical interpretations, are his treatises "On the Vestments of the High Priest" (Ep. 64) "On the Judgment Rendered by Solomon" (Ep. 74) and "On the Forty-two Stations of the Israelites in the Desert" (Ep. 78). Some of the questions he treats sound very odd: "How could Solomon and Achaz beget children while still mere boys themselves?" (Ep. 72), and "Was Melchisedech an ordinary mortal or was he an apparition of the Holy Ghost?" (Ep. 73).

To several of his friends Jerome sent interpretations of various passages of Scripture which they had asked him to explain. Thus, for Amandus (Ep. 55) and for Marcella (Ep. 59) he explains certain difficulties in the New Testament. Even two Goths, Sunnia and Fretela, send him their Scripture doubts, and for their benefit he writes a long and interesting discussion of the textual differences between the Septuagint-Old Latin and the Hexaplar-"Gallican Psalter" in 178 places of the Psalms (Ep. 106).^27a

We are all the more astonished that Jerome could produce so much in the field of Scripture studies during these fifteen years (391-406), when we recall that most of his controversial writings on other subjects likewise fall in this same period. Thus, his well-known dispute with Rufinus over the accusation of Origenism, which began in 393, covers roughly this same time.

It is sometimes asserted that, on account of this controversy, the year 393 forms an important turning-point in Jerome's attitude toward the great Alexandrian theologian. It is true that his ardent admiration for Origen's exegetical writings did cool off considerably during this period of his life. No doubt the anti-Origenist controversy had something to do with this. But this point can be easily exaggerated.²⁸ Even before 393 Jerome was not an entirely uncritical follower of Origen's exegesis, and at least on one fundamental principle of interpretation he never followed him at all: on the Alexandrian's strange notion that certain passages of Scripture are devoid of any literal meaning, having only an allegorical or spiritual sense.²⁹ On the other hand, Jerome continued to employ Origen's allegorical method of interpretation to the very end of his life, albeit with ever decreasing frequency.

During the last fifteen years of his life (406-420) Jerome's Biblical works are much less numerous. This is only in part due to the aged scholar's failing health and to the disturbed circumstances of the time, when his monastery at Bethelhem fell victim to the fury of the Pelagians and the ravages of several waves of barbarian invasions. The main reason why his published works are comparatively few during these years is that they are mostly of much greater length and more carefully written. It was at this time that he crowned his exegetical masterpiece, the Opus Prophetale, as he himself calls it, with his great commentaries on the four major Prophets: Daniel³⁰ in 407, Isaias³¹ in 408-410, Ezechiel³² in 410-415, and Jeremias³³ in 415-420. This last commentary had covered only the first thirty-two of the fifty-two chapters of Jeremias when the hand of death wrote "Finis."

Likewise, relatively few of Jerome's minor works date from this last period of his life. We have only his discussion of the textually disputed passage in I Corinthians 15:51, on the resurrection of the body (Ep. 119), his answers to various questions on the New Testament proposed by Hedibia (Ep. 120) and Algasia (Ep. 121), his allegorical interpretation of "The Promised Land" (Ep. 129), and his eloquent exposition of Psalm 89 (Ep. 140). This last opuscule, written about a year before his death, forms a fitting close to his long laborious life, for this magnificent Psalm contemplates the brevity and misery of human life, and when our septuagenarian exegete writes here so touchingly of the sorrows and troubles of "decrepit old age," he may well be speaking from personal experience.

II. Influences that Affected Jerome's Exegesis

That the writings of St. Jerome exercised a far-reaching influence on all subsequent generations in the Church is generally recognized and need not be elaborated here. But it is perhaps not so well known how deeply he himself was affected by the Biblical scholars of the preceding ages as well as of his own age. It is sometimes said that Jerome was a self-educated man.³⁴ This is no doubt true enough in the sense that he received his Biblical education more from private reading than from oral instruction. But he also attended the lectures of various experts in the Scriptures, and he himself insists that he was not a "self-taught" man. In Ep. 84, 3 he gives us such a detailed account of his schooling in the Biblical sciences that this passage is well worth quoting here in its entirety.

When Rufinus and others, who "loved him so much that they could not even be heretics without him," accused him of having had teachers who were themselves of dubious orthodoxy, Jerome (about the year 400) wrote this apologia of his education:

As a young man, I was carried away with a wonderful zeal for learning, but I did not teach myself, as certain ones presume to do. At Antioch I frequented the lectures of Apollinaris of Laodicea and I was much devoted to him. But, even though he instructed me in the Holy Scriptures, I never accepted his contentious doctrine about the mind. Later on, though my hair was already becoming gray, which is more becoming in a professor than in a pupil, I nevertheless journeyed to Alexandria and attended the lectures of Didymus. In many respects I gratefully acknowledge my debt to him. What I did not know I learnt; what I already knew I did not lose under his instruction. Then, when people thought I would finally call a halt to my schooling, I came back again to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and there had Bar-anina teach me at night. With what trouble, too, and at what a cost! For he was afraid of the Jews and used to come to me like another Nicodemus.

All of these men I frequently refer to in my works. The tenets of Apollinaris are, of course, opposed to those of Didymus. Should each faction, therefore, pull me to their own opposing side because I admit that both of these men were my teachers? Moreover, if it is right to hate any men and despise any race, I am certainly a bitter enemy of the circumcised. For even to the present day they persecute our Lord Jesus Christ in their synagogues of Satan. Why then should any one throw it up to me, that I had a Jew as my teacher? Or will this certain someone be bold enough to quote the letter I addressed to Didymus as to a master? What a great crime for a pupil to call a learned old man "Master"!

Jerome had other instructors besides these whom he mentions in this letter, particularly "the very eloquent" St. Gregory of Nazianzus, of whom he says, "He was my teacher, and I learnt from his explanations of the Scriptures."³⁵ But the Nazianzene, like the two other great Cappadocians, Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, was more of an orator and theologian than an exegete. The chief lesson that Jerome learnt from him was probably that Origen's allegorical interpretations were indeed to be used and imitated, but with prudence and sobriety.

However, the other three teachers mentioned above were representatives of the three great exegetical schools of that time: Apollinaris (c. 390) of the Antiochian school, Didymus (c. 398) of the Alexandrian school, and Bar-anina of the Rabbinical school of the Palestinian Jews. Almost every page of Jerome's commentaries shows the influence of these three schools on his own type of exegesis. Hence, in order to have a full appreciation of his commentaries, it is necessary to know something of the aims and methods of these masters who taught him both by their words and by their writings. We will, therefore, first give a brief account of the main tenets of the two famous Patristic schools of exegesis, the Alexandrian and the Antiochian, and show the extent of Jerome's indebtedness to each of them; then we will treat of the part which the Palestinian rabbis played in molding his attitude towards the Scriptures.

Influence of the Alexandrian and Antiochian Exegetes.

All the ancient writers on the Bible, whether orthodox or heretical, Christian or Jewish, considered the Sacred Scriptures to be the word of God. The only exceptions were a few pagan adversaries, such as Celsus and Porphyry. This is, of course, an incontrovertible fact. But in our own age of rationalism it is often overlooked. Only within the last century or two have men who are otherwise not hostile to the Bible and its teachings treated this Book as if it were a merely human document. Modern rationalistic exegesis, therefore, is concerned solely with the investigation of what the human authors of the Bible meant by their words. It denies any Divine influence on them. Even the practice of some modern exegetes who still believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures has at times been tainted by this viewpoint.

On the contrary, all ancient exegetes laid great stress on the Divine message contained in the Sacred Scriptures. They held that God employed the human authors as His instruments, for the purpose of revealing to men His will and the knowledge of supernatural truths. Therefore, since God, as well as man, is the author of this Book, the concern of the exegete is to search out beneath the more or less obvious sense of the human author's words the deeper meaning intended by the divine author. Following the example of St. Paul, who often distinguished between the "letter" and the "spirit" of Holy Writ, Christian exegetes commonly called these two senses of Scripture the "literal" and the "spiritual." It is only in regard to the relationship between these two senses and in the method of deducing the spiritual from the literal sense that exegetes differed among themselves. This difference forms the chief distinction between the two famous schools of exegesis that had their headquarters respectively at Alexandria in Egypt and at Antioch in Syria.³⁶

At the risk of oversimplification, we may sum up this difference by means of modern terminology by saying that, according to the Antiochians, whatever God wished to reveal to us in the Scriptures was also understood in some way or other by the inspired authors, and therefore any higher meaning given to a passage must be solidly based on the direct, literal meaning of this passage. According to the Alexandrians, on the other hand, God's message to us in the inspired Books often surpassed the understanding of the human author of these Books; and therefore, since God's meaning need not be tied down too rigorously to the direct sense as intended by the human authors, a passage may often be interpreted in a figurative way ("tropologically" or "allegorically" they called it), so that we may arrive at the fuller, higher meaning intended by God. Hence, while the Alexandrians did not entirely neglect the literal sense and in fact often made useful contributions to Biblical philology, grammar, etc., their special emphasis was on the elaboration of the allegorical or mystical interpretations. This art they developed to an astounding degree of ingenuity and beauty.

The Antiochians also admitted in many passages a meaning deeper than that contained in the superficial sense of the words. But they protested that this higher or "typical" sense, as they called it, must either be derived from the primary, obvious sense by a strict process of reasoning, or must be proved through the testimony of some other passage of Scripture to have this higher meaning. Even here, where, for instance, the New Testament interprets some event in the Old Testament as a "type" or prefigurement of something in the New Testament, they held that the Old Testament author himself foresaw this deeper meaning in his words through a certain vision, or theoria, granted him by God.³⁷ Thus, the typical sense was for them just as much the literal sense as was the direct, obvious meaning of the words. The latter, as distinct from the typical sense, they usually called historia, or the historical sense. But both senses they considered as the "literal" or true sense of Scripture, inasmuch as both are founded on the words of the inspired author in the meaning intended by him. Hence, they were opposed to the Alexandrian practice of reading into an earlier Book of the Bible ideas explicitly stated only in a later Book. They thus laid the base for the doctrine of the Development of Revelation, and so distinguished the Old Testament from the New, and older Books of the Old Testament from more recent Books.

Both schools had certain advantages as well as disadvantages. The Alexandrian method served admirably the purpose of edification, for it gave spiritual import to many parts of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament, which otherwise could hardly be distinguished from profane literature. But it also gave too much room to the free play of the imagination, and where a brilliant genius like Origen was deceived by some erroneous opinion of Neo-Platonic philosophy, he could too easily be misled into drawing certain heretical conclusions from what he believed to be the allegorical sense of the Scriptures.

The Antiochian method, on the other hand, was much more scientific. It was really based on the solid principles of sound reason. But here too, where there is question of the super-rational truths of a Divine revelation, mere unaided reason can be as dangerous as free imagination. Overemphasis on rational arguments can make a man a rationalist. Of course, none of the Antiochian exegetes, not even Theodore of Mopsuestia, the most erratic of them all, was a rationalist in the modern sense of one who denies the supernatural. But several of them did go astray. The excessive rationalism of Antioch begot the Nestorians, just as the exaggerated piety of Alexandria produced the Monophysites.

St. Jerome, as we have seen, came in contact with both methods of exegesis and was influenced by both. As a wise eclectic, he endeavored to draw the best from each school while avoiding the excesses of both.

To the Antiochians he owed, at least in part, his theoretic principle that the direct, literal sense of Scripture is first to be investigated and explained, and only then, with this clear, literal sense serving as a basis, is the higher, spiritual interpretation to be developed. His dependence in this regard is shown by his employment of the terminology of Antioch, since he usually speaks of the literal sense as that which is secundum historiam, or the historiae veritas—or, most often, simply historia. But actually, in practice, he often forgets to carry out this principle.

For, on the whole, his exegetical method is much closer to that of the Alexandrians. After explaining the literal sense, or even without this explanation, when he judges the obvious sense to be clear enough, he hastens to expound the spiritual message of the passage, and this he does almost always in the style of the Alexandrian exegetes, in fact, frequently in their very words, even where he does not explicitly state the source of his quotation. Only rarely does he develop the deeper meaning of Scripture according to the more exact method of the Antiochians. He leaves no doubt where his own preferences lie: his citations from the works of the allegorical interpreters of Alexandria are far more numerous than are those from the more cautious exegetes of Antioch. However, this preponderance is in part due to the fact that the latter school was still in its youth during Jerome's life-time and had as yet produced only a comparatively small collection of commentaries to quote from, whereas the exegete of Bethlehem had at his disposal a much more voluminous library from the older school at Alexandria.

An examination of almost any of Jerome's commentaries will show this eclectic method, whereby he combined the literal interpretation, as favored by the Antiochians, with the spiritual interpretation of the Alexandrians, so that the former served, at least in theory, as the basis of the latter. But we also have several statements of his own to prove that this was his avowed purpose. The quotation of a few of these may not be out of place.

In his earliest extant exegetical work, on Isaias's vision of the Seraphim,³⁸ Jerome begins as usual by quoting the passage to be explained ("In the year that king Ozias died, I saw" etc.), followed by this comment: "Before we speak of the vision itself, it seems well to consider who Ozias was, how many years he reigned, and who were his contemporaries in the other countries." Then, after answering these questions, he continues, "Having thus first treated of this matter of history [praemissa historia, which might also be translated, "Having prefixed this literal interpretation"], it remains to give the spiritual interpretation, for the sake of which the history itself [or, the "literal interpretation"] has been unfolded (spiritalis sequitur intellectus, cujus causa historia ipsa replicata est)." The exegete then goes on to show, by a rather fanciful comparison with other similar temporal clauses, that the prophet could not have had a vision as long as the leprous king was alive.

Again, in his Commentary on Ezechiel 42:13f.,³⁹ a passage about the north and south Temple-chambers reserved for the priests, Jerome says: "The north and south chambers are, I think, either what they merely were in history [i.e., the literal sense], or they symbolize the secrets of spiritual understanding (quae vel historiae continent simplicitatem, vel spiritualis intelligentiae sacramenta), so that through the Aquilonem [the dark clouds of the north] we should come to the Meridiem [the high point of the south]. For the littera [the literal sense] is not so to be read, nor the foundations of the historia [the historical sense, the explanation of passed events] so to be laid, that we may not come to the culmina [the top of the building, the highest sense of Scripture]. Yet neither is a most beautiful edifice to be built up to the roof, when the foundations beneath it are by no means solid."

Finally, we may quote Jerome's "Eulogy on Paula," for what is here⁴⁰ approved in the disciple is clearly the master's ideal also. "The Holy Scriptures she knew by heart. Although she loved their literal meaning (historia) and used to say that this was the basis of truth, she was still more concerned with their spiritual understanding, and with this high roof (culmen) she protected the edifice of her soul."

Influence of the Jewish Exegetes.

While it is generally admitted that Jerome owed much to the Christian exegetes who preceded him, it is not so widely known that he was likewise profoundly influenced by the Jewish scholars whom he eagerly sought as his teachers. We have already referred to Bar-anina, his nocturnus praeceptor at Jerusalem and Bethlehem. But there were several other erudite Jews, usually left unnamed in his works, whom he hired as his teachers—"for a goodly sum of money," as he complains in more than one place. He studied under these rabbis primarily for the purpose of being able to translate the Hebrew Bible into Latin, but their explanations were not limited to a merely grammatical exposition of the text. Jerome would have unconsciously absorbed a certain amount of rabbinical exegesis from them, even if he had not intentionally set out, as he really had, to find out what their traditional interpretations were.

In several of the Prefaces to his revisions or translations of the Old Testament Books he speaks of the help he received from these Hebrew scholars in preparing his Latin version. A quotation from one of these Prefaces—that prefixed to his lost revision of the Old Latin Paralipomenon⁴¹—will let him show in his own words, how and why he enlisted the aid of these Jewish scholars. At the same time this will give a fair sample of his interesting style, as far as it can be reproduced in another language.

This Preface, written about the year 389, begins as follows:

Just as those understand Greek history better who have visited Athens, and appreciate better the Third Book of Virgil who have sailed from Troy, passed Leucates and Acroceraunia, to Sicily, and from there to the mouth of the Tiber, so also will he have a clearer perception of the sense of Holy Writ who has gazed on Judea with his own eyes, and recalled at their own sites the stories of its ancient cities, whose names are either still the same or have been changed. For this reason we also took special care to undertake this labor in company with the most learned men of the Hebrews,⁴² and likewise to travel all over this province, whose name resounds throughout the whole Church of Christ.

For I must admit, to you my dearest Domnion and Rogatian, that, in regard to the divine volumes, I have never trusted in my own ability, nor have I let my own opinion be my teacher. Even in those things which I thought I already knew, my custom has been to make inquiries, and I have done so all the more in those matters about which I was uncertain. Hence, when you recently wrote to me and begged me to translate the Book of Paralipomenon into Latin, I procured a former teacher of the Law from Tiberias, who was held in high esteem among the Hebrews, and I conferred with him "from top to toe," as they say. Only thus fortified, have I been bold enough to do what you asked of me.

In a similar way, he speaks of the assistance he received in preparing his translation of the difficult Hebrew text of Job:⁴³ "In order to understand this Book, I hired, for no small sum of money, a certain teacher of the city of Lydda who had the reputation of being 'A 1' (primus) among the Hebrews." He tells us likewise how he made his Latin version of the Aramaic Book of Tobias:' "Since Chaldaic (i.e., Aramaic) is related to Hebrew, I found a man who could speak both of these languages very well. So, devoting one day's work to it, I dictated in Latin to my secretary whatever he translated for me into Hebrew." Apparently the Hebrew translation was oral, not written. This interesting little scene, then, of Jerome acting as interpreter between his Hebrew-Aramaic friend and his Latin secretary shows us that he possessed a good speaking knowledge of Hebrew, something which is lacking in most of the modern philologists who presume to criticize him.⁴⁵ If he had wished, Jerome could have translated this Book directly from Aramaic himself, although he never fully mastered this language as well as he had Hebrew.

The first one, however, to teach him Hebrew was not a rabbi but a converted Jew. It was clearly an act of Divine Providence that led the young ascetic, who was destined to provide the Church with its authentic version of the Bible, to come in contact with this Hebrew-speaking monk in the desert of Chalcis. To this settlement of anchorites in eastern Syria, Jerome had retired in 376, after spending several months at Antioch, and here he stayed until 380. No doubt the principal motive that made him welcome this opportunity to learn the sacred language of Moses and the Prophets was his ambition to be an expert in the Biblical sciences. But, writing to the monk Rusticus in 411, he attributes a more pious motive to his initiation into the secrets of Hebrew grammar. His purpose was, of all things, to rid himself of impure temptations! This precious autobiographical notice (Ep. 125, 12) deserves to be quoted in full.

As a youth, even while I was hemmed in by the solitude of the desert, I could not bear the stimulation of the passions and nature's ardor. Though I tried to overcome it by frequent fasts, my imagination was still aflame with impure thoughts. So, in order to bring my mind into control, I made myself the pupil of a certain fellow monk who had been converted from Judaism to Christianity. And thus, after studying the acumen of Quintilian, the eloquence of Cicero, the majesty of Fronto, and the suavity of Pliny, I learnt the Hebrew alphabet and exercised myself in its hissing and aspirate words. What labor I then underwent! What difficulties I had to bear! How often I quit in despair, and how often I began again through my ambition to learn! This can be vouched for not only by the memory that I myself have of what I then suffered, but also by the memory of those who lived that life with me. But I thank the Lord that from this bitter seed of study I can now gather the sweet fruits.

We are told here of the almost superhuman efforts that Jerome made to master this Semitic tongue which was so different from the type of languages he already knew. We learn also how he, who began so many other scientific projects with great enthusiasm and yet failed to bring them to completion, stuck to this dry and discouraging task until he carried it to a successful end, because he realized far more than did any other Christian scholar of antiquity, how useful, or even necessary, a knowledge of Hebrew was for a thorough understanding of the Bible. But he does not tell us what methods he used in learning Hebrew. Certainly he had none of our modern aids in grammars and dictionaries. His only textbook was the sacred text itself. By reading the text with his Hebrew teacher, he learnt the meaning of the words together with the rules of inflection and syntax. Naturally, as he made progress in this, he could check for himself the correctness of the explanation that his teachers gave him, by comparing one passage with another, or by consulting the various translations of the Hebrew Bible that had already been published. But in many cases he had to rely solely on the traditional meaning that the Jews attached to difficult words or passages.

It is obvious, therefore, that Jerome depended on the authority of his Hebrew teachers to a considerable extent, first of all in his translation of their Bible. When his critics objected to some novel interpretation in his new Latin version, he would retort by saying, "Ask any Hebrew and he will tell you."⁴⁶ In his commentaries, too, he would at times justify his translation by saying, "The Hebrew who gave me instructions in the Sacred Scripture told me this."⁴⁷ But even where we have no direct testimony to this fact, we may rightly presume that, wherever his version departs from all or most of the older versions, especially in the meaning of Hebrew words which occur only once or twice in the Bible, such as the names of rare animals, birds, plants, etc., he is simply following the current interpretations among the Jews. A comparison between his translation and the Targums (the Aramaic translations made by the Jews of that period) will show a surprising number of striking resemblances.

One of the other examples will suffice to show how our Latin Vulgate still bears the effect of this tradition, even in passages where there is nothing rare or obscure about the Hebrew words in question. Thus, our Douay Version, which was made from the Vulgate, reads in Genesis 2:8: "And the Lord God planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning." The Septuagint-Old Latin has:" … a paradise in Eden towards the east." Jerome's comment on this in his Hebrew Questions on Genesis⁴⁸ is as follows: "Instead of 'paradise' the Hebrew has gan, that is, 'garden.' Moreover, the Hebrew word eden means 'pleasure.' Likewise, the following, 'towards the east' is written in Hebrew, mekedem, which Aquila translated… as we would say, 'from the start.'… From this it is perfectly clear that before God made heaven and earth, He first founded paradise." In confirmation of this current Jewish interpretation Jerome could also have cited 4 Esdras 3:6. The Targums likewise understand the phrase in the same way, and the equivalent of Jerome's conclusion is found in this statement of the Talmud:⁴⁹ "Seven things were created before the world was created; among these, the garden of Eden, of which it is written: 'And the Lord God planted the garden of Eden from the beginning.'" Yet almost all modern exegetes agree that the older Hebrew tradition, as represented by the Septuagint, is correct.⁵⁰

Again, in Isaias 22:17 we have this strange comparison in the Vulgate: "Behold, the Lord will cause thee to be carried away, as a cock (gallus gallinaceus) is carried away." In his commentary on this passage (PL, 24, 273D) Jerome says simply, "All others have translated the word geber as 'man (vir)'; but the Hebrew who instructed us in the reading of the Old Testament translated it as gallus gallinaceus." The word geber is indeed used in Neo-Hebrew for "cock," but in all the dozens of places where it occurs in the Old Testament, it is used solely for the male of the human species, and it should be so understood in this passage also.

While the number of passages in the Vulgate that have been influenced by the rabbinical teachers of St. Jerome may not be so great, there are scores, or rather hundreds, of places in his commentaries where the exegete refers to the current Jewish interpretations of Scripture. Nor need we attribute all of these to the oral instruction received from the rabbis. We have a valuable statement of his about his acquiring copies of certain Hebrew books which were certainly not the Books of the Hebrew Bible, for these he already had. They were most probably certain commentaries, similar to the midrashim which have come down to us in the Talmud. This statement of his is contained in a letter written at Rome in 384 to Pope Damasus (Ep. 36).

Incidentally, this letter also gives us an insight into Jerome's enthusiastic love for Biblical learning, which caused him to postpone the answer to a letter from the Pope, who was his personal friend and benefactor. Damasus had written to him and asked him for the solution of certain Biblical difficulties. Failing to get a reply, the Pope then sent a deacon to see why Jerome "had fallen asleep." Finally this answer was written:

Jerome to the Most Blessed Pope Damasus. When I received the letter from your Holiness, I called at once for my secretary and told him to take my dictation. While he was getting ready for the task, I was figuring out ahead of time what I was about to dictate. But just as I was beginning to move my tongue, and he his hand, there suddenly came in on us a certain Hebrew carrying not a few volumes which he had borrowed from the synagogue under the pretext of reading them himself. "Here is what you have been asking for," he said; "take them right away." And while I was hesitating and wondering what to do, he so frightened me by insisting on haste in the matter, that I laid everything else aside and flew to the transcription of these volumes. In fact, I am still engaged on this work. But yesterday you sent a deacon to me to say that you were still waiting for what you call a "letter" from me, but which I think would be more like a regular Commentary.

Jerome then goes on to say that for the time being he can give only a short and "off-hand" reply to the Pope's difficulties. Later on, when he has finished copying the Hebrew volumes, he will send him a longer letter.

Besides this reference to the written traditions of the Jews, we have several other statements of Jerome to show that he was acquainted with the opinions of the rabbis who lived long before his time. Traditional exegesis among them was very conservative. It consisted largely in repeating what earlier rabbis had said. Thus, concerning a peculiar interpretation of Ecclesiastes 4:13-16,⁵¹ Jerome reports: "When my Hebrew friend, whom I often refer to, was reading Ecclesiastes with me, he told me that Barakiba, whom alone they hold in the very highest esteem, gave this interpretation of the present passage." This Bar-akiba is also mentioned by Jerome's contemporary, St. Epiphanius, who says (Haer. 15) that he was known both as Bar-akiba and just Akiba, and in another place (Haer. 33) calls him "Rabbi Akiba." In fact, Jerome himself calls him simply "Akiba" in his commentary on Isaias 8:14, where he gives an impressive list of the names of the leading rabbis of the first two centuries.⁵² There can be no doubt, therefore, that Jerome is referring here to the renowned Rabbi 'Aq ba ben Joseph, who organized a very influential school of Jews shortly before their last futile rebellion against Rome in A.D. 132-135, and is rightly regarded as one of the main founders of Rabbinical Judaism. Jerome mentions him again in Ep. 121, 10:⁵³ "The Jews say, 'Barachiba and Simeon and Hellel, our masters, have handed down to us that we may walk two miles on the sabbath,' and other such things, preferring the teachings of men to God's teaching." A few lines further on he says, "Their teachers are called … 'wise men,' and, whenever they set forth their traditions, they have the custom of telling their disciples, … 'the wise men teach these traditions'." The Greek phrase used here is the literal translation of the common Talmudic expression. … Shortly before this, in the same letter, Jerome informs us that the Jews call their tradition … [by] the exact equivalent of the Hebrew word mishn h, meaning "repetition." Similarly, in his commentary on Habacuc 2: 15ff,⁵⁴ we read: "At Lydda I once heard a certain one of the Hebrews, who was called 'a wise man' … among them, tell this story." The story is too long and unbecoming to repeat, but it should be noted that the Greek title, given here to the teacher, corresponds precisely with the Aramaic word tann' (plural, tann'm), which is the title given in the Talmud to the rabbis of the first couple of centuries of the Christian era.

These examples, many more of which could be given, are sufficient to show that St. Jerome was well acquainted with rabbinical writings and their oral traditions. But from this, one should not conclude that he accepted all their interpretations with blind docility. On the contrary, he has made it perfectly clear in his commentaries, which interpretations he found reasonable and useful, which ones he considered merely interesting and harmless, but of little or no value, and which ones he rejected vehemently, as opposed to the true, Christian interpretation of the word of God.

First of all, the rabbis laid great stress on the literal sense of Scripture. To establish this sense correctly, they had sound, rational principles. The so-called "Seven Rules of Hillel" are, on the whole, very sensible and still quite useful. Although Jerome does not mention all these rules as such, their general influence can often be discerned in his literal interpretation of the text. Occasionally he seems to refer to one or the other of these rules themselves, e.g., the "rule of context" in his commentary on Matthew 25:13. However, in this matter of the basic importance of the literal interpretation, it is often difficult to judge how much he owes to the Jewish exegetes and how much to the Fathers of the Antiochian school.

Besides this investigation of the direct sense of the text, the rabbis also sought for a deeper meaning hidden beneath the more obvious one. They did so, however, in a manner quite different from that of either the Antiochian or the Alexandrian Fathers. Their purpose was partly to find a Scriptural basis for their peculiar religious customs, and partly to draw moral lessons from the pious legends that they thus added to the Biblical stories. The former class of comments are known as halaka, "way, conduct," the latter, as haggada, "exposition," or midrash, "explanation." Although the bulk of the Talmud is devoted to the halaka, Jerome seems to have taken comparatively little interest in these minutiae of Jewish observances. But many of the stories told as midrashim struck his fancy, and he thought that these curious tales would likewise interest his readers. He merely gives them for what they are worth. After narrating one of these legends,⁵⁵ he adds, "Just as this has been told us by the Hebrews, so we also have repeated it for the men of our own tongue, but as far as the reliability of these stories is concerned, we can only refer to those who have told them to us. For the rest, we who are enrolled under Christ's name, leave the letter that kills, and follow the spirit that gives life." Whereupon he interprets the passage in a "deeper sense" from the Christian viewpoint.

However, he does not pass on to his readers all the Jewish traditions he has heard of, for he considers many of them worthless or even scandalous. Thus he writes to Algasia (Ep. 121, 10): "I could not recount all the traditions of the Pharisees, … nor their old-womanish tales. For the size of this book would not permit it, and moreover, many of them are so improper that I would be ashamed to tell them."

Here, as in many other passages of his works, Jerome speaks so harshly of the traditions of the Jews that, if he were alive today, he would surely be called "anti-Semitic," even though he could say that many of his best friends were Jews. This is especially the case whenever he treats of the Old Testament prophecies which foretell the happiness of the Messianic age. According to the Christian interpretation, which the Church received from the Apostles, these prophecies are usually to be understood in a figurative sense, that is, under the image of an astounding material prosperity the prophets were describing the spiritual blessings brought by the Messias. Hence, in these cases the metaphorical sense is really the literal sense. But the Jews interpreted these obvious metaphors in a grossly literal sense, and therefore refused to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Messias, since he clearly failed to live up to their fantastic expectations. Likewise castigated by Jerome's stinging ridicule were those Christian heretics, known as "chiliasts" or "millenarians," who indeed acknowledged Jesus as the Christ but believed that He would reign on earth with His saints in wonderful terrestrial pleasures for a thousand years at the end of the world—at the "Millennium." For Jerome these heretics were just "semi-Jews" and "Judaizers," because they followed the Jewish custom of interpreting the Scriptures in this "carnal" way.

Dozens of such passages in Jerome's commentaries could be cited, but just one or the other sample must here suffice. Commenting⁵⁶ on the words of Isaias 60:1-3, our exegete says:

The Jews and our own semi-Jews, who expect a golden and bejewelled Jerusalem from heaven, claim that these things will take place in the thousand-year reign, when all the Gentiles are to serve Israel, and when the camels of Madian and Epha and Saba come there, bearing gold and incense.… From the islands, too, and especially on the ships of Tharsis, her daughters will fly like doves, bringing wealth in gold and silver. The walls of Jerusalem will be built up by the foreigners, with the kings of the Gentiles acting as foremen.… This is what they say who long for earthly pleasures, who seek beautiful wives and numerous children, and whose god is their belly, as they glory in their shame. This error of theirs is also followed by those who under a Christian name admit they are like the Jews.

Or again, on the words of Jeremias 31:23f., he says, "This prophecy was only partially accomplished under Zorobabel and Ezra. Its complete fulfilment is reserved for the times of Christ—either in His first coming, when these things have taken place spiritually, or in His second coming, when, according to our idea, they are entirely fulfilled in a spiritual sense, but, according to the idea of the Jews and of our own Judaizers in a carnal sense."

Jerome sums up this matter very well by saying:⁵⁷

Following the authority of the Apostles and the Evangelists, and especially that of the Apostle Paul, we demonstrate that, that which for the Jews is carnally promised, has been and is now being fulfilled spiritually among us. Nor is there any other difference between Jews and Christians except this, that, while both they and we believe that the Christ, the Son of God, has been promised, we hold that the things foretold of the Messianic age have already been fulfilled, whereas they hold that these things are still to be fulfilled.

We cannot dwell longer on the individual interpretations that Jerome heard of from his Hebrew teachers.⁵⁸ We must still mention the most important influence that the Jews exercised on him, an influence which affected his whole attitude toward the text of the Bible. This is the exaggerated esteem that they instilled in him for their own current Hebrew text. One of the most striking expressions which occur over and over again in all his writings is "Veritas Hebraica—the Hebrew truth." If he had meant by this that the original documents, as they left the hands of the inspired Hebrew authors, were the very words of God, he would have been entirely right. But he seems hardly ever to have considered the possibility that during the long manuscript history of the text before his time, innumerable accidental and even intentional changes may have crept into it. That he got this idea from his Hebrew teachers seems certain, for even the ordinary Jews of today never doubt but that their present Hebrew Bible is an exact copy of the very words of Moses and the Prophets. Of course, Jerome's Hebrew text, like the present Massoretic text, was substantially the same as the original and was, on the whole, probably more like the original than was the Hebrew text which the Septuagint translators employed six hundred years before. But it had unquestionably suffered many corruptions in the course of the centuries, and in numerous places had a poorer reading than that preserved in the Septuagint.

The principal results of Jerome's excessively high regard for his particular variety of the "Hebrew truth" were these. First of all, he drew from it the conclusion that any Book or any part of a Book that was not in his Hebrew Bible was therefore not a part of the Sacred Scriptures. This question, however, of his views on the Canon is treated elsewhere in this volume and need not detain us here.

Secondly, although Jerome was eclectic in borrowing from other commentators, in his translation of the Old Testament he limited himself solely to the current Hebrew text, and this despite the fact that he shows himself elsewhere an expert in textual criticism.⁵⁹ Departures from this principle, that is, instances when he follows the Septuagint-Old Latin readings where these are at variance with the Hebrew text before him, are comparatively rare and can usually be explained either as an indeliberate lapse due to haste, or a misunderstanding of a difficult Hebrew passage. Hence, on the whole, his Latin version is a very faithful but by no means slavish reproduction of the current Hebrew text. He would be perfectly justified in saying of his whole translation what he said in his Preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings:⁶⁰ "I am not at all conscious of having changed anything from the Hebrew truth." We can therefore make use of his version to ascertain the nature of the Hebrew text at the end of the fourth century. As far as the consonants are concerned, his was almost identical with our present Hebrew text, but quite different from the one on which the Septuagint is based. In regard to the vowels, however, it is certain that Jerome used a purely consonantal text with no visual aids for the pronunciation of the vowels except the matres lectionis.'⁶¹ Moreover, the vowels which his teachers told him to join to the consonants, differed in some respects from the "vowel-points" that were added a few centuries later by the Massoretes, not merely in regard to inessential differences in sound (as far as this can be shown from his inadequate Latin transcriptions) but even at times in a variant sense which a change of vowels gives to a word.

Thirdly, Jerome's infatuation with the current Hebrew text brought about in him a change of attitude toward the Septuagint. At first, like the other Christian writers of his time, he also regarded this Greek version as a supernatural production. Its translators were considered as divinely guided in their work. Hence, when he first noticed the great difference in the spelling of personal names between the Septuagint and his Hebrew text, and at the same time presumed that both texts were originally the same in this regard, he concluded that all the variant readings in the current copies of the Septuagint-Old Latin version were due to the errors of copyists. (Actually, most of the differences were original, each text being partly right and partly wrong.) Thus, in his Praef. in lib. Paral. juxta LXX,⁶² written in c. 389, he says, "In the Greek and Latin codices this Book of names is so corrupt, that one would think it was compiled less of Hebrew than of barbarian and Sarmatian names. This, however, is not to be ascribed to the Seventy (Septuaginta) Translators, who, filled with the Holy Spirit, transcribed the true text correctly, but to the fault of the copyists." In his essay, "On the Right Way to Make a Translation" (Ep. 57, 7-11), written in 395, he observes that the New Testament authors often quote the Old Testament according to readings which differ somewhat from those of the Septuagint. This difference he attributes chiefly to the "free translations" made by the Apostles and Evangelists, although by this time he is willing to admit that even the original Septuagint was often in error. Finally, in his Praef. in Pent.,⁶³ written between 398 and 406, he has lost all faith in the supernatural origin of the Septuagint, which, according to pious legend, had been the work of seventy men working separately in seventy cells, each one producing independently of the others, yet in perfect agreement with them, the whole Pentateuch.

I know not (he says) who was the first author to fabricate with his lie those seventy cells at Alexandria. For neither Aristeas, the hyperaspistes of Ptolemy, nor Josephus, who wrote a long time after, mentions any such thing. These, on the contrary, say that the Seventy met in one basilica and translated, not prophesied. It is one thing to be a prophet, and quite another thing to be a translator. In the former case the Spirit reveals future events, in the latter, by mere erudition and a good vocabulary, a man renders into another language what he understands the original to mean. Unless, of course, we should hold that Cicero translated Xenophon, Plato, and Demosthenes under the inspiration of the rhetoric spirit.

It is very seldom that Jerome doubted the truth of his veritas Hebraica. Thus, in his commentary on Galatians 3:10, he notes that St. Paul quotes Deuteronomy 27:26 according to Septuagint, with which, our erudite scholar observes, the Samaritan Pentateuch agrees, whereas the later Greek translators and his own Hebrew text have a slightly different reading. Here he is inclined to suspect the latter reading. Again, in Galatians 3:13 the Apostle quotes Deuteronomy 21:22 as "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree," although all the texts, including even the Septuagint, have, "Cursed by God.…" Jerome feels that the latter phrase is unbecoming to Christ. After trying vainly to give it a favorable interpretation,⁶⁴ he concludes that either the Apostle quoted the passage somewhat freely, "or, as seems more likely, after Christ's Passion someone added the words, 'by God,' not only in the Hebrew codices but also in ours, in order that we might be branded with infamy for believing in a Christ who was cursed by God." But surely, this latter hypothesis is absolutely untenable.

Therefore, even though he was not entirely justified in the almost unbounded trust he placed in his Hebrew text, still his new version is so much superior to the Old Latin that we must be grateful for his bold assurance, which caused others to have confidence in his new version and thus helped to win the acceptance of this better Latin text.

III. Jerome's Merits as an Exegete

The account of Jerome's works and of the influence of other scholars upon him, as described above, has already given a fairly good idea of his importance as an exegete. It only remains to sum up his chief merits, and to answer certain objections which have been raised in depreciation of his worth.

There can be no doubt about the judgment which the men of his own time passed on him. Long before his death he was held by all, both in the East and in the West, to be the greatest authority on the Sacred Scriptures. In this field where he was supreme, and in a certain sense unique, everyone listened to his words as to the utterances of an oracle. His contemporary, Sulpicius Severus, has one of the disputants in his Dialogus⁶⁵ (written in c. 405) say to the other two, "I would be surprised if he [Jerome] were not already known to you through his writings, since he is read throughout the whole world." Even the great Augustine seems to have stood in awe at Jerome's immense knowledge of things Biblical. Although the zealous Bishop of Hippo felt obliged in conscience to disagree with the learned monk of Bethlehem on one or the other point, still he always expresses himself in remarkably humble tones. Thus, he writes to him, not in false humility but in simple honesty, "I have not as great a knowledge of the divine Scriptures as you have, nor could I have such knowledge as I see in you."⁶⁶ In fact, it is precisely because Augustine realized the great authority Jerome enjoyed, that he feared the mischief which could be done by even one wrong interpretation made by him on an important point of doctrine.

During the following centuries Jerome was universally acknowledged as the prince of Christian Scripture scholars—not only during the Middle Ages, but also among the savants of the Renaissance and the great commentators of the Golden Age of Catholic Exegesis, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first doubts were cast on his reputation only in modern times, when Biblical science was divorced from theology and began to be studied merely for the sake of science, solely from the viewpoint of philology, archaeology, history, and the like.

In keeping with this well-merited popularity, the Church in her Oration on his feastday (September 30th), calls St. Jerome her "Greatest Teacher in setting forth the Sacred Scriptures—Doctor Maximus in exponendis Sacris Scripturis." It is commonly agreed on that this title, which apparently goes back to the fifteenth century,⁶⁷ is meant by the Church in a truly comparative sense and not merely in the sense of "a very great Doctor." Indeed, in comparison with all the other Doctors and Fathers of the Church, not only of the West but also of the East. But, understood in this meaning, Jerome's title has given rise to some discussion. For, if we take "exegesis" in its strictest sense, as signifying that penetrating investigation of the mind of the inspired author which seeks to fathom the logical sequence of his thoughts, it can hardly be denied that in this regard Jerome was really surpassed by several other exegetes, especially those of the Antiochian school, including another Doctor of the Church, St. John Chrysostom.

Murillo would take the qualifying phrase "in exponendis Sacris Scripturis," to mean, "in translating the Sacred Scriptures."⁶⁸ Certainly, Jerome is the greatest Doctor of the Church in this respect. But such a statement is so obviously true that it seems rather ridiculous to insist on it. Why should the Church call him who alone of the Fathers made any Bible translation at all, her "greatest translator of the Sacred Scriptures"? To us, therefore, it appears more probable that this phrase is to be taken in a broad and general sense, embracing all forms of Biblical science, such as philology, textual criticism, history and archaeology, as well as exegesis and interpretation (or translation). If we make the comparison on this wide basis, we can well affirm that there has been no other ancient writer in either the Eastern or the Western Church who was greater than St. Jerome as a "Biblical scholar."

The only writer of the Latin Church before the sixteenth century who could be brought forth as a possible rival of Jerome's exegetical laurels is St. Augustine. But a comparison between these two might be unfair to both. Each is a specialist in his own particular field. In philosophy and speculative theology Augustine, of course, far outstrips Jerome. Hence, when it comes to the subtle study of certain theological texts of Scripture, the former Doctor usually excels the latter. Yet the eminent theologian of Hippo was seriously handicapped in his use of the Sacred Scriptures. He had to take his Old Latin Version just as he found it, and ran the risk of drawing serious conclusions from what was merely a wrong translation of some passage. He had but little knowledge of the history that lay behind the text he used, and still less ability in having recourse to the original texts, at least of the Old Testament.

But here Jerome was right at home. What he lacked in speculative talents and philosophical training he made up in critical acumen and in a vast positive knowledge of the Bible and the allied Biblical sciences. He shows clearly where the preference of his own genius lay. When Sunnia and Fretela offer him the opportunity of discussing numerous textual questions on the Psalms, he responds with obvious satisfaction (Ep. 106, 2), "You ask of me a work … in which not the ingenuity but the erudition of the writer is put to the test." Therefore, these two contemporary Doctors of the Church were in no sense rivals, neither subjectively nor objectively. They complemented each other's great work in laying the solid foundations on which later scholars were to erect the magnificent edifice of Catholic theology. It is really a pity that Augustine never saw the realization of his oft-expressed wish that he and Jerome might meet and work together.

In comparing St. Jerome with other famous exegetes of the fourth and fifth centuries, there is a certain matter that is not to be overlooked. Each of these men had his own special field of preference. Augustine's commentaries on the words of our Lord or on St. John's Gospel, and Chrysostom's commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul do indeed surpass anything that Jerome wrote on the New Testament Books. But this was not Jerome's special field. His unique knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic induced him to devote his talents to the study of the Old Testament. In this part of the Bible he chose the most difficult Books, the writings of the Prophets. Here he is facile princeps. He is the only ancient writer who commented on all the Books of the major and minor Prophets. And he did this extremely well.

Jerome, no doubt, would have admitted that Christians are naturally and rightly more interested in the New than in the Old Testament. But he felt that there was a danger of their neglecting the divine revelation made before the time of Christ. Thus, to Algasia, who had sent him several New Testament difficulties for solution, he complains good-humoredly of her failure to ask him about the Old Testament. "I notice," he writes to her (Ep. 121, Praef.), "that your questions which are all on the Gospels and the Epistles, show that either you do not read the Old Testament enough or you do not understand it well enough, for it is involved in so many obscurities and types of future things that it all needs explanation."

St. Jerome's outstanding characteristic, wherein he easily surpassed all other Christian writers of antiquity, is his enormous erudition. He was very well informed. As Sulpicius Severus says,⁶⁹ "In universal knowledge no one would dare to compare himself with him." God may not have endowed him with an intellectual capacity for deep speculation, but He did give him two precious talents which Jerome invested at Evangelical usury: an insatiable thirst for learning, and a phenomenal memory for retaining all that he learnt. Augustine, who was himself well-read in Latin literature, both ecclesiastical and profane, testifies⁷⁰ that Jerome "had read all or almost all the authors of both parts of the world who had written anything before his time on the teaching of the Church."

In like manner, we must still marvel at the frequency with which he makes the most apt quotations from the classics as well as from the Patristic writings. His own works are often brilliant mosaics of skillfully employed references to and citations from other authors. But nowhere is his prodigious memory so much in evidence as in his use of the Bible itself. He must have known most of the Scriptures by heart. For in those days there was no such thing as a concordance to help a faulty memory locate a pertinent text. Yet Jerome can pile on one quotation after another from various parts of the Bible whenever such references have some connection with the passage under discussion.

His encyclopedic knowledge, however, was not a mere accumulation of other men's ideas. Despite the efforts of his humility to present the truth through another's words, he cannot conceal the fact that he has made no mean independent contribution to the general fund of knowledge. Many a statement of his, for instance, about the critical reading of a certain passage or about its meaning, is quite original. His powers of observation were finely developed. He viewed the world with a keen eye and knew the faults and foibles of his fellow men as well as their virtues. Well-travelled especially in Palestine, he took note of its natural history, its physical features, its flora and fauna. Remarks on these interesting topics, often combined with a peculiar droll humor, enliven many a page of his commentaries.⁷¹

In order to have as much time as possible for the acquisition of new knowledge, Jerome usually worked very fast on his commentaries and translations. No doubt, some of his works would have been better if he had spent more time on their production. But the accusation of undue haste is generally overstressed. Indeed, Jerome himself is partly to blame for this false impression. Much given to rhetorical language, he makes a generous use of the licit figure of speech known as hyperbole, or in ordinary language, exaggeration. But he presumes that sensible readers, unlike literal-minded moderns, would not take his statements too strictly. Thus, when he says that his translation from the Hebrew of the three "Solomonic" Books—Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Canticles—was "the work of three days"⁷² he is obviously speaking hyperbolically. The mere dictation of even the final draft of these Books in so short a time would have been almost a physical impossibility. Since we still have practically the same Hebrew text as that on which he worked, a comparison between this and his excellent translation of it shows that he must have spent weeks, if not months, on his preliminary drafts. Therefore, even though he calls his Latin Tobias the outcome of "one day's labor,"⁷³ and his Latin Judith the result of "one short burning of the midnight oil,"⁷⁴ we should not draw the conclusion, as is so often done, that these are careless productions, because here we no longer have the original with which to compare his version.

Nor are we justified in saying that "another defect of Jerome, possibly more blameworthy than the hurry of his work, is a lack of hermeneutical method, an uncertain and inconsistent attitude towards the fundamental principles of scriptural exegesis."⁷⁵ On the contrary, Jerome had a very definite method in all his commentaries, and he carried it out quite consistently. His method, as shown above, was essentially eclectic: to borrow what is good from all three schools of exegesis, the Alexandrian, the Antiochian, and the Rabbinical. When he quotes the divergent opinions of these different schools he may seem to be inconsistent. But he is not necessarily making all these opinions his own.

In several places he states explicitly what his method was. We can cite only a few examples here. Thus, in the Prologue to his Commentary on Osee,⁷⁶ after enumerating all the previous commentaries written on this Book, he says to Pammachius, "I mention these that you may know what predecessors I have had in the field of this Prophet. However, to you, who are sensible, I admit in all sincerity and not from pride (as certain friends of mine forever insinuate) that I have not followed these commentators in all their opinions. I am acting as a judge rather than as a mere translator of their work. I state what I think is probable in each, and what I have learnt from one or the other of the Hebrew masters." In the Prologue to his Commentary on Zacharias⁷⁷ he speaks of having studied the previous works of Origen, Hippolytus and Didymus on this Prophet, and adds, "All their exegesis, however, is allegorical. They hardly ever treat of the literal sense (historia). So, desiring to imitate the 'householder who brings forth from his storeroom things new and old,' and the bride of the Canticle of Canticles who says, 'The new and the old, my beloved, I have kept for thee,' I have combined the literal interpretation (historia) of the Hebrews with the figurative interpretation (tropologia) of our own scholars, in order that I might build upon the rock and not upon sand, and might thereby lay a firm foundation, such as Paul, the wise builder, wrote that he had laid." Jerome, therefore, could well say (Ep. 61, 1), "Since it is my earnest purpose to read many authors, in order to gather different flowers from as many fields as possible, with the intention not of approving of everything but of choosing what is good, I do indeed use many books, but only that from these many I may learn much."

The complaint that Jerome often fails to keep his promise of showing which of the many cited interpretations he approves of and which one he disapproves of, is quite common and is not limited to modern critics. Even his devoted friend Paula seems to have found this difficulty in his commentaries, as he himself admits in his Eulogy on her (Ep. 108, 26):

She persuaded me to give her a running commentary as she read through the Old and the New Testament together with her daughter [Eustochium]. Though from modesty I would have refused this, yet, on account of her repeated and persistent pleas, I consented to teach her what I myself had learnt, that is, not my own ideas, for such presumption is a bad teacher, but what I had learnt from the illustrious men of the Church. Whenever I was in doubt and frankly admitted my ignorance, she would never accept my excuses but would always force me by her unremitting questioning to tell her which of the many weighty opinions I considered the more probable.

Nevertheless, there is this to be said in defence of Jerome's habit of presenting various opinions without indicating which ones he makes his own. He generally does this only when he is quoting different allegorical interpretations. Now, although several such interpretations on one and the same passage may often seem to contradict one another, they can really be all more or less justified. For none of them pretends to give the genuine literal sense of the passage. Hence, when Jerome finds one Father making a spiritual application of a text in one way, and another Father accommodating the same text in quite a different way, there is no reason why he should feel himself obliged to praise the one and condemn the other. Instead, he rightly leaves it up to his readers to choose any of these ingenious interpretations that may seem the more appropriate.

At least one practical advantage that we have from his habit of making numerous citations in his commentaries is that he has thus preserved for us large parts of the writings of older exegetes whose works would otherwise have been completely lost. In fact, the writings of St. Jerome formed one of the main channels through which much of the erudition of the Greek Fathers reached the Latin-speaking Church. In the same way, his commentaries as well as his version of the Scriptures have enriched all Christendom with much of what was good in the Biblical lore of the Jewish scholars. "I have made it my resolve," he states expressly,⁷⁸ "to make available for Latin readers the hidden treasures of Hebrew erudition and the recondite teachings of the masters of the Synagogue, as long as these things are in keeping with the Holy Scriptures."

The last adverse criticism of Jerome's exegesis that we shall consider is the assertion that he indulges far too much in allegorical interpretations, either of his own concoction or borrowed from others. We readily grant that in this respect a great deal of his exegesis is not written in the manner of a modern commentary. But first of all, we must note that even in his own works there is a steady progress from his earliest commentaries, which abound in allegorical interpretations, to his mature works on the Prophetic Books, where much more restraint is shown in the use of such farfetched accommodations. "We do not at all deny," says Pope Benedict XV in his Encyclical on the occasion of the fifteenth centenary of the death of St. Jerome,⁷⁹ "that Jerome, in imitation of the Latin and Greek exegetes who preceded him, made use at first of allegorical interpretations to perhaps an excessive degree. But his love of the sacred Books and his unceasing toil in constantly reading them and in weighing their meaning, led him ever on to a right appreciation of their literal sense and to the formulation of sound principles regarding it."

Jerome, however, never completely abandoned the allegorical method, not merely because it was in vogue in those days and was expected of him by his readers, but also because he himself was convinced of the utility or even necessity of such exegesis. For him the Bible was not meant to be the plaything of men's minds; it was a heaven-sent manna for men's hearts and spiritual nourishment for their souls. He never forgot the truth, always taught by the Church and recently again enunciated by Pope Pius XII,⁸⁰ that "the Sacred Books were not given by God to men to satisfy their curiosity or to provide them with material for study and research, but, as the Apostle observes, in order that these Divine Oracles might 'instruct us to salvation, by the faith which is in Christ Jesus' and 'that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work."' Therefore, in those passages where the literal sense would merely be of historical interest, Jerome never hesitated to add to his literal interpretation a spiritual or allegorical interpretation, more or less founded on the direct sense, and thus "interpret so that the Church might receive edification" (1 Cor. 14:5).

In all this, Jerome showed himself a true "Father and Doctor of the Church." Immeasurably far above his fame as a scientific exegete is his immortal glory as a Saint of God. He was, as Sulpicius Severus says,⁸¹ "a man above all else Catholic—vir maxime Catholicus." Except for his mistaken and quite understandable attitude on the Canon, his orthodoxy has never been questioned. The mind and sense of the Catholic Church he made his own. Before all else he was guided by tradition: "the men of old who have preceded us in the Faith." It is this spirit of his, inspiring every line he wrote, that makes his writings so dear to all true Catholics and so disliked by many outside the Church. He had no need to submit his works to the subsequent approval of the Church; he made sure that there would be nothing in them that could offend her. "I made it my resolve," he said (Ep. 119, 11), "to read all the men of old, to test their individual statements, to retain what was good in them, and never depart from the faith of the Catholic Church."

His love for the Church sprang from his love for Christ, whose Mystical Body she is. And it was his love for the Incarnate Word of God that enkindled in him his ardent love for the written word of God. For him "every single page of both Testaments seems to center around Christ."⁸² "Ignorance of the Bible means ignorance of Christ," he would say,"⁸³ "for 'Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God,' and he who does not know the Scriptures does not know God's power and wisdom." "What other life can there be without the knowledge of the Scriptures," he wrote (Ep. 30, 7), "for through these Christ Himself, who is the life of the faithful, becomes known!"

We, who in the midst of our modern pagan civilization still cherish the precious heritage bequeathed us by our Fathers in the Faith, have need to listen again to Jerome's message of enthusiastic love for God's word in the Sacred Scriptures. To us also he addresses the words that he wrote to Paula (Ep. 30, 13):

What, pray, can be more sacred than this sacred mystery [of the Scriptures]? What can be more delightful than the pleasure found therein? What food, what honey can be sweeter than to learn of God's wise plan, to enter into His sanctuary and gaze on the mind of the Creator, and to rehearse the words of your Lord, which, though derided by the wise of this world, are really full of spiritual wisdom! Let the others, if they will, have their wealth, and drink from jewelled cups, be clad in silk, and bask in popular applause, as if they could not exhaust their riches in all kinds of pleasures. Our delight shall be to meditate on the Law of the Lord day and night, to knock at His door when it is not open, to receive the bread of the Trinity, and, with our Lord going before us, to walk on the billows of the world.

Notes

¹ "Haec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio (sacrorum librorum), quae longo tot saeculorum usu in ipsa Ecclesia probata est … pro authentica habeatur" (Enchiridion, Denz.-Banw.-Umberg n. 785).

² "Cujus doctrina an aliquid profecerim nescio; hoc unum scio, non potuisse me interpretari nisi quod ante intellexeram" (PL, 28, 1081). It is to be noted that Jerome uses both the word interpretari and the word exponere somewhat interchangeably in both the sense of "to translate" and the sense of "to explain, to expound, to give an exegesis"; e.g., in the Preface to his translation of Tobias (PL, 29, 26) "exposui" means simply "I translated."

³ One might be tempted to attribute this to the example of Victorinus, who taught rhetoric at Rome while Jerome was studying there and who wrote certain commentaries (now lost) on the Apostolum (the Acts and Epistles). But two facts militate against this hypothesis: Jerome says, at least according to the better manuscripts, merely that "Victorinus taught rhetoric in Rome while I was a boy (me puero)," and not that he "taught me as a boy (me puerum)" and secondly, in his later life Jerome despised the commentaries of Victorinus, as containing more rhetoric than Biblical knowledge. Cfr. Prolog. in Comment. in Gal. (PL, 26, 308), De vir illus., 101 (PL, 23, 701), and Chronic. an. Dom. 358 (PL, 27, 687).

⁴PL, 25, 1097. In this later work, written in 395, he seems to imply that the early work was composed some thirty years before: "Nec diffiteor per hosce triginta annos in ejus (= Domini) opere me ac labore sudasse." But the "thirty" is perhaps to be taken as a somewhat exaggerated round number. The first commentary was probably written not much before 370, that is, after rather than before his journey to "the semi-barbarous banks of the Rhine."

⁵PL, 25, 583-786.

⁶PL, 24, 901-936.

⁷PL, 23, 1117-1144.

⁸Ep. 18. (The more recent editions of St. Jerome's Epistles are in PL, 22 and in Vols. 54-55-56 of the Vienna Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum.) For the date of this composition, cfr. Jerome's statement in his Commentary on Isaias, written in 408-410 (PL, 24, 91): "I admit that about thirty years ago, while I was at Constantinople and was receiving instructions there in Scriptural studies from that very eloquent man, Gregory the Nazianzene, who was then bishop of that city, I wrote a short treatise on this vision (i.e., Is. 6: 1ff.) without adequate preparation." In Ep. 84, 3, written in 399 or 400, he says that this little treatise had been composed some twenty years before.

⁹Ep. 36, 3: "…sed quo eum, qui lecturus est, sic faciat intelligere, quomodo ipse intellexit qui scripsit."

^9a This has been the traditionally accepted explanation of the fate of Jerome's first revision, and this opinion is still widely held. But D. DeBruyne (Revue Bénéd., 1930, 101-126), has apparently proved that Jerome had nothing to do with the "Roman Psalter"; this would be merely one of the variant forms of the unrevised Old Latin Psalter; Jerome's first revision, accordingly, would now be completely lost except for some quotations from it preserved in Jerome's earlier works.

¹⁰PL, 29, 401.

¹¹PL, 29, 403.

¹²PL, 29, 61-114; P. de Lagarde (Göttingen, 1887); C. P. Caspari (1893).

¹³ Together with Origen's critical marks it is published in PL, 29, 117-398, where the "Roman Psalter" is given in a parallel column. According to D. De Bruyne (Revue Bénéd., 1929, p. 299) the name "Gallican Psalter" is due originally not to its early use in Gaul but to the widespread use of manuscripts made in the monastery of St. Gall, Switzerland, bearing the title, "Psalt. Gall."

¹⁴PL, 26, 219-306. This work was probably issued in 389.

¹⁵PL, 26, 507-618. These works were written in 386-387.

¹⁶PL, 23, 1009-1116.

¹⁷PL, 23, 935-1010.

¹⁸ In the Preface to this work he speaks of "the books of 'Hebrew Questions' which I have decided to write on all the Sacred Scriptures." Several times in his Onomasticon he refers the reader for further information to these books which he hoped soon to publish.

^18a These two works are published in PL, 23, 771-928.

¹⁹ Jerome himself says in his Preface that he "omitted some items that do not seem to merit recording and changed many other items." Actually his omissions are very few and his changes and additions are not too numerous; cfr. E. Klostermann, Das Onomasticon von Eusebius in the Berlin Corpus of the Greek Fathers (Leipzig, 1904), pp. xxiv f.

²⁰PL, 22, 833, 952. Augustine, however, later on acknowledged the worth of Jerome's new translation, and in his later writings often cited it with praise; cfr. Vaccari, Institutiones Biblicae (Rome, 1929), 288.

²¹ Rufinus, for instance, who maliciously changed the name of Jerome's Hebrew teacher, Baranina, into Barabbas (PL, 21, 611-616).

²² Published in PL, 28, 1125-1240; and in a more critical edition by P. de LaGarde (Leipzig, 1874), and by J. M. Harden (London, 1922).

²³PL, 25, 815-1578. These commentaries were not written in their present order, which is that of the Vulgate; but Nah., Mich., Soph., Ag., and Hab. appeared in 392; Jon. and Abd. in 396; Zach., Mal., Osee, Joel and Amos in 406.

²⁴PL, 26, 15-218. This work was written shortly before Easter in 398. The only other commentary on the New Testament, besides the ones on the Pauline Epistles, mentioned above, in which Jerome had a hand is his revision of the Commentary on the Apocalypse by Victorinus of Pettau; ed. CSEL, 49.

²⁵ Cf. Apol. adv. Ruf, I, 19 (PL, 23, 413).

²⁶Anecdota Maredsolana, 3, 1. These scholia were used by the compiler of the Breviarium in Psalmos (PL, 26, 821-1378) which was once falsely attributed to St. Jerome.

²⁷Anecd. Mareds., 3, 2-3.

^27a According to De Bruyne (Zeitschr. f d. neutest. Wiss. 28 [1929], 1ff.), these two Goths and their learned letter is a mere fiction, invented by Jerome as a literary device whereby he could refute the common objections raised against his second revision of the Psalms. Cf. however, A. Zeiller, "La lettre de S. Jérôme aux Goths, Sunnia et Fretela," Comptes rend. Acad. Inscript. et Bel.-Let. (Paris, 1935), 238-250.

²⁸ As is done, for instance, by L. Schade in his "Inspirationslehre des hl. Hieronymus" (Bibl. Stud., XV, 4-5.[1910], 119).

²⁹ Cfr. A. Vaccari, "I fattori della esegesi geronimiana," in Biblica 1 (1920), 466ff.

³⁰PL, 25, 491-584.

³¹PL, 24, 17-678. The Fifth Book of this Commentary, explaining only the literal sense of the "Ten Visions" of Isaias (Is. 13:1-23, 18), was first published as a separate opuscule in 397.

³²PL, 25, 15-490.

³³PL, 24, 679-900; CSEL, 59.

³⁴ So L. Schade, who says simply, "Er war Autodidakt" (Bibliotek der Kirchenväter: Hieronymus, 1914, p. lxii).

³⁵De vir. illus., 117 (PL, 23, 707).

³⁶ Hence, we speak here of the "Alexandrian" and the "Antiochian" exegetes chiefly in the sense that the basic principles of their exegesis were derived from one or the other of these two schools, even though many of these men actually lived in various other parts of the Roman Empire. The Alexandrian school was the older. Among its outstanding exegetes were Pantaenus, its founder († c. 200), Clement († c. 215), Origen, the greatest of them all († 254), Dionysius († 265), Pierius († c. 300), Eusebius of Caesarea († 340), Athanasius († 373), Didymus († c. 398), and Cyril of Alex. († 444). The chief exponents of the Antiochian school were Lucian, its founder († 213), Theodore of Heraclea († 355), Eusebius of Emesa († c. 359), Apollinarius (or, Apollinaris) of Laodicea († c. 390), Diodorus of Tarsus († c. 393), John Chrysostom († 407), Theodore of Mopsuestia († 428), Polychronius of Apamea († c. 430), and Theodoret († 458).

³⁷ Cfr. A. Vaccari, "… nella scuola esegetica di Antiochia," Biblica I (1920), 3-36.

³⁸ See footnote 8.

³⁹PL, 25, 412.

⁴⁰Ep. 108, 26.

⁴¹PL, 29, 401.

⁴² In Jerome's writings, as in ancient Christian literature generally, "a Hebrew" (Hebraeus) is a respectful term which regards merely the man's race or language, whereas "a Jew" (Judaeus) is a term of reproach, emphasizing the man's religion, which from the Christian viewpoint is worthy of reprobation.

⁴³Praefatio in Job secundum Hebraeum (PL, 28, 1081).

⁴⁴PL, 29, 25f.

⁴⁵ Jerome admits, however, that the Jews used to laugh at his quaint accent and faulty pronunciation of the strange sibilants and gutturals of Hebrew; cfr. his Comment. in Tit. 3:9 (PL, 26, 594f.).

⁴⁶ This appeal to the authority of the Hebrews backfired on Jerome in the rather comical dispute with Augustine about the name of the ephemeral plant that sheltered Jonas (Jon. 4:6f.). When a certain North African bishop had Jerome's new version publicly read in church, the people raised such a hubbub at hearing the old "cucumber-vine" of Jonas now changed into "ivy," that the bishop had the choice of either restoring the old reading or finding himself without a congregation. The Jews of those parts, who were asked about it, said that the change was no improvement. Augustine admits that they might have said this from ignorance or malice, but they were really quite right. Cfr. PL, 22, 833f., 929ff. Actually, Jerome's description of this plant in his Commentary on Jonas (PL, 25, 1147f.) shows that his teachers correctly identified it with the castor-oil plant, but the Latin word for it, ricinus, had apparently slipped his memory.

⁴⁷ Cfr. his Commentary on Amos 3:11 (PL, 25, 1019C).

⁴⁸PL, 23, 940.

⁴⁹Pessachim 54a; Nedarim 39; Jalkut 20.

⁵⁰ The Hebrew phrase miq-qedem means literally, "from the front," but by usage it means either "of old" or "in the east." The Septuagint was also correct in taking "Eden" for a proper name. Jerome, as usual, likes to show its popular Hebrew etymology.

⁵¹PL, 23, 1048f.

⁵²PL, 24, 119. This passage mentions, among others, the well-known Scribes: Shammai, Hillel, Johannan ben Zakkai, and Meir. Unfortunately, the text here, as published by Migne, seems to be rather corrupt.

⁵³PL, 22, 1033f.

⁵⁴PL, 25, 1301B.

⁵⁵Comment. in Zach. 11:11 (PL, 25, 1496).

⁵⁶PL, 24, 587f.

⁵⁷PL, 24, 865D; CSEL, 59, 367. This statement occurs in the introduction to the last part of the last Commentary that Jerome wrote.

⁵⁸ Many good studies have already been made on the relationship between Jerome's Commentaries and the Rabbinical literature. But this mine of research has not yet been exhausted. Among the more valuable studies are the following:

H. Grätz, Monats. f Gesch. u. Wiss. d. Jud., 1854, 1855.

M. Rahmer, ibidem, 1865, '67, '68, '97; also, Die Commentarii zu d. 12 kl. Proph. (1902).

M. J. Lagrange, Rev. Bibl., 1898.

V. Aptowitzer, Zeits. altt. Wiss., 1909.

A. Condamin, Rech. de science relig., 1914.

F. M. Abel, Rev. Bibl., 1916, '17.

⁵⁹E.g., in his revision of the Latin Gospels, and in his knowledge of the Septuagint MSS. Even modern textual critics still divide the Septuagint MSS into three main families according to Jerome's statement in his "Praef. in lib. Paral. juxta Heb." (PL, 28, 1324f.): "In regard to the recensions of the Septuagint, in Alexandria and Egypt they use the edition of Hesychius, from Constantinople to Antioch they approve of the copies edited by Lucian, the martyr, while in the regions between these two provinces they read the Palestinian codices prepared by Origen and published by Eusebius and Pamphilus. Thus the whole world is divided by this threefold form of the text."

⁶⁰PL, 28, 557f.

⁶¹ Several times he speaks of the ambiguity of Hebrew words because they were written with consonants only; e.g., in his Comm. in Jer. 9:22 (PL, 24, 745B; CSEL, 59, 126—his last major work!), he says, "The Hebrew word which is written with the three letters, daleth, beth, and res—for it has no vowels between them—, if, according to the context and the judgment of the reader, it is read as dabar, it means 'word,' if as deber, it means 'death,' if as dabber, it means 'speak."' However, even in his time the text already had the marks now known as "extraordinary points"; e.g., in Gen. 19:33 (on Lot's daughter lying with him) the Massoretic text still has a seemingly meaningless dot over the phrase, "and in her rising"; Jerome says (Quaest. in Gen., PL, 23, 973), "They put a point over it, as if it were something unbelievable and beyond nature to have intercourse and not know it." So also the Talmud (Rabba in Gen. 51): "Why is there a point here? To show that he did not know it when he was asleep, but that he did know it when he got up."

⁶²PL, 29, 402A.

⁶³PL, 28, 150f.

⁶⁴PL, 26, 361 ff. One of his attempts to explain the phrase, "Cursed by God," is of special interest. "The Hebrew who gave me some instructions in the Scriptures used to say that it could also be read as, 'Because with reviling God was hung up."' Jerome rightly doubts the possibility of the Hebrew words having such a meaning. But it is to be noted that this Hebraeus qui me in Scripturis aliqua ex parte instituit was most probably the converted Jew who gave Jerome his first Hebrew lessons, for no other Jew would have tried to give such a Christian interpretation to the passage.

⁶⁵Dial. 1, 8 (PL, 20, 189; CSEL, 1, 161).

⁶⁶PL, 22, 912; 33, 247; CSEL, 34, II, 269.

⁶⁷ Cfr. L. Murillo, "S. Jerónimo, el 'Doctor Máximo,"' in Biblica 1 (1920), 434, n. 3; 442, n. 1.

⁶⁸ Murillo, l.c., pp. 447ff.

⁶⁹Dial., l.c.

⁷⁰Contra Julianum, 1, 34 (PL, 44, 665).

⁷¹ Cfr. Leop. Fonck, "Hieronymi Scientia naturalis exemplis illustratur," in Biblica 1 (1920), 481-499.

⁷² "Tridui opus": PL, 28, 1241.

⁷³ "Unius diei laborem arripui": PL, 29, 26.

⁷⁴ "Huic unam lucubratiunculam dedi": PL, 29, 39.

⁷⁵ O. Bardenhewer, Patrology (T. J. Shahan's translation, 1908), 463. Essentially the same statement is repeated in Bardenhewer's last German edition, III (1912), 628.

⁷⁶PL, 25, 820.

⁷⁷PL, 25, 1418.

⁷⁸Comment. in Zach. 6:9ff. (PL, 25, 1455D).

⁷⁹Encycl. "Spiritus Paraclitus," Sept. 15, 1920, Acta Apost. Sedis 12, 410.

⁸⁰Encycl. "Divino Affante Spiritu," Sept. 30, 1943, par. 49; quoted here from the "English Translation Provided by the Vatican," N.C.W.C., 23.

⁸¹Dial. 1, 7 (PL, 20, 188; CSEL, 1, 160).

⁸²Encycl. "Spir. Parac.," Acta Apos. Sedis 12, 418.

⁸³Prol. in Comment. in Is. (PL, 24, 17B).