SOURCE: "The Epitaphium Sanctae Paulae: An Index of St. Jerome's Classicism," The Classical Journal, Vol. 49, No. 8, May, 1954, pp. 369-72.

[In this essay, originally delivered as a lecture in 1950, Diederich explores Jerome's letter 108—the Epitaphium Sanctae Paulae—in an effort to cite evidence of Jerome's classicism.]

Among the many interesting letters of Saint Jerome which I believe give striking evidence of his classicism is the Epitaphium Sanctae Paulae, Letter CVIII in the collection. This epistle is addressed to Eustochium, the daughter of the saintly Paula, to console her for the loss of her departed mother. Written in the form of a laudatio funebris, the letter contains many of the elements of this particular type of literature. Jerome begins his eulogistic tribute with an expression of admiration of Paula's nobility of lineage and of her holiness of life. She was a descendant of the family of the Gracchi, says Jerome; a descendant of the Scipios, the heir of that Paulus whose name she bore, the true and legitimate daughter of Martia Papyria, who was mother to Africanus.¹ In true Ciceronian style, Saint Jerome concludes this genealogical introduction with a rhetorical flourish alluding to Paula's preference of Bethlehem to Rome, "leaving her palace of gleaming gold to dwell in a poor cottage of clay."² True to the form of the exordium of the classic consolatory address, Saint Jerome declares that he does not grieve over the loss of this perfect woman, but that he is thankful to have known her.³ He admits the inadequacy of his words in praising so admirable a woman, whose praises, he says, are sung by the whole world, who is admired by bishops, regretted by bands of virgins, and wept for by crowds of monks and by the poor. The saint thereupon resumes the narrative presenting in detail the immediate line of ancestry of Paula's parents, of her mother Blesilla and of her father Rogatus. The former, he repeats, claims descent from the Scipios and from the Gracchi; the latter comes from a line of distinguished ancestry in Greece, in fact, "the blood of Agamemnon coursed through his veins."⁴ However, he takes up again the laudation of Paula's own merits, expressing the perfection of her virtue in a striking simile, comparing her with a perfect gem and with the brilliance of the sun.⁵ Echoing throughout the several passages following are the thoughts and words of Cicero, Seneca and Pliny. In the first book of the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero declares that no one has lived too short a life who has discharged the perfect works of virtue.⁶ He says that there is nothing in glory that we should desire it, but that none the less it "follows virtue like a shadow." The saint says of Paula that by shunning glory she earned glory; for glory follows virtue as its shadow and, deserting those who seek it, it seeks those who despise it. It is here that the Ciceronian virtutem quasi umbra sequitur is employed to express the reward of virtue. Saint Jerome then continues the life history of Paula, her marriage to Toxotius, "in whose veins flowed the noble blood of Aeneas and the Julii," and becomes reminiscent of a phrase of his favorite poet. The daughter of Toxotius, he says, is called Julia, as he is called Julius; cf Iulius a magno demissum nomen Iulo (Aen. 1.292).

After an account of the noble lady's family, of her husband and five children, the panegyric stresses in eloquent and moving lines the subject of social service among the poor. In a series of rhetorical questions, he alludes to her far-reaching kindnesses even to those whom she had never seen, to her charity to the poor man, to the bedridden person supported by her, and the hungry and sick sought out by her throughout the city. The letter continues with the story of Paula's social success, her entertainment of two most admirable gentlemen and Christian prelates, by whose virtues she was influenced to forsake her home for a life of asceticism.

It is in this pathetic account of her separation from her loved ones that we find Vergilian and Horatian reminiscences interspersed in thought and diction. To single out one instance, richly typical; in the farewell to the youngest child, the boy Toxotius, Jerome utilizes perhaps unconsciously the Vergilian supplex manus ad litora tendit. (Aen. 3.592) with inflectional variations, it is true, and a parallel Vergilian expression oculos aversa tenebant (Aen. 1.482). The Horatian siccis oculis (Carm. 1.3.18) is also employed in the description of Paula's heart-rending leave-taking of her children.

The journey across the sea is minutely described, the phrase sulcabat navis mare harking back to Vergil (Aen. 10.197), and Pliny 12 N.H. 1, 2. Allusion to the passage of Scylla and Charybdis seems to be an incentive for additional quotations from the Aeneid 1.173 and 3.126-7. Paralleling the journey of the Trojans and their stop to refresh and restore their wearied limbs, Saint Jerome says Paula stopped a short time at Methone to recruit her wearied frame. The travelog, Vergilian in its terminology, contains in addition to the many geographical references of the journey, a copious outpouring of biblical and historical data. The travelers sail past Malea, Cythera's island, and the scattered Cyclades.⁷ The entire itinerary is detailed by Saint Jerome giving the complete series of stopping places up to the time of Paula's retirement from the world to a life of seclusion in her cell in Bethlehem. On mentioning Joppa in the course of travel, the port of Jonah's flight, he cannot refrain from introducing half apologetically the fable of Andromeda bound to the rock.

Ore lambebat, a graphic depiction of Paula's ardent faith in licking with her mouth the very spot on which the Lord's body had lain, shows close verbal resemblance to Vergil's Aeneid 2.21 and 6.873. Then follows an abundance of scriptural references in the description of Paula's ecstatic appreciation of the Holy Places in Palestine, classical poetic phraseology interspersed throughout. Paula's exclamation on her arrival in Bethlehem is a reminder of the Roman poet's transport of admiration for Italy, hailing it as the land of Saturn, great mother of earth's fruits. (Georg. 2.173) Vergil exclaims: Salve, magna parens friugum! and Saint Jerome: Salve, Bethlehemn, donmus panis … Salve, Ephrata, regio uberrima, atque karpophoras, cuius fertilitas deus est.

The account of the journey made by Paula and her companions through the Holy Land terminates with the travelers reaching Egypt where they are welcomed by the ecclesiastics and religious men of the region. Not long afterwards, in the words of Saint Jerome, determined to dwell permanently in holy Bethlehem, she took up her abode for three years in a miserable hostelry, till she could build the cells and monasteries for her daughter and the maidens accompanying her, to say nothing of a guest-house for passing travelers where they might find the welcome which Mary and Joseph missed.

Having assimilated so thoroughly the works of the classical authors, Saint Jerome, it seems, finds it difficult not to incorporate occasionally the fables of poets by way of appropriate application. In defending his extravagant praise of the subject of the epitaphium he says his carping critics must not insinuate that he is drawing on his imagination or decking Paula like Aesop's crow, with the fine feathers of other birds.⁸

In the enumeration of the extraordinary virtues of humility, modesty, liberality, and benevolence, Saint Jerome draws from the Scriptures so copiously as to leave little occasion for use of pagan authors: however, all of a sudden alluding to the vice of envy that follows in the track of virtue, he quotes the well known line from Horace (Carm. 2.10.) feriuntque summos fulgura montis to be followed again by a series of Scriptural allusions which descrie Paula's attitude in her frequent sicknesses and infirmities.

In the succeeding chapter where Saint Jerome minutely describes the order of Paula's monastery and the method of direction of her community, ther is an echo of Sallust⁹ in the comment on avarice and covetousness. In the words of Sallust: "Avarice is ever unbounded and insatiable, nor can either plenty or want make it less,"—neque copia neque inopia minuitur. Saint Jerome, in exactly the same words, relates how Paula restricted her Sisters in order that covetousness might not take hold of them. She was afraid lest the custom of having more should breed covetousness in them, an appetite which no wealth can satisfy, for the more it has, the more it requires, and neither opulence nor indigence is able to diminish it. Then mindful it appears of the oft repeated Vergilian Quid memorem (Aen. 6.123, 601; 8.483) the Saint bursts forth again in praise of Paula's clemency and attention towards the sick and the wonderful care and devotion with which she nursed them. At the conclusion of the rehearsal of the rigid regimen Paula imposed upon herself, Saint Jerome utilizes his knowledge of the Greek philosophers when he mentions that, difficult though it be to avoid the extremes, the philosophers are quite right in their opinion that virtue is a mean, and vice an excess, or as we may express it in one short phrase, Ne quid nimis.¹⁰

Continuing to weave into the thread of his discourse Biblical citations to establish his point of fact, Saint Jerome discloses the manner in which Paula avoids the captious questions of the heretics, concluding with the words—globos mihi Stoicorum atque aeria quaedam deliramenta confingis, "bubbles, airy nothings of which the Stoics rave."¹¹

As the epitaphium moves on, the Saint must needs again revert to Paula's lofty character. It is in this portion of his description of her that we read a most delightful and interesting account concerning the brilliant mind of Jerome's talented disciple. He declares that Paula knew the Holy Scriptures by heart; that she and her daughter Eustochium would by no means rest content until he had solved for them the many different solutions to their questions. The learned Doctor of the Church confesses that as a young man he had only with much toil partially acquired the Hebrew tongue, but that Paula succeeded so well that she could chant the psalms in Hebrew and could speak the language without a trace of the pronunciation peculiar to Latin. Eustochium, too, could boast of this same accomplishment.

Saint Jerome is reluctant, it seems, to come to the end of the epitaphium, but finally approaches the subject of the death of Paula with a rhetorical flourish, employing a metaphor Vergilian in color to be suddenly followed by the Horatian siccis oculis. The devotion of Eustochium to her mother is then touchingly described as also the last moments of the saintly matron. An allusion to the classic "conclamatio" which appears in this description reads as follows: Cumque a me interrogaretur, cur taceret, cur nollet respondere inclamanti, an doleret aliquid, Graeco sermone respondit nihil se habere molestiae, sed omnia quieta et tranquilla perspicere.

The dramatic scene of the funeral procession, the chanting of the psalms, now in Greek, now in Latin, now in Syriac by the ecclesiastics and virgins present and her sepulture, the final eulogistic tribute emphasizing again Paula's great charity to the poor, is followed by Saint Jerome's Consolatio to the dear daughter of the noble Roman lady.

As practiced in the ancient consolatory address, Saint Jerome now concludes his epitaphium with the classic farewell to his dear departed protégée. Recalling the familiar line by which the Venusian poet predicts his own immortality, the devoted saint says: Exegi monumentum aere perennius quod nulla destruere possit uetustas (Hor. Carm. 3.31).

The Titulus Sepulchri, the epitaph which Saint Jerome had inscribed on Paula's tomb, the only poetry of Saint Jerome that has come down to us, again bears witness to the noble lineage of his friend Paula, and to his appreciation of the classic authors whom he knew so well.

Scipio quam genuit, Pauli fudere parentesGracchorum suboles, Agamemnonis inclita   prolesHoc iacet in tumulo, Paulam dixere   prioresEustochiae genetrix, Romani prima   senatusPauperiem Christi et Bethlemitica rura   secuta est.

Notes

¹ Matris Africani (sc. Minoris) vera et germana progenies, cf. Plutarch, Vit. Aemilii Pauli c. 5; Plin. Nat. Hist. 15. 126.

² Auro tecta fulgentia informis luti vilitate mutavit; cf. Cic. Par. 1. 3. 13.

³ Non maeremus, quod talem amisimus, sed gratias agimus, quod habuimus. V. C. 1.11

⁴ Rogatum proferant patrem—quorum altera Scipionum Graecorumque progenies est, alter per omnes Graecias usque hodie et stemmatibus et diuitiis ac nobilitate Agamemnonis fertur sanguinem trahere, qui decennali Troiam obsidione deleuit. V. C. 108. 3.11.

⁵ Et sicut inter multas gemmas pretiosissima gemma micat et iubar solis paruos igniculos stellarum obruit et obscurat, ita cunctorum uirtutes et potentias sua humilitate superauit minimaque fuit inter omnes. V. C. 108. 3. 11. (Cf. Lucr. 3.1044 [Ed.])

⁶ cf. Cic. Tusc. Disp. 1.109; Sen. Epist. 79.13; Plin. Epist. 1.8. 14.

⁷ Inter Scyllam et Charybdim Adriatico se credens pelago quasi per stagnum uenit Methonen ibique refocilato paululum corpusculo… et sale tabentis artus in litore ponens, per Maleas et Cytheram sparsasque per aequora Cycladas et crebris … freta concita terris. cf Aen. 1.173: Aen. 3. 126-7.

⁸ Phaed. 1.3; Hor. Epist. 1.3.

⁹ Sall. Bell. Cat. 11.

¹⁰ Ter. Andr. 61.

¹¹ cf. Chrys. ap. Eustath. ad Hom. Iliad 23. 66.