Translated by The Hon. W. H. Fremantle, M.A., Canon of Canterbury Cathedral
and Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, with the assistance of the
Rev. G. Lewis, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford, Vicar of Dodderhill near
Droitwick, and the Rev. W. G. Martley, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford.

[A selection, including specimens of each class of Preface, as all as all
which bears on the better understanding of the life and views of Jerome;
where a Preface repeats what has been said before, or where it gives facts
or interpretations which are well known or of no particular value, only a
short statement of its contents is given.

The Prefaces fall under three heads: 1st. Those prefixed to Jerome's early
works bearing on Church history or Scripture. 2d. The Prefaces to the
Vulgate translation. 3d. Those prefixed to the Commentaries.]
 

PREFACES TO JEROME'S EARLY WORKS.

PREFACE TO THE CHRONICLE OF EUSEBIUS.

    Jerome to his friends[1] Vincentius and Gallienus, Greeting:

    1. It has long been the practice of learned men to exercise their minds
by rendering into Latin the works of Greek writers, and, what is more
difficult, to translate the poems of illustrious authors though trammelled
by the farther requirements of verse. It was thus that our Tully literally
translated whole books of Plato; and after publishing an edition of[2]
Aratus (who may now be considered a Roman) in hexameter verse, he amused
himself with the economics of Xenophon. In this latter work the golden
river of eloquence again and again meets with obstacles, around which its
waters break and foam to such an extent that persons unacquainted with the
original would not believe they were reading Cicero's words. And no wonder!
It is hard to follow another man's  lines and everywhere keep within
bounds. It is an arduous task to preserve felicity and grace unimpaired in
a translation. Some word has forcibly expressed a given thought; I have no
word of my own to convey the meaning; and while I am seeking to satisfy the
sense I may go a long way round and accomplish but a small distance of my
journey. Then we must take into account the ins and outs of transposition,
the variations in cases, the diversity of figures, and, lastly, the
peculiar, and, so to speak, the native idiom of the language. A literal
translation sounds absurd; if, on the other hand, I am obliged to change
either the order or the words themselves, I shall appear to have forsaken
the duty of a translator.

    2. So, my dear Vincentius, and you, Gallienus, whom I love as my own
soul, I beseech you, whatever may be the value of this hurried piece of
work, to read it with the feelings of a friend rather than with those of a
critic. And I ask this all the more earnestly because, as you know, I
dictated with great rapidity to my amanuensis; and how difficult the task
is, the sacred records testify; for the old flavour is not preserved in the
Greek version by the Seventy. It was this that stimulated Aquila,
Symmachus, and Theodotion; and the result of their labors was to impart a
totally different character to one and the same work; one strove to give
word for word, another the general meaning, while the third desired to
avoid any great divergency from the ancients. A fifth, sixth, and seventh
edition, though no one knows to what authors they are to be attributed,
exhibit so pleasing a variety of their own that, in spite of their being
anonymous, they have won an authoritative position. Hence, some go so far
as to consider the sacred writings somewhat harsh and grating to the ear;
which arises from the fact that the persons of whom I speak are not aware
that the writings in question are a translation from the Hebrew, and
therefore, looking at the surface not at the substance, they shudder at the
squalid dress before they discover the fair body which the language
clothes. In fact, what can be more musical than the Psalter? Like the
writings of our own[1] Flaccus and the Grecian Pindar it now trips along in
iambics, now flows in sonorous alcaics, now swells into sapphics, now[2]
marches in half-foot metre. What can be more lovely than the strains of
Deuteronomy and Isaiah? What more grave than Solomon's words? What more
finished than Job? All these, as Josephus and Origen tell us, were composed
in hexameters and pentameters, and so circulated amongst their own people.
When we read these in Greek they have some meaning; when in Latin they are
utterly incoherent. But if any one thinks that the grace of language does
not suffer through translation, let him render Homer word for word into
Latin. I will go farther and say that, if he will translate this author
into the prose of his own language, the order of! the words will seem
ridiculous, and the most eloquent of poets almost dumb.

    3. What is the drift of all this? I would not have you think it strange
if here and there we stumble; if the language lag; if it bristle with
consonants or present gaping chasms of vowels; or be cramped by
condensation of the narrative. The most learned among men have toiled at
the same task; and in addition to the difficulty which all experience, and
which we have alleged to attend all translation, it must not be forgotten
that a peculiar difficulty besets us, inasmuch as the history is manifold,
is full of barbarous names, circumstances of which the Latins know nothing,
dates which are tangled knots, critical marks blended alike with the events
and the numbers, so that it is almost harder to discern the sequence of the
words than to come to a knowledge of what is related.

    [Here follows a long passage showing an arrangement according to which
the dates are distinguished by certain colours as belonging to one or
another of the kingdoms, the history of which is dealt with. This passage
seems unintelligible in the absence of the coloured figures, and would be
of no use unless the book with its original arrangement were being
studied.]

    I am well aware that there will be many who, with their customary
fondness for universal detraction (from which the only escape is by writing
nothing at all), will drive their fangs into this volume. They will cavil
at the dates, change the order, impugn the accuracy of events, winnow the
syllables, and, as is very frequently the case, will impute the negligence
of copyists to the authors. I should be within my right if I were to rebut
them by saying that they need not read unless they choose; but I would
rather send them away in a calm state of mind, so that they may attribute
to the Greek author the credit which is his due, and may recognize that any
insertions for which we are responsible have been taken from other men of
the highest repute. The truth is that I have partly discharged the office
of a translator and partly that of a writer. I have with the utmost
fidelity rendered the Greek portion, and at the same thee have added
certain things which appeared to me to have been allowed to slip,
particularly in the Roman history, which Eusebius, the author of this book,
as it seems to me, only glanced at; not so much because of ignorance, for
he was a learned man, as because, writing in Greek, he thought them of
slight importance to his countrymen. So again from Ninus and Abraham, right
up to the captivity of Troy, the translation is from the Greek only. From
Troy to the twentieth year of Constantine there is much, at one thee
separately added, at another intermingled, which I have gleaned with great
diligence from Tranquillus and other famous historians. Moreover, the
portion from the aforesaid year of Constantine to the sixth consulship of
the Emperor Valens and the second of Valentinianus is entirely my own.
Content to end here, I have reserved the remaining period, that of
Gratianus and Theodosius, for a wider historical survey; not that I am
afraid to discuss the living freely and truthfully, for the fear of God
banishes the fear of man; but because while our country is still exposed to
the fury of the barbarians everything is in confusion.

PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION OF ORIGEN'S TWO HOMILIES ON THE SONG OF SONGS.

Jerome to the most holy Pope Damasus:

    Origen, whilst in his other books he has surpassed all others, has in
the Song of Songs surpassed himself. He wrote ten volumes upon it, which
amount to almost twenty thousand lines, and in these he discussed, first
the version of the Seventy Translators, then those of Aquila, Symmachus,
and Theodotion, and lastly, a fifth version which he states that he found
on the coast of Atrium, with such magnificence and fulness, that he appears
to me to have realized what is said in the poem: "The king brought me into
his chamber." I have left that work on one side, since it would require
almost boundless leisure and labour and money to translate so great a work
into Latin, even if it could be worthily done; and I have translated these
two short treatises, which he composed in the form of daily lectures for
those who were still like babes and sucklings, and I have studied
faithfulness rather than elegance. You can conceive how great a value the
larger work possesses, when the smaller gives you such satisfaction.

PREFACE TO THE BOOK ON HEBREW NAMES.

    Philo, the most erudite man among the Jews, is declared by Origen to
have done what I am now doing; he set forth a book of Hebrew Names,
classing them under their initial letters, and placing the etymology of
each at the side. This work I originally proposed to translate into Latin.
It is well known in the Greek world, and is to be found in all libraries.
But I found that the copies were so discordant to one another, and the
order so I confused, that I judged it to be better to say nothing, rather
than to write what would justly be condemned. A work of this kind, however,
appeared likely to be of use; and my friends Lupulianus and Valerianus[1]
urged me to attempt it, because, as they thought, I had made some progress
in the knowledge of Hebrew. I, therefore, went through all the books of
Scripture in order, and in the restoration which I have now made of the
ancient fabric, I think that I have produced a work which may be found
valuable by Greeks as well as Latins.

    I here in the Preface beg the reader to take notice that, if he finds
anything omitted in this work, it is reserved for mention in another. I
have at this moment on hand a book of Hebrew Questions, an undertaking of a
new kind such as has never until now been heard of amongst either the
Greeks or the Latins. I say this, not with a view of arrogantly puffing up
my own work, but because I know how much labour I have spent on it, and
wish to provoke those whose knowledge is deficient to read it. I recommend
all those who wish to possess both that work and the present one, and also
the book of Hebrew Places, which I am about to publish, to make no account
of the Jews and all their ebullitions of vexation. Moreover, I have added
the meaning of the words and names in the New Testament, so that the fabric
might receive its last touch and might stand complete. I wished also in
this to imitate Origen, whom all but the ignorant acknowledge as the
greatest teacher of the Churches next to the Apostles; for in this work,
which stands among the noblest monuments of his genius, he endeavoured as a
Christian to supply what Philo, as a Jew, had omitted.

PREFACE TO THE BOOK ON THE SITES AND NAMES OF HEBREW PLACES.

    Eusebius, who took his second name from the blessed Martyr Pamphilus,
after he had written the ten books of his" Ecclesiastical History," the
Chronicle of Dates, of which I published a Latin version, the book in which
he set forth the names of the different nations and those given to them of
old by the Jews and by those of the present day, the topography of the and
of Juda and the portions allotted to the tribes, together with a
representation of Jerusalem itself and its temple, which he accompanied
with a very short explanation, bestowed his about at the end of his life
upon this little work, of which the design is to gather for us out of the
Holy Scriptures the names of almost ill the cities, mountains, rivers,
hamlets, and other places, whether they remain the same or have since been
changed or in some degree corrupted. I have taken up the work of this
admirable man, and have translated it, following-he arrangement of the
Greeks, and taking the words in the order of their initial letters, but
leaving out those names which did not seem worthy of mention, and making a
considerable number of alterations. I have explained my method once for all
in the Preface to my translation of the Chronicle, where I said that I
might be called at once a translator and the composer of a new work; but I
repeat this especially because one who had hardly the first tincture of
letters has ventured upon a translation of this very book into Latin,
though his language is hardly to be called Latin. His lack of scholarship
will be seen by the observant reader as soon as he compares it with my
translation. I do not pretend to a style which soars to the skies; but I
hope that I can rise above one which grovels on the earth.

PREFACE TO THE BOOK OF HEBREW QUESTIONS.

    The object of the Preface to a book is to set forth the argument of the
work which follows; but I am compelled to begin by answering what has been
said against me. My case is somewhat like that of Terence, who turned the
scenic prologues of his plays into a defence of himself. We have a[1]
Luscius Lanuvinus, like the one who worried him, and who brought charges
against the poet as if he had been a plunderer of the treasury. The bard of
Mantua suffered in the same way; he had translated a few verses of Homer
very exactly, and they said that he was nothing but a plagiarist from the
ancients. But he answered them that it was no small proof of strength to
wrest the club of Hercules from his hands. Why, even Tully, who stands on
the pinnacle of Roman eloquence, that king of orators and glory of the
Latin tongue, has actions for embezzlement[2] brought against him by the
Greeks. I cannot, therefore, be surprised if a poor little fellow like me
is exposed to the gruntings of vile swine who trample our pearls Tinder
their feet, when some of the most learned of men, men whose glory ought to
have hushed the voice of ill will, have felt the flames of envy. It is
true, this happened by a kind of justice to men whose eloquence had filled
with its resonance the theatres and the senate, the public assembly and the
rostra; hardihood always courts detraction, and (as Horace says):

    "The[3] highest peaks invoke
    The lightning's stroke."

But I am in a corner, remote from the city and the forum, and the
wranglings of crowded courts; yet, even so (as Quintilian says) ill-will
has sought me out. Therefore, I beseech the reader,

                          "If[1] one there be, if one.
    Who, rapt by strong desire, these lines shall read,"

not to expect eloquence or oratorical grace in those Books of Hebrew
Questions, which I propose to write on all the sacred books; but rather,
that he should himself answer my detractors for me, and tell them that a
work of a new kind can claim some indulgence. I am poor and of low estate;
I neither possess riches nor do I think it right to accept them if they are
offered me; and, similarly, let me tell them that it is impossible for them
to have the riches of Christ, that is, the knowledge of the Scriptures, and
the world's riches as well. It will be my simple aim, therefore, first, to
point out the mistakes of those who suspect some fault in the Hebrew
Scriptures, and, secondly, to correct the faults, which evidently teem in
the Greek and Latin copies, by a reference to the original authority; and,
further, to explain the etymology of things, names, and countries, when it
is not apparent from the sound of the Latin words, by giving a paraphrase
in the vulgar tongue. To enable the student more easily to take note of
these emendations, I propose, in the first place, to set out the true[2]
reading itself, as I am now able to do, and then, by bringing the later
readings into comparison with it, to[3]indicate what has been omitted or
added or altered. It is not my purpose, as snarling ill-will pretends, to
convict the LXX. of error, nor do I look upon my own labour as a
disparagement of theirs. The fact is that they, since their work was
undertaken for King Ptolemy of Alexandria, did not choose to bring to light
all the mysteries which the sacred writings contain, and especially those
which give the promise of the advent of Christ, for fear that he who held
the Jews in esteem because they were believed to worship one God, would
come to think that they worshipped a second. But we find that the
Evangelists, and even our Lord and Saviour, and the Apostle Paul, also,
bring forward many citations as coming from the Old Testament which are not
contained in our copies; and on these I shall dilate more fully in their
proper places. But it is clear from this fact that those are the best MSS.
which most correspond with the authoritative words of the New Testament.
Add to this that Josephus, who gives the story of the Seventy Translators,
reports them as translating only the five books of Moses; and we also
acknowledge that these are more in harmony with the Hebrew than the rest.
And, further, those who afterward came into the field as translators --I
mean Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion--give a version very different
from that which we use.(1)

    I have but one word more to say, and it may calm my detractors. Foreign
goods are to be imported only to the regions where there is a demand for
them. Country people are not obliged to buy balsam, pepper, and dates. As
to Origen, I say nothing. His name (if I may compare small things with
great) is even more than my own the object of ill-will, because, though
following the common version in his Homilies, which were spoken to common
people, yet, in his Tomes,(2) that is, in his fuller discussion of
Scripture, he yields to the Hebrew as the truth, and, though surrounded by
his own forces, occasionally seeks the foreign tongue as his ally. I will
only say this about him: that I should gladly have his knowledge of the
Scriptures, even if accompanied with all the ill-will which clings to his
name, and that I do not care a straw for these shades and spectral ghosts,
whose nature is said to be to chatter in dark corners and be a terror to
babies.

PREFACE TO THE COMMENTARY ON ECCLESIASTES.

[Addressed to Paula and Eustochium, Bethlehem, A.D. 388.]

    I remember that, about five years ago, when I was still living at Rome,
I read Ecclesiastes to the saintly Blesilla,(1) so that I might provoke her
to the contempt of this earthly scene, and to count as nothing all that she
saw in the world; and that she asked me to throw my remarks upon all the
more obscure passages into the form of a short commentary, so that, when I
was absent, she might still understand what she read She was withdrawn from
us by her sudden death, while girding herself for our work; we were not
counted worthy to have such an one as the partner of our life; and,
therefore, Paula and Eustochium, I kept silence under the stroke of such a
wound. But now, living as I do in the smaller community of Bethlehem, I pay
what I owe to her memory and to you. I would only point out this, that I
have followed no one's authority. I have translated direct from the Hebrew,
adapting my words as much as possible to the form of the Septuagint, but
only in those places in which they did not diverge far from the Hebrew. I
have occasionally referred also to the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and
Theodotion, but so as not to alarm the zealous student by too many
novelties, nor yet to let my commentary follow the side streams of opinion,
turning aside, against my conscientious conviction, from the fountainhead
of truth.

PREFACES TO THE VULGATE VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

[This version was made at Rome between the years 382 and 385. The only
Preface remaining is that to the translation of the Gospels, but Jerome
speaks of, and quotes from, his version of the other parts also. The work
was undertaken at the request and under the sanction of Pope Damasus, who
had consulted Jerome in A.D, 383 on certain points of Scriptural criticism
and apparently in the same year urged him to revise the current Latin
version by help of the Greek original. It is to be observed that Jerome's
aim was "to revise the old Latin," and not to make a new version. When
Augustin expressed to him his gratitude for 'his translation of the
Gospels,' he tacitly corrected him by substituting for this phrase 'the
correction of the New Testament.' Yet, although he proposed to himself this
limited object, the various forms of corruption which had been introduced
were, as he describes, so numerous that the difference of the old and
revised (Hieronymian) text is throughout clear and striking." See article
by Westcott in " Dictionary of Bible," on the Vulgate, and Fremantle's
article on Jerome in "Dictionary of Christian Bibliography."]

THE FOUR GOSPELS.

[Addressed to Pope(1) Damasus, A.D. 383.]

    You urge me to revise the old Latin version, and, as it were, to sit in
judgment on the copies of the Scriptures which are now scattered throughout
the whole world; and, inasmuch as they differ from one another, you would
have me decide which of them agree with the Greek original. The labour is
one of love, but at the same time both perilous and presumptuous; for in
judging others I must be content to be judged by all; and how can I dare to
change the language of the world in its hoary old age, and carry it back to
the early days of its infancy? Is there a man, learned or unlearned, who
will not, when he takes the volume into his hands, and perceives that what
he reads does not suit his settled tastes, break out immediately into
violent language, and call me a forger and a profane person for having the
audacity to add anything to the ancient books, or to make any changes or
corrections therein? Now there are two consoling reflections which enable
me to bear the odium--in the first place, the command is given by you who
are the supreme bishop; and secondly, even on the showing of those who
revile us, readings at variance with the early copies cannot be right. For
if we are to pin our faith to the Latin texts, it is for our opponents to
tell us which; for there are almost as many forms of texts as there are
copies. If, on the other hand, we are to glean the truth from a comparison
of many, why not go back to the original Greek and correct the mistakes
introduced by inaccurate translators, and the blundering alterations of
confident but ignorant critics, and, further, all that has been inserted or
changed by copyists more asleep than awake? I am not discussing the Old
Testament, which was turned into Greek by the Seventy elders, and(1) has
reached us by a descent of three steps. I do not ask what (2)Aquila and
(3)Symmachus think, or why (4)Theodotion takes a middle course between the
ancients and the moderns. I am willing to let that be the true translation
which had apostolic approval. I am now speaking of the New Testament. This
was undoubtedly composed in Greek, with the exception of the work of
Matthew the Apostle, who was the first to commit to writing the Gospel of
Christ, and who published his work in Judaea in Hebrew characters. We must
confess that as we have it in our language it is marked by discrepancies,
and now that the stream is distributed into different channels we must go
back to the fountainhead. I pass over those manuscripts which are
associated with the names of (1)Lucian and Hesychius, and the authority of
which is perversely maintained by a handful of disputatious persons. It is
obvious that these writers could not amend anything in the Old Testament
after the labours of the Seventy; and it was useless to correct the New,
for versions of Scripture which already exist in the languages of many
nations show that their additions are false. I therefore promise in this
short Preface the four Gospels only, which are to be taken in the following
order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, as they have been revised by a comparison
of the Greek manuscripts. Only early ones have been used. But to avoid any
great divergences from the Latin which we are accustomed to read, I have
used my pen with some restraint, and while I have corrected only such
passages as seemed to convey a different meaning, I have allowed the rest
to remain as they are.

[The Preface concludes with a description of lists of words made by
Eusebius and translated by Jerome, designed to show what passages occur in
two or more of the Gospels.]

PREFACES TO THE BOOKS OF THE VULGATE VERSION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

[This version was not undertaken with ecclesiastical sanction as was the
case with the Gospels, but at the request of private friends, or from
Jerome's "own sense of the imperious necessity of the work." It was wholly
made at Bethlehem and was begun about A.D. 391, and finished about A.D.
404. The approximate dates of the several books are given before each
Preface in the following pages.]

PREFACE TO GENESIS.

[This Preface was addressed to Desiderius, but which of the three
correspondents of Jerome who bore this name is uncertain (See Article
Desiderius in Smith and Wace's "Dictionary of Christian Biography"). We do
not give it because it has been given at length as a specimen of the rest,
in Jerome's "Apology," book ii., vol. iii. of this series, pp. 515-516).
Jerome in it complains that he is accused of forging a new version. He
justifies his undertaking by showing that in the versions then current many
passages were left out (though they exist in our copies of the LXX.), such
as "Out of Egypt" (Hos. xi. 1); "They shall look on him whom they pierced "
(Zech. xii. 10), etc., which are quoted in the New Testament and are found
in the Hebrew. He accounts for these omissions by the suggestion that the
LXX. were afraid of offending Ptolemy Lagus for whom they worked, and who
was a Platonist. He rejects the fable of the LXX. being shut up in separate
cells and producing an identical version, and protests against the notion
that they were inspired, and he urges his calumniators, by applying to
those who knew Hebrew, to test the correctness of his version.

There is no Preface to the other books of the Pentateuch. From the allusion
to the work on the Pentateuch as lately finished, in the Preface to Joshua,
which was published in 404, it is presumed that the date of the translation
of the Pentateuch is 403.]

JOSHUA, JUDGES, AND RUTH.

[The Preface to these books was written A.D. 404; Jerome speaks of the
death of Paula, which took place in that year, and the work is addressed to
Eustochium alone The Preface is chiefly occupied with a defence of his
translation. He tells those who carp at it that they are not bound to read
it, and mentions that the Church had given no final sanction to the LXX.,
but read the book of Daniel in Theodotion's version. The books of Joshua,
Judges, and Ruth, were probably the last of the Vulgate translation; the
Preface declares Jerome's intention of devoting himself henceforward to the
Commentaries on the Prophets, a work which took up the remainder of his
life.]

THE BOOKS OF SAMUEL AND KINGS

[This Preface was the first in order of publication. It was set forth as an
exposition of the principles adopted by Jerome in all his translations from
the Hebrew--the "Helmeted Preface," as he calls it in the beginning of the
last paragraph--with which he was prepared to do battle against all who
impugn his design and methods. It was addressed to Paula and Eustochium,
and published about A. D. 391.]

    That the Hebrews have twenty-two letters is testified by the Syrian and
Chaldaean languages which are nearly related to the Hebrew, for they have
twenty--two elementary sounds which are pronounced the same way, but are
differently written. The Samaritans also employ just the same number of
letters in their copies of the Pentateuch of Moses and differ only in the
shape and outline of the letters. And it is certain that Esdras, the scribe
and teacher of the law, after the capture of Jerusalem and the restoration
of the temple by Zerubbabel, invented (1)other letters which we now use,
although up to that time the Samaritan and Hebrew characters were the same.
In the (2)book of Numbers, also, where we have the census of the Levites
and priests, the mystic teaching of Scripture conducts us to the same
result. And we find the four-lettered name of the Lord in certain Greek
books written to this day in the ancient characters. The thirty-seventh
Psalm, moreover, the one hundred and eleventh, the one hundred and twelfth,
the one hundred and nineteenth and the one hundred and forty-fifth,
although they are written in different metres, have for their (1)acrostic
framework au alphabet of the same number of letters, The Lamentations of
Jeremiah, and his Prayer, the Proverbs of Solomon also, towards the end,
from the place where we read "Who will find a brave woman?" are instances
of the same number of letters forming the division into sections. And,
again, five are double letters, viz., Caph, Mem, Nun, Phe, Sade, for at the
beginning and in the middle of words they are written one way, and at the
end another way. Whence it happens that, by most people, five of the books
are reckoned as double, viz., Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Jeremiah,
with Kinoth, i.e., his Lamentations. As, then, there are twenty-two
elementary characters by means of which we write in Hebrew all we say, and
the compass of the human voice is contained within their limits, so we
reckon twenty-two books, by which, as by the alphabet of the doctrine of
God, a righteous man is instructed in tender infancy, and, as it were,
while still at the breast.

    The first of these books is called Bresith, to which we give the name
Genesis. The second, Elle Smoth, which bears the name Exodus; the third,
Vaiecra, that is Leviticus; the fourth, Vaiedabber, which we call Numbers;
the fifth, Elle Addabarim, which is entitled Deuteronomy. These are the
five books of Moses, which they properly call (2)Thorath, that is law.

    The second class is composed of the Prophets, and they begin with Jesus
the son of Nave, who among them is called Joshua the son of Nun. Next in
the series is Sophtim, that is the book of Judges; and in the same book
they include Ruth, because the events narrated occurred in the days of the
Judges. Then comes Samuel, which we call First and Second Kings. The fourth
is Malachim, that is, Kings, which is contained in the third and fourth
volumes of Kings. And it is far better to say Malachim, that is Kings, than
Malachoth, that is Kingdoms. For the author does not describe the Kingdoms
of many nations, but that of one people, the people of Israel, which is
comprised in the twelve tribes. The fifth is Isaiah, the sixth, Jeremiah,
the seventh, Ezekiel, the eighth is the book of the Twelve Prophets, which
is called among the Jews (1)Thare Asra.

    To the third class belong the Hagiographa, of which the first book
begins with Job, the second with David, whose writings they divide into
five parts and comprise in one volume of Psalms; the third is Solomon, in
three books, Proverbs, which they call Parables, that is Masaloth,
Ecclesiastes, that is Coeleth, the Song of Songs, which they denote by the
title Sir Assiriim; the sixth is Daniel; the seventh, Dabre Aiamim, that
is, Words of Days, which we may more expressively call a chronicle of the
whole of the sacred history, the book that amongst us is called First and
Second (2)Chronicles; the eighth, Ezra, which itself is likewise divided
amongst Greeks and Latins into (3)two books; the ninth is Esther.

    And so there are also twenty-two books of the Old Testament; that is,
five of Moses, eight of the prophets, nine of the Hagiographa, though some
include Ruth and Kinoth (Lamentations) amongst the Hagiographa, and think
that these books ought to be reckoned separately; we should thus have
twenty-four books of the old law. And these the Apocalypse of John
represents by the twenty-four elders, who adore the Lamb, and with downcast
looks offer their crowns, while in their presence stand the four living
creatures with eyes before and behind, that is, looking to the past and the
future, and with unwearied voice crying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God
Almighty, who west, and art, and art to come.

    This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a " helmeted " introduction
to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be
assured that what is not found in our list must be placed amongst the
Apocryphal writings. Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of
Solomon, and the book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias,
and the Shepherd are not in the canon. The first book of Maccabees I have
found to be Hebrew, the second is Greek, as can be proved from the very
style. Seeing that all this is so, I beseech you, my reader, not to think
that my labours are in any sense intended to disparage the old translators.
For the service of the tabernacle of God each one offers what he can; some
gold and silver and precious stones, others linen and blue and purple and
scarlet; we shall do well if we offer skins and goats' hair. And yet the
Apostle pronounces our more contemptible parts more necessary than others.
Accordingly, the beauty of the tabernacle as a whole and in its several
kinds (and the ornaments of the church present and future) was covered with
skins and goats'-hair cloths, and the heat of the sun and the injurious
rain were warded off by those things which are of less account. First read,
then, my Samuel and Kings; mine, I say, mine. For whatever by diligent
translation and by anxious emendation we have learnt and made our own, is
ours. And when you understand that whereof you were before ignorant,
either, if you are grateful, reckon me a translator, or, if ungrateful, a
paraphraser, albeit I am not in the least conscious of having deviated from
the Hebrew original. At all events, if you are incredulous, read the Greek
and Latin manuscripts and compare them with these poor efforts of mine, and
wherever you see they disagree, ask some Hebrew (though you ought rather to
place confidence in me), and if he confirm our view, I suppose you will not
think him a soothsayer and suppose that he and I have, in rendering the
same passage, divined alike. But I ask you also, the (1)handmaidens of
Christ, who anoint the head of your reclining Lord with the most precious
ointment of faith, who by no means seek the Saviour in the tomb, for whom
Christ has long since ascended to the Father--I beg you to confront with
the shields of your prayers the mad dogs who bark and rage against me, and
go about the city, and think themselves learned if they disparage others.
I, knowing my lowliness, will always remember what we are told. (2)"I said,
I will take heed to my ways that I offend not in my tongue. I have set a
guard upon my mouth while the sinner standeth against me. I became dumb,
and was hum. bled, and kept silence from good words."

CHRONICLES.

[This Preface is almost wholly a repetition of the arguments adduced in the
Preface to Genesis. It is addressed to Chromatius, bishop of Aquileia, who
took great interest in the work and provided funds forits continuance. The
date is A.D. 395.]

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.

[This Preface is addressed to Domnio (a Roman presbyter. See Letters L.,
and XLVII. 3, Paulinus, Ep. 3) and Rogatianus, of whom nothing is known. It
was written A. D, 394. It is a repetition of his constant ground of self-
defence, and contains a noble expression of his determination to carry the
work through. "The serpent may hiss, and

    "'Victorious Sinon hurl his brand of fire,'

but never shall my mouth be closed. Cut off my tongue; it will still
stammer out something. "]

ESTHER.

[To Paula and Eustochium, early in 404. Merely assures them that he is
acting as a faithful translator, adding nothing of his own; whereas in the
version then in common use (vulgata), the book is drawn out into all kinds
of perplexing entanglements of language."]

JOB.

[This was put into circulation about the same time as the sixteen prophets,
that is, about the year 393. It was written in 392. It has no dedication,
but is full of personal interest, and shows the deplorable state in which
the text of many parts of Scripture was before his time, thus justifying
his boast, "I have rescued Job from the dunghill."]

    I am compelled at every step in my treatment of the books of Holy
Scripture to reply to the abuse of my opponents who charge my translation
with being a censure of the Seventy; as though Aquila among Greek authors,
and Symmachus and Theodotion, had not rendered word for word, or
paraphrased, or combined the two methods in a sort of translation which is
neither the one nor the other; and as though Origen had not marked all the
books of the Old Testament with obeli and asterisks, which he either
introduced or adopted from Theodotion, and inserted in the old translation,
thus showing that what he added was deficient in the older version. My
detractors must therefore learn either to receive altogether what they have
in part admitted, or they must erase my translation and at the same time
their own asterisks. For they must allow that those translators, who it is
clear have left out numerous details, have erred in some points; especially
in the book of Job, where, if you withdraw such passages as have been added
and marked with asterisks, the greater part of the book will be cut away.
This, at all events, will be so in Greek. On the other hand, previous to
the publication of our recent translation with asterisks and obeli, about
seven or eight hundred lines were missing in the Latin, so that the book,
mutilated, torn, and disintegrated exhibits its deformity to those who
publicly read it. The present translation follows no ancient translator,
but will be found to reproduce now the exact words, now the meaning, now
both together of the original Hebrew, Arabic, and occasionally the Syriac
For an indirectness and a slipperiness attaches to the whole book, even in
the Hebrew and, as orators say in Greek, it is (1)tricked out with figures
of speech, and while it say one thing, it does another; just as if you
close your hand to hold an eel or a little (1)muraena, the more you squeeze
it, the sooner it escapes. I remember that in order to understand this
volume, I paid a not inconsiderable sum for the services of a teacher, a
native of Lydda, who was amongst the Hebrews reckoned to be in the front
rank; whether I profited at all by his teaching, I do not know; of this one
thing I am sure, that I could translate only that which I previously
understood. Well, then, from the beginning of the book to the words of Job,
the Hebrew version is in prose. Further, from the words of Job where he
says, (2)"May the day perish wherein I was born and the night in which it
was said, a man-child is conceived," to the place where before the close of
the book it is written (3)"Therefore I blame myself and repent in dust and
ashes," we have hexameter verses running in dactyl and spondee: and owing
to the idiom of the language other feet are frequently introduced not
containing the same number of syllables, but the same quantities.
Sometimes, also, a sweet and musical rhythm is produced by the breaking up
of the verses in accordance with the laws of metre, a fact better known to
prosodists than to the ordinary reader. But from the aforesaid verse to the
end of the book the small remaining section is a prose composition. And if
it seem incredible to any one that the Hebrews really have metres, and
that, whether we consider the Psalter or the Lamentations of Jeremiah, or
almost all the songs of Scripture, they bear a resemblance to our Flaccus,
and the Greek Pindar, and Alcaeus, and Sappho, let him read Philo,
Josephus, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, and with the aid of their testimony
he will find that I speak the truth. Wherefore, let my barking critics
listen as I tell them that my motive in toiling at this book was not to
censure the ancient translation, but that those passages in it which are
obscure, or those which have been omitted, or at all events, through the
fault of copyists have been corrupted, might have light thrown upon them by
our translation; for we have some slight knowledge of Hebrew, and, as
regards Latin, my life, almost from the cradle, has been spent in the
company of grammarians, rhetoricians, and philosophers. But if, since the
version of the Seventy was published, and even now, when the Gospel of
Christ is beaming forth, the Jewish Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion,
judaising heretics, have been welcomed amongst the Greeks--heretics, who,
by their deceitful translation, have concealed many mysteries of salvation,
and yet, in the Hexapla are found in the Churches and are expounded by
churchmen; ought not I, a Christian, born of Christian parents, and who
carry the standard of the cross on my brow, and am zealous to recover what
is lost, to correct what is corrupt, and to disclose in pure and faithful
language the mysteries of the Church, ought not I, let me, ask, much more
to escape the reprobation of fastidious or malicious readers ? Let those
who will keep the old books with their gold and silver letters on purple
skins, or, to follow the ordinary phrase, in " uncial characters," loads of
writing rather than manuscripts, if only they will leave for me and mine,
our poor pages and copies which are less remarkable for beauty than for
accuracy. I have toiled to translate both the Greek versions of the
Seventy, and the Hebrew which is the basis of my own, into Latin. Let every
one choose which he likes, and(1) he will find out that what he objects to
in me, is the result of sound learning, not of malice.

PSALMS.

[Dedicated to Sophronius. about the year 392. Jerome had, while at Rome,
made a translation of the Psalms from the LXX., which he had afterwards
corrected by collation with the Hebrew text (see the Preface addressed to
Paula and Eustochium, infra). His friend Sophronius, in quoting the Psalms
to the Jews, was constantly met with the reply, "It does not so stand in
the Hebrew." He, therefore, urged Jerome to translate them direct from the
original. Jerome, in presenting the translation to his friend, records the
intention which he had expressed of translating the new Latin version into
Greek. This we know was done by Sophronius, not only for the Psalms, but
also for the rest of the Vulgate and was valued by the Greeks (Apol. ii.
24, vol. iii. of this series, p. 515).]

PROVERBS, ECCLESIASTES, AND THE SONG OF SONGS.

[Dedicated to Chromatius and Heliodorus, A.D. 393. The Preface is important
as showing the help given to Jerome by his friends, the rapidity of his
work. and his view of the Apocryphal we give the two chief passages.]

    It is well that my letter should couple those who are coupled in the
episcopate; and that I should not separate on paper those who are bound in
one by the law of Christ. I would have written the commentaries on Hosea,
Amos, Zechariah, and the Kings, which you ask of me, if I had not been
prevented by illness. You give me comfort by the supplies you send me; you
support my secretaries and copyists, so that the efforts of all my powers
may be given to you. And then all at once comes a thick crowd of people
with all sorts of demands, as if it was just that I should neglect your
hunger and work for others, or as if, in the matter of giving and
receiving, I had a debt to any one but you. And so, though I am broken by a
long illness, yet, not to be altogether silent and dumb amongst you this
year, I have dedicated to you three days' work, that is to say, the
translation of the three books of Solomon.

[After speaking of the books of the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus,
which were sent at the same time, the Preface continues:]

    As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees,
but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read
these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority
to doctrines of the Church. If any one is better pleased with the edition
of the Seventy, there it is, long since corrected by me. For it is not our
aim in producing the new to destroy the old. And yet if our friend reads
carefully, he will find that our version is the more intelligible, for it
has not turned sour by being poured three times over into different
vessels, but has been drawn straight from the press, and stored in a clean
jar, and has. thus preserved its own flavour.

ISAIAH.

[Addressed to Paula and Eustochium, about A.D. 393. This Preface speaks of
Isaiah as using the polished diction natural to a man of rank and
refinement, as an Evangelist more than a prophet, and a poet rather than a
prose writer. He then reiterates his defence of his translation, saying
that now, " The Jews can no longer scoff at our Churches because of the
falsity of our Scriptures."]

JEREMIAH AND EZEKIEL

[Short Prefaces without dedication, but probably addressed to Paula and
Eustochium, about A.D. 393.]

DANIEL.

[The Preface is interesting as showing the difficulties caused by the
incorporation of apocryphal matter into this book, the fact that
Theodotion's version, not the LXX., was read in the Churches, and that the
book was reckoned by the Jews not among the prophets but among the
Hagiographa. It was addressed to Paula and Eustochium about A.D. 392.]

    The Septuagint version of Daniel the prophet is not read by the
Churches of our Lord and Saviour. They use Theodotion's version, but how
this came to pass I cannot tell. Whether it be that the language is
Chaldee, which differs in certain peculiarities from our speech, and the
Seventy were unwilling to follow those deviations in a translation; or that
the book was published in the name of the Seventy, by some one or other not
familiar with Chaldee, or if there be some other reason, I know not; this
one thing I can affirm--that it differs widely from the original, and is
rightly rejected. For we must bear in mind that Daniel and Ezra, the former
especially, were written in Hebrew letters, but in the Chaldee language, as
was (1)one section of Jeremiah; and, further, that Job has much affinity
with Arabic. As for myself, when, in my youth, after reading the flowery
rhetoric of Quintilian and Tully, I entered on the vigorous study of this
language, the expenditure of much time and energy barely enabled me to
utter the puffing and hissing words; I seemed to be walking in a sort of
underground chamber with a few scattered rays of light shining down upon
me; and when at last I met with Daniel, such a sense of weariness came over
me that, in a fit of despair, I could have counted all my former toil as
useless. But there was a certain Hebrew who encouraged me, and was forever
quoting for my benefit the saying that `'Persistent labour conquers all
things "; and so, conscious that among Hebrews I was only a smatterer, I
once more began to study Chaldee. And, to confess the truth, to this day I
can read and understand Chaldee better than I can pronounce it. I say this
to show you how hard it is to master the book of Daniel, which in Hebrew
contains neither the history of Susanna, nor the hymn of the three youths,
nor the fables of Bel and the Dragon, because, however, they are to be
found everywhere, we have formed them into an appendix, prefixing to them
an obelus, and thus making an end of them, so as not to seem to the
uninformed to have cut off a large portion of the volume. I heard a certain
Jewish teacher, when mocking at the history of Susanna, and saying that it
was the fiction of some Greek or other, raise the same objection which
Africanus brought against Origen--that these etymologies of (2)schi'sai
from (3)schi^nos, and (4)pri'sai from (5) pri^nos, are to be traced to the
Greek. To make the point clear to Latin readers: It is as if he were to
say, playing upon the word ilex, illico pereas; or upon lentiscus, may the
angel make a lentil of you, or may you perish non lente, or may you lentus
(that is pliant or compliant) be led to death, or anything else suiting the
name of the tree. Then he would captiously maintain that the three youths
in the furnace of raging fire had leisure enough to amuse themselves with
making poetry, and to summon all the elements in turn to praise God. Or
what was there miraculous, he would say, or what indication of divine
inspiration, in the slaying of the dragon with a lump of pitch, or in
frustrating the schemes of the priests of Bel? Such deeds were more the
results of an able man's forethought than of a prophetic spirit. But when
he came to (1)Habakkuk and read that be was carried from Judaea into
Chaldaea to bring a dish of food to Daniel, he asked where we found an
instance in the whole of the Old Testament of any saint with an ordinary
body flying through the air, and in a quarter of an hour traversing vast
tracts of country. And when one of us who was rather too ready to speak
adduced the instance of Ezekiel, and said that he was transported from
Chaldaea into Judaea, he derided the man and proved from the book itself
that Ezekiel, in spirit, saw himself carried over. And he argued that even
our own Apostle, being an accomplished man and one who had been taught the
law by Hebrews, had not dared to affirm that he was bodily rapt away, but
had said: (2)"Whether in the body, or out of the body, I know not; God
knoweth." By these and similar arguments he used to refute the apocryphal
fables in the Church's book. Leaving this for the reader to pronounce upon
as he may think fit, I give warning that Daniel in Hebrew is not found
among the prophets, but amongst the writers of the Hagiographa; for all
Scripture is by them divided into three parts: the law, the Prophets, and
the Hagiographa, which have respectively five, eight, and eleven books, a
point which we cannot now discuss. But as to the objections which
(3)Porphyry raises against this prophet, or rather brings against the book,
(4)Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinaris may be cited as witnesses, for they
replied to his folly in many thousand lines of writing, whether with
satisfaction to the curious reader I know not. Therefore, I beseech you,
Paula and Eustochium, to pour out your supplications for me to the Lord,
that so long as I am in this poor body, I may write something pleasing to
you, useful to the Church, worthy of posterity. As for my contemporaries, I
am indifferent to their opinions, for they pass from side to side as they
are moved by love or hatred.

THE TWELVE MINOR PROPHETS.

[This Preface, dedicated to Paula and Eustochium in A.D. 392, contains
nothing of importance, merely mentioning the dates of a few of the
prophets, and the fact that the Twelve Prophets were counted by the Hebrews
as forming a single book.]

TRANSLATIONS FROM THE SEPTUAGINT AND CHALDEE.

[There are three stages of Jerome's work of Scripture Translation. The
first is during his stay at Rome, A,D. 382-385, when he translated only
from the Greek--the New Testament from the Greek MSS., and the Book of
Psalms from the LXX. The second is the period immediately after his
settlement at Bethlehem, when he translated still from the LXX., but marked
with obeli and asterisks the passages in which that version differed from
the Hebrew; the third from A.D. 390-404, in which he translated directly
from the Hebrew. The work of the second period is that which is now before
us. The whole of the Old Testament was translated from the LXX. (see his
"Apology," book ii. c. 24), but most of it was lost during his lifetime
(see Letters CXXXIV. (end) and CXVI. 34 (in Augustin Letter, 62)). What
remains is the Book of Job, the Psalms, Chronicles, the Books of Solomon.
and Tobit and Judith.]

CHRONICLES.

[This book was dedicated to (1)Domnion and Rogatianus, about A.D. 358,
Jerome points out the advantages he enjoyed, in living in Palestine, for
obtaining correct information on matters illustrative of Scripture,
especially the names of places. The MSS. of the LXX, on such points were so
corrupt that occasionally three names were run into one, and "you would
think that you had before you, not a heap of Hebrew names, but those of
some foreign and Sarmatian tribe." Jerome had sent for a Jew, highly
esteemed among his brethren, from Tiberias, and. after " examining him from
top to toe," had, by his aid, emended the text and made the translation.
But he had not the critical knowledge to guard him against supposing that
the Books of Chronicles are " the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of
Judah," referred to in the Books of Kings.]

BOOK OF JOB.

[This translation was dedicated to Paula and Eustochium, about the year
388. He complains that even the revision he was now making was the subject
of many cavils. Men prefer ancient faults to new truths, and would rather
have handsome copies than correct ones, but he boasts that "the blessed Job
who, as far as the Latins are concerned, was till now lying amidst filth
and swarming with the worms of error, is now whole and free from stain."]

THE PSALMS.

[Jerome first undertook a revision of the Psalter with the help of the
Septuagint about the year 383, when living at Rome. This revision, which
obtained the name of the Roman Psalter " probably because it was made for
the use of the Roman Church at the request of Damasus," was retained until
the pontificate of Pius V. (A.D. 1566). Before long " the old error
prevailed over the new correction," the faults of the old version crept in
again through the negligence of copyists; and at the request of Paula and
Eustochium, Jerome commenced a new and more thorough revision. The exact
date is not known, the work was in all probability done at Bethlehem in the
years 387 and 388. This edition, which soon became popular, was introduced
by Gregory of Tours into the services of the Church of France, and thus
obtained the name of the Gallican Psalter. In 1566 it superseded the Roman,
in all churches except those of the Vatican, Milan, and St. Mark's,
Venice."

   Long ago, when I was living at Rome, I revised the Psalter, and
corrected it in a great measure, though but cursorily, in accordance with
the Septuagint version. You now find it, Paula and Eustochiutn, again
corrupted through the fault of copyists, and realise the fact that ancient
error is more powerful than modern correction; and you therefore urge me,
as it were, to cross--plough the land which has already been broken up,
and, by means of the transverse furrows, to root out the thorns which are
beginning to spring again; it is only right, you say, that rank and noxious
growths should be cut down as often as they appear. And so I issue my
customary admonition by way of preface both to you, for whom it happens
that I am undertaking the labour, and to those persons who desire to have
copies such as I describe. Pray see that what I have carefully revised be
transcribed with similar painstaking care. Every reader can observe for
himself where there is placed either a horizontal line or mark issuing from
the centre, that is, either an obelus (t) or an asterisk (*). And wherever
be sees the former, he is to understand that between this mark and the two
stops (:) which I have introduced, the Septuagint translation contains
superfluous matter. But where he sees the asterisk (*), an addition to the
Hebrew books is indicated, which also goes as far as the two stops.

BOOKS OF SOLOMON

[This is addressed to Paula and Eustochium. Jerome describes the numerous
emendations he has had to make in what was then the received Latin text,
but says he has not found the same necessity in dealing with
Ecclesiasticus. He adds, " All I aim at is to give you a revised edition of
the Canonical Scriptures, and to employ my Latin on what is certain rather
than on what is doubtful."]

TOBIT AND JUDITH.

[The Preface is to Chromatius and Heliodorus. It recognizes that the books
are apocryphal. After his usual complaints of " the Pharisees " who
impugned his translations, he says: " Inasmuch as the Chaldee is closely
allied to the Hebrew, I procured the help of most skillful speaker of both
languages I could find and gave to the subject one day's hasty labour, my
method being to explain in Latin, with the aid of a secretary, whatever an
interpreter expressed to me in Hebrew words."

As to Judith, he notes that the Council of Nicaea had, contrary to the
Hebrew tradition, included it in the Canon of Scripture, and this, with his
friends' requests, had induced him to undertake the labour of emendation
and translation.]

THE COMMENTARIES.

[The extant commentaries by Jerome on the books of Holy Scripture may be
arranged thus, chronological sequence being observed as far as possible:
    A. New Testament:
       The Epistles to Philemon, Galatians, Ephesians, Titus. A.D. 387.
       Origen on St. Luke. A.D. 389,
       St. Matthew. A.D. 398.
    B. Old Testament:
       Ecclesiastes A.D. 388.
       1. The Twelve Minor Prophets:
          Nahum, Michah, Zephaniah, Haggai, Habakkuk. A.D. 392.
          Jonah, Begun three years after the foregoing (Preface), Finished
between A.D. 395 and A.D. 397.
          Obadiah. A.D. 403.
          Zechariah, Malachi, Hosea, Joel, Amos. Finished by A,D. 406.
       2. The Four Greater Prophets:
          Daniel. A.D. 407.
          Isaiah A.D. 408-410.
          Ezekiel. A.D 410-414,
          Jeremiah. Commenced after the death of Eustochium in A.D, 418.
The commentary on this book, which stops short at chapter xxxii., was
therefore written in A.D. 419, the year which intervened between
Eustochium's death and Jerome's own,

We have thought it best to give the Prefaces as in those to the Vulgate, in
the order of the books as they stand in our Bible, not in the order in
which they were written.]

MATTHEW.

[The Preface, addressed to Eusebius of Cremona, was written A.D. 398.
Eusebius was at this time starting for Rome, and he was charged to give a
copy of this Commentary to Principia, the friend of Marcella, for whom he
had been unable through sickness to write on. the Song of Songs as he had
wished. Jerome begins by distinguishing the Canonical from the Apocryphal
Gospels quoting the words of St. Luke, that many had taken in hand to write
the life of Christ. He gives his view of the origin of the Gospels as
follows:]

    The first evangelist is Matthew, the publican, who was surnamed Levi.
He published his Gospel in Judaea in the Hebrew language, chiefly for the
sake of Jewish believers in Christ, who adhered in vain to the shadow of
the law, although the substance of the Gospel had come. The second is Mark,
the (1)amanuensis of the Apostle Peter, and first bishop of the Church of
Alexandria. He did not himself see our Lord and Saviour, but he related the
matter of his Master's preaching with more regard to minute detail than to
historical sequence. The third is Luke, the physician, by birth a native of
Antioch, in Syria, whose praise is in the Gospel. He was himself a disciple
of the Apostle Paul, and composed his book in Achaia and Bceotia. He
thoroughly investigates certain particulars and, as he himself confesses in
the preface, describes what he had heard rather than what he had seen. The
last is John, the Apostle and Evangelist, whom Jesus loved most, who,
reclining on the Lord's bosom, drank the purest streams of doctrine, and
was the only one thought worthy of the words from the cross, " Behold thy
mother." When he was in Asia, at the time when the seeds of heresy were
springing up (I refer to Cerinthus, Ebion, and the rest who say that Christ
has not come in the flesh, whom he in his own epistle calls Antichrists,
and whom the Apostle Paul frequently assails), he was urged by almost all
the bishops of Asia then living, and by deputations from many Churches to
write more profoundly concerning the divinity of the Saviour, and to break
through all obstacles so as to attain to the very Word of God (if I may so
speak) with a boldness as successful as it appears audacious.
Ecclesiastical history relates that, when he was urged by the brethren to
write, he replied that he would do so if a general fast were proclaimed and
all would offer up prayer to God; and when the fast was over, the narrative
goes on to say, being filled with revelation, he burst into the heaven-sent
Preface: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God: this was in the beginning with God."

[Jerome then applies the four symbolical figures of Ezekiel to the Gospels:
the Man is Matthew, the Lion Mark, the Calf, Luke, "because he began with
Zacharias the priest," and the Eagle, John. He then describes the works of
his predecessors: Origen with his twenty-five volumes, Theophilus of
Antioch, Hippolytus the martyr, Theodorus of Heraclea, Apollinaris of
Laodicaea, Didymus of Alexandria, and of the Latins, Hilary, Victorinus,
and Fortunatianus; from these last, he says, he had gained but little. He
continues as follows:]

    But you urge me to finish the composition in a fortnight, when Easter
is now rapidly approaching, and the spring breezes are blowing; you do not
consider when the shorthand writers are to take notes, when the sheets are
to be written, when corrected, how long it takes to make a really accurate
copy; and this is the more surprising, since you know that for the last
three months I have been so ill that I am now hardly beginning to walk; and
I could not adequately perform so great a task in so short a time.
Therefore, neglecting the authority of ancient writers, since I have no
opportunity of reading or following them, I have confined myself to the
brief exposition and translation of the narrative which you particularly
requested; and I have sometimes thrown in a few of the flowers of the
(1)spiritual interpretation, while I reserve the perfect work for a future
day.

PREFACE TO TRANSLATION OF ORIGEN ON ST. LUKE.

[Addressed to Paula and Eustochium, A.D. 388.]

    A few days ago you told me that you had read some commentaries on
Matthew and Luke, of which one was equally dull in perception and
expression, the other frivolous in expression, sleepy in sense. Accordingly
you requested me to translate, without regarding such rubbish, our
Adamantius' thirty-nine "homilies " on Luke, just as they are found in the
original Greek; I replied that it was an irksome task and a mental torment
to write, as Cicero phrases it, with another man's heart(2) not one's own;
but yet I will undertake it, as your requests reach no higher than this.
The demand which the sainted Blesilla once made, at Rome, that I should
translate into our language his twenty-five volumes on Matthew, five on
Luke, and thirty-two on John is beyond my powers, my leisure, and my
energy. You see what weight your influence and wishes have with me. I have
laid aside for a time my books on Hebrew Questions because you think my
labour will not be in vain, and turn to the translation of these
commentaries, which, good or bad, are his work and not mine. I do this all
the more readily because I hear on the left of me the raven--that ominous
bird--croaking and mocking in an extraordinary way at the colours of all
the other birds, though he himself is nothing if not a bird of gloom. And
so, before he change his note, I confess that in these treatises Origen is
like a boy amusing himself with the dice-box; there is a wide difference
between his mature efforts and the serious studies of his old age. If my
proposal meet with your approbation, if I am still able to undertake the
task, and if the Lord grant me opportunity to translate them into Latin
after completing the work I have now deferred, you will then be able to
see--aye, and all who speak Latin will learn through you--how much good
they knew not, and how much they have now begun to know. Besides this, I
have arranged to send you shortly the Commentaries of Hilary, that master
of eloquence, and of the blessed martyr Victorinus, on the Gospel of
Matthew. Their style is different, but the grace of the Spirit which
wrought in them is one. These will give you some idea of the study which
our Latins also have, in former days, bestowed upon the Holy Scriptures.

GALATIANS.

[The Commentary is in three books, with full Prefaces.

Book I., Ch. i. 1 - iii. 9: Addressed to Paula and Eustochium, A.D. 387.

The Preface to this book begins with a striking description of the noble
Roman lady Albina, which is as follows:]

    Only a few days have elapsed since, having finished my exposition of
the Epistle of Paul to Philemon, I had passed to Galatians, turning my
course backwards and passing over many intervening subjects. But all at
once letters unexpectedly arrived from Rome with the news that the
venerable Albina has been recalled to the presence of the Lord, and that
the saintly Marcella, bereft of the company of her mother, demands more
than ever such solace as you can give, my dear Paula and Eustochium. This
for the present is impossible on account of the great distance to be
traversed by sea and land, and I could, therefore, wish to apply to the
wound so suddenly inflicted at least the healing virtue of Scripture. I
know full well her zeal and faith; I know how brightly the fire burns in
her bosom, how she rises superior to her sex, and soars so far above human
nature itself, that she crosses the Red Sea of this world, sounding the
loud timbrel of the inspired volumes. Certainly, when I was at Rome, she
never saw me for ever so short a time without putting some question to me
respecting the Scriptures, and she did not, like the Pythagoreans, accept
the " Ipse dixit " of her teacher, nor did authority, unsupported by the
verdict of reason, influence her; but she tested all things, and weighed
the whole matter so sagaciously that I perceived I had not a disciple so
much as a judge. And so, believing that my labours would be most acceptable
to her who is at a distance, and profitable for you who are with me here, I
will approach a work unattempted by any writers in our language before me,
and which scarcely any of the Greeks themselves have handled in a manner
worthy of the dignity of the subject.

[Jerome then speaks of Victorinus, who had published a commentary on St.
Paul, but "was busily engaged with secular literature and knew nothing of
the Scriptures," and of the great Greek writers, Origen, (1)Didymus, and
(2)Appolinaris, Eusebius of Emesa, and Theodorus of Heraclea, and says he
has plucked flowers out of their gardens, so that the Commentary is more
theirs than his. The expository part of the Preface is chiefly remarkable
as giving the view of St. Paul's rebuke of St. Peter in Galatians ii.,
which occasioned the controversy between Jerome and Augustin. Jerome says:]

    Paul does not go straight to the point, but is like a man walking in
secret passages: his object is to exhibit Peter as doing what was expedient
for the people of the circumcision committed to him, since, if a too sudden
revolt took place from their ancient mode of life, they might be offended
and not believe in the Cross; he wished, moreover, to show, inasmuch as the
evangelisation of the Gentiles had been entrusted to himself, that he had
justice on his side in defending as true that which another only pretended
was a dispensation. That wretch Porphyry (3)Bataneotes by no means
understood this, and, therefore, in the first book of the work which he
wrote against us, he raised the objection that Peter was rebuked by Paul
for not walking uprightly as an evangelical teacher. His desire was to
brand the former with error and the latter with impudence, and to bring
against us as a body the charge of erroneous notions and false doctrine, on
the ground that the leaders of the Churches are at variance among
themselves.

[In the Preface to Book II. Jerome describes the origin of the Galatians as
a Gaulish tribe settled in Asia, but he takes them as slow of
understanding, and says that the Gauls still preserve this character, just
as the Roman Church preserves the character for which it was praised by St.
Paul, for it still has crowds frequenting its churches and the tombs of its
martyrs, and " nowhere else does the Amen resound so loudly, like spiritual
thunder, and shake the temples of the idols"; and similarly the traits of
the churches of Corinth and Thessalonica are still preserved; in the first,
the looseness of behaviour and of doctrine, and the conceit of worldly
knowledge, in the second, the love of the brethren side by side with the
disorderly conduct of busybodies. And he speaks of the condition of Galatia
in his own day as follows:]

    Any one who has seen by how many schisms Ancyra, the metropolis of
Galatia, is rent and torn, and by how many differences and false doctrines
the place is debauched, knows this as well as I do. I say nothing of
(4)Cataphrygians, (1)Ophites, Borborites, and Manichaeans; for these are
familiar names of human woe. Who ever heard of Passaloryncitae, and
(2)Ascodrobi, and (3)Artotyritae, and other portents--I can hardly call
them names--in any part of the Roman Empire? The traces of the ancient
foolishness remain to this day. One remark I must make, and so fulfil the
promise with which I started. While the Galatians, in common with the whole
East, speak Greek, their own language is almost identical with that of the
(4)Treviri; and if through contact with the Greek they have acquired a few
corruptions, it is a matter of no moment. The Africans have to some extent
changed the Phenician language, and Latin itself is daily undergoing
changes through differences of place and time.

[The Preface to Book III. opens with the following passage. describing, in
contrast with his own simple exposition, the arts of the preachers of his
day.]

    We are now busily occupied with our third book on Galatians, and, my
friends, Paula and Eustochium, we are well aware of our weakness, and are
conscious that our slender ability flows in but a small stream and makes
little roar and rattle. For these are the qualities (to such a pass have we
come) which are now expected even in the Churches; the simplicity and
purity of apostolic language is neglected; we meet as if we were in the
(5)Athenaeum, or the lecture rooms, to kindle the applause of the
bystanders; what is now required is a discourse painted and tricked out
with spurious rhetorical skill, and which, like a strumpet in the streets,
does not aim at instructing the public, but at winning their favour; like a
psaltery or a sweet-sounding lute, it must soothe the ears of the audience;
and the passage of the prophet Ezekiel is suitable for our times, where the
Lord says to him, "Thou art become unto them as the sound of a pleasant
lute which is well made, for they hear thy words but do them not."

[Jerome then speaks of the composition of his commentaries as follows:]

    How far I have profited by my unflagging study of Hebrew I leave to
others to decide; what I have lost in my own language, I can tell In
addition to this, on account of the weakness of my eyes and bodily
infirmity generally,, I do not write with my own hand; and I cannot make up
for my slowness of utterance by greater pains and diligence, as is said to
have been the case with Virgil, of whom it is related that he treated his
books as a bear treats her cubs, and licked them into shape. I must summon
a secretary, and either say whatever comes uppermost; or, if I wish to
think a little and hope to produce something superior, my helper silently
reproves me, clenches his fist, wrinkles his brow, and plainly declares by
his whole bearing that he has come for nothing.

[He then points out how the Scriptures have dispossessed the great writers
of the pre-Christian world.]

    How few there are who now read Aristotle. How many are there who know
the books, or even the name of Plato? You may find here and there a few old
men, who have nothing else to do, who study them in a corner.(1) But the
whole world speaks the language of our Christian peasants and fishermen,
the whole world re-echoes their words. And so their simple words--must be
set forth with simplicity of style; for the word simple applies to their
words, not their meaning. But if, in response to your prayers, I could, in
expounding their epistles, have the same spirit which they had--when they
dictated them, you would then see in the Apostles as much majesty and
breadth of true wisdom as there is arrogance and vanity in the learned men
of the world. To make a brief confession of the secrets of my heart, I
should not like any one who wished to understand the Apostle to find a
difficulty in understanding my writings, and so be compelled to find some
one to interpret the interpreter.

EPHESIANS.

[This Commentary was specially prized by. Jerome as exhibiting his true
views (Letter LXXXIV. 2), and they became in consequence one of the chief
subjects of controversy between him and Rufinus, who traced in them not
unjustly, the influence of Origen. It was written immediately after that on
the Epistle to the Galatians, in A.D. 387, and, like that, addressed to
Paula and Eustochium. In the Preface to Book i. Jerome defends himself
against various accusations. He declares that he has been, in the main, his
own instructor, but yet that he has constantly consulted others as to
Scriptural difficulties, and that he had, not long before, been to
Alexandria to consult Didymus. "I questioned him about everything which was
not clear to me in the whole range of Scripture." As to his indebtedness to
Origen, he speaks as follows, certainly not blaming his doctrines: "I
remark in the Prefaces, for your information, that Origen composed three
volumes on this Epistle, and I have partly followed him. Apollinaris and
Didymus also published some commentaries, and. though we have gleaned a few
things from them, we have added or omitted such as we thought fit. The
studious reader will, therefore, understand at the outset that this work is
partly my own, and that I am in part indebted to others."

The Preface to Books ii. and iii. is short. It speaks in praise of
Marcella, who had invited him to his task, and declares that he in his
monastery could not accomplish as much as that noble woman amidst the cares
of her household. "I beseech you," he says, "to bear in mind that the
language of this publication has not been long thought over or highly
polished. In revealing the mysteries of Scripture I use almost the language
of the street, and sometimes get through a thousand lines a day, in order
that the explanation of the Apostle which I have begun may be completed
with the aid of the prayers of Paul himself, whose Epistles I am
endeavouring to explain."]

PHILEMON.

[Written for Paula and Eustochium, A.D. 387. The Preface is a defence of
the genuineness of the Epistle against those who thought its subject
beneath the dignity of inspiration. " There are many degrees of
inspiration," Jerome says, " though in Christ alone it is seen in its
fulness." Many of the other Epistles touch upon small affairs of life, like
the cloak left at 1roas. To suppose that common life is separate from God
is Manichaeanism. Jerome mentions that Marcion, who altered many of the
Epistles, did not touch that to Philemon; and brevity in a document which
has in it so much of the beauty of the Gospel is a mark of its
inspiration.]

TITUS.

[Addressed to Paula and Eustochium, A.D. 387. The Preface speaks of the
rejection of the Epistle by Marcion and Basilides, its acceptance by
Tatius, but without assigning reasons. It ought, Jerome says, to be of
special interest to Paula and Eustochium, as being written from Nicopolis,
near Actium, where their property lay.]

ISAIAH.

[The Commentary in eighteen books, each with its Preface. It was written in
the years 404-410, and addressed to Eustochium alone, her mother Paula
having died in 404.

The Preface to Book i. touches generally upon the character and contents of
Isaiah, asserting that many of the prophecies are directly applicable to
Christ, and that the nations who are dealt with have a spiritual meaning. I
hose to the following books mostly give a short statement of the contents
of the chapters commented on, and entreat the players of Eustocbium for the
work. The Fifth Book (or chapters xiii. to xxiii.) had been published
before by itself, at the instance of a bishop named Amabilis, but he says
he must add the metaphorical and spiritual meaning of the Visions of the
various nations, which is done in Books vi. and vii. The Preface to Book x.
contains a bitter allusion to Rufinus, "the Scorpion, a dumb and poisonous
brute still grumbling over my former reply," and speaks of Pammachius as
joining in the request for the continuation of the Commentaries.

The Preface to Book xi. intimates that his commentary upon Daniel, which
expounded the statue with feet of iron and clay as the Roman Empire, and
announced its fall, had been known at the court and resented by Stilicho,
but that all danger from that source had been removed by the judgment of
God, that is, through the death of Stilicho by the command of his son-in-
law Honorius.

The Preface to Book xiii. records a severe illness which had stopped his
work, though he was restored to health suddenly; and that to Book xiv.
thanks Eustochium for her kind offices during this illness. The remaining
Prefaces, though they have occasionally some interest in the history of the
interpretation of Scripture, need not delay us.]

JEREMIAH.

[The Commentary on Jeremiah is in six books; but Jerome did not live to
finish it. It was written between the years 317 and 319, but only extends
to chapter xxxii. It was dedicated to Eusebius of Cremona. The Prefaces,
which are full of vigour, contain many allusions to the events and
controversies of the last years of Jerome's life. In the Preface to Book
i., after speaking of the Book of Daniel and the apocryphal Letter of
Jeremiah as not belonging to the prophet's writings, he continues:]

    I pay little heed to the ravings of disparaging critics who revile not
only my words, but the very syllables of my words, and suppose they give
evidence of some little knowledge if they discredit another man's work, as
was exemplified in that[1] ignorant traducer who lately broke out, and
thought it worth his while to censure my commentaries on Paul's Epistle to
the Ephesians. He does not understand the rules of commenting (for he is
more asleep than awake and seems utterly dazed), and is not aware that in
our books we give the opinions of many different writers, the authors'
names being either expressed or understood, so that it is open to the
reader to decide which he may prefer to adopt; although I must add that, in
my Preface to the First Book of that work, I gave fair notice that my
remarks would be partly my own, partly those of other' commentators, and
that thus the commentary would be the work conjointly of the ancient
writers and of myself. [2]Grunnius, his precursor, overlooked the same
fact, and once upon a time did his best to cavil. I replied to him in two
books, and there I cleared away the objections which he adduced in his own
name, though the real traducer was some one else; to say nothing of my
treatises against Jovinianus where, you may remember, I show that he
(Jovinianus) laments that virginity is preferred to marriage, single
marriage to digamy, digamy to polygamy. The stupid labouring under his load
of Scotch porridge, does not recollect that we said, in that very work, "I
do not condemn the twice married, nor the thrice married, and, if it so be,
the eight times married; I will go a step farther, and say that I welcome
even a penitent whoremonger; for things equally lawful must be weighed in
an even balance." Let him read the Apology[1] for the same work which was
directed against his[2] master, and was received by Rome with acclamation
many years ago. He will then observe that his revilings are but the echoes
of other men's voices, and that his ignorance is so deep that even his
abuse is not his own, but that he employs against us the ravings of foes
long since dead and buried.

[The Preface to Book ii. is short and contains nothing of special
importance. In that to Book iii. Jerome declares that he will, like Ulysses
with the Sirens, close his ears to the adversary. The devil, who once spoke
through Jovinianus, "now barks through the hound of Albion (Pelagius), who
is like a mountain of fat, and whose fury is more in his heels than in his
teeth; for his offspring is among the Scots, in the neighbourhood of
Britain; and, according to the fables of the poet, he must, like Cerberus,
be smitten to death with a spiritual club, that, in company with his master
Pluto, he may forever hold his peace.

In the Preface to Book iv. Jerome says he has been hindered in his work by
the harassing of the Pelagian controversy. He regards Pelagius as
reproducing the doctrines of impassibility and sinlessness taught by
Pythagoras and Zeno, and revived by Origen, Rufinus, Evagrius Ponticus, and
Jovinian. Their doctrines, he says, were promulgated chiefly in Sicily,
Rhodes, and other islands; they were propagated secretly, and denied in
public. They were full of malice, but were but dumb dogs, and were refuted
in "certain writings," probably those of Augustin; but he declares his
intention of writing against them, which he did in his anti-Pelagian
Dialogue.

The Prefaces to Books v. and vi. contain nothing noteworthy.]

EZEKIEL.

[The Commentary on Ezekiel is in fourteen Books. It was dedicated to
Eustochium, and was written between the years 410 and 414. The Prefaces
gain a special interest from their descriptions of the sack of Rome by
Alaric and the consequent immigration into Palestine. We give several
passages.

In Preface to Book i.]

    Having completed the eighteen books of the exposition of Isaiah, I was
very desirous, Eustochium, Christ's virgin, to go on to Ezekiel, in
accordance with my frequent promises to you and your mother Paula, of
saintly memory, and thus, as the saying is, put the finishing touches to
the work on the prophets; but alas! intelligence was suddenly brought me of
the death of Pammachius and [3] Marcella, [4]the siege of Rome, and the
falling asleep of many of my brethren and sisters. I was so stupefied and
dismayed that day and night I could think of nothing but the welfare of the
community; it seemed as though I was sharing the captivity of the saints,
and I could not open my lips until I knew something more definite; and all
the while, full of anxiety, I was wavering between hope and despair, and
was torturing myself with the misfortunes of other people. But when the
bright light of all the world was put out, or, rather, when the Roman
Empire was decapitated, and, to speak more correctly, the whole world
perished in one city,[1] "I became dumb and humbled myself, and kept
silence from good words, but my grief broke out afresh, my heart glowed
within me, and while I meditated the fire was kindled;" and I thought I
ought not to disregard the saying,[2] "An untimely story is like music in a
time of grief." But seeing that you persist in making this request, and a
wound, though deep, heals by degrees; and [3]the scorpion lies beneath the
ground with [4]Enceladus and Porphyrion, and the many- headed Hydra has at
length ceased to hiss at us; and since opportunity has been given me which
I ought to use, not for replying to insidious heretics, but for devoting
myself to the exposition of Scripture, I will resume my work upon the
prophet Ezekiel.

[Book ii. has, instead of a Preface, merely a line calling the attention of
Eustochium to its opening words.

The Preface to Book iii. has a noteworthy passage on the sack of Rome and
its results.]

    Who would believe that Rome, built up by the conquest of the whole
world, had collapsed, that the mother of nations had become also their
tomb; that the shores of the whole East, of Egypt, of Africa, which once
belonged to the imperial city, were filled with the hosts of her men-
servants and maid-servants, that we should every day be receiving in this
holy Bethlehem men and women who once were noble and abounding in every
kind of wealth but are now reduced to poverty? We cannot relieve these
sufferers: all we can do is to sympathise with them, and unite our tears
with theirs. The burden of this holy work was as much as we could carry;
the sight of the wanderers. coming in crowds, caused us deep pain; and we
therefore abandoned the exposition of Ezekiel, and almost all study, and
were filled with a longing to turn the words of Scripture into action, and
not to say holy things but to do them. Now, however, in response to your
admonition, Eustochium, Christ's virgin, we resume the interrupted labour,
and approach our third Book.

[The Prefaces to Books iv., v., and vi. contain nothing remarkable. The
following is the important part of the Preface to Book vii.]

    There is not a single hour, nor a single moment, in which we are not
relieving crowds of brethren, and the quiet of the monastery has been
changed into the bustle of a guest house. And so much is this the case that
we must either close our doors, or abandon the study of the Scriptures on
which we depend for keeping the doors open. And so, turning to profit, or
rather stealing the hours of the nights, which, now that winter is
approaching, begin to lengthen somewhat, I am endeavouring by the light of
the lamp to dictate these comments, whatever they maybe worth, and am
trying to mitigate with exposition the weariness of a mind which is a
stranger to rest. I am not boasting, as some perhaps suspect, of the
welcome given to the brethren, but I am simply confessing the causes of the
delay. Who could boast when the flight of the people of the West, and the
holy places, crowded as they are with penniless fugitives, naked and
wounded, plainly reveal the ravages of the Barbarians? We cannot see what
has occurred, without tears and moans. Who would have believed that mighty
Rome, with its careless security of wealth, would be reduced to such
extremities as to need shelter, food, and clothing? And yet, some are so
hard-hearted and cruel that, instead of showing compassion, they break up
the rags and bundles of the captives, and expect to find gold about those
who are nothing than prisoners. In addition to this hindrance to my
dictating, my eyes are growing dim with age and to some extent I share the
suffering of the saintly Isaac: I am quite unable to go through the Hebrew
books with such light as I have at night, for even in the full light of day
they are hidden from my eyes owing to the smallness of the letters. In
fact, it is only the voice of the brethren which enables me to master the
commentaries of Greek writers.

[The Prefaces to Books viii. to xiv. contain nothing of special interest.]

DANIEL.

[The Commentary on Daniel was dedicated to Pammachius and Marcella in the
year 407. It is in a single book, and is aimed at the criticisms of
Porphyry. who, like most modern critics, took the predictions in the Book
of Daniel as relating to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees,
and written near that date. The Preface is very similar to that prefixed to
the Vulgate translation of Daniel.]

PREFACES TO THE COMMENTARIES ON THE MINOR PROPHETS.

[For the order and date of writing of these Commentaries see the Preface to
Amos, Book iii., and the note there.]

HOSEA.

[This Commentary was dedicated to Pammachius, A.D. 406 (sixth consulate of
Arcadius--Preface to Amos, Book iii.). The Preface to Book i. is chiefly
taken up with a discussion on Hosea's "wife of whoredoms." He takes the
story as allegorical; it cannot be literal, for "God commands nothing but
what is honourable, nor does he, by bidding men do disgraceful thins, make
that conduct honourable which is disgraceful. Jerome then describes, as in
former Prefaces, the chief Greek commentators, of whom Apollinaris and
Origen had written very shortly on Hosea, Pierius at great length, but to
little purpose; and says that he had himself obtained from Didymus of
Alexandria that he should complete the Commentary of Origen. He had himself
often judged independently, though with little knowledge of Hebrew, but he
had been in earnest, while most scholars were "more concerned for their
bellies than their hearts, and thought themselves learned if in the
doctors' waiting rooms they could disparage other men's works."

In the Preface to Book ii. Jerome complains of his detractors, and appeals
from the present favour of high-placed men to the posthumous authority of
sound ability.

In Book iii. he claims Pammachius as his defender, though he fears the
judgment of his great learning.]

JOEL.

[This Commentary also is addressed to Pammachius, A.D. 406. It is in one
hook. It gives the order of the Twelve Prophets adopted by the LXX. and the
Hebrew respectively, the Hebrew order being that now in use. It also gives
the etymological meaning of their names.]

AMOS.

[In three books, addressed also to Pammachius, A.D. 406 (Preface to Amos,
Book iii.). The Preface to Book i. merely gives a description of Tekoa,
Amos' birthplace. That to Book if. speaks of old age, with its advantages
for self-control and its trials in various infirmities, such as phlegm, dim
eyesight, loosened teeth, colic, and gout. That to Book iii. contains the
passage several times referred to for the order of these Commentaries,
which is as follows:]

    We have not discussed them in regular sequence from the first to the
ninth, as they are read, but as we have been able, and in accordance with
requests made to us. Nahum, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai, [1]I first addressed
to Paula and Eustochium, her daughter, who are never weary; I next
dedicated two books on Habakkuk to Chromatius, bishop of Aquileia; I then
proceeded to explain, at your command, Pammachius, and after a long
interval of silence, Obadiah and Jonah.[1] In the [2]present year, which
bears in the calendar the name of the sixth consulate of Arcadius Augustus
and Anitius Probus, I interpreted Malachi for Exsuperius, bishop of
Toulouse, and Minervius and Alexander, monks of that city. Unable to refuse
your request I immediately went back to the beginning of the volume, and
expounded Hosea, Joel, and Amos. A severe sickness followed, and I showed
my rashness in resuming the dictation of this work too hastily; and,
whereas others hesitate to write and frequently correct their work, I
entrusted mine to the fortune which attends those who employ a secretary,
and hazarded my reputation for ability and orthodoxy; for, as I have often
testified, I cannot endure the toil of writing with my own hand; and, in
expounding the Holy Scriptures, what we want is not a polished style and
oratorical flourishes, but learning and simple truth.

OBADIAH.

[Addressed to Pammachius A.D. 403. The Preface records how in early youth
(some thirty years before), he had attempted an allegorical commentary of
Obadiah, of which he was now ashamed, though it has lately been praised by
a youth of similar years.]

JONAH.

[This was addressed to Chromatius,[3] but belongs to the year 395. It is
said in the Preface to be three years after the commentary on Micah, Nahum,
etc. The Preface merely touches on the various places of Scripture in which
Jonah is named.]

MICAH.

[Addressed to Paula and Eustochium. A.D. 392. It is in two books. In the
Preface to Book ii., Jerome vindicates himself against the charge of making
mere compilations from Origen. He confesses, however, his great admiration
for him. "What they consider a reproach," he says, "I regard as the highest
praise. since I desire to imitate him who, I doubt not, is acceptable to
all wise men, and to you."]

NAHUM.

[Also to Paula and Eustochium, A.D. 392. The Preface contains little of
importance. Jerome mentions that the village of Elkosh, Nahum's birthplace,
was pointed out to him by a guide in Galilee.]

HABAKKUK.

[Addressed to Chromatius, A.D. 392. The commentary is in two books. The
Preface to Book i. is long, but merely describes the contents of the book.
That to Book if. mentions among his adversaries, "The Serpent, and
Sardanapalus, whose character is worse than his name"--expressions which
have been referred to Rufinus; but the enmity between Jerome and Rufinus
had not broken out in 392.]

ZEPHANIAH.

[Addressed to Paula and Eustochium, A.D. 392. In the Preface Jerome defends
himself for writing for women, bringing many examples from Scripture and
from classical writers to show the capacity of women.]

HAGGAI.

[Also to Paula and Eustochium, A.D. 392. The preface merely describes the
occasion of the book, but says that Haggai's prophecy was contemporary with
the reign of Tarquinius Superbus (B.C. 535-510).]

ZECHARIAH.

[Addressed to Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse, A.D. 406, in three books, and
sent, "in the closing days of autumn, by the monk, Sisinnius, who had been
sent with presents for the poor saints at Jerusalem, and was hastening to
Egypt on a similar errand." The Prefaces to the three books mention these
facts, but have nothing in them of note which has not been said before.]

MALACHI.

[Addressed, A.D. 406, to Minervius and Alexander, presbyters of the diocese
of Toulouse. The Jews, the Preface says. believe Malachi to be a name for
Ezra. Origen and his followers believe that (according to his name) he was
an angel. But we reject this view altogether, lest we be compelled to
accept the doctrine of the fall of souls from heaven.]
 

 

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