towards Rufinus. The same may be said of his letter (lxxxi.) to Rufinus himself, possibly in answer to one from Rufinus ("diu te Romae moratum sermo proprius indicavit"), which speaks of their reconciliation and remonstrates, as a friend with a friend, against the mention Rufinus had made of him. "There are not many," he says, "who can be pleased with feigned praise" ("fictis laudibus"). This letter, unfortunately, did not reach Rufinus. He had gone to Aquileia with the ordinary commendation ("literae formatae") from the pope. Siricius had died; his successor, Anastasius, was in the hands of Pammachius and Marcella (cxxvii.), who were moving him to condemn Origen. Anastasius, though ignorant on the whole subject, was struck by passages shewn him by Eusebius in Jerome's translation of the περὶ Ἀρχῶν, which had been given him by Marcella (Rufin. Apol. ii.), and proceeded to condemn Origen. He also was persuaded to summon Rufinus (Rufinus [Migne's Patr. Lat. xxi.] 403) to Rome to make a confession of his faith; and wrote to John of Jerusalem, expressing his fear as to Rufinus's intentions and his faith (see the letter in Jerome's Works, ii. 677, Rufinus, 408). Jerome's friends kept his letter to Rufinus, so that Rufinus was prevented from learning Jerome's actual dispositions towards him. He only knew that the latter's friends were in some way involving him in the condemnation they had procured against Origen and which the emperors themselves had now ratified (Anastasius to John, u.s.). To Anastasius, therefore, he replied in a short letter, excusing himself from coming to Rome, but giving an explicit declaration of his faith. But from Jerome he was wholly alienated. His friend Apronianus at Rome having sent him the letter of Jerome to Pammachius and Oceanus, he replied in the document which is called his Apology, with bitter feelings against his former friend. He did not scruple to use against him the facts known to him through their former intimacy, such as the vows made in consequence of his anti-Ciceronian dream, which he declared Jerome to have broken, and he allowed himself to join in the carping spirit in which Jerome's enemies spoke against his translation of the Scriptures. This document was privately circulated among Rufinus's friends at Rome. It became partly known to Pammachius and Marcella, who, not being able to obtain a copy, sent him a description of its contents, with such quotations as they could procure. Jerome at once composed the two first books of his Apology in the form of a letter to his Roman friends. Its tone is that of one not quite willing to break through an old friendship, but its language is strong and at times contemptuous. It was brought to Rufinus at Aquileia, who answered in a letter meant for Jerome's eyes alone, which has not come down to us. From Jerome's reply we know that it was sharp and bitter, and declared his ability to produce facts which if known to the world would blast Jerome's character for ever. Jerome was estranged by extracts from Rufinus's Apology. Then Rufinus himself sent him a true copy, and the result was a final rupture. Augustine, to whom Jerome sent his book, writes (Hieron. Ep. cx. 6) with the utmost sorrow at the scandal; he declares that he was cast down by the thought that "persons so dear and so familiar, united by a chain of friendship which had been known to all the church," should now be publicly tearing each other to pieces. He writes like one who has an equal esteem for both the combatants, and only desires their reconciliation. But Jerome never ceased to speak of his former friend with passionate condemnation and contempt. When Rufinus died in Sicily in 410 he wrote: "The scorpion lies underground between Enceladus and Porphyrion, and the hydra of many heads has at last ceased to hiss against me" (pref. to Comm. on Exk.). In later years he sees the spirit of Rufinus revived in Pelagius (pref. to Comm. on Jer. bk. i.), and even in letters of edification he cannot refrain from bitter remarks on his memory (Ep. cxxv. 18, cxxxiii. 3).
Vigilantius.—A fourth controversy was with Vigilantius (cont. Vig. liber unus), a Spanish monk, into whom, as Jerome says, the soul of his former opponent Jovinian had passed, a controversy further embittered by mutual accusations of Origenism, and in which Jerome's violence and contemptuousness passes all bounds. Vigilantius had stayed at the monastery at Bethlehem in 396, on the introduction of Paulinus. In a letter to Vigilantius in 396, Jerome accuses him of blasphemous interpretations of Scripture derived from Origen. He treats him as a vulgar fool, without the least claim to knowledge or letters. He applies to him the proverb Ὄνῳ λύρα, turns his name to Dormitantius, and ends by saying he hopes he may find pardon when, as Origen holds, the devil will find it. Vigilantius is said by Gennadius (de Scr. Eccl. 35) to have been an ignorant man, though polished in words. But he was as far in advance of Jerome in his views of the Christian life as he was behind him in literary power. His book, written in 404, was sent by Riparius to Jerome, who replied (Ep cix.), dismissing the matter with contempt. Afterwards, probably finding the opinions of Vigilantius gaining ground, he, at the request of certain presbyters, wrote his treatise against him. It is a short book, dictated, he states, unius noctis lucubratione; his friend Sisinnius, who was to take it, being greatly hurried. Vigilantius maintained that the honour paid to the martyrs' tombs was excessive, that watching in their basilicas was to be deprecated, that the alleged miracles done there were false; that the money collected for the "poor saints at Jerusalem" had better be kept at home; that the hermit life was cowardice; and, lastly, that it would be well that presbyters should be married before ordination. Jerome speaks of these accusations as being so openly blasphemous as to require neither argument nor the production of testimonies against them, but merely the expression of the writer's indignation. He does not admit even a grain of truth in them. "If you do not honour the tombs of the martyrs," he says, "you assert that they were not wrong in burning the martyrs." He himself believes the miracles, and values the intercession of the saints. This is the treatise in which Jerome felt most sure he was in the right, and the only one in which he was wholly in the wrong.
