very question, to sit, as Orosius himself says, at the feet of Jerome (de Lib. Arb. 3). The remaining letters shew a constant increase of friendship. The two great teachers, though from somewhat different points of view, laboured together in combating Pelagianism; and, having been to each other for a while almost as heretics, stand justly side by side as canonized doctors of Latin Christianity.
Last Period, 405–420. Old Age and Troubles.—This last period of Jerome's life was full of external dangers and towards its close agitated by controversy. In 405 the Isaurians devastated the N. of Palestine, the monasteries of Bethlehem were beset with fugitives, and Jerome and his friends were brought into great straits for the means of living. The winter was extremely cold, and Jerome was laid low by a severe illness in Lent 406 (Ep. cxiv.) which left him weak for a long time. The barbarian invasions culminated in the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410. In this last calamity, which seemed to be ushering in the end of the world (cxxiii.), Pammachius and Marcella died. Emigration from Italy to Africa and Syria set in, and the more religious among the fugitives flocked to Jerusalem and Bethlehem (pref. to bks. iii. and vii. of Comm. on Ezk.). Jerome was not unaffected by the evil political influences of the time. He represents himself as watched by enemies, who made it dangerous for him even to express his sense of the miseries of the empire. In his Commentary on the Monarchies in Daniel he reflects on the low state to which the Roman empire had fallen and its need of support from barbarians; and these words were taken as reflecting on Stilicho, the great half-Vandal general, the father-in-law and minister of Honorius, and the real ruler of the empire. Stilicho, whom Jerome afterwards speaks of (Ep. cxxiii. 17) as "the half-barbarian traitor who armed the enemy against us with our own resources," appears to have heard of Jerome's expressions in his commentary and to have taken great offence, and Jerome believed that he was meditating some revenge against him when he was put to death ("Dei judicio," pref. to bk. xi. of Comm. on Is.) by order of his imperial relative. In the year following the sack of Rome Palestine suffered from an incursion of barbarians from which Jerome barely escaped (Ep. cxxvi. 2). He was very poor (pref. to Comm. on Ezk. bk. viii.), but made no complaint of this. His best friends had passed away—Paula in 403, Pammachius and Marcella in 410 (pref. to Comm. on Ezk. bk. i.). Of his Roman friends, Oceanus, Principia, and the younger Fabiola alone remained (Epp. cxx. cxxvii.); Eustochium had very possibly (as Thierry supposes) less authority than her mother in the management of the convent, and this left room for irregularities like those related in Jerome's letter (cxlvii.) to Sabinianus. Eustochium died in 418 (pref. to Comm. on Jer. bk. i.). Jerome's days were taken up by the monastery and the hospice (pref. to Comm. on Ezk. bk. viii.) and he could only dictate his commentaries at night; he was even glad when winter came and gave him longer nights for this purpose (ib.). He was growing weak with age and frequent illnesses, and his eyesight, which had originally failed nearly 40 years before (Constantinople, 380), was so weak that he could hardly decipher Heb. letters at night (ib.). Controversy arose again with Pelagius (pref. to Comm. on Jer. bks. i.–iv.), and Jerome's relations with the bp. of Jerusalem can hardly have been smooth (Ep. cxxxvii.). On the other hand, his brother Paulinian was still with him; the younger Paula, daughter of Toxotius and Laeta (cvii. cxxxiv.), survived him and replaced her aunt Eustochium in managing the monasteries. Albina, and the younger Melania with her husband Pinianus (cxliv.), came to live with him; he had kindly relations with persons in many countries; and the only leading man of the Western church was his friend. Amidst all discouragements, he continued his Biblical studies and writings with no sign of weakness to the end.
Pelagianism.—The Pelagian controversy was forced upon his notice. He had not antecedently formed any strong opinion on it, and had been connected in early life with some of the leading supporters of Pelagius (pref. to Comm. on Jer. bk. iv.). But no great question could now arise in the church without an appeal to Jerome, and his correspondence necessarily embraced this subject (Epp. cxxxiii. cxxxviii.). Orosius, the friend of Augustine, came to reside at Bethlehem in 44, full of the council of Carthage and of the thoughts and doings of his teacher; and when in 415 Pelagius and Coelestius came to Palestine, Jerome was in the very centre of the controversy. A synod was held under John of Jerusalem [JOANNES (216)] in July 415 with no result; and at a synod at Diospolis in 416 Pelagius was acquitted, partly, it was believed, because the Eastern bishops could not see their way in matters of Western theology and in judging of Latin expressions. But the mind of the church generally was against him, and Jerome was called upon to give expression to it. Ctesiphon from Rome wrote to him directly on the subject and drew a long reply (cxxxiii.). Augustine addressed to him two letters on points bearing upon the subject (cxxxi. cxxxii.), and in his letter on the origin of souls insinuated that Jerome's creationism might identify him with Pelagius's denial of the transmission of Adam's sin (cxxx. 6). Pelagius sometimes quoted Jerome as agreeing with him (pref. to Comm. on Jer. bk. i.), sometimes attacked passages in his commentaries (id. bk. iv.) and depreciated his translation of the Scriptures (pref. to Dial. against Pelag.). Orosius, who withstood Pelagius in the synod of Jerusalem with little success, appealed (de Libero Arbitrio contra Pelagium) to Jerome as a champion of the faith. Jerome wrote, therefore, in 3 books, the dialogue against the Pelagians, an amplification of his letter to Ctesiphon, in which Atticus (the Augustinian) and Critobulus (the Pelagian) maintain the argument. It turns upon the question whether a man can be without sin if he so wills. Its tone is much milder than that of Jerome's other controversial writings, with the single exception of the dialogue against the Luciferians. But still he is dealing with a heretic, and heresy is under the ban of the church and of heaven. This terrible doom contrasts somewhat sharply with the balanced argument, in which Jerome appears
