council called by Damasus to compose the differences; and was received into the friendship of the Roman bishop. He became the bishop's adviser and acted as his secretary, by which means he must have gained an extensive and minute knowledge of ecclesiastical affairs. At Damasus' earnest request Jerome undertook to revise the Latin Bible. At Rome his reputation rose very high, especially among the female sex, to whom he was wont to represent the heavenly graces of an unmarried life with enthusiastic eloquence. But though his friends were numerous, his enemies were not few. His successful advocacy of monasticism excited the hatred of many whose interests came into collision with the ascetic tendency. Rome had shown no inclination towards such a mode of life before. The propensities of the people were against it. Both clergy and laity looked upon him with envy, jealousy, and dislike. His learning formed a strong contrast to the ignorance of the former class. They felt his vast superiority; indeed Jerome made them feel it; and not only so, but he severely exposed the faults of the worldly-minded clergy in a letter addressed to the nun Eustochium. Many noble ladies were induced to forsake their worldly relations and retire to a life of solitude. This vexed some of the most eminent citizens. Hence Jerome was loaded with invectives, and even insulted in public by the people. The death of his patron Damasus, induced him to withdraw from this persecution; especially as Siricius did not appear so favourably disposed towards him. Leaving Babylon, as he was wont to call Rome from this time, in company with several friends, he sailed to Rhegium and Cyprus, where Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, received him hospitably; and thence to Antioch in 385. Here he was joined by the distinguished Roman ladies Paula and her daughter Eustochium, as well as others of the same sex, all enthusiastic in their admiration of monastic institutions. With them he made a tour of Palestine, visited the monks of the Nitrian desert in Egypt, returned to the Holy Land in 386, and settled at Bethlehem. Here Paula erected four monasteries—three for nuns, and one for monks. In the latter Jerome spent the remainder of his life, educating young men in sacred literature, composing various works, chiefly expositions of scripture, and disputing with all who differed from him. It was at Bethlehem that the boldest and greatest of his undertakings was accomplished, namely, a new Latin version of the Old Testament, not from the Greek, but from the original Hebrew. This appeared an impious thing to many. He had been reproached before, on account of his emendation of the old Latin version, by ignorant traditionists who resist any change in the text known to them. No doubt the Hexapla of Origen, which he got from the library at Cæsarea, was of great use to him in revising the old Latin, and making the new version. At Bethlehem Jerome was engaged in a tedious and bitter dispute with Rufinus of Aquileia, once his intimate friend, who then resided at Jerusalem with the bishop John, respecting the heretical sentiments of Origen. He also wrote against the Pelagians. So severely did he attack the latter, that an armed multitude of them fell upon the monastery. He escaped, however, and remained in concealment two years. In 418 he returned, and soon after expired, worn out with toil, anxieties, and opposition, on 30th September, 420. Thus the evening of his life was partly spent in circumstances unfavourable to devotion. In fact, the learned monk was too sensitive on the score of his orthodoxy, which he was ready to maintain at the expense of consistency, charity, and truth.
Jerome was the most learned of the fathers in sacred literature. His strength lies in his literary, not his theological aspect. He was laborious, active, energetic; possessing extensive acquirements, and not without discrimination or acuteness. His temperament was sanguine and choleric. Hence he was often rash, hasty, injudicious. His enthusiasm for everything reckoned holy in his day, was great. He had profundity neither of feeling nor of thought. With all his monkish piety too, he possessed a considerable share of worldly policy, as is shown by his conduct in relation to Origen's sentiments. His bitterness towards all who differed from him detracts much from his fame. He was a most abusive controversialist; disgracing the christian profession, as many still do. In his interpretation of the scriptures the Alexandrian tendency prevails over the Antiochian; though his native spiritual bent was certainly different from that of Origen. But it can hardly be said that he occupied an independent doctrinal position. Thus, though an antipelagian, he hardly comprehended the real essence of Augustinianism; for he had himself a, genuine Pelagian tinge in regard to good works. A gross realism appears in his doctrine of the resurrection of the body, set forth in the Origenistic controversy. He was very zealous in upholding the perpetual virginity of Mary, the meritoriousness of fasting and celibacy, the reverencing of martyrs and their relics. His works are voluminous; consisting of commentaries, literary history, chronology, histories of saints, satires, epistles, &c. Of these the translations and commentaries on the Bible are the best, next to which are the epistles. The most complete edition of his writings is that of Vallarsi, 11 vols. folio, published at Verona, 1734-43; reprinted by Maffæus at Venice in 22 vols. 4to, 1766; and again in 11 vols., 8vo, by Migne, Paris, 1845.
The best lives of Jerome are those by Schrökh and Von Coclin—the former in his Kirchengeschichte vol. xi.; the latter in the Encyclopædie of Ersch and Gruber. His defects are pointed out by Le Clerc in Quæstiones Hieronymianæ, 12mo, 1800. Luther's strong judgment against him is well known:—"I know no teacher to whom I am so great an enemy as Jerome; for he writes only about fasting, meats, virginity, &c. . . He teaches nothing of faith, or hope, or love, or of the works of faith."—(Table Talk.) Both Luther and Le Clerc, however, are somewhat unjust to his real merits. The first volume of Vallarsi's edition contains the Epistolæ arranged chronologically, one hundred and fifty in number. The second volume contains Opuscula or Tractatus, the Dialogi contra Pelagianos, and De viris illustribus. The third volume has De hominibus Hebraicis, De situ et nominibus locorum Hebraicorum, Quæstionum Hebraicarum in Genesim liber, Commentarii in Ecclesiasten, In Canticum Canticorum tractus ii. The fourth volume contains, Commentarii in Iesaiam, Homiliæ ix. in visiones Iesaiæ ex Græco Origenis, and Commentarii in Jeremiam. The fifth volume has, Commentarii in Ezechielem, Commentarius in Danielem, and Homiliæ Origenis xxviii. in Jeremiam et Ezechielem. The sixth volume has, Commentarii in xii. Prophetas minores, Commentarii in Matthæum, Homiliæ xxxix. in Lucam ex Origene, and Commentarii in Pauli Epistolas. The eighth volume is occupied with the Chronica Eusebii. The ninth and tenth volumes have his revision of the Latin scriptures, and his new translation of them. The eleventh is occupied with dissertations about his lost works.—S. D.
JEROME of Prague, the friend and fellow-martyr of John Huss, was born in that city between the years 1360 and 1370. His father was named Nicholas Faulfisch, and was of a noble family. He studied in the universities of Prague, Heidelberg, Cologne, and Paris, and obtained the degrees of bachelor of divinity and master of arts. From Paris he proceeded to Oxford, where he became acquainted with the writings of Wyckliffe, which first imbued him with evangelical truth, and inspired him with the zeal of a religious reformer. Having returned to Bohemia, his uncommon learning recommended him to the favour of Wladislaus II., king of Poland, who gave him a commission to organize the new university of Cracow; and Sigismund, king of Hungary, who invited him to preach before him. He preached the doctrines of Wyckliffe, the same which the archbishop of Prague had shortly before condemned as heretical, and the clergy lost no time in commencing proceedings against him. Having taken refuge in Hungary, he was thrown into prison at the instance of the Hungarian clergy, but was soon after released by the efforts of his friends in Prague. On his return thither he attached himself to the cause of Huss, who was then in trouble for the same cause, and whom he did much to advance and confirm in his new convictions, being his superior in point of culture, and having a much more intimate knowledge of the writings of the English reformer. When the Germans seceded in a body from the university of Prague, in consequence of the abridgment of their power, effected chiefly by the influence of Huss with the king of Bohemia (see Huss, John), the priests seized the opportunity of inflaming the minds of the citizens, who were serious losers by that secession against the two reformers. But Jerome revenged himself upon them by preaching with more freedom than ever against indulgences and relics, and the abuses of the monks. He trampled the relics under his feet, and excited the minds of the people so violently against the monks, that several of them were seized and kept in durance, and one of them was even thrown into the waters of the Moldau. He went farther still. When the bull of Pope John XXII., against Ladislaus, king of Naples, arrived in Prague, he sent it through the city attached to the dress of a
