A letter from Jerome (387-388)

Translated letter:

Prologue. If there is anything, Paula and Eustochium, which can hold a wise man in this life and persuade him to remain among the pressures and storms of the world with equanimity, I think the first is meditation and knowledge of scripture. For we differ from other animals mainly in this, that we are rational and can speak. But all reason and speech is contained in the divine books, through which we learn of God and why we were created. I wonder that there are some who out of inertia and somnolence do not wish to learn splendid things, others who think studies are reprehensible. Whom I answer as severely as I can, and then dismiss either offended or placated, that it is much better to read scripture than to pant after accumulating and increasing wealth. I say that because I can show, even to the most evil judge, that my leisure pleases me and solitude seems happier than any fame. And just as I do not reproach or condemn what they do, so they should concede my folly to me. If I am little eloquent, what is that to you? Read someone more skilful. If I do not translate Greek to Latin properly, either read Greek, if you know the language, or if you know only Latin, do not judge a free gift as the common proverb has it: do not look at the teeth of a horse given to you (do not look a gift horse in the mouth). Do I ever take you to law with hands bound because you do not write our things? Some reader may be more experienced than I; if you wrote, perhaps Tully [Cicero] would admire your words. Did Tertullius ever keep the blessed martyr Cyprian from writing, or Cyprian Lactantius, or Lactantius Hilary? I say nothing about other scribblers who chatter with me in their books. Unless there were small things, great things could not stand out. No one can be first unless a second and third follow. We do not mount to the heights except by climbing the lowest steps. Therefore I beseech you who are present as well as holy Marcella, unique model of widowhood, that you not give over my little works to the badmouthed and envious; that you not give what is holy to dogs and put pearls before swine [Matth.7:6]. Who do not seek to emulate good things can only envy [those who do]; and they think themselves learned and erudite if they detract from others. To whom I beseech you to answer that they direct their pen, join three words together, as they say, study a little, put themselves to the test and from their own labor learn to forgive those who labor. For you know, you who compel me to this work of explanation, that I am reluctant and hesitant. Not that I ever from my youth have ceased to read or to ask learned men what I did not know, and be my own teacher in great part. Recently I went to Alexandria mainly to see Didymus, and inquire from him the things I had doubts about throughout scripture. But it is one thing to compose books, with grace of word, about avarice and faith and virginity and widows and whatever subject with the scriptures to witness, when you seek to join them with worldly eloquence, and toss out pompous speech in common places. It is another to enter into the sense of prophet and apostle, to understand why they wrote, with what reason they strengthened their meaning, what is peculiar to the Idumeans/Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Tyrians, Philistines, Egyptians, and Assyrians in the old Law; what again in the new testament to Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Thessalonians, Hebrews, Colossians, and those we now have in hand, Ephesians. For according to the diversity of places and times and men by whom they are written they must have different causes and arguments and origins. And just as St. John in his Apocalypse writing particular things to each of the seven churches reproves their vices or approves their virtues, so the holy apostle Paul heals the wounds of individual churches not like an inexperienced doctor who tries to cure the eyes of all with one medication. And since we have already expressed a few days ago what we think about Galatians, now we move on to Ephesians, the middle letter of the apostle, not in relation to first and last but as the heart of an animal is in the middle. From this one must understand how many difficulties and profound questions it is involved with. He wrote to Ephesians who worshipped Diana, not the girded hunter who holds a bow, but the many-breasted one whom the Greeks call polymaston, as clearly from that image they falsely declare her to be the nourisher of all beasts and living things. He wrote to the chief city of Asia which was idolatrous and always pursued such idolatry and where the deceptions of the magic arts flourished, as Demetrius says, "and the temple of the great goddess Diana/Artemis will be scorned, and her majesty will be destroyed, which all Asia and all the world worships" [Acts 19:27]. There the apostle remained for three years, preaching the gospel of god day and night so that, with the citadel of idolatry destroyed, the temples of lesser cities would easily be seized. Scripture tells how Paul discoursed to the Ephesians saying "therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone of you with tears; and now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified" [Acts 20:31-32]. For those who were held in the error of demons at that time lacked the commendation of the apostle to god, and they knew there were spiritual powers and recognized a certain resemblance to divinity in organs and augurs and divinations. Which is why again he said to them: "therefore I declare to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not hesitate to declare to you the whole purpose of God" [Acts 20:26-27]. And elsewhere, "how I did not shrink from doing anything helpful to you, proclaiming the message and teaching you publicly in the houses" [Acts 20:20]. He had read in Ezechiel that when the lookout did not foretell the advent of the enemy to the people, the blood of the citizens would be required from his hands [Ezek.33:6] and therefore he reminded them that he had announced the whole will of God and all things that were useful to them, so that he would be quit of their blood. As you know from the Acts of the Apostles those who believed in Ephesus and had been bound to demoniacal deceptions and magic arts, "many of those who had been involved brought their books and burned them in the presence of all, and the price of the books was computed at fifty thousand pieces of silver, and so the word of the Lord grew and was strengthened" [Acts 19:19-20]. We have repeated all these things to show why the apostle collected obscure meanings and mysteries to the world especially in this epistle and taught about the power of the holy virtues and their opposites, what demons are, what power they have, what they were before, and how they have been overthrown and destroyed since the advent of Christ. About whom he said: "for our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the chiefs and powers, against the rulers of the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens" [Ephes.6:12]. And elsewhere: "I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a great and effective door has opened to me, but my adversaries are many" [1Cor.16:8-9]. He remained in Ephesus until Pentecost, a time of joy and victory, when we do not bend our knees or bow to the ground, but rising with the Lord, we are lifted up to the heights of the heavens. And he remained because a door was opened to him, not a small door, but a great one, so that with the strong [man] conquered and surpassed, he could invade the house, despoil it, and overthrow it [cf.Matth.12:29] and take captive one who with the troops of his attendants gathered, with the whole battle line struggled against the apostle and was conquered. Who the Ephesians are can mostly be shown from John relating the mystery of the ancient nativity of the lord, when he lay on his breast and drank in from the purest fountain the stream of doctrine [cf. John 13:25], so these rushing to the neck of the departing Paul indicated with kisses and embraces that they would keep him with them as a treasure of knowledge and gave witness to their desire for his teaching with their tears [cf.Acts 20:37]. I also want you to recall in this preface that Origen wrote three volumes on this epistle which we have followed in part. We have also consumed certain little commentaries of Apollinarius and Didymus, though taken little from them. And we have added or omitted several things which seemed [appropriate] to us so the studious/zealous reader would know immediately at the beginning that this work is either from another or ours. . . . Bk.2: In accordance with your prayers, o Paula and Eustochium, we have taken on the book to Ephesians, and we will send the new little work to Rome. Not that the learned senate would deign to read it or inscribe it among the libraries of the ancients, but that holy Marcella urges it to be done in her letters. I am always mindful of her studies/zeal, her abilities, her labor, while I condemn myself to inertia, who am established in the solitude of a monastery, in view of that manger in which the shepherds hastened to adore the crying baby, I can not do the things a noble woman in the midst of family noise and household cares completes one after another. That is why I ask her and you and any other readers there might be, as you recognize that I present a speech I have not given long thought to, nor polished, but use words barely from the trivium to reveal the mysteries of scripture, and working each day to reach a thousand verses of the apostle, that Paul whose epistles we attempt to expound, that the explanation that was begun may be completed with [your] prayers. . . . Bk.3: I discoursed sufficiently and abundantly, o Paula and Eustochium, on the argument of the epistle of Paul to Ephesians in the preface to the first book; and here and there, wherever the occasion arose, I showed though briefly that the blessed apostle wrote and revealed the hidden mysteries to the world to no church so mystically. Now, therefore, supported by the help of your prayers and those of holy Marcella, that I dictate the third, that is the last book on that epistle, it seems just to me that I should teach how the etymology of the name corresponds to the meaning which I expounded above.

Original letter:

Prologus. Si quidquam est, Paula et Eustochium, quod in hac vita sapientem virum teneat, et inter pressuras et turbines mundi aequo animo manere persuadeat, id esse vel primum reor, meditationem et scientiam Scripturarum. Cum enim a caeteris animantibus hoc vel maxime differamus, quod rationale animal sumus et loqui possumus: ratio autem omnis et sermo divinis libris contineatur, per quos et Deum discimus, et quare creati sumus non ignoramus: miror quosdam exstitisse, qui aut ipsi se inertiae et somno dantes, nolint quae praeclara sunt discere: aut caeteros, qui id studii habent, reprehendendos putent. Quibus cum possim districtius respondere, et breviter eos vel offensos dimittere, vel placatos, multo esse melius Scripturas legere, quam augendis et cumulandis opibus inhiare: illud dicam, quod vel apud iniquissimum judicem obtineam, placere mihi otium meum, et solitudinem omni celebritate jucundiorem videri. Et quomodo ego non reprehendo, non damno quod faciunt: ita illos ineptias meas mihi debere concedere. Parum eloquens sum, quid ad te? disertiorem lege. Non digne Graeca in Latinum transfero: aut Graecos lege (si ejusdem linguae habes scientiam); aut si tantum Latinus es, noli de gratuito munere judicare, et, ut vulgare proverbium est: Equi dentes inspicere donati. Numquid te manu conserta in jus traho, quia nostra non scribas [Forte legas]? Me imperitior quisque lecturus est: tua forsitan dicta si scripseris, Tullius admirabitur. Numquid aut Tertullianus beatum Martyrem Cyprianum, aut Cyprianus Lactantium, aut Lactantius Hilarium deterruit a scribendo? Taceo de caeteris minutalibus, qui mecum in libris suis garriunt. Nisi et parva fuerint, magna eminere non possunt. Primum non dicitur, nisi secundum sequatur et tertium. Ad summa non scandimus, nisi per 539-540 ima gradiamur. Quamobrem obsecro tam vos quae in praesentiarum estis, quam sanctam Marcellam, unicum viduitatis exemplar, ne facile maledicis et invidis opuscula mea tradatis: neque detis sanctum canibus, et margaritas mittatis ante porcos (Matth. VII). Qui cum bona imitari non queant, quod solum facere possunt, invident: et in eo se doctos eruditosque arbitrantur, si de aliis detrahant. Quibus obsecro respondeatis, ut figant ipsi stylum, tria ut dicitur verba conjungant, sudent paululum, experiantur semetipsos, et ex labore proprio discant ignoscere laborantibus. Scitis enim et ipsae quod ad hoc me explanationum opus, invitum et retractantem compuleritis. Non quo ab adolescentia, aut legere umquam, aut doctos viros ea quae nesciebam interrogare cessaverim, et meipsum tantum, ut plerique, habuerim magistrum. Denique nuper ob hanc vel maxime causam Alexandriam perrexi, ut viderem Didymum, et ab eo in Scripturis omnibus quae habebam dubia sciscitarer. Sed cum aliud sit proprios libros componere, verbi gratia, de avaritia, et de fide, de virginitate, de viduis, et super unaquaque materia testimoniis Scripturarum hinc inde quaesitis eloquentiam jungere saecularem, et pene in communibus locis pompaticum jactare sermonem: aliud in sensum prophetae et apostoli ingredi, intelligere cur scripserint, qua sententiam suam ratione firmaverint, quid habeant in veteri Lege proprium Idumaei, Moabitae, Ammonitae, Tyrii, Philistiim, Aegyptii, et Assyrii; quid rursum in novo Testamento Romani, Corinthii, Galatae, Philippenses, Thessalonicenses, Hebraei, Colossenses, et quam nunc ad Ephesios Epistolam habemus in manibus. Necesse est enim, ut juxta diversitates locorum et temporum, et hominum, quibus scriptae sunt, diversas et causas, et argumenta, et origines habeant. Et quomodo beatus Joannes in Apocalypsi sua ad septem scribens Ecclesias, in unaquaque earum specialia, vel vitia reprehendit, vel virtutes probat: ita et sanctus apostolus Paulus per singulas Ecclesias vulneribus medetur illatis, nec ad instar imperiti medici uno collyrio omnium oculos vult curare. Et quia jam ad Galatas, orantibus vobis, ante paucos dies quid nobis videretur, expressimus: nunc ad Ephesios transeundum est, mediam Apostoli epistolam, ut ordine ita et sensibus. Mediam autem dico, non quo primas sequens, extremis major sit; sed quomodo cor animalis in medio est: ut ex hoc intelligatis quantis difficultatibus, et quam profundis quaestionibus involuta sit. Scribebat ad Ephesios Dianam colentes non hanc venatricem, quae arcum tenet, atque succincta est, sed illam multimammiam quam Graeci vocant, ut scilicet ex ipsa quoque effigie, mentirentur omnium eam bestiarum et viventium esse nutricem. Scribebat autem ad metropolim Asiae civitatem, in qua ita idololatria, et quod semper idololatriam sequitur, artium magicarum praestigiae viguerant, ut Demetrius diceret, et magnae deae templum Dianae in nihilum reputabitur, destruetur quoque magnitudo ejus, quam cuncta Asia et universus orbis colit (Act. XIX, 27). Denique triennio ibi Apostolus moratus est, nocte et die Dei Evangelium praedicans, ut, idololatriae arce destructa, facile minorum urbium templa caperentur. Hoc ipsum Scriptura refert quomodo Paulus ad Ephesios sermocinetur, dicens: Quapropter vigilate, recordantes quia triennio nocte ac die non cessavi cum lacrymis monere unumquemque vestrum: et nunc commendo vos Deo, et verbo gratiae ejus, qui potens est aedificare et dare vobis haereditatem in sanctificatis omnibus (Act. XX, 31, 32). Indigebant enim commendatione Apostoli ad Deum, quos tanto tempore daemonum error tenuerat, et sciebant esse spirituales aliquas potestates, et in extis atque auguriis et divinationibus quamdam similitudinem divinitatis agnoverant. Unde rursum ad eos loquitur: Propter quod contestor vos in die hac, quia mundus sum ego a sanguine omnium. Non enim subtraxi quo minus annuntiarem vobis omnem voluntatem Dei. Et in alio [Al. eodem] loco: Quomodo nihil subtraxerim eorum quae vobis proderant, quin annuntiarem, et docerem publice et domestice (Ibid., 20). Legerat in Ezechiele (Ibid., 26, 27), quod speculator qui populo hostium non praedixisset adventum, sanguis civium exigeretur de manibus ejus, et propterea omnem se voluntatem Dei, et universa quae illis utilia forent annuntiasse memoravit, ut liber esset a sanguine eorum. Ut autem sciatis eos qui in Epheso crediderant, daemoniacis praestigiis et magiae fuisse artibus obligatos, in eisdem Apostolorum Actibus replicatur, et dicitur: Plurimi quoque eorum qui curiosa gesserant, comportantes libros, combusserunt coram omnibus, et computaverunt pretium eorum, et invenerunt argenti quinquaginta millia: sic potenter verbum Domini crescebat, et confortabatur (Act. XIX, 19). Haec idcirco universa replicavimus, ut ostenderemus quare Apostolus in hac vel potissimum Epistola obscuros sensus et ignota saeculis sacramenta congesserit: et de sanctarum contrariarumque virtutum docuerit potestate: qui sint daemones, quid valeant, quid ante fuerint, et quomodo post adventum Christi sunt diruti atque destructi. De quibus ait: Non est nobis pugna adversum carnem et sanguinem, sed adversum principatus et potestates: adversus rectores tenebrarum istarum: adversum spiritualia nequitiae in coelestibus (Ephes. VI, 12). Et in alio loco: Permanebo autem Ephesi usque ad Pentecosten. Ostium enim mihi apertum est magnum, et efficax; sed adversarii multi (I Cor. XVI, 8, 9). Per mansit autem Ephesi usque ad Pentecosten, tempus laetitiae atque victoriae, quo non flectimus genua, nec curvamur in terram: sed cum Domino resurgentes ad coelorum alta sustollimur. Et permansit: quia apertum ei erat ostium, et non ostium modicum, sed magnum, ut vincto forti atque superato, domum ejus invaderet, spoliaret, everteret, et captivam duceret captivitatem (Matth. XII): qui satellitum suorum agminibus congregatis, tota contra Apostolum acie dimicavit, et victus est. Qui sint autem Ephesii, et hinc vel maxime comprobatur, quod sicut Joannes mysterium nativitatis antiquae Domini relaturus, in pectus ejus recubuit, et de purissimo fonte hausit rivulum doctrinarum (Joan. XIII et XXI): ita et hi in abeuntis Pauli collum ruentes (Actor. 20), osculis atque complexibus suis indicaverunt unum se cum eo scientiae habere thesaurum, et magistri desiderium lacrymis contestati sunt. Illud quoque in praefatione commoneo, ut sciatis Origenem tria volumina in hanc Epistolam conscripsisse, quem et nos ex parte secuti sumus. Apollinarium etiam et Didymum quosdam commentariolos edidisse, e quibus licet pauca decerpsimus, et nonnulla, quae nobis videbantur, adjecimus, sive subtraximus, ut studiosus statim in principio lector agnoscat hoc opus, vel alienum esse, vel nostrum. [...] Liber secundus: Secundum orationibus vestris, o Paula et Eustochium, ad Ephesios aggredimur librum: nova quoque Romam munuscula transmissuri. Non quod haec dignetur legere doctorum senatus, et bibliothecis veterum ascribere: sed quod sancta Marcella idipsum fieri per Epistolas flagitet. Cujus ego quotiescumque studiorum, ingenii, laboris, recordor, toties me damno inertiae, qui in monasterii solitudine constitutus, et illud praesepe contra videns, in quo vagientem parvulum festini adoravere pastores (Luc. II), id facere non possum, quod mulier nobilis inter strepentem familiam, et procurationem domus explet operis succisivis. Qua propter et illam et vos, et si quis forte lecturi sunt, in commune precor, ut sciatis me non cogitatum diu limatumque proferre sermonem: sed ad revelanda mysteria Scripturarum, uti verbis pene de trivio, et interdum per singulos dies usque ad numerum mille versuum pervenire, ut coepta in Apostolum explanatio, ipsius Pauli, cujus Epistolas conamur exponere, orationibus compleatur. [...] Liber terius: Satis abundeque, o Paula et Eustochium, de argumento Epistolae Pauli ad Ephesios, in primi libri praefatione disserui: et sparsim ubicumque occasio data est, licet breviter, ostendi quod beatus Apostolus ad nullam Ecclesiarum tam mystice scripserit et abscondita saeculis revelaverit sacramenta. Nunc ergo quoniam orationum vestrarum et sanctae Marcellae fultus auxilio, tertium, id est extremum, in eamdem Epistolam dicto librum, justum mihi videtur, ut nominis quoque ipsius etymologiam cum sensu quem supra exposui, congruere doceam.

Historical context:

This commentary, like the one on Galatians, was addressed to Paula and Eustochium and sent to Marcella, who had urged him to do it. The prologue is directed as much at Jerome's disparagers as to the women he was addressing, who as so often give him the opportunity to let off steam.

Printed source:

Commentarius in Epistolam ad Ephesios, prologus PL26 c.439-442, opening of bk.2: c.475-477; opening of bk.3: c.513-514.

Date:

387-388