A letter from Jerome (?)

Translated letter:

I. You force me, o Paula and Eustochium, or rather the love of Christ compels me, who used to speak to you in treatises, that in a new mode of speaking I compose a sermon about the Assumption of the blessed and glorious always virgin Mary for the holy virgins who are with you, using Latin eloquence for exhortation, in the manner of those who declaim to the people in churches. Which is a mode of teaching I have not yet undertaken. But since I am not able to deny whatever you demand, too much overcome by love for you, I shall attempt what you urge with the disposition of an infant, in the manner of those who stammer, who want to say whatever they hear when they can not yet fully form words. Particularly since you compel me to produce it for the simpler ones so that your holy company may have in Latin speech something for praises on that day for which there are no divine readings. Especially since the zeal of many holy fathers hammered out with admirable eloquence for many feast days what proclamations are read about her abundantly and everywhere in divine scriptures. For what else do the gospels sound than the Lord being born from the virgin Mary? and all the additional things, as long as he was in the world, they utter with divine praise. From the beginning of the holy gospel you learned that the archangel Gabriel spoke to Mary and you have read all the rest fully. You were a witness, o Paula, at the manger, when the boy was born among the rattles of a new birth, and the laments of unknowing weeping; instead of jeering, you heard a multitude of angels singing "Glory to God on high and on earth peace to men of good will," and you saw the star shining. You believed the shepherds over and above the evangelists. You saw, moreover, in a vision with your blessed eyes the three magi bearing gifts; and understanding them well you offered God the same gifts with all your vows in faith. For with them you adored God more as a boy in the manger. But perhaps you will cry out complaining that I defer what I produced for you. To which I say, if you wished to conceal what you told me before the manger, where as I witnessed you cried a good deal, you ought not to, because as I truly confess, I can not completely suppress, even if I had sworn to, the praises of Christ nor of you. Therefore let your daughters whom you nourish with milk ask you; you can disclose those things better, since I do not know if you saw their appearance or in the spirit. And you, o daughters, urge your mother with your prayers, beat at the door of the inviting friend, if somehow they might be opened to you that are closed to your mother. What more shall I say about them? You have learned all the acts of the Saviour and the services of blessed Mary, and also the deeds of [their] life from the gospel. And now what is left that you ask of the doctors? II. About the assumption of that same blessed mother of God, always virgin Mary, how she was assumed, since your prayer requests it, I absent have taken care to write for your presence, what I present offered devoutly in your absence so that your holy company on the day of such solemnity may have the gift of Latin sermon in which tender infancy can experience the sweetness of milk and think extraordinary things from trifles: how with God's favor each year this day is spent in praise and celebrated with joy. In case that apocryphal work on the passing of the virgin should have come into your hands and you accepted doubtful things as certain, which many Latins in the love of piety and zeal of reading dearly embrace, especially since nothing else can be proved for certain than that on that glorious day she left her body. Her sepulchre was shown to us in the midst of the valley of Josaphat, between mount Sion and the mount of Olives. And you, o Paula, saw with your eyes where the church was built, floored with that wondrous stone. Everyone proclaimed that she was buried there, as you know, but now the tomb is shown to be empty. I have said these things since many of our people doubt whether she was assumed with the body or left the body behind. It is not known, however, how, or at what time, or by which persons her most holy body was carried away from there or whether she was resurrected. Although several people would affirm that she was raised again and blessed with Christ to be clothed with immortality in the heavens. Which many assert about blessed John the Evangelist, her minister, to whom the Virgin was committed by Christ, since in his tomb, they say, nothing but manna was found, which was seen to flow. We do not know which of these can be taken as true. Better that we commit it all to God, to whom nothing is impossible, than boldly try to define something on our own authority which we do not know, as [we do] about those whom we believe to have been resurrected by the Lord, with the testimony of the Gospel. But whether they came back into dust of the earth, we are not certain, except that we read: "many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and they entered the holy city," that is Jerusalem, "and appeared to many" [Matth.27:52-53]. About which progress several of the doctors felt and said in their writings that the eternal resurrection was accomplished in them. But they acknowledge that there are no true witnesses except that their resurrection was true. Whence we read that St. Peter said, speaking of David as a witness, "and his tomb is with us" [Acts 2:29], as if he did not dare to say that he or his body is not with us, but only the tomb where he was laid. They say that he was resurrected and is with the other saints, and therefore his tomb is empty, as is seen of blessed Mary. What certainly happened and they try to affirm from other places in scripture, that risen again they already reign with Christ in the eternal fellowship. Which, since nothing is impossible to God, we do not deny happened to the blessed virgin Mary, though for caution, with faith preserved, it is more fitting to hold an opinion with a pious desire than to define unadvisedly what is not known without danger.

Original letter:

Cogitis me, o Paula et Eustochium, imo charitas Christi me compellit, qui vobis dudum tractatibus loqui consueveram, ut novo loquendi genere, sanctis quae vobiscum degunt virginibus, Latino utens eloquio, exhortationis gratia, sermonem faciam de Assumptione beatae et gloriosae semper Virginis Mariae, more eorum qui declamatorie in Ecclesiis solent loqui ad populum: quod utique genus docendi, necdum attigeram. Sed quia negare nequeo quidquid injungitis, nimia vestra devictus dilectione, experiar quae hortamini affectu infantium, more balbutientium, qui quaecumque audierint, fari gestiunt, cum necdum possint ad plenum verba formare: maxime, quia propter simpliciores quasque id me depromere compellitis, ut habeat sanctum collegium vestrum sermone Latino, quibus se occupet laudibus eadem die, quibusve divinis vacet lectionibus: praesertim cum et eadem in multis festivitatibus, multorum sanctorum Patrum studia, miro cuderint eloquio, quae de hac quidem uberius ubique in Scripturis divinis praedicata leguntur. Quid enim aliud sonant Evangelia, nisi Dominum nascentem ex Maria virgine? et omnia ejus incrementa, quousque fuit in mundo dumtaxat, divinis efferunt praeconiis. Porro ab exordio sancti Evangelii Gabrielem archangelum colloquentem Mariae didicistis, et deinceps reliqua omnia plenius legistis. Ad praesepe quoque, o Paula, te teste, nato puero inter crepundia novi partus, et querelas nescii ploratus, pro fescenninis, Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis: multitudinem angelorum cantantium audivisti, et radiantem stellam vidisti. Pastoribus insuper evangelizantibus credidisti. Magos praeterea tria deferentes munera, in visione beatis oculis conspexisti: ipsa eadem munera bene intelligendo votis omnibus fide Deo obtulisti. Nam et cum eisdem magis Deum puerum in praesepio adorasti. Sed forte conquesta me delatorem, qui [Al. quod] te prodiderim, clamabis. Ad quod ego: Si celatum esse volebas teste conscientia, mihi narrare ante praesepium, ubi plurimum lacrymata es, non debueras: quod ut verum fatear, Christi praeconia, etiamsi voluero adjuratus, neque tuas laudes omnino tacere queo. Idcirco tuae te interrogent filiae, quas lacte nutris: tu ea melius reserabis, quae nescio si per speciem aliquam, aut certe in spiritu vidisti. Unde vos, o filiae, pulsate matrem precibus, pulsate ad ostium invitantis amici: si quomodo tandem vobis aperiantur, quae reserata sunt matri. Verumtamen de his quid plura dicam? Omnia Salvatoris gesta, et beatae Mariae obsequia, necnon actus vitae ex Evangelio didicistis. Et nunc quid superest, ut ab aliquo doctorum requiratis? II. De Assumptione ejusdem tamen beatae Dei genitricis semperque Virginis Mariae, qualiter assumpta est, quia vestra id deposcit oratio, praesentia absens scribere vobis curavi, quae absentia praesens devotus obtuli, ut habeat sanctum Collegium vestrum in die tantae solennitatis munus Latini sermonis, in quo discat tenera infantia lactis experiri dulcedinem, et de exiguis eximia cogitare: qualiter favente Deo, per singulos annos tota haec dies expendatur in laudem, et cum gaudio celebretur: ne forte si venerit in manus vestras illud apocryphum, De Transitu ejusdem Virginis, dubia pro certis recipiatis: quod multi Latinorum pietatis amore, studio legendi charius amplectuntur: praesertim cum ex his nihil aliud experiri possit pro certo, nisi quod hodierna die gloriosa migravit a corpore. Monstratur autem sepulcrum ejus cernentibus nobis usque ad praesens in vallis Josaphat medio, quae vallis est inter montem Sion et montem Oliveti posita: quam et tu, o Paula, oculis aspexisti, ubi in ejus honore fabricata est Ecclesia miro lapide tabulata: in qua sepulta fuisse (ut scire potestis) ab omnibus ibidem praedicatur: sed nunc vacuum esse mausoleum cernentibus ostenditur. Haec idcirco dixerim, quia multi nostrorum dubitant, utrum assumpta fuerit simul cum corpore, an abierit relicto corpore. Quomodo autem, vel quo tempore, aut a quibus personis sanctissimum corpus ejus inde ablatum fuerit, vel ubi transpositum: utrumne resurrexerit, nescitur: quamvis nonnulli astruere velint eam jam resuscitatam, et beata cum Christo immortalitate in coelestibus vestiri. Quod et de beato Joanne Evangelista ejus ministro, cui virgini a Christo Virgo commissa est, plurimi asseverant: quia in sepulcro ejus (ut fertur) nonnisi manna invenitur: quod et scaturire cernitur. Verumtamen quid horum verius censeatur, ambigimus. Melius tamen Deo totum, cui nihil impossibile est, committimus, quam ut aliquid temere definire velimus auctoritate nostra, quod non probemus: sicuti et de his, quos cum Domino (Evangelio teste) resurrexisse credimus. Sed utrum redierint in pulverem terrae, certum non habemus, nisi quod legimus: Quia multa corpora sanctorum qui dormierant, surrexerunt, ac venerunt in sanctam civitatem, scilicet, Jerusalem, et apparuerunt multis (Matth. XXVII, 52, 53). De quibus profecto nonnulli doctorum senserunt, et etiam in suis reliquerunt scriptis, quod jam in illis perpetua sit completa resurrectio. Fatentur enim quod veri testes non essent, nisi et vera eorum esset resurrectio. Unde et beatus Petrus dixisse legitur, cum de David loqueretur in testimonium: Et sepulcrum, inquit, ejus apud nos est (Act. II, 23): quasi non sit ausus dicere, quod ipse, aut corpus ejus apud nos est: sed tantum sepulcrum quo conditus fuerat: hinc aiunt resurrexisse et eum cum caeteris sanctis: et ideo vacuum remansisse mausoleum, ut hunc beatae Mariae cernitur. Quod sane factum, et de aliis quibuslibet locis Scripturarum affirmare conantur: quod hi jam cum Christo regnent resuscitati in aeterna societate. Quod (quia Deo nihil est impossibile) nec nos de beata Maria Virgine factum abnuimus, quamquam propter cautelam (salva fide) pio magis desiderio opinari oporteat, quam inconsulte definire, quod sine periculo nescitur.

Historical context:

The letter seems to have been written in the 9th century by Paschasius Radbertus, who wrote it as if it were by Jerome and addressed it to Paula and Eustochium; it was apparently written for the abbess of Soissons, Theodrada, and her daughter and it was attributed to Jerome.   See Hannah W. Matis, “The Seclusion of Eustochium:  Paschasius Radbertus and the Nuns of Soissons,” Church History 85:4 (2016), 665-89.   I am endebted to Susan Boynton for alerting me to this article and this attribution.  
That Jerome was interested in the Virgin Mary is clear from his dispute with Helvidius, see J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome, His Life, Writings and Controversies (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 105-06. The letter purports to be in answer to a request from Paula and Eustochium for a sermon on the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, a mode he insists he is not comfortable with. The work has nineteen chapters, of which the two introductory chapters, directly addressed to Paula and Eustochium, are cited here.

Authenticity:

The text was written in imitation of Jerome in the ninth century.

Printed source:

S. Hieronymi Operum Mantissa, ep.9, I, II, PL30, c.122-124

Date:

?