Resultados25 letters/passages
jerome · c. 387 · score 0.02
To my lord bishop and dear brother John, Epiphanius sends greetings. It is fitting for men of our rank not to use our position as clergy as an occasion for pride, but to show by our conduct that we are what our title professes. Scripture warns us: "Their lots shall not profit them." What good, then, will our clerical s …
jerome · c. 377 · score 0.02
… deacon, I do not ask. But this I say: the very fact that they are forbidden by imperial law from receiving legacies and gifts from widows tells you everything about Roman character. It was not the church but the pagans who imposed this law. It shames me, but it is true: idol-priests, actors, charioteers, and prostitut …
jerome · c. 377 · score 0.02
I fell silent. Under the lash — for he ordered me beaten — I was tortured even more by the fire of conscience. I kept turning over in my mind the verse: "In the grave, who shall give you thanks?" [Psalm 6:5]. Yet I managed to cry out: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, have mercy on me!" My voice rang out amid the crack of the …
jerome · c. 377 · score 0.02
We are surrounded by enemies on every side. Even the apostle Paul — a chosen vessel, set apart for the gospel — kept his body in check and made it his slave, lest after preaching to others he himself should be disqualified [1 Corinthians 9:27]. And yet you think the flesh can be trusted? Paul himself confessed: "I do n …
jerome · c. 413 · score 0.02
Families that had been wealthy for generations found themselves refugees overnight. Noble women who had never walked anywhere except in a litter ended up walking across Campania with nothing. Among them were women whose entire sense of identity had been built around their social position, their marriages, their househo …
jerome · c. 376 · score 0.02
From Pope Damasus [A brief letter from Damasus to Jerome, in which the pope requests an explanation of the word "Hosanna." Written in 383 AD.]
jerome · c. 413 · score 0.01
Jerome to Gaudentius — greetings. Writing to a small child is a peculiar business. She cannot read this letter. She will not understand it for years. You have asked me to advise you on raising your daughter in consecrated virginity, and so I am addressing myself simultaneously to the child (who will read these words ev …
jerome · c. 418 · score 0.01
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, to his blessed lord and brother, dearly loved and longed for, fellow bishop Optatus — greetings in the Lord. Through the presbyter Saturninus I have received your letter, in which you earnestly ask me for what I do not yet have. You evidently believe that I have already received Jerome's rep …
jerome · c. 390 · score 0.01
There is a grief that faith allows. What faith forbids is despair. Let me tell you what Nepotian was. He was a soldier first — he served in the emperor's guard. But his heart was never in it. While other young officers spent their pay on women and horses, he gave his to the poor. He left the army, took holy orders, and …
jerome · c. 389 · score 0.01
Paulinus, "A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things" [Matthew 12:35]. You measure me by the scale of your own virtues, and because of your own greatness you magnify my littleness. You take the lowest seat at the banquet, hoping the host will bid you go higher [Luke 14:10]. What is there …
jerome · c. 395 · score 0.01
With what eagerness he sought out my poor works! He actually sent six copyists — for in this province Latin scribes are desperately scarce — to copy everything I have dictated from my youth to the present day. The honor, of course, was not paid to me, the least of all Christians, huddled in the rocks near Bethlehem bec …
jerome · c. 377 · score 0.01
Eustochium, "Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear; forget your own people and your father's house, and the king shall desire your beauty" [Psalm 45:10-11]. In this psalm, God calls the human soul to follow Abraham's example: leave your homeland, leave your kindred, leave the Chaldeans — which is to say, …
jerome · c. 387 · score 0.01
Paulinus, Our brother Ambrose, along with your generous gifts, has delivered to me a most delightful letter — one which, though it comes at the beginning of our friendship, carries the assurance of tested loyalty and long acquaintance. A true friendship cemented by Christ himself does not depend on material gifts, phys …
jerome · c. 406 · score 0.01
On learning: Let her first lessons be the names of the apostles and prophets, not the mythology of pagans. She should learn the alphabet from ivory or boxwood letters — make it a game, give prizes for correct answers, let her compete with her little playmates. When she can form words with her hands and her tongue, let …
jerome · c. 371 · score 0.01
You know that after studying together in Rome we shared the same house and the same meals on the half-savage banks of the Rhine. You know it was I who first began to seek to serve you. Remember, I beg you, that this warrior of yours was once a raw recruit alongside me. I keep before my eyes your own declaration: "Whoev …
jerome · c. 390 · score 0.01
Count the disasters of our generation: Adrianople, where an emperor and his army were swallowed by the earth [the Battle of Adrianople in 378 AD, where Emperor Valens was killed by the Visigoths]. The walls of Rome themselves are no longer a guarantee of safety. What the world outside those walls looks like, I do not n …
jerome · c. 372 · score 0.01
1 Corinthians 3:6 Jesus Christ has given her to me to console me for the wound which the devil has inflicted on her. He has restored her from death to life. But in the words of the pagan poet, for her There is no safety that I do not fear. You know yourselves how slippery is the path of youth — a path on which I have m …
jerome · c. 401 · score 0.01
The Synodical Letter of Theophilus to the Bishops of Palestine and Cyprus (Translated from the Greek into Latin by Jerome) To the well-beloved lords, brothers, and fellow bishops assembled at Aelia [Jerusalem] for the dedication festival, and to those of Cyprus: Theophilus sends greeting in the Lord. We have personally …
jerome · c. 377 · score 0.01
They eat together, pray together, work together. Nothing is privately owned. Everything is shared. The second kind are the anchorites — men who have first been trained in community and then withdraw alone into the desert, carrying nothing but bread and salt, living in remote caves, seeking God in absolute solitude. The …
jerome · c. 408 · score 0.01
Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, to his most dear and loving brother Jerome — greetings in the Lord. At first, a verdict that accords with the truth pleases only a few. But the Lord says through His prophet: "My judgment goes forth as the light" (Hosea 6:5). Those who huddle in darkness, unable to see things clearly, …
jerome · c. 376 · score 0.01
To Pope Damasus [This letter, written from Constantinople in 381 AD, is Jerome's earliest expository letter. In it he explains at length the vision recorded in Isaiah chapter 6 and elaborates on its mystical meaning. Jerome argues against those who identify "the Lord sitting upon a throne" as God the Father with the se …
jerome · c. 371 · score 0.01
Books like these, you understand, must be the food of the Christian soul if it is to meditate on the law of the Lord day and night. Other people you welcome under your roof, cherish, comfort, and support out of your own pocket. As far as I'm concerned, you will have given me everything the moment you grant this request …
jerome · c. 395 · score 0.01
3. And now that I have mentioned heresy — where can I find a trumpet loud enough to proclaim the eloquence of our dear Lucinius? When the filthy heresy of Basilides raged in Spain like a pestilence ravaging every province between the Pyrenees and the ocean, Lucinius upheld the faith of the Church in all its purity and …
jerome · c. 387 · score 0.01
But in return, I ask you to examine your own conscience on the matter of Origen [the controversial third-century theologian whose teachings on the pre-existence of souls and universal salvation were increasingly condemned]. Do you or do you not hold Origen's doctrines? If you do, you are in error. If you do not, say so …
jerome · c. 418 · score 0.01
… to fight a different kind of battle — one that offers no pay, no promotion, no imperial approval, and (I will be honest with you) no comfortable bed. But the enemy, when you have finally defeated him, stays defeated.