Resultados25 letters/passages
jerome · c. 375 · score 0.02
… ion owed to the sheep. Away with all pomp and circumstance — let the majesty of imperial Rome stand aside. I am speaking to the successor of the fisherman, the disciple of the cross. Following no leader but Christ, I am in communion with no one but Your Blessedness — that is, with the chair of Peter. I know this is the …
jerome · c. 375 · score 0.02
The tireless enemy follows me close, and the assaults I suffer in the desert are fiercer than ever. The Arian madness rages, and the powers of this world back it. The church here is split into three factions, and each one is eager to claim me. The monks' hostility is long-standing, and it is directed squarely at me. Me …
jerome · c. 396 · score 0.02
… le will say I am not consoling a widow but trying to ingratiate myself with the imperial court. Let me answer that charge before it is made. "You shall not respect the person of the poor" [Leviticus 19:15], the commandment says — meaning that justice does not change with the status of the person involved. Wealth need n …
jerome · c. 413 · score 0.02
13. Again in selecting for yourself eunuchs and maids and servingmen look rather to their characters than to their good looks; for, whatever their age or sex, and even if mutilation ensures in them a compulsory chastity, you must take account of their dispositions, for these cannot be operated on save by the fear of Ch …
jerome · c. 413 · score 0.02
The apostle too tells us that covetousness is idolatry, Ephesians 5:5 and to one who asked the Lord the question: Good Master what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? He thus replied: If you will be perfect, go and sell that you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come …
jerome · c. 374 · score 0.02
The clergy feed Christ's sheep; I, as a monk, am fed by them. They live from the altar [1 Corinthians 9:13-14]; if I bring nothing to it, the axe is already laid to my root as to a barren tree [Matthew 3:10]. I may not sit in the presence of a priest. He, if I sin, may hand me over to Satan "for the destruction of the …
jerome · c. 374 · score 0.01
Consider Peter — but remember Judas too. Look at Stephen — but look also at Nicolas, condemned in Revelation by the Lord's own voice [Revelation 2:6], whose vile fantasies spawned the Nicolaitan heresy. "Let a man examine himself, and so let him come" [1 Corinthians 11:28]. It is not rank in the church that makes a man …
jerome · c. 374 · score 0.01
If you are not perfect, you have deceived the Lord. The Gospel thunders its warning: "You cannot serve two masters" [Luke 16:13]. Does anyone dare make Christ a liar by trying to serve both God and Mammon? He says it again and again: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me …
jerome · c. 374 · score 0.01
Letter 12: To Antony, a Monk (374 AD) [Another letter to a friend who won't write back. Jerome's frustration is obvious — he claims to have sent ten unanswered letters.] While the disciples were arguing about who was greatest, our Lord, the teacher of humility, took a small child and said: "Unless you turn and become l …
jerome · c. 375 · score 0.01
If their belief matches their explanation, I don't condemn them for holding it. But if my belief matches their stated position, they should let me express their meaning in my own words. 5. I implore Your Blessedness, therefore — by the crucified Savior of the world and by the consubstantial Trinity — to authorize me by …
jerome · c. 413 · score 0.01
Examine their work when it is done, find fault with its defects, and arrange how much they are to do. If you busy yourself with these numerous occupations, you will never find your days long; however late the summer sun may be in setting, a day will always seem too short on which something remains undone. By observing …
jerome · c. 393 · score 0.01
My advice: follow the practice of the church you belong to. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" — or as my teacher Ambrose put it more precisely: "When I am at Rome, I fast on Saturday; when I am at Milan, I do not. Follow the custom of whatever church you attend." You also ask about receiving the Eucharist. Should one …
jerome · c. 411 · score 0.01
Both of them, in giving up the world, found that they had not lost themselves but finally discovered who they actually were. Come to Palestine. I do not mean this as a vague pious suggestion. I mean: pack your things, leave, and come here. The church in Bethlehem, the holy places, the community of monks and consecrated …
jerome · c. 390 · score 0.01
Your own explanation of this passage was so staggeringly ignorant that I hardly know where to begin. You took a text that the entire church has always understood as referring to Christ and turned it into something else entirely — and then accused me of heterodoxy. The irony is exquisite. Here is what I will say to you …
jerome · c. 377 · score 0.01
… 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. 413 · score 0.01
When Jesus was crowned with thorns and bore our sins and suffered for us, it was to make the roses of virginity and the lilies of chastity grow for us out of the brambles and briers which have formed the lot of women since the day when it was said to Eve, in sorrow you shall bring forth children; and your desire shall …
jerome · c. 372 · score 0.01
Here where I am, I'm ignorant not just of what's happening in my homeland but of whether it still exists. Even if some venomous critic tears at me with his poisonous fangs, I won't fear the judgment of men when I have God as my judge. As someone once said: "Shatter the world to pieces if you will -- it falls upon a hea …
augustine_hippo · c. 398 · score 0.01
When you conquer, I too shall conquer, if I come to understand my error; and conversely, when I conquer, you prevail, for parents store up treasure for children, not children for parents. Let us then respond to everything, and — if Christ commands — resolve these many questions in brief discourse. You say you received …
augustine_hippo · c. 398 · score 0.01
I received three letters at once — or rather three short treatises — from your Dignity through the deacon Cyprian, containing what you call various questions but what I perceive to be criticisms of my works. If I wished to respond to everything, a book-length volume would be needed. Still, I shall try not to exceed the …
jerome · c. 387 · score 0.01
You would sooner take them for bridegrooms than for clergy. Some of them devote their entire lives to learning the names, the houses, and the habits of wealthy matrons. Let me sketch for you — briefly, since this letter is already long — one specimen of this type. He rises with the sun, maps out the order of his mornin …
augustine_hippo · c. 398 · score 0.01
Jerome to Augustine, greetings. I have received — at last, and by a roundabout route — letters that are said to be from you. I say "said to be" because they reached me not through any messenger you sent but through copies that were circulating in Rome and elsewhere before I ever saw them myself. Imagine my surprise at …
jerome · c. 377 · score 0.01
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. 374 · score 0.01
You believe in Christ — then believe his words too: "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you" [Matthew 6:33]. Take no bag, no staff. The man who is poor with Christ is rich enough. 2. But what am I doing, pestering you again with entreaties? Enough coaxing! Rejected love has every right …
jerome · c. 409 · score 0.01
Paulinus of Nola, consul's son and heir to one of the great estates of Gaul, abandoned everything and went to live on almost nothing, devoting the rest of his life to God and to caring for the poor. These are not stories of eccentric ascetics. They are stories of men who understood that when everything is stripped away …
jerome · c. 377 · score 0.01
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 …