Resultados25 letters/passages
jerome · c. 390 · score 0.02
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. 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. 412 · score 0.02
Her particular service to the Church — and I say this deliberately, because the Church in Rome does not recognize it and should — was in the Origenist controversy. When Rufinus's translations began circulating at Rome, and when fashionable households started treating Origen's allegorizing speculation as the latest inte …
jerome · c. 390 · score 0.02
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. 395 · score 0.02
Letter 76: To Abigaus (c. 399 AD) [Abigaus was a blind priest from Baetica (southern Spain) who had asked for Jerome's prayers in his spiritual struggles. Jerome writes to encourage and console him, and commends to his special care the widow Theodora.] 1. Though I am conscious of many sins and pray daily on bended knee …
jerome · c. 377 · score 0.02
I cannot pass over the men who haunt the houses of noblewomen, hunting for legacies. Their entire concern is their wardrobe and their perfume. You would think they were suitors, not clergymen. Some make a profession of knowing about medicines and visit sick women with suspicious frequency. Others have given up public p …
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. 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
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. 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. 376 · score 0.01
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. 420 · score 0.01
Letter 149: On the Jewish Festivals [This letter argues that Jewish religious festivals have been superseded by the New Covenant. However, it has no legitimate claim to be considered a work of Jerome and is widely regarded as spurious. Its inclusion in the collection reflects the common ancient practice of attaching an …
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 …
jerome · c. 371 · score 0.01
Finally the truth broke through in full force, as a steady stream of travelers confirmed it: Rufinus is at Nitria. He has reached the community of the blessed Macarius. At that point I abandoned all my doubts and then -- only then -- genuinely cursed being ill. If my wasted, broken-down body hadn't held me back, neithe …
jerome · c. 372 · score 0.01
Letter 8: To Niceas, Sub-Deacon of Aquileia (374 AD) [Niceas had accompanied Jerome to the East but returned home. He later became bishop of Aquileia. This is a light, playful scolding of a friend who won't write back.] The comic poet Turpilius [a 2nd-century BC Roman playwright] says that the exchange of letters is th …
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. 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. 371 · score 0.01
To Rufinus the Monk That God gives more than we ask of him, and that he often grants us things "which eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither have they entered into the heart of man" -- I knew this before from the sacred Scriptures. But now, my dearest Rufinus, I have living proof of it. I who thought it wildly optimis …
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. 386 · score 0.01
Letter 49: To Pammachius (393 AD) [Jerome encloses his previous letter (Letter 48, the treatise Against Jovinian) and thanks Pammachius for his efforts to suppress Jerome's intemperate polemic — but declares those efforts useless, since the work is already in circulation. He then urges Pammachius to study the Scripture …
jerome · c. 372 · score 0.01
Her womb may thus be truly called golden. With her I salute your sisters, who ought all to be welcomed wherever they go, for they have triumphed over their sex and the world, and await the Bridegroom's coming, Matthew 25:4 their lamps replenished with oil. O happy the house which is a home of a widowed Anna, of virgins …
jerome · c. 391 · score 0.01
Letter 65: To Principia, On Psalm 45 (397 AD) [A commentary on Psalm 45 addressed to Principia, the friend and companion of the aristocratic Marcella. Jerome prefaces his exegesis with a pointed defense of his practice of writing for women — a habit that had drawn sneers from his critics. He addresses the same subject …
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. 395 · score 0.01
Letter 75: To Theodora (399 AD, Bethlehem) [Jerome writes to console Theodora on the death of her husband Lucinius, a wealthy Spaniard who had been a devoted student of Scripture and a fierce opponent of the Gnostic heresy of Marcus in Spain. Jerome praises Lucinius's virtues, his generosity to the churches of Jerusale …
jerome · c. 377 · score 0.01
Do not wander about looking for the Bridegroom in the public squares. Even if you have crucified the flesh and can say, "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me" [Galatians 2:20], do not be overconfident. No one carries a flame through a field of stubble and expects to stay safe. And now I must tell you about the dre …