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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
These comments start, as they must, from the text of I. Hilberg in the Vienna corpus.1 This was the first properly critical edition of the Letters,and has not been superseded. It is, however, not without its limitations. In establishing his text Hilberg considered only a few MSS for each letter: for epist.1, seven, and for epist.107, six, in one of which (B)the letter is represented twice, though in neither case is it complete.Hilberg promised a volume of prolegomena and indices to accompany his text;2 but it seems that he died before it could appear, and we do not know how he assessed his MSS, or how many he consulted before making his choice.What we do know is that those on which he relied form a very small proportion of those which exist.B.Lambert′s catalogue of Jerome MSS3 lists 138 for epist.1 and 145 for epist.107, of which ten and thirteen respectively are dated ninth-to-tenth-century or earlier - and Lambert is well aware that his list cannot pretend to be exhaustive.4 Furthermore, there is some reason to doubt the accuracy of the collations which form the basis of Hilberg′s edition.5 It is evident that much work remains to be done before a definitive edition can be produced.Meanwhile Hilberg′s text is the best we have, and where I cite MSS I follow the readings of his apparatus criticus.6 The phrase ‘the MSS’ refers, in this article, only to those which Hilberg utilised.
1 Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL) 54–6 (3 vols., Vindobonae et Lipsiae, 1910–18).
2 Cf.CSEL 56, preface.
3 Bibliotheca Hieronymiana manuscripta: la tradition manuscrite des oeuvres de saint Jerome(Instrumenta patristica 4; 4 vols., Steenbrugis, 1969–72).
4 Cf.vol.1, pp.vii-viii.Indeed, he even misses some MSS in the British Library and the Bodleian; e.g., for epist.107, British Library MSS Royal 6 C.XI, 6 D.I, 6 D.II, and 6 D.Ill, and Bodleian MS Bodl.702.Google Scholar
5 Stewart Z.An Eighth-Century Fragment of Jerome′, HLB 4 1950,254–8, and ‘Insular Script without Insular Abbreviations: a Problem in Eighth-Century Palaeography’, Speculum 25 (1950), 483–90, examines the fragmentary MS m which Hilberg used in establishing his text of epist.60.The fact that Stewart detects two certain errors and at least one important oversight in the collation of this MS, which witnesses to only a couple of pages of the letter, must undermine confidence in Hilberg′s text as a whole.
6 I have not personally inspected the MSS employed by Hilberg, and have been obliged on occasion to infer the readings of particular MSS where they are not made explicit in his apparatus.It is, for example, reasonable to infer that at epist.1.8.2 all the MSS except sread tertius ictus,though it cannot be held certain that where a MS is not mentioned as supporting a given variant it must support the text.
7 Letter1 (e),with n.23; Letter107 (a),with n.28, (c), (d), (h),with n.37, and (k),with n.40.
8 For a recent demonstration involving late-antique texts see Hall, R.G. and S.M.Oberhelman,‘ Rhythmical Clausulae in the Codex Theodosianus and the Leges Novellae ad Theodosium Pertinemes’, CQ 35(1985),211–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 There are two major studies, both grossly inadequate:Knook, P.C.,De overgang van metrisch tot rythmisch proza bij Cyprianus en Hieronymus(Purmerend,1932), and M.C.Herron A Study of the Clausulae of St.Jerome (Catholic University of America Patristic Studies 51; Washington, 1937).Knook′s conclusions about Jerome′s attention to rhythm, based on his own statistics, are roundly criticised by H.Hagendahl, Gnomon 15 (1939), 84–9.Herron′s work suffers principally from her failure, in examining clausulae from the metrical viewpoint, to take proper account of the critical notion of relative frequencies established by A.W.de Groot, A Handbook of Antique Prose-Rhythm: 1 (The Hague, 1919).We are in great need of detailed and methodologically sound investigations of the rhythmical practices of both Jerome and other writers of the period.The benefits of such studies would not be confined to the textual-critical field.Google Scholar
10 Or possibly late 374.Cf.my article ‘Jerome, Antioch, and the Desert: a Note on Chronology’, JThS37 (1986), 117–21.Google Scholar
11 ‘Textkritisches zu den Briefen des Hieronymus’, MH30 (1973), 56.Google Scholar
12 sacramentumis a complex word which has been much discussed: see in particular J.de Ghellinck, E.de Backer, J.Poukens, and G.Lebacqz, Pour I′histoire du mot ′sacramentum′: 1, les Anleniceens(Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense 3; Louvain and Paris, 1924), and C.Mohrmann, ‘Sacramentum dans les plus anciens textes Chretiens’, HThR47 (1954), 141–52 (= Mohrmann, Etudes sur le latin des chretiens(Storia e letteratura 65, 87, 103, 143; 4 vols., Roma, 1958–77), 1.233–44).Mohrmann is highly sensitive to the different nuances of the word in early Christian Latin, and warns against over-rigid classification of its usages (HThR,p.151, = Etudes,pp.242–3).It is, however, impossible in an English translation to represent satisfactorily both of its predominant semantic elements: the notion of sacrumand that of arcanumor mysterium.
13 Which is implicit throughout the letter and made explicit at c.11 stat victima Christo tantum favente munita.
14 Cf.his apparatus.
15 As at 6.2.
16 So I.Martianay, Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Stridonensis presbyteri operum tomus quartus(Parisiis, apud Ludovicum Roulland, 1706) (the fourth volume of five covering the complete works, 1693–1706), and D.Vallarsi, in J.-P.Migne′s Patrologia Latina 22 (Migne reprinted, in nine volumes (PL 22–30), Vallarsi′s complete, eleven-volume, Venice edition of 1766–72; his first edition, also in eleven volumes, was published at Verona, 1734–42).The other important pre-Hilberg editions of Jerome′s Letterswere those of D.Erasmus (complete works, 9 vols., apud Inclytam Basileam, 1516; the Letterswere more conveniently available to me in Opus Epistolarum dhi Hieronymi Stridonensis(3 vols., apud Inclytam Basileam, 1524), which I have followed) and M.Victorius, Epistolae d.Hieronymi, Stridonensis, et libri contra haereticos(3 vols., Romae, apud Paulum Manutium, 1564–5) (the first three volumes of nine, 1564–72).Where I use the phrase ‘the earlier editors’ all four are meant.
17 In a recent article, ‘Nota ad Hieron., Ep.1,8’, Koinonia4 (1980), 101–14, F.Capponi proposed a different solution: iam igitur el tertius ictus sacramentum (non) frustraverat trinitatis.But Capponi′s arguments against tertium ictumand in favour of this rather desperate emendation are unconvincing, and I do not propose to offer a detailed refutation here.
18 To convey better the idea of the fierceness of the lions and the sort of danger to be expected from them, Jerome makes orathe subject of timueruntin a kind of synecdoche, orais of course a particularly appropriate word to use in connection with praedam suam.
19 Saint Jerome: Lettres(8 vols., Paris, 1949–63), 1.6 (‘aupres de qui’).
20 Select Letters of St.Jerome(Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1933), 13 (‘before whom’).
21 misericordiamis not conjectural,as Capponi (n.24), p.156, appears to believe.
22 I do not understand why misericordiashould be an inappropriate word to use for this action (so Capponi,).
23 Op.cit.1.7, 161; better than his alternative suggestion, misericordia domini celerior tune nox advenit(1.7), which renders celaturaand celeraturaless explicable as corruptions, and is rhythmically poor.The phrase matura noxis also used by Jerome at vita Malchi6.
24 ‘Nota ieronimiana’, Maia33 (1981)..155–7.
25 For the date cf.Kelly, J.N.D. , Jerome: his Life, Writings, and Controversies(London, 1975), 273, with whom I am in agreement.Google Scholar
26 For Laeta see A.H.M.Jones, J.R.Martindale, and J.Morris, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, 1: AD 260–395(Cambridge, 1971), 492, and Paulys Real-Encyclopddie,edd.A.F.von Pauly and G.Wissowa (Stuttgart, 1894-) (RE),s.n.Laetus 1; for Toxotius, Jones, p.921, and REs.n.Toxotius3; for Paula, Jones, p.675.
27 Publilius Ceionius Caecina Albinus, for whom see Jones, pp.34–5, and REs.n.Ceionius30.
28 I.e.the transposition of the words and the insertion of et.To read nutriret senexis to suppose, equally, that two errors lie behind the reading of B(transposition, senesfor senex),but this is a much later MS (twelfth century); and only one error needs to be supposed in Dand the original reading of Z.Considerations of rhythm are unhelpful in this case, where they might have been of use.First, in this chapter as a whole Jerome displays little interest in rhythm.Secondly, the evidence of the passage itself is equivocal.Metrically gremio nutriret senex -molossus cretic - gives a better clausula, in this emphatic position, than gremid senex nutrirh(double spondee).On the other hand, senex nutriretis superior accentually (planus).
29 Cf.Jones, op.cit.399.He is probably to be identified with one Furius Maccius (or Maecius) Gracchus; cf.Jones, p.400,Syme, R., Ammianus and the Historia Augusta(Oxford, 1968), 162–3.Google Scholar
30 R.Kiihner and C.Stegmann, Ausfuhrliche Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache, zweiter Teil: Satzlehre(2nd edn., 2 vols., Hannover, 1912–14), 1.22–5, supply many examples of a singular collective noun followed by a plural verb or participle.What is unusual in the present case is that the noun first takes a singular verb (circumfert).31 The main connection seems to be that, although the Biblical account of John′s birth (Luke 1.15–25) contains no explicit indication that John, like Paula (cf.(a)above), was born de repromissione,Jerome believed this to have been the case; cf.3.2, where Jerome closely associates John with Samuel and Samson, both of whom fell into this category (cf.1 Sam.1.1–20, (for Samson) Jer.adv.lovin.2.15).It is also apparent that Jerome regarded him as a highly suitable model for the ascetic life.
32 Jerome is fond of describing the camel as tortuosus;cf.epist.79.3.2, 120.1.8, in Is.21.6.The notion that the camel′s-hair coat has this symbolic value belongs not to Scripture but to symbolic and allegorical exegesis.Jerome makes a similar comment at in Matt.3.4 ‘zona autem pellicia qua accinctus fuit et Helias [cf.2 Kgs.1.8] mortificationis avupoXouest’.
33 Cf.1 Sam.2.12–36.For episcopus...non subditoscf.1 Tim.3.1–7, esp.4 ‘filios habentem subditos cum omni castitate [sc.oportet episcopum esse]’; the parallelism between the OT priesthood, here typified by Eli, and the episcopate of the early Church is first witnessed to by 1 Clement40–4, written near the end of the first century.
34 The Vulgate translation, which for 1 Tim.is almost certainly not Jerome′s work (cf.e.g.H.F.D.Sparks, ‘Jerome as Biblical Scholar’, The Cambridge History of the Bible, I: from the Beginnings to Jerome,edd.P.R.Ackroyd and C.F.Evans (Cambridge, 1970), 519–20), is permanserint,though here too a number of MSS have the singular form.
35 It is, I suppose, even possible that generatiowas held to be the subject, as though per filiorum generationem= διά τής τεκνγονίας referred not to the act of producing offspring but to the offspring themselves.
36 For other instances of the notion cf.e.g.Pers.3.56–7, 5.34, Auson.comm.prof.Burd.11.5, tech.13.9, Serv.Aen.6.136, 295, 477, Jer.epist.66.11.2 ‘Loth, quod interpretatur declinans, campestria eligat et iuxta Pythagorae litteram facilia magis et sinistra et peritura sectetur; tu in arduis et saxosis cum Sarra tibi monumentum para’, and the poem of Maximinus, no.632 in Anlhologia Latina1.2, ed.A.Riese (2nd edn., Lipsiae, 1906).The idea of the two ways itself is at least as old as Hesiod; cf.Op.287–92.
37 The singular also results in an improved clausula (cretic tribrach against molossus tribrach), though in this part of the letter Jerome is writing with less attention to metre than to accent, which is unaffected by the change proposed.
38 Cf.cc.8, 10.Fasting, and abstinence from certain kinds of food, were held by the Fathers to counteract lust, and thus to be particularly important for virgins; equally, as satiety was believed to blunt the mind (cf.e.g.Jer.epist.52.11.1, adv.Iovin.2.12), fasting was regarded as a good preparation for the essential ascetic activities of prayer and study.
39 Op.cit.5.153.He is in some doubt, however, suggesting at 5.212 ‘un certain nombre de lignes’ as an alternative, though without explicitly proposing a punctuation change.
40 Which also disposes of cotidie pensum B.
41 I should like to thank Mr L.D.Reynolds, Professor P.G.Walsh, Dr M.Winterbottom, and CQ′sanonymous referee for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.