N.T., and church teachers of East and West up to Jerome's own time, and even men accounted heretics and non-Christians like Seneca, whose works were of importance to the progress of human thought.
The letter which Jerome wrote in the name of Paula and Eustochium to Marcella at Rome (Ep. xlvi.), the only letter preserved from these first six years, expresses an enthusiastic view of their privileges in reading the Scriptures in the tongue and country in which they were written. The crowds who came from all parts seem to them to be so many choirs, engaged in services of praise, each in their own tongue. The very ploughmen chant Hallelujahs. Far from the Babylon of Rome, they associate with the saints of Scripture and find in the holy places the gate of heaven. This view of Palestine is always present to Jerome, however much he has to confess the actual secularization of Jerusalem (lviii. 4); and it makes his Biblical work not merely one of learning but of piety.
Second Period, 393–404.—Private letters of Jerome abound during this period, and illustrate his personal history.
To this period belong the many external difficulties at Bethlehem already mentioned. During almost the whole of 398 Jerome was ill, and again in 404–405 (lxxiv. 6, cxiv. 1). He was disturbed also by the controversy or schism between the monks of Bethlehem and the bp. of Jerusalem; and an injury to his hand prevented his writing. Poverty was also overtaking him. Paula had spent her fortune in lavish charity, and Jerome sent his brother Paulinianus to their former home to sell the remains of their property to support the monasteries (lxvi. 14). The sad quarrel between Jerome and Rufinus began in 394; see under the controversies (infra) which occupied so much of this period.
Commentaries.—Jerome had begun his commentaries on the Minor Prophets in 391 (de Vir. Ill. 135); they form four books, and were published at long intervals up to 406. In 397 he wrote his commentary on Matthew, the last on the N.T. It was finished, with great haste and eagerness (Ep. lxxiii. 10), in Lent 398, as he was recovering from an illness. After a long interval the commentary on Isaiah followed, and thereafter he wrote upon the Great Prophets only.
The Vulgate.—That which we now call the Vulgate, and which is in the main the work of Jerome, was during his life the Bible of the learned and only by degrees won general acceptance. The editio vulgata in previous use was a loose translation from the LXX, almost every copy varying. Jerome had begun very early to read the O.T. in Gk. Here the same difficulty met him. The LXX version was confronted, in Origen's Hexapla, with those of Theodotion, Aquila, and Symmachus, and with two others called Quinta and Sexta. Where they differed, who was to decide? This question is asked by Jerome as early as the preface to the Chronicle of Eusebius (381) and was constantly repeated in defence of his translation. He seems to have distinctly contemplated this work from the moment of his settlement at Bethlehem, and a great deal of the labour of his first years there may be regarded as preliminary to it. It was begun within the first few years. But, in so elaborate a work, it was impossible that the first copies should be perfect. It is probable that the whole, or larger part, was gone through at an early date and given to his friends or the public after a more mature revision, according as his health or courage allowed. He distinctly purposed to publish it from the first. Yet the actual publication was made in a fragmentary and hesitating manner. At times he speaks of portions as extorted from him by the earnest requests of his friends (pref. to Gen. vol. ix. etc.). Some parts he represents as done in extreme haste; the books of Solomon as the work of three days (pref. in vol. ix. col. 1307); Tobit and Judith were each that of a single day. He shews in his prefaces extreme sensitiveness to attacks upon his work, and speaks of it often as an ungrateful task. Of the Apocrypha he translated only parts, and these very cursorily (pref. to Tobit, vol. x.), doubtless because of his comparative indifference to the Apocrypha, his opinion of which is quoted in Art. vi. of the 39 Articles, from the preface to the Books of Solomon (vol. ix. ed. 1308). Samuel and Kings were published first, then Job and the Prophets, then Ezra, Nehemiah and Genesis. All these were finished in or before 393; but here occurred a break, due partly, no doubt, to unsettlement and panic caused by the invasion of the Huns in 395. In 396 the work was resumed at the entreaty of Chromatius and Heliodorus, who sent him money to support the necessary helpers (pref. to Books of Solomon). The Books of Solomon were them completed (398) and the preface indicates an intention to continue the work more systematically. But the ill-feeling excited by his translation made him unwilling to continue, and his long illness in 398 intervened. He tells Lucinius that he had then given his servants the whole except the Octateuch to copy (Ep. xlix. 4). But, from whatever cause, the work was not resumed till 403–404, in which years the remainder was completed, namely, the last four books of Moses, Joshua and Judges, Ruth and Esther. His friends collected the translations into one volume, and the title of Vulgate, which had hitherto applied to the version before in use (pref. to Ezk. vol. ix. col. 995, pref. to Esther, vol. ix. 1503), in time came to belong to an edition which is in the main the work of Jerome.
Controversies.—Controversial works at this period occupied a share of Jerome's energies out of all proportion to their importance.
Against Jovinian.—Jovinian was a Roman monk, originally distinguished by extreme asceticism, who had adopted freer opinions. He put off the monastic dress and lived like other men. The book of Jovinian was sent to Jerome about the end of 393, and he at once answered it in two books. He warmly attacks Jovinian as a renegade and as a dog who has returned to his vomit.
Origenism.—The second great controversy in which Jerome was now engaged arose about Origenism, which embraces in its wide sweep Epiphanius, bp. of Cyprus, John, bp. of Jerusalem, Theophilus, bp. of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom, the pope Anastasius, and above
