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History Notes Augustine and the Last Days of Rome: 370-450 Notes

Jerome Revision Notes

Updated Jerome Revision Notes

Augustine and the Last Days of Rome: 370-450 Notes

Augustine and the Last Days of Rome: 370-450

Approximately 142 pages

A comprehensive, yet concise, set of notes on all the major sources and texts relating to the Roman Empire in the age of Augustine of Hippo.

The notes have commentary of all the set texts in excellent detail. These include the works of Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, Symmachus, Gerontius and the Theodosian Code. ...

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The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Augustine and the Last Days of Rome: 370-450 Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

St Jerome Revision

F.A Wright, Jerome: Select Letters (Loeb Translation)

  • Born AD 345

    • Born to moderately wealthy Christians

    • Well-educated

      • Roman education

        • Studied rhetoric

    • 370

      • Travelled to Aquileia

        • Established his first ascetic society

    • Returns to Antioch

    • 375-377

      • Went to Chalcis (a Syrian desert)

      • A crisis happens

      • Jerome resolved to seek complete solitude.

        • Underwent rigorous penance

          • Did this until 379

    • Return to Antioch for the second time

      • Was ordained presbyter by Bishop Paulinus

        • Attended Second General Council at Constantinople

    • 382

      • Became good friends with Pope Damasus

        • Was asked to translate a Bible for Damasus

    • Followers

      • In Rome

        • Paula

          • Heiress to the Aemilian family

            • Two daughters

              • Blesilla and Eustochium.

        • Marcella

  • 385

    • Change of Fortune

      • Death of Damasus

        • New Pope, Siricius sees him as a rival

      • Death of Blessila

        • A product of her excessive fasting

    • Jerome forced to flee.

  • Moved to Bethlehem

    • With Paula and Eustochium

    • Monastery

      • Built one and presided over it.

      • Paula paid for all,

        • When she could no longer, Jerome sold his family property for their support.

    • Not a peaceful life

      • Argued with Bishop of Jerusalem

      • Sack of Rome (410)

        • Jerome is ‘stupefied and dismayed’

  • 420

    • Died

      • Body buried beside Paula near grotto of the Nativity at Bethlehem.

      • Later,

        • Transferred to Rome and brought many miracles to the Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

Letter 22, To Eustochium, The Virgin’s Profession, Written AD 384

  • (1)

  • ‘Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people and thy father’s house and the king shall desire thy beauty’1

    • Jerome

      • Soul must leave for the land of the living.

        • But you, Eustochium, must leave and forget your past and your father’s house.

      • The reward?

        • ‘the king shall desire thy beauty’

          • i.e. the reward for renunciation of material life is the sacrament.

  • (2)

  • ‘I write to you, Lady Eustochium’

    • Why?

      • Not about virginity or marriage, but actually it sort of is.

  • Flattery

    • None of this, Jerome says you should be fearful not proud.

  • ‘Nor will there be any pomp or rhetoric in expounding the beatitude of virginity’

  • A training manual

    • This letter is an exhortation or an advice manual on the life of virginity.

    • Jerome associates ‘rhetoric’ with ‘pomp’

      • Similar to Augustine’s criticism of rhetoric as pejoratively ‘copious and ornate’: but hold on.

        • Jerome saw no possible reconciliation between Christianity and classicalism,

          • While in On Christian Doctrine, Augustine argued the application of rhetoric to the communication of Christian truth was acceptable. The ‘gold of the Egyptians’ metaphor.

    • But is this is, again, just a trope and Jerome does use plenty of rhetoric to persuade?

  • World

    • An evil,scary place

      • Enemies everywhere

      • Flesh is weak and will soon be ashes.

  • Only thing that can save us is God and grace.

    • ‘As long as we are held down by this frail body; as long as we keep our treasure in earthen vessels, and the flesh lusteth against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh: so long can there be no victory.’2

  • Virginity

  • ‘Virginity can be lost even by a thought’

    • Not enough to be a “virgin of the flesh”

      • A little unfair?

        • Jerome says “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart’

          • so when a woman is lusted after, she loses her virginity, ‘in a thought’.

    • God cannot save a fallen Virgin.

  • Temptation

    • Counter this wither prayer to God

      • ‘The Lord is on my side; I will not fear what the flesh can do unto me’.

  • Man

    • Virtuous if he can see thoughts of lust rising, ‘but dashes them straightway against the rock. And the Rock is Christ’3

      • Man can fight temptation through meditation on God.

  • Jerome

    • Recounts how even in the desert (‘a savage dwelling-place’) he was “surrounded by bands of dancing girls”4

      • He coped with this desire he ‘used to fling myself at Jesus’ feet’5

  • Advice for combating lust.

    • Avoid wine “as you would avoid poison”6

      • It is the first weapon that devils use in attacking the young.

        • It incites lust.

  • (10)

    • Avoid gluttony; get fasting!

      • It is another temptation.

    • Why avoid food and alcohol?

      • Not that God wants us to starve

      • This is the only way of preserving chastity.

        • See the story of Jacob

          • He had 75 children, but once he wrestled with the Lord and lost the stoutness of his thigh

            • He begat no more children.

        • Devil’s strength lies in man’s loins and in women’s navels.

      • Food and alcohol stimulates the loins, making humans more lusty?

  • (13)

  • ‘You may see many women who have been left widows before they were ever wed, trying to conceal their consciousness of guilt by means of a lying garb’

    • Jerome means unmarried women who pretend to be widows.

      • Abortion and drugs

        • There are some women who do this or even commit suicide.

    • Standards

      • Some women say, my conscience is enough for me. But “it is a pure heart that God craves.”7

        • These women are harlots

          • They are “displeasing”8.

  • Concubine

    • Jerome does not spare them either.

      • They are ‘one-man harlots’.

        • Their aim is to ‘indulge at home in carnal intercourse’.

  • Jerome’s advice: how to carry on being a ‘virgin of high rank at Rome”

  • Married life

    • Blesilla

      • She was “inferior in firmness of will”9

        • She had a husband, but was widowed in 7 months.

          • Jerome’s point here is that marriage leads to pain and misery. Now Blessila has neither the joy of marriage nor the crown of virginity.

      • Marital chastity

        • Second-rank virginity

          • Not bad, but just think:

            • As she is not a virgin she gets lesser rewards than Eustochium, but finds it harder to stay continent.

  • Don’t consort with either harlots or married women.

    • Virgin, God’s bride

      • Thus, why should she consort with a wife of a mortal man.

        • Must learn a “holy pride; know that you are better than they”10

    • Widows

      • They are ‘puffed up with their husband’s honour’11

        • They wear gaudy things

        • ...

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