Letter CLXV.

(a.d. 410.1267    In assigning this place to Jerome’s letter to Marcellinus and Anapsychia, the Benedictine editors have departed from the chronological sequence in order to place it in immediate juxtaposition to Letter CLXVI., written by Augustin to Jerome some years later on the subject mentioned in sec. 1.)

To My Truly Pious Lords Marcellinus1268    See note on Marcellinus in Letter CXXXIII. p. 470.and Anapsychia, Sons Worthy of Being Esteemed with All the Love Due to Their Position, Jerome Sends Greeting in Christ.

Chap. I.

1. At last I have received your joint letter from Africa, and I do not regret the importunity with which, though you were silent, I persevered in sending letters to you, that I might obtain a reply, and learn, not through report from others, but from your own most welcome statement, that you are in health. I have not forgotten the brief query, or rather the very important theological1269    Ecclesiastica. question, which you propounded in regard to the origin of the soul,—does it descend from heaven, as the philosopher Pythagoras and all the Platonists and Origen think? or is it part of the essence of the Deity, as the Stoics, Manichæus, and the Priscillianists of Spain imagine? or are souls kept in a divine treasure house wherein they were stored of old as some ecclesiastics, foolishly misled, believe? or are they daily created by God and sent into bodies, according to what is written in the gospel, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”?1270    John v. 17. or are souls really produced, as Tertullian, Apollinaris, and the majority of the Western divines conjecture, by propagation, so that as the body is the offspring of body, the soul is the offspring of soul, and exists on conditions similar to those regulating the existence of the inferior animals.”1271    Et simili cum brutus animantibus conditione subsistat. I know that I have published my opinion on this question in my brief writings against Ruffinus, in reply to a treatise addressed by him to Anastasius, of holy memory, bishop of the Roman Church, in which, while attempting to impose upon the simplicity of his readers by a slippery and artful, yet withal foolish confession, he exposed to contempt his own faith, or, rather, his own perfidy. These books are, I think, in the possession of your holy kinsman Oceanus, for they were published long ago to meet the calumnies contained in numerous writings of Ruffinus. Be this as it may, you have in Africa that holy man and learned bishop Augustin, who will be able to teach you on this subject viva voce, as the saying is, and expound to you his opinion, or, I should rather say, my own opinion stated in his words.

Chap. II.

2. I have long wished to begin the volume of Ezekiel, and fulfil a promise frequently made to studious readers; but at the time when I had just begun to dictate the proposed exposition, my mind was so much agitated by the devastation of the western provinces of the empire, and especially by the sack of Rome itself by the barbarians, that, to use a common proverbial phrase, I scarcely knew my own name; and for a long while I was silent, knowing that it was a time for tears. Moreover when I had, in the course of this year, prepared three books of the Commentary, a sudden furious invasion of the barbarous tribes mentioned by your Virgil as “the widely roaming Barcæi,”1272    “Lateque vagantes Barcæi.”—Virg. Æneid, iv. 43. and by sacred Scripture in the words concerning Ishmael, “He shall dwell in the presence of his brethren,”1273    Gen. xvi. 12. swept over the whole of Egypt, Palestine, Phenice, and Syria, carrying all before them with the vehemence of a mighty torrent, so that it was only with the greatest difficulty that we were enabled, by the mercy of Christ, to escape their hands. But if, as a famous orator has said, “Laws are silent amid the clash of arms,”1274    Cicero pro Milone: “Leges inter arma silent.” how much more may this be said of scriptural studies, which demand a multitude of books and silence, together with uninterrupted diligence of amanuenses, and especially the enjoyment of tranquillity and leisure by those who dictate! I have accordingly sent two books to my holy daughter Fabiola, of which, if you wish copies, you may borrow them from her. Through lack of time I have been unable to transcribe others; when you have read these, and have seen the portico, as it were, you may easily conjecture what the house itself is designed to be. But I trust in the mercy of God, who has helped me in the very difficult commencement of the foresaid work, that He will help me also in the predictions concerning the wars of Gog and Magog, which occupy the last division but one of the prophecy,1275    Ezek. ch. xxxviii.-xxxix. and in the concluding portion itself, describing the building, the details, and the proportions of that most holy and mysterious temple.1276    Ibid. ch. xl.-xliii.

Chap. III.

3. Our holy brother Oceanus, to whom you desire to be mentioned, is a man of such gifts and character, and so profoundly learned in the law of the Lord, that he may probably give you instruction without any request of mine, and can impart to you on all scriptural questions the opinion which, according to the measure of our joint abilities, we have formed.

May Christ, our almighty God, keep you, my truly pious lords, in safety and prosperity to a good old age!

EPISTOLA CLXV . Hieronymus Marcellino et Anapsychiae, exponens diversas sententias de origine animae, hortans ut reliqua petant ab Augustino, et indicans quibus ipse sit occupatus studiis.

Dominis vere sanctis atque omni officiorum charitate venerandis filiis MARCELLINO et ANAPSYCHIAE, HIERONYMUS, in Christo salutem.

CAPUT PRIMUM.

1. Tandem ex Africa vestrae litteras Unanimitatis accepi; et non me poenitet impudentiae, qua tacentibus vobis epistolas meas frequenter ingessi, ut rescriptum mererer, et vos esse sospites, non aliis nuntiantibus, sed vestro potissimum sermone cognoscerem. Super animae statu memini vestrae quaestiunculae, imo maximae ecclesiasticae quaestionis: Utrum lapsa de coelo sit, ut Pythagoras philosophus, omnesque Platonici, et Origenes putant; an a propria Dei substantia, ut Stoici, Manichaeus, et Hispana Priscilliani haeresis suspicantur; an in thesauro habeantur Dei, olim conditae, ut quidam Ecclesiastici stulta persuasione confidunt; an quotidie a Deo fiant, et mittantur in corpora, secundum illud quod in Evangelio scriptum est, «Pater 0719meus usque modo operatur, et ego operor (Joan. V, 17);» an certe ex traduce, ut Tertullianus, Apollinaris, et maxima pars Occidentalium autumant; ut quomodo corpus ex corpore, sic anima nascatur ex anima, et sinuli cum brutis ammantibus conditione subsistat. Super quo quid mihi videretur, in opusculis contra Ruffinum scripsisse me novi, adversus eum libellum quem sanctae memoriae Anastasio, episcopo Romanae Ecclesiae, dedit; in quo lubrica et subdola, imo stulta confessione, dum auditorum simplicitati illudere nititur, suae fidei, imo perfidiae illusit: quos libros reor sanctum parentem vestrum habere Oceanum; olim enim editi sunt, multis Ruffini libris adversus calumnias respondentes. Certe habes ibi virum sanctum et eruditum Augustinum episcopum, qui viva, ut aiunt, voce docere te poterit, et suam, imo per se nostram explicare sententiam.

CAP. II.

2. Ezechielis volumen olim aggredi volui, et sponsionem creberrimam studiosis lectoribus reddere; sed in ipso dictandi exordio ita animus meus occidentalium provinciarum, et maxime urbis Romae vastatione confusus est, ut juxta vulgare proverbium, proprium quoque ignorarem vocabulum: diuque tacui, sciens tempus esse lacrymarum. Hoc autem anno cum tres explicassem libros, subitus impetus barbarorum, de quibus tuus dicit Virgilius, «Lateque vagantes Barcaei» (Virg. Aeneid. IV), et sancta Scriptura de Ismael, «Contra faciem omnium fratrum suorum habitabit» (Gen. XVI, 12), sic Aegypti limitem, Palaestinae, Phoenices, Syriae percurrit, ad instar torrentis cuncta secum trahens, ut vix manus eorum misericordia Christi potuerimus evadere. Quod si, juxta inclytum oratorem, «silent inter arma leges» (Cic. pro Milone); quanto magis studia Scripturarum, quae et librorum multitudine, et silentio, ac librariorum sedulitate, quodque proprium est, securitate et otio dictantium indigent! Duos itaque libros misi sanctae filiae meae Fabiolae, quorum exempla si volueris, ab ipsa poteris mutuari. Pro angustia quippe temporis alios describere non potui: quos cum legeris et vestibula videris, facilis conjectura erit, qualis ipsa sit futura domus. Sed credo in Dei misericordia qui nos adjuvit in difficillimo principio supradicti operis, quod ipse adjuvet et in penultimis Prophetae partibus, in quibus Gog et Magog bella narrantur (Ezech. XXXVIII, et XXXIX); et in extremis, in quibus sacratissimi et inexplicabilis templi aedificatio, varietas, mensuraque describitur (Id. XL-XLIII).

CAPUT III.

3. Sanctus frater noster Oceanus, cui vos cupitis commendari, tantus et talis est, et sic eruditus in lege Domini, ut absque nostro rogatu instruere vos possit, et nostram super cunctis quaestionibus Scripturarum pro modulo communis ingenii explicare sententiam. Incolumes vos et prolixa aetate florentes Christus Deus noster tueatur omnipotens, domini vere sancti.