Letter CXCV.

(a.d. 418.)

To His Holy Lord and Most Blessed Father,1454    Papa.Augustin, Jerome Sends Greeting.

At all times I have esteemed your Blessedness with becoming reverence and honour, and have loved the Lord and Saviour dwelling in you. But now we add, if possible, something to that which has already reached a climax, and we heap up what was already full, so that we do not suffer a single hour to pass without the mention of your name, because you have, with the ardour of unshaken faith, stood your ground against opposing storms, and preferred, so far as this was in your power, to be delivered from Sodom, though you should come forth alone, rather than linger behind with those who are doomed to perish. Your wisdom apprehends what I mean to say. Go on and prosper! You are renowned throughout the whole world; Catholics revere and look up to you as the restorer of the ancient faith, and—which is a token of yet more illustrious glory—all heretics abhor you. They persecute me also with equal hatred, seeking by imprecation to take away the life which they cannot reach with the sword. May the mercy of Christ the Lord preserve you in safety and mindful of me, my venerable lord and most blessed father.1455    In two Mss. this letter has, as a postscript, the letter already translated as CXXIII.; see page 451. The reason for that letter being supposed to belong to the year 410 is the interpretation which some put upon one of its obscure sentences as alluding to the fall of Rome in that year. If, however, the sentence in question referred to the ecclesiastical difficulties disturbing Jerusalem and all the East in connection with the Pelagian controversy, there is nothing to forbid the conjecture which its place in the Mss. aforesaid suggests, namely, that it was sent at the same time as this letter, with which in them it stands connected.

EPISTOLA CXCV . Hieronymus Augustino, gratulans illi quod haereticorum omnium meruerit odium; quod quidem gaudet sibi cum illo esse commune.

Domino sancto, ac beatissimo papae AUGUSTINO, HIERONYMUS.

Omni quidem tempore Beatitudinem tuam eo quo decet honore veneratus sum, et habitantem in te dilexi Dominum Salvatorem: sed nunc, si fieri potest, cumulo aliquid addimus et plena complemus, ut absque tui nominis mentione ne unam quidem horam praeterire patiamur; qui contra flantes ventos ardore fidei perstitisti, maluistique, quantum in te fuit, solus liberari de Sodomis, quam cum pereuntibus commorari. Scit quid dicam prudentia tua. Macte virtute; in orbe celebraris, Catholici te conditorem antiquae rursum fidei venerantur atque suspiciunt, et quod signum majoris gloriae est, omnes haeretici detestantur: et me pari persequuntur odio; ut quos gladiis nequeunt, voto interficiant. Incolumem, et nei memorem te Christi Domini clementia tueatur, domine venerande, et beatissime papa.