History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [196]
St Jerome was a man of many quarrels. He quarrelled with St Augustine about the somewhat questionable behaviour of St Peter as related by St Paul in Galatians ii; he broke with his friend Rufinus over Origen; and he was so vehement against Pelagius that his monastery was attacked by a Pelagian mob. After the death of Damasus, he seems to have quarrelled with the new Pope; he had, while in Rome, become acquainted with various ladies who were both aristocratic and pious, some of whom he persuaded to adopt the ascetic life. The new Pope, in common with many other people in Rome, disliked this. For this reason among others, Jerome left Rome for Bethlehem, where he remained from 386 till his death in 420.
Among his distinguished female converts, two were especially notable: the widow Paula and her daughter Eustochium. Both these ladies accompanied him on his circuitous journey to Bethlehem. They were of the highest nobility, and one cannot but feel a flavour of snobbery in the Saint's attitude to them. When Paula died and was buried at Bethlehem, Jerome composed an epitaph for her tomb:
Within this tomb a child of Scipio lies,
A daughter of the far-famed Pauline house,
A scion of the Gracchi, of the stock
Of Agamemnon's self, illustrious:
Here rests the lady Paula, well-beloved
Of both her parents, with Eustochium
For daughter; she the first of Roman dames
Who hardship chose and Bethlehem for Christ.6
Some of Jerome's letters to Eustochium are curious. He gives her advice on the preservation of virginity, very detailed and frank; he explains the exact anatomical meaning of certain euphemisms in the Old Testament; and he employs a kind of erotic mysticism in praising the joys of conventual life. A nun is the Bride of Christ; this marriage is celebrated in the Song of Solomon.
In a long letter written at the time when she took the vows, he gives a remarkable message to her mother: 'Are you angry with her because she chooses to be a king's [Christ's] wife and not a soldier's? She has conferred on you a high privilege; you are now the mother-in-law of God.'7
To Eustochium herself, in the same letter (xxii), he says:
'Ever let the privacy of your chamber guard you; ever let the Bridegroom sport with you within. Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you. When sleep overtakes you He will come behind and put His hand through the hole of the door, and your heart shall be moved for Him; and you will awake and rise up and say: "I am sick of love." Then He will reply: "A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed."'
In the same letter he relates how, after cutting himself off from relations and friends, 'and—harder still—from the dainty food to which I had been accustomed', he still could not bear to be parted from his library, and took it with him to the desert. 'And so, miserable man that I was, I would fast only that I might afterwards read Cicero.' After days and nights of remorse, he would fall again, and read Plautus. After such indulgence, the style of the prophets seemed 'rude and repellent'. At last, during a fever, he dreamed that, at the Last Judgment, Christ asked him who he was, and he replied that he was a Christian. The answer came: 'Thou liest, thou art a follower of Cicero and not of Christ.' Thereupon he was ordered to be scourged. At length Jerome, in his dream, cried out: 'Lord, if ever again I possess worldly books, or if ever again I read such, I have denied Thee.' This, he adds, 'was no sleep or idle dream'.8
After this, for some years, his letters contain few classical quotations. But after a certain time he lapses again