In my last post, I gave a few notes on the letters of St. Jerome, which number 154 in the Hilberg edition in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum series, vols.54, 55 and 56. It seems that complete translations exist into French and Spanish. But in English, as we all know, many letters remain untranslated.
Well, it seems that this is not true. A total of SEVEN letters remain untranslated. Two of these (93 and 94) are short notes by other people in response to a synodical letter of Theophilus of Alexandria, translated into Latin by Jerome and included in his letters. The others are letters 150-154. 150 is completely bogus, a letter of Procopius of Gaza, who lived a century later, to some other Hieronymus. Hilberg didn’t bother to print this, although Migne did. Letters 149-154 are tiny, and occupy together the last 10 pages of Hilberg.
To discover this, I compiled a list of the letters and their translations, in a spreadsheet. It’s here:
- Jerome – Letters in English – v1.0 (Excel .xlsx)
- Jerome – Letters in English – v1.0 (PDF)
Remarkable, really. I had no idea that we were so close. I will translate the rest myself!
Update (15 Dec 2025): I’ve added columns for Paul Carroll and Michael Graves. With thanks for info to Twitter poster @discerninganew.
Update (22 Dec 2025): I’ve added to the spreadsheet the translation of letter 148 by B.R. Rees. With thanks to Rafael Rodrigues for raising the question.
Update (06 Jan 2026): I have now created a file with the Latin text and English translation of the remaining letters. Here they are:
- Jerome – Letters 93-94 and 150-154 – Jan 2026 (PDF)
- Jerome – Letters 93-94 and 150-154 – Jan 2026 (Word .docx)
They can also be downloaded from Archive.org here.
As always these are public domain. Do whatever you like with them, personal, educational or commercial.
I have also updated the spreadsheet. I believe that we now have all the letters of Jerome in English. The only uncertainty is that I have not checked myself that 149 does exist in *English* in the volume given, but am relying on a reference. This I will investigate.
In NPNF, they say that Letter 148 to Celantia is spurious. Could you tell me whether this is true, or if there is another opinion about the authenticity of this letter?
Yes, the NPNF says “This is an interesting letter addressed to a lady of rank, on the principles and methods of a holy life. It is not, however, the work of Jerome, of whose style it shows few traces. It has been ascribed in turn to Paulinus of Nola and Sulpicius Severus.” I see here a suggestion of Pelagius.
In what looks like a very interesting book, Hilmar Pabel, “Herculean Labours: Erasmus and the Editing of St. Jerome’s Letters in the Renaissance,” Brill (2008), p.153 and p.154 says:
“Obviously, the critical sifting of works ascribed to Jerome did not begin with Erasmus, who quarantined most, but not all, of the spuria in a separate volume. As we have seen, Erasmus added three spurious texts at the end of the volume of exegetical letters. In the first volume, moreover, he inserted a letter to Celantia (ep. 148) and a familiar letter to Augustine. The former, probably written by Paulinus of Xola, was eloquent and learned but diverged from Jerome’s style. Erasmus included it owing to its subject matter—instructions for leading a pious life following Jerome’s letter to Paulinus on the proper conduct of a monk (cp. 58)—and as a sample of the eloquence of Paulinus, which the “most eloquent Jerome” greatly praised.109 Isidore Hilberg retained the letter to Cclantia in his critical edition of Jerome’s letters, noting that it appeared in a critical edition of Paulinus’ works.110 More recently, scholars have attributed the letter to Pelagius.111 In his argumentum to the letter to Augustine, Erasmus concedes that it is not sufficiently clear by whom or to whom the letter was written but believes the style is more characteristic of Augustine than of Jerome.112
110. CSEL 56/1: 329. Hilberg refers to Wilhelm Hartel’s edition of Paulinus in CSEL 29: 436-59.
111. Rees, “Pelagius: Life and Letters”, 2: 127-28.
112. Opera (1516) 1:96r. “
In fact I see that a translation exists, by B. R. Rees, in his “The Letters of Pelagius and his followers”, online here. I shall have to update my spreadsheet.