Continuing the series of translations of previously untranslated letters of St Jerome, today we have letter 153, to Pope Boniface I (418-422).
153. To Boniface.
Jerome, to the most blessed Pope Boniface.
Your Reverence cannot doubt how much joy I have felt [on learning of] your ordination as pontiff, when the holy priest Innocent brought both the news and the letter of your beatitude, since we were once brought together by a shared disposition and began to love each other before we knew each other, and each inward man is so united to another that it is unaware of the failings of the outward man. This [news] alone has mitigated our sorrow for the passing of the holy and venerable virgin of Christ Eustochium, except that, even in this, our sadness is no less because she is deprived with us of so much joy. For with what joy would she have rejoiced, if she had won the right to hear this while in the body; with what prayers and thanksgivings would she have implored the mercy of Christ, had she learned that her holy and venerable parent was the successor of the apostolic see!
The younger Paula, who was brought up in your hands, has been imposed upon our necks like a symbol of the holy and venerable memory of Laeta. Whether we are able to bear this burden is for the Lord to know, whom the future does not deceive; and there is no strength in us except for our holy purpose, which is confirmed, not by the outcome of things but by the longing of the soul. I beseech your Reverence, that you may always consider us as your own, and know that we rejoice especially in the advancement and honour of your Reverence. Certainly the holy and venerable priest Innocent will be able to tell your Beatitude how much joy we have taken even in that very sorrow, and how, if it were possible, we would prefer to adhere to your embraces.
[Again.]
What I write to your Beatitude I write in my own hand. Let the heretics feel that you are an enemy of faithlessness. Let them hate, so that you may be more beloved by Catholics. Be the executor and enforcer of the decision of your predecessors, and don’t allow heretics to be patrons and partners in the episcopal name.
Here’s the Latin:
CLIII. AD BONIFATIUM.
Beatissimo papae Bonifatio Hieronymus.
Quantum gaudii super ordinatione pontificatus tui, sancto Innocentio presbytero et nuntium et litteras tuae beatitudinis perferente, susceperim, ambigere non potest tua reverentia, cum olim mutuo jungamur affectu et ante coeperimus nos amare quam nosse, interiorque homo ita sibi conjunctus sit, ut exterioris hominis damna non sentiat, haec sola res dolorem nostrum super dormitione sanctae ac venerabilis virginis Christi Eustochiae mitigavit, nisi quod et in hoc tristitia non minor sit, quod tanto nobiscum privata sit gaudio, quo enim illa, si hoc in corpore constituta audire meruisset, gestisset gaudio, quibus precibus et gratiarum actione Christi clementiam flagitasset, quod sanctum ac venerabilem parentem suum apostolicae cathedrae successorem esse didicisset! Infans Paula, quae in tuis nutrita est manibus, quasi pignus sanctae ac venerabilis memoriae Laetae nostris est imposita cervicibus. Quod onus utrum ferre valeamus, Domini est scire, quem futura non fallunt, in nobisque nihil opis est praeter sanctam voluntatem, quae non rerum effectu sed desiderio animi conprobatur. Obsecro reverentiam tuam, ut quasi ad tuos semper adscribas et nos proprie super profectu et honore reverentiae (tuae) gaudere cognoscas. Certe sanctus ac venerabilis Innocentius presbyter beatitudini tuae poterit indicare, quantum in ipso maerore gaudii ceperimus et quomodo, si fieri posset, tuis cuperemus haerere complexibus.
[Item.]
Propria manu quod scribo, beatitudini tuae scribo. Sentiant haeretici inimicum te esse perfidiei et oderint, ut a catholicis plus ameris, et executor atque completor sis sententiae praecessorum tuorum nec patiaris in episcopali nomine haereticorum patronos atque consortes.
As stated in the last letter, the death of the powerful Roman noblewoman Eustochium in 419 or 420 left the community in which Jerome lived in a parlous position. As part of the Origenist disputes, Jerome had quarreled bitterly with the Patriarch of Jerusalem, John II, whose men had sacked the convents of Bethlehem in 417. This action led to an appeal to Pope Innocent for protection. Eustochium was now dead. Another friend, Laeta, was the recipient of letter 107, in 403, about how to raise her daughter, the younger Paula. Both were now dead, and the younger Paula had become the head of the nunnery. This letter to Boniface suggests that she had attempted to mend fences with their neighbours, raising the worst fears in Jerome himself. He must have felt that his life’s work was slipping away.
Update: the letters translated here are now collected into a PDF and Word file here.
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