Jerome, Letter 93 – online in English

Continuing the series of translations of previously untranslated letters of St Jerome, today we have letter 93.  This is not a letter composed by St Jerome, but a translation made by him and included with his letters.

There are in fact three such letters, all originally written in Greek, all relating to the synod of Alexandria in 400, when Theophilus the Patriarch of Alexandria got the bishops to condemn Origenism.  Letter 92 was translated in the NPNF series.  This is the letter from the synod.  Letters 93 and 94 seem to be untranslated, and consist of letters of submission from others to the decision.  Clearly Jerome found it useful to circulate the decision.

93.  Response of the synod of Jerusalem to the letter of the superior synod of Theophilus.

Eulogius, John, and the other bishops who were present in Jerusalem on the holy day of the Encaenia,[1] to the noble and honourable and most blessed bishop Theophilus.

You already know, O noble and all-praiseworthy Father, even before our letter, that almost all of Palestine, by the grace of Christ, is free from the scandal of the heretics, except for a few who, acquiescing in the errors of Apollinaris, are reading the harmful writings of their teacher. And if only, through the prayers of the saints, the serpents of the Jews, the incredible foolishness of the Samaritans, and the most open impieties of the pagans would not harass us, the multitude of whom completely close their ears to the truth of our preaching and in the likeness of wolves circle the flock of Christ. And they impose no small watch and labour on us, while we are unwilling to guard the sheep of the Lord, for fear that they are torn to pieces by them![2]

And because Your Holiness has written to us that certain persons have been found in Egypt who want to introduce some pestilential teachings of Origen into the churches and deceive the hearts of the unwary, we have deemed it necessary to signify to Your Holiness that this kind of preaching is foreign to our ears.[3]  For we have never heard anyone teaching that the kingdom of Christ must ever come to an end — far be this teaching from the ears of the faithful, as the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary about He who was about to be born, the Christ, and said, “He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:33) —nor that the Devil,[4] released from all the vices of sin, might obtain the dignity which he had before he fell, so that both he and Christ will be brought under the sole rule of God the Father; for those who believe that will go into the darkness which has been prepared for the Devil and his angels; and if there are any who have handed down in their treatises that the Son is truth compared to us, but compared to the Father, is a lie; and who say that, what Peter and Paul are to the Saviour, this is what the Only-begotten Son and Word of God is, compared with the Father; and — to briefly state our opinion, (and it is not necessary to repeat the same again) — whoever preaches these things, which your Beatitude signifies must be condemned, and which are at variance with that faith which our Fathers wrote with pious understanding in the city of Nicaea, let them and their teachings be anathema to the church, along with Apollinaris, who, going against the Holy Scriptures, says that an imperfect man was taken up by our Lord Jesus Christ, and not that the full assumption of him, both of soul and body, was given salvation. For we, following in the footsteps of the Fathers and the learned words of the Scriptures, teach and preach in the churches, and confess, that the Trinity is uncreated, eternal, of a single essence in three subsistences and one Godhead.[5]

But if Your Reverence separates anyone from communion, either on account of their depraved teaching, or for other causes, just as you have deigned to indicate to us, know that they will not be received in our churches until you yourself have granted them pardon for their repentance, if nevertheless they are willing to condemn these perverse things. Greet all who along with you are in the priestly order.

1. Encaenia = the 8-day celebration of the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on September 13, 335.

2. The sense is perhaps that the bishops are so busy rooting out heretics, which is what they want to do – or what Theophilus wants them to do – that they cannot protect their congregations from Jews, Samaritans and pagans. Possibly a bit of a jab at Theophilus here.

3. I.e. denying that it is coming from them.

4. Lit. “Zabulus” in Hilberg’s edition, from “diabolus” via “zabolus,” a later Latin spelling. Probably Jerome wrote “diabolus”.

5.  The transmitted text is corrupt at this point. “unius esse” leaves the question of what “unius” describes. The next bit is “in tribus subsistentiis” meaning “in three hypostases” but Latin would later usually use “persona”, with “three persons”. The sentence ends with “odorantes” or “adorantes”. Hilberg prints “odorantes”, and is forced to suppose a lacuna before it, which he marks with “***”.  He resolves the problem by suggesting that it belongs to an otherwise lost sentence. Likewise “adorantes”, “worshipping” looks like a scribe’s guess derived from the impossible “odorantes”.

Vallarsi proposed instead that “substantiae” should be read here, “of a substance/essence”, matching “unius”, which is what I have translated.  Here is the note by Vallarsi:

“Read, at your own risk, “substances”, for what we have left from the Mss. “adorantes.” The similarity of the letters composing each word, which you will more easily see if you describe them in capital letters, as they call them, and perhaps the earlier letters, which were also worn out in the manuscript, have completely deceived the inexperienced copyist. But both the sense, which will by no means be otherwise clear, and the very words “of the one,” which would not have a substantive name to which it refers, and finally “adorantes” itself, which is a certain defect in this place, not only protect our emendation, but also vindicate it.”

The Latin is as follows.  It is the text as given by Hilberg, with the spelling regularised.

XCIII. (RESPONSUM SYNODI HIEROSOLYMITANAE AD SUPERIOREM THEOPHILI SYNODICAM EPISTULAM.)

Domino et honorabili, beatissimo episcopo Theophilo Eulogius, Johannes et caeteri episcopi, qui Hierosolymis in sancta encaeniorum die repperti sunt.

Nosti, Domine cuncta laudabiliter pater, et ante nostras litteras, quod omnis propemodum Palaestina gratia Christi ab haereticorum aliena sit scandalo, praeter paucos, qui Apollinaris erroribus acquiescentes, noxia praeceptoris sui scripta meditantur. Atque utinam sanctorum orationibus, non nos inquietarent Judaici serpentes, et Samaritanorum incredibilis stultitia, atque Gentilium apertissimae impietates, quorum turba quam plurima et ad veritatem praedicationis omnino auribus obturantes, in similitudinem luporum gregem Christi circuientes, non parvas nobis excubias, et laborem incutiunt, dum nolumus oves Domini custodire, ne ab his dilacerentur!

Et quia scripsit nobis Sanctitas tua, repertos quosdam in Aegypto, qui et Origenis dogmatibus pestifera quaedam velint introducere in ecclesiis, et simplicum corda decipere, necessarium duximus significare Sanctitudini tuae, quia istius modi praedicatio a nostris auribus aliena sit. Neque enim audivimus umquam docentes, quod Christi regnum aliquando sit terminandum — absit hoc a fidelium auribus, Gabriel angelo loquente ad Mariam de eo, qui nasciturus est Christus, atque dicente: “Regnabit super domum Jacob in aeternum et regni eius non erit finis.” (Luke 1:33) — neque, quod Zabulus cunctis peccatorum vitiis liberatus dignitatem obtineat, quam habuit, antequam caderet, ita ut et ipse, et Christus sub unum Dei Patris redigantur imperium. Qui enim ita credunt, ituri sunt in tenebras, quae praeparatae sunt Diabolo et angelis eius, et si qui sunt, qui in suis tractatibus tradiderunt, quod Filius nobis sit comparatus veritas, Patri conlatus mendacium, et quod est, inquiunt, Petrus et Paulus, ad Salvatorem, hoc est Unigenitus Filius, et Dei verbum, comparatus Patri et — ut breviter nostram sententiam declaremus, (neque necesse est eadem rursus iterare) — quicumque haec praedicat, quae Beatitudo tua damnanda significat, et quae discordant ab ea fide, quam pio sensu Patres nostri in urbe Nicaena scripserunt, et ipsi et dogmata eorum sint ecclesiae anathema, cum Apollinare, qui contra sanctas scripturas vadens, imperfectum hominem dicit a Domino Jesu Christo nostro esse susceptum, et non plenam assumptionem eius et animae et corporis salutem datam. Nos enim insistentes Patrum vestigiis et scripturarum vocibus eruditi, docemus et praedicamus in ecclesiis, et confitemur, Trinitatem increatam, aeternam, unius esse in tribus subsistentiis, et in una Deitate *** odorantes [adorantes?].

Si quos autem tua Reverentia, vel propter dogmatum pravitatem, vel propter alias causas a communione sejungit, sicut nobis indicare dignatus es, scias in nostris ecclesiis non recipiendos, donec tu paenitentiae eorum, si tamen voluerint damnare perversa, veniam dederis. Saluta omnes, qui tecum sunt sacerdotales gradu.

Letter 94 is similar but shorter, and will appear in the next post.

Update: the letters translated here are now collected into a PDF and Word file here.