Letter 36: Jerome's reply to the foregoing. For the second and fourth questions he refers Damasus to the writings of Tertullian, Novatian, and Origen. The remaining three he deals with in detail.
To Pope Damasus
Jerome's reply to the foregoing. For the second and fourth questions he refers Damasus to the writings of Tertullian, Novatian, and Origen. The remaining three he deals with in detail.
Gen. iv. 15, he understands to mean the slayer of Cain shall complete the sevenfold vengeance which is to be wreaked upon him.
Exodus xiii. 18, he proposes to reconcile with Gen. xv. 16, by supposing that in the one place the tribe of Levi is referred to, in the other the tribe of Judah. He suggests, however, that the words rendered by the LXX. in the fifth generation more probably mean harnessed (so A.V.) or laden. In reply to the question about Isaac he says: No man save Him who for our salvation has deigned to put on flesh has full knowledge and a complete grasp of the truth. Paul, Samuel, David, Elisha, all make mistakes, and holy men only know what God reveals to them. He then goes on to give a mystical interpretation of the passage suggested by the martyr Hippolytus. Written the day after the previous letter.
About this page
Source. Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001036.htm>.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
In this letter Jerome, at the request of Damasus, gives a minutely detailed explanation of the parable of the prodigal son. About this page Source. Translated by W.H.
This letter, written a few months after the preceding, is another appeal to Damasus to solve the writer's doubts. Jerome once more refers to his baptism at Rome, and declares that his one answer to the factions at Antioch is, He who clings to the chair of Peter is accepted by me. Written from the desert in the year 377 or 378.
This letter, written in 376 or 377 A.D., illustrates Jerome's attitude towards the see of Rome at this time held by Damasus, afterwards his warm friend and admirer. Referring to Rome as the scene of his own baptism and as a church where the true faith has remained unimpaired (§1), and laying down the strict doctrine of salvation only within the ...
This (written from Constantinople in A.D. 381) is the earliest of Jerome's expository letters. In it he explains at length the vision recorded in the sixth chapter of Isaiah, and enlarges upon its mystical meaning.
Jerome's reply to the foregoing. Exposing the error of Hilary of Poitiers, who supposed the expression to signify redemption of the house of David, he goes on to show that in the gospels it is a quotation from Psa. cxviii.