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I ANTIOCH, CONSTANTINOPLE, AND ROME We have seen how the western church of the fourth century was blessed, or afflicted, with public controversy, with ener­ getic leadership, (fired by ambitions both devious and saintly,) and with a new ascetic fervour that sought out, or created, texts with which to nourish its curiosity and devo­ tion. Sulpicius and Cassian were to reap the fruits of this volatile enthusiasm. They also provided for many of its failings. The earlier period of relative turmoil was dominated, how­ ever, by another figure,Jerome, whose life and career take on their full meaning only when placed within this framework of events.1 His letters and Lives offer the most significant corpus of ascetic literature in the West during this intermediate per­ iod, as well as the best introduction to his own biography. To depend on them in this way is no mere matter of con­ venience. His correspondence lays bare the chronology of a varying ambition; and both Jerome himself and readers of a later age rightly regarded the letters as a self-sufficient fund of experience and instruction: 'the book remains, even though men have passed away , .2 In any case, particularly after his departure from Rome for Bethlehem in 385, written contact with others was the only yardstick of progress or achievement in his life: Every day we are dying, every day we change; and yet we think our­ selves eternal. This very letter that I dictate-written down, read over, corrected-is something stolen from my life. For every mark the scribe makes, a moment of time is lost to me. We write letters, and reply to letters, back and forth across the sea; and, as the boat cuts through 1 It is a matter of some regret that J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome (London, 1975), appeared too late to be taken into full account here, although references will occur. 2 Ep. cxxx. 19. See, for example, J. Leclercq, 'Saint Jerome docteur de l'ascese, d'apres un centon monastique', RAM xxv {1949}, 140-5: the MS. dis­ cussed there is little more than a collection of excerpts from Jerome's letters. 100 JEROME the waves, with every splash of water on the prow, the span of our lives is lessened.3 It is as a voyager that .Jerome first appears in his letters, riding at anchor in the harbour of a foreign land. He looks towards the shore, teeming with strange life, and longs to acquaint himself with it more fully. Some fearful reluctance, and a sense of nostalgia, for the past and for his homeland, draws him back. The harbour was Maronia, the estate of Evagrius, near Antioch; the distant shore, the desert of Chalcis; the date, 374.4 Jerome was in transit, as it were: thrust out of Aquileia by some obscure quarrel that is still not fully understood; and yet not wholly committed to any new style of life. From the temporary safety of his rural retreat, Jerome wrote two letters that reflect his attitude at this time towards the ascetic life.s He was excited (although apprehensive) to find himself so close to real asceticism, to the 'wonderful fellowship' of anchorites, living in a desert that Jerome described as 'a city delightful above all others'. He was not afraid to admit his admiration: 'I was seized by the greatest possible desire to share in that enterprise'. Yet plunged, as it were, into a new environment, and breathless with shock, he confessed to some hesitation: 'I did not wish to go back, but I could not go forward'. The desert hermits had, he thought, the power to release him from this bondage of self. Their prayers would lead him 'out of the shadows of this world', and carry him 'to a harbour on that shore that I long for , .6 Meanwhile, he continued to cherish the memory of ascetic . companions left behind in Italy. His longstanding friend Bonosus, having embraced a way of life inspired entirely by the exemplars of Scripture, was living now alone on an island-'but not alone, for Christ is your companion.' Jerome was entirely confident about the fruits of this enterprise: 'He is safe. He fears nothing. He takes upon himself all the 3Ep.IX.19. 4 For the dating of Jerome's career, I have relied on Cavallera, Jerome, as modified by Kelly, Jerome, in the light of P. Nautin, 'l1.tudes de chronologie hieronymienne', REA xviii (1972), 209-18; xix (1973...

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