St. Jerome's Commentaries on Galatians, Titus, and Philemon

Introduction

1. For English translations see NPNF2 3.359–84 and FOTC 100. Introduction Saint Jerome (347–420) was undoubtedly one of the most learned of the Latin Church Fathers. The staggering range and depth of his reading can be glimpsed from his work De viris illustribus (On Famous Men), a pioneering work of patrology, written around 385 and modeled on Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars. To this day his survey is considered indispensable for much of our knowledge of the literature of the Church’s early centuries.1 De viris illustribus offers proof that Jerome had mastered nearly the entirety of the antecedent exegetical and theological tradition, both Greek and Latin. It is also well known that Jerome learned the biblical languages: Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. He put this knowledge to work in his most famous editorial achievement , the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible. Such linguistic learningmakesJeromestandoutindramaticcontrastwithhiscontemporary Augustine, who knew well the Latin language but was almost completely unacquainted with the Greek exegetical tradition. While Augustine was a far more influential theologian in the Church of the West, because of his ranking as a bishop and for his more systematic and dogmatic approach to theological topics, Jerome’s philological learning was deeper and his legacy as an exegete was greater. 1 2 St. Jerome’s Commentaries on Galatians, Titus, and Philemon 2. To my knowledge, the only commentaries of Jerome available in English thus far are Gleason Archer’s translation of Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1958), Ronald Heine, The Commentaries of Origen and Jerome on St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), and my translation of St. Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew, FOTC 117. Intervarsity Press has announced their intention to publish a translation of Jerome’s Commentary on Jeremiah in the series Ancient Christian Texts. I have in preparation a new translation of Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah. 3. Cf. Spiritus Paraclitus, encyclical of Pope Benedict XV on St. Jerome, September 15, 1920 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 12:385–420); Divino afflante Spiritu, encyclical of Pope Pius XII, September 30, 1943. 4. A History of the Synoptic Problem: The Canon, the Text, the Composition, and the Interpretation of the Gospels (New York: Doubleday, 1999), pp. 365–67. 5. “The Problems of the Sensus Plenior,” Ephemerides Theologica Lovanienses 43 (1967), p. 463. It is therefore regrettable that the majority of Jerome’s commentaries on Scripture have never been translated into English.2 As late as the mid-twentieth century, Popes Benedict XV and Pius XII were warmly commending Jerome’s Scripture scholarship to Catholic scholars .3 In Dei Verbum 23, the bishops of the Second Vatican Council encouraged exegetes to study the Holy Fathers of both East and West. Unfortunately, such exhortations fell and continue to fall on deaf ears. Indeed, in modern Scripture scholarship, St. Jerome’s commentaries are almost completely neglected, even in Catholic circles. It is true that the modern Catholic Scripture commentary edited by R. E. Brown, J. Fitzmyer, and R. Murphy was entitled The Jerome Biblical Commentary, and that this title has probably made Jerome’s name more familiar to American readers. But neither the principles nor the substance of Jerome’s exegesis are taken into consideration in this work. Even the Protestant D. L. Dungan criticized the JBC and the NJBC for its uncritical surrender to liberal German Protestant historical criticism and observed that none of the commentaries in this work are informed by Catholic principles of exegesis.4 The neglect of such principles seems to have been deliberate, since the chief editor, R. E. Brown, has published his own opinion: “I think we must recognize that the exegetical method of the Fathers is irrelevant to the study of the Bible today.”5 Likewise, Brown’s colleague and fellow contribu- Introduction 3 6. A Theology of the Old Testament (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976), p. 279. For a critique of McKenzie’s own scholarship, see Guillermo V. Villegas, The Old Testament as a Christian Book: A Study of Three Catholic Biblical Scholars: Pierre Grelot, John L. McKenzie, Luis Alonso Schökel (Manilla: Divine Word Publications, 1988). 7. For instance, in his essay on “Hermeneutics,” JBC, p. 612, Brown writes: “In his early days Jerome (d. 419) followed Origen’s principles, but the commentaries written at the end of Jerome’s life betray greater interest in the literal sense.” This summary statement could...