Commentary on Matthew

Introduction

3 INTRODUCTION Aureum flumen habet, locupletissimam bibliothecam habet quisquis unum habet Hieronymum. “It is a river of gold, a well-stocked library, that one acquires who possesses Jerome and nothing else.”1 1. General Introduction St. Jerome (347–420) is one of the four Doctors of the Latin Church, alongside St. Augustine (d. 430), St. Ambrose (d. 397), and Pope St. Gregory the Great (d. 604).2 Much of his fame rests upon the important role he played in the translation of the Bible that became known in later centuries as the Latin Vulgate. Under the patronage of Pope Damasus (d. 384), Jerome systematically revised existing Latin versions of the four Gospels and the Psalter, though he did not touch the New Testament Epistles. Later in his life Jerome produced extensive translations of the Old Testament based directly on the Hebrew.3 The resulting version of the Bible was destined to become a theological classic in the West. Jerome ’s dedication in mastering the original languages of Scripture would be an inspiration to later generations of scholars, especially during the Renaissance and Reformation.4 Jerome was 1. Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536), Ep. 396 (Allen 2.220). This letter forms the dedicatory epistle addressed to Archbishop William Warham in Erasmus ’s Edition of St. Jerome (1516). For an English translation of the prefatory documents, see Desiderius Erasmus, Patristic Scholarship: The Edition of St. Jerome, ed. J. Brady and J. Olin, CWE 61 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992). 2. This list was formally ratified by Pope Boniface VIII on September 20, 1295. 3. For a succinct account of Jerome’s work on the Vulgate, see H. Sparks, “Jerome as Biblical Scholar,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible, 1. From the Beginnings to Jerome, ed. P. Ackroyd and C. Evans (Cambridge, 1970), 510–41. 4. Cf. E. Rice, Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1985). 4 INTRODUCTION certainly one of the most learned of the Latin Fathers, but he was not a bishop, nor did he take a synthetic view of theological questions , as did his contemporary Augustine, and for these reasons Augustine’s theological legacy was far greater.5 In contrast with Augustine, however, Jerome had mastered both the Greek and the Latin theological traditions, and he was deeply influenced by the literature from both streams. Among the Latin Church’s scriptural commentators, Jerome is pre-eminent. His outstanding ecclesiastical learning led the Council of Trent to speak of him as “the greatest doctor in explaining the Sacred Scriptures.”6 In the seventeenth century, the learned Scripture scholar Richard Simon expressed the opinion that Jerome’s commentaries were the most thorough and instructive of his works: In his knowledge of Hebrew, Chaldean, Greek and Latin, Jerome possessed the necessary qualities for properly interpreting the Scriptures in a greater degree than all the other Fathers. Not only had he read and examined the Greek versions in Origen’s “Hexapla,” but he had also frequently conferred with the most erudite Jews of his day, and he rarely took any steps in his scriptural work without first consulting them. In addition to this he had read every author, both Greek and Latin, who had written upon the Bible before him, and finally, he was well versed in profane literature.7 Popes Benedict XV8 and Pius XII9 warmly commended Jerome ’s Scripture scholarship to Catholic scholars, though these exhortations were not universally received.10 Yet Jerome’s im5 . J. P. O’Connell, The Eschatology of St. Jerome (Mundelein, IL: Pontificia Facultas Theologica Seminarii Sanctae Mariae ad Lacum, 1948), i, says: “[Jerome] was not a theologian but an exegete and a polemist. He has left us no methodical and comprehensive studies of theological questions.” 6. Doctor Maximus in Exponendis Sacris Scripturis; cited by F. X. Murphy, “Saint Jerome,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2d ed., 7.759. 7. Critical History of the Old Testament (1685), book 3, chap. 9, cited in A. Largent, Saint Jerome, trans. H. Davenport with preface by G. Tyrrell (London: Duckworth; New York: Benziger, 1900), 146. 8. Spiritus Paraclitus = Encyclical of Pope Benedict XV on St. Jerome, September 15, 1920 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 12:385–420). 9. Divino afflante Spiritu (Sept. 30, 1943). Note that this date is St. Jerome’s Feast Day. 10. For example, the American Scripture scholar Raymond E. Brown, “The Problems of the Sensus Plenior,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 43 (1967): portance endures, since, as...