The Martyrdom of Jerome

In The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism, Geoffrey Harpham states that "the unrelenting ambition of these people [the early ascetics] was precisely to eliminate the 'hors-texte' from their existence, to become their own texts" (15). Patricia Cox Miller supports this claim by demonstrating in her article "The Blazing Body: Ascetic Desire in Jerome's Letter to Eustochium" (J. Early Christian Studies 1 [1993]: 21-45) that Jerome, exhorting Eustochium to virginity, transforms her into a text, (re)writing her body by figuring her as an embodiment of Scripture from the Song of Songs. Miller states, however, that Jerome encountered problems when he tried to rewrite his own body into a text using feminine virginal Scriptural tropes as he had for Eustochium: "[The Songs of Songs] was not a language that was available to Jerome for the erotic textualization of his own body. . . . He did not have available to him the kind of erotically-charged metaphor of desire that he used to construct Eustochium's body as ascetic text." She claims that Jerome was unable "to find a Scriptural metaphor that would, by textualizing his body, safely remove him from the fiery libido of the flesh", because the metaphor of the virginal bride of Christ was not easily applicable to his male body (32-33).

However, I think that Jerome indeed did find a "Scriptural metaphor" suitable for writing himself a pure virginal body. Harpham provides essential insight when he says that "for the early Christians textuality was closely linked with martyrdom" (14). I would like to propose that the trope with which Jerome chose to inscribe himself revolved around the notion of martyrdom, specifically the martyrdom of Christ.

That Jerome martyrs himself by becoming text is obvious. For one thing, he effectively kills his physical presence to Eustochium simply by writing to her. Jerome is "motivated by the desire to die to the world, to be transfigured into another, purer mode of being. Speaking, he is all too human; writing, he communicates through the dead letter, as though he were already dead" (Harpham 15). Jerome could easily have chosen instead to speak to Eustochium (Miller 32), but by writing her he martyrs himself, following the example of his martyred Christ.

Jerome martyrs himself by becoming text in another, more indirect, way as well. "Unable to give up his beloved library, [Jerome] would fast—only to be able afterwards to read Cicero as a reward for his labors" (Miller 39). Then one day, Jerome relates,

I was caught up in the spirit and dragged up to the tribunal of a judge. . . . Asked about my identity, I replied "I am a Christian." And he who sat [behind the tribunal] said, "You are lying; you are a Ciceronian, not a Christian; for where your treasure is, there is where your heart is also." Immediately I became mute, and, amid the floggings—for he had ordered that I be beaten—I was tortured more strongly. . . . Dismissed, I returned to the upper world. . . . This was not an idle dream. . . . My shoulders were black and blue, and I felt the bruises after I awoke from sleeping.

(Epistle 22.30)

In this we see that Jerome's identity is defined by the texts he reads: he is initially a "Ciceronian", and becomes a "Christian" by switching to more wholesome reading material. Jerome is the text he reads—and thus martyrs his fleshy body by showing his textual identity through his vision, reinforcing the martyrdom he achieved by choosing to write to Eustochium instead of speaking to her.

So far we have shown that Jerome martyrs himself in a general manner simply by becoming text. But he takes his textual self-transformation a step further by writing himself specifically as the martyred Christ—and he does so in the passage just quoted, the most important passage for Jerome's (re)writing of himself. The most striking thing about this vision is that it puts Jerome squarely in the role of the crucified Christ, and its sequence of events exactly replicates the sequence of the trial and crucifixion as presented in Matthew, Mark, and Luke: Jerome appears...