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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Theodoret/Letters/Letter 132

CXXXII. To Ibas, Bishop of Edessa.
The Lord has taught them that suffer wrong not to be cast down, but to rejoice, and to derive consolation from the examples of old. For from the period of the first men down to our own days we find instances of men who have been zealous in the worship of the God of all, and yet have been wronged by those with whom their lot was cast, and have fallen into many and grievous troubles. Of these I would have gone through the entire list, had I not been writing to one of accurate knowledge of the divine Scriptures. But since you, O beloved of God, have been nurtured from your boyhood in the divine oracles, I have thought it needless so to do. I only ask you to cast your eyes on them, and to look on all the kind-hearted clergy that have done wrong, with sorrow; on all that look lightly on wrong doing, with pity; and to be sorrowful for the disquiet of the Church. I ask you to rejoice and be glad that I am a sharer in suffering for the sake of true religion, and to praise without ceasing Him who has imposed this lot on me. As for honour and comfort and the dignity of sees and wretched reputation, let us yield them to the murderers.
Let us cleave only to the doctrines of the gospel, and with them, if need be, endure any extremity of pain, and choose honourable penury rather than wealth with its many cares.
I am not writing in these terms in order to give you exhortation, for I know the courage of your holiness in trouble. My object is to make my own mind known to your piety, and to inform you that you have on your side comrades who are gladly incurring peril for the truth’s sake. I have been anxious for some time to write thus to you, but I have been unable to find anyone to convey my letter. Now I have met with the very honourable and pious presbyter Ozeas, a man who is at once engaged in the battle for truth and attached to your piety. So I write and salute your holiness, and beg you to give me both the prop of your prayers and the comfort of a letter from you.

## Footnotes

* ↑ To console him under the unjust sentence of the Latrocinium.
* ↑ It will be remembered that Flavianus had actually died from the brutal treatment he had received at the hands—and the feet—of Dioscorus with his partisans and bullies, and “migravit ad Dominum dolore plagarum,” Aug. 11, 449, three days after he was carried from St. Mary’s at Ephesus to his dungeon. (Liberatus Brev. xix. Dict. Christ. Biog. i. 858.)
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Theodoret/Letters/Letter 135

CXXXV. To Bishop Romulus.
You have reminded me of the ancient story, and remarked how the King of the Syrians, bethinking him of the loving kindness of the kings of Israel, assumed the form of a suppliant and failed not to obtain his petition. Remember therefore, sir, the divine wrath. God delivered Ahab to utter destruction for using mercy, and delivered his sentence through the mouth of the prophet, saying “Thy life shall go for his life and thy people for his people.” We are thus commanded to temper mercy with justice, since not every kind of mercy is pleasing to the God of all. The present state of affairs specially requires prudent council; for we are contending on behalf of the divine doctrines, wherein we have the hope of our salvation. But herein, too, may be seen the great difference between man and man. Some men are verily infected with the common impiety; while others, without distinction, advance at one time one doctrine, and at another its opposite. Some who know the truth conceal it in the secret chambers of their soul, while they preach impiety with the rest; others again who are filled with envy have made their private ill-will an occasion of waging war against the truth, and wreak all kinds of mischief against the prophets of the truth. Again, there are who embrace the truth of the apostolic doctrines, and yet because they are afraid of the power of the dominant party are too cowed to proclaim it, and though they lament at the abundance of our misfortunes, nevertheless side with them that set the mighty surge a-rolling. It is in this last category that we place your reverence. We have believed you to be sound in the divine doctrines, and think that you keep your affection for me, and are borne along with the time for no other reason than your cowardice. Under these circumstances though I am not writing to any of the rest, I write to your holiness, and receive your reply. I see your drift and to some extent I pardon your pusillanimity. But the loving Lord has now removed all occasions of cowardice, by exhibiting the new-fangled impiety, and shewing the plain truth of the gospels. I, even though my mouths were as many as my hairs, cannot praise as I ought the loving-kindness of the Lord for compelling my strongest opponents openly to preach what has been preached by me. For I have heard that he who shares your holiness’s roof, when he heard that anathemas had been published in the great cities, ceased to imitate the crooked gait of crabs, and, after disputing in a certain assembly about doctrines, walked in the straight road. Never must we suit our words to the season, but ever preserve the unbending rule of truth.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Romulus, bishop of Chalcis in Cœle Syria, sided with the dominant Hæretical party through pusillanimity. He was at Chalcedon in 451. Who may have been his crab-gaited friend can only be conjectured. It would appear that edicts anathematizing Eutyches were published soon after the accession of Marcian.
* ↑ 1 Kings xx. 42
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 32

Letter XXXII. To Marcella.
Jerome writes that he is busy collating Aquila’s Greek version of the Old Testament with the Hebrew, inquires after Marcella’s mother, and forwards the two preceding letters (XXX., XXXI.). Written at Rome in 384 a.d.
1. There are two reasons for the shortness of this letter, one that its bearer is impatient to start, and the other that I am too busy to waste time on trifles. You ask what business can be so urgent as to stop me from a chat on paper. Let me tell you, then, that for some time past I have been comparing Aquila’s version of the Old Testament with the scrolls of the Hebrew, to see if from hatred to Christ the synagogue has changed the text; and—to speak frankly to a friend—I have found several variations which confirm our faith. After having exactly revised the prophets, Solomon, the psalter, and the books of Kings, I am now engaged on Exodus (called by the Jews, from its opening words, Eleh shemôth), and when I have finished this I shall go on to Leviticus. Now you see why I can let no claim for a letter withdraw me from my work. However, as I do not wish my friend Currentius to run altogether in vain, I have tacked on to this little talk two letters which I am sending to your sister Paula, and to her dear child Eustochium. Read these, and if you find them instructive or pleasant, take what I have said to them as meant for you also.
2. I hope that Albina, your mother and mine, is well. In bodily health, I mean, for I doubt not of her spiritual welfare. Pray salute her for me, and cherish her with double affection, both as a Christian and as a mother.

## Footnotes

* ↑ This version, made in the reign of Hadrian by a Jewish proselyte who is said by some to have been a renegade Christian, was marked by an exaggerated literalism and a close following of the Hebrew original. By the Church it was regarded with suspicion as being designedly anti-Christian. Jerome, however, here acquits Aquila of the charge brought against him.
* ↑ I.e. all the sapiential books, viz. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom.
* ↑ Exod. i. 1, תומש הלא, A.V., “these are the names.”
* ↑ The name means runner. Hence the allusion to Gal. ii. 2.
* ↑ XXX., XXXI.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 36

Letter XXXVI. 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.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 30

Letter XXX. To Paula.
Some account of the so-called alphabetical psalms (XXXVII., CXI., CXII., CXIX., CXLV.). After explaining the mystical meaning of the alphabet, Jerome goes on thus: “What honey is sweeter than to know the wisdom of God? others, if they will, may possess riches, drink from a jewelled cup, shine in silks, and try in vain to exhaust their wealth in the most varied pleasures. Our riches are to meditate in the law of the Lord day and night, to knock at the closed door, to receive the ‘three loaves’ of the Trinity, and, when the Lord goes before us, to walk upon the water of the world.” Written at Rome a.d. 384.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ps. i. 2.
* ↑ Matt. vii. 7.
* ↑ Luke xi. 5–8.
* ↑ Matt. xiv. 25–33.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 34

Letter XXXIV. To Marcella.
In reply to a request from Marcella for information concerning two phrases in Ps. cxxvii. (“bread of sorrow,” v. 2, and “children of the shaken off,” A.V. “of the youth,” v. 4). Jerome, after lamenting that Origen’s notes on the psalm are no longer extant, gives the following explanations:
The Hebrew phrase “bread of sorrow” is rendered by the LXX. “bread of idols”; by Aquila, “bread of troubles”; by Symmachus, “bread of misery.” Theodotion follows the LXX. So does Origen’s Fifth Version. The Sixth renders “bread of error.” In support of the LXX. the word used here is in Ps. cxv. 4, translated “idols.” Either the troubles of life are meant or else the tenets of heresy.
With the second phrase he deals at greater length. After showing that Hilary of Poitiers’s view (viz. that the persons meant are the apostles, who were told to shake the dust off their feet, Matt. x. 14) is untenable and would require “shakers off” to be substituted for “shaken off,” Jerome reverts to the Hebrew as before and declares that the true rendering is that of Symmachus and Theodotion, viz. “children of youth.” He points out that the LXX. (by whom the Latin translators had been misled) fall into the same mistake at Neh. iv. 16. Finally he corrects a slip of Hilary as to Ps. cxxviii. 2, where, through a misunderstanding of the LXX., the latter had substituted “the labors of thy fruits” for “the labors of thy hands.” He speaks throughout with high respect of Hilary, and says that it was not the bishop’s fault that he was ignorant of Hebrew. The date of the letter is probably a.d. 384.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 35

Letter XXXV. From Pope Damasus.
Damasus addresses five questions to Jerome with a request for information concerning them. They are:
1. What is the meaning of the words “Whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold”? (Gen. iv. 5.)
2. If God has made all things good, how comes it that He gives charge to Noah concerning unclean animals, and says to Peter, “What God hath cleansed that call not thou common”? (Acts x. 15.)
3. How is Gen. xv. 16, “in the fourth generation they shall come hither again,” to be reconciled with Ex. xiii. 18, LXX, “in the fifth generation the children of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt”?
4. Why did Abraham receive circumcision as a seal of his faith? (Rom. iv. 11.)
5. Why was Isaac, a righteous man and dear to God, allowed by God to become the dupe of Jacob? (Gen. xxvii.) Written at Rome 384 a.d.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 28

Letter XXVIII. To Marcella.
An explanation of the Hebrew word Selah. This word, rendered by the LXX. διάψαλμα and by Aquila ἀεί, was as much a crux in Jerome’s day as it is in ours. “Some,” he writes, “make it a ‘change of metre,’ others ‘a pause for breath,’ others ‘the beginning of a new subject.’ According to yet others it has something to do with rhythm or marks a burst of instrumental music.” Jerome himself inclines to follow Aquila and Origen, who make the word mean “forever,” and suggests that it betokens completion, like the “explicit” or “feliciter” in contemporary Latin mss. Written at Rome a.d. 384.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 29

Letter XXIX. To Marcella.
An explanation of the Hebrew words Ephod bad (1 Sam. ii. 18) and Teraphim (Judges xvii. 5). Written at Rome to Marcella, also at Rome a.d. 384.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 283

Letter CCLXXXIII.
To a widow.
I hope to find a suitable day for the conference, after those which I intend to fix for the hill-country. I see no opportunity for our meeting (unless the Lord so order it beyond my expectation), other than at a public conference.
You may imagine my position from your own experience. If in the care of a single household you are beset with such a crowd of anxieties, how many distractions, think you, each day brings to me?
Your dream, I think, reveals more perfectly the necessity of making provision for spiritual contemplation, and cultivating that mental vision by which God is wont to be seen. Enjoying as you do the consolation of the Holy Scriptures, you stand in need neither of my assistance nor of that of anybody else to help you to comprehend your duty. You have the all-sufficient counsel and guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead you to what is right.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in the episcopate.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 285

Letter CCLXXXV.
Without Address.
The hearer of this letter is one on whom rests the care of our Church and the management of its property—our beloved son.
Deign to grant him freedom of speech on those points that are referred to your holiness, and attention to the expression of his own views; so shall our Church at length recover herself, and henceforth be released from this many-headed Hydra.
Our property is our poverty; so much so that we are ever in search of one to relieve us of it; for the expenses of the Church property amount to more than any profit that she derives from it.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in the episcopate.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 288

Letter CCLXXXVIII.
Without address. Excommunicatory.
When public punishment fails to bring a man to his senses, or exclusion from the prayers of the Church to drive him to repentance, it only remains to treat him in accordance with our Lord’s directions—as it is written, “If thy brother shall trespass against thee….tell him his fault between thee and him;…if he will not hear thee, take with thee another;” “and if he shall” then “neglect to hear, tell it unto the Church; but if he neglect to hear even the Church, let him be unto thee henceforth as an heathen man, and as a publican.” Now all this we have done in the case of this fellow. First, he was accused of his fault; then he was convicted in the presence of one or two witnesses; thirdly, in the presence of the Church. Thus we have made our solemn protest, and he has not listened to it. Henceforth let him be excommunicated.
Further, let proclamation be made throughout the district, that he be excluded from participation in any of the ordinary relations of life; so that by our withholding ourselves from all intercourse with him he may become altogether food for the devil.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in the episcopate.
* ↑ Matt. xviii. 15–17.
* ↑ Contrast 1 Tim. i. 20.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 284

Letter CCLXXXIV.
To the assessor in the case of monks.
Concerning the monks, your excellency has, I believe, already rules in force, so that I need ask for no special favour on their behalf.
It is enough that they share with others the enjoyment of your general beneficence; still I feel it incumbent upon me too to interest myself in their case. I therefore submit it to your more perfect judgment, that men who have long since taken leave of this life, who have mortified their own bodies, so that they have neither money to spend nor bodily service to render in the interests of the common weal, should be exempted from taxation. For if their lives are consistent with their profession, they possess neither money nor bodies; for the former is spent in communicating to the needy; while their bodies are worn away in prayer and fasting.
Men living such lives you will, I know, regard with special reverence; nay you will wish to secure their intervention, since by their life in the Gospel they are able to prevail with God.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in the episcopate.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 291

Letter CCXCI.
To Timotheus the Chorepiscopus.
The due limits of a letter, and that mode of addressing you, render it inconvenient for me to write all I think; at the same time to pass over my thoughts in silence, when my heart is burning with righteous indignation against you, is well-nigh impossible. I will adopt the midway course: I will write some things; others I will omit. For I wish to chide you, if so I may, in terms both flank and friendly.
Yes! that Timotheus whom I have known from boyhood, so intent upon an upright and ascetic life, as even to be accused of excess therein, now forsakes the enquiry after those means whereby we may be united to God; now makes it his first thought what some one else may think of him, and lives a life of dependence upon the opinions of others; is mainly anxious how to serve his friends, without incurring the ridicule of enemies; and fears disgrace with the world as a great misfortune. Does he not know, that while he is occupied with these trifles he is unconsciously neglecting his highest interests? For, that we cannot be engaged with both at once—the things of this world and of Heaven—the holy Scriptures are full of teaching for us. Nay, Nature herself is full of such instances. In the exercise of the mental faculty, to think two thoughts at the same time is quite impossible. In the perceptions of our senses, to admit two sounds falling upon our ears at the same moment, and to distinguish them, although we are provided with two open passages, is impossible. Our eyes, again, unless they are both fixed upon the object of our vision, are unable to perform their action accurately.
Thus much for Nature; but to recite to you the evidence of the Scriptures were as ridiculous as, so runs the proverb, ‘to carry owls to Athens.’ Why then combine things incompatible—the tumults of civil life and the practice of religion?
Withdraw from clamour; be no more the cause or object of annoyance; let us keep ourselves to ourselves. We long since proposed religion as our aim; let us make the attainment of it our practice, and shew those who have the wish to insult us that it does not lie with them to annoy us at their will. But this will only be when we have clearly shewn them that we afford no handle for abuse.
For the present enough of this! Would that some day we might meet and more perfectly consider those things that be for our souls’ welfare; so may we not be too much occupied with thoughts of vanity, since death must one day overtake us.
I was greatly pleased with the gifts you kindly sent me. They were most welcome on their own account; the thought of who it was that sent them made them many times more welcome. The gifts from Pontus, the tablets and medicines, kindly accept when I send them. At present they are not by me.
N.B. The letters numbered CCXCII.–CCCLXVI. are included by the Ben. Ed. in a “Classis Tertia,” having no note of time. Some are doubtful, and some plainly spurious. Of these I include such as seem most important.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in the episcopate.
* ↑ cf. note on p. 156.
* ↑ γλαῦκἠ ᾽Αθήναζε. Arist., Av. 301.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 287

Letter CCLXXXVII.
Without address.
IT is difficult to deal with this man. I scarcely know how to treat so shifty, and, to judge from the evidence, so desperate a character. When summoned before the court, he fails to appear; and if he does attend, he is gifted with such volubility of words and oaths, that I think myself well off to be quickly rid of him. I have often known him twist round his accusations upon his accusers. In a word, there is no creature living upon earth so subtile and versatile in villainy. A slight acquaintance with him suffices to prove this. Why then do you appeal to me? Why not at once bring yourselves to submit to his ill-treatment, as to a visitation of God’s anger?
At the same time you must not be contaminated by contact with wickedness.
I enjoin therefore that he and all his household be forbidden the services of the Church, and all other communion with her ministers. Being thus made an example of, he may haply be brought to a sense of his enormities.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in the episcopate.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 286

Letter CCLXXXVI.
To the Commentariensis.
Whereas certain vagabonds have been arrested in the church for stealing, in defiance of God’s commandment, some poor men’s clothing, of little value otherwise, yet such as they had rather have on than off their backs; and whereas you consider that in virtue of your office you yourself should have the custody of the offenders:—I hereby declare, that I would have you know that for offences committed in the church it is our business to mete out punishment, and that the intervention of the civil authorities is in these cases superfluous. Wherefore, the stolen property, as set forth in the document in your possession and in the transcript made in the presence of eyewitnesses, I enjoin you to retain, reserving part for future claims, and distributing the rest among the present applicants.
As for the offenders,—that they be corrected in the discipline and admonition of the Lord. By this means I hope to work their successive reformations. For where the stripes of human tribunals have failed, I have often known the fearful judgments of God to be effectual. If it is, however, your wish to refer this matter also to the count, such is my confidence in his justice and uprightness that I leave you to follow your own counsels.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in the episcopate.
* ↑ A registrar of prisons, or prison superintendent. Cod. Just. ix. 4. 4. Dis. xlviii. 20. 6.