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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume I/Confessions/Book XIII/Chapter 12

Chapter XII.—Allegorical Explanation of Genesis, Chap. I., Concerning the Origin of the Church and Its Worship.
13. Proceed in thy confession, say to the Lord thy God, O my faith, Holy, Holy, Holy, O Lord my God, in Thy name have we been baptized, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in Thy name do we baptize, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, because among us also in His Christ did God make heaven and earth, namely, the spiritual and carnal people of His Church. Yea, and our earth, before it received the “form of doctrine,” was invisible and formless, and we were covered with the darkness of ignorance. For Thou correctest man for iniquity, and “Thy judgments are a great deep.” But because Thy Spirit was “borne over the waters,” Thy mercy forsook not our misery, and Thou saidst, “Let there be light,” “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Repent ye, let there be light. And because our soul was troubled within us, we remembered Thee, O Lord, from the land of Jordan, and that mountain equal unto Thyself, but little for our sakes; and upon our being displeased with our darkness, we turned unto Thee, “and there was light.” And, behold, we were sometimes darkness, but now light in the Lord.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. xxviii. 19.
* ↑ He similarly interprets “heaven and earth” in his De Gen. ad Lit. ii. 4. With this compare Chrysostom’s illustration in his De Pænit. hom. 8. The Church is like the ark of Noah, yet different from it. Into that ark as the animals entered, so they came forth. The fox remained a fox, the hawk a hawk, and the serpent a serpent. But with the spiritual ark it is not so, for in it evil dispositions are changed. This illustration of Chrysostom is used with an effective but rough eloquence by the Italian preacher Segneri, in his Quaresimale, serm. iv. sec.
* ↑ Rom. vi. 17.
* ↑ Ps. xxxix. 11.
* ↑ Ps. xxxvi. 6.
* ↑ Gen. i. 3.
* ↑ See p. 47, note 10, above.
* ↑ Matt. iii. 2.
* ↑ “His putting repentance and light together is, for that baptism was anciently called illumination, as Heb. vi. 4, Ps. xlii. 2.”—W. W. See also p. 118, note 4, part 1, above, for the meaning of “illumination.”
* ↑ Ps. xlii. 6.
* ↑ That is, Christ. See p. 130, note 8, part 2, above; and compare the De Div. Quæst., lxxxiii. 6.
* ↑ Eph. v. 8.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume I/Confessions/Book XIII/Chapter 10

Chapter X.—That Nothing Arose Save by the Gift of God.
11. Happy creature, which, though in itself it was other than Thou, hath known no other state than that as soon as it was made, it was, without any interval of time, by Thy Gift, which is borne over everything mutable, raised up by that calling whereby Thou saidst, “Let there be light, and there was light.” Whereas in us there is a difference of times, in that we were darkness, and are made light; but of that it is only said what it would have been had it not been enlightened. And this is so spoken as if it had been fleeting and darksome before; that so the cause whereby it was made to be otherwise might appear,—that is to say, being turned to the unfailing Light it might become light. Let him who is able understand this; and let him who is not, ask of Thee. Why should he trouble me, as if I could enlighten any “man that cometh into the world?”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Eph. v. 8.
* ↑ Et qui non potest, which words, however, some mss. omit, reading, Qui potest intelligat; a te petat.
* ↑ John i. 9; see p. 76, note 2, and p. 181, note 2, above.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume I/Confessions/Book XIII/Chapter 14

Chapter XIV.—That Out of the Children of the Night and of the Darkness, Children of the Light and of the Day are Made.
15. And so say I too, O my God, where art Thou? Behold where Thou art! In Thee I breathe a little, when I pour out my soul by myself in the voice of joy and praise, the sound of him that keeps holy-day. And yet it is “cast down,” because it relapses and becomes a deep, or rather it feels that it is still a deep. Unto it doth my faith speak which Thou hast kindled to enlighten my feet in the night, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God;” His “word is a lamp unto my feet.” Hope and endure until the night,—the mother of the wicked,—until the anger of the Lord be overpast, whereof we also were once children who were sometimes darkness, the remains whereof we carry about us in our body, dead on account of sin, “until the day break and the shadows flee away.” “Hope thou in the Lord.” In the morning I shall stand in Thy presence, and contemplate Thee; I shall for ever confess unto Thee. In the morning I shall stand in Thy presence, and shall see “the health of my countenance,” my God, who also shall quicken our mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in us, because in mercy He was borne over our inner darksome and floating deep. Whence we have in this pilgrimage received “an earnest” that we should now be light, whilst as yet we “are saved by hope,” and are the children of light, and the children of the day,—not the children of the night nor of the darkness, which yet we have been. Betwixt whom and us, in this as yet uncertain state of human knowledge, Thou only dividest, who provest our hearts and callest the light day, and the darkness night. For who discerneth us but Thou? But what have we that we have not received of Thee? Out of the same lump vessels unto honour, of which others also are made to dishonour.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ibid. ver. 4.
* ↑ Ibid. ver. 5.
* ↑ Ps. cxix. 105.
* ↑ Job xiv. 13.
* ↑ Eph. ii. 3, and v. 8.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 10.
* ↑ Cant. ii. 17.
* ↑ Ps. v. 3.
* ↑ Ps. xxx. 12.
* ↑ Ps. xliii. 5.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 11.
* ↑ 2 Cor. i. 22.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 24.
* ↑ Though of the light, we are not yet in the light; and though, in this grey dawn of the coming day, we have a foretaste of the vision that shall be, we cannot hope, as he says in Ps. v. 4, to “see Him as He is” until the darkness of sin be overpast.
* ↑ Eph. v. 8, and 1 Thess. v. 5.
* ↑ Ps. vii. 9.
* ↑ Gen. i. 5.
* ↑ 1 Cor. iv. 7.
* ↑ Rom. ix. 21.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume I/Confessions/Book XIII/Chapter 17

Chapter XVII.—Allegorical Explanation of the Sea and the Fruit-Bearing Earth—Verses 9 and 11.
20. Who hath gathered the embittered together into one society? For they have all the same end, that of temporal and earthly happiness, on account of which they do all things, although they may fluctuate with an innumerable variety of cares. Who, O Lord, unless Thou, saidst, Let the waters be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear, which “thirsteth after Thee”? For the sea also is Thine, and Thou hast made it, and Thy hands prepared the dry land. For neither is the bitterness of men’s wills, but the gathering together of waters called sea; for Thou even curbest the wicked desires of men’s souls, and fixest their bounds, how far they may be permitted to advance, and that their waves may be broken against each other; and thus dost Thou make it a sea, by the order of Thy dominion over all things.
21. But as for the souls that thirst after Thee, and that appear before Thee (being by other bounds divided from the society of the sea), them Thou waterest by a secret and sweet spring, that the earth may bring forth her fruit, and, Thou, O Lord God, so commanding, our soul may bud forth works of mercy according to their kind,—loving our neighbour in the relief of his bodily necessities, having seed in itself according to its likeness, when from our infirmity we compassionate even to the relieving of the needy; helping them in a like manner as we would that help should be brought unto us if we were in a like need; not only in the things that are easy, as in “herb yielding seed,” but also in the protection of our assistance, in our very strength, like the tree yielding fruit; that is, a good turn in delivering him who suffers an injury from the hand of the powerful, and in furnishing him with the shelter of protection by the mighty strength of just judgment.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gen. i. 9. In his comment on Psalm lxiv. 6 (sec. 9), he interprets “the sea,” allegorically, of the wicked world. Hence were the disciples called “fishers of men.” If the fishers have taken us in the nets of faith, we are to rejoice, because the net will be dragged to the shore. On the providence of God, regulating the wickedness of men, see p. 79, note 4, above.
* ↑ Ps. cxliii. 6, and lxiii. 1.
* ↑ Ps. xcv. 5.
* ↑ Ps. civ. 9, and Job xxxviii. 11, 12.
* ↑ Gen. i. 11. As he interprets (see sec. 20, note, above) the sea as the world, so he tells us in Ps. lxvi. 6, sec. 8, that when the earth, full of thorns, thirsted for the waters of heaven, God in His mercy sent His apostles to preach the gospel, whereon the earth brought forth that fruit which fills the world; that is, the earth bringing forth fruit represents the Church.
* ↑ Ps. lxxxv. 11.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume I/Confessions/Book XIII/Chapter 13

Chapter XIII.—That the Renewal of Man is Not Completed in This World.
14. But as yet “by faith, not by sight,” for “we are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope.” As yet deep calleth unto deep but in “the noise of Thy waterspouts.” And as yet doth he that saith, I “could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal,” even he, as yet, doth not count himself to have apprehended, and forgetteth those things which are behind, and reacheth forth to those things which are before, and groaneth being burdened; and his soul thirsteth after the living God, as the hart after the water-brooks, and saith, “When shall I come?” “desiring to be clothed upon with his house which is from heaven;” and calleth upon this lower deep, saying, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” And, “Be not children in understanding, howbeit in malice be ye children,” that in “understanding ye may be perfect;” and “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?” But now not in his own voice, but in Thine who sentest Thy Spirit from above; through Him who “ascended up on high,” and set open the flood-gates of His gifts, that the force of His streams might make glad the city of God. For, for Him doth “the friend of the bridegroom” sigh, having now the first-fruits of the Spirit laid up with Him, yet still groaning within himself, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of his body; to Him he sighs, for he is a member of the Bride; for Him is he jealous, for he is the friend of the Bridegroom; for Him is he jealous, not for himself; because in the voice of Thy “waterspouts,” not in his own voice, doth he call on that other deep, for whom being jealous he feareth, lest that, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so their minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in our Bridegroom, Thine only Son. What a light of beauty will that be when “we shall see Him as He is,” and those tears be passed away which “have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?”

## Footnotes

* ↑ 2 Cor. v. 7.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 24.
* ↑ The “deep” Augustin interprets (as do the majority of Patristic commentators), in Ps. xli. 8, sec. 13, to be the heart of man; and the “deep” that calls unto it, is the preacher who has his own “deep” of infirmity, even as Peter had.
* ↑ Ps. xlii. 7.
* ↑ 1 Cor. iii. 1.
* ↑ Phil. iii. 13.
* ↑ 2 Cor. v. 2, 4.
* ↑ Ps. xlii. 1, 2.
* ↑ 2 Cor. v. 2.
* ↑ Rom. xii. 2.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xiv. 20 (margin).
* ↑ Gal. iii. 1.
* ↑ Acts ii. 19.
* ↑ Eph. iv. 8.
* ↑ Mal. iii. 10.
* ↑ Ps. xlvi. 4.
* ↑ John iii. 29.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 23.
* ↑ John iii. 29.
* ↑ Ps. xlii. 7.
* ↑ 2 Cor. xi. 3, and 1 John iii. 3.
* ↑ Ibid. ver. 2.
* ↑ Ps. xlii. 3.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume I/Confessions/Book XIII/Chapter 16

Chapter XVI.—That No One But the Unchangeable Light Knows Himself.
19. For altogether as Thou art, Thou only knowest, Who art unchangeably, and knowest unchangeably, and willest unchangeably. And Thy Essence Knoweth and Willeth unchangeably; and Thy Knowledge Is, and Willeth unchangeably; and Thy Will Is, and Knoweth unchangeably. Nor doth it appear just to Thee, that as the Unchangeable Light knoweth Itself, so should It be known by that which is enlightened and changeable. Therefore unto Thee is my soul as “land where no water is,” because as it cannot of itself enlighten itself, so it cannot of itself satisfy itself. For so is the fountain of life with Thee, like as in Thy light we shall see light.

## Footnotes

* ↑ See Dean Mansel on this place (Bampton Lectures, lect. v. note 18), who argues that revelation is clear and devoid of mystery when viewed as intended “for our practical guidance,” and not as a matter of speculation. He says: “The utmost deficiency that can be charged against human faculties amounts only to this, that we cannot say that we know God as God knows Himself,—that the truth of which our finite minds are susceptible may, for aught we know, be but the passing shadow of some higher reality, which exists only in the Infinite Intelligence.” He shows also that this deficiency pertains to the human faculties as such, and that, whether they set themselves to consider the things of nature or revelation. See also p. 193, note 8, above, and notes, pp. 197, 198, below.
* ↑ Ps. lxiii. 1.
* ↑ Ps. xxxvi. 9.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/Prefaces/To Books of the Old Testament/To Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs.
Dedicated to Chromatius and Heliodorus, a.d. 393. The Preface is important as showing the help given to Jerome by his friends, the rapidity of his work, and his view of the Apocrypha. We give the two chief passages.
It is well that my letter should couple those who are coupled in the episcopate; and that I should not separate on paper those who are bound in one by the law of Christ. I would have written the commentaries on Hosea, Amos, Zechariah, and the Kings, which you ask of me, if I had not been prevented by illness. You give me comfort by the supplies you send me; you support my secretaries and copyists, so that the efforts of all my powers may be given to you. And then all at once comes a thick crowd of people with all sorts of demands, as if it was just that I should neglect your hunger and work for others, or as if, in the matter of giving and receiving, I had a debt to any one but you. And so, though I am broken by a long illness, yet, not to be altogether silent and dumb amongst you this year, I have dedicated to you three days’ work, that is to say, the translation of the three books of Solomon.
After speaking of the books of the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus, which were sent at the same time, the Preface continues:
As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church. If any one is better pleased with the edition of the Seventy, there it is, long since corrected by me. For it is not our aim in producing the new to destroy the old. And yet if our friend reads carefully, he will find that our version is the more intelligible, for it has not turned sour by being poured three times over into different vessels, but has been drawn straight from the press, and stored in a clean jar, and has thus preserved its own flavour.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/Prefaces/To Books of the Old Testament/To Tobit and Judith

Tobit and Judith.
The Preface is to Chromatius and Heliodorus. It recognizes that the books are apocryphal. After his usual complaints of “the Pharisees” who impugned his translations, he says: “Inasmuch as the Chaldee is closely allied to the Hebrew, I procured the help of the most skilful speaker of both languages I could find, and gave to the subject one day’s hasty labour, my method being to explain in Latin, with the aid of a secretary, whatever an interpreter expressed to me in Hebrew words.” As to Judith, he notes that the Council of Nicæa had, contrary to the Hebrew tradition, included it in the Canon of Scripture, and this, with his friends’ requests, had induced him to undertake the labour of emendation and translation.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/Prolegomena

Prolegomena to Jerome.

## Contents

* Introductory
* Contemporary History
* Life of Jerome
* The Writings of Jerome
* Estimate of the Scope and Value of Jerome's Writings
* Character and Influence of Jerome
* Chronological Tables
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/Prefaces/To Books of the Old Testament/To Joshua, Judges, and Ruth

Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.
The Preface to these books was written a.d. 404; Jerome speaks of the death of Paula, which took place in that year, and the work is addressed to Eustochium alone. The Preface is chiefly occupied with a defence of his translation. He tells those who carp at it that they are not bound to read it, and mentions that the Church had given no final sanction to the LXX., but read the book of Daniel in Theodotion’s version. The books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, were probably the last of the Vulgate translation; the Preface declares Jerome’s intention of devoting himself henceforward to the Commentaries on the Prophets, a work which took up the remainder of his life.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/Prefaces/To Books of the Old Testament/To the books of Solomon

Books of Solomon.
This is addressed to Paula and Eustochium. Jerome describes the numerous emendations he has had to make in what was then the received Latin text, but says he has not found the same necessity in dealing with Ecclesiasticus. He adds, “All I aim at is to give you a revised edition of the Canonical Scriptures, and to employ my Latin on what is certain rather than on what is doubtful.”
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/Prefaces/To Books of the Old Testament/To the Twelve Minor Prophets

The Twelve Minor Prophets.
This Preface, dedicated to Paula and Eustochium in a.d. 392, contains nothing of importance, merely mentioning the dates of a few of the prophets. and the fact that the Twelve Prophets were counted by the Hebrews as forming a single book.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/Prefaces/To Books of the Old Testament/To Psalms 2

The Psalms.
Jerome first undertook a revision of the Psalter with the help of the Septuagint about the year 383, when living at Rome. This revision, which obtained the name of the Roman Psalter “probably because it was made for the use of the Roman Church at the request of Damasus,” was retained until the pontificate of Pius V. (a.d. 1566). Before long “the old error prevailed over the new correction,” the faults of the old version crept in again through the negligence of copyists; and at the request of Paula and Eustochium, Jerome commenced a new and more thorough revision. The exact date is not known; the work was in all probability done at Bethlehem in the years 387 and 388. This edition, which soon became popular, was introduced by Gregory of Tours into the services of the Church of France, and thus obtained the name of the Gallican Psalter. In 1566 it superseded the Roman in all churches except those of the Vatican, Milan, and St. Mark’s, Venice.
Long ago, when I was living at Rome, I revised the Psalter, and corrected it in a great measure, though but cursorily, in accordance with the Septuagint version. You now find it, Paula and Eustochium, again corrupted through the fault of copyists, and realise the fact that ancient error is more powerful than modern correction; and you therefore urge me, as it were, to cross-plough the land which has already been broken up, and, by means of the transverse furrows, to root out the thorns which are beginning to spring again; it is only right, you say, that rank and noxious growths should be cut down as often as they appear. And so I issue my customary admonition by way of preface both to you, for whom it happens that I am undertaking the labour, and to those persons who desire to have copies such as I describe. Pray see that what I have carefully revised be transcribed with similar painstaking care. Every reader can observe for himself where there is placed either a horizontal line or mark issuing from the centre, that is, either an obelus (†) or an asterisk (*). And wherever he sees the former, he is to understand that between this mark and the two stops (:) which I have introduced, the Septuagint translation contains superfluous matter. But where he sees the asterisk (*), an addition to the Hebrew books is indicated, which also goes as far as the two stops.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/Prefaces/To Books of the Old Testament/To translations from the Septuagint and Chaldee

Translations from the Septuagint and Chaldee.
There are three stages of Jerome’s work of Scripture Translation. The first is during his stay at Rome, a.d. 382–385, when he translated only from the Greek—the New Testament from the Greek mss., and the Book of Psalms from the LXX. The second is the period immediately after his settlement at Bethlehem, when he translated still from the LXX., but marked with obeli and asterisks the passages in which that version differed from the Hebrew: the third from a.d. 390–404, in which he translated directly from the Hebrew. The work of the second period is that which is now before us. The whole of the Old Testament was translated from the LXX. (see his Apology, book ii. c. 24), but most of it was lost during his lifetime (see Letters CXXXIV. (end) and CXVI. 34 (in Augustin Letter, 62)). What remains is the Book of Job, the Psalms, Chronicles, the Books of Solomon, and Tobit and Judith.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/Prefaces/To Books of the Old Testament/To Psalms

Psalms.
Dedicated to Sophronius about the year 392. Jerome had, while at Rome, made a translation of the Psalms from the LXX., which he had afterwards corrected by collation with the Hebrew text (see the Preface addressed to Paula and Eustochium, infra). His friend Sophronius, in quoting the Psalms to the Jews, was constantly met with the reply, “It does not so stand in the Hebrew.” He, therefore, urged Jerome to translate them direct from the original. Jerome, in presenting the translation to his friend, records the intention which he had expressed of translating the new Latin version into Greek. This we know was done by Sophronius, not only for the Psalms, but also for the rest of the Vulgate, and was valued by the Greeks (Apol. ii. 24, vol. iii. of this series, p. 515).
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XIV/The Third Ecumenical Council/Extracts from the Acts 1

Extracts from the Acts.
Session I.
[Before the arrival of the Papal Legates.]
(Labbe and Cossart, Concilia Tom. III., col. 459 et seqq.)
The Nicene Synod set forth this faith:
We believe in one God, etc.
When this creed had been recited, Peter the Presbyter of Alexandria, and primicerius of the notaries said:
We have in our hands the letter of the most holy and most reverend archbishop Cyril, which he wrote to the most reverend Nestorius, filled with counsel and advice, on account of his aberration from the right faith. I will read this if your holiness [i.e., the holy Synod] so orders.…The letter began as follows:
Καταφλυαροῦσι μὲν, ὡς ἀκούω, κ.τ.λ.
Intelligo quosdam meæ, etc.