Pope Benedict celebrates Jerome, his devotion to Hebrew, and his love of the Bible

Once upon a time, I was given a tour of St. Peter’s Square and the surrounding sights by a friend from Sicily, a Byzantine rite priest from Piana degli Albanesi near Palermo.

The tour was not what I expected. My cicero was intensely critical of the Catholic Church on very specific grounds. But the failings he saw in the church – his own church – were not the failings I, born and raised in the tradition of the Reformation, thought I knew to be her failings. What does the Catholic Church look like through Eastern Christian eyes? It is, I think, an instructive story to hear, but I’m not the best one to tell it.

On Wednesday, in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Pope Benedict celebrated St. Jerome, his devotion to Hebrew, and his love of the Bible. It’s a lovely story, and Benedict tells it well. Note well what he chooses to emphasize.

In the dom of Bible there has been talk of late about the right reading level to write in and speak to. It’s not difficult to guess what level Benedict expects his listeners to aspire to when he receives them and challenges their hearts and minds.

Below I provide a translation of his address. The relevance of Benedict’s comments to issues discussed in Bible blogdom is clear. (HT: Bibbiablog)

Jerome was born into a Christian family in the town of Stridone around 347. The family made sure he received an excellent education. They even sent him to Rome to finish his studies.

As a youth he felt the attraction of the life of the world (Ep. 22,7), but desire and interest for the Christian religion prevailed. He was baptized in 366 or thereabouts, and headed in the direction of the ascetic life. He went to Aquileia, and became part of a group of fervent Christians he referred to as almost “a choir of the blessed” (Chron. Ad ann. 374) gathered round Bishop Valerian.

He soon left for the East and lived as a hermit in the Calcidian desert to the south of Aleppo (Ep. 14,10). He dedicated himself to study. He mastered Greek and began to study Hebrew (Ep. 125,12). He transcribed codices and patristic works (Ep. 5,2).

Meditation, solitude, and contact with the Word of God matured his Christian sensibility. He felt the burden of his past as a youth more acutely (Ep 22,7), and vividly sensed the contrast between the pagan mentality and the Christian life: a contrast made famous by a dramatic and lively “vision” of which he has left us an account. In the vision he seems to be flailed before God because he was “Ciceronian and not Christian” (Ep. 22,30).

In 382, he relocated to Rome. Pope Damasus, who knew of his reputation as an ascetic and his competence as a scholar, took him on as a secretary and advisor, and encouraged him to undertake a new translation into Latin of the biblical texts in response to pastoral and cultural needs.

A few members of the Roman aristocracy, noble women especially, Paola, Marcella, Asella, Lea, and others, desirous as they were to dedicate themselves to the way of Christian perfection and to a deepening of their knowledge of the Word of God, chose Jerome to be their spiritual guide and teacher of a methodical approach to the sacred texts. These noble women also learned Greek and Hebrew.

After the death of Pope Damasus, Jerome left Rome in 385 and undertook a pilgrimage, first to the Holy Land, silent witness to the earthly life of Christ, then to Egypt, land of choice of many monks (Contra Rufinum 3,22; Ep. 108,6-14).

In 386 he stopped in Bethlehem where, thanks to the generosity of the noblewoman Paola, a monastery, a nunnery, and a hospice for pilgrims who journeyed to the Holy Land were built. “The thought was that Mary and Joseph had not found where to stay the night” (Ep. 108,14).

He remained in Bethlehem to the end of his life. He was intensely active. He commented on the Word of God, defended the faith, vigorously opposed various heresies, exhorted the monks to perfection, taught classical and Christian culture to young students, and received with pastoral grace the pilgrims who came to visit the Holy Land. He expired in his monastic cell, near the cave of the Nativity, on September 30^th, 419/420.

His preparation in Letters and vast erudition allowed Jerome to revise earlier translations and translate afresh many books of the Bible. The work was of great value for the Latin Church and Western culture. On the basis of the original texts in Greek and Hebrew and thanks to a comparison with previous translations, he completed a revision in Latin of the four Gospels, of the Psalter, and of the great bulk of the Old Testament. Taking into account the original Hebrew, the Greek of the Septuagint – the classical Greek version of the Old Testament going back to pre-Christian times - and earlier Latin translations, Jerome, with the help of assistants, was able to offer an improved translation. It came to be called the “Vulgate,” the “official” text of the Latin Church, recognized as such by the Council of Trent. Now, after a recent revision, it remains the “official” text of the Church in Latin.

The criteria the great biblical scholar held himself to in his work as a translator are interesting. He reveals them himself when he affirms that he respects even the order of the words of Holy Scripture, because in Scripture, he says, “even the order of the words is a mystery” (Ep. 57,5), that is, they possess revelatory power. He also emphasized the necessity of depending on the original texts. “Whenever a discussion among the Latins arises about the New Testament on account of the discordant readings of the manuscripts, we have recourse to the original, that is, to the Greek text, in which the New Covenant was written. In the same way for the Old Testament, if there are differences between the Greek and Latin texts, we appeal to the original text, the Hebrew, so that everything that gushes out of the spring we may also find in the brooks” (Ep. 106,2).

Jerome commented on many books of the Bible. In his view, commentaries should offer multiple opinions, “that the smart reader, after reading divergent explanations and after understanding various opinions – acceptable or not – may judge which is the most reliable, and, like an expert moneychanger, refuse false coin” (Contra Rufinem 1,16).

He confuted the heretics with energy and verve - those, that is, who contested the tradition and faith of the Church. He demonstrated the importance and validity of Christian literature, by then a culture in its own right comparable to classical culture. He compares the cultures in De viris illustribus, a work in which Jerome presents the biographies of over one hundred Christian authors. He wrote the biographies of monks. Alongside other spiritual itineraries, he held up the ideal of the monastic life.

He also translated the works of many Greek authors. Finally, in his corpus of Letters, a masterpiece of Latin literature, Jerome’s characteristics emerge most clearly: a man of culture, an ascetic, a spiritual guide.

What can we learn from Saint Jerome? This most of all, it seems to me: to love the Word of God in Holy Scripture. St. Jerome says, “to ignore the Scriptures is to ignore Christ.” Therefore, it is important that every Christian live in contact and in personal dialogue with the Word of God bequeathed to us in Holy Scripture.

Our dialogue with Scripture must always have two dimensions. On the one hand, it should be a truly personal dialogue, because God speaks to each one of us through Holy Scripture and has a message for each.

We must read Holy Scripture not as a word of the past, but as the Word of God addressed also to us. We are to seek to understand what the Lord is saying to us.

So as not to fall into individualism, we must remember that the Word of God is given to us to create communion, to unite us in the truth in our walk with God.

It is, besides being a personal Word, a Word which creates community, and builds the Church. We must read it in communion with the living Church. The privileged place of reading and hearing the Word of God is the liturgy. In the liturgy, the Word is celebrated and the Sacrament of the Body of Christ is made present; the Word is made real in our life and becomes present among us.

We must never forget that the Word of God transcends the ages. Human opinions come and go. Whatever is new and modern today will be old and outdated tomorrow. The Word of God, on the other hand, is the Word of eternal life. It carries eternity within it, that which lasts forever. As we carry the Word of God within us, we carry within us the eternal, and life eternal.

I conclude with a word of St. Jerome’s to St. Paolino of Nola. In it the great Exegete expresses that very reality, that in the Word of God we receive eternity, and life eternal. St. Jerome says, “Let us seek to learn on earth those truths whose substance will also persist in heaven” (Ep. 53,10).

We all wonder what the Petrine ministry might consist of in our day. Perhaps we have been treated to an example thereof.

Comments

[voxstefani]

You know, my beloved priest here is an Arbërësh Orthodox Christian from Piana degli Albanesi (or, "dei Greci," as he and his whole family still call it).

Anyway, thank you for this excellent bit of commentary by the Pope of Rome Mr Benedict. (Have you ever read Orthodox press from the old country? ;-) Is this from his "catechesis" on the Fathers--or, as I like to call them, his "Crash Course on Patrology for Layfolk and Priests Who Slept through Seminary"?

[JohnFH]

Hi Esteban,

It's a small world, isn't it?

I don't read Orthodox press from the old country, though I can't forget a visit to Piana degli Albanesi. We were guests of the Byzantine rite bishop. I was chatting up the deacon, a learned man. On his desk was the last issue of an Orthodox periodical from Greece, and I noticed the word "Antichrist" (in Greek of course) on the cover.

"Who are they talking about?" I asked. "The pope," he said, with a wry grin.

You may be right that Ratzinger's address is part of a series he is doing. I am impressed by what he wants his flock to know.

[Kevin P. Edgecomb]

Thanks for that, John. I'd read another translation recently, at Mike Aquilina's site.

For a slightly more in-depth look at Jerome's translation career, I recommend, in all humility, the summary I provide in the introduction to my translation of the Vulgate Prologues, as well as Jerome's prologues themselves, which I intentionally translated quite literally, so that they are helpful to those reading the originals. For a more in-depth look at the creation of the Vulgate, which is quite a bit more complex than the summary of His Holiness or myself might be taken to imply, I recommend Catherine Brown Tkacz, "Labor Tam Utilis: The Creation of the Vulgate," Vigiliae Christianae 50: 42-72. It's the most recent and lengthy treatment in English of the formation of the Vulgate that I've run across.

[Suzanne]

Not everyone is equally impressed with Joseph's grasp of Hebrew. This letter was in part an impetus for some of my writing on vir et virissa.

[JohnFH]

Thank you, Kevin, for pointing us to further sources of enlightenment. The translation on Aquilina's site is probably the official one, though he doesn't say. It is close to mine in all respects.

[JohnFH]

Hi Suzanne,

the pope's Hebrew might be a little rusty, but truth be told, the problem runs deeper.

First of all, the interpretation the Vatican document in question (we are off topic here, but I want to give your comment its due) gives to Genesis 2 is seen to be too close to that championed by Swidler by more conservative Catholic voices. Per the usual, people in authority get caught in the middle and are attacked from the right and the left. This is the background against which the Vatican document, and indeed all of the See's actions, must be seen.

Secondly, though I disagree with Ratzinger in detail on many issues - no surprise there - I have far more fundamental disagreements with Swidler. Why is this? Because Ratzinger is both conservative and progressive enough to effect positive change without throwing out the baby of tradition with the bathwater.

Swidler on the other hand is progressive enough to win the accolades of fellow liberals, but has no standing whatsoever with conservatives, and little with moderates. Unless I am missing something, he has become a bystander and a has-been in the current debate.

More to the point, why are most young practicing Catholics - at least the ones I know - ill at ease with the liberalism of the kind Swidler champions? Because for them Catholicism has counter-cultural bite in this world, and you would never know that from Swidler. The only culture Swidler is really upset about it is Catholic culture.

I've gone on longer than I wanted to already, and may have muddled things further rather than shedding light on the matter. But I wanted to keep the conversation going.

[Kevin P. Edgecomb]

I'm sure "Joseph" could correct quite a bit of our Latin, Italian, and German. His is a beginner's mistake in Hebrew, but it's at least that accomplished, and is understandable. There are plenty of Hebrew readers/speakers I know who think לילה is feminine, based on the same (generally accurate!) principle that the ה- ending makes a noun feminine.

[Suzanne]

Thanks for the background John.

[Daniel Driver]

Hi John. Thanks so much for drawing this item to our attention.