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ACTA CLASSlCli XXXVl (1993) 113-117
lSSN 0065.1141
'HERr CATECHUMENUS, HODIE PONTIFEX'
(JEROME, EPIST. 69.9.4)
by Neil Adkin
(University of Nebraska at Lincoln)
Jerome composed his letter to Oceanus (Epist. 69) at some time after 395
and before 401 1 Here he addresses the question whether someone who had
married before baptism and again after it sbould become a bishop. Jerome's
answer is in the affirmativej several years earlier however the same question
had received a negative response from both Siricius and Ambrose.' In the
second half of his letter Jerome then moves on to consider the qualities
which St. Paul requires of a bishop in 1 Timothy 3.1-7. When he comes to
the apostle's penultimate prescription ('non neophytum, ne in superbiam
elatus in iudicium incidat diaboli'; 1 Tim. 3.6), Jerome expresses himself
in the following terms:
rnirari satis non queo, quae hominum tanta sit caecitas de uxoribus
ante baptismum disputare et rem in baptismate mortuam, immo cum
Christo vivificatam, in calumniam trahere, cum tam apertum evidensque praeceptum nemo custodiat. heri catechumenus, hodie pontifex; heri in amphitheatro, hodie in ecclesiaj vespere in circD, mane
in altarij dudum fautor strionum, nunc virginum consecrator (Epist.
69.9.4).
In his important study of the relations between Jerome and Ambrose,
Paredi identified the series of antitheses in the second of these sentences
as an allusion to Ambrose's election as bishop of Jvlilan 3 Recently Nauroy
has questioned whether the reference is in fact to Ambrose 4 However the
identification has also been reaffirmed hy Testard,s It is not the aim of the
present note to consider the possible relevance of this passage to Jerome's
relationship with Ambrose. Jerome's words also merit examination from
a different angle: hitherto no commentator has enquired whether Jerome
might have had a literary source for the very striking formulation which he
employs here. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest one.
This particular antithesis of 'heri' and 'hodie' is rare. Thesaurus Linguae
Latinae supplies only one example that is in any degree similar (6,3,2657,
lines 80-81). The passage in question is U1pian, Dig. 47.10.7.2: 'nee eDim
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ferre praetor debet heri servum, hodie liberum conquerentem , quod dominus ei convicium dixerit ... '. In view of this rarity it is accordingly noteworthy that Jerome's mentor Gregory Nazianzen should have employed the
antithesis in exactly the same waYi moreover the general context is identical to Jerome's. Like the letter to Oceanus Gregory's twenty-first Omtion
is concerned with bishops and their qualifications for office. In particular
Gregory denounces those bishops who are unworthy of their calling. Here
he exclaims: Xes<; lEpOOUAOl, xed O~f'EPOV lEpEl<;' Xes<; ,wv aytwv E~W, xed
[luo,,,ywyol O~f'EPOV (Omt. 21.9).
In later life Jerome refers frequently to Gregory Nazianzen as his 'praeceptor' during the years when both of them were in Constantinople.' Gregory's twenty-first Omtion belongs to this period. Sinko proposed 2nd May
379 as the date of its delivery.7 More recently however Mossay has argued
that the oration could have been composed in either 379, 380 or 381 8 At
all events it is likely that Jerome was present in the audience when the
oration was first delivered. In view of his remarkable propensity to pick
up and reuse other people's arresting formulations it would be no surprise
if Jerome had appropriated Gregory's brilliant antitheses about upstart
bishops in his own letter to Oceanus'"
There would seem to be reason for thinking that Jerome has in fact devoted special attention to this particular oration. In his notice on Gregory
in De viris illustribus it is one of the half dozen which Jerome selects for
specific mention from Gregory's very large oeuvre (ch. 117)10 The oration
is a eulogy of Athanasius: Jerome took a keen interest in this panegyrist
of virginity and drew extensively on his works 11 Finally the point was
made above that this oration also deals more generally with a bishop's
qualifications for his calling: Athanasius is depicted as a paradigm of what
a bishop should be. 12 In particular the circumstances of Athanasius ' own
election lead to a long reflection on this topic (chs. 8-9); it is here that the
antitheses which Jerome appears to borrow occur. Gregory then refers to
the Pauline prescriptions for the episcopate in 1 Timothy 3.1-7 (ch. 10).
Athanasius is said to have been a living embodiment of them: his career
as a bishop is then described at length. In view of such content it is quite
possible that Jerome should have consulted the twenty-first Omtion of his
former mentor immediately before composing his own letter to Oceanus on
the same topic.
Jerome improves on Gregory's formulation. 13 He doubles the number of
antitheses to four. It is true that Gregory had employed an adnominatio:
Xes<; lEpoouAat, x"l O~f'EPOV lEpEl<;. Jerome does not attempt to reproduce
this striking feature. He merely retains the second half of Gregory's antithesis: lhodie pontifex '. 14 Jerome then prefixes a very specific opposite
of his own: lheri catechumenus'. The term of course fits Ambrose perfectly. The remainder of Jerome's antithetical pairs are similarly concrete
114
and vivid: cheri in amphitheatro, hodie in ecclesiaj vespere in circa, mane
in altarij dudum fautor strionum, nunc virginum consecrator'. Gregory
by contrast tends to be rather vague and generalized. l5 Nonetheless it is
perhaps possible that Jerome's final antithesis comes from another passage
of Gregory16
Gregory was given to self-repetition. In particular he was accustomed
to repeat in his poems striking formulations which had already occurred
in the Orations17 In his poem On the Bishops (Garm. 2.1.12) Gregory
again deplores the unsuitability of many bishops for their charge in terms
reminiscent of Oration tweuty-one. In this counection he employs the following antithesis: XSE<; EV XOpEU"t"l<; ElHpE,!,OU S~Au8p["L<; ... vvv crw'!'poVlcr"t~<; MpSEVWV x"l cru~uywv (lines 425-428). Gregory's statement bears
a certain resemblance to the last of Jerome's antitheses: 'dudum fautor
strionum, nunc virginum consecrator' .18
The poem On the Bishops was composed soon after Gregory's own resignation as bishop of Constantinople in 381 19 Meier suggests however that
it may have been published posthumously: Gregory died around 390. Accordingly the poem had plenty of time to reach Jerome before he wrote
his letter to Oceanus; again Gregory's striking formulation may well have
stuck in Jerome's extraordinarily receptive mind. At the same time it is
quite conceivable that Jerome made a special point of consulting this work
of his former 'praeceptor' as well as Oration twenty-one before undertaking
a disquisition on the subject of bishops himself. In this connectiou it may
be noted that appropriatiou of arresting material from two differeut works
in the same passage would be eutirely in character. 2o
Jerome's final antithesis is in fact much closer to the passage of Gregory's poem than at first appears. In the first half Jerome speal,s of 'striones', while Gregory refers to xopEu"t"l S~Au8p("L. In late antiquity however
'{hi)strio' generally designated the 'pantomimus';21 the performance of the
'pantomimus' in turn was regularly described by the Fathers as a 'dance'.22
This dance was notoriously effeminate. 23 There is accordingly a close parallel between Gregory's 'effeminate dancers' and Jerome's lstriones'. If the
first half of Jerome's antithesis is very close to Gregory's, the two second
halves are virtually identical. Both are introduced by the adverb 'uow' (vvv
/ 'nunc'); this word is theu followed by an agent uoun (crW,!,POVlcr"t~<; / 'consecrator'), to which the same depeudent genitive is attached (napSEvwv /
'virginum'). Again however Jerome achieves a formulation that in stylistic
terms is an improvement: whereas Gregory had tended to diffuseness,"
Jerome's phrasing is marked by an impressive concision. In particular he
introduces a strilting chiasmus ('fautor strionum ... virginum consecrator') which follows Behaghel's law 25 and is also characterized by twofold
homoeoteleuton ('-tor -num ... -num -tor'); at the same time an especially
choice clausula is created. 26 Jerome's formulation accordingly provides a
115
fitting climax to a very impressive series of antitheses. The combination
of formal elegance and derivativeness of content which they exemplify is
entirely typical of J erome.27
NOTES
L cr. F. Cavallera, Saint Jerome: Sa vie et son oeuvre 1,2, Louvain·Paris 1922, 46.
2. Siricius, Epist. ad Himerium Episc. Tarrac. 10.14-11.15 (PL 13, cols. 1143-1144);
Ambrose, De Officiis 1.50.248 (p. 215 ed. Testard). These works belong to 385 and
388-9 respectively.
3. A. Paredi, IS. Gerolamo e s. Ambrogio', in Melanges Euge.ne Tisserant 5,2 (Studi
e Testi 235), Vatican City 1964, 183-198, at 193. He regards the identification as
'assai probabiJe'.
4. G. Nauroy, 'Jerome, ledeur et censeur de I'exegese d'Ambroise', in Y.-M. Duval
(ed.), Jerome entre l'Occident et l'Orient: XVle centenaire du depart de saint
Jerome de Rome et de son ·installation d Bethleem, Paris 1988, 173-203, at 175176. Nauroy thinks a reference to Ambrose 'extremement improbable'.
5. M. Tcstard, 'Jerome et Ambroise: Sur un "aveu" du De officiis de I'eveque de
Milan', in Duval (above, n. 4) 227-254, at 248-249.
6. Cr. most recently the present writer, 'Gregory of Nnzianzus and Jerome: Some
Remarks', in M.A. Flower and M. Toher (edd.), Georgica: Greek Studies in Honour
of George Cawkwell, London 1991, 13-24, at 14.
7. T. Sinko, De traditione orationum Gregorii Nazianzeni 1 (Meletemata Patristica
2), Cracow 1917, 78-80.
8. J. rVIossay, Gregoire de Na=ianze: Discours 20-23 (SChr 270), Paris 1980, 99-103.
9. On Jerome's partiality for lifting clever phrases from elsewhere cr. the present writer,
'Some Features of Jerome's Compositional Technique in the Libellus de virgini.
tate scrvanda (Epist. 22)', Philologus 136 (1992) 234-255. Besides a magpie mind
.Jerome also possessed a phenomenal memory; d. P. Antin, 'Touches classiques et
chretiennesjuxtaposees chez saint Jerome', RPIi 34 (1960) 58-65, at 63: 'Ie cratere
qu'est la memoire de Jerome'. He was accordingly able to retain such formulations
for years.
10. The De viris illustribus belongs to 392-393; cr. most recently J.H.D. Scourfield,
Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60, Oxford 1993, 230232. It was accordingly written some few years before the letter to Oceanus.
11. For Jerome's debt to Athanasius in the Libcllus de virginitate servanda (Epist. 22),
which was written after Jerome had moved on from Constantinople to Rome, cr. the
present writer, 'Athanasius' Letter' to Virgins and Jerome's Libellus de virginitate
servanda', forthcoming in RFIC.
12. His life is a opoc;: lIUOXOiti)c;: (ch. 37).
13. Such stylistic enhancement of material that Jerome has appropriated from elsewhere
is characteristic; cr. the present writer (above, n. 9) 235-236.
14. Mossay (above, n. 8) 127 (ad lac.) mistranslates t£p£i:.:;; as 'pretres'. It is however clear
that Gregory is here referring to bishops: half a dozen lines earlier he has mentioned
a Spavoe; (for the reference to bishops cr. G. W.R. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon,
Oxford 1961-8, 655 [05. v.]), while the immediately preceding chapter dealt with
Athanasius' elevation to the episcopate. 'I£p£uc; and h:PWC1UVTj are regularly applied
to bishops; cr. Lampe, op. cit., 669-670 and 672 (s. uu.). On 'pontifex' cf. C.
116
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Mohrmann, 'L'etude du grec et du latin de l'antiquite chretienne: Passe, present,
avenir', in ead., Etudes sur Ie Latin des Chretiens 4, Rome 1977, 91-nO, at 99-100.
He continues with the following pair of opposites: rtct.ACiWl '1)v "Ci)dct.v, xct.L aXEolOl
't1)V eUoEl3lct.V.
One last observation may be made concerning the present passage of Oration
twenty-one. Here Gregory also states: O(.LOU ,e (.LCi6Tj1:ct.l ),ct.l BlMo)(CiAOl "tile:; E:0oc:l3dCie:;
a.vCiodxvuV"tCil. Some fifteen lines later in the letter to Oceanus Jerome himself makes
the following comment: 'in puncto horae necdum discipuli iam magistri sunt' (9.6).
Testard (above, n. 5) 249 suggests that with these words Jerome is alluding to
the preface of Ambrose's De officiis: 'ego eoim raptus de tribunalibus atque administrationis infulis ad sacerdotium, docere vas coepi quod ipse non didici. itaque
factum est ut prius docere inciperem quam discere' (1.1.4 [pp. 96~97 cd. Testard]).
Testard's article in fact professes to uncover a number of references to this 'confession' throughout Jerome's oeuvre. The antithesis of 'discere' and 'docere' was
however exceedingly common; cr. the present writer, 'Jerome, Ambrose and Gregory Nazianzen (Jerome, Epist. 52.7-8)' Vichiana 22 (1993) 166-172 at 169~170. It
is therefore necessary to be extremely wary about positing an echo of Ambrose in
Jerome's statement in the letter to Oceanus. Nor can it be taken for granted that
Jerome is here borrowing from Gregory.
Cr. H.M. Werhahn, Greg01'ii Nazianzeni ETrKPIEIE BH1N, Wiesbaden 1953, 7-8,
n.5.
There is no comment on Gregory's antithesis in B. Meier, Gregor lion Nazianz:
Uber die Bischofe (Carmen 2,1,12): Einleitung, Text, Ubersetzung, J(ommentar,
Paderborn 1989. On the corresponding passage in Oration twenty-one Mossay
(above, n. 8) 126-127 compared a number of texts from Gregory; only the one in
On the Bishops has any relevance to Jerome's series of antitheses in the letter to
Oceanus.
Cf. Meier (above, n. 18) 15-18.
Cr. the present writer, 'Jerome as Centoist: Epist. 22,38,7', RSLR 28 (1902) 461-
471.
21. Cf. W. Weismann, J(irche und Schauspide: Die Schauspiele im Urtci/ dcr late in is-
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
chen J(irchenviiter unter besonderer Beriicksichtiyuny von AUY1lstin, Wiirzburg
1972,42, n. 57.
Cr. H. Jurgens, Pompa diaboli: Die lateinischen Kircherwiitcr und das anlike Theater, Stuttgart 1972, 238.
Cf. Weismann (above, n. 21) 75-76. Jerome himself speaks of 'histrio fractus in
feminam' (Epist. 79.9.1).
The first half of his antithesis is subjected to some elaboration (lines 426-427).
On this feature cf. (e.g.) M. von Albrecht, Muslc7'S of Roman Prose from Gato to
Apuleius: Tnterpretativc Studies, Eng!. trans!. by the present writer, Leeds 1989,
index S.lI.
On the cretic dichorce cf. the (admittedly inadequate) work of M.e. Herron, A
Study of the Clausu/ae in the Writings of St. Jerome, Washington 1937, 19-23.
Use of the popular form 'stria' merely adds a piquant foil to the elegance.
Cf. the present writer (above, n. 9) passim.
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