Apostolic Letter SCRIPTURAE SACRAE AFFECTUS, on the 1600th Anniversary of the Death of St. Jerome

Rorate Caeli ^ | September 30, 2020 | Pope Francis

[Hieronymus]

Devotion to sacred Scripture, a “living and tender love” for the written word of God: this is the legacy that Saint Jerome bequeathed to the Church by his life and labours. Now, on the sixteen hundredth anniversary of his death, those words taken from the opening prayer of his liturgical Memorial[1] give us an essential insight into this outstanding figure in the Church’s history and his immense love for Christ. That “living and tender love” flowed, like a great river feeding countless streams, into his tireless activity as a scholar, translator and exegete. Jerome’s profound knowledge of the Scriptures, his zeal for making their teaching known, his skill as an interpreter of texts, his ardent and at times impetuous defence of Christian truth, his asceticism and harsh eremitical discipline, his expertise as a generous and sensitive spiritual guide – all these make him, sixteen centuries after his death, a figure of enduring relevance for us, the Christians of the twenty-first century.

[Hieronymus]

I have only read through this at high speed, but I must say that I am extremely pleasantly surprised.

[Hieronymus]

This is a rather pleasant ending to a huge feast for me. (My screen name is the Latin version of his name.). While I might have phrased a few things differently, at least on first read nothing drove my blood pressure off the map—which is probably a first for anything of any length that Francis has written which I have read.

[Fester Chugabrew]

A timely and eternal post. Thank you.

[Hieronymus]

Have you charge of Salvation’s Catholic ping list? I know that she had handed the Oregon list over to someone during her recovery. While this is a bit more of ebb’s domain, the letter is actually something that promotes the faith and shouldn’t provoke a war, so it might belong on both lists.

[Fester Chugabrew]

We sang the Phos Hilaron this evening and gave both consideration and thanks to God for St. Jerome’s contributions to the Church. We do not all have the same abilities and tasks, but we belong to one Body.

[vladimir998]

for later

[ebb tide]

Ping

[annalex]

Of course. Thanks for posting.

[Hieronymus]

I’ve now read through it more slowly. Whoever did the draft is very good—my guess would be Benedict, but I’m probably wrong. Francis has made it his own for sure—there are a couple of paragraphs that are eminently in his style, but even they make good points.

There are some new insights that haven’t been expressed on a higher level of magisterial teaching before (this is only an Apostolic Letter) but are good to see—and this is still far more authoritative than nearly everything else Francis has turned out (the encyclical count sits at 2 and the Apostolic Exhortation at 5).

If you are going to read anything by Francis for spiritual edification, I would recommend this.

[Hieronymus]

Perhaps y’all in the east may find this edifying as well. I’m guessing that if one of you isn’t the keeper of the Orthodox ping list, you can give a heads up to whomever is and a judgment may be passed on giving this further circulation.

[daniel1212]

. Jerome’s ...his skill as an interpreter of texts,

Without negating accomplishments as a translator, his skill as an interpreter of texts includes his eisegesis in forcing Scripture to support his imbalanced view on virginity versus marriage such as in asserting:

If ‘it is good for a man not to touch a woman,’ then it is bad for him to touch one, for bad, and bad only, is the opposite of good.   (''Letter'' 22).  

 

In "Against Jovinianus," book 1, on First Corinthians 7 he gain perversely reasons,  

 

“It is good,” he says, “for a man not to touch a woman.” If it is good not to touch a woman, it is bad to touch one: for there is no opposite to goodness but badness. But if it be bad and the evil is pardoned, the reason for the concession is to prevent worse evil. But surely a thing which is only allowed because there may be something worse has only a slight degree of goodness...

 

Just as though one were to lay it down: “It is good to feed on wheaten bread, and to eat the finest wheat flour,” and yet to prevent a person pressed by hunger from devouring cow-dung, I may allow him to eat barley. Does it follow that the wheat will not have its peculiar purity, because such an one prefers barley to excrement?..

 

If we abstain from intercourse, we give honour to our wives: if we do not abstain, it is clear that insult is the opposite of honour. 
 

Then we have another false dilemma:

"If we are to pray always, it follows that we must never be in the bondage of wedlock, for as often as I render my wife her due, I cannot pray. 

And then there is this wresting of Scripture to serve his purpose:

This too we must observe, at least if we would faithfully follow the Hebrew, that while Scripture on the first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days relates that, having finished the works of each, “God saw that it was good,” on the second day it omitted this altogether, leaving us to understand that two is not a good number because it destroys unity, and prefigures the marriage compact. Hence it was that all the animals which Noah took into the ark by pairs were unclean. Odd numbers denote cleanness. And yet by the double number is represented another mystery: that not even in beasts and unclean birds is second marriage approved.

So much for 2 x 2 evangelism, while "if we would faithfully follow the Hebrew" we see that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." (Genesis 1:31) 

Jerome further vainly attempts to make Genesis support him  in asserting:

 

The command to increase and multiply first finds fulfilment after the expulsion from paradise, after the nakedness and the fig-leaves which speak of sexual passion.    (St. Jerome, Against Jovinianus Book 1 https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vi.vi.I.html)

 

Yet besides the fact that nowhere are the fig-leaves shown to  speak of sexual passion, the command to  increase and multiply came before the Fall and its later fulfillment:

 

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:27-28)

See more here, by the grace of God, before responding.

[Campion]

St. Augustine wasn't too far from that, as you'll recall.

St. Jerome's invective against some of his enemies isn't very admirable, either.

Just because someone is a canonized saint doesn't mean they were always correct, or always perfect, or that they didn't have opinions of their own, good, bad, or indifferent. The Apostles were sinners, too, and admitted as much.

[Hieronymus]

I saw here.

I’d be more interested in a page on quotes from the OT consoling those who are childless.

Both states can be gifts from God—if one is given the higher state, take it—he who marries his virgin does well, he who does not does better.

I could go on, but I would spare you this.

[Zionist Conspirator]

So, did he accept evolution and the documentary hypothesis, which every good Catholic must do to prove he wasn’t born in a trailer park?

[Hieronymus]

Nope, not mentioned at all.

There are only a few dogmatic type points mentioned, and he comes across as fairly kosher. Silence is golden.

I printed the thing out, and it came to 17 pages, which is about 10% of a standard major document. This isn’t in the super-major category, but I’d expect that with it out there is zero chance he will release a major document on scripture.

[daniel1212]

Both states can be gifts from God—if one is given the higher state, take it—he who marries his virgin does well, he who does not does better.

And which is actually written to fathers as regards his decision for his daughter (back when they were virgins) under his care, who, "having no necessity but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well. So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better." (1 Corinthians 7:37,38) This means that he will take care of her all his life, and see that she is taken care of afterward. And with the ca

Then we have,

But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you. (1 Corinthians 7:28)

And indeed, as said, with the catastrophic judgment 70AD and persecutions that followed then being single certainly had its advantages, besides the transcendent spiritual benefits. Maybe if celibacy was the norm for spiritual purposes then the church would have grown mainly by converts. Meanwhile, in the modern age believers marrying and not having as many kids as the Lord gives in a life of temperance, and raising them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord has had a profound negative effect.

[daniel1212]

St. Jerome's invective against some of his enemies isn't very admirable, either.

Nor Luther's.

Just because someone is a canonized saint doesn't mean they were always correct, or always perfect, or that they didn't have opinions of their own, good, bad, or indifferent.

True, esp, of me, although all believers are called "saints."