Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/479

 the archdeacon; Rufinus, Bonosus, Heliodorus (afterwards bp. of Altinum), the monk Chrysogonus, the subdeacon Niceas, and Hylas the freedman of the wealthy Roman lady Melania; all of whom are met with later in Jerome's history. They were knit together by close friendship and common pursuits; and the presence of Evagrius, who knew the holy places and hermitages of the East, gave a special direction to their ascetic tendencies. For a time all went well. The baptism of Rufinus took place now (Ruf. Apol. i. 4). It was Jerome's fortune to become, wherever he lived, the object of great affection, and also of great animosity. Whatever was the cause (Ep. iii. 3), the society at Aquileia suddenly dispersed.

The friends went (probably early in 373) in different directions. Bonosus retired to an island in the Adriatic and lived as a hermit (vii. 3). Rufinus went to the East in the train of Melania. Jerome, with Heliodorus, Innocentius, and Hylas, accompanied Evagrius to Palestine. Leaving his parents, sister, relations and home comforts (xxii. 30), but taking his library, he travelled through Thrace, Pontus, Bithynia, Galatia, Cappadocia and Cilicia, to Antioch. The journey was exhausting, and Jerome had a long period of ill-health, culminating in a fever. Innocentius and Hylas died from the same fever. Heliodorus went to Jerusalem. During his illness (ib.) Jerome had his bent towards scriptural studies and asceticism confirmed. While his friends stood by his bed expecting his death, he felt himself, in a trance, carried before the throne of God, and condemned as being no Christian but a Ciceronian, who preferred worldly literature to Christ. From this time, though he continued to quote the classics profusely, his literary interest was wholly with the Bible and church writings. It seems likely that, as soon as his health was restored, he determined to embrace the solitary life. He wrote to Theodosius (ii.), who was apparently a kind of chief of the hermits in the desert of Chalcis, asking to be received among them, and thither he proceeded about the autumn of 374.

He was now about 28 years old. The desert of Chalcis, where he lived for 4 or 5 years (374–379), was in the country of the Saracens, in the E. of Syria (v.). It was peopled by hermits, who lived mainly in solitude, but had frequent intercourse among themselves and a little with the world. They lived under some kind of discipline, with a ruling presbyter named Marcus (xvii.). Jerome lived in a cell, and gained his own living (xvii. 3); probably, according to the recommendation he gives later to Rusticus (cxxv.), cultivating a garden, and making baskets of rushes, or, more congenially, copying books. He describes his life in writing to Eustochium (xxii. 7), 9 or 10 years later, as one of spiritual struggles. "I sat alone; I was filled with bitterness: my limbs were uncomely and rough with sackcloth, and my squalid skin became as black as an Ethiopian's. Every day I was in tears and groans; and if ever the sleep which hung upon my eyelids overcame my resistance, I knocked against the ground my bare bones, which scarce clung together. I say nothing of my meat and drink, since the monks even when sick use cold water, and it is thought a luxury if they ever partake of cooked food. Through fear of hell, I had condemned myself to prison; I had scorpions and wild beasts for my only companions." His literary talent was by no means idle during this period. He wrote letters to his friends in Italy, to Florentius at Jerusalem (v.–xvii.), and to Heliodorus (xiv.) on the Praises of the Desert, chiding him for not having embraced the perfect life of solitude. A Jew who had become a Christian was his instructor in Hebrew (xviii. 10), and Jerome obtained from one of the sect of the Nazarenes at Beroea the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which he copied, and afterwards translated into Greek and Latin (de Vir. Ill. 2, 3). He was frequently visited by Evagrius (Ep. vii. 1), who also acted as the intermediary of his communication with his friends in Aquileia, and later with Damasus at Rome (xv. 5). But again, owing chiefly to his vehement feelings and expressions, he made enemies. He was driven away by the ill-will of his brother-monks. At first, as we see from his letter to Heliodorus, he was satisfied with his condition; but his last years in the desert were embittered by theological strife, relating to the conflicts in the church at Antioch, from which he was glad to escape. The see of Antioch was claimed by three bishops, Vitalis the Arian, Meletius, acknowledged by Basil and the orthodox bishops of the East (Basil, Ep. 156, to Evagrius), and Paulinus, supported by pope Damasus and the stronger anti-Arian party of Rome. Between Meletius and Paulinus the dispute was mainly verbal, but none the less bitter. Jerome complains that the Meletians, not content with his holding the truth, treated him as a heretic if he did not do so in their words (Ep. xv. 3). He appealed to Damasus, strongly protesting his submission to Rome (xv. xvi.). Finding his position more and more difficult, he wrote to Marcus, the chief presbyter of the monks of Chalcis (xvii.), in the winter of 378, professing his soundness in the faith, declaring that he was ready, but for illness, to depart, and begging the hospitality of the desert till the winter was past. Proceeding in the spring of 379 to Antioch, he stayed there till 380, uniting himself to the party of Paulinus, and and by him was ordained presbyter against his will. He never celebrated the Eucharist or officiated as presbyter, as appears from many passages in his works. There are extant no letters and only one work of this period, the dialogue of an orthodox man with a Luciferian. Lucifer of Cagliari having taken part in the appointment of Paulinus, a corrective was needed for the more extreme among the Western party at Antioch; and this was given in Jerome's dialogue, which is clear, moderate, and free from the violence of his later controversial works. It exhibits a considerable knowledge of church history, and contains the account of the council of Ariminum, with the famous words (c. 19): "Ingemuit totus orbis et Arianum se esse miratus est." In 380 Jerome went to Constantinople until the end of 381. He sought the instruction of Gregory Nazianzen, who had taken charge of the orthodox church there