says Erasmus, "he thought it better to cohabit with wild beasts and wild men, than with such sort of Christians as were usually found in great cities; men half Pagan, half Christian; Christians in nothing more than in name."

He was in his 31st year, when he entered upon this monastic course of life; and he carried it, by his own practice, to that height of perfection, which he ever after enforced upon others so zealously by precept. He divided all his time between devotion and study: he exercised himself much in watchings and fastings; slept little, ate less, and hardly allowed himself any recreation. He He applied himself very severely to the study of the Holy Scriptures, which he is said to have gotten by heart, as well as to the study of the Oriental languages, which he considered as the only keys that could let him into their true sense and meaning, and which he learned from a Jew who visited him privately lest he should offend his brethren. After he had spent four years in this laborious way of life, his health grew so impaired, that he was obliged to return to Antioch: where the church at that time was divided by factions, Meletius, Paulinus, and Vitalis all claiming a right to the bishopric of that place. Jerom being a son of the church of Rome, where he was baptized, would not espouse any party, till he knew the sense of his own church upon this contested right. Accordingly, he wrote to Damasus, then bishop of Rome, to know whom he must consider as the lawful bishop of Antioch; and upon Damasus's naming Paulinus, Jerom acknowledged him as such, and was ordained a presbyter by him in 378, but would never proceed any farther in ecclesiastical dignity. From this time his reputation for piety and learning began to spread abroad, and be known in the world. He went soon after to Constantinople, where he spent a considerable time with Gregory Nazianzen; whom he did not disdain to call his master, and owned, that of him he learned the right method of expounding the Holy Scriptures. Afterwards, in the year 382, he went to Rome with Paulinus, bishop of Antioch, and Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in the isle of Cyprus; where he soon became known to Damasus, and was made his secretary. He acquitted himself in this post very well, and yet found time to compose several works. Upon the death of Damasus, which happened in the year 385, he began to entertain thoughts of travelling again to the East; to which he was

moved chiefly by the disturbances and vexations he met with from the followers of Origen, at Rome. For these, when they had in vain endeavoured, says Cave, to daw him over to their party, raised infamous reports and calumnies against him. They charged him, among other things, with a criminal passion for one Paula, an eminent matron, in whose house he had lodged during his residence at Rome, and who was as illustrious for her piety as tor the splendor of her birth, and the dignity of her rank. For these and other reasons he was determined to quit Rome, and accordingly embarked for the East in August in the year 385, attended by a great number of monks and ladies, whom he had persuaded to embrace the ascetic way of life. He sailed to Cyprus, where he paid a visit to Epiphanius; and arrived afterwards at Antioch, where he was kindly received by his friend Paulinus. From Antioch he went to Jerusalem; and the year following from Jerusalem into Egypt. Here he visited several monasteries: but finding to his great grief the monks every where infatuated with the errors of Origen, he returned to Bethlehem, a town near Jerusalem, that he might be at liberty to cherish and propagate his own opinions, without any disturbance or interruption from abroad. This whole peregrination is particularly related by himself, in one of his pieces against Ruffinus; and is very characteristic, and shews much of his spirit and manner of writing.

He had now fixed upon Bethlehem, as the properest place of abode for him, and best accommodated to that course of life which he intended to pursue; and was no sooner arrived here, than he met with Paula, and other ladies of quality, who had followed him from Rome, with the same view of devoting themselves to a monastic life. His fame for learning and piety was indeed so very extensive, that numbers of both sexes flocked from all parts and distances, to be trained up under him, and to form their manner of living according to his instructions. This moved the pious Paula to found four monasteries; three for the use of females, over which she herself presided, and one for males, which was committed to Jerom. Here he enjoyed all that repose which he had long desired; and he laboured abundantly, as well for the souls committed to his care, as in composing great and useful works. He had enjoyed this repose probably to the end of his life, if Origenism had not prevailed so mightily in those parts: but,

as Jerom had an abhorrence for every thing that looked like heresy, it was impossible for him to continue passive, while these asps, as he calls them, were insinuating their deadly poison into all who had the misfortune to fail in their way. This engaged him in violent controversies with John bishop of Jerusalem, and Ruffinus of Aquileia, which lasted inany years. Ruffinus and Jerom had of old been intimate triends; but Ruffinus having of late years settled in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and espoused the part of the Origenists, the enmity between them was on that account the more bitter, and is a reproach to both their memories. Jerom had also several other controversies, particularly with Jovinian, an Italian monk, whom he mentions in his works with the utmost intemperance of language, without exactly informing us what his errors were. In the year 410, when Rome was besieged by the Goths, many fled from thence to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and were kindly received by Jerom into his monastery. He died in 422, in the ninety-first year of his age; and is said to have preserved his vivacity and vigour to the last.

Erasmus, who wrote his life, and gave the first edition of his works in 1526, says, that he was " undoubtedly the greatest scholar, the greatest orator, and the greatest divine that Christianity had then produced." But Cave, who never yet was charged with want of justice to the fathers, says, that Jerom " was, with Erasmus's leave, a hot and furious man, who had no command at all over his passions. When he was once provoked, he treated his adversaries in the roughest manner, and did not even abstain from invective and satire witness what he has written against Ruffinus, who was formerly his friend; against John, bishop of Jerusalem, Jovinian, Vigilantius, and others. Upon the slightest provocation, he grew excessively abusive, and threw out all the ill language he could rake together, without the least regard to the situation, rank, learning, and other circumstances, of the persons he had to do with. And what wonder," says Cave, "when it is common with him to treat even St. Paul himself in very harsh and insolent terms? charging him, as he does, with solecisms in language, false expressions, and a vulgar use of words?" We do not quote this with any view of detracting from the real merit of Jerom, but only to note the partiality of Erasmus, in defending, as he does very strenuously, this most exceptionable part of his character, his want of can

dour and spirit of persecution; to which Erasmus himself was so averse, that he has ever been highly praised by protestants, and as highly dispraised by papists, for placing all his glory in moderation.

Jerom was as exceptionable in many parts of his literary character, as he was in his moral, whatever Erasmus or his panegyrists may have said to the contrary: instead of an orator, he was rather a declaimer; and, though he undertook to translate so many things out of Greek and Hebrew, he was not accurately skilled in either of those languages; and did not reason clearly, consistently, and precisely, upon any subject. This has been shewn in part already by Le Clerc, in a book entitled "Quæstiones Hieronymianæ," printed at Amsterdam in 1700, by way of critique upon the Benedictine edition of his works. In the mean time we are ready to acknowledge, that the writings of Jerom are useful, and deserve to be read by all who have any regard for sacred antiquity. They have many uses in common with other writings of ecclesiastical authors, and many peculiar to themselves. The writings of Jerom teach us the doctrines, the rites, the manners, and the learning of the age in which he lived; and these also we learn from the writings of other fathers. But the peculiar use of Jerom's works is, 1. Their exhibiting to us more fragments of the ancient Greek translators of the Bible, than the works of any other father; 2. Their informing us of the opinions which the Jews of that age had of the signification of many Hebrew words, and of the sense and meaning they put upon many passages in the Old Testament; and, 3. Their conveying to us the opinion of Jerom himself; who, though he must always be read with caution, on account of his declamatory and hyperbolical style, and the liberties he allowed himself of feigning and prevaricating upon certain occasions, will perhaps, upon the whole, be found to have had more judgment as well as more learning than any father who went before him.

The principal of his works, which are enumerated by Cave and Dupin, are, a new Latin version of the whole "Old Testament," from the Hebrew, accompanied with a corrected edition of the ancient version of the "New Testament," which, after having been at first much opposed, was adopted by the Catholic church, and is commonly distinguished by the appellation of "Vulgate;" "Commentaries" on most of the books of the Old and

New Testament; "A Treatise on the Lives and Writings of Ecclesiastical Authors;" "A continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius;" moral, critical, historical, and miscellaneous "Letters." The first printed edition of his works was that at Basil, under the care of Erasmus, 1516 -1526, in six vols. folio, of which there have been several subsequent impressions at Lyons, Rome, Paris, and Antwerp. The most correct edition is that of Paris, by father Martianay, a Benedictine monk of the congregation of St. Maur, and Anthony Pouget, 1693-1706, in 5 vols. folio. There is, however, a more recent edition, with notes by Vallarsius, printed at Verona in 1734-42, in eleven volumes, folio. The eleventh contains the life of Jerom, certain pieces attributed to him on doubtful authority, and an Index. Of his "Letters, or Epistles," there are many editions executed about the infancy of printing, which are of great beauty, rarity, and value.1

JEROME of Prague, so called from the place of his birth, where he is held to be a Protestant martyr. It does not appear in what year he was born, but it is certain that he was neither a monk nor an ecclesiastic: but that, being endowed with excellent natural parts, he had a learned education, and studied at Paris, Heidelberg, Cologne, and perhaps at Oxford. The degree of M. A. was conferred on him in the three first-mentioned universities, and he commenced D. D. in 1396. He began to publish the doctrine of the Hussites in 1408, and it is said he had a greater share of learning and eloquence than John Huss himself. In the mean time, the council of Constance kept a watchful eye over him; and, looking upon him as a dangerous person, cited him before them April 17, 1415, to give an account of his faith. In pursuance of the citation, he went to Constance, in order to defend the doctrine of Huss, as he had promised; but, on his arrival, April 24, finding his master Huss in prison, he withdrew immediately to Uberlingen, whence he sent to the emperor for a safe conduct, which was refused. The council, very artfully, were willing to grant him a safe-conduct to come to Constance, but not for his return to Bohemia. Upon this he caused to be fixed upon all the churches of Constance, and upon the gates of the cardinal's house, a paper, declaring that

1 Life by Erasmus.-Dupin.-Care,-Lardner's Works.-Mosheim and Milner's Church Hist.-Saxii Onomast,