Jump to content

De Viris Illustribus (Jerome)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

De Viris Illustribus
Manuscript of the late 15th century, with this page showing entries for Musanus, Modestus and Bardaisan.
AuthorJerome
Original titleDe viris illustribus
TranslatorErnest Cushing Richardson
Ernest J. Engler
Philip Schaff
Thomas P. Halton
LanguageLatin
GenreBiography, bibliography
PublishedAD 393
Publication placeRoman Empire (Palaestina Prima)
Media typeManuscript
270.1
LC ClassBR60.F3 J4713
Original text
De viris illustribus at Latin Wikisource
TranslationDe Viris Illustribus at Wikisource
Jerome by Theodoric of Prague, c. 1370

De Viris Illustribus (On Illustrious Men) is a Latin biobibliographical collection by Jerome completed at Bethlehem in 392–393 AD. It consists of a prologue and 135 chapters, each giving a brief account of an author and a list of writings, beginning with figures from the apostolic age and ending with Jerome.[1]

Jerome presented the book as a Christian counterpart to biographical catalogues associated with Suetonius and other classical writers, and much of the early material is taken with little alteration from Eusebius of Caesarea. The work was dedicated to the Roman official Nummius Aemilianus Dexter.[2][3] In the preface Jerome casts the collection as an apologetic defence of Christian learning.[4][5][6]

The text circulated widely. It was continued by Gennadius of Massilia and later by Isidore of Seville, and the three works were often copied together.[1][7][8] Later scholarship has criticised it as rushed and incomplete, being flattering and insulting depending on the subject and Jerome's opinion of them.[9]

Composition

[edit]

De Viris Illustribus was composed in Latin in 392 and early 393, after Jerome translated Origen's Homilies on Ezekiel and before he wrote his Commentary on Ezekiel. It was written during Jerome's first period of literary activity following his move to Bethlehem.[10]

It was modelled after the works of earlier Greek and Latin authors. In a letter to Desiderius he wrote that he had "written a book on illustrious men from the apostles to our time in imitation of Suetonius and Apollonius the Greek."[7] It reinvented a tradition of biographical collections used by Suetonius and Plutarch for a Christian world.[5]

Purpose and dedication

[edit]

De Viris Illustribus was dedicated to Nummius Aemilianus Dexter, the son of Saint Pacianus and a Roman official and a Christian who had encouraged Jerome to create a survey of Christian authors.[2][3] SanPietro argues that this dedication was a pretext for Jerome to disguise his real intentions[7] while Van Hoof argues that evidence for a close relationship between Jerome and Dexter is limited.[3]

It was written as an apologetic work to demonstrate the accomplishments of prominent Christian authors, with Jerome including himself among them, at a time when Christian writing was seen as inferior.[4][5][6] In the preface Jerome states that he aims "to do for [Christian] writers what [Suetonius] did for the illustrious men of letters among the Gentiles", reinforcing this a few lines later where he states his desire to create a collection similar to Cicero's Brutus, covering the Christian writers whose texts "founded, built, and adorned the Church".[1]

Audience

[edit]

The intended audience of De Viris Illustribus was the educated classes of the Mediterranean.[11] Whiting describes it as a reference text for intra-Christian disputes, intended to "inform those who had no time to read extensively or had no thorough knowledge of Greek".[9]

Contents

[edit]

Summary

[edit]

De Viris Illustribus is a biobibliography covering four centuries of primarily Christian writers running from the apostolic age to Jerome himself.[1] The first seventy-eight chapters are copied with minimal changes from Eusebius' Historia ecclesiastica, while the last fifty-seven chapters reflect Jerome's own research.[10][12][7]

The entries vary in length, from brief notices to longer entries. They are all under 500 words long and follow a set pattern: the author's name, a short identification of their office or status, and a list of writings.[1]

The notices are usually bibliographical rather than hagiographical, but some refer to hagiographic legends associated with figures already venerated as saints.[5] Jerome uses the work to denigrate authors he did not approve of and praise those he did.[1][5] He knew some of the subjects personally or had read their works, while others were virtually unknown to him.[5]

The subjects are mainly Christian writers, with Jerome explaining his criteria as having "published anything memorable on the Holy Scriptures from the time of Christ's passing down to the 14th year of the emperor Theodosius".[1] They are largely figures Jerome treats as reputable and orthodox, though he also includes authors he considers heterodox.[5][1]

In the preface he describes the book as a catalogue of Christian men who were philosophers, eloquent, or learned, but he does not apply that description consistently, describing the writing of some authors such as Fortunatianus as "rustic".[9]

Subjects

[edit]

Listed below are the subjects of Jerome's 135 biographies. The numbers given are the chapter numbers found in editions.

Final chapter on Jerome

[edit]

At the conclusion of De Viris Illustribus, Jerome provided his own biography as the latest example of the scholarly work of Christians. In Chapter 135, Jerome summarized his career to date:

I, Jerome, son of Eusebius, of the city of Strido, which is on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia and was overthrown by the Goths, up to the present year, that is, the fourteenth of the Emperor Theodosius, have written the following: Life of Paul the monk, one book of Letters to different persons, an Exhortation to Heliodorus, Controversy of Luciferianus and Orthodoxus, Chronicle of universal history, 28 homilies of Origen on Jeremiah and Ezekiel, which I translated from Greek into Latin, On the Seraphim, On Osanna, On the Prudent and the Prodigal Sons, On Three Questions of the Ancient Law, Homilies on the Song of Songs two, Against Helvidius, On the perpetual virginity of Mary, To Eustochius, On Maintaining Virginity, one book of Epistles to Marcella, a consolatory letter to Paula On the Death of a Daughter, three books of Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, likewise three books of Commentaries on the Epistle to the Ephesians, On the Epistle to Titus one book, On the Epistle to Philemon one, Commentaries on Ecclesiastes, one book of Hebrew questions on Genesis, one book On places in Judea, one book of Hebrew names, Didymus on the Holy Spirit, which I translated into Latin one book, 39 homilies on Luke, On Psalms 10 to 16, seven books, On the captive Monk, The Life of the blessed Hilarion. I translated the New Testament from the Greek, and the Old Testament from the Hebrew, and how many Letters I have written To Paula and Eustochium I do not know, for I write daily. I wrote moreover, two books of Explanations on Micah, one book On Nahum, two books On Habakkuk, one On Zephaniah, one On Haggai, and many others On the prophets, which are not yet finished, and which I am still at work upon.[13]

Whiting argues that the entry functioned as a catalogue of Jerome's writings, allowing correspondents to request copies they lacked.[9]

Reception and influence

[edit]

De Viris Illustribus circulated widely soon after its completion, becoming the most influential Christian biographical collection and defining a canon of knowledge that could be expanded and augmented. It was used as a reference work in intra-Christian debate but was criticised for including heretics, including by Augustine in 398.[11][1][7]

The work was continued and revised, most notably by Gennadius of Marseilles in the fifth century and Isidore of Seville in the seventh, and the three texts circulated as a single corpus.[8][5][14] It influenced later biobibliographical compilations and its material was repurposed in other contexts.[11]

In the sixth century Cassiodorus recommended reading Jerome's work alongside its continuation by Gennadius. Bede, a Northumbrian monk, later treated its completion as a sacred event, writing "Jerome, the translator of sacred history, wrote a book about the most illustrious men of the Church".[1]

By the ninth century collations of De Viris Illustribus and its continuations were used as lists in monastic libraries to check their holdings.[11] McKitterick argues that the text was important in the formation and organisation of library catalogues and collections and contributed to a "book-based" way of thinking about the past[1] while Whiting argues that it was used to help identify forgeries.[9] It remained relevant even after many of the works covered by the text were lost, acting as a record of what had been written as well as what should be read.[1]

The work continued to circulate in the twelfth century and was a model for a revival of the bio-bibliographic genre.[12]

Modern scholarship

[edit]

Modern scholarship has criticised De Viris Illustribus as rushed and incomplete, being flattering and insulting depending on the subject and Jerome's opinion of them, as well as self-aggrandising in the final chapter.[9]

Kelly describes it as a "propagandist history" and criticises its reliance on Eusebius, arguing that Jerome at times misunderstood or mistranslated him.[9] Langelaar et al. describe the intent as to "develop a Christian vision of history and to appropriate the past of the Roman Empire".[5]

SanPietro argues that it worked to transmit orthodoxy, with Jerome creating it by working backwards from a list of works he believed should be included in Christianity's intellectual foundation.[7]

Editions

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Ward, Graeme; Wieser, Veronika (2022). "Reading Jerome's De viris illustribus in the Post-Roman World: Cataloguing Community in Gennadius of Marseille and Frechulf of Lisieux". Medieval Worlds. 15: 95–124. doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no15si_2022s95.
  2. ^ a b "Irondequoit Catholic Communities - - Pacian". Archived from the original on 28 October 2007. Retrieved 30 October 2007.
  3. ^ a b c Van Hoof, Lieve (9 March 2017). "The omnimoda historia of Nummius Aemilianus Dexter: A Latin Translation of Eusebius' Chronography?". Vigiliae Christianae. 71 (2): 199–204. doi:10.1163/15700720-12341290. ISSN 0042-6032.
  4. ^ a b Louis Saltet, "St. Jerome," Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: 1910.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Langelaar, Reinier; Vocino, Giorgia; Wieser, Veronika (2022). "Writing Strategies". Medieval Worlds. 15: 23–35. doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no15si_2022s23. ISSN 2412-3196.
  6. ^ a b Koeppler, H. (1936). ""De Viris Illustribus" and Isidore of Seville". The Journal of Theological Studies. 37 (145): 16–34. ISSN 0022-5185.
  7. ^ a b c d e f SanPietro, Irene (2017). "The Making of a Christian Intellectual Tradition in Jerome's De Viris Illustribus". Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. 62: 231–260. doi:10.2307/26787027. ISSN 0065-6801.
  8. ^ a b Mahoney, Daniel; Vocino, Giorgia (2022). "Introduction. Medieval Biographical Collections in Comparison". Medieval Worlds. 15: 3–11. doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no15si_2022s3. ISSN 2412-3196.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Whiting, Colin (2015). "Jerome's De viris illustribus and New Genres for Christian Disputation in Late Antiquity". In Greatrex, Geoffrey; Elton, Hugh; McMahon, Lucas (eds.). Shifting genres in Late Antiquity. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate. ISBN 978-1-4724-4348-9.
  10. ^ a b Rebenich, Stefan (2002). "The Literary Historian". Jerome. The early church fathers. London New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-45682-8.
  11. ^ a b c d Kramer, Rutger; Ward, Graeme (2022). "Audience and Reception". Medieval Worlds. 15: 36–49. doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no15si_2022s36. ISSN 2412-3196.
  12. ^ a b Byrne, Philippa (19 May 2021). "Cutting out the camel-like knees of St. James: the de viris illustribus tradition in the twelfth-century renaissance". Historical Research. 94 (264): 191–212. doi:10.1093/hisres/htab001. ISSN 0950-3471.
  13. ^ Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, chapter 135.
  14. ^ Koeppler, H. (1936). ""De Viris Illustribus" and Isidore of Seville". The Journal of Theological Studies. 37 (145): 16–34. ISSN 0022-5185.

References

[edit]
[edit]
English Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=De_Viris_Illustribus_(Jerome)&oldid=1336352736"