Letter 28: 1. Never was the face of any one more familiar to another, than the peaceful, happy, and truly noble diligence of your studies in the Lord has become to me. For although I long greatly to be acquainted with you, I feel that already my knowledge of you is deficient in respect of nothing but a very small part of you — namely, your personal appeara...

From: Augustine, Presbyter in Hippo To: Jerome, Presbyter in Bethlehem Date: ~394 AD Context: Augustine's first letter to Jerome — warm, exploratory, but already raising the disagreement over Jerome's biblical translation that will provoke years of acrimonious correspondence. Augustine asks Jerome not to translate the Old Testament from the Hebrew but to follow the Septuagint [the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures that had been the Church's Bible for centuries]. Augustine to Jerome, his dearest lord and brother and fellow presbyter, worthy of every honor and affection — greetings. 1. Your devotion to studying God's word has become as familiar to me as the face of a dear friend — even though I have never seen your face. For though I long greatly to know you in person, I feel I am missing only one thing: your physical appearance. And even that gap is barely real, since my most blessed brother Alypius [bishop of Thagaste and Augustine's closest friend] has all but brought you before my eyes in his own person. He was thoroughly formed by you in Bethlehem [Jerome's monastery in Bethlehem, where Alypius had spent time], and now you live in him as though in a moving image. 2. I want you to know that I already hold your works very dear — the labor you have poured into the Latin translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew [Jerome's Vulgate translation, which he worked on from the 380s to 405]. I feel strongly that it is valuable for the study of the sacred Scriptures to have scholars learn Hebrew and Greek, and that your work in this area serves the whole Church. My only concern — and I raise it not as a rebuke but as a question from a younger colleague to one of far greater learning — is the danger of serious division in the Western churches. When your translation is read in a congregation whose members have heard the Septuagint [the Greek translation, made in Alexandria around 250 BC, which was the scripture of the Greek-speaking church] all their lives, and suddenly the words are different, confusion follows. I saw this happen when a bishop in Africa read your rendering of Jonah 4:6 ["ivy" rather than the Septuagint's "gourd"] and the congregation nearly rioted [the incident at Oea, in modern Libya, is reported by Augustine in Letter 71]. 3. This is not a criticism of your Hebrew scholarship, which I am in no position to make. It is a practical concern about what happens when a translation that differs from what people know is suddenly imposed on them without preparation. Could you consider attaching notes explaining the differences between the Hebrew original and the Septuagint? That way both traditions could be honored. 4. I have a specific scholarly question as well, which I hope you will answer. In Galatians 2:11–14, Paul says he "opposed Peter to his face" because Peter was acting hypocritically [Peter had been eating with Gentile Christians but withdrew when Jewish Christians arrived, apparently out of fear of Jewish opinion]. Some interpreters — I think this is your view — argue that both Peter and Paul were engaged in a kind of pious fiction: that Peter knew he was wrong, and Paul staged the public rebuke as a performance, to teach the Gentile Christians that Jewish food laws no longer bound them. I cannot accept this reading. If Paul was performing rather than genuinely rebuking, then Scripture contains a deliberate falsehood — and if Scripture admits any falsehood, even a pious one, the whole edifice of trust in it collapses. I beg you to tell me if I have misread your position, because I would rather be corrected than be wrong. I write all this in the hope that you will do me the kindness of writing back. If you are willing to review any of my writings with your candid, brotherly rigor, I implore you to do so: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend" (Proverbs 27:6). I would far rather have you correct me than flatter me.

From Augustine to Jerome (A.D. 394 or 395) To Jerome, His Most Beloved Lord, and Brother and Fellow-Presbyter, Worthy of Being Honoured and Embraced with the Sincerest Affectionate Devotion, Augustine Sends Greeting. Chapter 1 1. Never was the face of any one more familiar to another, than the peaceful, happy, and truly noble diligence of your studies in the Lord has become to me. For although I long greatly to be acquainted with you, I feel that already my knowledge of you is deficient in respect of nothing but a very small part of you — namely, your personal appearance; and even as to this, I cannot deny that since my most blessed brother Alypius (now invested with the office of bishop, of which he was then truly worthy) has seen you, and has on his return been seen by me, it has been almost completely imprinted on my mind by his report of you; nay, I may say that before his return, when he saw you there, I was seeing you myself with his eyes. For any one who knows us may say of him and me, that in body only, and not in mind, we are two, so great is the union of heart, so firm the intimate friendship subsisting between us; though in merit we are not alike, for his is far above mine. Seeing, therefore, that you love me, both of old through the communion of spirit by which we are knit to each other, and more recently through what you know of me from the mouth of my friend, I feel that it is not presumptuous in me (as it would be in one wholly unknown to you) to recommend to your brotherly esteem the brother Profuturus, in whom we trust that the happy omen of his name (Good-speed) may be fulfilled through our efforts furthered after this by your aid; although, perhaps, it may be presumptuous on this ground, that he is so great a man, that it would be much more fitting that I should be commended to you by him, than he by me. I ought perhaps to write no more, if I were willing to content myself with the style of a formal letter of introduction; but my mind overflows into conference with you, concerning the studies with which we are occupied in Christ Jesus our Lord, who is pleased to furnish us largely through your love with many benefits, and some helps by the way, in the path which He has pointed out to His followers. Chapter 2 2. We therefore, and with us all that are devoted to study in the African churches, beseech you not to refuse to devote care and labour to the translation of the books of those who have written in the Greek language most able commentaries on our Scriptures. You may thus put us also in possession of these men, and especially of that one whose name you seem to have singular pleasure in sounding forth in your writings [Origen]. But I beseech you not to devote your labour to the work of translating into Latin the sacred canonical books, unless you follow the method in which you have translated Job, viz. with the addition of notes, to let it be seen plainly what differences there are between this version of yours and that of the LXX., whose authority is worthy of highest esteem. For my own part, I cannot sufficiently express my wonder that anything should at this date be found in the Hebrew manuscripts which escaped so many translators perfectly acquainted with the language. I say nothing of the LXX., regarding whose harmony in mind and spirit, surpassing that which is found in even one man, I dare not in any way pronounce a decided opinion, except that in my judgment, beyond question, very high authority must in this work of translation be conceded to them. I am more perplexed by those translators who, though enjoying the advantage of labouring after the LXX. had completed their work, and although well acquainted, as it is reported, with the force of Hebrew words and phrases, and with Hebrew syntax, have not only failed to agree among themselves, but have left many things which, even after so long a time, still remain to be discovered and brought to light. Now these things were either obscure or plain: if they were obscure, it is believed that you are as likely to have been mistaken as the others; if they were plain, it is not believed that they [the LXX.] could possibly have been mistaken. Having stated the grounds of my perplexity, I appeal to your kindness to give me an answer regarding this matter. Chapter 3 3. I have been reading also some writings, ascribed to you, on the Epistles of the Apostle Paul. In reading your exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians, that passage came to my hand in which the Apostle Peter is called back from a course of dangerous dissimulation. To find there the defense of falsehood undertaken, whether by you, a man of such weight, or by any author (if it is the writing of another), causes me, I must confess, great sorrow, until at least those things which decide my opinion in the matter are refuted, if indeed they admit of refutation. For it seems to me that most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books: that is to say, that the men by whom the Scripture has been given to us, and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false. It is one question whether it may be at any time the duty of a good man to deceive; but it is another question whether it can have been the duty of a writer of Holy Scripture to deceive: nay, it is not another question — it is no question at all. For if you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement as made in the way of duty, there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally, and under a sense of duty, the author declared what was not true. 4. For if the Apostle Paul did not speak the truth when, finding fault with the Apostle Peter, he said: If you, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?— if, indeed, Peter seemed to him to be doing what was right, and if, notwithstanding, he, in order to soothe troublesome opponents, both said and wrote that Peter did what was wrong; Galatians 2:11-14 — if we say thus, what then shall be our answer when perverse men such as he himself prophetically described arise, forbidding marriage, 1 Timothy 4:3 if they defend themselves by saying that, in all which the same apostle wrote in confirmation of the lawfulness of marriage, 1 Corinthians 7:10-16 he was, on account of men who, through love for their wives, might become troublesome opponents, declaring what was false, — saying these things, forsooth, not because he believed them, but because their opposition might thus be averted? It is unnecessary to quote many parallel examples. For even things which pertain to the praises of God might be represented as piously intended falsehoods, written in order that love for Him might be enkindled in men who were slow of heart; and thus nowhere in the sacred books shall the authority of pure truth stand sure. Do we not observe the great care with which the same apostle commends the truth to us, when he says: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain: yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ; whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 1 Corinthians 15:14-15 If any one said to him, Why are you so shocked by this falsehood, when the thing which you have said, even if it were false, tends very greatly to the glory of God? would he not, abhorring the madness of such a man, with every word and sign which could express his feelings, open clearly the secret depths of his own heart, protesting that to speak well of a falsehood uttered on behalf of God, was a crime not less, perhaps even greater, than to speak ill of the truth concerning Him? We must therefore be careful to secure, in order to our knowledge of the divine Scriptures, the guidance only of such a man as is imbued with a high reverence for the sacred books, and a profound persuasion of their truth, preventing him from flattering himself in any part of them with the hypothesis of a statement being made not because it was true, but because it was expedient, and making him rather pass by what he does not understand, than set up his own feelings above that truth. For, truly, when he pronounces anything to be untrue, he demands that he be believed in preference, and endeavours to shake our confidence in the authority of the divine Scriptures. 5. For my part, I would devote all the strength which the Lord grants me, to show that every one of those texts which are wont to be quoted in defense of the expediency of falsehood ought to be otherwise understood, in order that everywhere the sure truth of these passages themselves may be consistently maintained. For as statements adduced in evidence must not be false, neither ought they to favour falsehood. This, however, I leave to your own judgment. For if you apply more thorough attention to the passage, perhaps you will see it much more readily than I have done. To this more careful study that piety will move you, by which you discern that the authority of the divine Scriptures becomes unsettled (so that every one may believe what he wishes, and reject what he does not wish) if this be once admitted, that the men by whom these things have been delivered unto us, could in their writings state some things which were not true, from considerations of duty; unless, perchance, you propose to furnish us with certain rules by which we may know when a falsehood might or might not become a duty. If this can be done, I beg you to set forth these rules with reasonings which may be neither equivocal nor precarious; and I beseech you by our Lord, in whom Truth was incarnate, not to consider me burdensome or presumptuous in making this request. For a mistake of mine which is in the interest of truth cannot deserve great blame, if indeed it deserves blame at all, when it is possible for you to use truth in the interest of falsehood without doing wrong. Chapter 4 6. Of many other things I would wish to discourse with your most ingenuous heart, and to take counsel with you concerning Christian studies; but this desire could not be satisfied within the limits of any letter. I may do this more fully by means of the brother bearing this letter, whom I rejoice in sending to share and profit by your sweet and useful conversation. Nevertheless, although I do not reckon myself superior in any respect to him, even he may take less from you than I would desire; and he will excuse my saying so, for I confess myself to have more room for receiving from you than he has. I see his mind to be already more fully stored, in which unquestionably he excels me. Therefore, when he returns, as I trust he may happily do by God's blessing, and when I become a sharer in all with which his heart has been richly furnished by you, there will still be a consciousness of void unsatisfied in me, and a longing for personal fellowship with you. Hence of the two I shall be the poorer, and he the richer, then as now. This brother carries with him some of my writings, which if you condescend to read, I implore you to review them with candid and brotherly strictness. For the words of Scripture, The righteous shall correct me in compassion, and reprove me; but the oil of the sinner shall not anoint my head, I understand to mean that he is the truer friend who by his censure heals me, than the one who by flattery anoints my head. I find the greatest difficulty in exercising a right judgment when I read over what I have written, being either too cautious or too rash. For I sometimes see my own faults, but I prefer to hear them reproved by those who are better able to judge than I am; lest after I have, perhaps justly, charged myself with error, I begin again to flatter myself, and think that my censure has arisen from an undue mistrust of my own judgment. About this page Source. Translated by J.G. Cunningham. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 1. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102028.htm>. 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