Letter 17
To Heliodorus.
May every blessing fall on the man — whoever he is — who extols your merit with such pious devotion. He has filled everyone's ears with praise of your golden heart and your eloquent tongue. And you are promptly repaying his good work: your praise of him is bringing him the admiration of countless people in return.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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Heliodorus, originally a soldier, but now a presbyter of the Church, had accompanied Jerome to the East, but, not feeling called to the solitary life of the desert, had returned to Aquileia. Here he resumed his clerical duties, and in course of time was raised to the episcopate as bishop of Altinum. The letter was written in the first bitterness...
One of Jerome's finest letters, written to console his old friend, Heliodorus, now Bp. of Altinum, for the loss of his nephew Nepotian who had died of fever a short time previously. Jerome tries to soothe his friend's grief (1) by contrasting pagan despair or resignation with Christian hope, (2) by an eulogy of the departed both as man and presb...