Mind of the Church

The mind of the Church, faithfully rendered into English

Library / The Catholic Expositors of the Divine Volumes

Folio 238–250

Letter H

H

Adrian Lametius [Henencurius], a doctor and Theologian, out of many commentaries of the fathers constructed one work: in which, from the sayings of the ancient authors, he expounded the first twenty-six Psalms in a most beautiful order and most elegantly. The work begins, Blessed is the man, etc. The opinion of Jerome. He flourished under Charles V, Emperor, in the year of the Lord 1550.

Haymo of Halberstadt [Alberstatensis], the third bishop in Saxony, German by nation, a disciple of Albinus [Alcuin] — who was the teacher of Charlemagne Augustus — formerly a monk of the Benedictine monastery of Fulda, and Abbot of the monastery of Hersfeld of the same order, a man notable for sanctity and erudition, composed commentaries on all the books of both testaments, praiseworthy for their piety, brevity, simplicity of diction, and perspicuity; in which he reduced into a compendium the things which by the ancient interpreters were either written for the learned or spoken to the people more diffusely — with a perspicuity and lucid brevity so great, that they can be read by the busy at small cost of time, and most easily understood by the simple and lightly-lettered. But he was engaged almost always in the allegorical and anagogical senses, which — like a spiritual little bee — he plucked from the gardens and most flowering meadows of all the ancients, that for his readers there might be prepared an abundance of most wholesome honey. The titles and beginnings of his commentaries, which I myself have read, are these:

He dies under Louis Augustus, son of Charlemagne, buried in the church of St. Stephen of Halberstadt, in the year of the Lord 834.

Hector Pinto [Pinctus], a Portuguese, a monk of the Order of St. Jerome, wrote on Isaiah the Prophet polished and cultivated commentaries: in which he diligently examines the Hebrew context of Isaiah together with the Vulgate edition. Theobald Paganus [Payen] printed [them] at Lyons in the year 1561. He published likewise most learned commentaries on the Prophets Ezekiel and Daniel, and on the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Elias de Anibaldi [degli Annibaldi], a Minorite, master of Theology, wrote a Postil on the Apocalypse.

Henry of Aquila [de Aquila], a German [Alemannus], a Paris Doctor, wrote on the Song of Songs

…one book. He flourished in the year 1350.

Henry, a monk of the Benedictine monastery of Auxerre, instructed in secular literature, most skilled in the divine Scripture, and an excellent declaimer of his time, wrote, about the year of the Lord 880, very many homilies on various passages of the Gospels, of which 37 are inserted in the Homiliary of Alcuin.

Henry Arnoldi, a Carthusian, a monk of the house of Basel, formerly a notary in the sacred Council of Basel, a man instructed in every kind of letters, wrote in an open and simple style, on the Harmony of the Evangelists concerning the Passion of the Lord, one book, in the year 1440.

Henry of Coesfeld [Consueldius], a German, a Carthusian, Prior of the house of St. Mary near the mount of Blessed Gertrude in Holland, a scholastic by profession, wrote on Exodus, and on the epistle to the Romans. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1410.

Henry of Cossey [Costesay], a Minorite, composed an exposition on the Psalter, one book; [and] a Commentary on the Apocalypse. He died in the year 1336.

Henry Esseburne, a Dominican, wrote on the Parables [Proverbs] of Solomon, 1 book; on Ecclesiastes, 1 book; and Lectures on the Bibles, 1 book. He flourished in the year 1280.

Henry Herp [Harphius], of the Order of Minors of the regular observance, Guardian at Mechelen, a contemplative man, and on every side no less learned than illuminated, wrote on Mystical Theology — both speculative and especially affective (which is obtained not so much by reading as by the exercise of purity and love) — three books, of which he presented the first in the exposition of the Canticles, which is entitled Mystical Theology, or A Soliloquy of the divine love and forms of Christ, or Paradoxes on the Song of Songs: in which, in a broken [disjointed] order, he most brilliantly expounded various sentences of this book with pious affections and flaming words. Peter Blomevenna of Leiden, a Carthusian, translated this work from the German idiom into the Latin tongue. The work begins, Let him kiss, etc. Tell us, I pray, of whom, by whom, and to whom it is said, “Let him kiss me,” etc.

Henry Helmesius [of Germipolis], of the Order of Minors, a plainly learned and pious man, and preacher of the chief Church of Cologne, wrote — on all the festal Epistles and Gospels — of Homilies in the self-expounding kind, ἑαυτοῦ ἐξηγητικῷ (that is, [Scripture] expounding itself), five volumes, framed with marvelous artifice and erudition out of the mere sentences of divine scripture, in the year of the Lord 1550.

Henry of Hesse the Younger [Hassius Iunior], a Carthusian, Prior of the house of the monks of St. Mary, nobly erudite in the holy Scriptures, not ignorant of secular literature, a scholastic by profession, and by his elegance of speech well fitted for illuminating the understanding and inflaming the affection, wrote on Genesis one book of commentaries, on Exodus one book, on Proverbs one book, on the Apocalypse one book. He flourished under Sigismund the Emperor, [in] 1428.

Henry Kalteisen [Kaltisenus], of Koblenz by fatherland, of the order of Preachers, bishop of the Churches of Nidaros [Trondheim] and of Caesarea, formerly lector of the sacred palace, and before that a preacher [at the convent] of the Holy Cross, and an inquisitor of heretical depravity, a cultivated Theologian and Philosopher, wrote in scholastic eloquence, on the Canticle of Mary [the Magnificat], one book, in the year of the Lord 1460.

Henry of Langenstein [Langesteinus], a German, from Hesse, canon of the Church of Worms, doctor of the Paris Academy under Pope Boniface IX, in the year of our salvation 1400; on account of his singular erudition in Philosophy and Theology, he was summoned — by the public favor of all the learned — to illustrate the Academy of Vienna, then first founded; and he abounded in so great a copiousness of matter in speaking and writing, that, after the manner of Demosthenes, he had always to think, not what he might add, but what he might take away from his discourse. From which abundance it came about that, having consumed many years in the public exposition of Genesis, he could scarcely reach the fourth chapter of the book — having published as many books of commentaries — being about to make truly an immense work, and one wasteful of much paper, if he had reached the end of Genesis by expounding. He wrote therefore, in the scholastic manner of interpreting: a book of Prologues on Genesis; on the first four chapters of Genesis, four books; and on the Song of Songs, one book.

Henry Logen, a Carthusian, Prior of the house near Brussels, wrote explanations on the Psalter.

Henry Regius of Paderborn wrote an Alphabetical Bible [Biblia Alphabetica], which the Neuss printer printed, at Cologne, in the year 1535.

Henry Sachs [Sachsius] had three books published, On the seemingly-contrary passages of both Testaments, at Cologne, 1540, together with the Commentary of Honorius on the books of Solomon.

Henry Vinchingam [Vinchingan], an Englishman, wrote a scholastic Postil on Isaiah, in the year of the Lord 1447.

Henry Urimarius [of Friemar], a Hermit [Augustinian], German by nation, doctor of the Paris university, illustrious in life and doctrine, wrote on the Decalogue, 1 book; whose beginning is, Hear, O Israel, the precepts. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1340.

Heraclius, under the empire of Commodus and Severus, in the year of the Lord 200, composed on the Apostle [Paul] fourteen books of commentaries.

Under the name of Hermann, Archbishop of Cologne, elector of the Holy Empire, there came forth a most noble explanation of the Decalogue, which is contained in the Compendium of the Council of Cologne, together with an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer and of the Creed. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1540.

Hermann, called Contractus [the Lame] — because he was contracted [crippled] in the limbs of his whole body — a Benedictine monk of the monastery of St. Gall, a German by nation, son of the Count of Veringen in Swabia, a philosopher, mathematician, and historian, most skilled in Greek, Latin, and Arabic, among his many excellent writings left a notable little work: a chronicle entitled ON THE SIX AGES OF THE WORLD, in which, in imitation of Bede, he arranged in a most fitting order all the ages, generations, years, and times contained in the sacred letters. He flourished under Henry II, in the year of the Lord 1040.

Hermann of Petra [Studorpoeus], German by nation, a Carthusian by profession, rector of the house of St. Anne of the nuns of his or-[der]

…[rector of the house of St. Anne of the nuns of his] order, near Bruges in Flanders, venerable for his life, erudition, and zeal for declaiming, published on the Lord’s Prayer, in scholastic style, 50 sermons. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1428.

Hermann Schildis [Schildius], a Hermit [Augustinian], imbued with philosophy, and perfected by assiduous exercise in the divine letters, wrote in scholastic style on Genesis and on the Song of Songs; likewise, On the four senses of scripture, 1 book. He flourished under Louis IV the Emperor, in the year of the Lord 1340.

Hesychius the Monk, and in Palestine the father of many monks, joined by the closest love to Hilarion the most holy hermit — to whom the most blessed Hilarion himself, dying, wrote with his own hand a brief epistle, as it were in place of a testament, leaving to him all his riches, namely the Gospel, and a sackcloth tunic, a cowl, and a little cloak — a man most skilled in the Greek tongue, and an assiduous reader of the divine Scriptures, published a new Greek translation of the whole scripture, partly corrected by himself from the LXX interpreters in the Old Testament, partly restored by his own industry, in the New Testament, to the ancient faith. There are those who attribute this same translation to Hesychius the Jerusalemite presbyter, a most learned man, whom Nicephorus writes to have flourished in the times of Theodosius the Younger. Which does not seem probable to me, since Jerome writes that this Hesychian edition was in use in his time (that is, under the reign of Theodosius the Elder) in all the churches throughout Alexandria and Egypt. And Hesychius [the Monk] flourished under Constantius Augustus, in the year of the Lord 360.

Hesychius, the Jerusalemite presbyter — or, as it is written in the Ordinary Gloss on Leviticus, bishop of Jerusalem — a hearer and disciple of Blessed Gregory of Nazianzus the bishop, a man most erudite in the divine scriptures; admonished by the example of his teacher, he is reported to have written on the divine books many little works of explanations: of which there are extant, on the whole of Leviticus, to Eutychianus the deacon, seven books, in which he spiritually interprets the mystical intention of Moses, following an edition so tempered that it agrees with the LXX and does not differ from our Vulgate. He has a certain kind of diction unusual, and rather affected, and abhorrent from the common custom of speaking. The work begins, To the venerable deacon Eutychianus, the sinner Hesychius, servant of Christ, a presbyter — salvation in Christ. He wrote also, with a like zeal of explanation, commentaries on Ezekiel, of which he makes mention in the preface to his first book on Leviticus; likewise on the Epistle to the Hebrews. He flourished under Honorius Augustus, in the year of the Lord 400.

Jerome Fracastoro [Girolamo Fracastoro], of Verona, a most noble illustrator of the art of medicine and of poetic study, published, on the last ten chapters of Genesis, a heroic poem On the life of Joseph, admirable for the gracefulness of its verse — which indeed he could not complete, being prevented by death, in the year of the Lord 1548.

Jerome of Leopolis [Lwów], from the province of Ruthenia, of the Order of Minors of the regular observance, a preacher and lector of the Metropolitan Church in the city of Cracow (the royal seat of the Polish kingdom), who fought strenuously against the Lutherans even unto death, translated all the books of the Bible into the Polish language. He flourished under Charles V Augustus, in the year of the Lord 1536.

Jerome ab Oleastro [of Azambuja], a Portuguese, of the Order of Preachers, professor of sacred Theology, and inquisitor of heretical depravity at the renowned Lisbon [Ulyssippo], published commentaries on the Pentateuch of Moses according to the edition of Sanctes Pagninus: in which he first most exactly explained the Hebrew truth, then indeed subjoined separately those things which can be fitted to the composition of morals, from the inmost recesses of the letter itself. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1556, in which he also sent forth this very work, printed at Lisbon.

[Later-edition addition — not in Sixtus’s 1566 text: Osório died in 1580, and the entry notes he died “in recent years,” after Sixtus’s own death (1569).] Jerome Osório [Jerónimo Osório], a Portuguese, bishop of the Algarve, a most eloquent man, wrote a Paraphrase on Isaiah. In recent years he migrated from this life.

Jerome of Padua [Patavinus], excellent in verse and prose, wrote to Peter Donato, bishop of the city of Padua, On the Passion of the Lord — from the four evangelists, in heroic verse — one book, which begins, Greatest of the heaven-dwellers, in the year of the Lord 1494.

Jerome Savonarola [Girolamo Savonarola], of Ferrara, of the Order of Preachers, a man of excellent genius, and endowed with an abundance of many sciences, was a declaimer simple indeed and unadorned in speech, but sharp in sense and vehement in action; and in the reputation of sanctity so admirable to all, that the people of the city of Florence — among whom for seven years he delivered sermons in a great and assiduous throng of hearers — thought that he spoke with God, and received from Him the prophecy of future events; and on that account were unwilling that the commonwealth, and the common government of the whole city, should be administered except at his nod. Which things, since they did not sufficiently please some of the leading citizens, effort was made that the magistrates of the city should be created from the number of those who least followed him; [and so] Jerome, not without tumult and the blood of many, was seized, and cast into prison, and condemned to death; a little after, being deprived of his priestly honor [degraded], he was burned alive in the middle of the marketplace, and his ashes — lest, being religiously kept by his own followers (who had already begun to collect them), they should be venerated — were thrown into the flowing Arno. This man, therefore, labored much in the divine scriptures, of which the below-written are reported:

Finally, the day before he was led to death,

…[the day before he was led to dea]th, he wrote — amid the fearful horrors of the prison and the anguish of the imminent punishment — in Latin speech, Meditations on the 31st Psalm and on the fiftieth, most burning with living words, lively thoughts, and fervor of spirit. The former of these, in which the struggle of hope and despair is expressed, begins Sadness has beset me, etc.; the latter begins Unhappy man that I am, etc.

Ambrose, bishop of Compsa [Conza], published a book of many annotations against the aforesaid volumes of Jerome [Savonarola] — out of which volumes the holy Synod of Trent forbade the below-written sermons to be read, until they should come forth corrected by the tribunal of the holy Roman Inquisition:

Thomas Neri [Tommaso Neri], of the Order of Preachers, a man both pious and learned, recently wrote an Apologetic book in defense of the teaching of this author [Savonarola] — who, being in the forty-sixth year of his age, was slain, namely in the year of human salvation 1498, on the 14th day of June. [The execution is otherwise dated 23 May 1498; “14 June” as printed.]

John Francis [Gianfrancesco Pico], prince of Mirandola, wrote his [Savonarola’s] life.

Jerome Seripando [Girolamo Seripando] wrote a Commentary on St. Paul’s epistle to the Galatians. Rubinus printed it at Venice, 1569.

HIERONYMUS of Stridon [St. Jerome], whom Severus Sulpicius calls rector of the parish of Bethlehem, and whom all the Greeks call the Jerusalemite presbyter — son of Eusebius, from the town of Stridon (which, overthrown by the Goths, was once the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia) — was a man most consummate in every kind of learning. For, by the splendor of his speech and by the strength of eloquence — in which he advanced under Donatus the Grammarian and Victorinus the Rhetor, most illustrious men1 — he left all the writers of the Latin Church far behind him at a great interval. Of tongues, too, he had so great a skill that he held Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee [Aramaic], and Latin all as equally as his native Dalmatian mother-tongue. But also in the schools of the philosophers he left nothing untouched of Aristotle, Plato, and Zeno — that is, of the Peripatetics, Academics, and Stoics. Furnished with these apparatuses, he betook himself to the studies of the sacred Letters, using in these as teachers Apollinaris of Laodicea, Didymus of Alexandria, and Gregory of Nazianzus.2 Under whom he acquired for himself so great an erudition in divine matters, and such a name for erudition, that in the obscure difficulties of the holy volumes the Roman Pontiff Damasus, the most learned Augustine, Paulinus, Chromatius, Heliodorus, and many others everywhere throughout Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Palestine, and Greece — most erudite bishops — took refuge in this one man, as in one who, aided by his manifold variety of tongues, had read all the interpreters of divine Scripture: Greeks, Hebrews, and Latins. Which also Augustine, in Book 1 against Julian, openly shows in these words, saying: The holy presbyter Jerome, learned in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew eloquence, passing from the Western to the Eastern Church, lived in holy places and in sacred letters even to a decrepit age. He read all — or nearly all — who before him had written on ecclesiastical doctrine from either part of the world.

This admirable man, therefore, produced — besides his exoteric writings, which are many — so many and so great exegetical volumes upon the holy Scriptures, that there is no part, whether of the Old or of the New Testament, on which he did not publish either translations, or annotations, or commentaries, or epistles. For by these four orders [classes] are distinguished all his works that pertain to the understanding of the sacred Volumes. In the first, the order of translation, he turned the whole body of Scripture into various tongues. In the second, the order of annotation, he illustrated many things from both Testaments, applying here and there brief scholia. In the third, the epistolary order, he wrote almost innumerable letters, in which he satisfied the questions of those who, sending letters to him from divers parts of the world, consulted him on the abstruse questions of divine Scripture. In the fourth and last, the Hyponematic — that is, the order of Commentaries — he expounded the divine Scriptures according to the various editions of the Greeks (but especially the LXX), and according to his own edition, which he had translated from the Hebrew source, to the letter; and, first of all the Latins, he most skillfully investigated and most clearly discussed the historical sense — which, on account of its difficulty, none before him had either touched or fully explained — adding also brief allegorical and tropological explanations, which should be, as it were, the appendices and ornaments of the literal understanding.

Now, of these Commentaries he wrote several with his own hand, and dictated very many through secretaries, with such facility and speed that each

…each day he would exceed a thousand verses [lines] by dictation. For which cause — as he himself relates about himself in the epistle to Eusebius — many reckoned him rather to be reading others’ works than composing his own.

Now Jerome followed, among the other Greek expositors — whose writings he culled after the manner of a bee — chiefly Origen, not indeed as a dogmatist but as an interpreter; out of whose immense volumes he poured almost innumerable things into his own works. On which account, when he was accused by his rivals, he excused himself in many places, but especially in the preface to his second commentary on Micah, where out of Terentian verses he fitted together a cento of this kind for his defense:

I warn the fat bulls that have surrounded me, that they be quiet and cease To slander, lest they come to know their own misdeeds. For, as to their saying that I plunder the volumes of Origen, and That it is not fitting that the writings of the ancients be contaminated: Because they reckon this a vehement reproach, I count it the greatest praise — since I wish to imitate Him whom I doubt not to please you, and all the prudent. For if it be a crime to translate the good sayings of the Greeks, let there be accused Ennius, Maro [Virgil], Plautus, Caecilius, and Terence, Tullius [Cicero] too — nay, let our own Hilary be held guilty of theft: who, upon The Psalms, turned nearly forty thousand verses of the aforesaid Origen according to their sense — Whose diligence, of them all, I long to emulate Rather than the obscure negligence of those men.

Now Jerome, in gathering the explanations of the ancients, is wont very often to report their opinions — and sometimes also some erring and absurd opinions — with the authors’ names suppressed (whom, to avoid the reader’s tedium, he was accustomed to name once in the prefaces of his books); sometimes omitting too, for modesty’s sake, the refutations of those opinions, because he had refuted them most fully elsewhere. Whence it comes that, while he mixes others’ matter with his own without distinction, he sometimes seems to accept the errors of others and to pronounce them as the judgment of his own mind. And hence Jerome’s detractors have seized what occasion they could to assail him, [saying] that he had bespattered almost all his commentaries with the dogmas of heretics. Meeting whose calumny, Jerome left these things written in his fourth volume on Jeremiah:

I am accustomed, in my commentaries and explanations — as is the custom — when setting down the various opinions of interpreters, to mix in speech of this kind: “Some say this, others assert that, several think thus.” And for this the wretched Grunnius [Rufinus], and, after many years, the disciple of Jovinian, calumniate me — [saying] that under others’ names I set down my own opinions. Which I do for the sake of good will, lest I should seem to tear anyone by name. But my kindness has been turned into calumny against me.

The style of Jerome, in each of these orders [classes of work], is far different from that which he uses in his other works. For in his exoteric little works — whatever they be, whether Paraenetic (which contain instruction for life) or Apologetic (which look to refuting the errors of heretics and the calumnies of the malevolent) — he has a manner of speaking composed of a certain varied and admirable mixture of all things, and adorned with ornaments and pigments culled from every side out of every variety of writers; painted with the colors of the rhetoricians, the subtleties of the dialecticians, the flowerlets of the poets, the maxims of the philosophers, and with allusions of every kind to all the arts and sciences; and variegated with a diversity of foreign words — Greek, that is, Hebrew, and Chaldee [Aramaic] sayings — after the fashion of an emblem (as Ennius says) of mosaic work, and interwoven like a Musaeum-work with many-colored little stones. On the contrary, in his exegetical works, or enarrations of the divine Scripture — all the pomp of secular letters despised — he abstains from every paint of eloquence and from all ambition of the most difficult questions, unwilling (as he himself says), under the occasion of the divine words, to show off his own eloquence and erudition, and in these to hunt praise and admiration from his readers. But everywhere he uses a diction succinct, simple, and open, and words (as he himself says) taken from the crossroads [common speech], repeating in all his commentaries, and in almost every preface of his books, this saying, namely: Let those who desire rivers of eloquence and elegant declamations not read these things. For this alone is my purpose: to declare the words of divine Scripture; and this alone is my praise, that through me the reader may understand the words of divine Scripture. Giving the reason of this purpose himself, in the Questions to Pope Damasus he thus writes:

One who disputes about the Scriptures ought not to hunt out the arguments of Aristotle, nor is the rivulet to be drawn from the river of Ciceronian eloquence, nor are the ears to be soothed with the flowerlets of Quintilian and with scholastic declamation. A speech is needful that is pedestrian and like everyday speech, and redolent of no lamplit toil — one that explains the matter, sets forth the sense, makes the obscure plain, not one that puts forth leaves in the composition of words. Let others be eloquent, let them be praised as they will, and weigh out foaming words with puffed-out cheeks: it is enough for me so to speak that I be understood — that, speaking and disputing about the Scriptures, I may imitate the simplicity of the Scriptures.

And let these few things now be what we have touched, in general, concerning the exegetical works of Jerome. But in particular, those which under his name are reported to have been published on all — or on the several — books of divine Scripture, we shall distinguish by a double Index: in the first of which we shall place the undoubted labors of Jerome; in the second we shall enumerate those writings about which it is greatly doubted among the learned whether they are his.

OF THE EXEGETICAL VOLUMES WHICH ALL AFFIRM, WITHOUT ANY HESITATION, TO BE JEROME’S. THE FIRST INDEX.

On the whole Old Testament, a Translation from the Hebrew verity into the Latin tongue — which, as more excellent than the others, the whole Church of the Latins3

…the whole Church of the Latins received,4 and the very ancient Fathers approved by their own antiquity — but first of all Augustine, in the 18th book of the City of God, writing thus: There was not lacking in our times the presbyter Jerome, a most learned man, and most skilled in the three tongues, who translated the divine Scriptures into Latin not from the Greek but from the Hebrew. Which so great a literary labor of his even the Hebrews confess to be truthful. Subscribing to him, Gregory in the eleventh book of the Morals thus speaks: The new translation of Jerome is held to have rendered all things for us more truly from the Hebrew speech; therefore whatever is said in it is to be trusted, and it is fitting that our exposition should more subtly search out its words. Isidore, bishop of Seville, in the second book of the Etymologies, adds these things: Jerome, most skilled in the three tongues, translated the divine Scriptures from Hebrew into Latin eloquence, and eloquently rendered them; whose interpretation is deservedly preferred to the others: for it is more tenacious of the words, and clearer in sense by its perspicuity, and — being a Christian interpretation — truer. Thus he. Nor is it to be passed over that Jerome corrected the edition of the Seventy interpreters [LXX] — already for many ages before translated into Latin by an uncertain author, and corrupted by the injury of the times — and restored it to the Greek verity,5 as he himself testifies in the preface to Paralipomenon [Chronicles]. He translated, moreover, with such facility and speed most of the Hebrew volumes of the Old Instrument, that by the labor of three days he made Latin out of Hebrew the three books of Solomon — namely Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs — and turned the book of Tobias from Chaldee [Aramaic] into Latin by the work of a single day.

Besides these, he also carefully corrected the whole New Testament — already by others either badly translated into Latin, or corrupted by the negligence of copyists — and with the utmost care emended it according to the Greek verity. Of which emendation Augustine, in a certain letter to Jerome, brought forth his judgment in these words: Accordingly we give no small thanks to God for your work, that you have translated the Gospel from Greek into Latin: because in almost all places there is no stumbling, when we have compared the Greek scripture. Whence, if anyone be contentious for the old falsity, he is either taught or refuted by the codices being brought forth and compared; and if some passages very rarely give deserved cause for warning — who is so hard that he would not readily pardon so useful a labor, for which he is not able to render a return of praise? [printed “non non”] Thus Augustine.

Jerome also translated — as he himself testifies in the epistle to Sophronius — the whole body of the entire divine Scripture into the Dalmatian tongue, for the benefit of the peoples of his own nation;6 which nation, even to this day, uses the reading of this translation with the utmost veneration.

He also translated, out of Philo and Origen, On the Interpretation of the Hebrew Names which are contained in both Testaments — one book, beginning Philo, a most eloquent man.

After these labors of translation he wrote an Epistolary of Prefaces upon the several volumes of the Bible — one book, whose beginning is Brother Ambrose. He wrote also:

Upon all the holy scripture, one book of Traditions, or of an inchoate [begun] exposition of Hebrew Questions — from the beginning of Genesis even to the end of that same volume. By which work he refuted the errors of those who wrongly brought forth various testimonies from the sacred Letters, thinking that they were so read in the Hebrew codices; showing which words, both in the Greek and in the Latin codices of the blessed Scripture, were superfluous or lacking, each being restored to its truth. He moreover explained in Latin the etymologies of things, of names, and of regions, unknown to the Latins, promising that he would publish, by a similar labor, annotations upon all the Old scripture. Whether he afterward performed this, is unknown to me.

He wrote besides, on Genesis, to Damasus, three questions:

Upon the Psalter he set forth epistles, and a threefold variety of translation. The first, indeed, when he was at Rome, by order of Pope Damasus — which ought rather to be called a correction than a translation; for he corrected, and in great part emended, the common [Vulgate] edition of the Psalter,7 contaminated with innumerable faults, following in this the Greek version of the Seventy interpreters. When this, at Damasus’s command, had begun to be read and sung in the Roman Church, it was called the ROMAN PSALTER.8 But when this emendation was again corrupted through the fault of copyists — among whom the error of the old translation prevailed more than the fidelity of the new correction — Jerome, at the urging of Paula and Eustochium, put forth a second edition from the Greek version of the Seventy interpreters, in which, by obeli set beside [that is, by horizontal strokes], he marked what among the LXX was superfluous, and, by asterisks (*) likewise inserted, noted what he himself had added from the Hebrew verity. When Damasus had granted this work to be sung in the churches of Gaul, it was called the GALLICAN PSALTER.9 The third edition he rendered from the source of the Hebrew verity into Latin eloquence, at the request of Sophronius; by whom, when the Jews — bringing forth testimonies of the psalms — were pressed in disputation, they mockingly answered, almost at every word, that it was not so held in the Hebrew, as he alleged from the Seventy interpreters. This edition, again turned into Greek by Sophronius, no church, so far as I know, has been accustomed to sing. He wrote also, upon the second Psalter version published by him, a boo[klet]

…a boo[klet], or very prolix epistle, to Sunnia and Fretela, showing in what places the edition of the Seventy interpreters differed from the Hebrew verity, and how the corrupted readings in the psalms ought to be restored according to the Hebrew faith [text]; and [displaying] the LXX edition, before rendered by himself into Latin and distinguished with asterisks and obeli.

He is also reported to have written commentaries on the whole Psalter — out of which Gregory, expounding the Psalms that are called Penitential, brings a testimony from the exposition of Psalm 50; and Augustine, from the explanation of Psalm 93, in the Epistle to Fortunatus, bishop of Sicca, brings forth an opinion.

Besides these, he composed epistolary explanations on three Psalms, that is:

He also translated, out of the commentaries of Origen upon the Psalms, seven treatises — from the tenth Psalm to the sixteenth Psalm, one treatise for each Psalm. He wrote also:

On Ecclesiastes, to Paula and Eustochium, one book — remarkable for its wondrous brevity and wondrous facility — according to the literal and the spiritual sense; in which, following the authority of no single edition, he rather fitted himself to the custom of the Seventy interpreters, but only in those places which did not much differ from the Hebrew verity; sometimes he also explained the translations of Aquila, and of Symmachus, and of Theodotion. The beginning of the work is, I remember. He wrote besides, to Marcella, one epistle, whose beginning is Lately with Rethicius, in which he censures Rethicius, bishop of the Aedui [Autun], because he had wrongly interpreted Aurum ophaz [gold of Ophaz], for which, in the fifth chapter, we read the finest gold; and he himself declares what it is.10 After these he published:

Upon all the Prophets, both the greater and the lesser, 63 books of commentaries; in which, according to each edition [Hebrew and LXX], he was the first of all the Latins to undertake and complete a historical and literal exposition upon the several words of the Prophets, from the first to the last11 — which, on account of the enormous difficulty of the matter, none before him had dared either to begin, or, once begun, to pursue. These foundations being laid, he built upon the history the anagogical and tropological senses, following in these the Greek authors, and most of all his own Origen. He set forth, moreover, with skillful diligence, the several Prophets, in a style succinct and simple, but as easy and open as could be — reckoning this to be his highest praise, if through him all the words of the Prophets should be most clearly explained. He divided his commentaries into many books, so that — the long journey of exposition being separated by fixed stages — he might make easier, divided into parts, the labor of the one dictating, of the one writing, and of the one reading. And he set before the several books certain pointed little prefaces, in which he briefly explains the themes of the explanations and sharply refutes the slanders of his rivals. He dictated these commentaries in extreme old age — not in the same order in which they are read in the Canon, but as he was able, and as he was asked, his secretaries taking down his words — since now, with dimming eyes and trembling fingers, he could no longer bear the labor of writing with his own hand; and moreover with such speed that he scarcely had space for re-reading and correcting. The catalog of these books is this:

- On Zechariah, to Exuperius of Toulouse, an epistle in 3 books, [beginning] In the last part now of autumn.

And these things he composed on the Old Testament; now follow those which he composed on the New Testament.

On Matthew, four books of commentaries, to Eusebius: in which — the authority of the Ancients omitted (whom, for the shortness of time, he had no opportunity either to read or to follow) — he briefly arranged the historical interpretation, sometimes mingling in the flowers of the spiritual understanding, and laying in these the foundations for a future work, which he afterward completed on Matthew more fully and more exactly. He dictated these four books with such speed that, within the space of two weeks — and with the feast of Easter imminent, by which he was chiefly detained in spiritual occupations — he finished the whole work. Its beginning is That many [have].

He wrote also certain other things on Matthew, of which we have:

On the Epistles of Paul he brought a twofold kind of exposition, namely the Hypomnematic [commentary-style] and the Epistolary. In the first kind, indeed, he gathered from the explanations of Origen, Victorinus, Didymus of Alexandria, Theodore, and Apollinaris a [commentary] on the Epistle to the Galatians, to Paula and Eustochium, 3 books, of which the first begins Very few indeed.

He also composed, on various places of Paul, questions and various epistles, of whose number are:

And these are the undoubted writings of Jerome; but those which are doubtful are noted in the following Index.

SECOND INDEX OF THE EXEGETICAL VOLUMES. In which, under the uncertain title of Jerome, these are contained:

Concerning all these, what I myself think — being always ready to acquiesce in a better judgment — I will indicate in a few words.

ON THE ANNOTATIONS ON KINGS AND PARALIPOMENON [CHRONICLES].

The Annotations on the three books of Kings and the two of Paralipomenon, Nicholas of Lyra, in his commentaries on those same volumes, denies to be Jerome’s — affirming that their author was a certain neophyte Jew, who from Hebrew fables noted down many things no less fictitious than ridiculous; and this too seems to confirm Lyra’s opinion, that [it seems…]

…[it seems] confirmed, in that Jerome, in the Annotations which he wrote on Genesis, everywhere brings forth Hebrew and Greek testimonies of the divine scripture, expressed in Hebrew and Greek words, weighing everywhere the various translations of the different interpreters — of which things you will find no mention in these annotations [on Kings and Chronicles].

ON THE COMMENTARY ON JOB.

The Commentary on Job — which the author, as appears from the end of the volume, compiled for the sake of Bishop Vecterius — is for that reason reckoned supposititious [spurious], because it follows neither the edition of the Seventy interpreters nor the Hebrew verity, nor cites any of the old expositors, but treats only mystical senses, the understanding of the letter being entirely omitted: all which things are far removed from Jerome’s custom. It may be conjectured (if indeed anything is to be attributed to conjectures of this kind) that this work is by Bede the presbyter, as being an Englishman writing to an Englishman. For that Vecterius held a bishopric among the English, and lived in Bede’s times, that Chronicle-volume testifies which is commonly called the English Chronicle. Yet it must not be denied that most things in these commentaries are borrowed from the writings of Jerome. For — to omit the rest — Faustus, bishop of Gaul, about the year 430 from the birth of Christ, at the beginning of his book On Creatures cited a testimony from a certain treatise of Jerome, which is now had here word for word at the end of the explanation of the twenty-fifth chapter in Job.

ON THE COMMENTARIES ON THE PSALTER.

The Commentaries of Annotations on the Psalms, arranged by intervals, give many indications of not being Jerome’s. First, because this author, the historical sense set aside, dwells only in allegorical and tropological expositions, using no variety of editions. Then, he has none of that Greek and Hebrew erudition which Jerome is wont to bring into all his exegetical works. He wrote also many things diametrically opposed to Jerome’s opinions — as in the interpretation of Psalm 77, where he says Cynomia [κυνόμυια] is the dog-fly, Jerome protesting against it in the epistle to Sunnia and Fretela. On Psalm 86 he notes that, according to the Hebrew verity, it ought to be read Shall a man say of Sion, against Jerome’s translation, who, according to what is in the Hebrew — לציון le-Ziyyon — translated To Sion shall a man say. Psalm 89, which Jerome ascribed to Moses, [this author] contends is not Moses’. As, in the explanation of Psalm 13, that testimony of Paul in the third chapter of the epistle to the Romans — which Jerome shows to be borrowed from Isaiah — [this author] asserts to be taken from Deuteronomy. To these is added, that — teeming everywhere with the ineptitude of speech, with battologies [vain repetitions] and solecisms — [this work] recoils both from the Jeronymian phrase and from his manner of writing, and often runs off into the formulas of homilies and sermons, repeating even to the point of nausea certain inept little exhortations, among which are these: Why do I say all this? Do you wish to know what this is? And see what he says. It is evident, from the exposition of Psalms 89, 111, and 115, that the author of the work was a monk, who was accustomed to speak, before the monks standing by, to the measure of the appointed hour, with rhapsodies brought here and there from the commentaries of various doctors, and especially of Jerome — as one may see in the enarration of Psalm 93, into which is inserted, word for word, a fragment of the Jeronymian exposition cited by Augustine in the epistle to Fortunatus, bishop of Sicca; and in the exposition of Psalm 50, where are reported the words of Jerome alleged by St. Gregory in the explanation of the fourth penitential Psalm. There are those who think the commentaries are Jerome’s, but contaminated by an uncertain impostor with countless trifles and nonsense.

ON THE COMMENTARIES ON THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.

The three books of commentaries on Proverbs are denied to have been Jerome’s — both because of the dissimilarity of the sentences and of the eloquence, and because in them Gregory and Augustine are cited more than once. For a testimony of Augustine, from the book On Lying to Consentius, is adduced in the explanation of the sixth chapter; and again, in the explanation of the twentieth chapter, is cited a distich of the same [Augustine], from the Sermons to the Hermits, that is:

If anyone loves, by his words, to gnaw the life of the absent, let him know this table is forbidden to him.

And in the exposition of the 21st chapter he cites the blessed Pope Gregory in the homilies of the gospel; and in the annotations on the 30th chapter he alleges by name an opinion of St. Jerome himself, from the commentaries on Jeremiah. Trithemius attributes these commentaries to Bede, by whose title also, in the most ancient copies, they are inscribed.

ON THE COMMENTARIES ON THE THRENI [LAMENTATIONS].

In the Commentaries on the Threni [Lamentations] — besides certain prefaces to Eusebius, gathered partly from the Epistle of Jerome on the interpretation of the Hebrew Alphabet, to Paula Urbica, partly from others of his writings — there is nothing that breathes the Jeronymian genius. For, besides that there is in them no trace either of Greek or of Hebrew understanding, the very structure of the speech — everywhere unequal — plainly cries out that this work is nothing else than a hotchpotch of centos, heaped together by a zealous collector out of the sayings of various different authors, and especially out of the opinions of Gregory, and even out of whole chapters. Nor do I fear to affirm that the gatherer of this heap was Rabanus Maurus, in whose works, printed at Basel, these three books are found. These the printers, that they might publish them more plausibly as Jerome’s writings — enlarged into a greater bulk, and for greater

…and might sell them at a greater price, inserted them into the volumes of Jerome — some lines being cut from the beginning of Rabanus’s preface, so that the imposture might the less be detected by blind buyers.

ON THE COMMENTARIES ON MARK.

The Commentaries of Mystical explanation on Mark recoil from Jerome’s style more than fire from water. That these are the work of a man who knew not much Latin, and even less Greek and Hebrew, the barbarism of the speech is proof, and the inept interpretation of foreign words: an example of which you have in the exposition of chapter 14, where the author noted that the word Pascha signifies in Latin “passing over” [transitus], but Phase “immolation,” and that Nardus pistica is equivalent to “Mystical.” But in the same place he affirms that Mary, who anointed the head of Christ in her own house, was that sinful woman who, in the house of the Pharisee, washed His feet with her tears. And in chapter 15 he writes that the ram was sacrificed for Isaac by Abraham on Mount Calvary — of which opinions Jerome disapproves the former in his chapter on Matthew 26, and the latter in the epistle to Marcella, affirming that the same sacrifice of the ram was offered on Mount Moriah. Again, in the explanation of chapter 15, he inserts certain verses on the figure of the cross, torn out in mutilated fashion from the fourth book of the poems of Sedulius13 — who, it is agreed, was some years later than Jerome.

ON THE PRODIGAL SON.

That this treatise too is not Jerome’s — if it were little clear from the character of the speech — this also could prove: that it is not likely that Jerome, who had written the exposition of this parable to Damasus, should again, with his opinion changed, have published another treatise with a contrary sense of explanation; and that all the printers have printed this very [treatise] among the homilies of John Chrysostom — although it is not Chrysostom’s either, but of an uncertain writer, as we have noted in the censures of his works.

ON THE ANNOTATIONS ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

And this little book of Annotations too a certain zealous man gathered out of St. Jerome — whose name, and whose book On the Interpretation of the Names, he cited at the end of the volume. It is credible that the collector was Bede, in whose works this same booklet still survives.

ON THE COMMENTARIES ON PAUL.

The Annotations on the thirteen Epistles of Paul — although on their front they display a little preface of Jerome writing to Heliodorus — yet the diversity of style and the difference of doctrines show that they are not his. Ambrose, archbishop of Compsa [Conza], asserts that the writer of the work was Pelagius, because in the exposition of the eighth and ninth chapters of the epistle to the Romans he teaches that eternal predestination is [made] from the merits of the elect foreseen by the divine foreknowledge. But I, to pronounce freely what I think, do not at all doubt that the author, whoever he was, labored under the Pelagian plague — as can most plainly be detected from the annotations on the seventh chapter of the epistle to the Romans, where, expounding that text Without the law sin was dead, he thinks those to be mad who believe that Adam’s sin has been derived into us by the propagation [inheritance] from our parents, affirming that the same sin was transmitted to posterity not by propagation but by example only. From which it is sufficiently clear that Jerome, the most bitter enemy of the Pelagian dogma, was not the author of this work. There are also certain other things asserted in these commentaries, not lacking the suspicion of heresy, which we — together with the aforesaid errors — have noted in the following volume. Yet I am not of the opinion of Ambrose my teacher, so as to judge these commentaries to be Pelagius’s own: for Pelagius, as Augustine testifies in the third book On the Baptism of Little Ones, in the very brief explanations which he published on the epistle to the Romans, used such modesty that he set forth the argument against original sin not under his own person but under another’s — which Augustine, in the same place, transcribed word for word and reviews.

Besides these, Trithemius asserts that Jerome wrote on the four gospels according to the anagogy, 4 books, whose beginning is First it must be asked; likewise on the Canonical [Catholic] epistles, 7 books; and on the Apocalypse, 4 books. Concerning which I have nothing certain to affirm, except that Jerome, in the preface to the commentaries of Victorinus to Anatolius, promised that he would write on the Apocalypse.

There are also found, in the homiliary of Albinus [Alcuin], and in the breviaries of the divine offices, some homilies under the title of Jerome — which, however, are not homilies, but fragments of explanations, excerpted from various of his commentaries.

These, then, are the exegetical writings of Jerome, who, after countless labors of his studies, dies under the emperors Honorius and Theodosius, in the 61st year of his age, about the year of our salvation 422.14 His life, it is believed, Eusebius of Cremona, his disciple, committed to the monuments of letters.

Jerome [Girolamo Trevisan], bishop of Verona, a Venetian by fatherland, of the noble Trevisan family, of the Order of Preachers, most celebrated throughout all Italy in sacred preaching, showed me an explanation on the Epistle to the Hebrews, published by himself, of singular erudition and judgment. He dies in the year of the Lord 1562.

Jerome Varlenius Sylvius [Hieronymus Varlenius], professor of sacred letters at Utrecht among the Johannites [Knights of St. John], composed three books of commentaries on all the Davidic Psalms, in which — bringing forward the various editions of the old interpreters — he elucidated the more obscure passages. Their beginning is Before [I begin] the enarration. He flou[rished]

…[He flou]rished in the year of the Lord 1550.

Jerome Vida [Girolamo Vida] of Cremona, from a canon regular of the Lateran [made] bishop of Alba, a poet an incomparable imitator of the Virgilian song, was almost the first of all the Latin poets to sing — most happily — the life, death, resurrection, and other deeds of our Savior, gathered out of the four gospels, with a sublimity of song next to the Virgilian majesty. Which he himself, no inept judge of his own [work], indicated modestly enough in these verses:

I myself have led the Muses — a work attempted by many before — from the Aonian summit to the waves of Jordan, and through the Palestinian glades I take my stand upon the heights of the Idumaean mount.

and, after a few lines:

There was no way; sheer cliffs and rough rocks, and briars covered all with their thickness. I myself, shaking the strong two-edged axe with both hands, drive a broad path, the shadows of the shrubs giving way. And now an entrance is granted, and one may go by an open road. I hope too that it will come to pass, that the road which we ourselves hammer out, one day some man, dearer to the gods and to the Muses themselves, will carry to something better, and polish more lavishly with art; and the way which now by our first labor is opened, he will more smoothly pave with cut marble. For me it will be enough to have shown a specimen of illustrious toil.

This most learned man, therefore, gathered out of the four gospels six books of a Christiad, whose beginning is: You who fill the sea, who fill the heaven, who fill the lands with your divine power. He still lives, up to the present year 1566.

Hilary [Hilary of Arles], bishop of Arles — to whom, as the chief parent of the desert-solitude, Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, published a book In Praise of the Desert — a man versed in the divine scriptures and eloquent enough in speech, whose merits of sanctity the Catholic Church proclaims. He was of such piety toward the poor that, all his goods being cheerfully distributed for their uses, he was thereafter called, and was, the father of the poor. He wrote, among other things, to Pope Leo, in heroic verse, the history of Genesis very briefly — namely from the beginning to the seventh chapter. Its beginning is: We have obeyed your admonitions, following your sweet commands. He dies in the year of the Lord 440.

Hilary [Hilary of Poitiers], bishop of Poitiers [Pictavium] in Aquitanian Gaul, a man illustrious in erudition, sanctity, and miracles — whom Jerome, for his distinguished eloquence, calls the trumpet of the Roman tongue, and the Rhône of Latin eloquence — worked out, on the divine Scriptures, many most praiseworthy little works of Mystical explanation: that is, treatises on Job, or very many homilies, which Jerome, in the epistle against Vigilantius, testifies to have been gathered from Origen. From these Augustine, in the second book against Julian, brings forth testimonies against the heresy of the Pelagians.

He wrote also commentaries on the Psalter according to the LXX edition; of which Jerome relates that he read [Hilary’s commentaries] on the first and second Psalm, and on Psalm 51 up to 62, and from 118 to the last. Beyond these I have myself read also other commentaries on seven Psalms — that is, from 62 to 70 — printed in type. There are those who assert that he published treatises on the entire body of the Psalter, and that it survives in Spain. But however it be, Jerome, writing against Rufinus, affirms that Hilary translated this explanation of the Psalms from the commentaries of Origen on the Psalter — from which he rendered, in the same sense, up to forty thousand lines, with a few things of his own interposed. And since he himself was ignorant of the Hebrew tongue, and had scarcely received some thin breath of Greek letters, he used the help of Heliodorus the presbyter, his very close friend, learned in Greek — asking of him the things he could not understand in reading Origen. But since Heliodorus was destitute of the Hebrew tongue, and was sometimes deceived by the ambiguous signification of Greek words, this was the cause that Hilary, following his error, in some places of the Psalms twisted his expositions far from the pure and genuine sense of the letter toward allegorical and anagogical senses. His style, both in the Psalter and in the Matthew commentaries, is — without any affectation of art — compressed, solid, sometimes rather obscure, but foreign to all swelling and pride. Although Jerome seemed to think otherwise: who, writing to Paulinus, says: Hilary is lifted up on the Gallican buskin, and, when he is adorned with the flowers of Greece, is sometimes wrapped up in long periods, and on that account is far from the reading of the simpler brethren. Which words of Jerome are certainly to be referred to the twelve books On the Trinity, in which (as the same Jerome writes in the epistle to Magnus the orator) he imitated the twelve books of Quintilian, both in style and in number. The beginning of the work is That the opinions of very many are diverse, etc.

He also published commentaries on the Song of Songs, which, however, Jerome confesses that he does not know.

Besides, he divided the gospel of Matthew into 33 Canons; and, following the order of this division, he discussed almost the whole evangelist with a succinct but erudite and solid explanation, delighting more in the allegorical than in the literal sense. The beginning of the work is The step which Matthew, etc.

Much this incomparable Bishop endured from the Arians. For, banished to Phrygia by the decree of the Synod of Béziers [Biterrae] — through Saturninus, bishop of Arles — he suffered a hard exile for four years with a constant mind; from which, having returned, he dies at Poitiers, Valentinian and Valens reigning, in the year of the Lord 370. Fortunatianus [Venantius Fortunatus], bishop of Poitiers, wrote his life in hexameter verse, in the year of the Lord 570.

Hildegard [Hildegard of Bingen], abbess of the monastery of St. Rupert of the town of Bingen, in the diocese of Mainz, of the Order of Benedict, a virgin of most holy conversation, and from her childhood illustrious for divine revelations and approved by miracles, wrote in Latin speech on the Gospels of the whole year — of which Trithemius reckons fifty-eight homilies. She dies in the year of the Lord 1180. The life of this venerable virgin, Theodoric Teuco [Dietrich], a Benedictine abbot, comprised in four volumes, in the year of the Lord 1200.

Hippolytus — as Jerome writes — bishop of an uncertain city; or, as Gela[sius]

…[or, as Ge]lasius the Pope first testifies in the book against Eutyches, [Hippolytus was] bishop of the metropolis of the Arabs — or, as Zonaras relates, bishop of the Roman Port [Portus] and a martyr — a man most learned in the divine scriptures, and (as far as appears from his fragments) most studious of allegories. He wrote many, and almost incredible, Greek volumes upon the sacred scriptures: so that that Ambrose, whom Jerome calls Ἐργοδιώκτην [ergodioktes], that is, One who urges on the work [a taskmaster], exhorted, and in a manner impelled, Origen to write commentaries on the sacred letters after the imitation of Hippolytus — furnishing him with papers, parchments, seven secretaries and as many girls most swift in writing, and an equal number of copyists, at his own expense, and demanding of him a new work every day. Whence it came about that these two most famous men, in a certain generous contest, strove with all their might, each to surpass the other in the publishing of books. Hippolytus, then, wrote:

There were found in recent years at Basel certain commentaries on the Apocalypse, inscribed to Hippolytus, concerning which there is doubt, on account of the poverty of their erudition and style. He flourished under Alexander Severus, in the year of the Lord 220.

He is cited in many commentaries, both Greek and Latin, as Hippolytus, bishop of Rome; but in some, as Hippolytus, of Rome, or simply the Roman — whom some suspect to be another Hippolytus, different from this one, and to have written in Latin, because Jerome, in the epistle to Magnus the orator of Rome, reckons a certain Hippolytus, a senator of the city of Rome, among the most learned writers of the Church.

Honorius [Honorius of Autun], presbyter of the Church of Autun, assiduously versed in the divine volumes and imbued with all the liberal arts, wrote in Latin and eloquent speech, on the Hexaemeron, one book; on the Psalter, one book; on the Song of Songs, one book, which begins In the beginnings of the books. He flourished under the Emperor Henry V, in the year of the Lord 1120.

Hubert Leonard [Hubertus Leonardus], bishop of Darién — a Carmelite, once moderator of the Theological School at Paris, and inquisitor of heretical depravity — wrote, according to the custom of his school, on the Gospel of Luke, one book. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1490.

Ubertine of Casale [Ubertino da Casale], of the Order of Minors [Franciscan], a pious man and a student of the divine scripture, when he saw his order falling away from its first institution, began certain new separations under the appearance of a reformation, and obtained that they be confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff; which then, at the petition of the Ministers of the same order, were revoked by the same Pope, because they seemed undertaken to the grave scandal and schism of the order. Whence, moved [by this], Ubertine, having entered the Order of the Carthusians, wrote to all the faithful of Christ a commentary on the Apocalypse, which he entitled On the Seven States of the Church, according to the seven visions of Blessed John in the Apocalypse — in which he is thought, by some professors of his order, to have written certain things by a prophetic spirit. The beginning of the work is To all the truly faithful of Christ Jesus. He flourished under the Emperor Albert, in the year of the Lord 1300.

Hubert Leonard, a Carmelite, bishop of Darién, wrote on the Gospel of Luke, 1 book. He flourished in the year 1490. [This entry duplicates the Hubert Leonard notice above — so printed.]

Hugh [Hugh of St-Cher], of Saint-Cher [Carensis] — either from the town of St. Cher, or of St. Theodoric — bishop of Barcelona, by profession a Dominican, cardinal-presbyter of the title of St. Sabina, the first from the Order of Preachers to be raised to the Cardinalate;15 a man distinguished for holiness of morals and abundance of letters — whom Humbert of Vienne [Humbert of Romans], the fifth Master General of the Order of Preachers, his hearer and disciple, drew from the Academy of secular disciplines to the institute of his religion. And a little after, Pope Innocent IV, greatly delighted with his sweet and erudite familiarity, co-opted him into the college of Cardinals, and sent him as legate into Germany to the Electors of the Empire, that at his persuasion they might substitute, in place of the deposed Frederick II, another Emperor. This man published many works: of which there are commentaries on the whole Scripture according to the fourfold sense, written in the scholastic (that is, brief, bare, and worn) speech, without any paint of secular eloquence, beginning — after the manner of the Scholastics — from various sentences of the divine Scripture; their beginnings, as being known to all, I omit for brevity’s sake.

And after these commentaries, he first of all devised a great index upon the sacrosanct Bible, entitled Concordances of the Bible16 — a most laborious work indeed, of immense tedium and time, but greatly necessary to the students of the sacred volumes; in which he arranged, with most accurate diligence, the several declinable words of the divine scripture according to the sequence of the letters, noting not only the books, but also the chapters of the books, and the lines of the chapters, in which each desired word was contained. There are those who think that this work — on account of the immense expenditure of time and labor, for which the life of one man could not suffice — was, at Hugh’s urging, enjoined upon five hundred zealous fathers of various monasteries, on this plan: that each should reduce individual words into Alphabetical classes; and so, in a short time, by the diligence of many,

…[and so, in a short time, by the diligence of many,] the work was completed. Which we have afterward seen most diligently imitated, both by the Greeks and by the Hebrews — by the work of Rabbi Isaac Nathan the Jew, and of Euthalius the Rhodian monk: of whom the former collected the Hebrew concordances of the Bible, the latter the Greek. These [Greek ones] we saw at Rome, written by a Greek hand on ancient parchments; but those [Hebrew ones], printed at Venice from the press of Giustiniani. He flourished under the Emperor Frederick II, and died at Lyons in the year of the Lord 1262, and there obtained a tomb in the church of the Preachers.

Hugh of St. Neot [de sancto Neoto], a Carmelite, published on the Gospel of Luke, 1 book. He died in the year 1340.

Hugh Virley [de Virley], an Englishman, a Carmelite, professed of the monastery of Norwich, published commentaries on Matthew in the year of the Lord 1344.

Hugh Victorinus [Hugh of St. Victor], or of St. Victor, a Saxon by nation, a Canon of the Augustinian institute, Abbot of the monastery of Blessed Victor at Paris, a man most illustrious for the exquisite erudition of divine and human letters, and so great an emulator of Augustine’s doctrine and phrase that he was called, by the common byword of the learned of his time, the Tongue of Augustine. This man gathered, from the reading of the old fathers — and especially of Augustine — upon the whole body of the divine Scripture, a great number of little works, divided into five classes, that is, into Annotations, Questions, Homilies, Commentaries, and Miscellanies. Of whose number, those which embrace almost universally the explanation of the whole divine scripture are these, namely:

He flourished under the Emperor Henry V, in the year of the Lord 1130.

Footnotes

  1. St. Jerome, a disciple of Donatus and Victorinus. ↩

  2. In sacred letters St. Jerome had as teachers Apollinaris, Didymus, and Gregory of Nazianzus. ↩

  3. The translation of the Old Testament which the Latin Church uses. ↩

  4. [This translation] is St. Jerome’s. ↩

  5. St. Jerome corrected the Latin version of the edition of the Seventy interpreters [LXX]. ↩

  6. Jerome translated the whole sacred Scripture into the Dalmatian tongue. ↩

  7. Jerome corrected the common [Vulgate] edition of the Psalter. ↩

  8. Which [Psalter] is called the Roman Psalter. ↩

  9. What the Gallican Psalter is. ↩

  10. Jerome, epistle 133. I do not know what chapter 5 he means; in Jeremiah 10, verse 9, “Gold of Ophaz” is read. ↩

  11. Jerome was the first among the Latin writers to complete a historical exposition upon all the Prophets. ↩

  12. St. Jerome confesses that he was a pupil of St. Gregory of Nazianzus in the sacred Scriptures. ↩

  13. Sedulius was some years later than St. Jerome. ↩

  14. Jerome dies about the year of the Lord 422. ↩

  15. Hugh of St-Cher was the first Cardinal from the Order of Dominicans. ↩

  16. Hugh of St-Cher was the first author of the Concordances of the Bible. ↩

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To cite this page

Sixtus of Siena, O.P., “Letter H,” in The Catholic Expositors of the Divine Volumes, English translation, Mind of the Church, https://mindofthechurch.com/works/bibliotheca-sancta-iv/008-letter-h/.

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