St. Jerome

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Mon, 17 Apr 89 18:51:58 EDT


Humanist Mailing List, Vol. 2, No. 852. Monday, 17 Apr 1989.

Date: Sat, 15 Apr 89 17:39:22 BST
From: NZ101@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK
Subject: St.Jerome

With respect to Mary O'Riordan's enquiry about St.Jerome on the
subject of female celibacy and all that, she will find almost
all he has to say on the subject in some of his letters. The
best edition is that of I.Hilberg (ed) Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi
epistulae, 3 vols (Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum,
vols. 54-56, 1910). The first 22 letters are in English translation
by C.C. Mierow in The Letters of Jerome (Ancient Christian Writers,
vol.33, Westminster, Md., 1963) - I don't think any more of the
collection was translated after this first volume. Then there is
the old but still very useful edition by F.A. Wright, Select Letters,
in the Loeb Classical Library. It too has letter 22, Ad Eustochium
de custodienda virginitate (Latin and English), most important.
As for secondary works, she might find useful Elizabeth A. Clark,
Jerome, Chrysostom and Friends: Essays and Translations (Studies
in Women and Religion, vol.2, The Edwin Mellen Press, New York
and Toronto, 1979), especially part 2, pp.35-106; and for a
general biography J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome, New York, Harper and Row,
1975.