Jerome and the Sham Christians of Rome
This rhetorical question was poseu by Jerome in AD 411 to challenge a young man of good family from Toulouse who was contemplating the responsibilities of monastic life. The old man of Bethlehem wrote on city life with some authority; he had achieved fame and notoriety simultaneously at the court of...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1997
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| In: |
The journal of ecclesiastical history
Year: 1997, Volume: 48, Issue: 2, Pages: 213-229 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | This rhetorical question was poseu by Jerome in AD 411 to challenge a young man of good family from Toulouse who was contemplating the responsibilities of monastic life. The old man of Bethlehem wrote on city life with some authority; he had achieved fame and notoriety simultaneously at the court of Pope Damasus in Rome in the 380s.2 And yet, as both men knew well, the moral and physical dangers of the city, the latter resoundingly demonstrated by the Gothic capture of Rome in the previous year, had not prompted the rejection of urban life by western Christians, save by a small and eccentric group of extreme ascetics. Jerome's praise for this group is well known, and his criticism of less committed Christians in Rome is legendary. But when one examines the uniquely vivid testimony of Jerome's letters, one can detect beneath the praise and polemic a vigorous struggle for the support of the city's elite. The social background to the struggle as revealed in Jerome's writings is the subject of this article. What emerges is a complex, contradictory and divided Christian community which Jerome unsuccessfully attempted to influence, a failure that brought final and ignominious exile from Rome. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-7637 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of ecclesiastical history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900019394 |