The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship Review

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The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship ReviewJerome was a genius, a biblical scholar, and a pivotal figure in the history of the bible.
Williams gives a broad background on the kind of schooling Jerome had. There were three types of education "the ludus litterarius, the humble school of letters, the school of the grammaticus, where students moved from basic literacy skills to the study of literature, and the rhetorician's school, where young men mastered advanced exercises in composition...Schooling in basic literacy was available almost everywhere" (p 6-7).
Those who completed the entire course entered the cultured elite, set apart by every word they spoke from the common man. Jerome had the best education the Roman world could give.Among this elite, books and letters were constantly exchanged, and everyone seemed to travel constantly.
Jerome clearly loved the classic works he read when young. Nevertheless, when he was "a hermit in the desert, he began to study Hebrew with a converted Jew" (p 27) but he found Hebrew "a sharp contrast with rhetorical culture...harsh and guttural" (p 27).
He would later compare classical literature to a sensual indulgence that, like rich food, needs to be rejected in favor of the the austerities of the life of a Christian. True happiness resulted in throwing away that which had a glittery appeal, but no real substance. Jerome has frequently been depicted as a hermit, his head bent to a book, living in a cave.
It is heart wrenching to read about the vast libraries in antiquity since the bulk of those books are no longer in existence."Ancient libraries grew by way of the exchange of books among like-minded members of the literate elite" (p 136). It is remarkable how many books were in circulation given just how expensive they were to produce. The Villa of the Papyri "contained about two thousand papyrus rolls" (p 139).
As for Jerome's own library in Bethlehem, Williams takes the view that it must have had the Hexaplaric Bible. Not to mention works the average biblical scholar of today would exchange his first born son for. (An Aramaic Matthew?)
The constant battles between scholars as to what was orthodox and what was not sound suspiciously like our own time. Jerome's deep passion for Origen caused him unending trouble, as the Origenist controversy turned into belief of Origenist heresy. It is especially interesting to read of the circle of monks, priests, and bishops in southwestern Gaul that Jerome exchanged books and letters with from Bethlehem.
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