Letters
About 150 letters written by and to Jerome over half a century, from Syria, Rome and Bethlehem. They are the main source for his own life and work, for the circle of Roman women he taught, and for how the news of Rome’s fall in 410 reached the East.
Read the text at newadvent.org ↗The same translation (CCEL) ↗
Jerome wrote letters as literature and kept copies; he lists collections of them among his works. Many are short treatises: Letter 57, to Pammachius, defends his way of translating; Letter 108 is a life of Paula, written for her daughter in 404; Letter 127 is a life of the Roman widow Marcella, written in 412, which includes his account of the sack of Rome.
They are first-hand evidence for what Jerome did and thought, and they are one-sided. He writes to praise his friends and to wound his opponents, and the memorial letters follow the conventions of the funeral speech. For events at Rome after 385 he depends on what travellers and letters brought to Bethlehem.
Cited in
- c. 382–405, estimated date
- August AD 410, firm date