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TWO ALLUSIONS TO TERENCE, EUNUCHUS 579 IN JEROME

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2013

Andrew Cain
Andrew Cain*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado at Boulder
*
[email protected]
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Extract

During the Late Roman Empire Terence was the most revered and the most quoted classical Latin poet after Virgil. Among authors both pagan and Christian, none (to judge, of course, by the surviving written record) made as frequent or as creative literary use of his comedies as Jerome, one of the most accomplished polymaths in all of Latin antiquity. In his estimation Terence ranked, alongside Homer, Menander and Virgil, as one of the greatest of all poets. Jerome had an encyclopedic knowledge of Terence's dramatic corpus and quoted or appropriated phraseology from all six of his comedies. A significant number of these reminiscences have already been identified, but others await discovery. The purpose of the present study is to make a further contribution to this particular branch of Hieronymian Quellenforschung by adducing and analysing two hitherto unrecognized allusions in Jerome's correspondence to Terence's Eunuchus, apparently one of the biggest blockbusters in the history of the Roman stage.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , May 2013 , pp. 407 - 412
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013

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References

1 Not even Augustine cited Terence at a higher frequency than Jerome. On the North African bishop's use of Terence in his works, see Hagendahl, H., Augustine and the Latin Classics, 2 vols. (Göteborg, 1967), 1.254–64Google Scholar, 2.377–81.

2 His passion for Terence's drama was probably first kindled in the late 350s and early 360s when he studied in Rome, as a young teenager, under the renowned Terentian scholar Aelius Donatus (see Brugnoli, G., ‘Donato e Girolamo’, VetChr 2 [1965], 139–49Google Scholar), whose commentary on the plays he had studied intensively in school (see Jer. Apol. c. Ruf. 1.16).

3 On his immense erudition, which was unrivalled, by a wide margin, in Latin Christian antiquity, see Cain, A., ‘Jerome's Pauline commentaries between East and West: tradition and innovation in the Commentary on Galatians’, in Lössl, J. and Watt, J. (edd.), Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity: The Alexandrian Commentary Tradition from Rome to Baghdad (Aldershot, 2011), 91–110Google Scholar.

4 Jer. Ep. 58.5.2.

5 See e.g. Adkin, N., ‘Terence's Eunuchus and Jerome’, RhM 137 (1994), 187–95Google Scholar; id., ‘Hieronymus Eunuchinus’, GIF 58 (2006), 327–34Google Scholar; Godel, R., ‘Réminiscences de poètes profanes dans les Lettres de St. Jérôme’, MH 21 (1964), 65–70Google Scholar; Hagendahl, H., Latin Fathers and the Classics: A Study on the Apologists, Jerome, and other Christian Writers (Göteborg, 1958)Google Scholar, passim; id., ‘Jerome and the Latin classics’, VChr 28 (1974), 216–27Google Scholar; López Fonseca, A., ‘San Jerónimo, lector de los cómicos latinos: cristianos y paganos’, CFC(L) 15 (1998), 333–52Google Scholar; Jürgens, H., Pompa diaboli. Die lateinischen Kirchenväter und das antike Theater (Stuttgart, 1972), 123–9Google Scholar; Luebeck, E., Hieronymus quos noverit scriptores et ex quibus hauserit (Leipzig, 1872), 110–14Google Scholar.

6 i.e. not only was the first audience so enthralled that it demanded and then received an encore presentation on the same day as the debut, but also this play netted its author a small fortune, an unprecedented fee of 8,000 sesterces (Suet. Vita Ter. 2). Eunuchus, needless to say, greatly contributed to Terence's commercial and financial success; see Gilula, D., ‘How rich was Terence?’, SCI 8/9 (1989), 74–8Google Scholar.

7 Nautin, P., ‘Études de chronologie hiéronymienne (393–397)’, REAug 20 (1974), 251–84Google Scholar, esp. 251–3, 277. This dating is accepted by Rebenich, S., Hieronymus und sein Kreis: prosopographische und sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Stuttgart, 1992)Google Scholar, 202 n. 382. The letter is erroneously dated to 394 by Cavallera, F., Saint Jérôme: Sa vie et son oeuvre (2 vols, Paris, 1922)Google Scholar, 1.183 n. 2, and Kelly, J.N.D., Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London, 1975)Google Scholar, 190 n. 59.

8 For its influence on e.g. St. Patrick's clerical formation, see Cain, A., ‘Patrick's Confessio and Jerome's Epistula 52 to Nepotian’, JMedLat 20 (2010), 1–15Google Scholar. On Jerome's fortuna more generally, see the various essays in Cain, A. and Lössl, J. (edd.), Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings, and Legacy (Aldershot, 2009)Google Scholar.

9 This is the edition from which all quotations from the correspondence in this article are taken.

10 See Scourfield, J.H.D., Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60 (Oxford, 1993), 142–3Google Scholar.

11 Jer. Ep. 60.14.1.

12 See e.g. Laurence, P., Jérôme et le nouveau modèle féminin: La conversion à la vie parfaite (Paris, 1997)Google Scholar. On the important place occupied by Epistula 52 in Jerome's broader epistolary agenda, see Cain, A., The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2009), 145–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 For an overview of ancient paraenetic letters, see Stowers, S., Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia, 1986), 94–106Google Scholar.

14 In this respect Jerome undoubtedly is projecting onto his young advisee his own anxieties stemming from his experience at Rome several years earlier when he had been accused of committing sexual indiscretions with some of his female disciples; see Cain (n. 12), 107–9.

15 This form, rather than the more conventional arbitro, is the one given by Hilberg in his critical edition.

16 This notion is a commonplace of patristic moral exhortation. See e.g. Clem. Al. Paed. 3.1.1, 3.35.2; Cyprian, Hab. virg. 9; Greg. Nyss. V. Macr. 29; Ambrose, Virg. 1.6.30; John Chrys. Hom. in Matth. 30.6, 51.5, 89.4 (PG 57:370; 58:516, 786); Paul. Carm. 25.49–53; August. Ep. 211.10 ‘non sit notabilis habitus vester nec affectetis vestibus placere sed moribus’, 262.9.

17 Chaerea's admission of rape is indirect: he tells Antipho after the fact that if he had failed to capitalize on being alone with Pamphila in the locked house, then he would have been no better than the eunuch whom he was impersonating (604–6). Thus he leaves the details of the act to the imagination of Antipho and the audience. As Barsby, J., Terence, Eunuchus (Cambridge, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 201, points out, this omission is not simply a matter of discretion but rather it is a dramatic technique whereby the audience is able to hear a different account of the rape later and from a different point of view (643–67); cf. Rosivach, V., When a Young Man Falls in Love: The Sexual Exploitation of Women in New Comedy (London, 1998), 46–50Google Scholar, and see also Smith, L.P., ‘Audience response to rape: Chaerea in Terence's Eunuchus’, Helios 21 (1994), 21–38Google Scholar. Even though the rape is not actually described, it none the less is characterized allusively as being violent and as having a devastating effect on the victim, Pamphila; see James, S., ‘From boys to men: rape and developing masculinity in Terence's Hecyra and Eunuchus’, Helios 25 (1998), 31–47Google Scholar. See also, more generally, Pierce, K.F., ‘The portrayal of rape in New Comedy’, in Deacy, S. and Pierce, K.F. (edd.), Rape in Antiquity (London, 1997), 163–84Google Scholar.

18 On Terence's partiality to polyptoton and other devices of sound, see Focardi, G., ‘Lo stile oratorio nei prologhi terenziani’, SIFC 50 (1978), 70–89Google Scholar.

19 This is confirmed by a search of the relevant databases, the most comprehensive of which is the Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts, CLCLT–6 (Turnhout, 2005)Google Scholar.

20 Adkin (n. 5), 327, noting that Jerome quotes from this play more than from any other Terentian play, calls Jerome a ‘Eunuch-freak’.

21 On the fraudulence and impetuosity of Chaerea's character, see Forehand, W.E., Terence (Boston, 1985), 75Google Scholar.

22 For their own part Christian women were expected to be conscientious about avoiding clandestine meetings with monks and clerics. Thus Basil (Ep. 173) lists vigilance in dealings with men (τὸ ἐν ταῖς συντυχίαις τῶν ἀνδρῶν πɛϕυλαγμένον) as one of the necessary attributes of the chaste woman. Likewise Jerome advises the widow Furia: si sermocinandi cum viris incumbit necessitas, arbitros ne devites tantaque confabulandi fiducia sit, ut intrante alio nec paveas nec erubescas (Ep. 54.13.2). Marcella is said never to have invited a cleric or monk into her home unless there were plenty of witnesses (Jer. Ep. 127.3.4).

23 Jerome's concern that his advisees not only be holy but also appear holy to others recurs again and again in his correspondence. For the relevant references and discussion, see Cain, A., ‘Jerome's Epistula 117 on the subintroductae: satire, apology, and ascetic propaganda in Gaul’, Augustinianum 49 (2009), 119–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 See Kuefler, M., The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (Chicago, 2001), 245–82Google Scholar.

25 e.g. in Ep. 147 he reprimands the deacon Sabinian, until recently a monk in his monastery in Bethlehem, for having seduced a nun in Paula's adjoining convent. For his invective against sham monks and clerics, see further Curran, J., ‘Jerome and the sham Christians of Rome’, JEH 48 (1997), 213–29Google Scholar; Wiesen, D.S., St. Jerome as a Satirist (Ithaca, NY, 1964)Google Scholar, passim.

26 See Conf. 1.16.26; De civ. D. 2.7.

27 Jerome states his anticipation of an indefinitely broad readership for Ep. 52 at two different junctures in the work (4.3; 17.1–2).

28 On his custom of refining his literary models, see e.g. Cain, A., ‘Tertullian, Cyprian, and Lactantius in Jerome's Commentary on Galatians’, REAug 55 (2009), 23–51Google Scholar; id., ‘Three further echoes of Lactantius in Jerome’, Philologus 154 (2010), 88–96Google Scholar.

29 For their interchangeable use, cf. TLL 8.2.281.11–13.

30 On Jerome's fondness for alliteration in his correspondence, see Hritzu, J., The Style of the Letters of St. Jerome (Washington, 1939), 41–4Google Scholar.

31 Cf. secrete et absque arbitris at Ep. 130.5.1.

32 For an overview of his illustrious career, see Cain, A., St. Jerome, Commentary on Galatians (Washington, 2010), 3–14Google Scholar.

33 On this practice, see Metz, R., La consécration des vierges dans l’église romaine (Paris, 1954)Google Scholar.

34 This usage of the second person singular is typical of the Diatribenstil in satiric writing. See Hofmann, J.B., Lateinische Syntax und Stilistik, rev. by Szantyr, A. (Munich, 1965), 419Google Scholar; Schmidt, E.G., ‘Diatribe und Satire’, WZRostock 15 (1966), 507–15Google Scholar.

35 Here contemporary social reality undoubtedly hovers beneath the surface of the text, as Jerome appears to be alluding to the routine sexual exploitation of female slaves by male masters, on which see e.g. Osiek, C., ‘Female slaves, porneia, and the limits of obedience’, in Balch, D.L. and Osiek, C. (edd.), Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (Grand Rapids, MI, 2003), 255–75Google Scholar, and Pomeroy, S., Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York, 1995), 191–3Google Scholar.

36 Ep. 128.3.4–5.

37 See e.g. Adkin, N., ‘Falling asleep over a book: Jerome, Letter 60, 11, 2’, Eos 81 (1993), 227–30Google Scholar; id., ‘Self-Imitation in Jerome's Libellus de virginitate servanda (epist. XXII)’, Athenaeum 83 (1995), 469–85Google Scholar.

38 Cf. e.g. Cain, A., ‘Liber manet: Pliny, Epist. 9.27.2 and Jerome, Epist. 130.19.5’, CQ 58 (2008), 708–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 For instance, the classical literary references include but are by no means limited to: verbal reminiscences from at least eleven different Ciceronian works (Jerome also imports a significant amount of material from Cicero's Cato maior de senectute in chapter 3 and concludes chapter 8 with an apt extract from the now-fragmentary speech Pro Gallio); an epithet for Cato borrowed from Sallust; four Virgilian quotations; one phraseological echo of Plautus, two of Terence (including the one adduced in the present study), and one of Juvenal. See e.g. Adkin, N., ‘Cato, Romani generis disertissimus (Sallust, Hist. fr. I 4 M. in Jerome)’, Eikasmos 9 (1998), 229–32Google Scholar; Hagendahl (n. 5), 191–4.

40 On this and other ways in which Christian authors (mis)treated Terence's dramatic text, see Cain, A., ‘Terence in Late Antiquity’, in Augoustakis, A. and Traill, A. (edd.), A Companion to Terence (Oxford, 2013)Google Scholar, 380–96.