This collection of essays, edited by Schaaf with the participation of E. Prinzivalli, B. Feichtinger and G. Caruso, is the result of a conference that took place in Rome, 30 September to 3 October 2019, on the occasion of the 1600th anniversary of Jerome's death. The theme of the volume is Jerome's different kinds of relationships to the city of Rome – a theme well chosen, since it is wide enough to include many important aspects of Jerome's life and literary production. The volume contains studies dealing with Jerome's early career as well as his later writings, and even his later reception is included, with the contributions of M. Cilenti and M. Fallica, who examine the reception of Jerome in a post-Reformation context. The breadth of the theme also allows for a variety of subthemes, into which the different contributions have been ordered, including historiography (with contributions from M. Ghilardi and E. Bons), exegesis (L. Gamberale and A. Capone) and the fall of Rome (S. Mantelli and U. Eigler).
The theme of the volume is interesting since Jerome's ways of relating to Rome were so multifaceted and even seemingly ambiguous. On the one hand, Rome was the city in which he was highly criticised and which he was forced to leave; on the other hand, Rome was the city in which his career as an ascetic teacher was formed, and he continued to keep in close contact with his patrons in the city (see e.g. J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome [1975]; S. Rebenich, Hieronymus [1992]; A. Cain, The Letters of Jerome [2009]). The contributions in Hieronymus Romanus collectively succeed in showing the great variety of ways in which Jerome made use of Rome and was affected by Rome – as a client of Roman patrons, as a critic of the Roman clergy and as an ascetic writer settled in Bethlehem.
Precisely this question of Jerome's ‘ambivalence’ to Rome is taken up in the chapter by M. Revellio – the only contribution on the subtheme called ‘Repercussiones’ –, who questions ideas expressed in previous research (see especially L. Grig, ‘Deconstructing the Symbolic City’, Papers of the British School in Rome 80 [2012]) that Jerome's attitude to Rome oscillated over time. Revellio applies methods from digital humanities in order to trace Jerome's verbal references to Rome in his letters, arguing that, rather than having a fluctuating way of relating to the city, a pattern can be seen that may be explained by reference to rhetorical strategies on Jerome's part: for example, it is shown that Jerome did not begin to name Rome in his writings until his second stay in the city (382–385 ce). Another finding is that Jerome's more positive expressions about Rome are found predominantly in letters to Roman correspondents. This innovative approach leads Revellio to conclude that Jerome wrote about Rome in a more strategic way than has been allowed by previous scholarship and that the city served in his self-construction ‘as a Christian author persona’ (p. 481).
Jerome's attitudes towards Rome are approached in a different way by G. Grandi, who, in a chapter on the subtheme ‘Ascetica’, compares the ways in which Jerome expresses himself about Rome and Bethlehem. It is suggested that Rome assumes an increasingly symbolic meaning in his authorship, as it is contrasted to the countryside but also to the Holy Land, with Bethlehem described as a peaceful opposite to Rome. However, as Bethlehem, too, became a locus of opposition between different Christian parties, this contrast could not be upheld by Jerome. The angulus, the quiet place, that he sought as an ascetic scholar, was not so much a real place, Grandi argues, as one that he constructed using rhetorical tools from the classical tradition with which he was acquainted.
Also writing on the topic of asceticism, R. Alciati focuses on two popes with great relevance for Jerome's career, albeit in different ways: Damasus (d. 384), who was his patron, and Siricius (d. 399), who presided when he was forced to leave Rome. Adding to the contextualisation of Jerome's role as an ascetic teacher and an organiser of monastic life, Alciati argues that, while Damasus had an interest in asceticism and tolerated its many different forms, his successor was more interested in monasticism, that is, the regulation and conformity of the ascetic life. Alciati makes the important point that the concepts of asceticism and monasticism should not – as is often done – be used interchangeably.
The contributions dedicated to the subtheme ‘Polemica’ deal with two important conflicts in Jerome's career: the Jovinianist and the Origenist controversies. Jerome lived in Bethlehem at the time of these controversies, but his engagement in them involved a lot of contact with Rome. In a discussion of the Jovinianist controversy F. Pieri examines connections to the Origenist controversy, considering how Jerome made use of Origen in his Against Jovinian (as examined by Y.-M. Duval, L'affaire Jovinien [2003], above all considering the exegesis of 1 Cor 7). Pieri also brings attention to E. Clark's suggestion that, in his critique against Jovinian, Jerome formulated essential aspects of his later, anti-Origenist polemics, especially concerning meritism and hierarchy (E.A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy [1992], pp. 121–51). Pieri rightly points out the paradoxical result – should Clark's hypothesis be correct – that Origen, this important source of ascetic theory, would also have something in common with Jovinian's ideal of Christian equality. This points in the direction that, although there is, in my opinion, no reason to question Clark's claim that Jerome would re-use his polemics against Jovinian in the anti-Origenist context, this should not detract from his considerable dependence on Origen in formulating his ascetic theology (cf. K. Pålsson, Negotiating Heresy [2021]).
Jerome's reception of Origen is a subject that returns in A. Fürst's contribution, dealing with Jerome's involvement in the Origenist controversy. Fürst assesses the complicated and paradoxical issue of how Jerome, after having used Origen extensively and based his exegesis on the Alexandrian's work, came to describe this relationship in the context of the controversy. All too often, reconstructions of Jerome present him as simply turning against Origen, but this was far from the case. Fürst contributes to the challenging of such representations by describing the image of Origen that Jerome came to draw: one that distinguished between the (heretical) theologian and the exegete, which made it possible for Jerome to (1) agree that Origen was a heretic, (2) show that his exegesis (and, thus, Jerome's own exegesis) could still be useful. Fürst compares this to the image of Origen produced by Rufinus of Aquileia: he, too, produced a ‘divided Origen’ (p. 321), although through a different kind of argumentation, claiming that what was heretical in Origen's works depended on interpolations by heretics. Still, both authors shared the concern of rescuing Origen, precisely by making those distinctions. Fürst makes the important point that the divided picture of Origen that Jerome constructed has had a long-lasting influence on how Origen has been read, even in modern research.
Writing on the theme of ‘Necessitudines’, that is, Jerome's relationships to persons in Rome, A. Cain's text focuses on Jerome's Pauline commentaries and, more precisely, their prefaces. Jerome wrote four such commentaries: on Philemon, Galatians, Ephesians and Titus, in 386. Cain shows how Jerome, in these prefaces, to a large extent follows the standardised procedure for writing prefaces to commentaries, but also how he takes this enterprise in new directions. As Jerome highlights his patron–client relationship with Marcella, the aristocratic widow who he had come to know in Rome and who had remained in the city after his move to Bethlehem, we may sense a reminder of an obligation on her part to make sure that the commentaries would be circulated in Rome. In this way, Cain argues, Jerome sought to achieve a ‘textualized presence’ in the city through Marcella (p. 496). Cain shows how Jerome's presentation of his patrons’ sanctity adds to his own image as a reliable Pauline commentator, something that he had good reason to do, considering his history of controversy in Rome.
Attention to Jerome's Roman friends is also paid by A. Canellis in a chapter about Marcella and her cousin, the senator Pammachius. As Canellis shows, these aristocrats were not only Jerome's friends and patrons, but also active in determining the direction of his work, and in defending it. While Cain's piece offers important insights into Jerome's rhetorical use of his patrons, Canellis contributes to the likewise important conclusion that Jerome's work cannot be understood apart from his network of patrons, who contributed greatly to his literary production. This borders on the ‘textual community’ approach, which has become well known in studies on asceticism and monasticism, as well as on recent research focusing on Jerome's literary production in relation to his readers (T.E. Hunt, Jerome of Stridon [2020]; J. van't Westeinde, Roman Nobilitas [2021]).
Jerome's spiritual and ecclesiastical authority, and his ways of claiming it, is a recurring theme in the volume: the well-known instability of his status as a priest and a teacher in Rome is brought up in Feichtinger's contribution, which highlights a letter by Jerome discovered in 1981 among the letters of Augustine, to Aurelius of Carthage. The relationship between Jerome and the so-called Ambrosiaster, likewise a priest in Rome in the 380s, is discussed by E. Di Santo, who brings a fresh approach to this issue by arguing that they were both, despite their differences, representants for pope Damasus’ ecclesiology and vision of a unified Roman church. The issue of clerical authority is approached in a different way in C. Noce's chapter on Jerome's way of interpreting priestly garments in Letter 64, to Fabiola (397). While to a certain degree distancing himself from Origen by applying literal exegesis informed by the work of Flavius Josephus, Jerome, Noce argues, follows Origen in interpreting the high priest as the perfect Christian.
As has become clear, many of the subthemes of the volume overlap, and one could ask if there is need for so many of them, or if any such division is necessary to begin with. It is undeniably the case that topics like asceticism, polemics and exegesis recur on several occasions, and not least in relation to each other. Also, one may ask what separates the section called ‘Introductiva’, comprising contributions from Schaaf and participating editors, from the rest. What is missing is precisely an introduction, in which the theme of the volume could have been developed and the contributions introduced – this would also have provided an opportunity to explain the division into subthemes. This, however, does not take away from the quality of the individual contributions and the volume's relevance in today's Hieronymian scholarship.
