observed. Yet he repeatedly assigns a pre-eminence to Peter above the other apostles. This work, though of small importance in the history of the church, is, nevertheless, by its numerous, brief, and often singular expositions of difficult passages in the Scriptures, rendered highly interesting.

SECTION XVIII.

Jerom; his birth, education, places of residence, employment, learning, and death-His opinion of the changes which had obtained in the offices and government of the church.—The ambition of presbyters produced the necessity of transferring much of their authority to a president in each church.This was effected gradually, and by custom.-Jerom was contented with the church government established by canons of councils, which had the force of the supreme authority of the empire; his denial of the primitive, or inspired right, was to take away the unjust defences of clerical improprieties.—His letter to Evagrius translated.—The church at Alexandria.—The expressions of Jerom on different occasions explained.—The importance of maintaining the succession of presiding presbyters, to exclude heretics; but there was no re-ordination of presbyters till the Cyprianic age, or middle of the third century.

JEROM was born in the upper confines of Dalmatia, before A. D. 345. After preparatory instructions at Stridon, and great progress in philology at Rome, he went into Gaul in quest of higher proficiency. Having returned from Rome, where he had been baptized, he proceeded to Antioch and Jerusalem. In Syria he devoted four years to the prosecution of oriental languages.

At Antioch, he sided with Paulinus, by advice from Damasus, bishop of Rome, and A. D. 375 consented to be ordained presbyter, but not to serve as such. Thus at liberty, he chose Bethlehem as his residence, whence he visited Gregory Nazianzen at Constantinople. In 382, coming to Rome, he was detained by Damasus, to whom his knowledge of languages, the Scriptures, and the world, seemed indispensable.

Upon the demise of the bishop of Rome, he retired to his beloved Bethlehem, with a number of recluses.

THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT, &c.

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After visiting Egypt, he spent the residue of a long life in retirement at Bethlehem with his chosen friends, and died about 420.

Devoted to study, and unrivalled in learning, he shared the esteem of the greatest and best ; but as he needed no emolument, he coveted no preferment in the church. He acquiesced in the aggrandizement and influence of the ecclesiastical establishment, because he thought the exercise of power necessary to the government of the church; but he would have the superior clergy to remember, that by the word of God they were only presbyters, and that all higher authority was founded only on custom.

In writing a translation and a commentary upon the Scriptures, which were to continue to remote generations, we naturally expect his most matured judgment; and, therefore, begin with his observations on Titus i. 5, &c. "Let us carefully consider the words of the apostle: that you may appoint presbyters through the cities as I directed you;' who, describing afterwards the character to be ordained a presbyter, and having observed, If any be blameless, not a polygamist,' &c. then subjoined, for it becomes a bishop to be blameless, as a steward of God.d A presbyter is the same, therefore, as a bishop; and before there arose, by the temptation of the devil, preferences in religion, and it was said among the people, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas,' the churches were governed by a common

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"Totus semper in lectione, totus in libris est." Sulp. Serv. p. 506.

b"In omni scientia nemo audeat comparri." Id. 504.

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"Plane eum boni omnes admirantur et diligunt." Id. 506. d "Idem est ergo presbyter, qui et episcopus, et antequam diaboli instinctu, studia in religione fierent, et diceretur in populis; Ego sum Pauli, ego Apollo, ego autem Cepha: communi presbyterorum concilio, ecclesiæ gubernabantur. Postquam vero unusquisque eos, quos baptizaverat, suos putabat, non esse Christi: in toto orbe de. cretum est ut unus de presbyteris electus superponeretur cæteris, ad quem omnis ecclesiæ cura pertineret, et schismatùm semina tollerentur. Hierom. Oper. tom. vi. p. 198.

council of presbyters. But afterwards, every one esteeming those whom he had baptized as his own, not Christ's, it was decreed, throughout the world, that one chosen from the presbyters should be placed above the rest, to whom the care of the whole church should belong, and the source of all discord be removed. If it be supposed this is not the sense of the Scriptures, but my own opinion, that bishop and presbyter are one, and that one is the name of age, the other of office, read again the words of the apostle to the Philippians-Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons, grace to you, and peace,' &c. Philippi is a single city of Macedonia, and certainly there could not be in the one city many bishops, in the present meaning of the term. But because at that time they called the same persons bishops whom they called presbyters, on that account he spoke of bishops indifferently as of presbyters. This may still seem doubtful to some, unless it be proved by another testimony. It is written in the Acts of the Apostles, that when he had come to Miletus, he sent to Ephesus, and called the presbyters of that church, to whom he afterwards said, among other things, Attend to yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Spirit hath placed you bishops, to feed the church of the Lord, which he has gained by his blood. And here observe more particularly, that inviting the presbyters of the one city, Ephesus, he afterwards calls the same bishops. If that epistle which is written to the Hebrews under the name of Paul, be received, there also the care of a church is equally divided among many; forasmuch as he writes to the people, Obey your leaders, and be in subjection, for they watch for your souls, as rendering an account, lest they may do this with sorrow; since this is to your advantage.' And Peter, who derived his name from the firmness of his faith, speaks in his epistle, saying, Wherefore the presbyters among you I intreat, who am a co-presbyter, and witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also an associate in the glory which is here

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after to be revealed; feed the Lord's flock, which is among you, not from necessity but choice."e

one.

"f These things are recorded, that we may show, that the ancient presbyters were the same as the bishops, but by little and little, that the roots of dissentions might be torn up, the whole trouble was devolved on Wherefore, as presbyters know that they are subjected to him who shall have been placed over them by the custom of the church, so the bishops may know that they are greater than presbyters, rather by custom than by the verity of the Lord's appointment; and that they ought to govern the church in common, imitating Moses, who, when he had it in his power to preside over the people of Israel alone, selected seventy, with whom he might judge the people."

Jerom imputes the origin of episcopacy, not to the preference of one apostle to another, in the church of Corinth-I am of Paul, &c.; for no one of them became superior in office to the rest; but to the capricious favoritism of the people for particular presbyters, and to the ambitious efforts of those officers, who aimed to promote themselves rather than to advance the cause of Christ, which, he asserts, produced the general consent, by little and little, to transfer the responsibility of superintendence from the council of presbyters to a single presbyter in each church, for the prevention of divisions. From his expressions, "Before-it was said among the people, I am of Paul,

e Jerom has omitted υles in 1 Pet. v. 2, but given it elsewhere.

f Hæc propterea, ut ostenderemus apud veteres eosdem fuisse presbyteros quos et episcopos, paulatim vero ut dissensionum plantaria evellerentur, ad unum omnem solicitudinem esse delatam. Sicut ergo presbyteri sciunt, se ex ecclesiæ consuetudine ei, qui sibi præpositus fuerit, esse subjectos; ita episcopi noverint, se magis consuetudine quam dispositionis dominicæ veritate, presbyteris esse majores, et in commune debere ecclesiam regere imitantes Moysen: qui cum haberet in potestate solus præsse populo Israel, septuaginta elegit cum quibus populum judicaret. Tom. vi. p. 199.

g Tom. vi. p, 198.