that house his head-quarters for rather more than a year, and then carried out his long-cherished plan of retiring to the desert to live for a time the life of a hermit. While he was still at Antioch, two of his companions in travel, Innocent and Hylas, died; and the others returned to Aquileia, so that S. Jerome was the only one of the band who became a hermit. He chose for his place of retirement the desert of Chalcis, to the east of Antioch, where were a number of hermits, who lived in most respects a solitary life, but who were subject to a chief hermit, named Theodosius, and obeyed him as their superior. The majority of these hermits, if not all of them, must have belonged to the communion of S. Meletius. S. Jerome had, since his arrival in the East, refrained from communicating with any of the three sections into which the believers in our Lord's true Godhead were divided at Antioch. It is possible that, so long as he remained in the city, he may have been able to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord from Evagrius.1 We cannot, however, be sure that Evagrius felt himself to be justified in celebrating the Mysteries in his own house, and on the whole, I doubt whether he did so. But whatever S. Jerome may have done, while he was at Antioch, it would seem from the expressions that he uses, that in the desert he received "the Holy Thing of the Lord" from certain Egyptian confessor-bishops who had been banished from Egypt by Valens on account of their orthodoxy, after the death of S. Athanasius in 373. The place of their exile was Diocaesarea (now Sepphoris) in Palestine, not far from Nazareth, and they must have sent the Blessed Sacrament to S. Jerome, if they did send It, by the hands of

2

1 As S. Jerome was living in Evagrius' house, it is probable that Evagrius also refrained from communicating with Paulinus, until the West had declared itself on the side of Paulinus. We know from S. Basil (compare p. 304) that Evagrius also refrained from communicating with the great church at Antioch.

2 Cf. S. Hieron. Ep. xv. ad Damasum, § 2, P. L., xxii. 356, "Nec possum Sanctum Domini tot interjacentibus spatiis a Sanctimonia tua semper expetere : ideo hic collegas tuos Aegyptios confessores sequor; et sub onerariis navibus parva navicula delitesco."

3 I say, "If they did send It," because it is possible that S. Jerome may have gone without Holy Communion during the whole of the two years which elapsed between his arrival in Antioch in the autumn of 373, and the admission of Paulinus to the communion of the Roman Church in September, 375; unless, indeed, he carried the Blessed Sacrament with him when he started from Aquileia, which is by no means impossible. If he had no supply of the reserved Sacrament, he may have contented himself with receiving letters of Communion from the exiled bishops at Diocaesarea. But the mention of "the Holy Thing of the Lord" in the preceding sentence, and the strong desire to communicate, which he must have felt, make me give the preference to the view set forth in the text. It should be noted that S. Basil, in his Ep. xciii. ad Caesariam Patriciam (Opp., iii. 187), says, "All the solitaries in the desert, where there is no priest, reserving the Communion at home, communicate themselves. And at Alexandria and in Egypt, each one of the laity, for the most part, keeps the Communion at his own house, and participates in It when he likes." Similarly, S. Ambrose, in his De Excessu

some ecclesiastic, for there must be a distance of at least 250 miles between Diocaesarea and the desert of Chalcis. They cannot have done this often, but we may suppose that S. Jerome did all that he could to make it possible for himself to communicate at Easter. It is hardly conceivable that he could have lived for some months in the desert, refusing all the time to communicate with the other hermits, without coming to a dispute with them. Party feeling ran very high in Antioch and its neighbourhood. There were the three rival communions, headed respectively by S. Meletius, Paulinus, and Vitalis. And there was, in addition, the theological dispute as to whether the Catholic verity was best expressed by speaking of Three Hypostases in God or of One Hypostasis. S. Meletius and the East always spoke of Three Hypostases, while Paulinus and the Eustathians followed the Western usage, and spoke of One Hypostasis. There need not have been any disputing about this, but there was; and I cannot doubt that S. Jerome's first Easter in the desert was made very uncomfortable for him by the accusations of heresy and schism, which must have been freely launched against him.

If such disputes did arise soon after S. Jerome's settlement in the desert, then the painful situation in which he found himself, a solitary Western in the midst of Easterns, who regarded him as a heretic or at least as a schismatic, would be likely to prompt him, during the course of the year 375, to write for advice to Damasus, the leading bishop in his own West, and at the same time the leading bishop in the whole Church, who was also the friend of his own great friend, Evagrius. Now, there are two letters written to Damasus during the time that S. Jerome was in the desert of Chalcis, which set forth the miseries of his position, caused by the Eastern attacks on his reputation for orthodoxy. In these letters he implores the Bishop of Rome to instruct him as to the persons with whom he ought to communicate, and to tell him whether he ought to speak of Three Hypostases in God or of One. So far as I can see, there is nothing in these letters which points to a later date than 375; and on the other hand, there are several sentences which could not have been written after the month of September or at latest of October in that year.2

Fratris sui Satyri, lib. i. § 43 (P. L., xvi. 1360), speaks of the Blessed Sacrament being taken with them by lay people going on a long voyage. Possibly Evagrius may have supplied S. Jerome in the desert with the reserved Sacrament. In later times the Church, for good reasons, withdrew from the faithful the privilege of having the reserved Sacrament in their houses and of carrying It with them on their journeys.

S. Hieron. Epp. xv. et xvi., P. L., xxii. 355-359.

2 See pp. 313, 318.

In one or other of those months, as we shall see further on, Paulinus received letters of communion from Damasus, recognizing him as the legitimate Bishop of Antioch, and implying that all those Easterns whom Paulinus should admit to his communion would be regarded as enjoying also the communion of the Roman Church. The Eustathians were in high delight at this recognition of themselves by Damasus, and it may be taken for granted that not many days elapsed before the news reached S. Jerome. He would assuredly be informed of them by Evagrius, if by no one else. Of course, S. Jerome must have entered at once into communion with Paulinus. All his sympathies lay with Paulinus before. How, then, can we imagine it possible that, after Rome had given her decision in this unmistakable way, a man like S. Jerome, who had received his Christian training and his baptism in Rome, should have written to Damasus in the way he does? For example, in his fifteenth epistle (Quoniam vetusto Oriens) he says to the pope, "I know nothing of Vitalis; I reject Meletius; I am unacquainted with Paulinus.” 1 And again, further on, he says, "I beg you to let me know with whom I am to communicate at Antioch; for the Campenses 2 [that is to say, the followers of S. Meletius], together with their allies, the heretics of Tarsus, desire ardently that, being strengthened through the prestige which would come to them from communion with you [bishops in the West], they may preach their doctrine of Three Hypostases in its original [Arian] sense." And similarly in his sixteenth epistle, still addressing Damasus, he says, "The Church is rent into three divisions, and each of these is eager to seize me for its own. The long-established influence of the monks, who dwell around, is directed against me. I meantime keep crying, 'If

any one is united with the see of Peter, he is mine.' Meletius,

1 S. Hieron. Ep. xv. § 2, P. L., xxii. 356.

2 For the highly honourable reason why the followers of S. Meletius were called the Campenses, see p. 256, n. 2.

3 We may be quite sure that in 375 neither S. Meletius nor S. Basil would communicate with notorious heretics. We gather, indeed, from S. Basil's 34th epistle, addressed to S. Eusebius of Samosata (Opp., iii. 113), that an Arian bishop had succeeded Silvanus at Tarsus in 369. But we also learn from his 113th epistle, addressed to the presbyters of Tarsus (Opp., iii. 205, 206), that some presbyters in that city remained true to the Catholic cause, and that with them S. Basil communicated. The youthful S. Jerome jumped too quickly to

his conclusions.

Observe that S. Jerome speaks of "communionis vestrae," not of communionis tuae." All through both letters, when he is addressing the pope as an individual, he uses, in accordance with the custom of his time, the second person singular. Here he has in view the whole Western episcopate, and therefore he uses the plural form.

5 S. Hieron. Ep. xv. § 5, P. L., xxii. 358. It is in the first two paragraphs of this letter that the exaggerated language occurs, which has been quoted above on p. 162.

Vitalis, and Paulinus all profess that they adhere to you.1 I could believe the assertion if it were made by one of them only. As it is, either two of them or else all three are guilty of falsehood. Therefore I implore your blessedness. to tell me by letter with whom I am to communicate in Syria. Do not despise a soul for which Christ died."

It is not necessary that I should set to work to prove elaborately that S. Jerome could not have written letters containing the above-quoted passages, after Damasus had openly sided with Paulinus, and had recognized him by name as the rightful Bishop of Antioch. Those passages have only to be read, and it will be perceived at once that, when the letters were written, neither of the three Antiochene parties had been explicitly recognized at Rome. Both letters must therefore have been written before October, 375, at the latest. On the other hand, there is a passage in the earlier letter, which could only have been written after S. Jerome had heard of the elevation of S. Ambrose to the see of Milan.3 Now, S. Ambrose was consecrated to that see on December 7, 374; and the news of the consecration could hardly have reached S. Jerome before the beginning of March in the following year at the earliest, and it may not have reached him before the end of March. It may, I think, be safely concluded that the two letters to Damasus were written between March and September or October, 375.5

It is to be noted that in his earlier letter to Damasus, S. Jerome, while professing to wait humbly for the Roman Bishop's decision as to whether he should communicate with S. Meletius, with Paulinus, or with Vitalis, does in fact press on Damasus the claims of Paulinus. He accomplishes this

1 I have explained this claim, made by the three opposing parties at Antioch, on p. 309.

2 S. Hieron. Ep. xvi. § 2, P. L., xxii. 359.

3 S. Hieron. Ep. xv. ad Damasum, § 4, P. L., xxii. 357.

In making this calculation, I take account of the comparative slowness of travelling in the winter, and especially in such a severe winter as that of 374-375 (cf. S. Basil. Ep. cxcviii. ad Eusebium Samosatens. § 1, Upp., iii. 289).

I should suppose that S. Jerome wrote the second of his two letters (Ep. xvi.) shortly before Damasus' letter of communion, sent to Paulinus by the hands of Vitalis, arrived in Antioch. It follows that this second letter may well have been written in the middle of September. S. Jerome was evidently getting anxious because his first letter seemed to have produced no effect. There was a third letter written by S. Jerome, while he was still in the desert of Chalcis, on the subject of the dispute about the formulae. It was addressed to Marcus, one of the hermits of S. Jerome's desert, who was also a priest. It was written in the winter, but whether in 375, 376, or 377, I cannot say. At the time when it was written S. Jerome was much annoyed by the perpetual disputes about the formulae, and expressed his readiness to leave the desert when the winter was over. It does not at all follow that he carried out this intention; and, even if he did, I have no certainty as to the date of his return to Antioch. In Vallarsi's edition the letter to Marcus is numbered as the seventeenth.

by running down the party of S. Meletius. He calls that party by a nickname-" the Campenses;" he describes them as "Arianorum proles;" he characterizes their formula of the Three Hypostases as "novel;" he declares that whoever adopts that formula is really trying to assert the theory that there are three natures in God; he ends up his letter by a sentence in which he implies that he fervently hopes that Damasus will not tell him to communicate with the followers of S. Meletius. Thus the general upshot of S. Jerome's letter was to set before Damasus as strong a case as was possible against S. Meletius. S. Jerome must have known well that, if he succeeded in inducing Damasus to enter into his views, the success of Paulinus was secured. Paulinus had been at the head of the Eustathian party at Antioch for forty-four years; he was a consecrated bishop; and for the last twelve years he had enjoyed, as reputed Bishop of Antioch, the communion of the Church of Alexandria. It was hardly possible that Paulinus should have anything to fear from the competition of Vitalis.

At this point it seems desirable, before considering whether Damasus took any action in consequence of S. Jerome's letters, to turn our attention to the proceedings of Vitalis. We have seen that he had broken away from S. Meletius, and had come under the influence of Apollinarius, and that the latter had appointed him to preside over those at Antioch who had embraced the Apollinarian tenets. We have seen also that, in his position as head of this newly-formed party, Vitalis claimed that he enjoyed the communion of Damasus and of the West, no doubt on the ground that he and his followers were able to accept the terms of the declaration of faith put forth by the Roman Council of 374, and that that council had said, in its synodical letter, "We give our communion to those who approve in all things our definition." 2

The Vitalians, as they were called, were the smallest and the newest of the three parties into which the Antiochene believers in our Lord's true Godhead were divided; and it would obviously be an immense gain to them if they could obtain a definite recognition of their orthodoxy from the Western Church. Vitalis therefore determined to go to

In his statements about the formula of the Three Hypostases, S. Jerome was unfortunate. The formula was in no way "novel." It had been used in the East, and especially in Alexandria, from the time when the word "Hypostasis " was first introduced into the vocabulary of theology; and so far from implying any taint of Arianism, it has completely prevailed in the Catholic Church over the rival Western formula of the One Hypostasis. No doubt Damasus and S. Jerome meant the same as S. Meletius and S. Basil, but fuller experience has induced the Church to canonize the language of S. Meletius and S. Basil, and to reject the language of Damasus and S. Jerome.

See p. 308.