Rubens has treated the Fathers several times: the colossal picture in the Grosvenor Gallery is well known, where they appear before us as moving along in a grand procession: St. Jerome comes last; (he should be first; but on these points Rubens was not particular:) he seems in deep contemplation, enveloped in the rich scarlet robes of a cardinal of the seventeenth century, and turning the leaves of his great book. In another picture we have the Four Fathers seated, discussing the mystery of the Eucharist; St. Jerome points to a passage in the Scriptures; St. Gregory is turning the page; they appear to be engaged in argument; the other two are listening earnestly. There is another picture by Rubens in which the usual attributes of the Fathers are borne aloft by angels, while they sit communing below.
These examples will suffice to give a general idea of the manner in which the four great Doctors of the Western Church are grouped in devotional pictures. We will now consider them separately, each according to his individual character and history.
St. Jerome.
Lat. Sanctus Hieronymus. Ital. San Geronimo or Girolamo. Fr. St. Jérome, Hiérome, or Géroisme. Ger. Der Heilige Hieronimus. Patron of scholars and students, and more particularly of students in theology. (Sept. 30, A.D. 420.)
Of the four Latin Doctors, St. Jerome, as a subject of painting, is by far the most popular. The reasons for this are not merely the exceedingly interesting and striking character of the man, and the picturesque incidents of his life, but also his great importance and dignity as founder of Monachism in the West, and as author of the universally received translation of the Old and New Testament into the Latin language (called ‘The Vulgate’). There is scarcely a collection of pictures in which we do not find a St. Jerome, either doing penance in the desert, or writing his famous translation, or meditating on the mystery of the Incarnation.
Jerome was born about A.D. 342, at Stridonium, in Dalmatia. His father, Eusebius, was rich; and as he showed the happiest disposition for learning, he was sent to Rome to finish his studies. There, through his own passions, and the evil example of his companions, he fell into temptation, and for a time abandoned himself to worldly pleasures. But the love of virtue, as well as the love of learning, was still strong within him: he took up the profession of law, and became celebrated for his eloquence in pleading before the tribunals. When more than thirty, he travelled into Gaul, and visited the schools of learning there. It was about this time that he was baptized, and vowed himself to perpetual celibacy. In 373, he travelled into the East, to animate his piety by dwelling for a time among the scenes hallowed by the presence of the Saviour; and, on his way thither, he visited some of the famous Oriental hermits and ascetics, of whom he has given us such a graphic account, and whose example inspired him with a passion for solitude and a monastic life. Shortly after his arrival in Syria, he retired to a desert in Chalcis, on the confines of Arabia, and there he spent four years in study and seclusion, supporting himself by the labour of his hands. He has left us a most vivid picture of his life of penance in the wilderness; of his trials and temptations, his fastings, his sickness of soul and body: and we must dwell for a moment on his own description, in order to show with what literal and circumstantial truth the painters have rendered it. He says, in one of his epistles, ‘Oh how often, in the desert, in that vast solitude which, parched by the sultry sun, affords a dwelling to the monks, did I fancy myself in the midst of the luxuries of Rome! I sate alone, for I was full of bitterness. My misshapen limbs were rough with sackcloth, and my skin so squalid that I might have been mistaken for an Ethiopian. Tears and groans were my occupation every day and all day long. If sleep surprised me unawares, my naked bones, which scarcely held together, rattled on the earth.’ His companions, he says, ‘were scorpions and wild beasts;’ his home, ‘a recess among rocks and precipices.’ Yet, in the midst of this horrible self-torture and self-abasement, he describes himself as frequently beset by temptations to sin and sensual indulgence, and haunted by demons: at other times, as consoled by voices and visions from heaven. Besides these trials of the flesh and the spirit, he had others of the intellect. His love of learning, his admiration of the great writers of classical antiquity,—of Plato and Cicero,—made him impatient of the rude simplicity of the Christian historians. He describes himself as fasting before he opened Cicero; and, as a further penance, he forced himself to study Hebrew, which at first filled him with disgust, and this disgust appeared to him a capital sin. In one of his distempered visions, he fancied he heard the last trumpet sounded in his ear by an angel, and summoning him before the judgment-seat of God. ‘Who art thou?’ demanded the awful voice. ‘A Christian,’ replied the trembling Jerome. ‘‘Tis false!’ replied the voice, ‘thou art no Christian: thou art a Ciceronian. Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also.’ He persevered, and conquered the difficulties of Hebrew; and then, wearied by the religious controversies in the East, after ten years’ residence there, he returned to Rome.
But neither the opposition he had met with, nor his four years of solitude and penance in the desert, had subdued the fiery enthusiasm of temperament which characterised this celebrated man. At Rome he boldly combated the luxurious self-indulgence of the clergy, and preached religious abstinence and mortification. He was particularly remarkable for the influence he obtained over the Roman women; we find them, subdued or excited by his eloquent exhortations, devoting themselves to perpetual chastity, distributing their possessions among the poor, or spending their days in attendance on the sick, and ready to follow their teacher to the Holy Land—to the desert—even to death. His most celebrated female convert was Paula, a noble Roman matron, a descendant of the Scipios and the Gracchi. Marcella, another of these Roman ladies, was the first who, in the East, collected together a number of pious women to dwell together in community: hence she is, by some authors, considered as the first nun; but others contend that Martha, the sister of Mary Magdalene, was the first who founded a religious community of women.