In Jerome of Stridon and the Ethics of Literary Production in Late Antiquity Thomas E. Hunt argues that Jerome developed a consistent theology of language and the human body that inflected all of his writing projects. In doing so, the book challenges and recasts the way that this important figure in Late Antiquity has been understood. This study maps the first seven years of Jerome’s time in Bethlehem (386–393). Treating his commentaries on Paul, his hagiography, his controversy with Jovinian, his correspondence with Augustine, and his translation of Hebrew, the book shows Jerome to be immersed in the exciting and dangerous currents moving through late antique Christianity.

In the late fourth and early fifth centuries, during a fifty-year stretch sometimes dubbed a Pauline "renaissance" of the western church, six different authors produced over four dozen commentaries in Latin on Paul's epistles. Among them was Jerome, who commented on four epistles (Galatians, Ephesians, Titus, Philemon) in 386 after recently having relocated to Bethlehem from Rome. His commentaries occupy a time-honored place in the centuries-long tradition of Latin-language commenting on Paul's writings. They also constitute his first foray into the systematic exposition of whole biblical books (and his only experiment with Pauline interpretation on this scale), and so they provide precious insight into his intellectual development at a critical stage of his early career before he would go on to become the most prolific biblical scholar of Late Antiquity. This monograph provides the first book-length treatment of Jerome's opus Paulinum in any language. Adopting a cross-disciplinary approach, Cain comprehensively analyzes the commentaries' most salient aspects-from the inner workings of Jerome's philological method and engagement with his Greek exegetical sources, to his recruitment of Paul as an anachronistic surrogate for his own theological and ascetic special interests. One of the over-arching concerns of this book is to explore and to answer, from multiple vantage points, a question that was absolutely fundamental to Jerome in his fourth-century context: what are the sophisticated mechanisms by which he legitimized himself as a Pauline commentator, not only on his own terms but also vis-à-vis contemporary western commentators?

The poetry of the late Roman world has a fascinating history. Sometimes an object of derision, sometimes an object of admiration, it has found numerous detractors and defenders among classicists and Latin literary critics. This volume explores the scholarly approaches to late Latin poetry that have developed over the last 40 years, and it seeks especially to develop, complement and challenge the seminal concept of the 'Jeweled Style' proposed by Michael Roberts in 1989. While Roberts's monograph has long been a vade mecum within the world of late antique literary studies, a critical reassessment of its validity as a concept is overdue. This volume invites established and emerging scholars from different research traditions to return to the influential conclusions put forward by Roberts. It asks them to examine the continued relevance of The Jeweled Style and to suggest new ways to engage it. In a joint effort, the nineteen chapters of this volume define and map the jeweled style, extending it to new genres, geographic regions, time periods and methodologies. Each contribution seeks to provide insightful analysis that integrates the last 30 years of scholarship while pursuing ambitious applications of the jeweled style within and beyond the world of late antiquity.

This open access book studies breath and breathing in literature and culture and provides crucial insights into the history of medicine, health and the emotions, the foundations of beliefs concerning body, spirit and world, the connections between breath and creativity and the phenomenology of breath and breathlessness. Contributions span the classical, medieval, early modern, Romantic, Victorian, modern and contemporary periods, drawing on medical writings, philosophy, theology and the visual arts as well as on literary, historical and cultural studies. The collection illustrates the complex significance and symbolic power of breath and breathlessness across time: breath is written deeply into ideas of nature, spirituality, emotion, creativity and being, and is inextricable from notions of consciousness, spirit, inspiration, voice, feeling, freedom and movement. The volume also demonstrates the long-standing connections between breath and place, politics and aesthetics, illuminating both contrasts and continuities.

Early Christian prose writers of the Latin West (2nd–5th c. AD) have long been studied predominantly from theological and historical perspectives. Hence, there is a conspicuous scarcity of comprehensive studies approaching these texts from stylistic and literary angles. This volume will be an important step towards filling this substantial gap in recent scholarship. It will include chapters on selected Latin Christian writers such as Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Firmicus Maternus, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. It aims at investigating, on the one hand, ways in which these texts can be appreciated as literary texts in their own right, by exploring the style and imagery employed in them; and, on the other, the intricate and meaningful modes in which these writers interact, develop, and transform phraseology, topoi, concepts, and techniques found in Classical literature. This volume will offer a paradigmatic overview as to the usefulness of approaching early Christian writers through a literary lens, thus opening up new paths of research across various disciplines including Classics, Literary Studies, Theology, and (Social) History.

This is the second of a two-volume set that includes Thomas Scheck's new translations of several of St. Jerome's previously untranslated exegetical letters. Epistle 85 to St. Paulinus of Nola contains Jerome's answers to two questions: how Exodus 7.13 and Romans 9.16 can be reconciled with free will, and what 1 Corinthians 7.14 means. Epistle 106 to Sunnias and Fretela, which deals with textual criticism of the Septuagint, consists of a meticulous defense of Jerome's new translation of the Latin Psalter. Epistle 112 is a response to three letters from St. Augustine: Ep. 56 (contained in the previous volume), Ep. 67, and Ep 104. In the face of Augustine's criticisms, Jerome defends his own endeavor to translate the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew text. He also vindicates his own ecclesiastical interpretation of Galatians 2.4-11, as he had set this forth in his Commentary on Galatians, and along the way he accuses Augustine of advocating the heresy of Judaizing. Epistle 119 to Minervius and Alexander contains Jerome's answers to some eschatological questions regarding the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15.51 and 1 Thessalonians 4.17. In Epistle 120 to Hedibia, Jerome tackles twelve exegetical questions that focus on reconciling the discrepant Resurrection accounts in the Gospels, as well as questions about Romans 9.14-29, 2 Corinthians 2.16, and 1 Thessalonians 5.23. In Epistle 121 to Algasia, Jerome clarifies eleven exegetical questions dealing with passages in the Gospels and Paul's letters (Romans 5.7; 7.7-25; 9.3-5; Colossians 2.18-19; 2 Thessalonians 2.3). This letter also contains an exposition of the parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16.1-10), in which Jerome translates material from a commentary attributed to Theophilus of Antioch. In Epistle 129 to Dardanus, Jerome interprets "the promised land" and discusses the alleged crimes of the Jews. Epistle 130 to Demetrias is not an exegetical letter but an exhortation to the newly consecrated virgin on how to live out her vocation. In this letter Jerome reflects on Origenism and Pelagianism. Finally, in Epistle 140 to Cyprian the presbyter, Jerome expounds Psalm 90.

A history of ancient literary culture told through the quantitative facts of canon, geography, and scale.