Letter XL.
To Marcella.
Onasus, of Segesta, the subject of this letter, was
among Jerome’s Roman opponents. He is here held up to ridicule in
a manner which reflects little credit on the writer’s urbanity.
The date of the letter is 385 a.d.
1. The medical men called surgeons pass for being cruel,
but really deserve pity. For is it not pitiful to cut away the dead
flesh of another man with merciless knives without being moved by his
pangs? Is it not pitiful that the man who is curing the patient is
callous to his sufferings, and has to appear as his enemy? Yet such is
the order of nature. While truth is always bitter, pleasantness waits
upon evil-doing. Isaiah goes naked without blushing as a type of
captivity to come.858
Jeremiah is
sent from Jerusalem to the Euphrates (a river in Mesopotamia), and
leaves his girdle to be marred in the Chaldæan camp, among the
Assyrians hostile to his people.859
Ezekiel is
told to eat bread made of mingled seeds and sprinkled with the dung of
men and cattle.860
He has to see his
wife die without shedding a tear.861
Amos is
driven from Samaria.862
Why is he driven
from it? Surely in this case as in the others, because he was a
spiritual surgeon, who cut away the parts diseased by sin and urged men
to repentance. The apostle Paul says: “Am I therefore become your
enemy because I tell you the truth?”863
And so the Saviour Himself found it, from whom many of the disciples
went back because His sayings seemed hard.864
2. It is not surprising, then, that by exposing their
faults I have offended many. I have arranged to operate on a cancerous
nose;865
| 865 Nasus. A play on the
name Onasus. |
let him who suffers from wens tremble. I
wish to rebuke a chattering daw; let the crow realize that she is
offensive.866
Yet, after all, is there but one
person in Rome
“Whose nostrils are disfigured by a scar?”867
Is Onasus of Segesta alone in puffing out his cheeks like bladders
and balancing hollow phrases on his tongue?
I say that certain persons have, by crime, perjury, and
false pretences, attained to this or that high position. How does it
hurt you who know that the charge does not touch you? I laugh at a
pleader who has no clients, and
sneer at a penny-a-liner’s eloquence. What does it matter to you
who are such a refined speaker? It is my whim to inveigh against
mercenary priests. You are rich already, why should you be angry? I
wish to shut up Vulcan and burn him in his own flames. Are you his
guest or his neighbor that you try to save an idol’s shrine from
the fire? I choose to make merry over ghosts and owls and monsters of
the Nile; and whatever I say, you take it as aimed at you. At whatever
fault I point my pen, you cry out that you are meant. You collar me and
drag me into court and absurdly charge me with writing satires when I
only write plain prose!
So you really think yourself a pretty fellow just
because you have a lucky name!868
| 868 Onasus means
“lucky” or “profitable;” it is another form of
Onesimus. |
Why it does
not follow at all. A brake is called a brake just because the light
does not break through it.869
| 869 Quoted from
Quintilian i. 6, 34 (lucus a non lucendo). |
The Fates are
called “sparers,”870
| 870 Parcæ, from
parcere, to spare. |
just because they
never spare. The Furies are spoken of as gracious,871
| 871 Eumenides, the
Greek name for the Furies. |
because they show no grace. And in
common speech Ethiopians go by the name of silverlings. Still, if the
showing up of faults always angers you, I will soothe you now with the
words of Persius: “May you be a catch for my lord and
lady’s daughter! May the pretty ladies scramble for you! May the
ground you walk on turn to a rose-bed!”872
3. All the same, I will give you a hint what features to
hide if you want to look your best. Show no nose upon your face and
keep your mouth shut. You will then stand some chance of being counted
both handsome and eloquent.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
