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Handout #85 |
Jerome (347-420 A.D.) |
| Advice on the education
of a granddaughter (about 400 A.D.)
Jerome gives Laeta advice on educating the daughter of Paula, the granddaughter of Paula, Jerome's friend, who lived with him in Bethlehem. The Bible has pride of place in this education. The very words which she tries bit by bit to put together and to pronounce ought not to be chance ones, but names specially fixed upon and heaped together for the purpose, those for example of the prophets or the apostles or the list of patriarchs from Adam downwards as it is given by Matthew and Luke. In this way, while her tongue will be well trained her memory will be likewise developed. Let her take as a model some aged virgin of approved faith, character and chastity, apt to instruct her by word and by example. She ought to rise at night to recite prayers and psalms; to sing hymns in the morning; at the third, sixth and ninth hours to take her place in the line to do battle for Christ; and lastly, to kindle her lamp and to offer her evening sacrifice. Let her treasures be not silks or gems but manuscripts of the holy scriptures, and in these let her think less of gilding and Babylonian parchment, and arabesque patterns, than of correctness and accurate punctuation. Let her begin by learning the psalter, and then let her gather rules of life out of the proverbs of Solomon. From the Preacher let her gain the habit of despising the world and its vanities. Let her follow the example set in Job of virtue and of patience. Then let her pass on to the Gospels, never to be laid aside when once they have been taken in hand. Let her also drink in with a willing heart the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. As soon as she has enriched the storehouse of her mind with these treasures, let her commit to memory the prophets, the Heptateuch, the books of Kings and of Chronicles, the rolls also of Ezra and Esther. When she has done all these she may safely read the Song of Songs, but not before: for, were she to read it at the beginning, she would fail to understand that, though it is written in fleshly words, it is a marriage song of a spiritual bridal. Let her avoid all apocryphal writings. . . It requires infinite discretion to look for gold in the midst of dirt. Jerome, Letter 107, 4, 9, 12 |
