Jerome (ca. 342-420)
“If Rome be lost, where shall we look for help?” (letter, ca. 409).
Jerome at his studies.
Jerome’s lament for collapsing Rome appears in an unlikely place, near the end of a letter advising a widow against remarriage. Ageruchia is young, wealthy—and surrounded by temptation. She has access to the palace where many young suitors, perhaps more eager for her purse than for her person, pursue her. She has written to Jerome, the leading scholar of the church, and translator of the Bible into Latin, painting marriage in glowing terms and asking his advice.
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Like many early church fathers, Jerome holds a jaundiced view of wedlock. He will reluctantly allow a first marriage, but strongly counsels against a second, although he does not absolutely condemn it. However, he considers a third or fourth marriage the equivalent of prostitution. He rummages Scripture for allusions and passages to build a case against remarriage, sometimes stretching allegory beyond breaking point to cover his arguments. He also cites pagan examples—inappropriately in most instances, since they refer not to normal marriage but to women who killed themselves rather than endure rape or allow themselves to be forced into bigamous relationships.
“You set before me the joys of wedlock. I for my part will remind you of Dido’s sword and pyre and funeral flames. [Dido, Queen of Carthage, leapt into flames rather than endure an unwelcome second marriage.] In marriage there is not so much good to be hoped for as there is evil which may happen and must be feared,” he cautions. He compares sexual desire to covetousness—neither is ever satisfied.
Jerome then reminds her of the present turmoil of the Roman Empire, beset on every side by barbarians. “Savage tribes in countless numbers have overrun all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemanni and—alas! for the commonweal!—even Pannonians.” These Barbarians do not balk at assaulting Rome itself, whereas Rome’s former enemies respected the city so much that they turned from its gates.
He quotes the poet Lucan who described the power of the city in glowing terms: “If Rome be weak, where shall we look for strength?” but adds, “We may vary his words and say: ‘If Rome be lost, where shall we look for help?’”
His point is this: if Ageruchia remarries, will her husband bravely fight, or will he turn and run? “In either case you know what the result will be,” he tells her—the implication being renewed widowhood. But of course, neither of them can know any such thing. Some married men and women will survive the barbarian invasions as surely as some unmarried will perish.
—Dan Graves
