#67 | Papal Snapshot: St. Jerome on the Pope Answering Theological Questions from East and West, Letter 123 (382-84)

Roadmap

For this, perhaps the shortest of “Papal Snapshots,” our Roadmap is as follows:

• Our thesis is that St. Jerome’s comment about his secretarial work for St. Pope Damasus in Letter 123: To Ageruchia (409) is a small, but revealing indication of papal authority in the ancient Church. We will show this by:
• Providing some brief historical context for the letter;
• Quoting and analyzing the relevant portion of the letter; then
• Summarizing the conclusions we believe we can reach.

Historical Context

St. Jerome (c. 342/347-420) was one of the greatest Church Fathers, monks, and Scripture scholars in the ancient Church. Though often associated with the west, he spent a great deal of his life in the east, dying in Bethlehem. He was a close friend and associate of St. Pope Damasus, who was pontiff from 366-84, and commissioned St. Jerome to translate Scripture into Latin. This version of the Bible, known as the Vulgate, became the standard version of Scripture throughout much of the Church. St. Jerome served as secretary to this great Pope from 382 until the Pope’s death in 384. Even before he was his secretary, St. Jerome often answered the Pope’s theological questions about how to interpret various parts of Scripture.

St. Jerome, Letter 123: To Ageruchia (409)

St. Jerome’s Letter 123: To Ageruchia, written in 409, recounts his time as secretary to St. Pope Damasus some three decades earlier. In this somewhat lengthy letter, he makes a brief, but illuminating comment about his work as papal secretary (§10):

I was helping Damasus bishop of Rome with his ecclesiastical correspondence, and writing his answers to the questions referred to him by the councils of the east and west…

From this brief but illuminating comment, we can see the following:

1. There were ancient councils of bishops in both the east and west that dealt with various “questions” in the Church. St. Jerome doesn’t say what kind, but we can reasonably conclude they included theological questions, as well as juridical issues related to the day-to-day governance of the Church (we have many examples of both in the ancient Church).
2. These councils referred these questions, ultimately, to the Pope of Rome, presumably for a final resolution.
3. This indicates that the Pope not only had greater authority than any individual bishop, but also local councils, who, in many cases, could only conclude their decisions if they were approved by the Pope (of which we also have numerous instances throughout the history of the ancient Church).

Conclusion

In conclusion, while St. Jerome’s comment is incredibly brief, it nonetheless reveals the Catholic reality of the papacy in the late 300s. The ecclesiology he describes and presumes fits best, by far, with the same Catholic Church today, the only one in which local gatherings of bishops throughout the world, “east and west,” continue to refer their decisions to the Pope of Rome for a final resolution.