Jerome was one of the most prolific and wide-ranging authors in all of Latin antiquity, not to mention a masterful commentator on texts himself, yet his literary works have been frustratingly slow in receiving the kind of intensive analysis that a full-scale modern scholarly commentary affords. Various individual opera of his have received such attention, such as Epistula 22 (N. Adkin [2003]), Epistula 52 (A. Cain [2013]), Epistula 57 (G. Bartelink [1980]), Epistula 60 (J.H.D. Scourfield [1993]) and the Epitaphium sanctae Paulae (A. Cain [2013]). His three hagiographic romances – Vita Pauli (VP), Vita Hilarionis (VH) and Vita Malchi (VM) – have fared less well. Until recently, the only commentary on any of these three works was P. Hoelle's unpublished 1953 Ohio State University dissertation, A Commentary on the Vita Pauli of St. Jerome. So much the more gratefully, then, ought we to welcome G.'s new book on the VM.
This book, a revision of G.'s 2011 Oxford dissertation, contains an introduction, Latin text and facing-page English translation, commentary on the Latin text and bibliography. The introduction, although light on historical background on Jerome's life and career (pp. 1–2), is fulsome in other respects. Following an examination of the VM's audience, date of composition and historical value (pp. 3–14) is an assessment of the work's literary and generic affinities with other ancient literary forms (e.g. novel, epic, historiography) (pp. 14–42). On the basis of this analysis, G. sensibly concludes that Jerome's ‘multi-layered blend of linguistic elements from different periods, models, and registers’ makes it likely that he wrote the VM ‘for an elite audience well-versed in classical literature and style, but also with Christian sensibilities which would make them appreciate its firm yet flexible grounding in the genus humile’ (p. 68). In the second half of the introduction, G. discusses the stylistic register of the VM's prose and the prevalence of rhetorical devices therein (pp. 42–68), and then finally she turns to the state of the textual transmission and provides a summary of the manuscripts she consulted in preparation of her Latin text (pp. 68–76).
The textual tradition of the VM is complex; the work exists in no less than 349 different known manuscripts, a testament to its popularity throughout the Middle Ages. The first modern critical edition was published in 1946 by C. Mierow, who uncritically based his edition on 35 Vatican-only manuscripts. In 2007, P. Leclerc and E. Morales published their own critical edition as vol. 508 in the Sources Chrétiennes series, but it was met with near-universal criticism from reviewers (e.g. M. Winterbottom in JThS n.s. 59 [2008], 372–4). In preparing her own text, G. aimed to produce not a critical edition per se but rather a fully serviceable text that is more reliable than its two forebears. She took a ‘pragmatic approach’ (p. 71) and collated, on more than 100 passages, five different manuscripts considered to be of high value to the textual tradition of the VM. G.'s research, which is summarised in Table 1 (pp. 75–6), has yielded 75 divergences between her own text and those of Mierow and Leclerc–Morales, which she elucidates and justifies in the commentary (a palmary example is on pp. 121–5 on the reading ut re vera). The end result is indeed a much improved Latin text.
The VM had previously been translated into English by W.H. Fremantle (1893), M.L. Ewald (1952), C. White (1998) and S. Rebenich (2002). G.'s own facing-page translation thus joins a relatively crowded chorus, but it acquits itself well. In terms of style, G. does her readers a service by eschewing a rigidly literal translation in favour of an eminently readable and idiomatic one which still remains faithful to the Latin. The commentary, which spans an impressive 200 pages (on a mere seven pages of Latin text), exhibits admirable comprehensiveness, attention to detail and interpretative judiciousness. G. is copious about documenting parallel passages and intertextual references to Classical and Christian Latin literature as well as to Jerome's own works. Erudite and bibliographically well-informed inset discussions about topics ranging from Saracen ethnography (pp. 167–9) to proskynesis (pp. 189–92) usefully orientate the reader on vital points of historical interest bearing on the VM. Philologically inclined readers in particular will find much in this commentary to whet their appetite, especially G.'s percipient observations about the finer points of Jerome's diction, syntax and sophisticated deployment of rhetorical tropes (e.g. hyperbaton, which is taxonomised into subtypes on pp. 58–67).
As with any commentary, no matter how exhaustive and probing it may be, modest addenda can always be made. Two examples will suffice. In her comments on VM 9.7 (pp. 291–2), G. points out that Iesu bone occurs once in Evagrius’ Latin translation of the Life of Antony. It could also be noted that this exclamatory dominical invocation is used on four other occasions by Jerome himself (Epp. 50.2, 60.10, 77.7, 130.6) and that it otherwise is very sparsely attested in patristic Latin, making its recurrence within the extant Hieronymian corpus that much the more notable. In VM 3.4 Malchus recalls his early days as an aspiring monk ‘earning my livelihood by manual labour’ (manu et labore victum quaeritans). In commenting alternately on manu et labore victum quaeritans (p. 149), manu et labore (p. 150) and quaeritans (p. 150), G. confines her notes to matters of lexicography and textual criticism. What also would be welcome here, in order to contextualise Malchus’ purported experience within a proper historical framework, is some extended discussion about the concept and practice of manual labour in contemporary eastern monasticism.
The bibliography, which stretches to a little over 25 pages, is wide-reaching in its topical coverage, though it would have been useful to engage with some relevant titles, such as Hoelle's above-mentioned commentary; D.F. Heiman, Latin Word Order in the Writings of St. Jerome: Vita Pauli, Vita Malchi, Vita Hilarionis (diss.: Ohio State University [1966]); Y.-M. Duval (ed.), Jérôme entre l'Occident et l'Orient, XVIe centenaire du départ de Jérôme de Rome et son installation à Bethléem (1988); P. Laurence, ‘La Vie de Malchus et l’Epitaphium de Paula’ par S. Jérôme’, Connaissance des Pères de l’Église 95 (2004), 2–19.
G.'s book makes a significant contribution to Hieronymian studies as well as to the scholarship on ancient fiction more broadly. Not only does it give us a more competent and defensible Latin text of the VM than we hitherto have possessed, but, in its introduction and commentary, it also offers the first truly thoroughgoing scholarly study of a fascinating but sometimes neglected text which, one hopes, now will begin to receive more due attention as a result of G.'s labours.
