Jerome & Rufinus

The best advice I can give you is this: church traditions, when they do not run counter to the faith, should be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down; and the usage of one church is not to be annulled because it is contrary to that of another.

- Jerome

A Patristic Treasury: Early Church Wisdom for Today, edited by James R. Payton, Jr

I think there is something for everyone in this opening quote: stick to your tradition, but don’t exclude other who stick to theirs. The question: what constitutes “tradition”? Just how many decades or centuries of unchanging practice are necessary for a tradition to gain standing?

In any case, don’t exclude others.

The Trinity

You should discern the Creator’s goodness in His readiness to follow you down to the depths to which your sins have plunged you.

- Rufinus

God

Nothing that is unique can admit of any comparison: He who is the maker of all things cannot bear any likeness in substance to the things He has made.

- Rufinus

The Son

Being incorporeal, His generation neither results in plurality nor involves division: He who is born is not separated from His begetter.

- Rufinus

I would rather, however, that you did not discuss how God the Father generated the Son, and did not plunge too inquisitively into the depths of the mystery. There is a danger that, in prying to persistently into the brightness of inaccessible light, you may find yourself deprived of the tiny glimpse which is all the good God grants to mortals.

- Rufinus

We are told He is begotten. We are not told how (as if we could understand in any case).

Man

Whenever one indulges his lusts, he sells his soul for a price.

- Rufinus

And every sale has a cost.

Sometimes the quicksands of vice suck us down as we sail at ease through the calm water, and the desert of this world is inhabited by venomous reptiles.

- Jerome

You are mistaken if you suppose that there is ever a time when the Christian does not suffer persecution. You are most dangerously under attack when you ate not aware that you are under attack.

- Jerome

I had a conversation with a friend, one suffering through several difficult issues at the same time. He asked why this was so. I suggested it was a sign of growing closer to Christ: it is at times like this when Satan does his most aggressive work. Satan need not persecute those who are far from God, only those who are close.

Do not let your mind offer a lodging to disturbing thoughts, for if they once find a home in your breast they will become your masters and lead you into fatal sin. Engage in some occupation, so that the devil may always find you busy.

- Jerome

This captures just why idly spending time is a sin. It gives room for all manner of thoughts to enter the mind. Instead, if one is focused on good thoughts, Biblical thoughts, productive thoughts, there is less room for thoughts that lead to fatal sin.

Good habits will gradually grow on you, and finally you will do of your own accord what was at first a matter of compulsion.

- Jerome

Here is the value of daily prayer and reading the Scripture. Do it daily, and soon enough it will be of such a joy that missing a day is a day of despair.

In every rank and condition of life the very bad is mingled with the very good.

- Jerome

The line dividing good and evil runs down the middle of every human heart. Well, some more on one side than the other, but….

Despair is the one sin for which there is no remedy. By obstinate rejection of God’s grace people turn His mercy into sternness and severity.

- Jerome

Here again, prayer and reading every day. I have not yet come to the point of taking such joy in this that it is habit; if and when I am graced with this ability, it would seem despair will find it difficult to find a foothold.

No meal should be begun without prayer, and before leaving the table thanks should be returned to the Creator.

- Jerome

It is no small gain to know your own ignorance.

- Jerome

It is harder for us to part with arrogance than with gold and gems.

- Jerome

Earth

…it was appropriate that He who came to remove the sins of the world should at the same time release the earth from the curses inflicted on it when the first-formed man sinned….

- Rufinus

All of creation is to be healed.

Humility

In the gospel, the Pharisee is rejected because of his pride, and the publican is accepted because of his humility.

- Jerome

Our Resurrection

Why, I ask you, should you take such a restricted, feeble vie of the divine power as to believe it is impossible for the dust out of which each individual’s flesh is composed, once it is dispersed, to be collected together and restored to its original form?

- Rufinus

Other

Do not be carried away by some caprice and rush into authorship. Learn long and carefully what you propose to teach.

- Jerome

I will remind all of you: I am learning; I am not a teacher. I value the many of you that are learning along with me, and also those who, through your comments, are teaching me.

Biographies / Sources

Rufinus (345 – 410) was a translator from Greek to Latin. While his translation approach was too freewheeling, several works of the Greek Church Fathers became available to the West. One of his few original works was his Commentary on the Apostles Creed, from which these excerpts are taken.

Jerome (345 – 420) lived a life of severe asceticism, mostly in the east. He would offer a Latin translation of the Scriptures, the Vulgate, used by the Western Church through the Middle Ages.