Jerome – Letter 60
| Document: | Letter 60 |
| Incipit: | Grandes materias ingenia |
| Addressee: | Heliodorus Episcopus |
| Date: | 396 (Kelly p. 215) |
| Earliest ms.: | Naples, Italy: Biblioteca Nazionale, VI.D.59, f. 77-89v. 6-7th century. (Lambert, I: p. 683) |
| Latin Text: | CSEL 54, pp. 548-575; Wright, pp. 264-308; Duff, pp. 228-46. |
| English Translation: | Wright, pp. 265-309; Fremantle, pp. 123-131 |
| Notes: | One of Jerome’s finest letters, written to console his old friend, Heliodorus, now Bp. of Altinum, for the loss of his nephew Nepotian who had died of fever a short time previously. Jerome tries to soothe his friend’s grief (1) by contrasting pagan despair or resignation with Christian hope, (2) by an eulogy of the departed both as man and presbyter, and (3) by a review of the evils which then beset the Empire and from which, as he contended, Nepotian had been removed. The letter is marked throughout with deep and sincere feeling. (Fremantle) |
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