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St. Jerome in His Study , by Domenico Ghirlandaio.

DE VIRIS ILLUSTRIBUS (JEROME) Draft .

De Viris Illustribus (On Illustrious Men or The Lives of Famous Men ) is a cataloged archive of 135 concise biographies pertaining to those notable ancient authors who recorded in writing the history of Early Christianity. It was composed in Latin, by the Church Father Jerome. Historians see De Viris Illustribus as extensive bibliography which sheds light on the Historical Jesus and his followers. Although the ancient Christian libraries at Caesarea, Bethlehem, Jerusalem etc. were lost, the early history of Christianity has been preserved in De Viris Illustribus.

Authorship

Jerome was born around the year 347 at Stridon, in the northeastern part of the Italian peninsula. In 372 he left for Antioch to become an ascetic. He sojourned in the wilderness about 27 kilometers southwest of the Nazarene community, of Beroea. Here Jerome studied Hebrew under a Jewish Christian "brother". He eventually returned to Antioch and then sailed to Rome in the company of Epiphanius.

During his lifetime he was a Catholic priest, confessor, theologian and historian, who also became a Doctor of the Church and eventually was made a Saint. Furthermore, he was the famous protégé of Pope Damasus. Jerome paid special attention to the spiritual lives of women. This focus stemmed from his close patron relationships with several prominent female ascetics who were members of affluent senatorial families.

In 386, after an extensive pilgrimage tour of the Holy Land, and Egypt, Jerome arrived in Bethlehem. He would never again to leave Palestine, traveling only to nearby Jerusalem and the Library of Caesarea. It was here that Jerome completed On Illustrious Men in 392. Its focus is on those authors who were important to the formation of Christianity. The book was dedicated to Flavius Dexter, who served as high chamberlain to Theodosius I and as praetorian prefect to Honorius and is essentially a "history of Christian literature".

Significance and Authenticity

Jerome remains a controversial figure to this day. Within the Church, he is a respected scholar and saint, whose reputation was legendary. He was considered as one of "the four great Church teachers of the West". However, outside the Christian faith, mythicists view him very differently. Although they would admit that Jerome is the authentic author of On Illustrious Men; these scholars have long had contempt for this work. They believe it to be "propagandist history" which was "inevitably derivative"; a "pretentious facade" which was largely "a sham" containing defects "so glaring", clearly showing Jerome to be a moron who "quite uncritically" through "sheer carelessness" wrote an plagiarized history of the Early Christianity. They argue that On Illustrious Men is little more that an uncritical plagiarism of Early Church writers not amounting to much more than a catalogue or bibliography. Of course this is what makes it so very valuable to modern historians.

Jerome had access to the Library at Ceasarea as well as many other ancient writings about the historical Jesus and the formation of Christianity. Many of these First Century works have been lost but due to his 'uncritical derivative plagiarism', Jerome inadvertently saved the history of early Christianity and the historical Jesus. Today, this "reference handbook of Christian authors" is used by scholars as a source of information about Jesus and his followers, uncovering content lost to historians for centuries; expanding the extent of our learning.

For example, the origins of Matthew's Gospel are unknown. Many scholars speculated that Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew; then it was translated into the Canonical Greek Gospel of Matthew. However, Jerome indicates this to be unlikely and sheds light on this problem:

Formation of the Gospels according to Jerome

“ Matthew, also called Levi, who used to be a tax collector and later an Apostle, composed the Gospel of Christ, which was first published in Judea in Hebrew script for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed. This Gospel was afterwards translated into Greek (though by what author uncertain). Now this Hebrew original is preserved to this day in the Library of Caesarea, which Pamphilus the Martyr so diligently collated. I have also had the opportunity of having this volume transcribed for me by the Nazarenes of Beroea, Syria, who use it. ”

Therefore we know that the Gospel of Christ was written by the Apostle Matthew in Hebrew script. We also know that Matthew`s Gospel of Christ was sometimes called the Hebrew Gospel, but most people of Jerome`s time called it the Authentic Gospel of Matthew. Indeed , it is because of Jerome that modern scholars now know that the Greek Gospel of Matthew was not a translation of Matthew's Gospel of Christ as there were major discrepancies between the two. Rather the Greek Gospel of Matthew was a composite work by later Greek writers who used Matthew's Hebrew Gospel of Christ as a major source or the fountainhead.

Summary

Notwithstanding the many criticisms of Jerome by Mythicists and others, De Viris Illustribus (On Illustrious Men) has been of great importance in understanding how Christianity came into being. It has preserved the lost writings of Early Christianity back to the time of the the Crucifixion. It should be considered alongside the Three Great Histories that examine Palestine at the time of Jesus: the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus; Luke-Acts by the renowned first-century disciple of the Apostle Paul & Church History by Eusebius.