JEROM versus PAUL.

IN the erudite work of Mr. Roberts, recently published, "The History of Letter-Writing,"-are some portions of a curious correspondence between Jerom and Augustine. The subject of their discussion was no other than that which has lately occupied a considerable space in our pages, Judaism:-and its occasion was the following singular passage from the pen of Jerom, in his commentary on the epistle to the Galatians. Our readers will remember the incident referred to: when the Gentiles who embraced christianity were urged by certain teachers to be circumcised and to keep the law of Moses, Peter was, for a time, led to dissemble, and to join himself to them, as though he held the same view: for this Paul, who was at all times keenly alive to the national distinctness of his race, reproved him openly; and it is clear that he also did it effectually. But Peter was, according to the incipient Popery of Jerom's days, invested with a personal infallibility: he could not really err, neither could Paul; and in order to remove the evidence of an infirmity of judgment on either side, Jerom, as it will be seen, makes them both out to be cunning knaves. He says, 'St. Paul acted this part with St. Peter that the hypocrisy or false shew of observing the law, which offended those among the Gentiles who believed, might be corrected by the hypocrisy or false show of reprehension; and

that, by this contrivance, both the one and the other might be safe, whilst the one who commended circumcision followed St. Peter; and the others, who refused circumcision, adopted the liberty of St. Paul.' This by the way is the Officiosum mendacium, ' for the good of the church,' so fervently followed up by our papalized brethren at Oxford, who have recently buried and lost their Bibles under the capacious and ponderous folios of 'the Fathers.' Jerom was peculiarly anti-Jewish in all his views, a bitter foe to matrimony, and a great promoter of monasticism.

Augustin, it appears, called him to account for the passage above cited; asserting that the Apostle's rebuke was genuine, and not a mere feint for promoting their common object,-the dispensation of the truth of the gospel; and that Jerom ought not to teach that the scriptures ever authorize a falsehood: 'your argument,' proceeds Jerom in reply, is rather a novel one: you maintain that the Gentiles who believed in Christ were exempt from the burthen of the law, while the believing Jews were subject to the law; and that, in the persons of the two Apostles the whole doctrine was maintained-Paul, as a teacher of the Gentiles, reproved those who kept the law; and Peter is rightly reprehended for having, as the chief of the circumcision, imposed that upon the Gentiles which it became only the Jewish converts to observe. Now, if you really are of opinion that the believing Jews were debtors to perform the ceremonial law, surely you ought, as being a bishop so famous through the whole world, to publish it universally, and to bring all your brother bishops to the same opinion.' After a great deal of argument

in support of his own views, Jerom thus continues his letter to Augustine; 'you proceed in your epistle as follows-" He did not reprove Peter because he had observed the usages of his fathers, which if he were willing to do, he would have acted neither falsely nor inconsistently." To which I say again, you are a bishop, a ruler of the churches of Christ: prove the truth of your assertion: shew me, if you can, a Jew who, having become a Christian, circumcises his child; who observes his ancient Sabbath; who abstains from the food which God has created to be used with thanksgiving; who on the fourteenth day of the first month, slays a lamb for an evening sacrifice. When you have found that you cannot do this, you will be constrained to renounce your opinion,* which you will perceive how much more difficult it is to establish, than to censure the opinions of others. But lest we should mistrust, or not understand what you say... you repeat, and inculcate that Paul repudiated whatever practice of the Jews had evil in it. But what is the evil repudiated by Paul? It is thus that you describe it" being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit themselves to the righteousness of God." In the next place that, after the passion and resurrection of Christ, and after the sacrament of grace had been proffered and manifested, according to the order of Melchizedek, they still persisted in thinking the old sacraments were to be celebrated, not out of regard

* In other words, If we cannot point out an individual among our acquaintance who at present does a particular thing, we are to take it as a proof that no man is at liberty to do that thing if he chose to do it:-that the thing itself is unlawful.

to their accustomed solemnity, but from a persuasion that they were necessary to our salvation, which nevertheless, if they were never necessary, the martyrdom of the Maccabeans was undergone vainly and gratuitously. And lastly, that they persecuted the Jewish preachers of grace, as enemies to the Jewish law these and other similar errors and corrupt opinions and practices, Paul you say, declares himself to condemn. And it is thus we have learned from you what were the evils of the Jewish system which Paul abandoned. And on the other band you inform us what were the good things of that dispensation proper to be retained.'

The name and authority of St. Augustin, as he is called, stand very high indeed in the English Church, as all our readers know; and it is not a little interesting to have such opinions, as quoted from his letter by the person with whom he was in controversy on the subject. Jerom appears to have been terribly alarmed for the safety of the bishop's soul, on this point. Farther on, Jerom says, 'Many of our actions may be neither essentially bad or good ; as concerning neither righteousness nor unrighteousness, we may walk between them, indifferent as to either; but the observance of the ceremonies of the law cannot be matter of indifference. You pronounce them to be good, I say they are bad; and bad not only as respects the Gentiles, but as respects those of the Jewish nation who believe. On this topic, while you avoid one consequence, you lapse into another for while you are in dread of the blasphemy of Porphyry, you fall into the snare of Ebion, in apologizing for the observance of the law by the Jewish believers. And because you are aware of the danger

ous ground on which you stand, you endeavour by the addition of some nugatory expressions to temper your propositions. Thus you would be understood to say that Paul observed the ceremonies of the law without considering them in any measure necessary to salvation; or without any of that deceitful simulation which he reprehended in Peter: you consider that Peter affected only to maintain the legal ceremonies, while Paul openly and boldly observed them; and then you proceed to say-"For if he only celebrated those sacraments that he might gain the Jews, why did he not also sacrifice with the Gentiles: become as without the law, that he might gain the Gentiles; unless that, being born a Jew, what he did as a Jew was done, not that he might put on the appearance of being what he was not, but that he perceived he would be performing a charitable and feeling part towards his countrymen by acting as if he was of their persuasion as to keeping up the ceremonies of the law; his object being rather to sympathize with them than to deceive them." Thus,' continues Jerom, whose indignation increases as he combats Augustin's opinion that Paul was not a liar and a cheat, 'Thus you set up a notable defence for Paul, by shewing him not to have simulated the error of the Jews, but to have really been a partaker of their error. He was not, it seems, willing to follow Peter in dissembling for fear of the Jews, but frankly, and without any such fear, declared himself a Jew. Thus has the Apostle presented us with a rare example of compassion ;—in order to make the Jews Christians, he has himself become a Jew. As if the only effectual way of recalling the luxurious to a life of temperance, would be to prove oneself as luxurious as