THE AUTHOR
"There are none, almost, who have handled the Scriptures more foolishly and more absurdly than Origen and Jerome."
Martin Luther
Bondage of the Will
"This all breathes of nothing but Jerome, who dares to say, in more places than one, with a supercilious brow and a sacrilegious mouth, 'that those things are made to be of force in Paul, which, in their own places, are of no force.' ...
Thus, when Jerome ought to be read with judgment, and this saying of his to be numbered among those many things which that man impiously wrote, (such was his yawning inconsiderateness, and his stupidity in understanding the Scriptures), the Diatribe [by Erasmus] drags him in without any judgment; and not thinking it right that his authority should be lessened by any mitigating gloss whatever, takes him as a most certain oracle, whereby to judge of, and attemper the Scriptures.
And thus it is; we take the impious sayings of men as rules and guides in the Holy Scripture, and then wonder that it should become 'obscure and ambiguous,' and that so many fathers should be blind in it; whereas, the whole proceeds from this impious and sacrilegious Reason."
Martin Luther
Bondage of the Will
"Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God."
1 John 4:1
"These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so."
Acts 17:11
"In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and teachings of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, being seared in their own conscience, forbidding [κωλυω; forbid, hinder, keep from, not suffer, withstand] to marry, saying to abstain from foods which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creation of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified through the Word of God and prayer."
1 Timothy 4:1-5
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NEW QUOTES ADDED
JUNE 6, 2023
QUOTATIONS: UNBIBLICAL AND NOTORIOUS
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St. Jerome Quotes (340-420 AD)
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The works of those commonly called or traditionally called "Church Fathers" ought to be resorted to not as the Father's of the Church, for this term in a Biblical and correct sense is reserved for those Apostles and Prophets by whose writings and revelations the Church from the beginning is established and built up. Jesus himself warned, and Paul warned, and John warned, of a darkness and an era of apostasy that would come upon the Church, even a flood, which would be spewed out of the mouth of the dragon, a mystery of iniquity, which would if possible deceive even the elect, if it were possible. In the greater context of the end times, the Church Fathers, in so many volumes preserved, are the record of that falling away that would come and that would allow the man of sin - the Antichrist - to be revealed (2 Thessalonians 2:3). After the good beginning of the Gospel, we watch, in these writings and epistles, as the overseers (episkopous) and bishops themselves begin to stray from the Gospel that was originally preached, and finally turn aside "speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them," (Acts 20:28-30). Let all those who seek the truth of the Gospel, refer to the Gospel, to Christ the source and the Spirit of holiness, but let us not establish Christian doctrine upon the corruptions and traditions of men. |
CHURCH FATHERS:St Jerome or Eusebius Hieronymus (c. 340-420 AD) is a canonized Saint and Doctor (Doctores Ecclesiae) of the Roman Catholic Church. Jerome was a hermit monk, and the standardizing translator of the Latin Bible (Latin Vulgate Bible), which he completed under Pope Damasus I (c. 366-384). Jerome became a friend, advisor and secretary to Pope Damasus I (c. 382) after attending a synod in Rome, in which the primacy among the Catholic Bishoprics was officially proclaimed for the Roman See. Jerome lived during an era in which the ecclesiastical church, or rather the Catholic Sect within Christianity, sinking into the apostasy that become Medieval Roman Catholicism, was highly regarded and respected. In fact, two years prior to the Roman See's proclamation, Roman Emperors Gratian (of the West) and Theodosius (of the East) had declared Catholicism the only legal religion within the Roman Empire, empowering the Catholic Sect over all other forms of Christianity, including Biblical Christianity. Even before Jerome was born, the Roman Empire had been imposing civil penalties against non-Catholic Christians as "heretics and schismatics" (c. 326, 'De haeretics,' Theodosian Code).
"We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since in our judgment they are foolish madmen ['dementes'], we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of divine condemnation and the second the punishment of our authority." Feb. 27, 380 AD, 'De fide catholica,' Imperatoris Theodosiani Codex.
As an early Catholic, St Jerome was an aggressive proponent of a variety of unbiblical doctrines (as forewarned in 1 Timothy 4), including asceticism, monasticism, the superiority and singular holiness of virginity, abstinence within marriage, the perpetual virginity of Mary and Joseph, the innate sinfulness or impurity of the marriage bed, and the sinfulness of second marriages, even for widows. Although Jerome's theology is very often unbiblical, his writings do refute a number of more progressive Catholic doctrines, of which he knew nothing whatsoever (see Words of Wisdom gleaned from St Jerome). The quotations below are selected from the writings of St. Jerome.
"In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and teachings of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, being seared in their own conscience, forbidding [κωλυω; forbid, hinder, keep from, not suffer, withstand] to marry, saying to abstain from foods which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creation of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified through the Word of God and prayer." 1 Timothy 4:1-5.
St Jerome on Heretics and Manicheans—that is, Christians Who Rejected the Apostasies of the Early Catholic Sect.
"You may perhaps in your secret thoughts find fault with me for thus assailing a man [Vigilantius] behind his back. I will frankly admit that my indignation overpowers me; I cannot listen with patience to such sacrilegious opinions. I have read of the javelin of Phinehas [Numbers 25:7-8], of the harshness of Elijah [1 Kings 18:40], of the jealous anger of Simon the zealot, of the severity of Peter in putting to death Ananias and Sapphira [Acts 5:1-10], and of the firmness of Paul who, when Elymas the sorcerer withstood the ways of the Lord, doomed him to lifelong blindness [Acts 13:8-11]. There is no cruelty in regard for God's honor. Wherefore also in the Law it is said: 'If thy brother or thy friend or the wife of thy bosom entice thee from the truth, thine hand shall be upon them and thou shalt shed their blood' [Deuteronomy 13:6-9], and so shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of Israel [Deuteronomy 22:22, 13:5, etc.]." – St. Jerome (404 AD)
Source: Letter CIX to Riparius by St Jerome (404 AD). Riparius, a presbyter of Aquitaine, had written to inform Jerome that Vigilantius (see Letter LXI) was preaching in Southern Gaul (Southwestern France) against the worship of relics and the keeping of night vigils; and this apparently with the consent of his bishop. The Biblical Christians of that region suffered persecution from the early Catholic Sect, and by the early 13th Century, after Catholicism had fully developed into the Roman Catholic Papacy, great crusades were launched against the region in order to divest them of their Scriptures and finally subject it's citizens and rulers to the Roman Pontiff and the Roman Catholic religion. Both the pre-Reformation Protestant Christians, and their Catholic neighbors who dwelt peacefully together with them under the religious freedoms maintained in the region, were besieged and slaughtered in their cities.
"In 404 AD, those who would not enter the Catholic temples, among whom was Vigilantius—lest they seem to participate in the veneration of the relics upon which they were built, for these were Christians outside the Catholic sect who refused a number of Catholic practices including the veneration of the dead ... & their relics—were decried by St. Jerome as 'madmen' & made out to be 'as Manicheans' ... not because they were in truth, but because he was so empowered by the law [Roman Law] to point out the heretics for punishment." (Editor's Introduction to Jean Paul Perrin's 'History of the Vaudois or Waldenses,' 1624 English Edition, Updated & Annotated, H&F Books, 2022 Pre-Print Edition.)
St Jerome on Asceticism in Marriage and Remarriage, Sexuality, Monastic Life, Abstaining from Foods, Etc.
Quotations from the writings of St Jerome in support of the ascetic apostasies of the early Catholic Sect regarding marriage and remarriage, the supposed innate sinfulness of sexual intimacy, the superiority of virginity, monasticism, and abstinence from foods. (Reference Scripture, 1 Timothy 4:1-5: "In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and teachings of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, being seared in their own conscience, forbidding [κωλυω; forbid, hinder, keep from, not suffer, withstand] to marry, saying to abstain from foods which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creation of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified through the Word of God and prayer.")
"A woman who marries more than once fancies herself worthy of praise because she is not so bad as the prostitutes, because she compares favorably with these victims of indiscriminate lust by surrendering herself to one alone and not to a number." – St. Jerome
Source: Letter CXXIII To Ageruchia (a widow) by St Jerome (Letters and Select Works).
Refuting Scriptures: "The wife is bound by the Law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 7:39; "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." Hebrews 13:4.
"What then? do I condemn second marriages? not at all; but I commend first ones. Do I expel twice-married persons from the church? Far from it; but I urge those who have been once married to lives of continence. The Ark of Noah contained unclean animals as well as clean. It contained both creeping things and human beings. In a great house there are vessels of different kinds, some to honor and some to dishonor (2 Timothy 2:20)." – St. Jerome
Source: Letter CXXIII To Ageruchia (a widow) by St. Jerome (Letters and Select Works).
Refuting Scriptures: "The wife is bound by the Law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 7:39; "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." Hebrews 13:4.
"In the gospel parable the seed sown in the good ground brings forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold (Matthew 13:8). The hundredfold which comes first betokens the crown of virginity; the sixtyfold which comes next refers to the work of widows; while the thirtyfold—indicated by joining together the points of the thumb and forefinger—denotes the marriage-tie. What room is left for double marriages? None. They are not counted. Such weeds do not grow in good ground but among briers and thorns." – St. Jerome
Source: Letter CXXIII To Ageruchia (a widow) by St Jerome (Letters and Select Works).
Refuting Scriptures: "The wife is bound by the Law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 7:39; "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." Hebrews 13:4.
"You will do as others wish; you will eat what you are told to eat; you will wear what clothes are given you; you will perform the task allotted to you; you will obey one whom you do not like, you will come to bed tired out; you will go to sleep on your feet and you will be forced to rise before you have had sufficient rest. ... If you suffer wrong you will bear it in silence; the superior of the community you will fear as a master and love as a father. Whatever he may order you to do you will believe to be wholesome for you. You will not pass judgment upon those who are placed over you, for your duty will be to obey them and to do what you are told, according to the words spoken by Moses: 'keep silence and hearken, O Israel,' Deuteronomy 27:9." – St. Jerome
Source: Letter CXXV. To Rusticus by St. Jerome (Letters and Select Works).
Refuting Scriptures: Colossians 2:18-23; Matthew 23:8-11; Matthew 18:15-17 and John 13:8-15.