There is a passage in S. Jerome’s treatise
against Jovinian (lib. i. § 26, Opp. ed.
Vallars., ii. 279) which has been curiously misunderstood, as if it favoured
the Romanist view of S. Peter’s relation to the other apostles, whereas in
truth the passage, taken as a whole, is in thorough agreement with the ordinary
Catholic teaching on that subject. S. Jerome is proving to Jovinian that S.
John the Evangelist was a virgin disciple;
and he says, “if he was not a virgin, let Jovinian explain why he was more
beloved than the other apostles. But you reply that the Church is founded on
Peter, though that same thing was done in another place upon all the apostles,
and all of them receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the solidity of
the Church is established equally upon them all; still among the twelve one is
therefore chosen, that by the appointment of a head an occasion of dissension may be taken away (schismatic tollatur
occasion). But why was not John chosen, who was a virgin? Deference was paid to
age, because Peter was the elder, lest one, who was still a young man and
almost a boy, should be given precedence before men of mature age (progressae
aetatis hominibus praeferretur); and lest the good Master, who felt bound to remove from His disciples on occasion of strife (qui
occasionem jurhii debuerat auferre discipulis), and who had said to them, ‘My
peace I give unto you; peace I leave with you,’ and who had also said, ‘Whosoever
would be great among you, let him be the least of all’—[lest He, I say,] should
seem to furnish a cause of grudge against the young man whom He loved . .
.Peter was an apostle, and John was an apostle, the first married, the second a
virgin. But Peter was nothing else than
an apostle (sed Petrus apostolus tantum); John was both an apostle, and an
evangelist, and a prophet.” The Romanists are accustomed to quote a few words
out of this passage in order to show that in it S. Jerome taught the doctrine
that S. Peter was (and by implication the reigning pope is) the divinely appointed
centre and root of unity in the Church. They say that S. Jerome teaches that S.
Peter was appointed a head, that “the occasion
of schism might be removed.” But, if S. Jerome had thought that S. Peter
was invested with such a headship as that, his whole argument would have
crumbled to pieces. He wants to show the complete equality of the apostles in
their relation to the Church. But if one of them had been appointed by our Lord
the necessary centre of unity, that equality would have existed no longer. The solidity
of the Church would not in that case be “equally established upon them all.” S.
Jerome, as a matter of fact, attributes to S. Peter a very different kind of
headship. It is like the headship of the foreman in a jury, or like the
headship of the Duke of Norfolk among our English peers. Such a headship, which
is in fact a mere primary of order, would not affect the equality of the
apostles in their relation to the Church. The Romanist mistake has arisen from
not noticing that S. Jerome, when he says that our Lord took away an occasion of dissension, is referring to
the disputes which used to take place among the disciples as to which of them
should be greatest. S. Jerome thinks that our Lord gave a primacy of order to
one of the twelve that “an occasion of
dissension might be taken away” (schismatic tollatur occasion); just as he
also thinks that “the good Master” chose S. Peter, the elder, rather than S.
John, the younger, to be the head, in order that He might remove another “occasion of strife” (occasionem jurgii).
It was no doubt the word “schisma”
which caused the mistake. That word is sometimes used in the technical sense of
schism. But it is also used both in
Latin and Greek in the untechnical sense of dissension.
For example, S. John uses the word σχισμα in three passages in his Gospel (S. John
vii. 43; ix. 16; x. 19); and always in the sense of a dissension or dispute, or
angry division of opinion. In the
Vulgate, S. Jerome has rendered the word σχισμα by “dissension”
in S. John vii. 43 and in S. John x. 19; but in S. John ix. 16, where the sense
is precisely the same, he has used the word “schisma.” No one would suggest schism
as the right English translation of S. Jerome’s “schisma” in S. John ix. 16; it there plainly means dissension; and the whole argument
requires that a similar meaning should be attributed to it in the treatise
against Jovinian. In a letter to Evangelus (Ep.
cxivi., Opp. ed. Vallars., i.
1076) S. Jerome speaks of one among a body of presbyters being made a bishop “as
a preventive against schism” (in schismatic remedium). Here the word “schismatis” has undoubtedly its
technical meaning, schism. The sense
of the word varies according to the context. It is worth noticing that S.
Jerome wrote his treatise against Jovinian in the year 393, twelve years after
the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, and right years after his departure
from Rome in considerable wrath with the Roman clergy. The admirable teaching
on the equality of the apostles, which is contained in this treatise,
illustrates Mr. Gore’s view that S. Jerome changed his tone about the position
and privileges of the Roman bishop after the death of Damasus at the end of the
year 384 (see Gore’s Church and Ministry,
1st ed., p. 172). Closer acquaintance with the local Roman Church seems to have
led S. Jerome to reconsider some of the views which he had expressed in his
letters to Damasus, and thus a remedy was provided for the somewhat papalizing
tone which he had imbibed in Rome during his catechumenate. S. Jerome’s faith
was in fact purified, and brought up to the normal level of the faith of the
saints. (F.W. Puller, The Primitive
Saints and The See of Rome [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1893], 392-95)