Friday, October 20, 2017

Quote from Jerome

The following quote from Jerome is rather apropos, 1600+ years after he wrote this:


Husbandmen, masons, carpenters, workers in wood and metal, wool-dressers and fullers, as well as those artisans who make furniture and cheap utensils, cannot attain the ends they seek without instruction from qualified persons. As Horace says

Doctors alone profess the healing art

And none but joiners ever try to join.

The art of interpreting the scriptures is the only one of which all men everywhere claim to be masters. To quote Horace again

Taught or untaught we all write poetry.


The chatty old woman, the doting old man, and the wordy sophist, one and all take in hand the Scriptures, rend them in pieces and teach them before they have learned them. Some with brows knit and bombastic words, balanced one against the other philosophize concerning the sacred writings among weak women. Others—I blush to say it—learn of women what they are to teach men; and as if even this were not enough, they boldly explain to others what they themselves by no means understand. (Jerome, Letter LIII. To Paulinus)