The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship [Hardcover]

Megan Hale Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0226899004 | ISBN-13: 978-0226899008

In the West, monastic ideals and scholastic pursuits are complementary; monks are popularly imagined copying classics, preserving learning through the Middle Ages, and establishing the first universities. But this dual identity is not without its contradictions. While monasticism emphasizes the virtues of poverty, chastity, and humility, the scholar, by contrast, requires expensive infrastructure—a library, a workplace, and the means of disseminating his work. In The Monk and the Book, Megan Hale Williams argues that Saint Jerome was the first to represent biblical study as a mode of asceticism appropriate for an inhabitant of a Christian monastery, thus pioneering the enduring linkage of monastic identities and institutions with scholarship.

Revisiting Jerome with the analytical tools of recent cultural history—including the work of Bourdieu, Foucault, and Roger Chartier—Williams proposes new interpretations that remove obstacles to understanding the life and legacy of the saint. Examining issues such as the construction of Jerome’s literary persona, the form and contents of his library, and the intellectual framework of his commentaries, Williams shows that Jerome’s textual and exegetical work on the Hebrew scriptures helped to construct a new culture of learning. This fusion of the identities of scholar and monk, Williams shows, continues to reverberate in the culture of the modern university.

"[Williams] has written a fascinating study, which provides a series of striking insights into the career of one of the most colorful and influential figures in Christian antiquity. Jerome's Latin Bible would become the foundational text for the intellectual development of the West, providing words for the deepest aspirations and most intensely held convictions of an entire civilization. Williams's book does much to illumine the circumstances in which that fundamental text was produced, and reminds us that great ideas, like great people, have particular origins, and their own complex settings."—Eamon Duffy, New York Review of Books

 

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"She has written a fascinating study, which provides a series of striking insights into the career of one of the most colorful and influential figures in Christian antiquity. Jerome''s Latin Bible would become the foundational text for the intellectual development of the West, providing words for the deepest aspirations and most intensely held convictions of an entire civilization. Williams''s book does much to illumine the circumstances in which that fundamental text was produced, and reminds us that great ideas, like great people, have particular origins, and their own complex settings."—Eamon Duffy, New York Review of Books

(Eamon Duffy New York Review of Books )

"Williams has written a provocative book, for it encourages us to look behind Jerome''s rather difficult and oft-studied personal and theological conflicts with his contemporarites to view him in the light of his importance in the history of late-antique education and book culture."

(Michele Renee Salzman Speculum )

"The author has greatly increased readers'' understanding not only of Jerome, but also of the nature of the Biblical commentary itself. She should be congratulated on providing readers with an intelligent, highly readable and thought-provoking book."

(Marilyn Dunn Historian )

"As a monk and a lover of books . . . I thoroughly enjoyed allowing the author to immerse me in Jerome''s world: the narrow world of the ascetic and the wider one of patronage and readership."

(Benedict M. Guevin American Benedictine Review )

"Williams'' meticulously detailed book richly evokes the world of Jerome in all its complexity and will be the ''standard'' treatment of his life and legacy for many decades. Rather than resting on previous scholarship, she strikes new ground by using insights from cultural studies and the assessment of the practices of everyday life to make a fresh assessment of Jerome. Her work is based on thorough and painstaking analysis of his writings in their own context. She brings to light the process of how these writings were produced, the wider situations that they addressed, the paraphernalia and framework that enabled their emergence, and the way in which they were collated, circulated, and preserved."—J. Jayakiran Sepastian, Interpretation

(J. Jayakiran Sepastian Interpretation )

"An important book about the culture of books and a valuable acquisition for scholars and libraries."

(Michael Heintz Religious Studies Review )

"This is an immensely readable book that, without artifice or invention, gives us a picture of Jerome''s desk and the books that surrounded it, while allowing a clear view through the window onto the world that both threatened and supported him."

(Padraig o Caoimh Downside Review )

About the Author

Megan Hale Williams is assistant professor of history at San Francisco State University. She is the coauthor, with Anthony Grafton, of Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (December 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226899004
• ISBN-13: 978-0226899008
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #378,899 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Monasticism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine book on Jerome, his scholarship, and times, September 9, 2007

By 

Jeri Nevermind "loves to read" (Idaho) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship (Hardcover)

Jerome was a genius, a biblical scholar, and a pivotal figure in the history of the bible.

Williams gives a broad background on the kind of schooling Jerome had. There were three types of education "the ludus litterarius, the humble school of letters, the school of the grammaticus, where students moved from basic literacy skills to the study of literature, and the rhetorician's school, where young men mastered advanced exercises in composition...Schooling in basic literacy was available almost everywhere" (p 6-7).

Those who completed the entire course entered the cultured elite, set apart by every word they spoke from the common man. Jerome had the best education the Roman world could give. Among this elite, books and letters were constantly exchanged, and everyone seemed to travel constantly.

Jerome clearly loved the classic works he read when young. Nevertheless, when he was "a hermit in the desert, he began to study Hebrew with a converted Jew" (p 27) but he found Hebrew "a sharp contrast with rhetorical culture...harsh and guttural" (p 27).

He would later compare classical literature to a sensual indulgence that, like rich food, needs to be rejected in favor of the the austerities of the life of a Christian. True happiness resulted in throwing away that which had a glittery appeal, but no real substance. Jerome has frequently been depicted as a hermit, his head bent to a book, living in a cave.

It is heart wrenching to read about the vast libraries in antiquity since the bulk of those books are no longer in existence. "Ancient libraries grew by way of the exchange of books among like-minded members of the literate elite" (p 136). It is remarkable how many books were in circulation given just how expensive they were to produce. The Villa of the Papyri "contained about two thousand papyrus rolls" (p 139).

As for Jerome's own library in Bethlehem, Williams takes the view that it must have had the Hexaplaric Bible. Not to mention works the average biblical scholar of today would exchange his first born son for. (An Aramaic Matthew?)

The constant battles between scholars as to what was orthodox and what was not sound suspiciously like our own time. Jerome's deep passion for Origen caused him unending trouble, as the Origenist controversy turned into belief of Origenist heresy. It is especially interesting to read of the circle of monks, priests, and bishops in southwestern Gaul that Jerome exchanged books and letters with from Bethlehem.

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A better doctoral dissertation than a book, April 24, 2009

By 

Chicago reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship (Hardcover)

Certainly at the end of this book I know more facts about Jerome, but I am uncertain whether I have any better understanding of the man. The research that underlies this book is impressive. But, its presentation of that research leaves me asking for a bit more interpretation or "color" from the author. Just one example from page 63: "He [Jerome] had made a number of influential enemies during his last two years at Rome, and when his patron Damasus died, he was no longer safe in the Western capital." Of course, my questions were immediately, How did he make such enemies? and Why was he no longer safe? Yet, neither question was even given a sentence. The fact was without even a modicum of exegesis. Was it because the author didn't know? (Reasonable, of course). Or, was it just not part of her thesis requirements? Such color would have made the book a "story" rather than a presentation of fact. Finally, with the Vulgate having such historical place in the Church, I would have liked to have had an exposition on how Jerome wrestled that, specifically, into being. Absent that history, I fear Jerome is presented as little more than an expert copyist. I would have given the book another Amazon star if the book weren't so expensive relative to its content.