The Date of Jerome's Birth

A T In Abacuc 2, 3.14 (= CCSL 76A.645.1010 ff.) Jerome states that he was a boy studying grammatice when the death of Julian the Apostate was announced. Since he should have been no older than sixteen at this point in his schooling, F. Cavallera reasoned that he was born at the earliest in 347.1 But if this is correct, Jerome then dubs himself senex when he was no older than forty (Vita Malchi 10 = PL 23 [1883] col. 62; dated 386/7). Such premature professions of senility have prompted scholars to argue for an earlier birthdate. Thus A. Penna places Jerome's birth in the opening years of the 340's,2 P. Antin vers 345; the latter suggests that the saint's memory may have lapsed at In Abacuc 2, 3.14 and points out that the age-limits in education were not in any case inflexible.3 Recently P. Hamblenne has even championed 330/1, the date given by Prosper Tiro's Chronicle, and he is now followed by J. N. D. Kelly.4 P. Jay, however, has rejected Hamblenne's attempt to discard totally the testimony at In Abacuc 2, 3.14. He admits only as an extreme hypothesis that Jerome's recollection might be jumbled, but invokes flexibility in educational progress to place his birth dans les annees 345-347 sans qu'on puisse raisonnablement preciser davantage.5 Jerome's birthdate is thus far from fixed. So long as the exactitude either of his memory or his use of puer at In Abacuc 2, 3.14 is open to any question, the possibility of a birthdate before Jay's limit must be admitted. And it should not escape notice that a birthdate after 345-347 is equally feasible. For once it is accepted that Jerome could call himself senex when he was forty or so, it cannot be denied that he could have assumed this designation in his thirties. It will be useful, therefore, to establish at the outset termini intra quos for his birth. In the preface to Epist. 120 Jerome states that Patera taught at Rome

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