Below is my translation of Jerome's introduction to his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. It is rough in spots, particuarly in the last paragraph. Were I a better scholar I would revist this text before putting in online for all to see my egregious errors. But I'm not, and I feel that getting it out here, some parts of this text are now about 3 or 4 years old, is more important that beginning from scratch. Personally I want to get on with other Matthean projects. So in spite of the errors, which are all mine, I offer this translation for what it is worth. I hope it will be helpful.

ljs, 8 June 2004.

There have been many who have written Gospels, as the evangelist Luke testifies, saying: Since many have attempted to order the story of things, which were done among us, just as they were handed down to us, those who saw the word from the beginning and served him, they declared monuments preserved until the present time, which have been edited by various writers, the first were of various heretical sects as that sect in Egypt, and also Thomas, and Matthew, and Bartholomew, and others of the 12 apostles, and Basilides and Apelles, and others who specify what is most boundless. Since it is necessary to speak this in present times, certain things stand out which without the spirit and grace of God are attempted more to order the story than to weave the truth of history. In these things it is justly possible to fit the prophetic word: "Woe to those who prophesy from their own heart, who walk after their own spirit, who say, 'Thus says the Lord,' and the Lord did not send them." (Eze. 13:3). About these also the Savior in the gospel of John said: "All who came before me, they were thieves and robbers. (Jn. 10:8). The ones who come not, those are sent. For he says, "They came and I did not send them." (Jer. 14.14, 23.21). In coming is the presumption of rashness, in sending is the obedience of service. Moreover, the church which was established upon the Rock by the voice of the Lord, whom the king leads into his chamber (Cant. 1) and to whom, through an opening of a hidden descent like the necks of the hind and deer, he sends his own hand (Cant. 5) , (Cant. 2:9). Four rivers discharge from paradise, (Gen. 2), having four corners and four rings through which as the arc of the covenant and the guardian of the Law of the Lord is carried by steadfast wood.

First of all is Matthew the Publican, by name called Levi, who published his gospel in Judea in the Hebrew diction, because of those who believed in Jesus out of the Jews and by no means the shadow of the Law by proceeding into the truth of the gospel. The second, Marc, the interpreter of the apostle Peter, and first bishop of the church of Alexandria, who himself in fact did not see the Lord Savior, but the things which he heard his master say beforehand, he related more of the deeds than the order. The third is Luke the doctor, from the nation of Syria Antioch, whose people are in the gospel, who himseld was the disciple of the apostle Paul in Achaia and Boeotia preserved a volume (II Cor. 8) recalling a certain higher one, and as he himself reveals in the prologue, describes the things he heard more than the things he saw. Last is the apostle and evangelist John, whom Jesus loved the most, who rested on the chest of the Lord, he drank deeply of the river of the purest doctrine, and who alone deserved to hear from the cross: Behold your mother. When he was in Asia, and already then the seeds of heresy were sprouting, of Cerinthius, Ebionites, and others who deny that Christ came in the flesh who John in his letters called Antichrist, and the apostle Paul frequently strikes against, there gathered together from almost all the churches of Asia, and ambassadors from many churches, that he write more profoundly about the divinity of the Savior and about the Word of God himself, to burst out not more from boldness than in blessed temerity.

And Church history relates when he was compelled by the brethren to write, he responded so that it would be done, if I appoint by fasting in common all to pray to God: when this was done, being saturated with revelation, he uttered (lit. vomited) the prologue coming from heaven: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God, this one was in the beginning with God. Therefore these four gospels which were foretold often and which Ezekiel proved in his book in which first the vision is composed: "And in the middle just as in the likeness of four animals: and the faces of them were the face of a man, and the face of a lion, and the face of a calf, and the face of an eagle." The first face of the man signifies Matthew, who began to write as it were about (him) as a man: The Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. The second, Mark, in which the voice of a lion is heard roaring in the wilderness: The voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths." The third, the calf prefigures the beginning which the evangelist Luke begins from Zacharias the priest. The fourth is John the evangelist, who assumes the wings of an eagle, and hastens to higher things, discusses the Word of God.

Others who follow achieve the same sense. Their legs are straight, and their winged feet, and wheresoever the spirit goes, they go, and they do not turn back, and their back is full of eyes, and lights and torches dash about in their midst, and wheel in wheel, and on one are the four faces. Also in the Apocalypse, John, after the description of the twenty four elders who holding crowns and bowls worship the Lamb of God, he leads into the shining ones and the thunders and the roaming seven spirits, and the sea of glass and the four animals full of eyes saying: the first animal is in the shape of a lion, the second a cow, the third a man, and the fourth a flying eagle." And after a little, "They were full", he says, "of eyes, they had no rest day or night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come." In all these it is clearly shown that the four Evangelists ought to be accepted and singing for the living Church rather than all the dirges of the aprocrypha by dead heretics. I am sufficiently amazed, dearest Eusebius, why the one who will soon sail quickly to Rome, shall have wished to be given this provision to you from me, while I am explaining Matthew briefly, I should draw tight the words, expand the meanings. If I have remembered my responses, never did you seek the count of years in small days. For, first it is difficult to read everything they wrote in the gospels. Second, when it is extrememly difficult, I emply my judgement for which things are the best to undertake.

I confess that I have read many years ago Origen's twenty-five books on Matthew and just as many of his homilies, the sort divided by interpretation. And I have read the commentary of Theophilus bishop of the city of Antioch, also the martyr Hippolytus, and Theodore Heracleot, Apollinaris of Laodicea, and Didymus of Alexandria, and of Latin writers Hilarius, the Opuscula of Victorinus Fortunatia from whom I have carved, even if only a little bit. Memory has written something worthy.

But you, with Pascha imminent in two weeks already and although the wind is blowing, you compel me to compose so that when the stenographers/secretaries follow, when they write the slips of papyrus, when they emend, in which space they arrange for purity, greatly because you know that in three months I so have wilted so that scarcely now may I undertake to walk, nor am I able to compensate for the magnitude of labor in the shortness of time. Therefore, laying aside the authority of ancient writers, I have arranged briefly interpretation that you especially requested, , the skill to neither read nor follow them was given to me. And sometimes, I have put in the flower of spiritual understanding which sometimes is confusing, reserving the completed work for the future. If however my life shall be longer or you shall have fulfilled your promise in a soon return, then I shall strive to finish what remains, with indeed the foundations established and the walls partly constructed, I shall set the noblest keystone, so that you know what lies between the rash audacity of the one who is to speak and the late-night diligence of the one who is to write. Certainly you know, and I should blush of my fraud that I call you a witness, that presently I should dictate the little work with such speed, so that you suppose that I read more things than I compose. Nor do you consider this statement of character about arrogance and trust, but that what I shall desire to show you, so much shall you influence me who prefers rather to be tested before the learned than to refuse what you eagerly requestted. When, I implore you, that if it is an elegant work and the thought does not produce sliding, do not blame this on haste, nor on inexperience. Give copies when you come to Rome to the chief virgin of Christ who asks me that I write on the Song of Songs, I have put that long standing hope off into the future; restricting you in this law, so that if you carry off the books for her to yourself, those books also close up in their own chest afterwards.