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The Pro Caelio in St. Jerome's Letters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

J. F. Gilliam
J. F. Gilliam
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
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Extract

The Pro Caelio is certainly, as an editor describes it, one of Cicero's most brilliant and entertaining orations. If separate editions have been few and if the Pro Caelio is less well known than some other speeches, the explanation lies not in the oration's merits but in the fact that the reading of teachers is to some extent determined by what has been thought proper for schoolboys. In antiquity, in any event, the oration seems to have been highly regarded; it is quoted by Petronius, Aulus Gellius, and Fronto, and a number of times by Quintilian. Moreover, writers of the fourth century and later, notably St. Augustine, also show some acquaintance with it.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , April 1953, pp. 103 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1953

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References

1 Austin, R. G., Tulli, M.Ciceronis pro M. Caelio oratio (Oxford 1933)Google Scholar, the only English edition and an excellent one. Other works which will be cited by editor or author are three editions of the letters: Migne, PL 22 (a reprint of the edition of D. Vallarsi); Hilberg, I., CSEL 54–56 (Vienna 1910–1918)Google Scholar; Labourt, J., Saint Jérôme: Lettres (Paris 1949– )Google Scholar, the second volume of which, published in 1951, ends with Ep. 52 (ed. Budé); and Kunst, C., De S. Hieronymi Studiis Ciceronianis, Dissertationes Philologae Vindobonenses, 12 (1918) 109–219Google Scholar. Luebeck, E., Hieronymus quos noverit scriptores et ex quibus hauserit (Leipzig 1872)Google Scholar contains no reference to the Pro Caelio. It would serve little purpose to give a more general bibliography; one has recently been drawn up by Ellspennann, G. L., The Attitude of the Early Christian Latin Writers Toward Pagan Literature and Learning, Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, 82 (1949) xx–xxiiiGoogle Scholar, xxvi–xxvii. Of particular value is Pease, A. S., “The Attitude of Jerome towards Pagan Literature,” TAPA 50 (1919) 150–167Google Scholar. A second edition of Austin's work (1952) became available to me only when this note was already in proof. My references are to the first edition. Austin now notes the echo of Pro Caelio 12 in Ep. 125.18.3 (my no. 14) and also compares Pro Caelio 19 and other Ciceronian passages with Ep. 20.2.1 (the contrast of rivolus and fons).

2 See Austin, 129–131; for later writers, see Weyman, C., WS 17 (1895) 317Google Scholar and Austin, 62–63. Austin's conclusion, “It looks as if S. Augustine popularized the speech …” seems to go rather too far in view of the wide acquaintance with it among his contemporaries. Because of the rarity of Latin literary texts from Egypt, it may be worth noting that Pro Caelio 26–55 is preserved in a fragmentary papyrus codex from Oxyrhynchus; Pack, R. A., The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt (Ann Arbor 1952) 95, no. 2283Google Scholar.

3 Earlier suggestions of reminiscences are listed below, following the citation of parallel passages (nos. 2, 8, and 9). It has not seemed worth while to go beyond the works named in n. 1 in order to discover who first made the suggestion.

4 No other oration is cited more than once or twice in Hilberg's apparatus.

5 It may be useful to list the same passages according to sections of the oration: Pro Caelio 6 and 30 = Epp. 50.5.1, 50.5.5, 57.4.1; 12 = 60.7.3; 12 = 125.18.3; 18 =127.5.2; 21 = 49–14–1; 27 = 45–4–1; 29 = 108.13.6; 36 = 50.5.5; 38 = 127.3.1; 41 = 7.4.1, 79.7.5, 125.1.4; 50 = 40.2.2; 51 = 14.10.1; 67 = 50.5.4; 69 = 60.10.5.

6 For the resort see Friedlaender, L., Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms I10 (Leipzig 1922) 407–410Google Scholar. Cf. also Augustine, Contra Acad. 2.2.6: Me et baias et amoena pomaria et delicate nitidaque convivial … abiciens ….

7 Recherches de science religieuse 6 (1916) 166Google Scholar.

8 Omnes tenentes gladios, et ad bella doctissimi; uniuscuiusque ensis super femur suum propter timores nocturnos.

9 It is hardly necessary to stress the knowledge of Cicero's writings among educated men in the western provinces; see e.g. Zielinski, T., Cicero im Wandel der Jahrhunderte4 (Leipzig/Berlin 1929) 87–130Google Scholar; Marrou, H. I., Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris 1938) 6, 19–26Google Scholar.

10 P. Courcelle notes the more extensive use of Greek in letters addressed to such men as Pammachius and Domnio, citing Epp. 49 and 50; Les lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore (Paris 1943) 41Google Scholar. The whole section on Jerome (pp. 37—115) is of great value.

11 The controversy between Rufinus and Jerome of course involved a great many complicated issues, including the famous vision in which he was charged with being a Ciceronian, not a Christian (Ep. 22.30) and his subsequent renunciation of secular authors. For a recent summary of opinions on the importance of the dream and its influence on Jerome's studies see Labourt, I 167.

12 Primoribus labris, etc., however, was a common, proverbial expression; see Otto, A., Die Sprichwörter und spricbwörtlichen Redensarten der Römer (Leipzig 1890) 181–182Google Scholar. It should be noted too that Jerome was certainly not trying to conceal his erudition in this work.