New Humanists

The Hieronymus Option | Episode LXXXV

Ancient Language Institute Episode 85

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Can Christians read and appreciate pagan literature? The vexed relationship between the Church and a world that hates it has generated many different responses. The most popular recent proposal is Rod Dreher's "Benedict option" - Dreher counsels Christian retrenchment and quasi-monastic self-sufficiency. But the great saint of late antiquity and compiler of the Vulgate, Jerome (aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus), proposes a different option, drawn from the Mosaic Law. Jonathan and Ryan look at three different letters from Jerome's voluminous correspondence, each taking a different angle on literature and learning.


Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO


Recommended edition of the Vulgate: https://amzn.to/3FFjqaR


Athanasius' On the Incarnation: https://amzn.to/42h3ww9


Apuleius' Metamorphoses: https://amzn.to/4429DWz


Rod Dreher's The Benedict Option: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780735213302


Passion of Perpetua and Felicity: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0324.htm


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Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com