The grounds on which certain works of Jerome have been selected, as most important, for translation in this edition, while others have been omitted, are given in the Prolegomena (p.xvii–xviii). The first draught of the translation was prepared by my coadjutors and former pupils, Mr. G. Lewis and Mr. W. G. Martley, who also added most of the notes; but I have gone minutely through every part, correcting, adding, and at times re-writing, both in the ms. and in the proof, and I have composed the Prolegomena and Indices. I have endeavoured to make the work useful not to the theologian alone, but also to the historical student. The general reader will find interest and even entertainment in the parts of the work referred to in the Index under such headings as “Pictures of Contemporary Life,” “Proverbs,” “Stories” and “Quotations,” or by looking at the Letters to which special attention is called in the Prolegomena at p. xviii. The Table of Contents also, in which a short description is given of the purport of each Letter, will help each class of readers to select the parts suitable to them. Finally, the Life of Jerome included in the Prolegomena, though closely compressed, has been furnished with copious references, which will make it a key to the whole work. It is only to be regretted that, through the impossibility of including Jerome’s work on Illustrious Men and his controversy with Rufinus in the present volume, it is necessary to send the reader for a few of the most important facts to Vol. iii of this Series. I can hardly expect that, in a work which has been carried through amidst many pressing engagements, which has been printed two thousand miles away, and of which I have had only a single proof to correct, I have been able to avoid all mistakes. But I hope that no inaccuracies have crept in of sufficient magnitude to mar the usefulness of the work. I have felt the responsibility of making the first translation of Jerome into English, especially as a translation once made acts as a hindrance to those who might wish to attempt the same task. But I trust that the present work may be found to be not altogether an unworthy presentment of the great Latin church-writer to the English-speaking world. W. H. Fremantle. Canterbury, November, 1892. xi Prolegomena to Jerome.

St. Jerome’s importance lies in the facts: (1) That he was the author of the Vulgate Translation of the Bible into Latin, (2) That he bore the chief part in introducing the ascetic life into Western Europe, (3) That his writings more than those of any of the Fathers bring before us the general as well as the ecclesiastical life of his time. It was a time of special interest, the last age of the old Greco-Roman civilization, the beginning of an altered world. It included the reigns of Julian (361–63), Valens (364–78), Valentinian (364–75), Gratian (375–83), Theodosius (379–95) and his sons, the definitive establishment of orthodox Christianity in the Empire, and the sack of Rome by Alaric (410). It was the age of the great Fathers, of Ambrose and Augustine in the West, of Basil, the Gregories, and Chrysostom in the East.

His Commentary on Matthew, written in 398 and profoundly influential in the West, appears here for the first time in English translation. Jerome covers the entire text of Matthew's gospel by means of brief explanatory comments that clarify the text literally and historically.