Introduction to This Volume
How this book is arranged
This is the forty-eighth volume of a series that gathers the writings of the early Church in order of date, from the generation after the apostles down to the eighth century. This volume holds Jerome’s Commentaries and Prefaces, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Palladius on Chrysostom, from the period about AD 380 – 428.
Within each work the text is divided into chapters and numbered sections, so that any passage can be found again and cited. The small bold figures in the text are the section numbers.
The translations
The text is in English only. Wherever a modern English version has been prepared for SermonIndex it is used here; otherwise the book prints an older public-domain translation. In both cases the wording is the translator’s own: older translations have not been altered beyond dividing them into sections. The sources for every work are listed at the back of the book, together with the licence under which each text is released. All the works in this volume are printed in older public-domain translations.
In this volume
Jerome was born about AD 347 at Stridon and studied in Rome. After some years in the Syrian desert and at Constantinople he settled in Bethlehem about AD 386, where he lived as a monk until his death in AD 420. He translated the Bible into Latin, the version called the Vulgate, wrote commentaries on much of Scripture, and took part in many of the disputes of his day.
Theodore was born at Antioch about AD 350, was a friend of John Chrysostom, and was bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia from AD 392 until his death in AD 428. He was the foremost teacher of the Antiochene way of reading Scripture. His teaching was condemned after his death, and much of what he wrote survives only in Syriac translations.
Palladius was born in Galatia about AD 363 and lived as a monk in Egypt and Palestine. He became bishop of Helenopolis and was a friend and defender of John Chrysostom. He wrote the Lausiac History, about AD 419, for a court official named Lausus, and the Dialogue on the Life of Chrysostom about AD 408.
The commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia are printed from the Syriac translation made by Alphonse Mingana, and the numbers that appear in the text refer to notes printed at the end of each commentary.
Dates and authorship
Dates are approximate and are debated by scholars. Each work begins with a short introduction that states what is known about its author and its date, and what is uncertain.