Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 92 No. 1, 2022.
Review article
https://doi.org/10.53745/bs.92.1.5
Saint Jerome – a Friend. The Ideal of Friendship and Guidelines of his Epistles
Vanda Kraft-Soić
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
On the basis of the epistles of St. Jerome, the article is attempting to draw attention to the importance and meaning of friends and friendship in his life and to discern his theory of friendship, i.e., the idea of friendship that he offered to his readers. The first part points out the importance of friends and friendships for the teacher from Stridon, to which other parts also contribute from various perspectives. The second part draws his understanding of the origin and nature of friendship, as well as the ties that bind friends. The third part points out the importance of communication that, according to St. Jerome, feeds, strengthens, maintains, and testifies to friendship. The fourth part is based primarily on the correspondence between St. Jerome and St. Augustine and it deals with the question of how friends should behave and which norms should they follow when there is a disagreement, argument, fights, or polemics between them. The article draws attention to the preciousness of friendship in Jerome’s life. Jerome sees the origin, i.e., the source of love that binds friends, in Christ or in God who also strengthens the friendship. The author points out the irreplaceable importance of communication that, according to Jerome, maintains and feeds friendship, as well as the necessity of openness and honesty in friendship. This holds also in cases of disagreement and arguments that, according to St. Jerome, ought to be solved in the same spirit by putting in the first place the love between friends that is fed by faith and desire for peace.
Keywords
St. Jerome; epistles of St. Jerome; friendship; love; St. Augustine
Hrčak ID:
280874
URI
Publication date:
22.7.2022.
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