Primary source · Latin

On Illustrious Men (De Viris Illustribus)

Jerome · AD 392–393, at Bethlehem

Patrologia Latina, vol. 23 (Migne) — manuscript witness to On Illustrious Men (De Viris Illustribus)
Patrologia Latina, vol. 23 (Migne) — 1845diverse authors · Public domain · Commons
Close
Patrologia Latina, vol. 23 (Migne) — manuscript witness to On Illustrious Men (De Viris Illustribus)

Patrologia Latina, vol. 23 (Migne) — 1845diverse authors · Public domain · Commons

What this text is

Jerome’s catalogue of 135 Christian writers from Peter to himself — the first literary history of the church, and the source of dozens of author-notices in this archive.

Profile of Jerome of Stridon →

Interlinear passages

Word-for-word glosses of the original; the complete public-domain translation is linked below.

Preface — the commission
Hortaris,You urge [me],Dexter,Dexter,utthatTranquillumSuetoniussequens,following,ecclesiasticosthe church’sscriptoreswritersininordinemorderdigeram.I should arrange

Public-domain translations

E. C. Richardson (NPNF, 1892)

You urge me, Dexter, to follow the example of Tranquillus in giving a systematic account of ecclesiastical writers… Let those who say the church has had no philosophers or orators learn who and what manner of men founded, built, and adorned it.

Manuscript witnesses

Paris, BnF lat. 12161 and the 6th–7th c. tradition

6th–7th c.

De Viris survives in copies close to late antiquity, usually with Gennadius's continuation attached.

EARLIEST WITNESSES

Patrologia Latina, vol. 23 (Migne)

1845

Standard pre-critical text of the corpus.

PRINTED PROXY

Provenance

Bethlehem, AD 393; the first history of Christian literature

Editions & scholarship

Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.

Figures named in this text (113)

Complete public-domain text ↗