46. There are few of the fathers of the Christian Church whose commentaries on the Bible, or personal theories of its gospel, have not been, to the constant exultation of the enemies of the Church, fretted and disgraced by angers of controversy, or weakened and distracted by irreconcilable heresy. On the contrary, the scriptural teaching, through their art, of such men as Orcagna, Giotto, Angelico, Luca della Robbia, and Luini, is, literally, free from all earthly taint of momentary passion; its patience, meekness, and quietness are incapable of error through either fear or anger; they are able, without offence, to say all that they wish; they are bound by tradition into a brotherhood which represents unperverted doctrines by unchanging scenes; and they are compelled by the nature of their work to a deliberation and order of method which result in the purest state and frankest use of all intellectual power.
47. I may at once, and without need of returning to this question, illustrate the difference in dignity and safety between the mental actions of literature and art, by referring to a passage, otherwise beautifully illustrative of St. Jerome's sweetness and simplicity of character, though quoted, in the place where we find it, with no such favouring intention,--namely, in the pretty letter of Queen Sophie Charlotte, (father's mother of Frederick the Great,) to the Jesuit Vota, given in part by Carlyle in his first volume, ch. iv.
"'How can St. Jerome, for example, be a key to Scripture?' she insinuates; citing from Jerome this remarkable avowal of his method of composing books;--especially of his method in that book, _Commentary on the Galatians_, where he accuses both Peter and Paul of simulation, and even of hypocrisy. The great St. Augustine has been charging him with this sad fact, (says her Majesty, who gives chapter and verse,) and Jerome answers, 'I followed the commentaries of Origen, of'--five or six different persons, who turned out mostly to be heretics before Jerome had quite done with them, in coming years, 'And to confess the honest truth to you,' continues Jerome, 'I read all that, and after having crammed my head with a great many things, I sent for my amanuensis, and dictated to him, now my own thoughts, now those of others, without much recollecting the order, nor sometimes the words, nor even the sense'! In another place, (in the book itself further on[38]) he says, 'I do not myself write; I have an amanuensis, and I dictate to him what comes into my mouth. If I wish to reflect a little, or to say the thing better, or a better thing, he knits his brows, and the whole look of him tells me sufficiently that he cannot endure to wait.' Here is a sacred old gentleman whom it is not safe to depend upon for interpreting the Scriptures,--thinks her Majesty, but does not say so,--leaving Father Vota to his reflections." Alas, no, Queen Sophie, neither old St. Jerome's, nor any other human lips nor mind, may be depended upon in that function; but only the Eternal Sophia, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God: yet this you may see of your old interpreter, that he is wholly open, innocent, and true, and that, through such a person, whether forgetful of his author, or hurried by his scribe, it is more than probable you may hear what Heaven knows to be best for you; and extremely improbable you should take the least harm,--while by a careful and cunning master in the literary art, reticent of his doubts, and dexterous in his sayings, any number of prejudices or errors might be proposed to you acceptably, or even fastened in you fatally, though all the while you were not the least required to confide in his inspiration.