ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some as yet unconsidered aspects of Jerome's personal contribution to the literary tradition and pays particular attention to the rhetorical and exegetical strategies he employed to carve out for himself a niche within it. Jerome's Pauline commentaries unquestionably occupy a unique place in the history of early Latin Biblical exegesis. In the numerous source-critical studies on Jerome's Pauline commentaries that have appeared in the past century or so, scholars, without exception, have placed an inordinate amount of stress on their close stemmatic relationship with the Greek exegetical tradition. According to a recently advanced hypothesis, Ambrosiaster released his Commentary on Galatians initially around 378-380 and then a slightly revised edition in 384. Until about the middle of the fourth century, the exegesis of Paul's epistles had been monopolized by commentators in Greek and Syriac. By exporting his commentaries to Rome, Jerome was contending with the legacy of Marius Victorinus on the now-deceased rhetor's home turf.
