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I thought this quote was as timely in the late 4th century as it is today in the 21st century. It's far from rare these days to see people claiming to know the Bible more than everyone else. Reading the Bible and understanding the Bible are often two different things.

The picture is from the painting "Saint Jerome in His Study" by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (c. 1530). Link to the full painting HERE :

Full quote from Letter LIII (53) of Jerome to Paulinus (written A.D. 394), taken from Nicene Post-Nicene Fathers 2 Vol. VI HERE .

"The art of interpreting the scriptures is the only one of which all men everywhere claim to be masters. To quote Horace again, 'Taught or untaught we all write poetry'. The chatty old woman, the doting old man, and the wordy sophist, one and all take in hand the Scriptures, rend them in pieces and teach them before they have learned them. Some with brows knit and bombastic words, balanced one against the other philosophize concerning the sacred writings among weak women. Others - I blush to say it - learn of women what they are to teach men; and as if even this were not enough, they boldly explain to others what they themselves by no means understand. I say nothing of persons who, like myself have been familiar with secular literature before they have come to the study of the holy scriptures. Such men when they charm the popular ear by the finish of their style suppose every word they say to be a law of God. They do not deign to notice what Prophets and apostles have intended but they adapt conflicting passages to suit their own meaning, as if it were a grand way of teaching - and not rather the faultiest of all - to misrepresent a writer’s views and to force the scriptures reluctantly to do their will."

Description
I thought this quote was as timely in the late 4th century as it is today in the 21st century. It's far from rare these days to see people claiming to know the Bible more than everyone else. Reading the Bible and understanding the Bible are often two different things.

The picture is from the painting "Saint Jerome in His Study" by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (c. 1530). Link to the full painting HERE :

Full quote from Letter LIII (53) of Jerome to Paulinus (written A.D. 394), taken from Nicene Post-Nicene Fathers 2 Vol. VI HERE .

"The art of interpreting the scriptures is the only one of which all men everywhere claim to be masters. To quote Horace again, 'Taught or untaught we all write poetry'. The chatty old woman, the doting old man, and the wordy sophist, one and all take in hand the Scriptures, rend them in pieces and teach them before they have learned them. Some with brows knit and bombastic words, balanced one against the other philosophize concerning the sacred writings among weak women. Others - I blush to say it - learn of women what they are to teach men; and as if even this were not enough, they boldly explain to others what they themselves by no means understand. I say nothing of persons who, like myself have been familiar with secular literature before they have come to the study of the holy scriptures. Such men when they charm the popular ear by the finish of their style suppose every word they say to be a law of God. They do not deign to notice what Prophets and apostles have intended but they adapt conflicting passages to suit their own meaning, as if it were a grand way of teaching - and not rather the faultiest of all - to misrepresent a writer’s views and to force the scriptures reluctantly to do their will."