Hieronymus als Briefschreiber

Barbara Conring begins her study with a description of the letter in antiquity. She describes the process of letter writing and examines theories of the letter in antiquity, ranging from Demetrios and Cicero up to Gregory of Nazianzus. She then deals with the letter in the works of Hieronymus, deducing his theory and practice of writing letters by using text analyses as examples. She concludes her work by placing Hieronymus in an area between Christianity and pagan education and demonstrates that the significance of Hieronymus as a letter writer is equal to that of all others in the panorama of ancient letter writing, proving that it is unnecessary to establish a special category for ancient Christian letters.