La conversion chrétienne du récit de voyage antique dans les Vies de moines de Jérôme

This paper intends to show that Jerome, in his three biographies of monks (Lives of Saint Paul, Saint Malchos and Saint Hilarion), written between 376 and 392, “converts” classical travel narratives to hagiography, borrowing topics from ancient genres such as epos, history, geography or novel. But at the same time the author creates a new literary frame for these christian peregrinationes. Indeed, these short novels offer him the opportunity to think about how difficult it is to understand the eremitic xeniteia. Is it possible to be in touch with a holy man whose holiness comes from the fact that he is always fleeing human society, to get nearer to God? The solution proposed by Jerome belongs to literary art: he paradoxically succeeds in making obvious the holy man’s absence, thanks to the rhetorical device of euidentia. The text, which generates mental visions, moves the Christian reader spiritually closer to the holy man, although that figure’s holiness depends on a sort of exclusion of every kind of relationship.