Abstract:
In her commentary on Jerome’s Vita Malchi, in the section called ‘Literary form and
texture’ Gray discusses the existing literature on which Jerome drew in composing Vita
Malchi. She provides a detailed account of the sources and possible influences on
Jerome under the headings Christian literature, biblical quotations and allusions, and
secular literature. In a previous article, I have indicated multiple references and allusions
to both classical sources and the Bible in this work of St Jerome. In this article the
focus falls on a possible allusion to the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, a source which has
not previously been considered amongst the possible influences on Vita Malchi. The
love stories of Aeneas and Dido and Pyramus and Thisbe are compared to and contrasted
with the story of Malchus and his ‘wife’.
