26 MAY 1984, Page 19

Cicero and St Jerome

Sir: Apropos of Charles Mosley's accusation (Letters, 21 April) that Christianity 'transmuted the golden Latin of Cicero into the dross of the Vulgate', it is known that St Jerome .too had studied and loved the classics before beginning his work of translation. He even said that he was beaten by an angel (in a dream) for being `no Christian but a Ciceronian'! However his use of 'the common tongue', Latin as spoken in his day (he died c. 420 AD), is surely understandable. We who grew up with the incomparable Latin liturgy (based largely on the Vulgate) did not regard it as 'dross'. Many of us long for it to be restored.

C. Cum berbatch

Middle House, Sutton, Ditcheat, Shepton Mallet, Somerset