Sulpicius Severus, Dialogues 1.8:

“’Jerome was, in addition to the merit of his faith and the gift of his virtues, educated not just in Latin and Greek, but even in Hebraic literature, to such an extent that no one would dare to compare themselves to him in any field of knowledge. I would be surprised if he is not known to you through the many works which he has written, since he is read all around the world.’

The Gaul responded to me, ‘Oh, he is all too well known to us. About five years ago I read a certain little book of his, in which the whole nation of our monks is hassled and reproved by him. And a Belgian friend of mine often gets angry because Jerome said that we are accustomed to feed until we vomit. I would give him a pass on it, however, and I think that he was talking more about eastern monks than those in the west, since a fondness for eating is considered gluttony among the Greeks, but among us Gauls it is just nature.’”

uir enim praeter fidei meritum dotemque uirtutum non solum Latinis atque Graecis, sed et Hebraeis litteris ita institutus est, ut se illi in omni scientia nemo audeat conparare. Miror autem, si non et uobis per multa quae scripsit opera conpertus est, cum per totum orbem legatur.

Nobis uero, Gallus inquit,nimium nimiumque conpertus est. nam ante hoc quinquennium quendam illius libellum legi, in quo tota nostrorum natio monachorum ab eo uehementissime uexatur et carpitur. unde interdum  Belgicus noster ualde irasci solet, quod dixerit, nos usque ad uomitum solere satiari. ego autem illi uiro ignosco, adque ita sentio, de orientalibus illum potius monachis quam de occidentalibus disputasse. nam edacitas in Graecis gula est, in Gallis natura.

Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights (17.12):

“Even the ancients applied themselves to disgraceful subjects (or inconceivable, if you prefer), which the Greeks called adoxous hypotheseis. It was not only the sophists who did this, but real philosophers too. My main man Favorinus lowered himself to those subjects with the greatest cheer, thinking them fit either for clearing his mind, exercising his subtlety, or conquering difficulties with practice, just as when he sought some praise of Thersites, he praised a fever which recurred every four days and then spoke many things which were difficult to come up with on either side, and left them written in his books. He even brought Plato forth as a witness in the praises of the fever, saying that he wrote that one who suffers from quartan fever and recovers full strength will later enjoy more reliable and constant good health. Moreover, in those very same fever praises, he played around charmingly with this little idea: ‘The verse is well proven by the history of humanity: Sometimes the day is like a step-mother, sometimes like a mother.’ The line means that one cannot be doing well on every day, but do well on one day and poorly on another. Since this was the case, he said, ‘since in human life fortune is alternately good and bad, how much more fortunate is this fever broken by a two-day stretch: here we have one stepmother for every two mothers.'”

Infames materias, sive quis mavult dicere inopinabiles, quas Graeci adoxous hypotheseis appellant, et veteres adorti sunt non sophistae solum, sed philosophi quoque, et noster Favorinus oppido quam libens in eas materias se deiciebat vel ingenio expergificando ratus idoneas vel exercendis argutiis vel edomandis usu difficultatibus, sicuti, cum Thersitae laudes quaesivit et cum febrim quartis diebus recurrentem laudavit, lepida sane multa et non facilia inventu in utramque causam dixit eaque scripta in libris reliquit. Sed in febris laudibus testem etiam Platonem produxit, quem scripsisse ait, qui quartanam passus convaluerit viresque integras recuperaverit, fidelius constantiusque postea valiturum. Atque inibi in isdem laudibus non hercle hac sententiola invenuste lusit: “versus” inquit “est longo hominum aevo probatus::

ἄλλοτε μητρυιὴ πέλει ἡμέρη, ἄλλοτε μήτηρ.

Eo versu significatur non omni die bene esse posse, sed isto bene atque alio male. Quod cum ita sit,” inquit “ut in rebus humanis bene aut male vice alterna sit, haec biduo medio intervallata febris quanto est fortunatior, in qua est mia metryia, duo meteres?”