Ecumenical Commemoration
Priest, Translator, & Doctor of the Church
September 30 · d. 420
also known as Jerome, Jerome of Bethlehem, Saint Jerome the Translator, Eusebius Hieronymus
The greatest scholar of the early Latin Church and the translator of the Vulgate, the Bible that shaped Western Christendom for more than a thousand years. Brilliant, restless, and famously sharp-tongued, Jerome buried himself in Hebrew in a Syrian desert, dreamed that Christ called him a follower of Cicero rather than of himself, and spent the rest of his life in a cave near Bethlehem turning the Scriptures into Latin. "Ignorance of Scripture," he wrote, "is ignorance of Christ."
Jerome was born about 347 at Stridon, a town on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia, in the lands that are now Croatia and Slovenia. His Christian parents sent him to Rome for the finest classical education money could buy, and the boy fell in love with Latin literature, with Cicero and Virgil, a love that would trouble his conscience for the rest of his life. He was baptized as a young man, and slowly, restlessly, he turned toward Christ.
In his thirties he went east and tried to bury his classical learning in the desert of Chalcis in Syria, living as a hermit, fasting, and teaching himself Hebrew from a converted Jew, the hardest discipline he ever set himself. There, sick and tormented, he dreamed the dream he never forgot. He was dragged before the judgment seat of Christ, and when he claimed to be a Christian the Judge answered, "Thou art a follower of Cicero and not of Christ," and ordered him scourged. Jerome woke resolved to read the Scriptures with the passion he had spent on the pagan poets.
That resolve became his life's work. Back in Rome as secretary to Pope Damasus, Jerome was set to revising the tangled Latin Bibles then in use, and he did not stop until he had produced, from the original Greek and Hebrew, the translation the West would read for more than a thousand years, the Vulgate. He gathered around him a remarkable circle of devout Roman women, Paula and her daughter Eustochium among them, who studied Hebrew and Scripture with him. When the jealous tongues of Rome drove him out, Paula went too, and together they settled at Bethlehem, beside the cave of the Nativity, where Jerome founded a monastery and labored over his books until his death about 420.
He was not an easy saint. His tongue was sharp, his quarrels famous, his temper a thing his friends forgave rather than admired. But no one before him had served the Scriptures so completely, and he himself gave the reason in a single line that has outlived all his controversies: ignorance of Scripture, he wrote, is ignorance of Christ.
Jerome is one of the most abundantly documented of all the Fathers, chiefly because he documented himself without restraint. Well over a hundred of his letters survive, along with his biblical commentaries, his catalogue of Christian writers On Illustrious Men (in which he did not forget to include himself), and of course the Vulgate. The famous dream of the heavenly Judge he told in his own Letter 22 to Eustochium; the line about ignorance of Scripture stands in the prologue to his Commentary on Isaiah. His contemporaries Augustine and Rufinus corresponded and quarreled with him in letters that also survive, so we can hear him answered as well as speaking.
The one element later piety added is the famous lion, the beast Jerome is shown taming in countless paintings; that story belongs to medieval legend and a confusion with another desert saint, not to the historical record. The irascible, brilliant scholar of Bethlehem needs no embellishment. He left us more of himself than almost anyone in the ancient church.
Jerome is commemorated on September 30, the traditional day of his death, and is numbered among the four great Doctors of the Latin Church, with Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory the Great. He is the patron of biblical scholars, translators, and librarians, and the artists have loved him in two poses: the penitent in the wilderness beating his breast with a stone, and the old scholar in his study with his books, his cardinal's hat (an anachronism, for the office did not yet exist), and a lion drowsing at his feet.
His Vulgate shaped the worship, theology, and art of the entire Western Middle Ages and remained the standard Bible of the Roman Church into modern times. Above all he is remembered for handing the Church the Scriptures in a tongue it could read, and for the conviction that drove him: that to know the Bible is to know Christ, and to neglect it is to lose him.
The Letters of St. Jerome(Latin, c. 370-420)
The letters, including Letter 22 to Eustochium with the dream of the heavenly Judge.
Public domain: CCEL, NPNF ser. 2 vol. 6
On Illustrious Men (De Viris Illustribus)(Latin, c. 392)
His catalogue of Christian writers, the first work of its kind, ending with himself.
Public domain: CCEL, NPNF ser. 2 vol. 3
The Vulgate (Latin translation of the Bible)(Latin, c. 382-405)
The standard Bible of the Western Church for over a thousand years.
Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies(English, 1975)
The standard modern biography, candid about the man and masterful on the scholarship.
Further reading. Jerome's letters and his treatise On Illustrious Men are in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volumes three and six; Letter 22 to Eustochium, with the dream, is the place to begin. For the life, J. N. D. Kelly's Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (Harper & Row, 1975) is the standard modern biography.
Online resources. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers volumes of Jerome's letters and works are free at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
Jeronimus is said of gerar, that is holy, and of nemus, that is to say a wood. And so Jerome is as much to say as a holy wood. Or it is said of norma, that is to say law, whereof is said in his legend that Jerome is interpreted a holy law. He was farforth holy, that is to say firm or clean or dyed of blood, or deputed to holy usage, like as vessels of the temple be said holy for they be ordained to holy usage. He was holy, that is to say steadfast, in holy work by long perseverance, he was clean in mind by purity, he was dyed in blood by thinking of the passion of our Lord Jesu Christ, he was deputed to holy usage by the exposition of holy Scripture, he was said a holy wood by the conversation that he sometimes did and abode in the wood. And he was said law for the rules of his discipline which he taught to his monks, or because he expounded and interpreted the holy law and Scripture. Jerome also is interpreted the vision of beauty or judging words. There is beauty manifold. First is spiritual, which is in the soul. Second, moral, which is in honesty of manners. The third is intellectual, which is in the angels. The fourth is substantial, which is divine. The fifth is heavenly, which is in the country of saints. This five-fold beauty had S. Jerome in himself. For he had spiritual in diversity of virtues; the moral had he in the honesty of his life; he had intellectual in the excellence of purity; he had the substantial in burning charity; he had the celestial in the perdurable and excellent clearness or clarte. He judged the speeches and words, his own well examined in clearly pronouncing, the others being true in confirming, the false condemning and confusing, and the doubtful in expounding.
Of S. Jerome.
Jerome was the son of a noble man named Eusebius, born of the town Stridon, which is in the utter end of Dalmatia and of Pannonia. He, being yet a child, went to Rome and was there taught in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. He had for his teacher in grammar Donatus, in rhetoric Victorinus, the orator, and he was day and night occupied, and exercised himself in divine Scriptures, which he drew covetously, and after shed it out abundantly. And as he writes in an epistle to Eustochius, that on a time as he read on a day Plato, and in the night Tully desirously, because that the book of the prophets pleased him not, he was about mid-Lent taken with a sudden and burning fever, that all his body was cold, in such wise that there was no vital heat save a little which he felt in his breast. And as the exequies for his death were making ready, he was suddenly brought to the judgment of God, and there he was demanded of what condition he was, and he answered boldly that he was a christian man. And the judge said: You liest, thou are a Ciceronian, and no christian man, whereas your treasure is, there is your heart. Then S. Jerome was still and said nothing, and anon then the judge commended that he should be sore beaten. Then he cried and said: Have mercy on me, Lord, have mercy on me. Then they that were assisting our Lord prayed him that he would forgive this young man his trespass. And he then began to swear and say: Lord, if ever I read or hear more secular books, I shall forsake you. And with the words of this promise and oath he was let go, and anon he revived. And then he saw himself all bewept. And of the strokes of the beatings that he received tofore the throne of our Lord, the tokens of the strokes and lashes were seen on his shoulders right horrible and great. And from then forthon he became good, and read divine books with as great study as ever he had read the books of poetry and of paynims. And when he was nine-and-twenty years old he was ordained cardinal priest in the church of Rome. And when Liberius was dead all the people cried to have S. Jerome sovereign priest. And when he began to blame the jollity and lavish life of some clerks and monks, they had indignation and despite of him, and lay in a wait to hurt and slander him. And as John Beleth says: They scorned and mocked him by the clothing of a woman. For on a night when he arose to matins, as he was accustomed, he found a woman's clothing Iying by his bed which his enemies had laid there. And he weeping that they had been his own, did them on, and so clothed came in to the church, and this did they that had envy at him because others should ween that he had a woman in his chamber. And when he saw that, he eschewed their woodness and went unto Gregory Nazianzen, bishop of Constantinople. And when he had learned of him the holy Scripture and holy letters, he went into desert, where, what, and how much he suffered for Christ's sake, he recounted to Eustochium, and said that when he was in that great desert and waste wilderness, which is so burnt by the sun that it gave to the monks a right dry habitacle, I supposed me then to be at Rome among the delices, and my members scalded, burnt, made dry and black like to the skin of a Morian or an Ethiopian, and I was always in tears and weepings. And when the very sleep came and oppressed me against which I oft repugned, then I laid my dried bones on the bare earth. Of meats and drink I speak not, for they that were sick used only cold water, and for to take any thing boiled or roasted, it was to them lechery. And yet nevertheless I was oft fellow unto scorpions and wild beasts, and yet the carols of maidens and the embracements of lechery grew in my cold body and in my flesh, wherefore I wept continually, and for to adaunt and subdue my proud flesh I rose at midnight all the week long, joining oft the night with the day, and I ceased not to beat my breast, praying our Lord to render to me the peaceable peace of my flesh. And I also doubted my proper cell as fearing my conceits and thoughts, wherefore I went and departed wroth, and revenging myself, passed alone through the sharp and thick deserts. And as our Lord is witness, after many weepings and tears, it seemed to me that I was among the company of angels, this during four years.
Then his penance thus done, he returned to the town of Bethlehem, where as a wise and a prudent beast he offered himself to abide by the crib of our Lord. And then his holy Bible, which with study he had translated, and other books he read, and led the day forth with fasting unto even. And there he assembled many disciples unto him for to Iabour there in his holy purpose, and abode there in the translation of holy Scripture fifty-five years and six months, and remained a pure virgin unto the end of his life. And how well that it be said in his legend that he was ever a virgin, yet nevertheless he wrote of himself to Palmatian: I bear virginity into heaven, not for that I have virginity, but for I marvel more that I have it not. Then at the last he being weary for to travail, lay down in his bed wherover hung a cord on a beam, whereon he laid and held his hands for to lift up himself that he might do the service of God as much as he might.
On a day towards even Jerome sat with his brethren for to hear the holy lesson, and a lion came halting suddenly in to the monastery, and when the brethren saw him, anon they fled, and Jerome came against him as he should come against his guest, and then the lion showed to him his foot being hurt. Then he called his brethren, and commanded them to wash his feet and diligently to seek and search for the wound. And that done, the plant of the foot of the lion was sore hurt and pricked with a thorn. Then this holy man put thereto diligent cure, and healed him, and he abode ever after as a tame beast with them. Then S. Jerome saw that God had sent him to them, not only for the health of his foot, but also for their profit, and joined to the lion an office, by the accord of his brethren, and that was that he should conduct and lead an ass to his pasture which brought home wood, and should keep him going and coming, and so he did. For he did that which he was commanded, and led the ass thus as a herdsman, and kept him wisely going and coming, and was to him a right sure keeper and defender, and always at the hour accustomed he and the ass came for to have their refection and for to make the ass to do the work accustomed.
On a time it happed that the ass was in his pasture, and the lion slept fast, and certain merchants passed by with camels and saw the ass alone, and stole him and led him away. And anon after, the lion awoke and when he found not his fellow, he ran groaning hither and thither, and when he saw that he could not find him he was much sorrowful and durst not come in, but abode at the gate of the church of the monastery, and was ashamed that he came without the ass. And when the brethren saw that he was come more late than he was wont, and without the ass, they supposed that by constraint of hunger he had eaten the ass, and would not give to him his portion accustomed, and said to him: Go and eat that other part of the ass that you have devoured, and fill your gluttony. And because they doubted, and they would wit if he had so eaten, they went to the pastures of the town to see if they could have any demonstrance of the death of the ass, and they found nothing, and returned and told it to Jerome, and then he commanded them to enjoin him to do the office of the ass. Then they hewed down bushes and boughs and laid upon him, and he suffered it peaceably. And on a day when he had done his office, he went out to the fields and began to run hither and thither desiring to know what was done to his fellow, and saw from far merchants that came with camels charged and laden, and the ass going tofore them. It was the manner of that region that when the people went far with camels, they had an ass or a horse going tofore with a cord about his neck for to conduct the better the camels. And when the lion knew the ass, with a great roaring he ran on them so terribly that all the merchants fled, and he so feared the camels with beating the earth with his tail that, he constrained them to go straight unto the cell with all their charge and lading. And when the brethren saw this they told it to Jerome, and he said: Brethren, wash the feet of our guests and give them meat, abide you the will of our Lord hereupon. And then the lion began to run joyously throughout all the monastery, as he was wont to do, and kneeled down to every brother and fawned them with his tail, like as he had demanded pardon of the trespass that he had done. And S. Jerome, which knew well what was to come, said to his brethren: Go and make you ready all things necessary for guests that be coming to us. And as he thus said, there came to him a messenger, saying to him that there were guests at the gate that would speak with the abbot. And as soon as they were come they kneeled to the abbot, and required of him pardon. And he raised and made them to stand up goodly, and commanded them to take their own good, and not to take away other men's. And then they prayed the holy saint that he would take the half of their oil, and he refused it. And at the last he commanded to take a measure of oil, and then they promised that they should bring every year a measure of oil to that church, and their heirs after them.
It was anciently the custom that whosomever would might sing in the church, so that Theodosius the emperor, as John Beleth says, required and prayed Damasus the pope that he would commit to some wise man of the church to ordain the office and ordinal of the church. And then he knew well that Jerome was a man that knew the languages of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and in all science, and committed to him the said sovereign office. And then Jerome divided the psalter by ferias, and to every feria a nocturn proper be assigned, and established in the end of every psalm to be said: Gloria petri. And after, he ordained reasonably to be sung the epistles and gospels, and all other things appertaining, save the song which he sent from Bethlehem unto the pope. Which all was approved and ratified of him and of the cardinals for to be used perpetually and so confirmed.
After this, in the mouth of the spelunke or cave in which our Lord lay, he did do make his monument or sepulture. And when he had accomplished eighty-eight years and six months he was there buried. In what reverence S. Austin had him in, it appears in his epistles that he sent to him, in one of the which he wrote in this manner: To his right dear friend; most best beloved and most clean in observing and embracing of chastity, unto Jerome, Austin, etc. And in another place he writes thus of him: S. Jerome, priest, learned in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and in holy writings approved unto his last age, of whom the nobleness of his fair eloquence has resplended from the east unto the west, like unto the clearness of the sun. Prosper says also of him in his Chronicles: Jerome, priest, was in Bethlehem sometime, clear to all the world, of noble engine, and lived in translating and writing of holy Scripture, and with high and noble study served the universal church. He said also of himself to Albigen: I never enforced me so much from mine infancy as for to eschew a swelling courage and enhanced head, and calling against him the hate of God. And ever I have dreaded the sure things, and have entended with all my heart to the monastery and to hospitality and have received gladly all comers save heretics, and have washed their feet. Isidore says thus in the book of Etymology: Jerome was wise in three languages, whose interpretation is taken tofore other, for it is more holding and clear by words and it is interpreted of a very christian. It is written also of Jerome in the dialogue of Severus, disciple of S. Martin, which was in his time: Jerome without the merit of the faith and dowry of virtues is not only instruct in letters of Latin, but in Greek and Hebrew, so that none ought to be compared to him in every science, the which had war perpetual against the wicked men. The heretics hated him for he left never to impugn against them, the clerks hated him, for he reproved their sins and their life. But plainly good men loved him and marvelled of him, for they that deemed him a heretic were mad. He was all in lessons, all in books, he never rested day ne night but always read or wrote. Hæc Severus. And like as it appears by these words, and also he witnesses himself, he suffered many persecutors and detractors, which persecutions he suffered patiently and goodly, as it appeared in an epistle that he sent to Assela: I give thankings to our Lord God that I am worthy that the world hate me, and that wicked men and janglers hold me for evil. For I know well that men come to heaven by the defaming of wicked men more than by good renomee, and I would that the company of miscreants should pursue and persecute me for the name and right of our Lord. My will is that the reproof of the world arise more fervently against me so that I might deserve to be praised of our Lord, and that I may hope the reward of his promise. Temptation is desirous and agreeable whose merit in resisting is to be hoped reward of Christ in heaven. Ne the cursing ne malediction is not grievous which is changed into divine laud and praising. He died about the year of our Lord three hundred and eighty-eight.
Almighty God, you gave your servant Jerome special gifts of grace to understand and teach the truth revealed in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
British (Received Pronunciation): Stridon /ˈstraɪdɒn/; Augustine /ɔːˈɡʌstɪn/
Readings for a Teacher of the Faith
Proverbs 3:13–26Psalm 119:89–1061 John 1:1–10Matthew 13:47–52