Saint of the Day - St. Jerome (September 30th)
Channel: House of Prayers for Everyone (HOPE)
Date: 2023-09-29

Saint Jerome was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian and Doctor of the Church best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin. The Catholic Church celebrates his memorial every September 30th.

Early Life

Born Eusebius Hieronymous Sophronius in present-day Croatia around 342–347 AD, Jerome was of Illyrian ancestry. His father was his first teacher, who sent him to Rome for further studies. He was baptized in 360 by Pope Liberius. Jerome studied under the grammarian Aelius Donatus. There he learned Latin and at least some Greek.

Jerome went to the desert of Chalcis known as the "Syrian Thebaid". During this period, he learned Hebrew under the guidance of a converted Jew. He copied a Hebrew Gospel, of which fragments are preserved in his notes, known today as the Gospel of the Hebrews which the Nazarenes considered to be the true Gospel of Matthew. Jerome translated parts of this Hebrew Gospel into Greek.

As protégé of Pope Damasus I, Jerome was given duties in Rome, and he undertook a revision of the Vetus Latina Gospels based on Greek manuscripts. He also updated the Psalter containing the Book of Psalms then in use in Rome, based on the Septuagint.

After the death of Pope Damasus I in December of 384, Jerome was forced to leave his position in Rome after an inquiry was brought up by the Roman clergy into allegations of improper relationship. Still, his writings remain highly regarded and were widely read and distributed throughout the Christian empire.

Translation of the Bible

A wealthy Roman aristocrat funded Jerome's stay in a monastery in the city of Bethlehem where he settled next to the Church of the Nativity. In 382, Jerome began by correcting the existing Latin-language version of the New Testament, commonly referred to as the Vetus Latina. 

By 390, he turned to translating the Hebrew Bible from the Septuagint which came from Alexandria. He believed that Rabbinical Judaism rejected the Septuagint as invalid Jewish scriptural texts because of what were ascertained as mistranslations along with its Hellenistic heretical elements. 
He completed this work by 405.

For the next 15 years, Jerome produced a number of commentaries on Scripture. His patristic commentaries align closely with Jewish tradition and he indulges in allegorical and mystical subtleties after the manner of Philo and the Alexandrian school. 

Jerome also produced two onomastica: (1) Liber de Nominibus Hebraicis, a list of names of people in the Bible and etymologies, based on a work attributed to Philo and expanded by Origen, and; (2) A translation and expansion of the Onomasticon of Eusebius, listing and commenting on places mentioned in the Bible.

Death and Veneration

He stayed in Bethlehem and lived the rest of his years in study, prayer, and asceticism. Living through both Barbarian invasions of the Roman empire, and a resurgence of riots sparked by doctrinal disputes in the Church, Jerome died in his Bethlehem monastery in 420.

Jerome once said, "I interpret as I should, following the command of Christ: 'Search the Scriptures,' and 'Seek and you shall find.' For if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ."

St. Jerome is the second-most voluminous writer in ancient Latin Christianity. The Catholic Church recognizes him as the patron saint of translators, librarians, and encyclopedists.

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Images attributed to the following:
- By Albrecht Dürer - The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
- By Matthias Stom - Oeuvre du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
- By Caravaggio - https://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/2063617/MAL_280_002.html, CC0, Wikimedia Commons