St. Jerome

St. Jerome (c. 347–420) was a priest, monk, and the greatest biblical scholar of the ancient Latin Church. Born Eusebius Hieronymus at Stridon, on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia, he was sent to Rome for the finest education of his day and became a master of classical Latin letters, being baptized there as a young man. A restless seeker, he traveled widely before withdrawing for several years to the desert of Chalcis in Syria, where he lived as a hermit, wrestled with fierce temptations, and — decisively for his life's work — began to learn Hebrew. Ordained a priest at Antioch, Jerome returned to Rome in 382 and became secretary to Pope St. Damasus I, who commissioned him to revise the existing Latin translations of the Gospels against the best Greek manuscripts. In Rome he also became the spiritual guide of a circle of aristocratic women devoted to Scripture and asceticism, among them St. Paula and her daughter St. Eustochium. His sharp pen made him enemies, and after the death of Damasus he left Rome for good. In 386 he settled at Bethlehem, where Paula's generosity established monasteries for men and women near the Basilica of the Nativity. There, in a cell by the cave of Christ's birth, Jerome spent more than three decades at his life's great labor: translating the Scriptures into Latin, going back to the Hebrew of the Old Testament rather than relying on the Greek Septuagint alone. The resulting version, known as the Vulgate, became the Bible of the Western Church for over a millennium. He also produced a vast body of commentaries, translations, histories, and letters, and threw himself — with a famously fiery temperament — into nearly every theological controversy of his age. His conviction that "ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" remains a watchword of Catholic biblical study, quoted by the Second Vatican Council. Jerome died at Bethlehem in 420 and was buried near the Grotto of the Nativity; his relics were later translated, according to tradition, to the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome. Venerated from early times, he is counted among the four great Latin Fathers and Doctors of the Church, with Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory the Great. His feast is September 30, and he is the patron of translators, librarians, and scholars — often depicted in art with his books, a skull, the cardinal's hat of later legend, and the lion that hagiographical tradition says he tamed by drawing a thorn from its paw.