Posted on 09/30/2002 7:42:37 PM PDT by Lady In Blue
St. Jerome (Priest and Doctor of the Church) was one of the greatest scholars in the Church's history. Thoroughly learned in language and Scripture, he also learned Hebrew in Antioch, from a Jewish rabbi. He then went to Constantinople, where he studied under St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Ordained a priest, from 382-385 he served as secretary to Pope St. Damasus in Rome.
The Pope directed him to produce a Latin version of the Bible. Latin was the language of the common people. Jerome labored a long time on this project, translating the Old Testament from Hebrew and the New Testament from Greek. The finished version was known as the Vulgate — from the Latin vulgus, meaning common, or for common people — and it remained the Church's official translation for well over a thousand years.
While in Rome, Jerome became the leader of a group of persons attracted to a penitential life, but his harsh and demanding nature made him many enemies as well as friends, and after Pope Damasus' death, Jerome returned to the East, followed by St. Paula, St. Eustochium, and others of his disciples.
They established a religious community in Bethlehem, with a hospice for travelers and a school for children, in which Jerome himself taught Greek and Latin, even as he continued his scholarship. Jerome was uncompromising against heresy, and was known for his fierce temper. His writings were sometimes sarcastic or vitriolic, but at the same time he was gentle with the poor and downtrodden, and his awareness of his weaknesses prompted him to perform great acts of penance — such as living in a cave until his death. His contemporary St. Augustine said of him, "What Jerome is ignorant of, no mortal has ever known."
Lessons - Saint Jerome
1. Scholars who make Scripture and Church teaching accessible to common people provide an important service to the Church; this was true of St. Jerome and other saints (such as St. John Chrysostom [September 13].
2. Awareness of our moral and spiritual weaknesses obligates us to perform penance and to cultivate virtues so as to overcome our faults; in order to tame his temper, St. Jerome lived very simply and, in spite of his great reputation and the demands of scholarship, made a point of being friendly and accessible to children and the poor.
Instead, Luther started a new religion, in which, "Sin will not destroy us in the reign of the Lamb, although we were to commit fornication a thousand times in one day." (Luther’s Letter to Melanchthon, August 1, 1521) Unlike Luther, Saint Jerome fulfilled in his person the wise counsel that he himself had given: "Love the science of Scripture, and you will not love the vices of the flesh."
Thanks for the ping!
I love St. Jerome. I use the Douay-Rheims bible because I feel it is the closest and best translation of the Latin Vulgate. He really was a towering linguistic genius. We owe him such a debt of gratitude. Truly, a man raised up by God.
BTTT on the Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church, September 30, 2005!
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ."
BTTT on the Memorial of St. Jerome, September 30, 2006!
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God calls each one of us to be a saint.
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September 30, 2006
St. Jerome
(345-420)
Most of the saints are remembered for some outstanding virtue or devotion which they practiced, but Jerome is remembered too frequently for his bad temper! It is true that he had a very bad temper and could use a vitriolic pen, but his love for God and his Son Jesus Christ was extraordinarily intense; anyone who taught error was an enemy of God and truth, and St. Jerome went after him or her with his mighty and sometimes sarcastic pen.
He was above all a Scripture scholar, translating most of the Old Testament from the Hebrew. He also wrote commentaries which are a great source of scriptural inspiration for us today. He was an avid student, a thorough scholar, a prodigious letter-writer and a consultant to monk, bishop and pope. St. Augustine said of him, "What Jerome is ignorant of, no mortal has ever known." St. Jerome is particularly important for having made a translation of the Bible which came to be called the Vulgate. It is not the most critical edition of the Bible, but its acceptance by the Church was fortunate. As a modern scholar says, "No man before Jerome or among his contemporaries and very few men for many centuries afterwards were so well qualified to do the work." The Council of Trent called for a new and corrected edition of the Vulgate, and declared it the authentic text to be used in the Church. In order to be able to do such work, Jerome prepared himself well. He was a master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Chaldaic. He began his studies at his birthplace, Stridon in Dalmatia (in the former Yugoslavia). After his preliminary education he went to Rome, the center of learning at that time, and thence to Trier, Germany, where the scholar was very much in evidence. He spent several years in each place, trying always to find the very best teachers. After these preparatory studies he traveled extensively in Palestine, marking each spot of Christ's life with an outpouring of devotion. Mystic that he was, he spent five years in the desert of Chalcis so that he might give himself up to prayer, penance and study. Finally he settled in Bethlehem, where he lived in the cave believed to have been the birthplace of Christ. On September 30 in the year 420, Jerome died in Bethlehem. The remains of his body now lie buried in the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome. Quote:
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