Priest, Hermit and Doctor of the Church
Jerome was born under the name Eusebius While in Rome, he began to be surrounded by a Sophronius Hieronymus in Stridon about the year 347 group of aristocratic and educated women from some of AD, 34 years after the legalization of Christianity. the most noble patrician families. With their increase in Somewhere around 360 AD he traveled to Rome with his well off women leaning toward the monastic life, and friend Bonosus in order to learn rhetoric and philosophy. Jerome’s criticism of the secular clergy of Rome, he There he would engage in the sexual escapades common earned the hostility of many of the patricians, clergy and to Roman students at the time, and to appease his their supporters. After the death of Pope Damasus I in conscience, he would visit the tombs of the martyrs and December of 384, Jerome was accused of having sexual the Apostles Despite his skepticism, he was baptized a relations with a widow named Paula, and was forced to Catholic by the year 366 AD, the year in which Damasus leave his position. Siricius would unanimously be elected I became the Pope of the Catholic Church. Pope after Damasus,. Ursinus had attempted to assume During this time, Jerome traveled to Gaul with his the papacy himself, but Emperor Valentin III confirmed friend Bonosus. They settled in Trier where Jerome Siricius essentially closing the matter for discussion. began his theological studies. Jerome stayed for a time In 385, Jerome left Rome and returned to Antioch with Rufinus of Aquileia where he made many Christian accompanied by several friends, eventually including friends. In 373, Jerome traveled with some of his friends Paula and her daughter Eustochium. He traveled then to through Thrace and Asia Minor. When he traveled to Jerusalem, where he was joined by his friend Bishop Antioch, he became ill several times and two of his friends Paulinus, and other friends from Rome. He would died. While Jerome remained ill, he received a vision eventually come to reside in a cave near Bethelhem which which encouraged him to ignore his secular studies and was believed to be the cave where Jesus was born. devote himself to God. Under the tutelage of Apollanaris While in this cave, he was supported by Paula and of Laodicea, he began to delve into the study of the Eustochium who were resolved to live as consecrated scriptures. virgins in the Holy Land. Here, Jerome continued the Overcome by a desire to do penance, he went to revisions to the Latin Scripture Manuscripts, which the desert of Chalcis southeast of Antioch where he began expanded into the translation of the entire canon of to live a life of asceticism. Here, he began to try and learn scripture defined by the Synod at Rome. While he worked Hebrew under the guidance of a Jewish convert to on this translation, the Canon defined at the Synod of Catholicism. Rome was also ratified at the Council of Hippo in 393, When Jerome returned to Antioch in 378 AD, and Carthage in 397. Jerome wrote his translations using Bishop Paulinus wished to ordain him to which Jerome the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. By the year resisted. At the insistence of his Bishop, Jerome agreed 405, Jerome had completed the Latin Vulgate, the first on the condition that he would be allowed to maintain his complete bible in the Church which was also written in asceticism. Afterward, he traveled to Constantinople to the most commonly spoken language so that it could be study scripture under the tutelage of Gregory Nazianzen. read by as many people as possible. In 382 there was a schism in Antioch which Afterward, Jerome would continue to live a rigid resulted in the Synod of Rome. Jerome traveled to Rome ascetic lifestyle, unceasing in his production of literary along with Paulinus who to support his claim to the see of writing. His writings would eventually come to include Antioch. Pope Damasus I reconciled Rome and Antioch polemic works against the rise of the heresy of when he restored Paulinus as the Bishop of Anioch. Pelagianism. Pelagianism itself, would eventually be Additionally, the Canon of Scripture was first determined condemned by the Council of Carthage in 418. Jerome at this synod. During the synod, Jerome had impressed himself eventually passed away in Bethlehem in People Damasus I, earning a prominent place in the papal September of 420 AD. He is the patron saint of court and becoming secretary to the Pope. With the end archaeologists, Bible scholars and librarians, and his feast of the synod, Pope Damasus I tasked Jerome with revising day is September 30th. the Latin Manuscripts of Scripture