Daily readings with reflections

Readings & Reflections: Monday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time & St. Jerome, September 30,2019

Readings & Reflections: Monday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time & St. Jerome, September 30,2019

A native of Italy, Jerome was educated in the Latin and Greek classics. As an adult, he received baptism and embarked on a life of solitary penance in the desert of Calchis. He is perhaps best known for his hot temper. He relished controversy and treated the friends of the Church as harshly as her critics. Under Pope Damasus, Jerome revised the then-current translation of the Bible, producing the Vulgate, the Church’s official Latin biblical text. In time of schism, he was the papacy’s dogged defender: “He who clings to the Chair of Peter is accepted by me.” In later years, Jerome founded a monastic community in the Holy Land, where he composed commentaries on the Scriptures: “I beg of you, dear brother,” he wrote to a friend, “to live among these books, to meditate upon them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else. Does not such a life seem to you a foretaste of heaven here on earth?” He lived in a cave in Bethlehem: “He never rests, day or night,” it was observed. “He is reading or writing the whole time.” Jerome is one of the four great Latin Fathers. He died in Bethlehem in 420 A.D.

AMDG+

Opening Prayer

“Lord, teach me your way of humility and simplicity of heart that I may find perfect joy in you. May your light shine through me that others may see your truth and love and find hope and peace in you.” Amen.

Reading 1 ZEC 8:1-8

This word of the LORD of hosts came:

Thus says the LORD of hosts:

I am intensely jealous for Zion,
stirred to jealous wrath for her.
Thus says the LORD:
I will return to Zion,
and I will dwell within Jerusalem;
Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city,
and the mountain of the LORD of hosts,
the holy mountain.

Thus says the LORD of hosts: Old men and old women,
each with staff in hand because of old age,
shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem.
The city shall be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets.
Thus says the LORD of hosts:
Even if this should seem impossible
in the eyes of the remnant of this people,
shall it in those days be impossible in my eyes also,
says the LORD of hosts?
Thus says the LORD of hosts:
Lo, I will rescue my people from the land of the rising sun,
and from the land of the setting sun.
I will bring them back to dwell within Jerusalem.
They shall be my people, and I will be their God,
with faithfulness and justice.
The word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm PS 102:16-18, 19-21, 29 AND 22-23

R. (17) The Lord will build up Zion again, and appear in all his glory.
The nations shall revere your name, O LORD,
and all the kings of the earth your glory,
When the LORD has rebuilt Zion
and appeared in his glory;
When he has regarded the prayer of the destitute,
and not despised their prayer.
R. The Lord will build up Zion again, and appear in all his glory.
Let this be written for the generation to come,
and let his future creatures praise the LORD:
“The LORD looked down from his holy height,
from heaven he beheld the earth,
To hear the groaning of the prisoners,
to release those doomed to die.”
R. The Lord will build up Zion again, and appear in all his glory.
The children of your servants shall abide,
and their posterity shall continue in your presence.
That the name of the LORD may be declared in Zion;
and his praise, in Jerusalem,
When the peoples gather together,
and the kingdoms, to serve the LORD.
R. The Lord will build up Zion again, and appear in all his glory.

Alleluia, Alleluia. The Son of Man came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Alleluia, Alleluia.

Gospel
Lk 9:46-50

An argument arose among the disciples about which of them was the greatest. Jesus realized the intention of their hearts and took a child and placed it by his side and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. For the one who is least among all of you is the one who is the greatest.”

Then John said in reply,
“Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name
and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow in our company.” Jesus said to him, “Do not prevent him, for whoever is not against you is for you.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Reflection 1 – The greatest in the Kingdom

During the time of Jesus day, religious leaders wanted to be the greatest in the kingdom of God. Preferential treatment for religious leaders was the norm for the day and the disciples had been raised in a system that emphasized “greatness”. This is the reason why I am inclined to believe that the disciples were all hoping for glory the way the world knew it when they asked Jesus: “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”

There must have been a time when the 12 disciples had been hoping that Jesus would establish an earthly kingdom that would feature each of them as leaders of this new kingdom. Thus when the disciples approached Jesus with their question, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” I could almost see Peter boldly saying it was him since Jesus gave him the keys to the kingdom. Likewise we can also see James and John vying to be the greatest as they were there to witness His transfiguration. In fact, in Matthew 20:21 James and John wanted to be seated on the right and left hand of Jesus, a symbol of rank in the Jewish system.

The disciples erred in their focus when they asked Jesus who will be the greatest in God’s kingdom as they had a worldly perspective of greatness. The disciples gave the impression that they wanted to be considered great so that other people would see them sitting on high with Jesus and marvel at just how great they were. Maybe they were tired of seeing the religious leaders being exalted that they also wanted to have a taste of greatness!

Their whole idea of being the greatest was way off focus from what our Lord taught them: “If anyone wishes to rank first, he should must remain the last one of all and the servant of all.” Mark 9:35 This was further affirmed when our Lord said in Luke 14:11, “ He who humbles himself shall be exalted.”

Today Christians still struggle with the same thing. We want to be great in the world’s eyes. We can be so concerned on what people will say as we seek the approval of the world that we lose focus on what is truly important. We seek the world’s approval more than we seek God and His ways. We regrettably set aside our Lord and assume that in His goodness and love we will be forgiven. We place more importance on the transient rather than the eternal. We are so attached to the world that all we may care for are our achievements, the wealth we accumulate, the power we exercise and the influence we have in the world, but we set aside the salvation of our souls. That is what our hearts cherish and long for; indeed the greatness we aspire for. This is sad reality but most of us have missed the very essence of our existence.

According to our Lord, one way to greatness is by becoming like a child in responding to His call. We should be able to respond to His Word and commit to a life of servanthood as Christ served for the Father’s sake. We should have the innocence and the humility of a child as we relate to God and His people. We need to have a change of mind and will and repent of our sins and have the eagerness, simplicity and enthusiasm to learn more about God. But most importantly, we can only be great in God’s kingdom if we are totally reliant on Him and humble in our ways.

How then do we pursue a humble relationship with God and neighbor?

One way to do this is by having true humility, one that is founded on fraternal charity. Thus, anyone who is proud and carries with him a hotbed of discord fails in this test. He often prefers himself to others, is provocative, envious, haughty and disdainful of those whom he considers his inferiors. Therefore one who wishes to scale the heights of God’s glory must never be critical of him whose way is not so high, nor be scandalized at the faults of another. If duty requires one to admonish another, he should do so in sweetness and kindness. Authentic sweetness is another fruit of humility because when one corrects others, he should always take heed to ourselves: “lest thou be tempted”. This is not to mean that rigidity covered by sweetness is acceptable.

Being humble and child-like in one’s response to God is being patient and remaining hopeful in God for His blessings and being totally dependent on Him. It means positively responding to God’s Word despite difficulties and obstacles that come one’s way. One should not be discouraged by trials and tribulations in one’s spiritual life even when he does not succeed in overcoming them. We may have all the shortcomings and imperfections but God has promised His grace on those who are lowly and humble.

God continually renews one’s efforts to be a good servant although the results may not be apparent. But in God’s time He shall bless those faithful to Him in the way that pleases Him and one shall reap the great fruit of being His humble servant.

For those aspiring to be great in God’s kingdom, one should always remember that Jesus will be the greatest in God’s kingdom as no one can ever compare with our Lord. Therefore the closer our ways are to Him, the better are our chances of being considered for greatness in our Father’s kingdom.

Direction

To be great in God’s kingdom, we need the humility and simplicity of a child. Focus on Jesus and His ways.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, give me a humble heart that prefers to be last rather than first and to be lowly rather than be great. In Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Reflection 2 – Who is the greatest?         

Within every group that is constituted by people, politics prevail. This is true even within God’s very own Church. It seems that politics in God’s church has been existing from the very start, even during the time of Jesus and his first disciples as one can surmise from today’s gospel scenario. In most cases, the one who normally wields the most power and has been given some authority gets away with a lot to the detriment of a bigger number as one can see from the reactions John had on another group.

We all see that there was jealousy and rivalry between the disciples. They were all competing for the best place in terms of their relationship with Jesus. Everyone wanted to be the greatest within the group and in the eyes of our Lord. They were not able to contain this negative attitude among themselves but even allowed it to flow into other people who professed allegiance to our Lord and did work in His Name as well. From what transpired in our gospel for today, we can see that their attention was drawn away from our Lord Jesus as their focus centered on themselves. They were quite hostile to one another and suppressed other people’s spiritual endeavors for the Lord, by-products of jealousy and pride. One can experience this from the comments of John, one Jesus’ disciples when He said: “Master, we saw a man using your name to expel demons, and we tried to stop him because he is not of our company.” Regrettably John’s comments may sound familiar to some of us.

Politics as they flow from competition, rivalry and jealousy should not be given space within God’s Church, as one will realize the terrible impact it can have on God’s people. It impedes God’s work as everyone’s attention is drawn away from our Lord as the focus switches to self. We tend to makes ourselves god and in time we lord it over others whom we cannot accept as part of our own inner circle.

Today God is asking us to shy away from politics within our own smaller churches and look at others as better than ourselves. We need to humble ourselves the way Jesus did as “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness and found human in appearance. He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Yes, all the way up to His Cross. We must therefore pray to our Lord for guidance as the only way to greatness is by being last. By being gracious to hostility and ably surrendering all our cares to God, He gifts us with the best way to greatness. We become humble, less militant and competitive, that love of God and neighbor becomes foremost in our hearts. Let us not strive to be the greatest in the eyes of the world but always choose to be the least and last of all as Jesus Himself said: “The one who is least among all of you is the one who is the greatest.”

Direction

Humbly regard others as more important than ourselves by remaining focused on Jesus.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, give me the grace to remain faithful to your divine plan for me and on NOT on what my human heart and mind may dictate. In Jesus I pray. Amen.

Reflection 3 – Jesus perceived the thought of their hearts

Are you surprised to see the disciples of Jesus arguing about who is the greatest among them? Don’t we do the same thing? The appetite for glory and greatness seems to be inbred in us. Who doesn’t cherish the ambition to be “somebody” whom others admire rather than a “nobody”?  Even the psalms speak about the glory God has destined for us. “You have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5). Jesus made a dramatic gesture by placing a child next to himself to show his disciples who really is the greatest in the kingdom of God.

What can a little child possibly teach us about greatness? Children in the ancient world had no rights, position, or privileges of their own. They were socially at the “bottom of the rung” and at the service of their parents, much like the household staff and domestic servants. What is the significance of Jesus’ gesture? Jesus elevated a little child in the presence of his disciples by placing the child in a privileged position of honor at his right side. It is customary, even today, to seat the guest of honor at the right side of the host. Who is the greatest in God’s kingdom? The one who is humble and lowly of heart – who instead of asserting their rights willingly empty themselves of pride and self-seeking glory by taking the lowly position of a servant or child.

Jesus, himself, is our model. He came not to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:28). Paul the Apostles states that Jesus “emptied himself and took the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7).  Jesus lowered himself (he whose place is at the right hand of God the Father) and took on our lowly nature that he might raise us up and clothe us in his divine nature. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). If we want to be filled with God’s life and power, then we need to empty ourselves of everything which stands in the way – pride, envy, self-seeking glory, vanity, and possessiveness. God wants empty vessels so he can fill them with his own glory, power, and love (2 Corinthians 4:7). Are you ready to humble yourself and to serve as Jesus did?

“Lord Jesus, your grace knows no bounds. You give freely to the humble of heart and you grant us freedom to love and serve others selflessly. May my love for you express itself in an eagerness to do good for others.” – Read the source: http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/readings/2019/sep30.htm

Reflection 4 – Who’s better than you?

listen to this reflection

How easy it is to identify with the feelings of the disciples in today’s Gospel reading! We want to know that we’ve got greatness within us, that we are not garbage, that we have important value. We all too easily feel inferior. Most of the time, we’re controlled by an unmet need to feel better about ourselves. In an effort to convince ourselves that we’re okay, we use words like a shrinking ray to diminish others.

This is why Jesus gave the disciples – and us – a couple of examples of how equally special everyone is to him, and why. It’s based on what he preached in Matthew 25: What we do to others we do to him. In this case, the caring and acceptance that we give to a child is caring and acceptance that we give to Jesus. We are not greater than (superior to) children, for through them we encounter God, who alone is superior.

Children know less than we do. But once in a while, they come up with a gem of wisdom or an insight that challenges us, and because they are children, we dismiss it with a condescending smile and “Ahhh, how cute.” But that’s not how Jesus treats them. That’s not how Jesus wants to treat them through us.

What about adults? We expect them to believe us when we tell them what’s right and what’s wrong, and when they challenge us with an insight that goes against our perception of the truth, we diminish what they said so that we can protect ourselves from feeling inferior.

But that’s not how Jesus treats them. That’s not how Jesus treats us.

At some point in our lives, we discovered that we could feel good about ourselves if we belonged to “the right group” – the “in” crowd, the “elite” club, the “high status” jobs, the “most respected” parish ministry. Christ’s disciples, because they were members of his inner circle, assumed that they’d been given special privileges. When an outsider acted as if he had the same privileges, they didn’t think he was equally qualified.

We all know people who don’t match our idea of who’s qualified, but if they’re not working against God’s kingdom, we’d better not do anything against them, for that’s the same as being against Jesus!

Know that you are not inferior. It’s only God’s opinion of you that really matters. In his eyes, you are as important as anyone else. Jesus loves you as much as he loves his own mother! Once you realize this and let it heal your wounded heart, the temptation to feel superior will diminish. And every time you feel inferior to others again, ask God what hidden wound needs more healing, and if you do whatever it takes to open up to that healing, eventually the temptation to feel superior will disappear. – Read the source: http://gnm.org/good-news-reflections/?useDrDate=2018-10-01

Reflection 5 – Putting our hand to the plow and not expecting consolation

“God wants to show (me)… that it would be mistaken in looking elsewhere for a shadow of beauty which it would be taking for beauty itself!…

“How good he is to me… how divinely lovable he is when not wanting to allow me to attach myself to any created thing. He knows well that if he were to give me a shadow of happiness, I would attach myself to it with all my energy, all the strength of my heart, and this shadow he is refusing me; he prefers leaving me in darkness to giving me a false light which would not be himself!…Since I can’t find any creature that contents me, I want to give all to Jesus, and I don’t want to give to the creature even one atom of my love. My Jesus always makes me understand that he alone is perfect joy when he appears to be absent!…

“Today more than yesterday, if that were possible, I was deprived of all consolation. I thank Jesus, who finds this good for my soul, and that, perhaps if he were to console me, I would stop at this sweetness; but he wants that all be for Himself!… Well, then, all will be for him, all, even when I feel I am able to offer nothing; so, just like this evening, I will give him this nothing!

“Although Jesus is giving me no consolation, he is giving me a peace so great that it is doing me more good!…

“Joy is to be found only in suffering and in suffering without any consolation!” (St. Therese of Lisieux, +1897 A.D.).

Reflection 6 – Humility’s true greatness

“When the disciples were arguing about greatness, our Lord, that master of humility, took a little child, saying: Whosoever of you shall not have been converted and become as a little child cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. And that he might not seem merely to teach this and not do it, he fulfilled the precept by example when he washed the disciples’ feet, when he received his betrayer with a kiss, when he spoke with the Samaritan woman, when he discussed the Kingdom of heaven as Mary sat at his feet, when he rose from the dead and appeared first to mere women.

“Moreover, Satan fell from the height of the archangels for no other reason save pride – the opposite of humility. And [those who], because they claimed for themselves the chief seats and greetings in the marketplace, [were] succeeded by the people… who had previously been accounted as a drop of a bucket. Likewise, Peter and James, the fishermen, were sent to oppose the sophists of their time and the wise men of this world, wherefore the Scripture says: God resists the proud, but to the humble he gives grace (Source: St. Jerome, +420 A.D., Magnificat, Vol. 21, No. 7, September 2019, pp. 405-406).

Reflection 7 – St. Jerome (345-420 A.D.)

Most of the saints are remembered for some outstanding virtue or devotion which they practiced, but Jerome is frequently remembered 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 (August 28) 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, always trying to find the very best teachers. He once served as private secretary of Pope Damasus (December 11).

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.

Comment:

Jerome was a strong, outspoken man. He had the virtues and the unpleasant fruits of being a fearless critic and all the usual moral problems of a man. He was, as someone has said, no admirer of moderation whether in virtue or against evil. He was swift to anger, but also swift to feel remorse, even more severe on his own shortcomings than on those of others. A pope is said to have remarked, on seeing a picture of Jerome striking his breast with a stone, “You do well to carry that stone, for without it the Church would never have canonized you” (Butler’s Lives of the Saints).

Quote:

“In the remotest part of a wild and stony desert, burnt up with the heat of the scorching sun so that it frightens even the monks that inhabit it, I seemed to myself to be in the midst of the delights and crowds of Rome. In this exile and prison to which for the fear of hell I had voluntarily condemned myself, I many times imagined myself witnessing the dancing of the Roman maidens as if I had been in the midst of them: In my cold body and in my parched-up flesh, which seemed dead before its death, passion was able to live. Alone with this enemy, I threw myself in spirit at the feet of Jesus, watering them with my tears, and I tamed my flesh by fasting whole weeks. I am not ashamed to disclose my temptations, but I grieve that I am not now what I then was” (“Letter to St. Eustochium”).

Patron Saint of: Librarians

Related St. Anthony Messenger article(s) 

St. Jerome: Perils of a Bible Translator, by Leslie Hoppe, OFM

Read the source:  http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx?id=1154

The life of St. Jerome

Saint Jerome, the priest, monk and Doctor of the Church renowned for his extraordinary depth of learning and translations of the Bible into Latin in the Vulgate, is celebrated by the Church with his memorial today, September 30.

Besides his contributions as a Church Father and patronage of subsequent Catholic scholarship, Jerome is also regarded as a patron of people with difficult personalities—owing to the sometimes extreme approach which he took in articulating his scholarly opinions and the teaching of the Church. He is also notable for his devotion to the ascetic life, and for his insistence on the importance of Hebrew scholarship for Christians.

Born around 340 as Eusebius Hieronymous Sophronius in present-day Croatia, Jerome received Christian instruction from his father, who sent him to Rome for instruction in rhetoric and classical literature. His youth was thus dominated by a struggle between worldly pursuits –which brought him into many types of temptation– and the inclination to a life of faith, a feeling evoked by regular trips to the Roman catacombs with his friends in the city.

Baptized in 360 by Pope Liberius, Jerome traveled widely among the monastic and intellectual centers of the newly Christian empire. Upon returning to the city of his birth, following the end of a local crisis caused by the Arian heresy, he studied theology in the famous schools of Trier and worked closely with two other future saints, Chromatius and Heliodorus, who were outstanding teachers of orthodox theology.

Seeking a life more akin to the first generation of “desert fathers,” Jerome left the Adriatic and traveled east to Syria, visiting several Greek cities of civil and ecclesiastical importance on the way to his real destination: “a wild and stony desert … to which, through fear or hell, I had voluntarily condemned myself, with no other company but scorpions and wild beasts.”

Jerome’s letters vividly chronicle the temptations and trials he endured during several years as a desert hermit. Nevertheless, after his ordination by the bishop of Antioch, followed by periods of study in Constantinople and service at Rome to Pope Damasus I, Jerome opted permanently for a solitary and ascetic life in the city of Bethlehem from the mid-380s.

Jerome remained engaged both as an arbitrator and disputant of controversies in the Church, and served as a spiritual father to a group of nuns who had become his disciples in Rome. Monks and pilgrims from a wide array of nations and cultures also found their way to his monastery, where he commented that “as many different choirs chant the psalms as there are nations.”

Rejecting pagan literature as a distraction, Jerome undertook to learn Hebrew from a Christian monk who had converted from Judaism. Somewhat unusually for a fourth-century Christian priest, he also studied with Jewish rabbis, striving to maintain the connection between Hebrew language and culture, and the emerging world of Greek and Latin-speaking Christianity. He became a secretary of Pope Damasus, who commissioned the Vulgate from him. Prepared by these ventures, Jerome spent 15 years translating most of the Hebrew Bible into its authoritative Latin version. His harsh temperament and biting criticisms of his intellectual opponents made him many enemies in the Church and in Rome and he was forced to leave the city.

Jerome went to Bethlehem, established a monastery, and lived the rest of his years in study, prayer, and asceticism.

St. 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.”

After 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 A.D.

Read from the source:  http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint.php?n=610

SAINT OF THE DAY

Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. Each saint the Church honors responded to God’s invitation to use his or her unique gifts. God calls each one of us to be a saint. 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome
“Saint Jerome” redirects here. For other uses, see Saint Jerome (disambiguation) and Jerome (disambiguation).
ST. JEROME
Bernardino Pinturicchio - Saint Jerome in the Wilderness - Walters 371089.jpg

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness by Bernardino Pinturicchio
HERMIT AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH
BORN c. 347
Stridon (possibly Strido Dalmatiae, on the border ofDalmatia and Pannonia)
DIED 420 (aged c. 73)
Bethlehem, Palaestina Prima
VENERATED IN Roman Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
Anglican Communion
Lutheranism
Oriental Orthodoxy
MAJOR SHRINE Basilica of Saint Mary Major,Rome, Italy
FEAST 30 September (Western Christianity)
15 June (Eastern Christianity)
ATTRIBUTES lion, cardinal attire, cross, skull,trumpet, owl, books and writing material
PATRONAGE archeologists; archivists; Bible scholars; librarians; libraries; school children; students;translators
MAJOR WORKS The Vulgate
De viris illustribus
Chronicon
Emblem of the Papacy SE.svg
Part of a series on
CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY

BRANCHES
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Jerome (/dʒəˈroʊm/; Latin: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; Greek: Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; c.  347 – 30 September 420) was a presbyter, confessor, theologian and historian. He was the son of Eusebius, born at Stridon, a village near Emona on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia, then part of northeastern Italy.[1][2][3] He is best known for his translation of most of the Bible into Latin (the translation that became known as the Vulgate), and his commentaries on the Gospels. His list of writings is extensive.[4]

The protégé of Pope Damasus I, who died in December of 384, Jerome was known for his teachings on Christian moral life, especially to those living in cosmopolitan centers such as Rome. In many cases, he focused his attention to the lives of women and identified how a woman devoted to Jesus should live her life. This focus stemmed from his close patron relationships with several prominent female ascetics who were members of affluent senatorial families.[5]

He is recognised as a Saint and Doctor of the Church by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, theLutheran Church, and the Anglican Communion.[6] His feast day is 30 September.

Life[edit]

St. Jerome in His Study (1480), byDomenico Ghirlandaio.

Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus was born at Stridon around 347 A.D.[7] He was of Illyrian ancestry and his native tongue was the Illyrian dialect.[8][9] He was not baptized until about 360–366 A.D., when he had gone to Rome with his friend Bonosus (who may or may not have been the same Bonosus whom Jerome identifies as his friend who went to live as a hermit on an island in the Adriatic) to pursue rhetorical and philosophical studies. He studied under the grammarianAelius Donatus. There Jerome learned Latin and at least some Greek,[10] though probably not the familiarity with Greek literature he would later claim to have acquired as a schoolboy.[11]

As a student in Rome, he engaged in the superficial escapades and wanton behaviour of students there, which he indulged in quite casually but for which he suffered terrible bouts of guilt afterwards. To appease his conscience, he would visit on Sundays the sepulchres of the martyrs and the Apostles in the catacombs. This experience would remind him of the terrors of hell:

“Often I would find myself entering those crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything was so dark that almost it seemed as though the Psalmist’s words were fulfilled, Let them go down quick into Hell.[12] Here and there the light, not entering in through windows, but filtering down from above through shafts, relieved the horror of the darkness. But again, as soon as you found yourself cautiously moving forward, the black night closed around and there came to my mind the line of Vergil, “Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent’”.[13][14]

Jerome used a quote from Virgil—”On all sides round horror spread wide; the very silence breathed a terror on my soul”[15]—to describe the horror of hell. Jerome initially used classical authors to describe Christian concepts such as hell that indicated both his classical education and his deep shame of their associated practices, such as pederasty which was found in Rome. Although initially skeptical of Christianity, he was eventually converted.[16] After several years in Rome, he travelled with Bonosus to Gaul and settled in Trier where he seems to have first taken up theological studies, and where he copied, for his friendTyrannius Rufinus, Hilary of Poitiers‘ commentary on the Psalms and the treatise De synodis. Next came a stay of at least several months, or possibly years, with Rufinus at Aquileia, where he made many Christian friends.

Some of these accompanied him when he set out about 373 on a journey through Thrace and Asia Minor into northern Syria. At Antioch, where he stayed the longest, two of his companions died and he himself was seriously ill more than once. During one of these illnesses (about the winter of 373–374), he had a vision that led him to lay aside his secular studies and devote himself to God. He seems to have abstained for a considerable time from the study of the classics and to have plunged deeply into that of the Bible, under the impulse of Apollinaris of Laodicea, then teaching in Antioch and not yet suspected of heresy.

St. Jerome reading in the countryside, by Giovanni Bellini

Seized with a desire for a life of ascetic penance, he went for a time to the desert of Chalcis, to the southeast of Antioch, known as the “Syrian Thebaid“, from the number of hermits inhabiting it. During this period, he seems to have found time for studying and writing. He made his first attempt to learn Hebrew under the guidance of a converted Jew; and he seems to have been in correspondence with Jewish Christians in Antioch. Around this time he had copied for him a Hebrew Gospel, of which fragments are preserved in his notes, and is known today as the Gospel of the Hebrews, and which the Nazarenes considered to be the true Gospel of Matthew.[17] Jerome translated parts of this Hebrew Gospel into Greek.[18]

Returning to Antioch in 378 or 379, he was ordained by Bishop Paulinus, apparently unwillingly and on condition that he continue his ascetic life. Soon afterward, he went to Constantinople to pursue a study of Scripture under Gregory Nazianzen. He seems to have spent two years there, then left, and the next three (382–385) he was in Rome again, as secretary to Pope Damasus I and the leading Roman Christians. Invited originally for the synod of 382, held to end the schism of Antioch as there were rival claimants to be the proper patriarch in Antioch. Jerome had accompanied one of the claimants, Paulinus back to Rome in order to get more support for him, and distinguished himself to the pope, and took a prominent place in his councils.

He was given duties in Rome, and he undertook a revision of the Latin Bible, to be based on the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. He also updated the Psalter containing the Book of Psalms then at use in Rome based on the Septuagint. Though he did not realize it yet, translating much of what became the Latin Vulgate Bible would take many years and be his most important achievement (see Writings– Translations section below).

This painting by Antonio da Fabriano II, depicts St. Jerome in study. The writing implements, scrolls, and manuscripts testify to Jerome’s scholarly pursuits.[19] The Walters Art Museum.

In Rome he was surrounded by a circle of well-born and well-educated women, including some from the noblest patricianfamilies, such as the widows Lea, Marcella and Paula, with their daughters Blaesillaand Eustochium. The resulting inclination of these women towards the monastic life, away from the indulgent lasciviousness in Rome, and his unsparing criticism of thesecular clergy of Rome, brought a growing hostility against him among the Roman clergy and their supporters. Soon after the death of his patron Damasus (10 December 384), Jerome was forced by them to leave his position at Rome after an inquiry was brought up by the Roman clergy into allegations that he had an improper relationship with the widow Paula. Still, his writings were highly regarded by women who were attempting to maintain a vow of becoming a consecrated virgin. His letters were widely read and distributed throughout the Christian empire and it is clear through his writing that he knew these virgin women were not his only audience.[5]

Additionally, his condemnation of Blaesilla‘s hedonistic lifestyle in Rome had led her to adopt ascetic practices, but it affected her health and worsened her physical weakness to the point that she died just four months after starting to follow his instructions; much of the Roman populace were outraged at Jerome for causing the premature death of such a lively young woman, and his insistence to Paula that Blaesilla should not be mourned, and complaints that her grief was excessive, were seen as heartless, polarising Roman opinion against him.[20]

In August 385, he left Rome for good and returned to Antioch, accompanied by his brother Paulinian and several friends, and followed a little later by Paula and Eustochium, who had resolved to end their days in the Holy Land. In the winter of 385, Jerome acted as their spiritual adviser. The pilgrims, joined by Bishop Paulinus of Antioch, visited Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the holy places of Galilee, and then went to Egypt, the home of the great heroes of the ascetic life.

At the Catechetical School of Alexandria, Jerome listened to the catechist Didymus the Blind expounding the prophet Hoseaand telling his reminiscences of Anthony the Great, who had died 30 years before; he spent some time in Nitria, admiring the disciplined community life of the numerous inhabitants of that “city of the Lord”, but detecting even there “concealed serpents”, i.e., the influence of Origen of Alexandria. Late in the summer of 388 he was back in Palestine, and spent the remainder of his life working in a cave near Bethlehem, the very cave Jesus was born,[21] surrounded by a few friends, both men and women (including Paula and Eustochium), to whom he acted as priestly guide and teacher.

Painting by Niccolò Antonio Colantonio, showing St. Jerome’s removal of a thorn from a lion’s paw.

Amply provided by Paula with the means of livelihood and of increasing his collection of books, he led a life of incessant activity in literary production. To these last 34 years of his career belong the most important of his works; his version of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew text, the best of his scriptural commentaries, his catalogue of Christian authors, and the dialogue against the Pelagians, the literary perfection of which even an opponent recognized. To this period also belong most of his polemics, which distinguished him among the orthodox Fathers, including the treatises against the Origenism later declared anathema, of Bishop John II of Jerusalemand his early friend Rufinus. Later, as a result of his writings againstPelagianism, a body of excited partisans broke into the monastic buildings, set them on fire, attacked the inmates and killed adeacon, forcing Jerome to seek safety in a neighboring fortress (416).

It is recorded that Jerome died near Bethlehem on 30 September 420. The date of his death is given by the Chronicon ofProsper of Aquitaine. His remains, originally buried at Bethlehem, are said to have been later transferred to the basilica ofSanta Maria Maggiorein Rome, though other places in the West claim some relics—the cathedral at Nepi boasting possession of his head, which, according to another tradition, is in the Escorial.

Translations and commentaries[edit]

St Jerome, by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1607, at St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta, Malta

Saint Jerome, unknown Southern Netherlandish artist, 1520, Hamburger Kunsthalle

Jerome was a scholar at a time when that statement implied a fluency in Greek. He knew some Hebrew when he started histranslation project, but moved to Jerusalem to strengthen his grip on Jewish scripture commentary. A wealthy Roman aristocrat, Paula, funded his stay in a monastery in Bethlehem and he completed his translation there. He began in 382 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 original Hebrew, having previously translated portions from the Septuagintwhich came from Alexandria. He believed that the mainstream Rabbinical Judaism had rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts because of what were ascertained as mistranslations along with its Hellenistic heretical elements.[22] He completed this work by 405. Prior to Jerome’s Vulgate, all Latin translations of the Old Testament were based on the Septuagint not the Hebrew. Jerome’s decision to use a Hebrew text instead of the previous translated Septuagint went against the advice of most other Christians, including Augustine, who thought the Septuagint inspired. Modern scholarship, however, has cast doubts on the actual quality of Jerome’s Hebrew knowledge. Many modern scholars believe that the Greek Hexapla is the main source for Jerome’s “iuxta Hebraeos” translation of the Old Testament.[23]

For the next 15 years, until he died, Jerome produced a number of commentaries on Scripture, often explaining his translation choices in using the original Hebrew rather than suspect translations. 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. Unlike his contemporaries, he emphasizes the difference between the Hebrew Bible “apocrypha” and the Hebraica veritas of theprotocanonical books. In his Vulgate’s prologues, he describes some portions of books in the Septuagint that were not found in the Hebrew as being non-canonical (he called them apocrypha);[24] for Baruch, he mentions by name in his Prologue to Jeremiah and notes that it is neither read nor held among the Hebrews, but does not explicitly call it apocryphal or “not in the canon”.[25] His Preface to The Books of Samuel and Kings[26] includes the following statement, commonly called the Helmeted Preface:

This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a “helmeted” introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be assured that what is not found in our list must be placed amongst the Apocryphal writings. Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd are not in the canon. The first book of Maccabees I have found to be Hebrew, the second is Greek, as can be proved from the very style.

Although Jerome was once suspicious of the apocrypha, it is said that he later viewed them as Scripture. For example, in Jerome’s letter to Eustochium he quotes Sirach 13:2.,[27] elsewhere Jerome also refers to Baruch, the Story of Susannah and Wisdom as scripture.[28][29][30]

Jerome in the desert, tormented by his memories of the dancing girls, byFrancisco de Zurbarán. Rome.

Jerome’s commentaries fall into three groups:

  • His translations or recastings of Greek predecessors, including fourteen homilies on the Book of Jeremiah and the same number on the Book of Ezekiel by Origen (translated ca. 380 in Constantinople); two homilies of Origen of Alexandria on the Song of Solomon (in Rome, ca. 383); and thirty-nine on the Gospel of Luke(ca. 389, in Bethlehem). The nine homilies of Origen on the Book of Isaiah included among his works were not done by him. Here should be mentioned, as an important contribution to the topography of Palestine, his book De situ et nominibus locorum Hebraeorum, a translation with additions and some regrettable omissions of the Onomasticon of Eusebius. To the same period (ca. 390) belongs the Liber interpretationis nominum Hebraicorum, based on a work supposed to go back to Philo and expanded by Origen.
  • Original commentaries on the Old Testament. To the period before his settlement at Bethlehem and the following five years belong a series of short Old Testament studies: De seraphim, De voce Osanna, De tribus quaestionibus veteris legis(usually included among the letters as 18, 20, and 36); Quaestiones hebraicae in Genesim; Commentarius in Ecclesiasten;Tractatus septem in Psalmos 10–16 (lost); Explanationes in Michaeam, Sophoniam, Nahum, Habacuc, Aggaeum. After 395 he composed a series of longer commentaries, though in rather a desultory fashion: first on Jonah and Obadiah (396), then on Isaiah (ca. 395-ca. 400), on Zechariah, Malachi, Hoseah, Joel, Amos (from 406), on the Book of Daniel(ca. 407), on Ezekiel (between 410 and 415), and on Jeremiah (after 415, left unfinished).
  • New Testament commentaries. These include only Philemon, Galatians, Ephesians, and Titus (hastily composed 387–388); Matthew (dictated in a fortnight, 398);Mark, selected passages in Luke, Revelation, and the prologue to the Gospel of John.

Historical and hagiographic writings[edit]

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In the Middle Ages, Jerome was often ahistorically depicted as acardinal.

Jerome is also known as a historian. One of his earliest historical works was his Chronicle (or Chronicon or Temporum liber), composed ca. 380 in Constantinople; this is a translation into Latin of the chronological tables which compose the second part of the Chronicon of Eusebius, with a supplement covering the period from 325 to 379. Despite numerous errors taken over from Eusebius, and some of his own, Jerome produced a valuable work, if only for the impulse which it gave to such later chroniclers as Prosper, Cassiodorus, and Victor of Tunnuna to continue his annals.

Of considerable importance as well is the De viris illustribus, which was written at Bethlehem in 392, the title and arrangement of which are borrowed from Suetonius. It contains short biographical and literary notes on 135 Christian authors, from Saint Peter down to Jerome himself. For the first seventy-eight authors Eusebius (Historia ecclesiastica) is the main source; in the second section, beginning with Arnobius and Lactantius, he includes a good deal of independent information, especially as to western writers.

Four works of a hagiographic nature are:

The so-called Martyrologium Hieronymianum is spurious; it was apparently composed by a western monk toward the end of the 6th or beginning of the 7th century, with reference to an expression of Jerome’s in the opening chapter of the Vita Malchi, where he speaks of intending to write a history of the saints and martyrs from theapostolic times.

Letters[edit]

Saint Jerome by Matthias Stom

Jerome’s letters or epistles, both by the great variety of their subjects and by their qualities of style, form an important portion of his literary remains. Whether he is discussing problems of scholarship, or reasoning on cases of conscience, comforting the afflicted, or saying pleasant things to his friends, scourging the vices and corruptions of the time and against sexual immoralityamong the clergy,[31]exhorting to the ascetic life and renunciation of the world, or breaking a lance with his theological opponents, he gives a vivid picture not only of his own mind, but of the age and its peculiar characteristics. Because there was no distinct line between personal documents and those meant for publication, we frequently find in his letters both confidential messages and treatises meant for others besides the one to whom he was writing.[32]

Due to the time he spent in Rome among wealthy families belonging to the Roman upper-class, Jerome was frequently commissioned by women who had taken a vow of virginity to write them in guidance of how to live their life. As a result, he spent a great deal of his life corresponding to these women about certain abstentions and lifestyle practices.[5] These included the clothing she should wear, the interactions she should undertake and how to go about conducting herself during such interactions, and what and how she ate and drank. The letters most frequently reprinted or referred to are of a hortatory nature, such as Ep. 14, Ad Heliodorum de laude vitae solitariae; Ep. 22, Ad Eustochium de custodia virginitatis; Ep. 52, Ad Nepotianum de vita clericorum et monachorum, a sort of epitome of pastoral theology from the ascetic standpoint; Ep. 53, Ad Paulinum de studio scripturarum; Ep. 57, to the same, De institutione monachi; Ep. 70, Ad Magnum de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis; and Ep. 107, Ad Laetam de institutione filiae.

  • Letter to Dardanus (Ep. 129)

    You may delineate the Promised Land of Moses from the Book of Numbers (ch. 34): as bounded on the south by the desert tract called Sina, between the Dead Sea and the city of Kadesh-barnea, [which is located with the Arabah to the east] and continues to the west, as far as the river of Egypt, that discharges into the open sea near the city of Rhinocolara; as bounded on the west by the sea along the coasts of Palestine, Phoenicia, Coele‑Syria, and Cilicia; as bounded on the north by the circle formed by the Taurus Mountains[33] and Zephyrium and extending to Hamath, called Epiphany‑Syria; as bounded on the east by the city of Antioch Hippos and Lake Kinneret, now called Tiberias, and then the Jordan River which discharges into the salt sea, now called the Dead Sea.[34][35]

Theological writings[edit]

Francesco St Jerome – Jacopo Palma il Giovane

Practically all of Jerome’s productions in the field of dogma have a more or less vehemently polemical character, and are directed against assailants of the orthodox doctrines. Even the translation of the treatise of Didymus the Blind on the Holy Spiritinto Latin (begun in Rome 384, completed at Bethlehem) shows an apologetic tendency against the Arians andPneumatomachoi. The same is true of his version of Origen’s De principiis (ca. 399), intended to supersede the inaccurate translation by Rufinus. The more strictly polemical writings cover every period of his life. During the sojourns at Antioch and Constantinople he was mainly occupied with the Arian controversy, and especially with the schisms centering around Meletius of Antioch and Lucifer Calaritanus. Two letters to Pope Damasus (15 and 16) complain of the conduct of both parties at Antioch, the Meletians and Paulinians, who had tried to draw him into their controversy over the application of the terms ousiaand hypostasis to the Trinity. At the same time or a little later (379) he composed his Liber Contra Luciferianos, in which he cleverly uses the dialogue form to combat the tenets of that faction, particularly their rejection of baptism by heretics.

In Rome (ca. 383) he wrote a passionate counterblast against the teaching of Helvidius, in defense of the doctrine of theperpetual virginity of Mary and of the superiority of the single over the married state. An opponent of a somewhat similar nature was Jovinianus, with whom he came into conflict in 392 (Adversus Jovinianum, Against Jovinianus) and the defense of this work addressed to his friend Pammachius, numbered 48 in the letters). Once more he defended the ordinary Catholic practices of piety and his own asceticethics in 406 against the Gallic presbyter Vigilantius, who opposed the cultus of martyrs and relics, the vow of poverty, and clerical celibacy. Meanwhile, the controversy with John II of Jerusalem and Rufinus concerning the orthodoxy of Origen occurred. To this period belong some of his most passionate and most comprehensive polemical works: the Contra Joannem Hierosolymitanum (398 or 399); the two closely connected Apologiae contra Rufinum (402); and the “last word” written a few months later, theLiber tertius seuten ultima responsio adversus scripta Rufini. The last of his polemical works is the skilfully composed Dialogus contra Pelagianos (415).

Reception by later Christianity[edit]

The Virgin and Child with Saints Jerome and Nicholas of Tolentino byLorenzo Lotto

Jerome is the second most voluminous writer (after Augustine of Hippo) in ancient Latin Christianity. In the Roman Catholic Church, he is recognized as the patron saint of translators, librarians and encyclopedists.[36]

He acquired a knowledge of Hebrew by studying with a Jew who converted to Christianity, and took the unusual position (for that time) that the Hebrew, and not the Septuagint, was the inspired text of the Old Testament. The traditional view is that he used this knowledge to translate what became known as the Vulgate, and his translation was slowly but eventually accepted in the Catholic Church.[37] The later resurgence of Hebrew studies within Christianity owes much to him.

He showed more zeal and interest in the ascetic ideal than in abstract speculation. It was this strict asceticism that made Martin Luther judge him so severely. In fact, Protestant readers are not generally inclined to accept his writings as authoritative. The tendency to recognize a superior comes out in his correspondence with Augustine (cf. Jerome’s letters numbered 56, 67, 102–105, 110–112, 115–116; and 28, 39, 40, 67–68, 71–75, 81–82 in Augustine’s).[citation needed]

Despite the criticisms already mentioned, Jerome has retained a rank among the western Fathers. This would be his due, if for nothing else, on account of the great influence exercised by his Latin version of the Bible upon the subsequent ecclesiasticaland theologicaldevelopment.[38]

In art[edit]

Statue Of St. Jerome (Hieronymus) – Bethlehem, Palestine Authority, West Bank

16th century un-signed painting of St. Jerome, in private collection

This painting by the Workshop of Pieter Coecke van Aelst depicts St. Jerome in his study.[39] The Walters Art Museum.

In art, he is often represented as one of the four Latin doctors of the Church along with Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose, and Pope Gregory I. As a prominent member of the Roman clergy, he has often been portrayed anachronistically in the garb of a cardinal. Even when he is depicted as a half-clad anchorite, with cross, skull and Bible for the only furniture of his cell, the red hat or some other indication of his rank as cardinal is as a rule introduced somewhere in the picture. During Jerome’s life, cardinals did not exist. However, by the time of the Renaissance and the Baroque it was common practice for a secretary to the pope to be a cardinal (as Jerome had effectively been to Damasus), and so this was reflected in artistic interpretations.

He is also often depicted with a lion, in reference to the popular hagiographical belief that Jerome had tamed a lion in the wilderness by healing its paw. The source for the story may actually have been the second century Roman tale of Androcles, or confusion with the exploits of Saint Gerasimus (Jerome in Latin is “Geronimus”).[40][41][42]Hagiographies of Jerome talk of his having spent many years in the Syrian desert, and artists often depict him in a “wilderness”, which for West European painters can take the form of a wood or forest.[43]

He is also sometimes depicted with an owl, the symbol of wisdom and scholarship.[44] Writing materials and the trumpet of final judgment are also part of his iconography.[44] He is commemorated on 30 September with a memorial.

Miscellany[edit]

Geronimo, a religious and military leader of the Chiricahua Apache, who tenaciously fought against Mexico and the United States’ expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars, was initially known by his Apache name: “Goyahkla” (One Who Yawns). “Later he was called Geronimo (Spanish for Jerome), most likely because of the way he fought in battle against Mexican soldiers who frantically called upon St. Jerome for help. He willingly accepted the name.”[45]

See also[edit]

Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Jerome

References[edit]

Notes
  1. Jump up^ Scheck, Thomas P. Commentary on Matthew (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 117). p. 5. “”
  2. Jump up^ Maisie Ward, Saint Jerome, Sheed & Ward, London 1950, p. 7 “It may be taken as certain that Jerome was an Italian, coming from that wedge of Italy which seems on the old maps to be driven between Dalmatia and Pannonia.”
  3. Jump up^ Tom Streeter, The Church and Western Culture: An Introduction to Church History, AuthorHouse 2006, p. 102 “Jerome was born around 340 AD at Stridon, a town in northeast Italy at the head of the Adriatic Ocean.”
  4. Jump up^ Schaff, Philip, ed. (1893). A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. 2nd series. VI. Henry Wace. New York: The Christian Literature Company. Retrieved 2010-06-07.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b c Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006)
  6. Jump up^ In the Eastern Orthodox Church he is known as St Jerome of Stridonium or Blessed Jerome. Though “Blessed” in this context does not have the sense of being less than a saint, as in the West.
  7. Jump up^ Williams, Megan Hale (2006), The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the making of Christian Scholarship, Chicago
  8. Jump up^ Pevarello, Daniele (2013). The Sentences of Sextus and the origins of Christian ascetiscism. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. p. 1.ISBN 9783161525797.
  9. Jump up^ Wilkes 1995, p. 266: “Alongside Latin the native Illyrian survived in the country areas, and St Jerome claimed to speak his ‘sermo gentilis’ (Commentary on Isaiah 7.19).”
  10. Jump up^ Walsh, Michael, ed. (1992), Butler’s Lives of the Saints, New York: HarperCollins, p. 307
  11. Jump up^ Kelly, JND (1975), Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies, New York: Harper & Row, pp. 13–14
  12. Jump up^ Psalm 55:15
  13. Jump up^ Jerome, Commentarius in Ezzechielem, c. 40, v. 5
  14. Jump up^ Patrologia Latina 25, 373: Crebroque cryptas ingredi, quae in terrarum profunda defossae, ex utraque parte ingredientium per parietes habent corpora sepultorum, et ita obscura sunt omnia, ut propemodum illud propheticum compleatur: Descendant ad infernum viventes (Ps. LIV,16): et raro desuper lumen admissum, horrorem temperet tenebrarum, ut non tam fenestram, quam foramen demissi luminis putes: rursumque pedetentim acceditur, et caeca nocte circumdatis illud Virgilianum proponitur (Aeneid. lib. II): “Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent.”
  15. Jump up^ P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneid Theodore C. Williams, Ed. Perseus Project (retrieved 23 Aug 2013)
  16. Jump up^ Payne, Robert (1951), The Fathers of the Western Church, New York: Viking, p. 91
  17. Jump up^ Rebenich, Stefan (2002), Jerome, p. 211, Further, he began to study Hebrew: ‘I betook myself to a brother who before his conversion had been a Hebrew and’…
  18. Jump up^ Pritz, Ray (1988), Nazarene Jewish Christianity: from the end of the New Testament, p. 50, In his accounts of his desert sojourn, Jerome never mentions leaving Chalcis, and there is no pressing reason to think…
  19. Jump up^ “Saint Jerome in His Study”. The Walters Art Museum.
  20. Jump up^ Joyce Salisbury, Encyclopedia of women in the ancient world, Blaesilla
  21. Jump up^ Bennett, Rod (2015). The Apostasy That Wasn’t: The Extraordinary Story of the Unbreakable Early Church. Catholic Answers Press. ISBN 1941663494.
  22. Jump up^ “(…) die griechische Bibelübersetzung, die einem innerjüdischen Bedürfnis entsprang (…) [von den] Rabbinen zuerst gerühmt (…) Später jedoch, als manche ungenaue Übertragung des hebräischen Textes in der Septuaginta und Übersetzungsfehler die Grundlage für hellenistische Irrlehren abgaben, lehte man die Septuaginta ab.” Verband der Deutschen Juden (Hrsg.), neu hrsg. von Walter Homolka, Walter Jacob, Tovia Ben Chorin: Die Lehren des Judentums nach den Quellen; München, Knesebeck, 1999, Bd.3, S. 43ff
  23. Jump up^ Pierre Nautin, article Hieronymus, in: Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Vol. 15, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin – New York 1986, p. 304-315, here p. 309-310.
  24. Jump up^ “The Bible”.
  25. Jump up^ Kevin P. Edgecomb, Jerome’s Prologue to Jeremiah
  26. Jump up^ “Jerome’s Preface to Samuel and Kings”.
  27. Jump up^ Barber, Michael (2006-03-06). “Loose Canons: The Development of the Old Testament (Part 2)”. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
  28. Jump up^ Jerome, To Paulinus, Epistle 58 (A.D. 395), in NPNF2, VI:119.: “Do not, my dearest brother, estimate my worth by the number of my years. Gray hairs are not wisdom; it is wisdom which is as good as gray hairs At least that is what Solomon says: “wisdom is the gray hair unto men.’ [Wisdom 4:9]” Moses too in choosing the seventy elders is told to take those whom he knows to be elders indeed, and to select them not for their years but for their discretion [Num. 11:16]? And, as a boy, Daniel judges old men and in the flower of youth condemns the incontinence of age [Daniel 13:55–59 aka Story of Susannah 55–59]”
  29. Jump up^ Jerome, To Oceanus, Epistle 77:4 (A.D. 399), in NPNF2, VI:159.:”I would cite the words of the psalmist: ‘the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,’ [Ps 51:17] and those of Ezekiel ‘I prefer the repentance of a sinner rather than his death,’ [Ez 18:23] and those of Baruch, ‘Arise, arise, O Jerusalem,’ [Baruch 5:5] and many other proclamations made by the trumpets of the Prophets.”
  30. Jump up^ Jerome, Letter 51, 6, 7, NPNF2, VI:87-8: “For in the book of Wisdom, which is inscribed with his name, Solomon says: “God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity.“[Wisdom 2:23]…Instead of the three proofs from Holy Scripture which you said would satisfy you if I could produce them, behold I have given you seven”
  31. Jump up^ “regulae sancti pachomii 84 rule 104.
  32. Jump up^ W. H. Fremantle, “Prolegomena to Jerome”, V.
  33. Jump up^ Bechard, Dean Philip (1 January 2000). Paul Outside the Walls: A Study of Luke’s Socio-geographical Universalism in Acts 14:8-20. Gregorian Biblical BookShop. pp. 203–205. ISBN 978-88-7653-143-9. In the Second Temple period, when Jewish authors were seeking to establish with greater precision the geographical definition of the Land, it became customary to construe “Mount Hor” of Num 34:7 as a reference to the Amanus range of the Taurus Mountains, which marked the northern limit of the Syrian plain (Bechard 2000, p. 205, note 98.)
  34. Jump up^ Sainte Bible expliquée et commentée, contenant le texte de la Vulgate. Bibl. Ecclésiastique. 1837. p. 41. Quod si objeceris terram repromissionis dici, quae in Numerorum volumine continetur (Cap. 34), a meridie maris Salinarum per Sina et Cades-Barne, usque ad torrentem Aegypti, qui juxta Rhinocoruram mari magno influit; et ab occidente ipsum mare, quod Palaestinae, Phoenici, Syriae Coeles, Ciliciaeque pertenditur; ab aquilone Taurum montem et Zephyrium usque Emath, quae appellatur Epiphania Syriae; ad orientem vero per Antiochiam et lacum Cenereth, quae nunc Tiberias appellatur, et Jordanem, qui mari influit Salinarum, quod nunc Mortuum dicitur; (Image of p. 41 at Google Books)
  35. Jump up^ Hieronymus (1910). “Epistola CXXIX Ad Dardanum de Terra promissionis (al. 129; scripta circa annum 414ce)”. Epistularum Pars III —Epistulae 121-154, p. 171 (The fifty-sixth volume of Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum also known as the Vienna Corpus: Letters Part 3, Containing letters 121-154 of St. Jerome.) Image of p. 171 at Archive.org
  36. Jump up^ “St. Jerome: Patron Saint of Librarians | Luther College Library and Information Services”. Lis.luther.edu. Retrieved 2014-06-02.
  37. Jump up^ Stefan Rebenich, Jerome (New York: Routlage, 2002), pp. 52–59
  38. Jump up^ “Jerome, St.” Pages 872-873 in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Third Edition Revised. Edited by E. A. Livingstone; F. L. Cross. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
  39. Jump up^ “Saint Jerome in His Study”. The Walters Art Museum.
  40. Jump up^ Hope Werness, Continuum encyclopaedia of animal symbolism in art, 2006
  41. Jump up^ “Eugene Rice has suggested that in all probability the story of Gerasimus’s lion became attached to the figure of Jerome some time during the seventh century, after the military invasions of the Arabs had forced many Greek monks who were living in the deserts of the Middle East to seek refuge in Rome. Rice conjectures (Saint Jerome in the Renaissance, pp. 44–45) that because of the similarity between the names Gerasimus and Geronimus – the late Latin form of Jerome’s name – ‘a Latin-speaking cleric . . . made St Geronimus the hero of a story he had heard about St Gerasimus; and that the author of Plerosque nimirum, attracted by a story at once so picturesque, so apparently appropriate, and so resonant in suggestion and meaning, and under the impression that its source was pilgrims who had been told it in Bethlehem, included it in his life of a favourite saint otherwise bereft of miracles.’” Salter, David. Holy and Noble Beasts: Encounters With Animals in Medieval Literature. D. S. Brewer. p. 12. ISBN 9780859916240.
  42. Jump up^ “a figment” found in the thirteenth-century Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine Williams, Megan Hale. The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship. Chicago: U of Chicago P. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-226-89900-8.
  43. Jump up^ “Saint Jerome in Catholic Saint info”. Catholic-saints.info. Retrieved 2014-06-02.
  44. ^ Jump up to:a b The Collection: St. Jerome, gallery of the religious art collection of New Mexico State University, with explanations. Accessed August 10, 2007.
  45. Jump up^ “GERONIMO (ca. 1829–1909)”. Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved 2015-01-08.