SAINT JEROME – Father of Biblical Science

SAINT JEROME – Father of Biblical Science(c. 342–c. 420): AS the fourth century turned into the fifth, the ancient world was in turmoil. The Roman Empire was decadent and crumbling. The stir of marching barbaric tribes had begun. A few years later, in 410 A.D., Rome itself would fall to the invading Alaric and his Goths. Deep changes were in progress, whose on-rolling waves would strike the distant shores of a long future. The changes were political and social, cultural and religious. The young adult voice of Christianity spoke out just as the quavering accents of the Old Roman Empire grew faint, although there was not a cause and effect connection between the rise of the one and the fall of the other, as the historian Edward Gibbon has claimed. It is not surprising, then, that during the fourth and early fifth centuries, we witness the appearance of 12 of the Doctors of the Church. They had a large share in the formative influence of the Catholic Church in a period of crisis and change. If asked to choose from among their number the one man who exercised the greatest influence, many scholars would pick St. Jerome.

It was just in the years covering the turn of the century (391–406) that he did his most productive and enduring work. During these years, he published his translation into Latin of all the Hebrew books of the Bible. In his large cave in Bethlehem near the birthplace of Our Lord, St. Jerome, the careful, painstaking scholar, worked on and on for countless hours. He worked day and night, despite trouble with his eyes and not very robust health. A pilgrim wrote: “He is always completely engrossed in his reading and his books. He never rests, day or night. He is reading or writing the whole time.” The pilgrim saw a man of pale, ascetic face, with white hair, and a body lean from much fasting and sickness. The observer might have smiled had he been able to look back half a century and see the learned Jerome as a little boy being pulled from his grandmother’s lap to face the hated Orbilius, his first teacher. The pilgrim might have recalled from St. Jerome’s own letters the picture of a young man in Rome— eagerly pursuing the classical pagan authors, and between times, almost as eagerly, pursuing the pleasures of the pagans.

For St. Jerome was no ready-made saint, and his early interest as a scholar was in secular fields. He never lost his taste for classical literature. In fact, there is a famous story that St. Jerome had a dream in which an angel asked him to describe himself. Jerome answered that he was a Christian. The Angel denied this and accused St. Jerome of being, rather, a Ciceronian—alluding to the scholar’s love for the works of Cicero. The Angel then proceeded to administer a flogging to the Saint. When St. Jerome awoke, the marks of the flogging were still to be seen upon his back. Much chastened, Jerome gave up or at least drastically curtailed his reading of classical pagan authors. Jerome also never lost his contact with what went on in the world or his deep feelings either for or against other people. For his final years he was vigorously, and often angrily, entering into controversies. He always remained a kind of watchdog for orthodoxy. His warning bark and charging attack scattered and frightened intruders.

The Vulgate: St. Jerome was a part of the changing world, but his essential work of translation proceeded. His long training as a classical scholar, his exact knowledge of Hebrew, Greek and Latin, his own passion for exactness fitted him for this supreme task of his life. As the world changed and left behind its ancient molds, St. Jerome was helping to form a new Christian mold that in turn would vastly help to reshape the world. One of the answers to the question “Why is Latin the language of the Church?” is surely that St. Jerome’s mighty translations and revisions of translations of Sacred Scripture helped to establish it as such. He provided a basic, reliable translation of the Bible, a work of appeal and style that could be accepted, referred to and used for meditation as well as for study. This masterpiece is known as the Latin Vulgate Bible, or simply as the Vulgate, the term deriving from the fact that the work was a translation into the “vulgar” tongue or the common Latin of the people. A Protestant scholar, Dean Millman, says: The translation of Jerome created a new language. The inflexible Latin became pliant and expansive, naturalizing Eastern imagery, Eastern modes of expression and thought, and Eastern religious notions most uncongenial to its genius and character, and yet retaining much of its own peculiar strength, solidity and majesty.

St. Jerome’s translation from the Hebrew met with much opposition in his own day. Even St. Augustine wrote at first to dissuade him from going directly from the Hebrew. It took about 100 years for St. Jerome’s Old Testament translation to find equal favor with other, older versions. Then it gradually grew in favor, until, practically speaking, it supplanted all others. Earlier, St. Jerome had revised the old Latin translation (the old Itala) of the Gospels, and perhaps other or all books of the New Testament. Earlier, too, he had twice revised the Psalms. The second of his two previous revisions—known as the Gallican Psalter, from its popularity among the Gauls—found more favor than his latest translation directly from the Hebrew. The Gallican Psalter is incorporated into the Vulgate, which is the Latin Bible made up basically of Jerome’s translations and revisions of earlier translations. St. Jerome’s Gallican Psalter was used until 1945 in reciting the Divine Office. At that time a new Latin text was authorized, though the Gallican Psalter could still be used. Of the Old Testament deuterocanonical books (these seven Old Testament books are not accepted by Protestants), St. Jerome translated only Judith and Tobias. These were originally written in Chaldaic.

From the Council of Trent (1548–1563) until 1979, the Vulgate was the official Latin Bible of the Catholic Church. (In 1979 Pope John Paul II issued a new Vulgate, the Nova Vulgata.) For 800 years before Trent, the Vulgate was the Bible which was most commonly used. In its Fourth Session the Council of Trent decreed: Moreover, the same holy council [Trent]… ordains and declares that the old Latin Vulgate Edition, which, in use for so many hundred years, has been approved by the Church, be in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions held as authentic, and that no one dare or presume under any pre-text whatsoever to reject it. (April 8, 1546). The Vulgate’s influence in shaping the thinking of philosophers and theologians was profound. “No other book has so profoundly influenced the literature of the Middle Ages; books of ceremonies, breviaries, medieval plays, books of devotion, and even the great works of philosophy and theology acknowledge their debt to St. Jerome.” (F. Moriarty, S. J.). St. Jerome tells us of two guiding principles which he followed in translating: First, to go back to the original language; secondly, to remember that a slavishly literal translation from one language into anothter obscures the sense; the exuberance of the language lessens the yield. For while one’s diction is enslaved to cases and metaphors, it has to explain by tedious circumlocutions what a few words would otherwise have sufficed to make plain. (Letter 57).

The Traveling Scholar: St. Jerome came from a Christian family that was fairly well to-do. He was named after his father, Eusebius, but he is commonly called Hieronymus in Latin, or Jerome. There was an only sister and a brother, Paulinian, born 20 years after Jerome. In his many writings St. Jerome speaks very little of his family and never mentions the names of his mother or his sister, an omission which contrasts with his devoted and deep friendships with various holy women whose names and deeds he has preserved. The omission may point to an unhappy home situation. Jerome was born at Stridon, a town of Venetia-Histria or the northern part of Italy between Dalmatia and Pannonia. The exact site of Stridon is not known, nor is the exact date of St. Jerome’s birth. The most likely date is 342. Two dates are given for his death, 419 and 420, the latter being more commonly held. At an early age, he was sent to Rome to be educated. Here he developed a great interest in classical authors and led a life somewhat on the wild side. Yet his many visits to the catacombs and his early Christian training soon brought him to request Baptism, which, as was often the case in those days, had been deferred. He was about 20 years old at the time. St. Jerome had an active, inquiring mind, a lively facility for making friends and enemies, and a roving, restless nature. All these are especially in evidence during the years following his student days in Rome.

He traveled for three years in Gaul and Italy, having a home base at Treves (Trier) in Germany. It was here that he came to admire St. Hilary of Poitiers and copied two of his books for his friend Rufinus. This was a second hand introduction to the Bible for the future biblical scholar. He lived for three years at Aquileia, then went on a long journey through Asia Minor, ending at the home of Evagrius in Antioch, the great city of Syria. It was while going through Athens that he saw the inscription: “To the gods of Asia, of Europe and of Africa, to the unknown and wandering gods.” Concerning this, he said that St. Paul had quoted loosely when basing his Athenian speech on the text: “To the unknown god.” (Cf. Acts 17:23). St. Jerome then spent five years as a monk in the desert of Calcis. He was about 30 years old at this time. During this period he learned Hebrew, in part as a penance and an antidote against severe sensual temptations. The most quoted passage of his writings describes these trials. It occurs in a letter, really a treatise, on virginity, addressed to the young virgin, Eustochium. (Letter 22). St. Jerome writes with candor and humility:

How often when I was living in the desert, in the vast solitude which gives to hermits a savage dwelling place, parched by a burning sun, how often did I fancy myself among the plea-sures of Rome! I used to sit alone because I was filled with bitterness. Sackcloth disfigured my unshapely limbs; and my skin, from long neglect, had become as black as an Ethiopian’s … Now, although in my fear of Hell I had consigned myself to this prison, where I had no companions but scorpions and wild beasts, I often found myself amid bevies of girls. My face was pale and my frame chilled with fasting; yet my mind was burning with desire, and the fires of lust kept bubbling up before me when my flesh was as good as dead. Helpless, I cast myself at the feet of Jesus; I watered them with my tears; I wiped them with my hair; and then I subdued my rebellious body with weeks of abstinence … I remember how I often cried aloud all night till the break of day, and ceased not beating my breast till tranquility returned at the chiding of the Lord. I used to make my way alone into the desert. Wherever I saw hollow valleys, craggy mountains, steep cliffs, there I made my oratory, there the house of correction for my unhappy flesh … When I had shed copious tears and had strained my eyes towards Heaven, I sometimes felt myself amid angelic hosts …

There were other disturbances in the desert, since disputes about doctrine engaged the monks. Jerome left there for the same reason he had left Aquileia, because of controversy. He returned to the home of his friend Evagrius at Antioch. Paulinus, one of the bishops of this See, which was torn by schism, ordained St. Jerome a priest. Jerome, however, always remained a monk and scholar, and did not exercise the priestly office as a pastor of souls. Drawn by the fame of St. Gregory Nazianzen, he went to Constantinople, spent there a happy period of writing and study, and then left for Rome in 382 at the invitation of Pope St. Damasus I. In Rome St. Jerome acted as secretary and advisor to the Pope; it is for this reason that art sometimes pictures him in cardinal’s robes. St. Jerome’s renown grew at this time, and he was often mentioned as a possible candidate for the papacy. Yet, it was only during these two years in Rome that his vast scholarship was given direction and purpose. Pope Damasus asked him to revise the existing Latin version of the Gospels, basing the corrections on the original Greek.

At this same time St. Jerome undertook the instruction and spiritual formation of a group of noble women who met at the home of Marcella on the Aventine. Among these was the widow St. Paula and her four daughters, Blesilla, Paulina, St. Eustochium (whose name was actually Eustochium Julia) and Rufina. Among the other holy women were Lea, Asella and Fabiola. Spurred on by these tasks, St. Jerome’s interest in the Scriptures and in the ascetical life continued to grow. The questions asked by the Pope and by Jerome’s eager and intelligent pupils gave zest to his studies. But his very work led him into trouble. There was much criticism of his changes in the wording (translation) of the Gospels to which the people had been accustomed. Moreover, St. Jerome’s own blunt criticisms of the lives of some of the Roman clergy and of fashionable Christians stirred up a storm against him. He was summoned before a council of clergy to answer charges of misconduct regarding Marcella and Paula. His friend and protector, Pope Damasus, had died. St. Jerome cleared himself of the charges and then left Rome, which he bitterly called Babylon. Nevertheless, he grieved much when the city was later sacked by the Goths.

Bethlehem, the Journey’s End: St. Jerome now traveled throughout Palestine, acquainting himself with the geography of this land of the Bible. After this he went for a while to Egypt. In much of this travel he was accompanied by a sizable group of people who had followed him from Rome, including St. Paula and St. Eustochium. Finally, he settled at Bethlehem. He had seen much that would help him in his work on the Bible. As he said, “Whoever has looked with his own eyes on Judea and knows the associations of its ancient towns and their names, old or new, has a clearer grasp of the Scriptures.” St. Jerome himself lived in a cave near the place of Christ’s birth. It can be seen today in the northern part of the crypt of the Basilica of the Nativity. Nearby were built monasteries for men and women and a guest house for pilgrims, so that no pilgrim would be left without shelter as the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph had been. Later, a school for boys and two more convents were built. St. Paula supplied most of the funds for this work, and St. Jerome used the last of his patrimony. In Bethlehem, which he called “the most august spot in all the world,” St. Jerome spent the remaining 34 years of his life. He was a lonely, laboring, prayerful monk who toiled most of the night, and yet at the same time he was an active director of souls, a teacher and an adviser and helper of pilgrims during much of the day.

Enmity with Rufinus: St. Jerome was a very sensitive man. He was naturally responsive to affection and was quickly hurt by criticism. Besides this, he was a careful scholar, paying much attention to the precise use of words. He could not stand the misinterpretations of Scripture of those less careful. Beyond this he was very devoted to the ideal of the monastic life and to the defense of the traditional teachings of the Church. He rose immediately to refute, in unmistakable and strong terms, and with an overwhelming display of knowledge, anyone who wrote against monastic ideals or the orthodox teachings of the Church. His most sensitive spot of all was for him to be considered in favor of a doubtful or wrong teaching.

It is easy to see that anyone who devotes his whole life to a cause suffers most when he is accused of working against that very cause. This is what happened in the case of St. Jerome’s most celebrated encounter with his former cherished friend, Rufinus. They had been students together in Rome and had a high regard for each other. But under pressure from St. Epiphanius, who wanted Origen condemned, St. Jerome gave his support and Rufinus did not, nor did John, the Bishop of Jerusalem, who was a close friend of Rufinus. In the furor that developed, St. Jerome and his monks and St. Paula’s religious were even deprived of Mass and the Sacraments by John. But after all this, St. Jerome and Rufinus publicly made up, shaking hands after Mass. This was in 397. When Rufinus left for the West soon afterwards, St. Jerome, in token of friendship, went part way with him.

But the controversy about Origen broke out again. Some of the reports that came back to St. Jerome about Rufinus’ attacks on him were exaggerated. It is true, however, that Rufinus did point a finger of suspicion at St. Jerome for using the works of Origen, though now condemning him. Rufinus opened a more personally delicate topic when he criticized St. Jerome for learning Hebrew from a rabbi and for going back on a promise not to read pagan authors. Perhaps St. Jerome had used up what he thought was his last ounce of forgiving patience. His reply to Rufinus shows hurt and anger. He gave vent to personal abuse and name-calling. Rufinus became the pig, the scorpion, the hundred-headed hydra, the grunter. St. Augustine summed up the sadness of the Christian world over, this discord when he wrote to St. Jerome: “I feel most unhappy that such horrible dissension should have occurred between people who had been so friendly and intimate and who almost all the Churches knew to have been linked by the closest of bonds.”

In the controversy with Rufinus, St. Jerome cannot be excused. But some of his language, even here must be laid to rhetorical exaggeration. St. Jerome freely admitted that “to teach a disciple is one thing; to vanquish an opponent, another.” (Letter 50). He also said that in fighting a foe you use the sword, but you likewise feint. (Letter 47). St. Jerome knew that the public sees only black and white, and so he sketched in deep black when he wanted to ruin the damaging effect of heresy or personal attack. His method had its effect in fighting Pelagius, “the hulking brute stuffed with his Scots’ porridge,” and in silencing Helvidius, Jovinian and Vigilantius. This is not to say that St. Jerome did not use learning and logic. He did pile proof upon proof, appealing especially to Scripture and to traditional teaching. But he also employed ridicule and satire and plain name-calling. His method is not unlike that of a competent modern statesman who knows his subject, but also considers it necessary to employ the exaggerations of political campaigning.

His Aunt Castorina: St. Jerome’s caustic pen and his regrettable enmity with Rufinus have been well-publicized. But a letter to his Aunt Castorina, a little masterpiece of forgiving charity, is hardly ever mentioned. Castorina, his mother’s sister, had for some unknown reason become estranged from St. Jerome. He wrote, asking for a reconciliation, and received no answer for a year. Then he wrote again: How have we been able in our daily prayers to say, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” whilst our feelings have been at variance with our words, and our petition inconsistent with our conduct. Therefore, I renew the prayer which I made a year ago in a previous letter that the Lord’s legacy of peace may be indeed ours, and that my desires and your feelings may find favor in His sight. St. Jerome also recalled that one’s gift at the altar is not acceptable unless he be first reconciled with his brother. (Matt. 5:23–24). St. Jerome knew more than any of us the duty of forgiveness as explained in Scripture. He also feared the Judgment. In the same letter to Castorina he says, “Soon we shall stand before His judgment seat to receive the reward of harmony restored or to pay the penalty for harmony broken.” (Letter 13).

Deep Friendships: We understand St. Jerome’s harsh words to opponents better, too, when we contrast them with his unusually strong words of affection for friends. A quarter-century before their quarrel, St. Jerome had written to Rufinus, calling him “dearest Rufinus”: “Believe me, brother, I look forward to seeing you more than the storm-tossed mariner looks for his haven, more than the thirsty fields long for the showers, more than the anxious mother sitting on the curving shore expects her son.” In the same letter, referring to the death of his friend, Innocent, St. Jerome laments: “I lost one of my two eyes; for Innocent, the half of my soul, was taken away from me by a sudden attack of fever.” When Hylas, another companion, died soon afterwards, St. Jerome himself, due as much to sorrow as to the hardships of a journey, fell sick and remained so for much of a year. This was about the year 374. Writing to console St. Paula on the death of her 20-year-old daughter, the widowed Blesilla, St. Jerome says:

But what is this? I wish to check a mother’s weeping, and I groan myself. I make no secret of my feelings; this entire letter is written in tears… Dear Paula, my agony is as great as yours… I was her father in the spirit, her foster-father in affection… No page shall I write in which Blesilla’s name shall not occur. Wherever the records of my utterance shall find their way, thither she too will travel with my poor writings…When St. Paula herself died after 20 years in the convent at Bethlehem, St. Jerome was so stricken that he could not control the pen in his hand, but dictated a long letter to her daughter Eustochium. When Eustochium died in 418, St. Jerome, then in his last years, could not find the strength nor the will to compose a funeral oration. He wrote later: The sudden falling asleep of the holy and venerable virgin Eustochium has completely crushed us, and it has almost transformed our way of living, for we can no longer carry out our plans in many things, and the fervor of the mind is frustrated by the infirmities of old age.

Earlier, at the end of a long letter giving advice on how to educate the little Paula, granddaughter of St. Paula, St. Jerome had asked to have a share in her education. He advised sending the little girl to her holy grandmother and to her Aunt Eustochium. They would train her in the ways of holiness and virginity. Then he adds: If you will only send Paula, I myself promise to be both a tutor and a foster-father to her. Old as I am, I will carry her on my shoulders and train her stammering lips; and my charge will be a far grander one than that of the worldly philosopher…

A Prolific Writer: St. Jerome will always be remembered first for his translation of the Bible. Yet his other works are voluminous. He wrote many Scripture commentaries. Those of the major prophets, done in the final years of his life, had a prolonged influence on Church writers. His letters, about 120 in number, give a very valuable picture of fourth-century society and an intimate glimpse into his own personality. His book of short biographies, entitled De Viris Illustribus (On Illustrious Men)—and ending with himself—has preserved much information not otherwise known. It is a good, though not always a reliable source book on 135 ancient writers, most of whom were Christian. St. Jerome dismisses St. Ambrose in De Viris Illustribus: “Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, is still writing today; as, he is living, I shall avoid giving my judgment in order not to expose myself to the contradictory reproach of too much flattery or too much frankness.” St. Jerome did give generous notice to St. Gregory Nazianzen. De Viris Illustribus is the sole extant source of information on the lives of Tertullian and Cyprian.

St. Jerome was not very speculative in his writings, but he was the greatest stylist among the Latin Fathers. Throughout his writings are many neat twists of rhetoric, many quotable phrases. He is seldom dull and most often interesting, even today. His words of advice are often surprisingly apt, as when he gives, his ideas on educating the infant Paula: Have letters made for her, of boxwood or ivory, and let them be called by their names. Let her play with them, and let the play be part of her instruction… She should have companions in her task of learning, whose accomplishments, she may envy and whose praises may spur her sense of shame. Do not scold her if she is slow, but arouse her ambition by praise, so that she may delight at victory and smart at defeat. Above all, do not allow her to hate her studies, lest the bitterness of them, acquired in childhood, lost her maturer years.

The very names wherewith she gradually learns to put words together should be purposely chosen—that is, those of the Prophets and the Apostles, and the whole line of patriarchs, from Adam down, and those of Matthew and Luke, so that while she is engaged in something else, she may be laying up a useful store in her memory. (Letter 107). In Letter 68 St. Jerome’s words are very much to the point in consoling Castrutius, a blind man: God’s hottest anger against sinners is when He shows no anger. “My jealousy will depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry…” (Ezech. 16:42). The master does not correct his disciple unless he sees in him signs of promise. When once the doctor gives over caring for the patient, it is a sign that he despairs.

Letters to St. Augustine: The correspondence with St. Augustine, in which nine letters were written, shows St. Jerome with his fiery eloquence at times smoldering but under control. St. Augustine’s first two letters to St. Jerome was delayed and were publicly circulated before Jerome saw them. Besides this irritating factor, their suggestions and criticisms came from a younger man, though a bishop, to an older man already an established and renowned scholar. There was some cause for unfavorable reaction on the part of St. Jerome. He kept silent, however, until he received a third letter. Jerome’s first extant letter to St. Augustine is polite and reserved but has muffled undertones of displeasure: Finally, pray esteem one who esteems you; and in the field of Scripture do not you, a youth, challenge me, an old man… See how much I esteem you in the fact that I have been unwilling to answer even when challenged, nor will, I believe that a document is yours, which in another I should perhaps blame.

In a later letter St. Augustine explained the people’s objection to St. Jerome’s substituting “ivy” for the familiar “gourd” in the book of Jonas (4:6). He added, “Whence even I think that in some things, you may sometimes have been mistaken.” Jerome answered this in a way that showed wounded feeling: If you wish either to exercise or to display your learning, seek for youths both eloquent and noble who can dare fight with you… And pray attend to my request that, whatever you write to me, you would take the trouble to see that it reaches my hands first. St. Augustine wrote a soothing apology. Later correspondence shows St. Augustine quite careful, if still free in offering suggestions; and St. Jerome is measuring his words, though not above injecting some personal feeling.

Virginity and Marriage: By his writings and example St. Jerome gave a great impetus to the practice of asceticism and chastity. He also gave the monastic life a strong direction toward union with a life of study and teaching. So strong was St. Jerome’s defense of the virginal state that he has often been accused of running down marriage. He defends himself from this charge by offering a good example, comparing virginity to gold and marriage to silver. “Gold is more precious than silver, but is silver on that account the less silver?” (Letter 48). It is true that St. Jerome does have individual passages that seem to disparage marriage. But whoever reads St. Jerome must keep remembering that he does not wish to weaken his pleadings by quiet qualifications. He writes with the loud emphasis of the orator.

Like a cartoonist who makes his characters grotesque, but has a solid message, so writes St. Jerome. In his most famous letter, that to St. Eustochium (Letter 22), St. Jerome shows that he fully knew the true value of virginity as a dedication to a higher love: How very difficult it is in the human heart not to love anything! Of necessity, our minds and wills must be drawn to some kind of affection. Carnal love is overcome by spiritual love. Desire is extinguished by deeper desire. Whatever is taken from carnal love is given to the higher love. In the life of St. Jerome himself, human affection was by no means extinguished, but rather developed to an unusual degree and purified. He gained such a control over merely sensual attraction that he was able to develop a deep and tender attachment toward various holy women. His love for St. Paula and Eustochium, especially, and their regard for him and interest in his work, sustained and spurred him on in his labors.

Defends Our Lady’s Perpetual Virginity: In connection with his high view of virginity, St. Jerome wrote a detailed defense of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. “I must entreat God the Father to show that the Mother of His Son, who was a mother before she was a bride, continued a virgin after her Son was born.” St. Jerome refuted all the objections of Helvidius, among them those based on Scriptural references to Mary’s “firstborn son” and “the brothers of the Lord”: Every only-begotten son is a firstborn son, but not every firstborn is an only-begotten. By firstborn, we understand not only one who is succeeded by others, but one who has had no predecessors. Referring to the Lord’s “brothers,” St. Jerome says: “In Holy Scripture, there are four kinds of brethren—by nature, race, kindred, love.” He gives examples of each and shows that in the case of Christ, the brothers are kindred; they are His cousins and the nephews of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Finally, St. Jerome in his usual blunt way tells Helvidius: “You neglected the whole range of Scripture and employed your madness in outraging the Virgin.” One very interesting sentence of St. Jerome sweeps clean the first three centuries of Christianity from any charges of not believing in Our Lady’s perpetual virginity. “Pray, tell me,” he asks Helvidius, “who, before you appeared, was acquainted with this blasphemy? Who thought the theory worth two pence?”

Adherence to Authority: St. Jerome showed many times his reliance on the supreme authority of the Pope and the weight of traditional teaching to provide the guidance needed in matters of doctrine. His definition of heresy, given in his Commentary on Titus, implies a firm support of a divinely instituted Teaching Authority. St. Jerome explains that “‘Heresy’ comes from a Greek word which means ‘choice,’ because every heretic chooses what seems to him preferable…” St. Jerome urged the reading of Holy Scripture: I beg of you, my dear brother, to live among these books, to meditate upon them, to know nothing else.” (Letter 53 to Paulinus, Bishop of Nola). Yet he cautioned that in the Holy Scriptures you can make no progress unless you have a guide to show you the way … The art of interpreting the Scriptures is the only one of which all men everywhere claim to be the masters … The chatty old woman, the doting old man, and the worldly sophist, one and all, take in hand the Scriptures, rend them in pieces and teach them before they have learned them… They do not deign to notice what prophets and apostles have intended, but they adapt conflicting passages to suit their own meaning, as if it were a grand way of teaching—and not rather the faultiest of all—to misrepresent a writer’s views and to force the Scriptures reluctantly to do their will …

St. Jerome was writing to a bishop. His controversies with bishops and scholars on matters of faith show that he did not consider them—as individuals—to be sure guides in faith. Writing to Vigilantius, who had attacked the honoring of relics, prayer for the Saints’ intercession and the practice of virginity, St. Jerome laments: Shameful to relate, there are bishops who are said to be associated with him in his wickedness—if at least they are to be called bishops—who ordain no deacons but such as have been previously married… St. Jerome’s appeal is to the authority of all (or most of) the churches (dioceses) commonly accepting Catholic doctrine. His appeal is also to the See of Rome. Appealing to Pope St. Damasus to decide the disputed bishopric of Antioch, and asking whether one may speak of three hypostases (persons) in the Godhead, St. Jerome wrote: My words are spoken to the successor of the Fisherman, to the disciple of the Cross. As I follow no leader save Christ, so I communicate with none but Your Blessedness, that is, with the Chair of Peter. For this I know is the rock on which the Church is built. This is the house where alone the Paschal Lamb can be rightly eaten. This is the Ark of Noah, and he who is not found in it shall perish when the flood prevails. In a second letter St. Jerome asserts that when he is asked for a decision about the disputed bishopric he always answers: “He who clings to the Chair of Peter is accepted by me.” He adds, “Therefore I implore Your Blessedness, by Our Lord’s Cross and Passion—those necessary glories of our Faith—as you hold an apostolic office, to give an apostolic decision.”

St. Jerome Still Speaks: St. Jerome was close to age 80 when he died around 420 A.D. During the life his great subject of meditation had been death and the divine judgment, which no doubt prepared his soul for these realities when they came. The Rev. Alban Butler says that the following saying is ascribed to St. Jerome: Whether I eat or drink, or whatever else I do, the dreadful trumpet of the last day seems to always sounding in my ears: “Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment!” It is said that Paula, granddaughter of St. Paula, closed St. Jerome’s eyes upon his death. St. Jerome was buried near St. Paula and St. Eustochium. It is thought that eight centuries later his bones were transferred to Rome; in 1747 a casket said to contain them was found there in the crypt of St. Mary Major. In St. Jerome we have a good proof that the saints are not perfect, but are people striving for perfection. St. Jerome experienced temptations against purity even in his later years: When I have been angry, or have had evil thoughts in my mind, or some phantom of the night has beguiled me, I do not dare to enter the basilicas of the martyrs; I shudder all over in body and soul.

This was in the year 406. At times, St. Jerome had to drive himself in order to work, despite his eager, inquiring mind. He sometimes misunderstood people, and they misunderstood him; he sometimes quarreled with them, and they answered back. He was one of the great names-callers of all history. But this was largely a tactic, an attempt to discredit his opponents—not only in their ideas (which he saw as harmful to the Faith), but also in their persons, so that neither they nor their ideas would have any credence to anyone. Yet, he feared the judgment of God and recalled that we must forgive if we are to be forgiven. At the same time, he was penitent, full of love for God and man, zealous for souls, devoted to the pursuit of truth, humbly submissive to Church authority. The traditional trappings of holiness are not essential. Holiness often has to strive not only against the odds without, but also against the odds within, as apparently in St. Jerome the disparate elements of a personality, were fused together by his burning zeal for God and the coming of His Kingdom. In some people the fusing often may not be perfect, but in St. Jerome it was, as his sanctity attests.

Nobody will be shocked at St. Jerome’s irascibility who compares his own privately spoken words with those that the Saint more candidly wrote for all to see. St. Jerome loved to upset half-baked opinions. No doubt he is quite happy now to be a saint and thereby to have upset the candid opinion that all saints are easy to get along with and that holiness is always equivalent to mildness. If St. Jerome was living today, he would have a whole new arsenal of facts and principles to work within the field of Sacred Scripture. It would be very interesting to hear his conclusions. We can be sure that St. Jerome, whom a pagan writer described as “a man signally Catholic and most skilled in Holy Writ,” would at once uphold the Catholic Faith and be a monumental influence on all who value the Scriptures. For in him are combined with an unusually high degree an absolute adherence to the authority of Holy Church and an extreme devotion to and knowledge of the Holy Bible.

Writing in the epochal and lengthy encyclical, Spiritus Paraclitus, on the occasion of the fifteenth centenary of the death of St. Jerome, Pope Benedict XV said, His voice is now still, though at one time the whole Catholic world listened to it when it echoed from the desert; yet Jerome still speaks in his writings, which “shine like lamps throughout the world.” Jerome still calls to us. St. Jerome’s feast day is September 30. He is one of the four great Latin Doctors of the Church—along with St. Ambrose, St. Augustine and Pope St. Gregory the Great. * St. Jerome may disclaim being “slavishly” literal; however, his translation of the Bible into Latin is extremely literally and highly accurate. —Publisher, 2000.