Jerome
4th and 5th-century Catholic and Eastern Orthodox saint and Doctor of the Church
b. c. 345 · d. c. 30 Sep 420
Jerome, also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian priest, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome.
Related people
- Aelius Donatus disciple of · traditional
- Apollinaris of Laodicea disciple of · traditional
- Evagrius Ponticus disciple of · traditional
- Jesus influenced by · traditional
- Asterius of Ansedunum teacher of · traditional
- Hydatius teacher of · traditional
- Eusebius of Cremona teacher of · traditional
- Tyrannius Rufinus teacher of · traditional
- Blaesilla teacher of · traditional
- Philippus Presbyter teacher of · traditional
- Licinian of Cartagena influenced · traditional
Works
- De viris illustribus 392
- The Chronicon c. 380
- The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary c. 383
- Against Jovinian 393
- Apology Against Rufinus 401–402
- Letter of Jerome to Pope Damasus
- Jerome's first epistle to Paulinus
- Correspondence of Saint Jerome
- Commentarii in Esaiam
- Commentarii in Danielem
- Commentarii in Ezechielem
- Commentarius in Ecclesiasten
- Vita Pauli primi eremitae
- Quaestiones hebraicae in Genesim
- Facito aliquid operis, ut te semper diabolus inveniat occupatum
- Commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Galatians c. 387
- Ad Principiam Virginem De Vita Sanctae Marcellae
- L'espistre de monseigneur sainct Jherosme
- L'espistre de monseigneur sainct Jherosme
- Letter to Evangelus on Melchizedek
Events
Commemorated
Places
How we know
Recorded as a historical figure.
- Letters 5 claims — The Aventine circle; Jerome writes to Eustochium on virginity; Paula and Eustochium settle at Bethlehem
- De Viris Illustribus 2 claims — The three Jameses; The two Hermases
Documents
- Vulgate translator
Written about
Sayings
- Asked who and what I was I replied: "I am a Christian." But He who presided said: "Thou liest, thou art a follower of Cicero and not of Christ." Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — The dream at Antioch, told to Eustochium: he is dragged before the judgment seat in a fever and scourged for loving the classics more than the scriptures. He kept reading them.
- The church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood not that of others, by enduring outrage not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow… Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — Written to Theophilus of Alexandria, who had sought a decree of exile against him in the Origenist quarrel. Jerome is telling a patriarch what the church is for while that…
- Love is not to be purchased, and affection has no price. The friendship which can cease has never been real. Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — The close of a letter to Rufinus, the friend of his youth at Aquileia. They quarrelled bitterly twenty years later over Origen and never repaired it, which is what gives the…
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- For to have an ideal is one thing, to realize it another. It is one thing to live so as to die, another to die so as to live. Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — From the letter consoling Heliodorus on the death of his nephew Nepotian — the same young priest Letter LII was written to instruct. Jerome sets Paul against Plato: the sage dies…
- In a priest of Christ mouth, mind, and hand should be at one. Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — The end of a passage imagining what a congregation thinks when a well-fed preacher recommends fasting: "As well might a robber accuse others of covetousness."
- O desert, bright with the flowers of Christ! O solitude whence come the stones of which, in the Apocalypse, the city of the great king is built! Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — Written from the Syrian desert to Heliodorus, who had turned back from it. Jerome is arguing that the wilderness is not an absence but a city — the one Revelation builds out of…
- I praise wedlock, I praise marriage, but it is because they give me virgins. I gather the rose from the thorns, the gold from the earth, the pearl from the… Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — From the long letter to Eustochium on keeping virginity — the most notorious thing he wrote, and the sentence in which he answers the charge that he despised marriage. The answer…
- Read the divine scriptures constantly; never, indeed, let the sacred volume be out of your hand. Learn what you have to teach. Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — Advice to Nepotian, newly ordained. The letter is a manual for the clergy and was read as one for a thousand years.
- The scars of others should teach us caution. Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — To Furia, a young widow under pressure to remarry, immediately after describing a scandal that had crossed the whole East.
- When teaching in church seek to call forth not plaudits but groans. Let the tears of your hearers be your glory. Checked word-for-word against the book it cites — Also to Nepotian, and a rule against the applause that Greek and Latin congregations gave a good sermon. Chrysostom fought the same habit at Antioch and lost.
Glosses
- The three Jameses Three men named James stand in the apostolic record and the West has spent most of its history with two of them. James son of Zebedee is never confused with anyone: he is John's brother, one of the inner three, and…
- The two Hermases Jerome, listing the writers of the church, says the Shepherd was written by the Hermas whom Paul greets in Romans 16:14 — which would make its author a contemporary of the apostles and put the book in the first…