He was one of the first four men named Doctors of the Church. He created a Latin translation of the Bible used by Catholics since the fourth century. His extensive writings—commentaries, letters, and essays—influenced Christian thought during his lifetime and long afterward.
But Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, now known to the world as Saint Jerome of Stridon (347-420), was also considered a bit of a curmudgeon by his contemporaries. He was notoriously thin-skinned about criticisms of his work and publicly lost a friendship over a theological dispute. He had a witty, biting tongue, and he knew how to use it. He wrote a collection of biographies about the most famous men of his time, and he included himself on that list.
No one denies that Jerome made profound contributions to the Catholic Church. However, was he holy? Do we honor Jerome as a saint simply because his intellectual achievements were extraordinarily helpful to the Church or because he was a holy man?
Jerome was born in Stridon, a now-destroyed city somewhere in Croatia or Slovenia. His family was Catholic and was probably wealthy. After all, his father made sure that Jerome received an excellent education in the faith and in great literature. Young Jerome also developed some pious customs, such as praying at the tombs of the martyrs on Sundays. But he lacked guidance from more mature Christians. He later accused himself of developing bad habits during his youth, such as vanity over his accomplishments. This is probably the period when he lost his virginity, a fact which he bitterly regretted after his conversions.
Yes, Jerome claimed not one, but two conversions. According to his own testimony, his first conversion occurred when he was in his early twenties. He was studying in Trier when a love of God began to stir in his soul, and Jerome started to seriously practice his faith. Over the next several years, he traveled to Syria, Turkey, and Palestine to continue his studies under great Catholic teachers.
His second conversion occurred in Antioch. While sick and feverish, he experienced a vivid dream in which he seemed to be standing before the judgment seat of God, facing Jesus Christ himself. Christ accused Jerome in the dream of being more of a Ciceronian—a lover of the pagan and Roman writer Cicero—than a Christian. After Jerome recovered from his sickness, he set aside pagan literature (mostly) and devoted himself more fully to his faith.
During his early travels, he studied under bishops and saints Gregory of Nazianzus and Chromatius of Aquileia and befriended like-minded Catholic intellectuals. Then he decided to leave the world behind and become a hermit. Living in a cave in Syria, he struggled valiantly against sexual temptation. But his cave was not small, and it was filled with books. Jerome, whose native language was Illyrian, had already mastered Latin and Greek. Now he tackled the Hebrew language as a sort of mental diversion. With the help of a monk who had been Jewish, Jerome mastered Hebrew and experienced the spiritual fruits of reading the Old Testament in its original language. He wanted to share those fruits with others.
Meanwhile, Jerome was drawn into doctrinal disputes in nearby Antioch. He already had been ordained a priest by his bishop, Paulinus. His bishop asked Jerome to accompany him to Rome as an aide and discuss these matters with the pope. After this meeting, his bishop returned to Syria, but Pope Saint Damasus recognized Jerome’s talents and made him his secretary.
Jerome continued to follow many of the ascetical practices he had learned in the desert, but his position as the pope’s secretary led him to move among the upper circles of Roman society. Several noble but pious widows of Rome—the future saints Fabiola, Lea, Marcella, and Paula, among others—were inspired by their conversations with Jerome and began to live simpler lives. Other noblewomen—particularly those whom Jerome had criticized for their extravagant lifestyles—circulated vicious gossip about these women’s relationships with Jerome.
By the time of the death of Pope Damasus, Jerome had earned himself many enemies both in the Church and Roman society. And he was out of a job. He decided to return to the Holy Land. Paula and other wealthy women later followed his example.
Eventually, a monastery was built in Bethlehem to house Jerome and his monks, along with other buildings for Paula and her friends, which became a community of nuns. These buildings were funded by Paula’s fortune, and Jerome and his monks offered hospitality to Christian pilgrims who came to Bethlehem.
Although Jerome spent the next thirty-five years in the Holy Land, far removed from famous cities, his intellectual impact on the Church only grew. He completed the Latin translation of the Bible that Pope Damasus had asked him to begin. He wrote letters and essays about current disputes within the Church. He continued writing Biblical commentaries and translating other works, drawing on his knowledge of multiple languages and other Christian writers.
Jerome was truly an intellectual giant. But was he a saint?
Setting aside questions about his charity of speech for the moment, Jerome certainly lived out his Catholic faith in a way that would be considered holy in any century. A man of his intelligence and family background could have easily pursued a lucrative secular career, married well (or lived promiscuously, if he chose), and become a famous scholar. But Jerome chose a life of consecrated virginity, monastic simplicity, and charitable service of others. No one argues that he lived a holy life as a chaste, obedient monk.
On the other hand, Jerome clearly fought an interior battle over the charitable use of his tongue. If you dared to question his arguments on a theological topic, you could expect one of the greatest minds in the history of the Church to respond with his verbal guns blazing.
For example, Jerome began his famous letter Against Helvidius by saying that others had been begging him to refute Helvidius’ arguments against the perpetual virginity of Mary. Jerome said that he had previously declined to do so because Helvidius’ arguments were so poor. He also insulted Helvidius, calling him an ignorant boor among other things. But, as Jerome rather effectively proved in his point-by-point refutation of his opponent’s arguments, Helvidius really was an ignorant boor who didn’t know the Bible well enough to make the point he was trying to make.
Jerome also had a very public disagreement with a friend, Rufinus of Aquileia. Jerome believed that there were dangers in the writings of the ecclesiastical writer Origen and argued that Rufinus was wrong to ignore those dangers and uncritically promote Origen’s works. Once again, Jerome was right, but his public statements ended their friendship.
Was Jerome demonstrating pride when he included his name in his collection of famous leaders, On Illustrious Men? Considering his résumé, it would have been false modesty for him to do otherwise. But the entry Jerome created for himself merely listed his own writings, without including any of the superlatives he used to describe some of the other men in his book.
Unquestionably, Jerome sometimes lacked gentleness in his words. However, he did not get into major arguments with other Catholics about trivial matters. Instead, he waded into battle when people spoke wrongly about the truths of the faith or promoted ideas that could harm the faith of others. What else could a man who had dedicated his scholarly abilities to the service of Jesus Christ be expected to do?
Even saints have personal weaknesses, some more visible than others, and Saint Jerome of Stridon recognized his faults and fought against them. It should give all of us ordinary Catholics great hope that we can become saints, as long as we fight our weaknesses as vigorously as we fight our enemies.
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You are a bit easy on him. Joseph Ratzinger was probably just as clever, and certainly far more knowledgeable, but never let anger get the better of him.
St Jerome, pray for us.
A Jesuit scholar in Church history confided that Jerome’s awful temper and loud shouts reverberating through the halls of the papal palace was the reason for Damasus I insisting that Jerome leave at once for Jerusalem and translate the Bible into the Vulgate.
Saints aren’t always what we expect, as indicated by Dawn Beutner. Was he a saint? You can bet your boots he was. A saint who would call a spade a spade in spades. Padre Pio of Pietralcina was known by his brother Capuchins as the saint with bad manners. Pio, noted for his tantrums, shouting and castigating visitors who came from afar at cost and effort for his saintly counsel.
And how can we neglect the fury of the saintly laywoman third order Dominican, Catherine of Siena who wrote scathing, insulting letters to popes, and in person at Avignon with Gregory XI accusing him of unmanliness for not fulfilling his role as defender of the faith, secret vow to return the papacy to Rome. God chooses who he wills according to his inscrutable wisdom. Which means there’s even the possibility as remote as it seems for you and I.
Excellent article and an even more excellent commentary on it, Father. Thank you!
It’s not a fault, it’s admonition.
Failure to heed admonition and also even to hear it in one’s own heart, are bringing down souls and society, more and more and more.
This is why Our Lady of Fatima kept stressing the message of “heeding”.
And we assist the degenerative impact when we contribute our own reductive input affirming the wrong understanding and attesting it -wrong understanding- as the right one. We do not take heed; instead we join a wrong-headed propagation.
To be a saint is to be obsessed with God (as the ultimate Truth) and with the effort to do His will. It does not mean being a milquetoast man (a vice) or even being polite and self-effacing (certainly admirable virtues). Some of the most polite and amiable people I have ever known can also be quite vicious and quite committed to mendacious gossip. The absolute truth is NEVER popular in the society of men.
Jerome was no respecter of persons. When his friend Rufinus began espousing erroneous teachings of Origen (the soul’s origin as prior to God’s creation of the material universe), Jerome wrote against that teaching. He wrote many treatises in opposition to many other heretical positions: 1) Against Appolinaris’ mistaken teaching that Jesus Christ was so divine he had no human soul, 2) against Vigilantius who erroneously taught that Masses should not be said in honor of martyrs, and who also taught that Christians ought not venerate relics, and who also believed the value of marriage equaled that of the religious life, and 3) against Pelagianism (original sin had no effect on human nature).
Jerome was dubbed “The Irascible.” He practiced harsh ascetics to subdue his nature, but he primarily reserved his harsh words against those who held and taught error which opposed God. Jerome’s directed harsh words against men teaching heresy. Jerome ruined his health in monastery. He slept and ate little but prayed and studied much. He carried his possessions in a cart, and those possessions were mostly books. He founded a monastery in Jerusalem as a place of hospitality BECAUSE Mary and Joseph had found no room in the inns of that place. Jerome dedicated his life to Scripture, to teaching and to living it. We have his words:
“If you pray, you speak with the Spouse; if you read, it is he who speaks to you.” (Ep. 22, 25).
The study of and meditation on Scripture renders man wise and serene (Eph, Prol).
To a priest: “Read the divine Scriptures frequently; rather, may your hands never set the Holy Book down. Learn here what you must teach” (Ep. 52, 7).
Through meditation and knowledge of the Scriptures, one “maintains the equilibrium of the soul.” (Ad Eph., prol).
“Love the science of Scripture, and you will not love the vices of the flesh.” (Ep. 125, 11).
Quotes are from Pope Benedict’s “Church Fathers: From Clement of Rome to Augustine” (Ignatius Press, p. 139).
Addendum: Jerome also lived for some time in the Roman Catacombs. He LIVED there to tend his mind toward how one may begin to experience life in hell.
The genius of St. Jerome is seen in his instructions for Scripture and his first rule, that all interpretation of it is grounded in its literal sense. He further emphasized that we must be careful not to overstep the allegorical senses and avoid various attendant excesses.
See SPIRITUS PARACLITUS 50., 51, et. seq. Jerome is ever unsurpassed.
Characteristic of the whole synodal and the whole style -Radcliffe et al- offending Scripture and doctrine at every turn in the very contrary way of these latter two how they are given to interact and how they are disposed.
An exaggeration of words and over-sensitivity and over-interpreting. Unfaithful. Grabby.
Archbishop Costelloe of Perth in Australia was saying how providential it is that the synodal synod opened on Jerome’s feast day and yet his own approaches are precisely of that kind lending too much meaning to what is at hand unable to impart substance and truth.
Benedict XV provides the antidote.
‘ 69. ….. Urge upon all not merely to embrace under Jerome’s guidance Catholic doctrine touching the inspiration of Scripture, but to hold fast to the principles laid down in the Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, and in this present Encyclical.
Our one desire for all the Church’s children is that, being saturated with the Bible, they may arrive at the all surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ. ‘
https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xv_enc_15091920_spiritus-paraclitus.html
https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2024/10/archbishop-notes-synod-on-synodality-opens-feast-of-saint-jerome-a-difficult-man
St. Jerome appears to have been a man who responds with anger when challenged by someone of equally high intelligence who dares disagree with Jerome.
St. Augustine famously confronted St. Jerome for what Augustine held was Jerome’s imprudent decision to rely on the 4th Century AD proto-Masoretic translations of The Old Testament, provided to him by Jewish scholars in Jerusalem, as the basis for his Latin translation of the Old Testament, and Jerome’s mistaken rejection of the authority of the much older 2nd Century BC Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament).
Jerome was very hostile to St. Augustine’s critique.
Augustine pointed out to Jerome that the 4th C Jewish translations were not from the most reliable Jewish authorities, since the proto-Masoretic texts were deliberately revised by the Pharisees (after the fall of the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD), to erase prophetic references to Jesus as Messish.
Jerome believed he was “getting closer to the source” by translating an Old Testament source written in Hebrew. Augustine was warning Jerome that the Old Testament closest to the original sources was the 2nd C BC Septuagint in Greek, written before Christ, and used throughout Israel in the time of Christ, and not the 4th C AD revisions of the Old Testament, revised 600 years after the Septuagint.
We rehearse this argument that Augustine made against Jerome every year in Advent and Christmastime, when we read the prophecy to the faithless King Ahaz, in Isaiah 7:14, “Behold, a VIRGIN shall conceive snd bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.” The word VIRGIN is in our Catholic bibles only because Jerome was forced to retain that word, which comes from the older Greek Septuagint, and which Jerome was forced to admit had been erased by the 2nd C AD Masoretic revisions. (The Masoretic revision renders the textvss s non-prophecy: “Behold, a young woman shall conceive….”)
Augustine had warned Jerome that Jerome’s preferred Masoretic revisions were unfaithful to the original Old Testament texts in the Septuagint.
Another striking example is in St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, Ch 5, v 10, where Paul quotes the text from psalm 40: “Therefore when Christ came into the world he said: ‘ Sacrifices and burnt offerings you have not desired, but a body thou hast prepared for me.” In this passage St. Paul is quoting what all Jews in Jesus’ time knew as Psalm 40, v 6.
But if we flip back to Psalm 40 in our Bibles, we do not find the same words in Jerome’s translations from the Masoretic Hebrew, we instead read the words never heard by Jesus or anyone else in Israel in his time…we only read what the Pharisees living in Jerusalem had re-worde, 600 years later: “Sacrifices and burnt offered thou hast not desired, but a listening ear you have given me.”
Of course, Augustine was correct, and Jerome was wrong, so Jerome just hostilely dismissed Augustine.
But…Augustine was right, the Septuagint, not Masoretic Old Testament, was the authoritative source.
Chris,
I’m studying Church Fathers, and I just completed works by and about Jerome. I don’t know the details you carefully laid out, but I do know that Jerome eventually made amends with Augustine. Your post also notes that we have the correct translation today because of Augustine. Is Jerome’s acceptance of Augustine’s argument not germane?
Jerome predominant faults may have been harshness in speech and impetuously angry with error, but he was not blind to reason. Nor was he blind to scriptural truth.
Chris in Maryland, if I could be as famous and endowed as Scott Hahn I would have my own Bible institute and name it after St. Jerome! My fast running imagination is trying to figure on who would be its patrons and what its shield would look like! And I would invite you to re-investigate the contextual history of Jerome’s communiques. Well, if they let me be the Director; that is. I might qualify for the janitor position. It would be great just to be present there even just for the architecture.
Maybe I could get Hahn and Aquilina on the Board of Trustees as on the list of visiting scholars.
In my Bible the Psalm reference is 40:7. I do not have access to my other Bibles, right at this time. Hebrews 10:5-10 by the way -which I’m sure you intended.
Jerome is the one to be credited for the sequencing of Paul’s epistles. Hebrews is put last and they dispute that it is actually Paul’s own output/authorship. I would like to consider that it is Paul’s own output and it came forth from Paul at the inception. Paul then adapted his approach to meet the live situations he pursued. This would then mean that Hebrews was the first of Paul’s written works and reflections.
My professor on Church Fathers relays that some scholars believe Paul dictated Hebrews (as many Early Fathers and teachers did, to and including Aquinas), to a scribe. Subsequently, it is possible that Paul had no opportunity to provide his own corrections or clarifications.
NB, Jerome and Augustine both supported Paul as the author of Hebrews.
I must respectfully disagree, and defend St. Jerome, who followed what has been universal scholarly practice in the modern world, that is, to translate texts from their original language, not from a translation. The Septuagint used in Augustine’s time was not the original version, but riddled with Christian interpolations as well as unintelligible and overly-literal passages. Both the Hebrew and Greek terms in the passage mean “maiden” that is, a young woman of marriageable age, who is presumed to be a virgin. The Hebrew scriptures continued to be known to rabbis and read in synagogues, as Jerome’s experience in Jerusalem confirms.
I believe Hahn’s “seder meal with 4 cups” thesis is an overburden and wrong. If I had my St. Jerome Bible center I would have to address it like this.
First, even though Hahn already published it, I would correct it privately. At the center this privacy would be possible. Without at the same time being synodalized.
Second, I would indicate my objections. I am not an expert but this is what I can gather from typical sources. Don’t have to be too technical.
The Passover belongs to the Messiah and at the Last Supper that Thursday evening, He took it to Himself, there. He Himself expressed it in its appropriated form.
It was not the seder meal that would be celebrated the next night in Israel.
There was one cup and the Gospels and their individual interpretation, understanding and meaning, as well as their common report, all depict and relate with this one cup.
It is not necessary to have to find other cups during the Passover week, so as to add up to 4 cups and complete the Thursday supper as seder meal.
Actually, to do that add-up would be to join “3 cups” to “1” that He doesn’t intend.
By that evening the first-born of the Jews would already have begun their fast and they their leaders would already have begun throwing out the charetz.
The veil of the Temple torn asunder demarcates the end of the former.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedikat_Chametz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_of_the_Firstborn