Jerome

Life

Jerome was born into a Christian family at Stridon in the Roman province of Dalmatia. Stridon lay in what is now the northwestern Balkan Peninsula, but its exact location has not been identified. As a young man he studied Latin literature and rhetoric (the art of speaking and writing) in Rome under the grammarian Donatus. He later traveled to the East and lived as a hermit, a monk withdrawn into solitude, in the desert of Chalcis in Syria, where, according to tradition, he learned Hebrew from a convert from Judaism. In Antioch he was ordained a priest.

Around 382 he returned to Rome and served as secretary to Pope Damasus I. After Damasus died, Jerome left Rome, and from about 386 he lived in Bethlehem. There, together with the Roman noblewoman Paula, he founded a monastery, and he devoted the rest of his life to translating and commenting on the Bible until his death around 420.

Ministry and Achievements

• Translation of the Vulgate: At the request of Damasus, Jerome revised the Latin translation of the Gospels then in use, and he went on to produce a new translation of most of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew original. Earlier Latin translations had generally been rendered from the Greek Septuagint. He gave priority to the original text, expressing this with the phrase "Hebrew truth" (Hebraica veritas). This translation later came to be called the Vulgate and served as the standard Bible of the Western church for roughly a thousand years.
• Views on the canon: Jerome held that the books found in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible should be distinguished as "apocrypha." Nevertheless, in keeping with the practice of the church, he translated some of those books.
• Writings and controversies: He left numerous biblical commentaries, many letters, and On Illustrious Men, a collection of brief biographies of church writers. Around 383 he wrote Against Helvidius. In this work he argued that the "brethren of the Lord" mentioned in Scripture were cousins rather than children of Mary, and he identified James the brother of the Lord with James the son of Alphaeus. This interpretation became widespread in the Western church.

Influence on the Korean Church

The Korean Catholic Church honors him as "St. Yeronimo." The Catholic Church venerates him as a Doctor of the Church and observes his feast day on September 30.

Among Protestants, his emphasis on the Bible in its original languages and his distinction of the apocrypha are frequently cited, since the Reformation, as a historical basis for the Protestant understanding of the canon. Korean Protestant Bibles such as the Revised Korean Version (New Revised Edition) contain 66 books: 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. His saying "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ" is reportedly quoted frequently in sermons and Bible study materials across denominational lines.

Assessment

Jerome is regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of Bible translation and is also called the patron saint of translators. He has also drawn criticism.

• Concerns about translating from the original: In a letter, Augustine expressed concern that a translation following the Hebrew original instead of the Septuagint could cause confusion in the church.
• Disputed renderings in the Vulgate: Humanists and reformers of the Reformation era compared the Vulgate with the original texts and challenged some of its renderings. A commonly cited example is Matthew 4:17, where "Repent" is rendered with an expression that can be read as "do penance" (an act of making satisfaction for the punishment due to sin). Also frequently mentioned is Exodus 34:29, where "the skin of his face shone" was rendered as Moses having "horns."
• Polemical manner and ascetic thought: He has been criticized for the harsh language he used in disputes with Rufinus and others. He has also been faulted for exalting virginity and asceticism excessively above marriage.
• Interpretation of the brethren of the Lord: His interpretation of the brethren of the Lord as cousins is closely connected with the Mariology of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Among Protestants, the view that they were children born to Mary after Jesus is widely accepted.