Jerome: Edit history

Life

Jerome was born into a Christian family at Stridon in the Roman province of Dalmatia. Stridon lay in the northwestern Balkan Peninsula, but its exact location has not been identified. As a young man he studied Latin literature and rhetoric in Rome under the grammarian Donatus. He later traveled to the East and lived as a hermit in the desert of Chalcis in Syria. According to tradition, he learned Hebrew there from a convert from Judaism. He was ordained a priest at Antioch.

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 he founded a monastery with the Roman noblewoman Paula. He devoted the rest of his life to translating and commenting on the Bible and died 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. He then produced a new translation of most of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew original. Earlier Latin translations had generally been made from the Greek Septuagint. Jerome gave priority to the original text, summed up in 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 books found in the Septuagint but absent from the Hebrew Bible should be set apart as "apocrypha." Nevertheless, he translated some of those books in keeping with the practice of the church.
• 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. He also 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 Catholic Church venerates Jerome 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 separation of the apocrypha are often cited as historical grounds for the Protestant understanding of the canon that took shape after the Reformation.

In Korea, 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. Korean preachers of many denominations reportedly quote his saying "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ," and it also appears often in Bible study materials.

Assessment

Jerome is regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of Bible translation and is known as 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," that is, an act of making satisfaction for the punishment due to sin. Another frequently mentioned example is Exodus 34:29, where the statement that "the skin of his face shone" was rendered as Moses having "horns."
• Polemical manner and ascetic thought: Jerome 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 too far above marriage.
• Interpretation of the brethren of the Lord: His view that the brethren of the Lord were cousins is closely tied to 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.