October 16, 2022 - ""Saint Jerome"

One day Pope Sixtus V (1521 -1590) was looking at a painting of Saint Jerome (ca. 347-419/20) striking his breast with a stone.  After viewing it for a few moments, Sixtus remarked. “You do well to carry that stone, for without it the Church would never have canonized you.”
 
Who was this person about whom a Pope would have made such a strong remark?  He is the subject of this week’s column where I am looking at the Doctors of the Church.  Jerome was born in Stridon in Dalmatia (in today’s Bosnia) in a well-to-do Christian family.  Jerome was educated in Rome.  Among his teachers there was a famous grammarian by the name of Donatus.  While in Rome, Jerome developed a friendship with Rufinus of Aquileia.  Many years after he had finished his studies, Jerome lamented the life he led in Rome.  In 373, Jerome left Rome for the East.  He learned Greek well and was able to follow lectures by some of the noteworthy Christian scholars of the day, including Apollinarius of Laodicea, Gregory Nazianzus, and Didymus the Blind.   For three years he lived as a hermit in the desert near Antioch.
 
From 382 to 385 he served as a secretary to Pope Damasus.  Probably the most significant work of Jerome’s life came as a result of a request from Pope Damasus, who asked Jerome to revise the Latin text of the Bible, starting with the Gospels.  In time Jerome prepared a new translation of most of the Old Testament from Hebrew and revised much of the New Testament.  Translation from the Hebrew was a new thing.  The so-called Old Latin translation of the Hebrew Scriptures had been done from the Greek version of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint.  Jerome’s Latin translation of the Bible was later known as the Vulgate.  During this time frame Jerome became the leader for a group of women who sought to live a life of prayer and penance.  In 385, Jerome left Rome suddenly and unexpectedly and returned to the East.  He remained in the East for the rest of his life.
 
Jerome’s literary output was amazing.  Besides the translation of the Bible, he translated many other works from Greek into Latin, including some of Origen’s writings, Eusebius’s Chronicle, and Didymus the Blind’s On the Holy Spirit.  Jerome also wrote a number of commentaries on books of the Bible, some of which drew heavily from Origen.  Jerome also wrote works fiercely attacking those whose teaching he rejected.  His fiercest controversy was against Origen and his disciples.  One result of this was a terrible falling out with Rufinus of Aquileia.  Jerome also had an extensive and somewhat contentious correspondence with St. Augustine. 

At the end of his first catechesis on St. Jerome, Pope Benedict made this observation:
 
“The privileged place for reading and listening to the Word of God is the liturgy, in which, celebrating the Word and making Christ’s Body present in the Sacrament, we must actualize the Word in our lives and make it present among us.  We must never forget that the Word of God transcends time.  Human opinions come and go.  What is very modern today will be very antiquated tomorrow.  On the other hand, the Word of God is the Word of eternal life; it bears within it eternity and is valid for ever.  By carrying the Word of God within us, we therefore carry within us eternity, eternal life.”
 
In this context Pope Benedict quoted a remark St. Jerome once made to St. Paulinus of Nola: “Seek to learn on earth those truths which will remain ever valid in heaven.”   Good advice then and good advice now.
 
Until next week,
Fr. John