Jerome

Biblical Scholar · Translator of the Vulgate · c. 345–420

Jerome was born in northeast Italy, became a disciplined scholar and an ascetic, and after a dream that accused him of being “a follower of Cicero, not of Christ” withdrew to the Syrian desert to study the Scriptures and master Hebrew. In 382 he became secretary to Pope Damasus, who commissioned him to produce a reliable Latin Bible.1

Before Jerome the Latin Old Testament had been translated from the Greek; he translated from the Hebrew. His translation, the Vulgate, completed about 405, became the standard Bible of the Western church. He founded monasteries for men and women at Bethlehem, promoted virginity and asceticism, taught the perpetual virginity of Mary, and wrote against Pelagius. He held a low view of the apocryphal books, which the Jews had never received as Scripture.2

His Legacy

Jerome served both sides of the Reformation. The Council of Trent declared his Vulgate the authentic Bible of the church and the Apocrypha canonical, though Jerome himself had refused them that rank. Protestants appeal to Jerome on the canon, and Allison notes his teaching that presbyters and bishops were originally the same office. Rome counts him among its eight great Doctors of the Church.3

Church Fathers

Notes

  1. “The 100 Most Important Events in Church History,” Christian History 28 (1990), “Jerome Completes the Vulgate (405).” Summarized. ↩
  2. “100 Most Important Events,” “Jerome Completes the Vulgate (405).”; Michael J. Vlach, “Historical Theology I: A.D. 100–1600” (course notes, TH 507, The Master’s Seminary, Fall 2007), “Jerome.” Summarized. ↩
  3. Council of Trent, Session 4 (April 8, 1546), decrees on the canonical Scriptures and on the Vulgate; Gregg R. Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), citing Jerome, Letter 146; James G. McCarthy, The Gospel According to Rome (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1995), on the Doctors of the Church. ↩