Who was Saint Jerome?

St. Jerome, who flourished during the latter half of the fourth century, beautifully styled the whole collection of sixty-six sacred books, "The Divine Library."

St. Jerome and the Vulgate.

A few particulars about St. Jerome, one of the most distinguished and learned Fathers of the Latin Church, may not be uninteresting. He was born, about A.D. 340, on the borders of the ancient country of Pannonia, one of the provinces subject to the Roman sway. Jerome's father was named Eusebius, not the celebrated ecclesiastical historian of that name. Eusebius, being a Christian and in affluent circumstances, provided his son with a liberal secular and theological education. Jerome was early sent to Rome, where he studied for several years under various masters, the most noted of whom was Donatus, perhaps the most accomplished grammarian of his age. Jerome seems to have been brought to the Lord when a young man, probably when prosecuting his studies in Rome. He soon gave himself up almost wholly to the study of the sacred Scriptures, and produced a number of commentaries on separate books of the Bible, besides numerous other works. Books in those days were exceedingly expensive. It is said that Jerome ruined himself by purchasing the works of Origen. Having gone to Palestine to make himself personally acquainted with the localities mentioned in Holy Writ, he resolved to become master of the Hebrew language, so as not to be dependent upon translations in the study of the earlier oracles of God — the Old Testament. In a few years he acquired an intimate knowledge of the language, which he soon turned to good account

From the second century till the days of Jerome, the Bible in use in Western Christendom was a translation from the ecclesiastical tongue — the Greek. The Septuagint, or Greek version of the Old Testament, executed about three centuries before Christ, was in common use even in Palestine in the days of our Lord and of His apostles. From the fact of this old and venerable document being frequently cited by the Lord and writers of the New Testament, it would have been regarded almost as a sacrilegious act to have questioned its exactness; besides which, Hebrew was only known comparatively to the few. The Greek New Testament and the Greek version of the Old, formed the basis of all Latin and other versions of the Bible till the days of Jerome, who was the first Christian scholar who attempted a translation direct from the original tongues. This valuable work, styled the Vulgate, was bitterly opposed at the time, and it was only after a lapse of 200 years that it was accorded general favour. Jerome's version was commonly spoken of as "The New Translation," to distinguish it from the Septuagint, the Old Translation. Pope Gregory — the best of the Roman Pontiffs — officially sanctioned the Vulgate of Jerome, who was certainly one of the most pious, and probably the most learned, of the Latin Fathers.

The monastic system soon spread far beyond the borders of Egypt: and all the great teachers of the age, both in the East and in the West, advocated the cause of celibacy and monasticism. St. Jerome, in particular, the most learned man of his day is regarded as the connecting link between the two great divisions of the church — the Greek and the Roman, or the Eastern and the Western. He was the means of powerfully forwarding the cause of celibacy and monasticism, especially among females. Many Roman ladies of rank became nuns through his influence. Ambrose so extolled virginity in his sermons, that the mothers of Milan restrained their daughters from attending his ministry, but crowds of virgins from other quarters flocked to him for consecration. Basil introduced monastic life into Pontus and Cappadocia; Martin, into Gaul, Augustine, into Africa; and Chrysostom was prevented by the wisdom of his mother from retiring in his youth to a remote hermitage in Syria.

After Origen's great revision of the Septuagint, in the middle of the third century, the world began to feel the inconvenience of having a disagreement between the Greek and the Latin scriptures; for while Origen's amended Greek text became the Textus Receptus, the Versio Itala agreed with the unamended Greek; and it occurred to Jerome, towards the close of the fourth century, to introduce the same changes into the Italic, that Origen had introduced into the Septuagint. This Jerome, one of the four great Latin fathers, and the patron, if not the inventor, of monastic institutions, is said to have performed the work hastily, and even carelessly, and yet this work — the corrected Italic — remains substantially in the Vulgate of the New Testament to this day, and in the Psalters of the Roman and the Gallican Missals.

Jerome himself, even while the work of correction was proceeding, became aware of its imperfection; he resolved, therefore, to apply not merely to the Septuagint, but to the Hebrew itself, for more thoroughly amending the Italic version. He laboured diligently, with the assistance of learned Jews, to acquire a knowledge of the Hebrew tongue, and then he recommenced his revision of the Italic. That part of this version, containing the Old Testament, was completely revised and re-edited; and yet we should be in error if we supposed that Jerome executed a new translation. He only did what our English translators did, he took the old translation for a basis, and amended those parts where he thought the Hebrew ought to be followed; but in substance the new edition resembled the old, and retained, in consequence, many of those peculiarities which the Vetus Itala had inherited from the Septuagint, such as the presence of the apocryphal books, the way of spelling the proper names, the titles of the books, the order in which the books stand, and especially that unnecessary retention of the word Dominus instead of Jehovah.

204 As to St. Jerome, it is impossible to have a more eloquent description of Romish holiness than the efforts of the excellent Tillemont to keep poor Jerome's name among the saints. He sought to overcome his nature, I dare say. He fasted excessively, lived in grime and filth, did everything possible to subdue flesh by flesh's efforts; but nature is not overcome thus. Tillemont declares that he was very little exact in stating things as they were, following more his own ideas than the truth. These, however, he says, are the defects of a great genius But he did not weigh what he said, and, which is more to be regretted, attacked St. Chrysostom; indeed, whoever he had as an adversary was the basest of men: he had too great an idea of his eloquence, shews it, was naturally jealous and envious, so as to wound his greatest friends and alienate them. It is hard not to recognize that he had in his natural character a sourness and bitterness which pained many. He was soon on fire when offended, and did not easily pardon. Are we to say, he asks, if so many saints who have admired him, and the church who honours him amongst its saints and doctors, have been deluded — a humble son of the church cannot say that — St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine are excellent models of a perfect virtue to animate us to imitate them? But others have had great sins, as David. We may say even that the defects of Jerome are useful, as teaching us what the substance (le fond) of virtue and Christian piety is. For if it consisted in an even and uniform life, in which few faults are committed, one would have to prefer Ruffinus to him. But the church leaves him to God's judgment, and has always had the greatest respect for Jerome. Not the services he has rendered the church by his labours;* these are not virtues. Tillemont can see that in his case his austerities would not do. Doubtless, he says, they were very useful to him (which his own account, by the bye, does not shew, though I do not question their sincerity in seeking to maintain incorruptness in celibacy, which he held the highest of virtues), yet, if we had nothing else to praise in him, we should have reason to fear they had rendered him proud, and had been the cause of that severe and critical spirit which some have blamed in him. He then shews what he thinks proof of what constitutes a saint: first, his love of his solitary life and poverty, though he could have enjoyed the favour of Pope Damasus and the wealth of Saint Marcella and Saint Paula, two rich women who admired him greatly; and his fleeing those who honoured him — humility which was shewn in not exercising the functions of priest, for which he had been brought up; his eleemosynary charity and laborious service for others, when he might have been glad to be writing; he hopes his anger against his heretical adversaries, and certainly his conduct in exalting St. Augustine, when he might have seemed a competitor, the more so as he had quarrelled with him. Such is Tillemont's kindly and gracious excuse for what he was obliged to tell in his history; for in fact Jerome's language, particularly against those who deprecated monkish sanctity, saint and image worship, was regular Billingsgate; for this is really the only word to describe it by. Tillemont then makes a saint of him in these words. The scripture does not call him alone happy who is without spot and does not sin; but, moreover, him to whom God does not impute sin, because he hates it by a pure and sincere love of righteousness, and that he covers it by the nuptial robe of charity, which covers a multitude of sins — a deep and deadly error, arising from a confusion of Proverbs 10:12, quoted by Peter, and Psalm 32:1. I believe, as to God's government in the church, fervent charity may keep many sins out of sight by Christian forgiveness so as not to come before God for present judgment; but to confound it with Psalm 32, quoted in Romans 4, is a denial of the gospel and the truth, but the foundation of Romish righteousness and sanctity, even in the hands of the very respectable Tillemont.

And as to Cerinthus or the like, one abhors their heterodoxy yet more than Montanist enthusiasm (p. 17). What matters the opinion of a worldly-minded semi-Arian like Eusebius about Papias? Neither (pp. 18, 19) is an authority, any more than the Romanist expositor who falsely attributes the decline of faith in the Apocalypse to millenarian teaching. None love, understand, or enjoy that blessed book so much as those who believe what it teaches of that kingdom (p. 20). The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse clashed with men's will, and hence were unjustly questioned by men of shallow faith, like Caius the early Roman presbyter (p. 20). Origen, learned and clever indeed, was but a sorry defender of the faith. Did not the Bp. know that he was unreliable and wild, even to the ungodliness of universalism? Surely also Dionysius of Alexandria (p. 23), an able man without doubt, cannot be acquitted of strange doctrine on Christ's person in opposing the Sabellians. Nor was Jerome (pp. 24, 25) a model of orthodoxy any more than of temper, though an erudite and laborious translator. Augustine of Hippo was one of greater weight; but we have to bear in mind that the Millennial views he opposed (pp. 26, 27) were not sound, those which were rejected by the Reformers and the Puritans (pp. 28-31). Only it is certain that some of the best instructed and most pious men in the Anglican body found no such incompatibility in its formularies with their faith in Christ's millennial reign as the Bp. argues, who himself narrows "the last day" unscripturally (p. 22). The prayer in page 33 is on the contrary consistent. "The end of the world" is the mistake repeated from the A. V. of Matt. 13:39, 49. We all value the Apocalypse at least as much as the Bp. (pp. 33, 36) and do not share in daily use the slight which the Book of Common Prayer puts on that divine book, while it honours the Apocrypha for its lessons in Oct. and Nov. and more.

N*. What you have been saying is far happier, and much more important, James, than all the so-called Fathers. You would have poor work to do, to read the hundreds of volumes of them, if you even knew Greek and Latin. It is only because they make much of them, and you cannot tell what they are, and all that is unknown is apt to be wonderful, that it is well to know what they are. We were giving the statements by which they are alleged to support purgatory, and, I am glad to say, we have almost done. Of one more I will quote some passages, because he, as well as Jerome, is made a great deal of, and he will nearly complete our history. He is called Augustine — was a very ungodly, and undoubtedly became a truly godly man. As to poor Jerome, saint though he be called, he had an awful and wholly unsubdued temper, and was abusive and revengeful to the last degree: however, he was a saint for Rome. I hope it was all right with him; but really, one can say no more. And now for Augustine.

It is somewhat singular that both these distinguished Fathers (Jerome and John) voluntarily secluded themselves for several years, the former in the deserts of Syria, and the latter in a mountain cave near Antioch. The study of the "Divine Library" and of the Hebrew language were the objects of the former; while the latter made such good use of the "Divine Books" that he committed them entirely to memory. Both Fathers were truly eminent men; both loved the Lord Jesus, and both were renowned for their devotion to the Word of God. If Jerome was the more learned, Chrysostom was the more eloquent of the two.

§ 2. Hieronymus, or Jerome.

Jerome, however, who died in 420, helped somewhat to clear away the confusion. He was raised up to do for Biblical criticism what Athanasius did for doctrine. Jerome called these 'ecclesiastical' books 'Apocrypha,' by which name they are known amongst Protestants. It is important, as a matter of historical criticism, to notice the passage in which he uses the word with, we think, great perspicuity, because Plumptre, in a Commentary on the Old Testament, says that Luther for the first time affixed 'to the so-called ecclesiastical books the title of Apocrypha.' But the account given by this same scholar, usually a careful guide, in the 'Bible Educator,' was the exact truth. Jerome, in his Prologue to 2 Kings, after enumerating, according to the then still current Jewish computation, the twenty-two Books of the Hebrew Text, says, 'Quicquid extra hos est, inter Apocrypha ponendum' — Whatever there is beyond these must be placed amongst the Apocrypha. De Wette (whom Davidson follows) supposes a misuse by Jerome of this word: the German critic, apparently thinking that ἀπόκρυφος (apokruphos) had been applied only to what was spurious. Sophocles' Lexicon s.v. will show that Epiphanius — by whom the one contemporaneous with Jerome must be meant — uses ἀπόκρυφος of these books added in the Alexandrian Bible. Cyril of Jerusalem clearly uses the word of the books we call Apocrypha, for he says, Read the divine writings, 'read nothing τῶν ἀποκρύφων (ton apokruphon)' — of the Apocrypha — and proceeds to give a list of the θειαὶ γραφαί (theiai graphai), divine writings, from which our Apocrypha are excluded. We have but to consult his exact words to see he speaks the language of authority, and does not give a mere opinion: he is a mouthpiece of 'the Church.'* Moreover, these same books that Jerome calls 'Apocrypha' Ruffinus, who was another of his contemporaries, speaks of as 'ecclesiastical' in the sense in which Jerome himself speaks of them in his Preface to the Books of Solomon. Liddell and Scott's explanation of ἀπόκρυφος will thus find illustration. They say: 'sometimes spurious, forged; sometimes merely unrecognised, uncanonical.' Compare the note in Westcott's Bible in the Church,' p.46. The reader who uses his work should notice that at pp.146, 158, 175, this able writer fails to observe the rule he had formed in distinguishing between 'Apocrypha' and 'apocryphal books.'

That Jerome himself elsewhere uses the word in the sense of unauthenticated or spurious, is nothing against the view we have taken, as Davidson thinks: it is rather proof of Jerome's having known what he was about. But this learned 'Father' fares little better at the hands of Davidson (p.200) than the Jewish historian to whom reference has been made. In his work of undoing mediaeval corruption, to which Jerome's conservative treatment of the Latin Bible lent support, Luther did but act according to the better judgment of Rome's best scholar, who had not sufficient boldness himself to follow it. Noldeke says truly of this Father, 'With all his gifts and knowledge, he was not a man of character.'

Habakkuk, Obadiah and Malachi are the only three of the Minor Prophets of which we know nothing else but their names. Habakkuk together with Zechariah and Haggai however belong to the only prophets of Scripture who name themselves “prophet” (Hab. 1:1). Some connect Habakkuk’s name with an Assyrian name of a plant. But since Hieronymus a Father of the Church (who translated the Bible into Latin) Habakkuk’s name has been translated “embraced” or “embracer”.

The Latin. — Jerome (A.D. 345 (?)—420) found different Latin translations, and set to work to gather a correct text from the whole. It is called the Vulgate. This proves that Latin copies existed long before his time in order to become thus altered. The manuscripts before his time are called, in distinction from his, the Old Latin, or Italic, in allusion to Italy. It is not to be wondered at that the New Testament was soon translated into Latin, because of the early existence of the church at Rome. (Rom. 15:23.) The Old Latin may date from the second century.