JEROME, ST. (HIERoNYmus, in full EUSEBIUS SOPHRO NIUS HIERONYMUS) (c. 340-420), was born at Strido (modern Strigau?), a town on the border of Dalmatia, destroyed by the Goths in A.D. 377. Jerome appears to have been born about 34o; his parents were Christians, orthodox though living among people mostly Arians and wealthy. He was at first educated at home, Bonosus, a life-long friend, sharing his youthful studies, and was afterwards sent to Rome. Donatus taught him grammar and ex plained the Latin poets. Victorinus taught him rhetoric. He at tended the law-courts, and listened to the Roman advocates pleading in the Forum. He went to the schools of philosophy, and heard lectures on Plato, Diogenes, Clitomachus and Carneades; the conjunction of names shows how philosophy had become a dead tradition. His Sundays were spent in the catacombs in dis covering graves of the martyrs and deciphering inscriptions. Pope Liberius baptized him in 36o.
Jerome returned to Strido, a scholar, with a scholar's tastes and cravings for knowledge. From Strido he went to Aquileia, where he made friends among the monks of the large monastery, notably Rufinus. From Aquileia he went to Gaul (366-370). He stayed some time at Treves studying and observing, and then returned to Strido, and from Strido to Aquileia. He settled down to literary work in Aquileia (37o-373) and composed there his first original tract, De inuliere septies percussa, in the form of a letter to his friend Innocentius. Some dispute caused him to leave Aquileia suddenly ; and with a few companions, Innocentius, Evagrius, and Heliodorus being among them, he started for a long tour in the East. The epistle to Rufinus (3rd in Vallarsi's enumeration) tells us that they passed Thrace, visiting Athens, Bithynia, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia and Cilicia, to Antioch. At Antioch the party remained some time.
Innocentius died of a fever, and Jerome was dangerously ill. This illness induced a spiritual change, and he resolved to re nounce whatever kept him back from God. His greatest tempta tion was the study of the literature of pagan Rome. In a dream Christ reproached him with caring more to be a Ciceronian than a Christian. He disliked the uncouth style of the Scriptures. "0 Lord," he prayed, "thou knowest that whenever I have and study secular mss. I deny thee," and he made a resolve henceforth to devote his scholarship to the Holy Scripture. "David was to be henceforth his Simonides, Pindar and Alcaeus, his Flaccus, Catul lus and Severus." Fortified by these resolves he betook himself to a hermit life in the wastes of Chalcis, S.E. from Antioch
379). Chalcis was the Thebaid of Syria. Jerome discovered and copied mss., and began to study Hebrew. There also he wrote the life of St. Paul of Thebes. Just then the Meletian schism, which arose over the relation of the orthodox to Arian bishops and to those baptized by Arians, distressed the church at Antioch (see MELETIUS OF ANTIOCH), and Jerome joined the fray. He was guided by the practice of Rome and the West ; having discovered what was the Western practice, he. set tongue and pen to work with his usual bitterness (Altercatio luciferiani et orthodoxi).
At Antioch in 379 he was ordained presbyter. From there he went to Constantinople, where he met Gregory of Nazianzus, and with his aid tried to perfect himself in Greek. His studies resulted in the translation of the Chronicon of Eusebius, with a continua tion' of twenty-eight homilies of Origen on Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and of nine homilies of Origen on the visions of Isaiah.
In 381 Meletius died, and Pope Damasus interfered in the dispute at Antioch. Jerome was called to Rome in 382, and was made secretary during the investigation. Damasus saw how his vast scholarship might be made of use to the church. Damasus suggested to him to revise the "Old Latin" translation of the Bible; and to this task he henceforth devoted his great abilities. At Rome were published the Gospels (with a dedication to Pope Damasus, an explanatory introduction, and the canons of Euse bius), the rest of the New Testament and the version of the Psalms from the Septuagint known as the Psalterium romanum, which was followed (c. 388) by the Psalterium gallicanum, based on the Hexaplar Greek text. Jerome was a zealous defender of that monastic life which was beginning to take such a large place in the church of the 4th century, and he found enthusiastic disciples among the Roman ladies. A number of widows and maidens met together in the house of Marcella to study the Scrip tures with him; he taught them Hebrew, and preached the virtues of the celibate life. His arguments and exhortations may be gathered from many of his epistles and from his tract Adversus Helvidium, in which he defends the perpetual virginity of Mary against Helvidius, who maintained that she bore children to Joseph. His influence over these ladies alarmed their relatives and excited the suspicions of the regular priesthood and of the populace, but while Pope Damasus lived Jerome remained secure.