Damasus died in 384, and was succeeded by Siricius, who did not show much friendship for Jerome. He found it expedient to leave Rome, and set out for the East in 385. His letters (espe cially Ep. 45) are full of outcries against his enemies and of in dignant protestations that he had done nothing unbecoming a Christian, that he had taken no money, nor gifts great nor small, that he had no delight in silken attire, sparkling gems or gold ornaments, that no matron moved him unless by penitence and fasting, etc. His route is given in the third book In Rufinum; he went by Rhegium and Cyprus, where he was entertained by Bishop Epiphanius, to Antioch. There he was joined by two wealthy Roman ladies, Paula, a widow, and Eustochium, her daughter, one of Jerome's Hebrew students. They came accompanied by a band of Roman maidens vowed to live a celibate life in a nunnery in Palestine. Accompanied by these ladies Jerome made the tour of Palestine.
From Palestine Jerome and his companions went to Egypt, remaining some time in Alexandria, and they visited the convents of the Nitrian desert. When they returned to Palestine they all settled at Bethlehem, where Paula built four monasteries, three for nuns and one for monks. She was at the head of the nunneries until her death in 404, when Eustochium succeeded her ; Jerome pre sided over the fourth monastery. Here he did most of his literary work and, throwing aside his unfinished plan of a translation from Origen's Hexaplar text, translated the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew, with the aid of Jewish scholars. He mentions a rabbi from Lydda, a rabbi from Tiberias, and above all Rabbi 'Cf. Schoene's critical edition (Berlin, i866, 1875).
Ben Anina, who came to him by night secretly for fear of the Jews. Jerome makes the synagogue responsible for the accuracy of his version : "Let him who would challenge aught in this trans lation," he says, "ask the Jews." The result of all this labour was the Latin translation of the Scriptures, which afterwards be came the Vulgate or authorized version ; but the Vulgate as we have it now suffered a good deal frcm changes made under the influence of the older translations; the text became very corrupt during the middle ages, and in particular all the Apocrypha, except Tobit and Judith, which Jerome translated from the Chaldee, were added from the older versions. (See BIBLE: 0. T. Versions.) Earlier in life Jerome had a great admiration for Origen, and translated many of his works, and this lasted after he had settled at Bethlehem, for in 389 he translated Origen's homilies on Luke; but he came to change his opinion and wrote violently against two admirers of the great Alexandrian scholar, John, bishop of Jeru salem, and his own former friend Rufinus. At Bethlehem also he found time to finish Didymi de spiritu sancto liber, a translation begun at Rome at the request of Pope Damasus, to denounce the revival of Gnostic heresies by Jovinianus and Vigilantius (Adv. lovinianum lib. II. and Contra Vigilantium liber), and to repeat his admiration of the hermit life in his Vita S. Hilarionis eremitae,
in his Vita Malchi monachi captivi, in his translations of the Rule of St. Pachomius (the Benedict of Egypt), and in his S. Pachomii et S. Theodorici epistolae et verba mystica. He also wrote at Bethlehem De viris illustribus sive de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, a church history in biographies, ending with the life of the author; De nominibus Hebraicis, compiled from Philo and Origen; and De situ et nominibus locorum At Bethlehem, too, he wrote Quaestiones Hebraicae on Genesis,' and a series of corn mentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Twelve Minor Prophets, Matthew and the Epistles of St. Paul. About 394 Jerome came to know Augustine, for whom he held a high regard. He engaged in the Pelagian controversy with more than even his usual bitterness (Dialogi contra pelagianos) ; and his opponents forced him to flee and to remain in concealment for nearly two years. He returned to Bethlehem in 418, and after a lingering illness died on Sept. 30, 420.
Jerome "is one of the few Fathers to whom the title of Saint appears to have been given in recognition of services rendered to the Church rather than for eminent sanctity. He is the great Christian scholar of his age, rather than the profound theologian or the wise guide of souls." His great work was the Vulgate, but his achievements in other fields would have sufficed to distinguish him. His commentaries are valuable because of his knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, his varied interests, and his comparative free dom from allegory. To him we owe the distinction between canon ical and apocryphal writings; in the Prologus Galeatus prefixed to his version of Samuel and Kings, he says that the church reads the Apocrypha "for the edification of the people, not for con firming the authority of ecclesiastical doctrines." He was a pio neer in the fields of patrology and of biblical archaeology. In controversy he was too fond of mingling personal abuse with legit imate argument, and this weakness mars his letters, which were held in high admiration in the early middle ages, and are valuable for their history of the man and his times.