Jerome de Stridon

Saint Jerome de Stridon , in Latin Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus (towards 340 - September 30th 420) is especially known for his Traduction S in Latin of the Bible in Greek old (the Vulgate) and of the Old Hebrew will in . The Christian regard it as one of the Pères of the Church. It was named Doctors of the Church by the Roman Catholic church.

Summary

Father of the Latin Church, born towards 340 or 331, in Stridon, the border between the Pannonia and the Dalmatie (current Croatia), it died in Bethlehem the September 30th 420.

The Christian of Occident celebrate holy Jerome the September 30th. He is celebrated the June 15th Julien or the Gregorian June 15th by the orthodoxe Église. He is the owner of the translators.

Jerome saint made of the studies with Rome, converts at the 25 years age following a mysterious dream at the time of a disease, then, after a stay in Gaulle, share for the Holy Land into 373 where he lives as a hermit with Chalcis (current island of Eubée in Greece). He is then made priest with Antioche (Asia Mineure). In 383, the pope Damase Ier chooses it as secretary and the Bible into Latin requires of him to translate. With died of the pope, it must leave Rome and turns over out of Holy Land in company of Paula, noble Roman. They found a monastery with Bethlehem where he dies into 419, at 91 years. During the 34 last years of his life, Jerome devotes himself to the writing of the Old Testament in Latin starting from his own translation of Hebrew and to write his comments on the Holy Scriptures. Its remainders are initially buried with Jerusalem then transferred to the Holy-Marie-Major Basilique, one of the four large basilicas of Rome. Its translation constitutes the showpiece of the Vulgate, translation of the Bible officially recognized by the Catholic church.

Detailed biography

Jerome, although born Christian parents, was not baptized before 360, date on which it left to Rome with his Bonosus brother to continue his studies of Rhétorique and of Philosophie. He studied under the cane of Aelius Donat, excellent a grammairien. Jerome learned also the Greek , without intending still to study the texts founders of Christianity. After a few years in Rome, it went with Bonosus in Gaulle, and was installed with Trier “on bank with barbarian half of the Rhine”. It is there that it started its theological course and copied, for his/her friend Rufin, the comment of Hilaire of Poitiers on the Psaumes, and the treaty Of synodis . It remained then during some time (several years?) with Rufin with Aquilée. Some of his/her Christian friends accompanied it when it started, towards 373, a voyage through the Thrace and the Asia Mineure to go to north Syria. In Antioche, two of his/her companions died, and itself fell sick several times. During one of these diseases (winter 373 - 374) it made a Rêve which diverted it profane studies and urged it to devote itself to God. In this dream, which he tells in one of his letters, it was reproached to him for being “Cicéron IEN, and not Christian”. It seems to have given up during one long life after this dream the study of the traditional laymen, and to be themselves plunged in that of the Bible under the impulse of Apollinaire of Laodicée. He taught then in Antioche. Highly wishing to live as an ascetic and to make penitence, it spent some time in the desert of Chalcis, in the south-west of Antioche, known under the name of “Thébaïde of Syria”, because of the great number of hermits which lived there. It is at that time that it started to learn the Hebrew with the assistance from a Juif converted. It was in relation at that time with the Christians of Antioche, and seems then to have started to be interested in the Évangile of the Hebrews, which was, according to people of Antioche, the source of the Évangile according to Matthieu.

On its return to Antioche, in 378 or 379, it was ordered by the Paulin bishop. Little time afterwards, it left to Constantinople to continue its studies of the Writing under the aegis of Gregoire de Nazianze. It spent two years over there, then returned to Rome during three years (382-385), in direct contact with the Pape Damase and the head of the Church of Rome. Invited with the council of 382, which was convened to put an end to the schism of Antioche, it could be made essential to the pope. Inter alia tasks, it dealt with the revision of the text of the Latin Bible, on the basis of of Greek New Testament and text of the Seventy, to put an end to the divergences texts which circulated in occident (known under the name of Vetus Latina). This work occupied it during very many years, and constitutes its major work. He exerted a considerable influence during these three last years in Rome, in particular by his zeal to preach asceticism. He surrounded himself by a circle of women of the nobility, from which some resulted from most former patricians families the, like the widows Marcella and Paula, and their Blaesilla daughters and Eustochium (recipient of the most famous letter of saint Jerome, the 22e in its Correspondance ). Inclination of these women to the monastic life, and the virulent criticism which Jerome of the regular clergy made, gave birth to an increasing hostility in its connection on behalf of the clergy and of his partisans. Little time after the death of its Damask guard (December 10th 384), Jerome left Rome.

In August 385, it turned over to Antioche, accompanied by his Paulinianus brother and some friends. It was followed little time afterwards by Paula and Eustochium, determined to leave their entourage patrician to finish their days on the Holy Land. During winter 385, Jerome accompanied them. The pilgrims, joined by the bishop Paulin d' Antioche, visited Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the holy places of Galileo, then left in Egypt, where the great models of the ascetic life lived. In Alexandria, Jerome could meet and listen to the catechist Didyme the Blind man to explain the prophet Osée and to tell the memories which it had of the ascetic Antoine, died thirty years earlier. There remained some time with Nitrie to admire the Community life of the many inhabitants of this “city of the Lord”; but it was not without criticizing the “snake” which it saw in Origène. At the end of summer 388, it returned to Palestine, and settled until the end of its days in a cell close to Bethlehem, surrounded by some friends, men and women.

Living thanks to the means which Paula provided him, and unceasingly increasing the number of its books, he wrote unceasingly. One owes with these thirty-four last years of his existence the major part of his work: its version of the Old Testament starting from the Hebrew text, its best comments on the Writing, its catalog of the Christian authors, as well as the dialog against the Pélagiens. To this period also goes back the major part of its polemical texts, and in particular the treaties due to the controversy on Origène with the Jean bishop of Alexandria. Following its writings against Pélagiens, a troop of partisans of the latter invades his retirement, fire put at it and forced Jerome to take refuge in a neighbouring fortress. The date of its death is known to us by the chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine. Its remainders, buried initially in Jerusalem, were then transferred, says one, with the church Sainte-Marie Majeure of Rome.

Translations

Jerome was a scholar of Latin language at one time when that implied of usually speaking Greek. He knew a little Hebrew at the time where he began his translation draft, but he went to Bethlehem to perfect his knowledge of the language and to improve his approach of the Jewish technique of the comment scripturaire. An easy Roman aristocrat, Paula, made build a monastery for him in Bethlehem, where it began its work of translation. It started into 382 with the modification of the Latin version of the New Testament which circulated at the time, known under the name of Itala or of Vetus latina . In years 390, it turned to the Old Testament, and translated it of Hebrew, by knowing in parallel the Greek version of the Seventy. He came to end from this company towards 405.

During fifteen years following, until its death, he wrote many comments on the Writing, often to explain his choices of translation. Its knowledge of Hebrew also gives to his exegetic treaties (in particular those written after 386) a value higher than that of the majority of the comments patristics, even if Jerome has leaning marked for allegorical and mystical subtleties with the manner of Philon and the School of Alexandria. Its comments can line up in three categories:

Of the translations or adaptations of its Greek predecessors, including/understanding fourteen homélies Origène on Jérémie and the same number on Ézéchiel (translated into 380 in Constantinople), two homélies of Origène on the Dream of Solomon (Rome, towards 383), thirty-nine on Luc (Bethlehem, 389). Translation of the nine homélies of Origène on Ésaïe that one includes/understands in works of Jerome are not him. One can make mention here sound important contribution to the knowledge of the topography of Palestine, by the means of sound Of situ and nominibus locorum Hebraeorum , which is a translation including/understanding of the additions - and regrettable omissions - Onomasticon of Eusèbe. Same period (390), one can to mention Liber interpretationis nominum Hebraicorum , which is based on a book which undoubtedly takes its source at Philon, to be then amplified by Origène.

Of the original comments on the Old Testament . From its installation in Bethlehem and the five years following a series goes back to short studies from the Old Testament: Of seraphim , Of voce Osanna , Of tribes quaestionibus veteris legis (which one generally classifies in the Correspondance with figures 18,20 and 36), Quaestiones hebraicae in Genesin , Commentarius in Ecclesiasten , Tractatus septem in Psalmos 10 - 16 (lost), Explanationes in Michaeam, Sophoniam, Nahum, Habacuc, Aggaeum . Towards 395, it composed a series of longer comments, relating initially to the seven minor prophets remaining, then on Isaïe (395-400), Daniel (407), Ezéchiel (410-415) and Jérémie (415, unfinished).

Of the comments on New Testament . The latter include/understand only the epistles with Philémon, Gallates, Ephésiens and Tite (compound with haste towards 387-388), the Gospels of Matthieu (written in two weeks, 398), Marc, some passages of Luc, the prolog of Jean and the Apocalypse. Having written this last with the haste which was usual for him, it made use of an extract of the comment of Tichonius, an African, who is preserved to us in the form of a kind of foreword at the beginning of a longer work of the Spanish priest Beatus de Libana. Previously, it had held another treatment the book of the Apocalypse: it had worked over again a comment of Saint Victorinus (303); in dissension with the sights millenarists of this last, it had substituted for the millenarist conclusion of this one a talk spiritualizing personal, added an introduction and introduced some changes into the text.

Historical writings

One of the first attempts at Jerome in the field of the history was its Temporum liber , composed around 380 with Constantinople. It is about a Latin transposition of the chronological tables installation in the second part of the Chronique of Eusèbe, with a supplement over the period 325-379. In spite of many errors coming from Eusèbe and others due to Jerome, his work is of value, would be this only for the impulse which it gave to later chroniclers like Prosper, Cassiodore and Victor de Tannuna. We also owe him three hagiographies (three first in Latin language, which will influence Sulpice-Severe in the writing of its Vie of saint Martin ): the Life of the monk Paul , written during its first stay with Antioche (376), the Vie of Malch (391) which is probably based on a former work, even if it claims to have for source of the discussions with the Malch ascetic itself in the desert of Calchis, and the Vie of Hilarion (even date), whose historical matter is more reliable than the two preceding ones, and rests partly on a biography of Epiphanius, and partly on the oral tradition. What one names the Martyrologium sancti Hieronymi is apocryphal book: it is obviously the work of a Western monk at the end of the 6th century or at the beginning of 7th, which refers openly in the chapter of opening of the Life of Malch, where Jerome announces his intention to write a history of the saints and martyrs as from the apostolic time. Most important of historical work of Jerome is the book Of uiris illustribus , written in Bethlehem into 392, from which the title and the structure are borrowed from Suétone. It contains short biographical notes and literary on 135 Christian authors, of holy Pierre in Jerome himself. For the 78 first, its primary source is Eusèbe de Césarée ( Historia ecclesiastica ); the second part, which starts with Arnobe and Lactance, includes/understands a good amount of independent information, particularly with regard to the Western authors.

Correspondence

The Correspondence of Jerome constitutes the most interesting part of its work preserved by the variety of the matter and the quality of the style. That he discusses points of scholarship, evokes cases of conscience, comforts afflicted, holds of the pleasant remarks with his/her friends, vituperates against the defects of its time, exhorts with the ascetic life and the renunciation of the world, or tournament against its theological adversaries, he offers an alive painting not only of its spirit, but also of its time and its particular characteristics. The most reproduced letters or most quoted are letters of exhortation: ep . 14 AD Heliodorum of laude vitae solitariae , ep . 22 AD Eustochium of custodia virginitatis , ep . 52 AD Nepotianum of vita clericorum and monachorum , a kind of summary of the pastoral theology seen under the ascetic angle, ep . 53 AD Paulinum of studio scripturarum , ep . 57 with same: Of institutione monachi , ep . 70 AD Magnum of scriptoribus ecclesiasticis , and ep . 107, AD Laetam of institutione filiae .

Theological work

The near total of the production of Jerome in the doctrinal field has a character polemizes more or less marked. It is directed against adversaries of the orthodoxe doctrines. Even its translation of the treaty of Didyme on the Holy Spirit in Latin (started in Rome into 384 and continued in Bethlehem) shown one tendency to apologetic against the Ariens and holding them of the doctrines pneumatist. He is the same of his version of the Of principiis of Origène (towards 399), whose vocation is to compensate for the inappropriate translation of Rufin. The polemical writings in a strict sense cover the totality of the literary career of Jerome. During its stays with Antioche and Constantinople, it had to deal with the controversy arienne, and particularly schisms caused by Meletius and Lucifer de Cagliari. In two letters with the Damask pope (ep. 15 and 16), he complains about the control of the two parties with Antioche, Mélétiens and Pauliniens, which tried to make it take part in their controversy on the application of the terms “ousia” and “hypostasis” to the Trinity. At the same time, or a little later (379), it writes its Liber countered Luciferianos , where it makes a skilful use of the dialog to fight the leaders of this faction. In Rome, towards 383, he wrote a vibrating tirade against the teaching of Helvidius, to defend the doctrines of the perpetual virginity of Marie and the superiority of the celibacy on the marital state. He found an opponent similar in the person of Jovinianus, with which he entered in conflict into 392 ( Adversum Jovinianum , and the apology for this text, that one finds in a letter with his Pammachius brother, ep. 48). Once more, it took defense the traditional catholic practices of piety and its own ascetic ethics into 406, against the Spanish priest Vigilantius, who opposed the worship martyrs and relics, the wish of poverty, and the celibacy of the clergy. It is at that time that the controversy with Jean began from Jerusalem and Rufin on orthodoxy from Origène. It is at that time that its most impassioned polemics belong and most total: the Contra Joannem Hierosolymitanum (398 or 399), both Apologiae countered Rufinum which is closely dependant (402) there, and the “last word” writes a few months later, Liber tertius seu ultima responsio adversus scripta Rufini . The last of its polemical writings is the dialog Contra Pelagianos (415).

Theological position

Jerome made without question left the more scholars of the Western Fathers. In the Roman Catholic church, he is recognized like patron saint of the librarians and the translators.

Its superiority comes in particular from its knowledge of Hebrew. It is true that it was completely conscious of its qualities, and that he never released himself from temptation to scorn his rivals, particularly Ambroise. Its scholarship is however not deprived of weaknesses. He knew well the literature Greek and Latin, pagan as well as Christian, but one can sometimes note lacks or traces of superficiality. Moreover, its knowledge of Hebrew lends the side to many attacks on behalf of modern criticism.

Generally, it is not its absolute knowledge which makes an exceptional author of it, but an elegance close to poetry, an incisive spirit, a capacity recognized to adapt sentences or proverbs known to its aimings, and an heavy tendency seek the rhetorics effects. Its weaknesses are more notable on the points of dogma. It contributed only indirectly to the development of the doctrines. One can say of it in the same way his contribution to moral theology, where it showed less than one interest for the abstract speculation relating to morals that of an obsessional ascetic zeal and an enthusiasm impassioned for the monastic ideal. It is for this attitude which Martin Luther judged it in a so severe way. It shows a real defect of independence and one tender to the orthodoxe tradition. It is in this spirit that he lived with the pope Damase, not being never proof of the least spirit of decision. When the Church had to decide if it were necessary to recognize with Mélétiens the existence of three hypostases of the divine ousia or, with Pauliniens, a hypostasis with three people (prosopa), written Jerome: “Decides, please, and I will not be afraid to speak about three hypostases”. One can make the precursor of the ultramontanism of it. Its tendency to recognize the superiority of others less does not appear in its correspondence with holy Augustin (ep. 56,67,102-105, 110-112, 115-116 for Jerome, and 28,39,40,67-68, 71-75, 81-82 for Augustin).

However, in spite of the defects and the evoked weaknesses, Jerome has his place among the Fathers of Occident, would be this only by the immense influence of its version of the Bible on the later development of the Church and the Théologie. Its accession with the rank of saint and doctor of the Catholic church was not possible that because it broke any relation with the theological school which had ensured its formation, that of Origénistes.

Iconography

Roman priest, holy Jerome is traditionally represented in cardinal. Even when it is represented like a anchorite with a cross, a cranium and a Bible for any ornamentation of its cell, one generally uses the red hat or another sign to indicate his row.

The iconography of Jerome saint often called upon its legend: for example, its penitence with the desert (Léonard de Vinci - 1480 - art gallery vaticane - Rome) or the saint withdrawing the spine of the leg of a lion (Vittore Carpaccio - Venice)

It is one of the four principal Latin Fathers of the Church, and it is for this reason often represented at the sides of the bishop Augustin d' Hippone, of the archbishop Ambroise of Milan and of the pope Gregoire I {{er}}.

Patronage

He is the guard of the doctors, the students, the archeologists, the pilgrims, the librarians, the translators and the booksellers.

Modern editions

Apology against Rufin , Introduction, critical text, translation and index by Pierre Lardet; Editions of the Stag, coll Christian Sources, 1983
Comment on Jonas , Introduction, critical text, translation and comment by Yves-Marie Duval - Work published with the assistance of the National center of the Letters; Editions of the Stag, coll Christian Sources, 1985.
Comment on saint Matthieu , volume I, Books III, Latin Text of the Christianorum Corpus established by D. Hurst and Mr. Adriaen - Translation, notes and index by Emile Bonnard, former student of the National university, incorporated University; Editions of the Stag, coll Christian Sources, 1978.
Comment on saint Matthieu , volume II, Books III-IV, Latin Text of the Christianorum Corpus established by D. Hurst and Mr. Adriaen - Translation, notes and index by Emile Bonnard, former student of the National university, incorporated University; Editions of the Stag, coll Christian Sources, 1979.
Débat enters Luciférien and Orthodoxe a ( Altercatio luciferiani and orthodoxi ), Introduction, critical text, translation, notes and index by Aline Canellis, Latin university lecturer at the University Light-Lyon II; Editions of the Stag, coll Christian Sources, 2003.
Homélies on Marc , Latin Text of dom German Morin (CCL 78) - Introduction, translation and notes by Jean-Louis Gourdain; Editions of the Stag, coll Christian Sources, 2005.
Three lives of monks (Paul, Malchus, Hilarion), Introduction by Pierre Leclerc, Edgardo Martín Morals, Adalbert de Vogüé (Abbey of Pierre-which-Transfers) - critical Text by Edgardo Mr. Morales (Seminar of Tucumán, Argentina) - Translation by Pierre Leclerc (University of Rouen - Notes of the translation by Edgardo Mr. Morales and Pierre Leclerc; Editions of the Stag, coll Christian Sources, 2007.
Correspondence , Text and translation of J. Labourt, 8 T. ; Editions the Humanities, coll Collection of the Universities of France (Paris)

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