Voices and influences
Jerome
The scholar who went to the Hebrew itself and gave the West a Bible it read for a thousand years.
Summary
This site quotes Jerome 2,794 times across 57 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived died 420.
- Quoted here most in Matthew: 558 of 2,794.
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Jerome
- Lived
- died 420
- Tradition
- Patristic
5 of 2,794 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Jerome died in 420 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
(Chapter 49, verse 3) Reuben, my firstborn, you are my strength and the first of my sons, tough in bearing and tough in insolence and injury, like water that does not boil.
The rest of the quotation
You went up on your father's bed, then you defiled it when you went up. In Hebrew it is written: Reuben, my firstborn, you are my strength, and the first in power among my sons. Greater in carrying, and greater in strength. You are poured out like water, do not exceed. For you have ascended the bed of your father and defiled the couch in his ascent.
Genesis 49:3 Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power. BSB
But we your people and the sheep of your pasture. When he says "sheep," he signifies innocence. Sheep have nothing but a shepherd. We will give you thanks forever. We will confess: either we do penance, or, what is better, we glorify.
The rest of the quotation
From generation to generation; among the first people, and among the second people. Although according to the historical sense it is said otherwise in Ezekiel, nevertheless according to the spiritual understanding we say this, since these two peoples — that is, the two rods — are joined together in Ezekiel, and become one kingdom.
Psalms 79:13 Then we Your people, the sheep of Your pasture, will thank You forever; from generation to generation we will declare Your praise. BSB
I have become like the pelican of the wilderness. There are said to be two kinds of these birds.
The rest of the quotation
One lives in the waters, and its food is fish; and one lives in the wilderness, and its food is venomous creatures, that is, serpents and crocodiles and lizards. Now these birds are called in Latin 'onocrotali.' To that one therefore have I become like, which lives in the wilderness, which eats venomous creatures: that is, my food was to me as it were poison. I have become like the night-raven in its dwelling-place.
Psalms 102:6 I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. BSB
"Be exalted above the heavens, O God." God is not exalted except above the heavens, he is not exalted above the earth. When we are earthly, we do not exalt God; but if from earthly we have been made heavenly, then we exalt God.
The rest of the quotation
And our Lord, when he was on earth, did not exalt us. Someone may say: You speak rashly, since he himself says in the Gospel: "When I have been lifted up, I will draw all things to myself."
Psalms 108:5–6 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; may Your glory cover all the earth. Respond and save us with Your right hand, that Your beloved may be delivered. BSB
Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion. Just now we heard the holy presbyter preaching that, because of its transgression of the law, the Jewish people has been forsaken; and how is it that now it is said, Praise the Lord, O…
The rest of the quotation
Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion? Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem, "vision of peace." Praise your God, O Zion. Zion is interpreted "watchtower." You see, then, what he says: Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Wherever there is a vision of peace, wherever there is contemplation of God, there let there be praise of God.
Psalms 147:12 Exalt the LORD, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion! BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Jerome 2,794 times across 57 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Eusebius Hieronymus was born about 347 at Stridon, a town on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia that no longer exists. His parents were Christians with money. They sent him to Rome, where he studied grammar and rhetoric under the great teacher Donatus, collected pagan authors, and was baptized in his late teens. He traveled east, and about 375 went into the desert of Chalcis, southeast of Antioch, to live as a hermit. He lasted a few years. He hated the heat, quarreled with the monks over the Trinity, and — by his own account — hired a converted Jew to teach him Hebrew, largely to keep his mind off Rome. That decision changed the history of the Bible in the West. Ordained at Antioch, he went on to Constantinople, where he heard Gregory of Nazianzus, and then in 382 to Rome, where Pope Damasus made him a secretary and set him to revising the Latin Gospels against the Greek. In Rome he also became teacher to a circle of wealthy Christian women — Marcella, Paula, and Paula's daughter Eustochium — who studied Scripture and Hebrew with him. His scorn for the worldly Roman clergy was returned with interest, and after Damasus died in 384 he left the city for good. In 386 he settled at Bethlehem, where Paula founded monasteries for men and women and paid for his books. He stayed thirty-four years, working in a cave beside the traditional site of the Nativity. There he did the thing he is known for. Instead of correcting the old Latin against the Greek Septuagint, he translated the Old Testament out of the Hebrew — going to Jewish teachers for help, arguing that the Hebraica veritas, the Hebrew truth, was the standard. Augustine wrote to warn him that congregations would riot over changed familiar words, and in North Africa one did. Jerome kept going. He also wrote commentaries on most of the prophets, on Matthew and several letters of Paul, a catalogue of Christian writers, letters that were copied and read as literature, and translations of Origen and Eusebius. He was a savage controversialist. He broke publicly with his oldest friend Rufinus over Origen, attacked Jovinian, Vigilantius, and Pelagius in print, and lost few opportunities to wound. In 410 refugees from the sack of Rome arrived at his door and he wrote that the light of the world had gone out. Paula died in 404, Eustochium in 419. Jerome died at Bethlehem in 420. His translation, gathered later with other Latin books into what came to be called the Vulgate, was the Bible of Western Europe until the Reformation and remained the Roman Catholic standard far beyond it. Sources: Jerome, Letters and De viris illustribus; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church; the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, second series volume 6; the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.
2,794 quotations across 57 books
Where this voice is quoted
I will turn My face away from them, and they will defile My treasured place. Violent men will enter it, and they will defile it.
“(Verse 22) And I will turn my face away from them: and they will violate my sanctuary: and emissaries will enter it (as the Septuagint rashly translated, or as Symmachus and Theodotio, bursting in, and pestilential), and they will defile it.”
Forge the chain, for the land is full of crimes of bloodshed, and the city is full of violence.
“(Verse 23.) Make a conclusion, for the land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of wickedness. LXX: And I will bring disturbance, for the land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of iniquities.”
The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with despair, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble.
“(Verse 27) The king will mourn, and the prince will be clothed in sorrow, or, according to the Septuagint, in death: those who desired something, what we have expressed in the Hebrew language, the king will mourn, they have completely remained silent about it.”
In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me; and there the…
“Chapter 8, Verse 1. And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me.”
Then I looked and saw a figure like that of a man. From His waist down His appearance was like fire, and from His waist up He was as bright…
“(Version 2.) And there fell upon me the hand of the Lord God there. And I saw, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of fire from the appearance of his loins, and downward fire: and from his loins and upward, as the appearance of…”
He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head.
“(Verse 3) And a reaching out likeness of a hand seized me by the lock of my head. LXX: And the likeness of a hand extended and took hold of me by the fringe of my crown.”
And there I saw the glory of the God of Israel, like the vision I had seen in the plain.
“(Verse 4) And he brought me to Jerusalem in a vision of God, near the inner gate that faces north, where the idol of jealousy was set up to provoke jealousy.”
“Son of man,” He said to me, “now lift up your eyes to the north.”
“(Verse 5) And he said to me: Son of man, lift up your eyes toward the north. So I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and behold, north of the altar gate was the idol of jealousy in the entrance.”
Then He brought me to the entrance to the court, and I looked and saw a hole in the wall. “Son of man,” He told me, “dig through the wall.”
“(Verse 7 and following) And He brought me to the entrance of the courtyard, and I saw, and behold, there was a hole in the wall. And He said to me, Son of man, dig through the wall.”
So I went in and looked, and engraved all around the wall was every kind of crawling creature and detestable beast, along with all the idols of the house of…
“(Verse 10) And I entered and saw: and behold, every likeness of creeping things and abomination of animals: and all the idols of the house of Israel were depicted on the wall all around.”
Again, He told me, “You will see them committing even greater abominations.”
“(Verse 13, 14). And he said to me: You will still see greater abominations that they (or these) do.”
Therefore I will respond with wrath. I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them.
“(Verse 18.) Therefore, I will also act in fury: My eye will not spare, nor will I have compassion. And when they cry out to my ears with a loud voice, I will not listen to them.”
Then I heard Him call out in a loud voice, saying, “Draw near, O executioners of the city, each with a weapon of destruction in hand.”
“(Chapter IX—Verse 1) And he cried out in my ears with a loud voice, saying: The visitations of the city have drawn near. In place of visitations, the Seventy translated 'vengeance.' For I will exact vengeance, and I will repay, says the Lord (Deuteronomy 32:35).”
Slaughter the old men, the young men and maidens, the women and children; but do not go near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary.”
“And what follows: 'And begin from my sanctuary,' or as the Seventy have translated, 'begin from my saints,' which means the priests who served in the temple and worshipped idols; or those who were called holy due to their merit in the priesthood among the…”
Then He told them, “Defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go forth!” So they went out and began killing throughout the city.
“(Verse 7) They therefore began with the older men who were before the house. And he said to them: Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Fill the courts with the slain.”
While they were killing, I was left alone. And I fell facedown and cried out, “Oh, Lord GOD, when You pour out Your wrath on Jerusalem, will You destroy the…
“And when the slaughter was complete, I remained: and I fell upon my face, and crying out I said: Alas, Lord God, wilt thou then destroy all the remnant of Israel, pouring out thy fury upon Jerusalem?”
He replied, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of perversity.
“But the cause of such great crimes is that they believed there is no providence over the earth, nor does God care about mortal things...”
Then the man clothed in linen with the writing kit at his side reported back, “I have done as You commanded.”
“(Verse 11) And behold, a man who was clothed in linen, who had a writing utensil at his waist, answered saying, 'I have done as you commanded me.'”
Then the cherubim rose upward. These were the living creatures I had seen by the River Kebar.
“(Vers. 15 seqq.) It is a creature that I saw beside the river Chobar. And when the Cherubim walked, the wheels also went beside them.”
When they return to it, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations.
“And when you have entered, you shall remove all idols, because of which you have offended God, and I will give you a unified heart of fear and servitude to God, so that you may not serve diverse idols, or any other than what you…”
Then the cherubim, with the wheels beside them, spread their wings, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.
“Gradually, the glory of the Lord departed from Jerusalem. First leaving the temple, it stood in the courtyard or at the threshold of the house, and afterwards at the entrance of the Eastern Gate; finally, with its wings and accompanying wheels lifted up, it stood…”
And the Spirit lifted me up and carried me back to Chaldea, to the exiles in the vision given by the Spirit of God.
“(Verse 24, 25.) And the spirit lifted me up and brought me to Chaldea for the transmigration in a vision in the spirit of God, and the vision that I had seen was taken away from me.”
I told the exiles everything the LORD had shown me.
“Both of which signify not that the prophet was physically transported from Jerusalem to Babylon, but in spirit, the vision that had led him in spirit to Jerusalem was taken away, and he returned to himself and spoke to the transmigration all that had been…”
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, you are living in a rebellious house.
“(Chapter 12, Verses 1 et seq.) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house: they have eyes to see, and do not see: and ears to hear, and do not hear…”
Therefore, son of man, pack your bags for exile. In broad daylight, set out from your place and go to another as they watch.
“(Verse 3) Therefore, son of man, prepare for yourself the vessels of exile, and you shall go into exile during the day in their presence.”