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
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.
“We must expound what follows—"Who has bewitched you?"—in a way worthy of Paul, who even if rough in his speech is not so in his understanding.”
Are you so foolish? After starting in the Spirit, are you now finishing in the flesh?
“(Verse 3.) So foolish are you, that having begun in the Spirit, you are now being perfected in the flesh? If the Galatians received the Holy Spirit, how were they foolish?”
Have you suffered so much for nothing, if it really was for nothing?
“(Verse 4) You have suffered so much without cause, if indeed without cause. Let us consider the unfortunate Jews, how they live among other nations in such superstition and the labor of observance, saying, do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, and we…”
Understand, then, that those who have faith are sons of Abraham.
“(V.7) So you know, those who are of faith, these are the children of Abraham. He discusses more fully in the letter to the Romans that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness, not in circumcision but in uncircumcision (Rom. 4).”
The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and foretold the gospel to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”
“(Verse 8, 9.) But the Scripture, foreseeing that by faith God would justify the Gentiles, foretold to Abraham that all nations would be blessed in him. So then, those who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”
All who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book…
“We perceive that the apostle, as elsewhere, has written down the sense of the passage rather than the words.”
Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.”
“(Vers. 11, 12.) But since no one is justified before God by the law, it is clear that the righteous shall live by faith. The law is not of faith, but the one who does them shall live by them.”
Brothers, let me put this in human terms. Even a human covenant, once it is ratified, cannot be canceled or amended.
“(V. 15 seqq.) Brothers, I speak in human terms: yet no one rejects or adds to a man's covenant, which has been confirmed. The promises were made to Abraham and to his seed.”
Why then was the law given? It was added because of transgressions, until the arrival of the seed to whom the promise referred.
“(Verse 19, 20.) What then? The law was added because of transgressions until the seed should come to whom the promise was made; ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.”
Is the law, then, opposed to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come from…
“(v21 onwards) So is the law against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.”
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
“(Verse 27, 28.) For whoever has been baptized in Christ has clothed themselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
“When one has once put on Christ and, having been sent into the flame, glows with the ardor of the Holy Spirit, it is not apparent whether he is of gold or silver.”
What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he is the owner of everything.
“(Chapter IV - 1, 2) However, I say that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, even though he is the Lord of all, but he is under guardians and managers until the appointed time by the…”
He is subject to guardians and trustees until the date set by his father.
“"Guardians and trustees" could be taken as the prophets, by whose words we were made ready, day by day, for the coming of the Savior, just as the law of Moses is described above as a custodian.… Or the phrase could be taken to refer…”
So also, when we were children, we were enslaved under the basic principles of the world.
“He has used the name "elements of the world" for those whom he called tutors and overseers above.… Some hold that these are angels that preside over the four elements.”
to redeem those under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons.
“Someone might raise the problem: "If then he was made subject to the law to redeem those who were subject to the law … if he himself was not made also outside the law, he did not redeem those who had not been subject to…”
So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God.
“(Verse 7) So then, you are no longer a slave but a son. And if a son, then an heir through Christ. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'”
But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles?
“Now these same elements that he has now styled "weak and beggarly" he called above merely the "elements of the world."”
You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that my efforts for you may have been in vain.
“(Verses 10, 11.) Observing days, and months, and seasons, and years, I fear for you, lest perhaps I have labored in vain among you.”
I beg you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You have done me no wrong.
“A disciple harms his master if he wastes his precepts and his work by his own neglect. The Galatians had not harmed the apostle, because they had observed his gospel and his commands right up to the present.… Or else [he means]: "When I first…”
You know that it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you.
“This is an obscure passage and demands closer attention. "I preached to you initially," he says, "as if to infants and sucklings on account of your bodily weakness.… This economy and pretense of weakness in preaching was my own policy.”
Those people are zealous for you, but not in a good way. Instead, they want to isolate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them.
“(Verse 17, 18.) They imitate you, but not in a good way: rather, they want to exclude you so that you may imitate them. But always imitate the good in what is good, and not only when I am present with you.”
Nevertheless, it is good to be zealous if it serves a noble purpose—at any time, and not only when I am with you.
“No wonder indeed that on the apostle's departure … the Galatians were changed, since even now we witness the same occurrence in the church.”
My children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,
“(Verse 19.) My dear children, whom I am in labor pains until Christ is formed in you. Just as childbirth involves many difficulties and pain as the offspring are brought forth from the womb, the curse is declared first, saying: 'In pain you will bring…”
how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you.
“(Verse 20.) However, I wish to be with you soon and change my voice, for I am confused among you.”