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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.
Jerome. Painted by Caravaggio. The file is marked public domain. This site's record does not give the artist's death year, which is what settles the painting's own rights. The file record

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.

Hebrew Questions on Genesis, 420

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.

Homily 12, on Psalm 78, 420

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.

Homily 28, on Psalm 101, 420

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.

Homily 34, on Psalm 107, 420

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…

Homily 57, on Psalm 147, 420

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

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

Genesis 40:10Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

and on the vine were three branches. As it budded, its blossoms opened and its clusters ripened into grapes.

(Verse 10) And behold, a vine was before me, and in it there were three branches, and it was sprouting three shoots. The words in Hebrew, which are called Sarigim, signify three scourges and three branches or shoots.

Genesis 40:16Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: There were three baskets of white bread on my head.

(Verse 16.) And it seemed to me that I was carrying three baskets of wheat on my head. For the three baskets of wheat, he has three measures of flour in Hebrew.

Genesis 41:2Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

when seven cows, sleek and well-fed, came up from the river and began to graze among the reeds.

(Chapter 41, Verse 2) And behold, seven cows were coming up from the river, attractive to look at, well-fed and well-built, and they were grazing in the meadow. In Genesis it is written as Achi (Ἄχα), which is neither a Greek nor Latin word.

Genesis 41:16Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

“I myself cannot do it,” Joseph replied, “but God will give Pharaoh a sound answer.”

(Verse 16) And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying: Without God, salvation will not be given to Pharaoh. In Hebrew, it is different: Without me, God will answer peace to Pharaoh.

Genesis 41:29Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

Behold, seven years of great abundance are coming throughout the land of Egypt,

(Verse 29.) Behold, seven years of great abundance are coming in all the land of Egypt. I wonder how the Hebrew word () Sabee, which we translated above as abundance or satiety, in reference to the well that the servants of Isaac dug, can now…

Genesis 41:43Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

He had Joseph ride in his second chariot, with men calling out before him, “Bow the knee!” So he placed him over all the land of Egypt.

(Verse 43.) And the herald cried out before him, and he set him over all the land of Egypt. Aquila translates it as: And he cried out in his presence with adgnition.

Genesis 43:34Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

When the portions were served to them from Joseph’s table, Benjamin’s portion was five times larger than any of the others. So they feasted and drank freely with Joseph.

(Verse 32) And they drank, and were intoxicated with it. The idiom of the Hebrew language is to equate drunkenness with satiety, as it says there: 'He shall be satisfied with the abundance of rain, with the produce of his land he shall be intoxicated.'

Genesis 44:2Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

Put my cup, the silver one, in the mouth of the youngest one’s sack, along with the silver for his grain.” So the steward did as Joseph had instructed.

(Chapter XLIV - Verse 2) And put the silver of each one in the mouth of the bag, and put my silver cup in the mouth of the youngest one's bag. For bag, it has a peronem or follem in Hebrew.

Genesis 45:21Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

So the sons of Israel did as they were told. Joseph gave them wagons as Pharaoh had instructed, and he also gave them provisions for their journey.

(v. 21) And he gave them food along the way. The word Seda, which here everyone with one voice translates as 'provisions' (ἐπισιτισμὸν in Greek), is also found in the Psalter. For where our translation reads, 'I will abundantly bless her widow' (Ps.

Genesis 46:26–27Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

All those belonging to Jacob who came to Egypt—his direct descendants, besides the wives of Jacob’s sons—numbered sixty-six persons.

(Chapter XLVI, Verse 26 and following) Therefore all the souls that entered Egypt with Jacob, and those that came out of his thighs, apart from the wives of Jacob's sons, were sixty-six souls; and the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt…

Genesis 46:28Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

Now Jacob had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to get directions to Goshen. When Jacob’s family arrived in the land of Goshen,

(v. 28) But Judah was sent ahead of him to Joseph, to meet him in the city of Heroum in the land of Ramesse. In Hebrew, there is no city called Heroum, nor a land called Ramesse, but only Gesen.

Genesis 47:31Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

“Swear to me,” Jacob said. So Joseph swore to him, and Israel bowed in worship at the head of his bed.

(Chapter 47, Verse 31) And he said to him, swear to me. And he swore to him: and Israel worshipped against the top of his staff.

Genesis 48:2Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

When Jacob was told, “Your son Joseph has come to you,” Israel rallied his strength and sat up in bed.

(Version 2.) And Israel, strengthened, sat upon the bed. The reason why the Seventy Interpreters have rendered the same word differently, I do not know; but I boldly say this one thing, that the word itself, Meta, which they translated here as bed, in the…

Genesis 48:6Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

Any children born to you after them shall be yours, and they shall be called by the names of their brothers in the territory they inherit.

(Verse 6.) They will be called by the names of their brothers in their inheritance. No, he said, they will not receive land separately, nor will they have their own possessive cords like the other tribes, but they will be mixed in with the tribes…

Genesis 48:22Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

And to you, as one who is above your brothers, I give the ridge of land that I took from the Amorites with my sword and bow.”

(Verse 22.) And I gave ((Or, do)) to you Sicima, the special one, over your brothers, which I received from the hands of the Amorites with my sword and arrow. Sicima, according to Greek and Latin custom, is declined.

Genesis 49:3Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power.

(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.

Genesis 49:7Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

Cursed be their anger, for it is strong, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

(Verse 7) Cursed be their fury, for it is stubborn; and their anger, for it is harsh. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

Genesis 49:19Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

Gad will be attacked by raiders, but he will attack their heels.

(Verse 19.) Gad the robber will rob him, and he himself will rob a plant. We are interpreted according to the Hebrew.

Genesis 49:22–24Hebrew Questions on Genesis (420)

Joseph is a fruitful vine—a fruitful vine by a spring, whose branches scale the wall. The archers attacked him with bitterness; they aimed at him in hostility.

(Verse 22 and following) The son of Joseph grew up, the son of Joseph grown tall above the fountain of the daughter, walking with a composed stride on the wall. And they provoked him, and contended with him, and were angry against him, having arrows.