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
This is the burden that Habakkuk the prophet received in a vision: How long, O LORD, must I call for help but You do not hear, or cry out to…
“(Chapter 1, Verses 1, 2.) How long, O Lord, will I cry out and you will not hear? I will shout to you with violence, but you will not save. Why have you shown me iniquity and pain, to see plunder and injustice against me?”
Why do You make me see iniquity? Why do You tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict abounds.
“(Ver. 3, 4.) And judgment and contradiction become more powerful: therefore the law is torn apart and judgment does not reach its end: because the wicked prevail against the just, therefore a perverse judgment proceeds.”
“Look at the nations and observe—be utterly astounded! For I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe even if someone told you.
“(Verse 5.) Look among the nations and see, be astonished and astounded; for a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told.”
Are You not from everlasting, O LORD, my God, my Holy One? We will not die.
“(Verse 12.) Surely you are from the beginning, O Lord my God, my holy one? And shall we not die? O Lord, you have appointed him for judgment; you have established him as a strong one to correct him.”
Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do You tolerate the faithless?
“(Verse 13, 14.) Your eyes are the world's eyes, so that you may not see evil, and you cannot look upon injustice. Why do you not look upon those who commit wickedness and remain silent as the wicked devour the righteous?”
The foe pulls all of them up with a hook; he catches them in his dragnet, and gathers them in his fishing net; so he rejoices gladly.
“(Verses 15 and following) He lifted the whole thing on his hook, he pulled it into his net, and gathered it into his seine: over this he will rejoice and exult.”
and wealth indeed betrays him. He is an arrogant man never at rest. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and like Death, he is never satisfied.
“(Verse 5 and following) And just as wine deceives a drinker, so too will the proud man be, and he will not be adorned, who has expanded his soul like Sheol and is like death, and he will not be satisfied.”
Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, to place his nest on high and escape the hand of disaster!
“(Verse 9.) Woe to him who gathers evil greed to his house, that his nest may be on high and he may escape from the power of evil. You have devised ruin to your house, you have destroyed many peoples, and your soul has sinned.”
Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by iniquity!
“(Verse 12 and following) Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed, and establishes a town with injustice: are these things not from the Lord of hosts?”
Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin until they are drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness!
“(Verg. 15 seqq.) Woe to him who gives drink to his friend, sending forth his gall and intoxicating him, so that he may see his nakedness. He is filled with shame instead of glory.”
What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies?
“(Verse 18.) What profit is there in a carved image, because the maker thereof hath carved it, a molten and a false image? because the maker thereof hath trusted in his own workmanship, to make dumb idols.”
Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ or to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Can it give guidance?
“(Verse 19, 20). Woe to him who says to wood, 'Wake up!' or to silent stone (or lying stone), 'Arise!' Can it give instruction? Look, it is covered with gold and silver, but there is no breath in its midst.”
This is a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth:
“The prophet Habakkuk gives this title to his canticle: "A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet for ignorance." For he had spoken in a bold manner to the Lord and had said, "How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and you will not hear?”
His radiance was like the sunlight; rays flashed from His hand, where His power is hidden.
“(Verse 4.) He covered the heavens with his glory, and the earth is full of his praise. His splendor is like light: horns are in his hands. There his strength is hidden.”
Plague went before Him, and fever followed in His steps.
“(Verse 5.) Before his face, death will go, and the devil will go forth before his feet. LXX: Before his face, the word will go, and it will go forth into the field behind his feet.”
He stood and measured the earth; He looked and startled the nations; the ancient mountains crumbled; the perpetual hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting.
“(Verse 6.) He stood and measured the earth: he beheld, and scattered the nations, and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.”
I saw the tents of Cushan in distress; the curtains of Midian were trembling.
“(Verse 7.) I have seen the tents of Ethiopia because of iniquity, the skins of the land of Midian will be troubled.”
Were You angry at the rivers, O LORD? Was Your wrath against the streams?
“(Verse 8, 9.) Are you angry, Lord, with the rivers? Or is your anger against the rivers, or your wrath against the sea? For you have ascended upon your horses, and your chariots are salvation.”
The mountains saw You and quaked; torrents of water swept by. The deep roared with its voice and lifted its hands on high.
“LXX: They shall see you and be sorrowful, whether the peoples are in labor; for it signifies both. Consequently, when the earth is broken and the rivers flow, the peoples who have drunk from the rivers of God shall see God and be in labor.”
Sun and moon stood still in their places at the flash of Your flying arrows, at the brightness of Your shining spear.
“LXX: In light, your javelins shall go forth, in the splendor of the flashing of your armor. The javelins of God, that is, the arrows going and advancing, are not sent for the purpose of killing, but for the purpose of illuminating.”
You marched across the earth with fury; You threshed the nations in wrath.
“LXX: In the threat, you will approach the earth, and in anger, you will drag away the nations. This can be understood as occurring at the end of the world, when, through frequent wars, a great multitude is killed, and few people are found, and…”
You went forth for the salvation of Your people, to save Your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked and stripped him from head to toe.
“LXX: You have lifted up the chains until the neck, to the end. The Lord has lifted up the chains of love, so that with the previous burden set aside, and the heavy yoke by which we were oppressed thrown off, we may take up…”
With his own spear You pierced his head, when his warriors stormed out to scatter us, gloating as though ready to secretly devour the weak.
“(Verse 14 and following) You have cursed his scepters, the heads of his warriors, who come like a whirlwind to scatter me. Their rejoicing is like that of someone who devours the poor in secret.”
I heard and trembled within; my lips quivered at the sound. Decay entered my bones; I trembled where I stood.
“LXX: I kept watch, and my belly was afraid at the voice of my mouth's prayer: and trembling entered into my bones, and under me my strength was troubled.”
Though the fig tree does not bud and no fruit is on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the sheep are cut…
“(Verse 17.) For the fig tree will not blossom, and there will be no fruit on the vines. The work of the olive tree will deceive, and the fields will not produce food.”