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
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
“(Vers. 4, 5.) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified you: I have made you a prophet to the nations.”
See, I have appointed you today over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and plant.”
“It is important to observe here that two joys succeed four sorrows. The good cannot be built up unless the evil is destroyed, nor can the best be planted unless the worst is eradicated.”
Get yourself ready. Stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not be intimidated by them, or I will terrify you before them.
“(Verse 17.) So gird up your loins and arise, and speak to them all that I command you. And Job is commanded to gird up his loins (Job 4); and to the Apostles (Luke 12), that with girded loins, which Elijah (2 Kings 1) and…”
“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed…
“(Vers. 2.) Thus says the Lord: I have remembered your youth, the kindness of your betrothal, when you followed me in the desert, in a land that is not sown.”
Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of His harvest. All who devoured her found themselves guilty; disaster came upon them,’” declares the LORD.
“(Verse 3.) Holy is Israel to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest: all who devour him shall be guilty; evil shall come upon them, says the Lord.”
Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all you families of the house of Israel.
“(Verses 4, 5.) Hear the word of the Lord, house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel.”
They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits…
“(Verse 6) And they did not say, Where is the Lord who led us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the desert, through an uninhabited and impassable land, through a land of thirst and the shadow of death, through a…”
I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land, and made My inheritance detestable.
“(Verse 7) And I led you into the land of Carmel, that you may eat its fruit and its goodness; and when you entered, you polluted my land and made my inheritance an abomination.”
Therefore, I will contend with you again, declares the LORD, and I will bring a case against your children’s children.
“(Verse 9) Therefore I will still contend with you in judgment, says the Lord, and I will reason with your children.”
Is Israel a slave? Was he born into slavery? Why then has he become prey?
“(Verse 14) Is the Israelite a servant or a native? I believe that from this place, the Jews who were filled with pride said to the Savior: We are the seed of Abraham and have never served anyone.”
The young lions have roared at him; they have growled with a loud voice. They have laid waste his land; his cities lie in ruins, without inhabitant.
“(v. 15) So why did he become prey? The lions roared against him and gave forth their voice. They made his land a desolation; his cities are burned and no one lives in them. The divine speech asks a question in order to answer it.”
“For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’
“(Verse 20.) You have broken my yoke from the age (or your own) and shattered my chains (or yours); and you said, 'I will not serve.'”
Although you wash with lye and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before Me,” declares the Lord GOD.
“(Verse 22) If you wash yourself with niter, you will multiply for yourself the herb borith, you are stained in your iniquity before me, says the Lord God.”
“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done.
“(Verse 23) How can you say, 'I am not defiled; I have not gone after the Baals'? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done - a restless young camel running here and there, (valley in Hebrew is called Ge, which…”
You should have kept your feet from going bare and your throat from being thirsty. But you said, ‘It is hopeless!
“(Verse 25.) Keep your foot from nakedness, and your throat from thirst. And you said, I have despaired, I will not do it. I have loved strangers, and will follow after them.”
As the thief is ashamed when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced.
“(Verse 26, 27.) Just as a thief is ashamed when he is caught, so were the people of Israel and their kings, leaders, priests, and prophets ashamed.”
But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them rise up in your time of trouble and save you if they can; for your gods are as numerous…
“(Verse 28.) Where are your gods, whom you made for yourself? Let them arise and deliver you in the time of your affliction. It is a shameless request to seek help from one whom you have despised in times of peace.”
Why do you bring a case against Me? You have all rebelled against Me,” declares the LORD.
“(Verse 29) What do you want to contend with me in judgment? You all have forsaken me, says the Lord. Human perversity is inclined to make excuses for itself, so that whatever it rightfully endures, it may seem to endure unjustly; and it may attribute…”
“I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.”
“(Verse 30) Without cause, I struck your sons: they did not receive discipline. For this reason, you did not receive the 70. And the sense in Hebrew is: Those who were struck did not want to receive discipline.”
You people of this generation, consider the word of the LORD: “Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of dense darkness?
“(Verse 31.) See the word of the Lord: Am I become a wilderness to Israel, or a barren land? Why then said my people, We are gone, we will come no more at you?”
Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number.
“(Verse 32.) Will the virgin forget her adornment, and the bride her breastplate? My people have forgotten me in countless days. Through these things we learn that Christ is the bridegroom of the virgin Church, which has no blemish or wrinkle.”
Moreover, you will leave that place with your hands on your head, for the LORD has rejected those you trust; you will not prosper by their help.”
“(Verse 37.) And you will be confounded by Egypt, just as you were confounded by Assyria: for you will also go out from there, and your hands will be on your head: because the Lord has broken your confidence (or hope), and you will have…”
“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled?
“(Chapter III - Verse 1) It is commonly said (for which the Seventy have translated 'only said'). If a man divorces his wife and she goes and becomes another man's wife, will he return to her again?”
“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated?
“(Version 2.) Lift up your eyes and see where you have not fallen. On the roads you were sitting, waiting for them like a robber in the wilderness (or like a deserted raven).”
Go, proclaim this message toward the north: ‘Return, O faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will no longer look on you with anger, for I am merciful,’ declares the LORD.
“(Verse 12 onwards) Go, and cry out (or read) these words against the North, and say: Return, O backsliding Israel, declares the Lord, and I will not turn away (or strengthen) my face from you (or against you), for I am holy (or merciful), declares…”