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
For the sake of Your name do not despise us; do not disgrace Your glorious throne. Remember Your covenant with us; do not break it.
“We should not think that the glorious throne of God is only the throne of the temple, which was repeatedly destroyed, but that it is also every saint who is cast down and destroyed when he offends God by his multitude of sins, according to…”
Can the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies alone send showers? Is this not by You, O LORD our God?
“After many and various thoughts, he returns to the prophecy's title, in which it is written, "What the word of the Lord gave to Jeremiah concerning the drought."”
Then the LORD said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My heart would not go out to this people.
“(Chapter 15, Verse 1) And the Lord said to me: If Moses and Samuel stood before me (or against me), my soul would not be for this people.”
I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.
“(Verse 4.) And I will give them into the heat (or turmoil and distress) of all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for all that he did in Jerusalem.”
You have forsaken Me, declares the LORD. You have turned your back.
“(Verse 6.) You have forsaken me, says the Lord: you have gone backward. The reason is given why no one has pity on Jerusalem, nor is she grieved for; nor is she beseeched for the sake of her peace: which, according to the Apostle (Philippians…”
Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and conflict in all the land. I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.
“(Verse 10) Woe to me, my mother, why did you give birth to me as a man of strife (or judgment), a man of discord (or one who judges), in the whole world?”
Can anyone smash iron—iron from the north—or bronze?
“(Vers. 12.) Will iron be bound to iron by the North Wind, and bronze? Symmachus, Will iron be harmed by iron by the North Wind, and bronze? LXX and Theodotion, If it recognizes iron and a copper covering?”
You understand, O LORD; remember me and attend to me. Avenge me against my persecutors. In Your patience, do not take me away.
“(Verse 15, 16.) You know, O Lord, remember me and visit me, and protect me from those who persecute me. Do not take me in your patience, know that I have endured reproach for you.”
I never sat with the band of revelers, nor did I celebrate with them. Because Your hand was on me, I sat alone, for You have filled me with indignation.
“(Verse 17, 18.) I did not sit in the council of the jesters, and I boasted (or feared) from the face of your hand: I sat alone, for you filled me with bitterness ((Vulgate: threat)).”
Therefore this is what the LORD says: “If you return, I will restore you; you will stand in My presence.
“It is obvious that the text above was said not by Jerusalem but by a prophet. To him the Lord responds, "If you turn from the sins of the people, I likewise will turn you from tribulation toward joyfulness, and you will stand before my…”
“You must not marry or have sons or daughters in this place.”
“Elijah lived a virgin life; so also did Elisha and many of the sons of the prophets. To Jeremiah the command came: "You will not take a wife."”
But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them.
“"He rains on the wicked snares." Without any doubt, it is the Lord who contrives snares for sinners, in order to entrap those who abuse their freedom and to compel them to tread the right path under his bridle, thereby making it possible for them…”
O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say…
“(Verse 19) Lord, you are my strength and my refuge in the day of trouble (or evil). All human strength, without the power of God, which is Christ, is considered weak and worthless.”
O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say…
“(Verse 20) To you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: Truly, our fathers have possessed a lie, vanity that has not profited them.”
“Therefore behold, I will inform them, and this time I will make them know My power and My might; then they will know that My name is the LORD.
“(Verse 21.) Therefore behold, I will show them in turn this: I will show them my hand and my power, and they will know that my name is the Lord.”
But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him.
“It may be said both of the Jews and of the heretics that they put their hope in humankind, for the messiah whom they believe to be coming is clearly not the Son of God but a mere man.”
Like a partridge hatching eggs it did not lay is the man who makes a fortune unjustly.
“(Verse 11.) The partridge hatches (or gathers) what it did not lay. (And as the Septuagint translated: The partridge cried out, it gathered what it did not lay.) It acquired its riches not with justice.”
Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for You are my praise.
“(Verse 14) Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.”
Behold, they keep saying to me, “Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come now!”
“(Verse 15) Look, they say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come. Those who do not believe in the future, speak to the Prophet: Where is the word of the Lord?”
Do not become a terror to me; You are my refuge in the day of disaster.
“(Verse 17) Do not be a source of fear to me, you are my hope in the day of affliction (or do not become a stranger to me, sparing me on the worst day).”
Let my persecutors be put to shame, but do not let me be put to shame. Let them be terrified, but do not let me be terrified.
“(Verse 18.) Let those who pursue me be put to shame, while I am not put to shame. Let them fear, while I do not fear. Bring upon them the day of affliction, and crush them with double contrition.”
Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, all people of Judah and Jerusalem who enter through these gates.
“(Verse 20 and following) Thus says the Lord: Guard your souls, and do not carry burdens on the Sabbath day, or bring them through the gates of Jerusalem.”
Now therefore, tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I am planning a disaster for you and devising a…
“(Verse 11) Now therefore say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am devising evil against you and devising a plan against you. Return everyone from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.”
But they will reply, ‘It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”
“(Verse 12) But they say, That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.”
Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Inquire among the nations: Who has ever heard things like these? Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing.
“(Verse 13) Therefore, thus says the Lord: Inquire of the nations, who has heard such dreadful things, which the virgin of Israel has done exceedingly?”