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 beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
“(in Prolog.) Mark the Evangelist, who served the priesthood in Israel, according to the flesh a Levite, having been converted to the Lord, wrote his Gospel in Italy, showing in it how even his family benefited Christ.”
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.’”
“The quotation is made up from two prophets, Malachi and Isaiah. From the first part: "Behold I send my messenger to prepare the way before me," occurs at the close of Malachi.”
John was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.
“John the Baptist had a religious mother and his father was a priest. Yet neither his mother's affection nor his father's affluence could induce him to live in his parents' house at the risk of the world's temptations. So he lived in the desert.”
And he began to proclaim: “After me will come One more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
“"One mightier than I is coming after me, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie." The meaning of the words: "He must increase, I must decrease," is that the gospel must increase, but I, the law, must decrease.”
Immediately Jesus called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed Him.
“There must have been something divinely compelling in the face of the Savior. Otherwise they would not have acted so irrationally as to follow a man whom they had never seen before.”
Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever, and they promptly told Jesus about her.
“Can you imagine Jesus standing before your bed and you continue sleeping? It is absurd that you would remain in bed in his presence. Where is Jesus? He is already here offering himself to us.”
These are the twelve He appointed: Simon (whom He named Peter), James son of Zebedee and his brother John (whom He named Boanerges, meaning “Sons of Thunder”),
“Verse 7. "And the overseer of the eunuchs imposed names upon them, calling Daniel Belteshazzar (Balthasar), and Hananiah Shadrach, and Mishael Meshach, and Azariah Abednego."”
When His family heard about this, they went out to take custody of Him, saying, “He is out of His mind.”
“In the gospel we read that even his kinsfolk desired to bind him as one of weak mind. His opponents also reviled him saying, "You are a Samaritan and have a devil."”
He gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs, and the herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea…
“Was it just that two thousand swine perished so one soul might be saved? One seeking purity of heart had best not become preoccupied with the natural prerogative of the demonic legion or animals.”
When the woman heard about Jesus, she came up through the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak.
“The woman with the hemorrhage had spent all that she had on doctors. Hungering and thirsting, her spirit had died within her. Having lost everything she possessed, because her life was wasting away within her, she cried out to the Lord in anguish.”
Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him trembling in fear, and she told Him the whole truth.
“Note the separate stages; mark the progress. As long as she was hemorrhaging, she could not come into his presence. She was healed by faith and then came before him. She fell at his feet.”
And He did not allow anyone to accompany Him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James.
“Someone may wonder or ask: Why are these three apostles always chosen and the others sent away? Even when he was transfigured on the mountain, these three were with him. Yes, these three were chosen: Peter, James and John. But why only three?”
Taking her by the hand, Jesus said, “Talitha koum!” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”
“(ad Pam. Ep. 57) Some one may accuse the Evangelist of a falsehood in his explanation, in that he has added, I say unto thee, when in Hebrew, Talitha cumi only means, Damsel, arise; but He adds, I say unto thee, Arise, to express that…”
Then Jesus gave strict orders that no one should know about this, and He told them to give her something to eat.
“For whenever he raised anyone from the dead he ordered that food should be given him to eat, lest the resurrection should be thought a delusion. And this is why Lazarus after his resurrection is described as being at the feast with our Lord.”
Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t His sisters here with us as well?”
“How then, says Helvidius, do you make out that they were called the Lord's brethren who were not his brethren? I will show how that is. In Holy Scripture there are four kinds of brethren — by nature, race, kindred, love.”
He instructed them to take nothing but a staff for the journey—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—
“Are all commanded not to have two coats, nor food in their possession, money in their purse, only a staff in the hand and shoes on the feet? Are all commanded to sell all they possess and give it to the poor, and follow Jesus?”
and they saw some of His disciples eating with hands that were defiled—that is, unwashed.
“(in Matt. 15) But common is here put for unclean; for the people of the Jews, boasting that they were the portion of God, called those meats common, which all made use of.”
But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever you would have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God),
“The Lord himself discussed that commandment of the law which says: "Honor thy father and thy mother."”
Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”
“Hier. in Matt., 15: Wonderful is the folly of the Pharisees and Scribes; they accuse the Son of God, because He keeps not the traditions and precepts of men.”
And about four thousand men were present. As soon as Jesus had dismissed the crowd,
“From the lesser number of men [four thousand], less remains; from the greater number [five thousand6], more is left over. Four thousand men—fewer certainly in number, but greater in faith.”
When they arrived at Bethsaida, some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.
“They came, then, to Bethsaida, into the village of Andrew and Peter, James and John. Bethsaida means "house of fishers," and, in truth, from this house, hunters and fishermen are sent into the whole world. Ponder the text.”
Once again Jesus placed His hands on the man’s eyes, and when he opened them his sight was restored, and he could see everything clearly.
“Christ laid his hands upon his eyes that he might see all things clearly, so through visible things he might understand things invisible, which the eye has not seen, that after the film of sin is removed, he might clearly behold the state of his…”
Jesus sent him home and said, “Do not go back into the village.”
“Mystically, however, Bethsaida is interpreted, 'the house of the valley', that is, the world, which is the vale of tears.”
Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
“O Peter, even though you have ascended the mountain, even though you see Jesus transfigured, even though his garments are white; nevertheless, because Christ has not yet suffered for you, you are still unable to know the truth.”
Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him!”
“It seems to me that this cloud is the grace of the Holy Spirit. Naturally, a tent gives shelter and overshadows those who are within; the cloud, therefore, serves the purpose of the tents.”