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.
.jpg?width=640)
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
So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.”
“(Verse 35) So that what was said through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying: I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world. This testimony is taken from the seventy-seventh psalm (Verse 2).”
Then Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples came to Him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
“(Verse 36) Then Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, 'Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.'”
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls.
“(Verse 45, 46.) Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. Upon finding one exceedingly precious pearl, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. In other words, the same thing as was said above.”
Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was cast into the sea and caught all kinds of fish.
“In fulfilment of that prophecy of Hieremias, who said, I will send unto you many fishers, (Jer. 6:16.)”
When it was full, the men pulled it ashore. Then they sat down and sorted the good fish into containers, but threw the bad away.
“For when the end of the world shall be come, then shall be shown the true test of separating the fishes, and as in a sheltered harbour the good shall be sent into the vessels of heavenly abodes, but the flame of hell shall seize…”
Have you understood all these things?” “Yes,” they answered.
“(Verse 51.) Did you understand all these things? They said to him: Yes. He said to them: To the apostles specifically this speech is; and to them it is said: You understood all these things; He does not want to hear them only as a…”
Then He told them, “For this reason, every scribe who has been discipled in the kingdom of heaven is like a homeowner who brings out of his storeroom new treasures…
“(Verse 52.) Therefore, every learned scribe in the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a household who brings forth from his treasure new and old things.”
“Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t His mother’s name Mary, and aren’t His brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Aren’t all His sisters with us as well?
“(Verse 55, 56.) Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did he get all these things? And they took offense at him.”
And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and in his own household is a prophet without honor.”
“(Verse 57.) But Jesus said to them: A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country and in his own house. It is almost natural for citizens to envy each other.”
And He did not do many miracles there, because of their unbelief.
“Or we may understand it otherwise, that Jesus is despised in His own house and country, signifies in the Jewish people; and therefore He did among them few miracles, that they might not be altogether without excuse; but among the Gentiles He does daily greater…”
At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus and said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead!
“One of the Ecclesiastical interpreters asks what caused Herod to think that John was risen from the dead; as though we had to account for the errors of an alien, or as though the heresy of metempsychosis was at all supported by this place—a heresy…”
Although Herod wanted to kill John, he was afraid of the people, because they regarded John as a prophet.
“(Verse 5.) And wanting to kill him, he feared the people: for they held him as a prophet. Indeed, he feared the sedition of the people because of John, from whom he knew that many crowds had been baptized in the Jordan; but he was…”
On Herod’s birthday, however, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod
“(Verse 6.) But on Herod's birthday, Herodias' daughter danced in the midst, and it pleased Herod. We have found no other to have observed their own birthday except Herod and Pharaoh, as their impiety was on equal terms, so too was their festivity.”
so much that he promised with an oath to give to her whatever she asked.
“(Verse 7.) So when he had promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask from him. But she being forewarned by her mother.”
Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”
“(Verse 8.) 'Give me,' she says, 'here on a platter, the head of John the Baptist.' Herodias, fearing that Herod might someday come to his senses and become a friend to his brother Philip, and that their unlawful marriage would be dissolved, instructs her daughter…”
The king was grieved, but because of his oaths and his guests, he ordered that her wish be granted
“Otherwise; It is the manner of Scripture to speak of events as they were commonly viewed at the time by all.”
John’s head was brought in on a platter and presented to the girl, who carried it to her mother.
“(Verse 11.) And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother.”
Then John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. And they went and informed Jesus.
“And his disciples came and took his body and buried it. Josephus reports in a certain town of Arabia that John was beheaded. And what follows: His disciples came and took the body, both of him (John) and of the Savior, we can understand.”
When Jesus heard about John, He withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. But the crowds found out about it and followed Him on foot from the towns.
“He did not retire into the desert through fear of death, as some suppose, but in mercy to His enemies, that they might not add murder to murder; putting off His death till the day of His passion; on which day the lamb is to…”
When He stepped ashore and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them and healed their sick.
“(Verse 14.) And going out, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, and he cured their sick.”
“They do not need to go away,” Jesus replied. “You give them something to eat.”
“(Verse 16.) But Jesus said to them: They have no need to go. They have no need to seek different foods, and buy for themselves unknown breads, when they have heavenly bread with them. On that day he commanded you to eat.”
“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
“(Verse 17) They replied to him: We have here only five loaves and two fish. In another Gospel, we read: There is a certain boy here who has five loaves (John 6:9) ; which seems to me to signify Moses: But two fish, either we…”
“Bring them here to Me,” Jesus said.
“(Verse 18) He said to them: Bring them to me here. Listen, Marcion, listen, Manichaee, Jesus orders five loaves and two fish to be brought to him, so that he may sanctify and multiply them.”
And He directed the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He spoke a blessing.
“While the Lord breaks there is a sowing of food; for had the loaves been whole and not broken into fragments, and thus divided into a manifold harvest, they could not have fed so great a multitude.”
They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
“(Verse 20.) However, the disciples gave to the crowds. And all ate, and were satisfied. The crowds received food from the Lord through the apostles. And they took up the remnants of the twelve baskets full of fragments.”
