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
But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
“(Verse 28.) But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and steal his possessions, unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.
“(Verse 29.) Or how can anyone enter the strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.”
He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
“(Verses 30, 31.) Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I say to you: every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven to men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.”
Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
“Or the passage may be thus understood; Whoso speaks a word against the Son of Man, as stumbling at My flesh, and thinking of Me as no more than man, such opinion and blasphemy though it is not free from the sin of heresy, yet…”
Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the…
“(Verse 32.) And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come.”
Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.
“Thus He holds them in a syllogism which the Greeks call 'Aphycton,' the unavoidable; which shuts in the person questioned on both sides, and presses him with either horn.”
The good man brings good things out of his good store of treasure, and the evil man brings evil things out of his evil store of treasure.
“What He says, The good man out of the good treasure of his heart, & c. is either pointed against the Jews, that seeing they blasphemed God, what treasure in their heart must that be out of which such blasphemy proceeded; or it is connected…”
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”
“(Verse 38) Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from you." They demand a sign as if the signs they had seen were not enough.”
The men of Nineveh will stand at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now One greater than Jonah is…
“(Verse 41) The men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment with this generation, and will condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonah. Not by the power of judgment, but by the example of comparison. And behold, here is more than Jonah.”
Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ On its return, it finds the house vacant, swept clean, and put in order.
“(Verse 44.) I will return to my home, from which I departed. This is, I will go to the Jews, whom I had dismissed before.”
Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and dwell there; and the final plight of that man is worse…
“(Verse 45) And coming, he finds it empty, swept clean, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the…”
While Jesus was still speaking to the crowds, His mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to Him.
“(cont. Helvid. 14, et seq.) From this is taken one of Helvidius's propositions, on the ground that mention is made in the Gospel of the brethren of the Lord. How, says he, are they called brethren of the Lord, if they were not his brethren?”
Someone told Him, “Look, Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to You.”
“He that delivers this message, seems to me not to do it casually and without meaning, but as setting a snare for Him, whether He would prefer flesh and blood to the spiritual work; and thus the Lord refused to go out, not because He…”
Pointing to His disciples, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”
“(Verses 49, 50.) Behold my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother. These are my mother, who daily begets me in the souls of believers.”
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea.
“On that day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And great crowds gathered around him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach.”
And He told them many things in parables, saying, “A farmer went out to sow his seed.
“And it is to be noted, that He spake not all things to them in parables, but many things, for had He spoken all things in parables, the people would have departed without benefit.”
Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.
“(Verse 12.) For whoever has, more will be given to him, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
“(Verse 16) But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear. Unless we had read above about auditors called to understanding, with the Savior saying: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," we would now think that the…”
But since he has no root, he remains for only a season. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
“Note that which is said, is straightway offended. There is then some difference between him who, by many tribulations and torments, is driven to deny Christ, and him who at the first persecution is offended, and falls away...”
The seed sown among the thorns is the one who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes…
“of which He proceeds to speak, That which is sown among thorns. To me He seems here to express figuratively that which was said literally to Adam; Amidst briers and thorns thou shalt eat thy bread, (Gen.”
But the seed sown on good soil is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and produces a crop—a hundredfold, sixtyfold, or thirtyfold.”
“(Ep. 48. 2.) For the joining together of the hands, as it were in the soft embrace of a kiss, represents husband and wife.”
But while everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and slipped away.
“The Devil is called a man that is an enemy because he has ceased to be God; and in the ninth Psalm it is written of him, Up, Lord, and let not man have the upper hand. (ver.”
‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. So the servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
“Therefore, as I have said above, we must apply our faith to what has been explained by the Lord. And those things which have been left unspoken and neglected by our understanding must be briefly touched upon.”
‘No,’ he said, ‘if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them.
“But what is said, 'Lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat together with them,' gives place to repentance, and we are warned not to cut off our brother immediately, because it may happen that he who is corrupt in…”
Jesus spoke all these things to the crowds in parables. He did not tell them anything without using a parable.
“Yet He spoke not in parables to the disciples, but to the multitude; and even to this day the multitude hears in parables; and therefore it is said, And without a parable spake he not unto them. This passage is taken from the seventy-seventh Psalm.”
