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
“I have installed My King on Zion, upon My holy mountain.”
“The first four verses are spoken by a prophet or an angel wondering why human rashness had risen up against the Son of God.”
Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my groaning.
“Give ear to my words, O Lord. No one has this confidence except the Church. He who is a sinner has not dared to say, Give ear to my words, O Lord.”
Attend to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to You I pray.
“My King and my God. He has truly dared to say, My King and my God, in whom sin does not reign in his mortal body. My King and my God.”
In the morning, O LORD, You hear my voice; at daybreak I lay my plea before You and wait in expectation.
“In the morning I shall stand before Thee, and I shall see. See the order. In the morning, not in the evening, not in darkness, but in the morning.”
For You are not a God who delights in wickedness; no evil can dwell with You.
“Neither shall the malignant one dwell beside Thee. When someone who is evil withdraws from us, let us rejoice: this happens in us which happens also in the Lord. For see what the Holy Spirit says. Neither shall the malignant one dwell beside Thee.”
The boastful cannot stand in Your presence; You hate all workers of iniquity.
“Neither shall the unjust remain before Thine eyes. When it is said, Neither shall they remain, it is shown that at one time they did remain.”
You destroy those who tell lies; the LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.
“Thou wilt destroy all who speak a lie. I see a new thing. He who works evil is held in hatred; he who lies, perishes. Let us see which is more, to be held in hatred by the Lord, or to perish.”
But I will enter Your house by the abundance of Your loving devotion; in reverence I will bow down toward Your holy temple.
“But I, in the multitude of Thy mercy, will enter into Thy house. They in their iniquity go out from Thy house: I in Thy mercy enter into Thy house. I will enter into Thy house, which is the Church.”
Lead me, O LORD, in Your righteousness because of my enemies; make straight Your way before me.
“Lord, lead me in Thy righteousness because of my enemies. I indeed desire to enter into Thy house, and I wish to enter by Thy straight way: but since my enemies set stumbling-blocks continuously along the paths, and lay snares in the road for me…”
For not a word they speak can be trusted; destruction lies within them. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.
“For there is no truth in their mouth. The heretics are described; the man of blood and deceit is described, whom the Lord shall abhor.”
Declare them guilty, O God; let them fall by their own devices. Drive them out for their many transgressions, for they have rebelled against You.
“According to the multitude of their impieties cast them out. He did not say from where He should cast them out: whether He should cast them out from heaven, whether He should cast them out from the earth: from where He should cast them out…”
But let all who take refuge in You rejoice; let them ever shout for joy. May You shelter them, that those who love Your name may rejoice in You.
“And let all rejoice who hope in Thee. Let those perish, let those of the Church rejoice. They shall exult forever. Here, forever, we ought not to speak of the present age, but of the age to come.”
O LORD, do not rebuke me in Your anger or discipline me in Your wrath.
“'For her that obtaineth the inheritance' — since in the fifth psalm we discussed, interpreting that the psalm had been sung in the person of the Church, which has obtained the inheritance of Christ.”
All my enemies will be ashamed and dismayed; they will turn back in sudden disgrace.
“He prays not against his enemies but in their behalf so that they may be changed and may blush with shame at their sins; and they may blush not briefly but forcibly; not with delay but immediately.”
or they will shred my soul like a lion and tear me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
“'Lest at any time he seize my soul like a lion.' This fits Saul, it does not fit Absalom. For how could he call Absalom a lion, of whom he says, 'Spare my boy Absalom'?”
O LORD my God, if I have done this, if injustice is on my hands,
“'O Lord my God, if I have done this.' 'Behold, the prince of this world comes, and finds nothing in me.' 'If there be iniquity in my hands.' 'Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.'”
if I have rewarded my ally with evil, if I have plundered my foe without cause,
“'If I have rendered evils to them that repaid me.' They say, 'Crucify, crucify such a one'; I say, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'”
then may my enemy pursue me and overtake me; may he trample me to the ground and leave my honor in the dust. Selah
“'Let the enemy pursue my soul, and take it.' 'The last enemy, death, is destroyed.' 'And let him tread down my life into the earth.' Life cannot be trodden down. 'And let him bring down my glory into the dust.'”
Arise, O LORD, in Your anger; rise up against the fury of my enemies. Awake, my God, and ordain judgment.
“'Arise, O Lord, in thy wrath.' Since they did not perceive thee through kindnesses, let them perceive thee through anger. 'Be exalted in the borders of my enemies.' He prays for his enemies, that he may be exalted in the borders of his enemies.”
He lies in wait near the villages; in ambush he slays the innocent; his eyes watch in stealth for the helpless.
“And lastly, against the devil: 'God is not before his eyes, he sits in ambush with the rich.' Unhappy the rich, with whom the devil sits.”
In the LORD I take refuge. How then can you say to me: “Flee like a bird to your mountain!
“What the phrase "unto the end" signifies — for which Symmachus rendered ἐπινίκιον (a song of victory), while Aquila and the sixth edition rendered τῷ νικοποιῷ (to the giver of victory) — has been discussed more fully above.”
For behold, the wicked bend their bows. They set their arrow on the string to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart.
“For behold, the sinners have bent the bow, they have prepared their arrows in the quiver, that they may shoot in the dark the upright of heart.”
If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
“For they have destroyed the things which you have perfected. And this too those who above still speak either to any just man or to the Lord: Therefore you must return to the heavenly things, because both the adversaries are so bravely prepared for the…”
The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD is on His heavenly throne. His eyes are watching closely; they examine the sons of men.
“Whence in what follows it is written: The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's seat is in heaven.”
The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked; His soul hates the lover of violence.
“The Lord questions the just and the impious: but he who loves iniquity hates his own soul. For which it is better written in the Hebrew: "The Lord tests the just, but the impious and the one who loves iniquity — his soul hates him."”