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
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!
“Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember you. That is, let me have neither works nor speech, if the memory of you is not continually turned over in my heart.”
Blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
“Blessed is he who shall take hold of and dash your little ones against the rock. The "little ones" are said to be thoughts.”
I give You thanks with all my heart; before the gods I sing Your praises.
“And in the sight of the angels I will sing psalms to you. See the advancement of the penitent, that after confession and repentance he is counted worthy to sing psalms with the angels.”
I bow down toward Your holy temple and give thanks to Your name for Your loving devotion and Your faithfulness; You have exalted Your name and Your word above all…
“I will worship toward your holy temple. If this is the temple which now is seen to be deserted, in which one ought to worship: then the Jews ought not to worship, since the temple has been overthrown.”
On the day I called, You answered me; You emboldened me and strengthened my soul.
“You will multiply strength in my soul. You will multiply: that is, that the soul is subject to many anxieties.”
All the kings of the earth will give You thanks, O LORD, when they hear the words of Your mouth.
“Let all the kings of the earth confess to you, O Lord. The kings of the earth are those who reign in sin. Therefore let those very ones confess, who reign in sin. For he is not speaking of the kings of this world.”
They will sing of the ways of the LORD, for the glory of the LORD is great.
“And let them sing in the ways of the Lord. The philosophers of this world did not sing in the ways of the Lord, but we sing in the ways of the Lord, that is, in Moses and Isaiah and Jeremiah: and from these ways…”
Rescue me, O LORD, from evil men. Protect me from men of violence,
“Snatch me away, O Lord, from the evil man. The devil cannot deceive us so much by himself as he can through the instrument of a man; and it is from this that the prophet prays to be delivered.”
They sharpen their tongues like snakes; the venom of vipers is on their lips. Selah
“The venom of asps is under their lips. For they seem to have words of friendship, yet they are full of death-dealing poison.”
I say to the LORD, “You are my God.” Hear, O LORD, my cry for help.
“I said to the Lord: You are my God. Unless a man is holy, he cannot say this little verse; he who is not reigned over by sin, he it is who says, 'The Lord is my portion.'”
May the heads of those who surround me be covered in the trouble their lips have caused.
“The head of their compassing about, the labor of their own lips shall cover them. Just as a serpent, when it sees someone coming to strike it, makes a coil of its whole body and hides its head in the middle, where it knows its…”
Surely the righteous will praise Your name; the upright will dwell in Your presence.
“The upright shall dwell with your countenance. And what is the countenance of God, if not Christ? 'Who thought it not robbery to be equal with God.'”
I call upon You, O LORD; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to You.
“O Lord, I have cried to you, hear me. Moses was standing with the people, and Pharaoh was pursuing behind his back, and on every side there was distress for him.”
May my prayer be set before You like incense, my uplifted hands like the evening offering.
“Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight. That is, let my prayer come straight to you, having no filth or faults or diabolical thoughts. Now incense is the prayers of the saints.”
Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch at the door of my lips.
“Set, O Lord, a guard to my mouth. 'Death and life are in the hands of the tongue.' And again: 'Amen I say to you, that for every idle word which you have spoken, you shall render an account on the day of judgment.'”
Do not let my heart be drawn to any evil thing or take part in works of wickedness with men who do iniquity; let me not feast on their delicacies.
“Incline not my heart to words of malice, to make excuses for excuses in sins. O most wretched human race, who excuse our sins, saying, I was overcome by nature: when it is in our power both to sin and not to sin.”
Let the righteous man strike me; let his rebuke be an act of loving devotion. It is oil for my head; let me not refuse it.
“When a person is advanced in years, you must not be too ready to believe evil of him; his past life is itself a defense, and so also is his rank as an elder.”
As when one plows and breaks up the soil, so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of Sheol.
“As the thickness of the earth. Everything thick is near to the earth: and the soul that sins clings to the earth. For the Lord from the beginning made all things thin.”
Keep me from the snares they have laid for me, and from the lures of evildoers.
“Keep me from the snare which they have set for me. Always either heretics or demons stretch snares for us. For faults are near to virtues.”
Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by in safety.
“The sinners shall fall into his net. Above he said, Keep me from the snare which they have set for me, concerning many; but now concerning one, The sinners shall fall into his net.”
I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift my voice to the LORD for mercy.
“The intelligence of David when he was in the cave, a prayer. This title is prescribed according to history, indeed, when David was fleeing from the face of Saul in the desert of Engaddi, hidden in a cave; and Saul entered, unaware, as if on…”
I pour out my complaint before Him; I reveal my trouble to Him.
“I pour out my prayer in his sight. He said it more expressively: I pour out my whole heart in the sight of the Lord — just as someone might confess his wound to a doctor, and tell him all the sufferings he has, so…”
Although my spirit grows faint within me, You know my way. Along the path I travel they have hidden a snare for me.
“When my spirit was failing within me. If the evil spirit that was choking Saul does not fail from us, the Lord cannot know our paths. And what are the paths of the righteous?”
Look to my right and see; no one attends to me. There is no refuge for me; no one cares for my soul.
“I looked to the right hand and saw: and there was no one who knew me. If we make this psalm refer to the Lord, the Lord himself is speaking. All my disciples abandoned me, and fled.”
Listen to my cry, for I am brought quite low. Rescue me from my pursuers, for they are too strong for me.
“Attend to my supplication, for I have been humbled exceedingly. Unless someone has been humbled, he is not heard by the Lord. For what does it profit anyone to pray with words and to keep his neck held erect?”