Most saints are remembered for some outstanding virtue or devotion which they
practiced, but Jerome is frequently remembered for his bad temper! It is true
that he came across as a bit of a grouch and could use a vitriolic pen, but his love for
God was extraordinarily intense. St. Jerome considered that anyone who taught
error was an enemy of God and truth, and he went after such a person with his mighty and
sometimes sarcastic pen.
He
was above all a Scripture scholar, translating most of the Old Testament from
the Hebrew. He also wrote commentaries which are a great source of scriptural
inspiration for us today. He was an avid student, a thorough scholar, a
prodigious letter-writer and a consultant to monk, bishop and pope. St. Augustine
His
love for scripture lead him to the Holy Land – he wanted to see the places of scripture.
He began work on his greatest achievement, which was the Latin Vulgate version of
the scriptures.
Here
are some quotes from the inimitable Jerome:
On
the study of Hebrew he wrote, “From the judicious precepts of Quintilian, the
rich and fluent eloquence of Cicero, the graver style of Fronto, and the
smoothness of Pliny, I turned to this language of hissing and broken-winded
words.”
On
worldly women, he railed against those who “paint their cheeks with rouge and
their eyelids with antimony, whose plastered faces, too white for human beings,
look like idols; and if in a moment of forgetfulness they shed a tear it makes
a furrow where it rolls down the painted cheek; women to whom years do not
bring the gravity of age, who load their heads with other people's hair, enamel
a lost youth upon the wrinkles of age, and affect a maidenly timidity in the
midst of a troop of grandchildren.”
Even
the clergy of Rome didn’t get a break. He said, “All their anxiety is about
their clothes.... You would take them for bridegrooms rather than for clerics;
all they think about is knowing the names and houses and doings of rich
ladies.”
No
wonder he ended up living in a cave.
 |
| St. Jerome's Cave in Bethlehem, where we have celebrated Mass according to the Anglican Use on a few occasions. |
O God, who for the exposition of thy holy Scriptures didst bestow upon thy Church the wondrous teaching of St. Jerome thy Confessor and Doctor; grant, we beseech thee, that by the intercession of his merits, we may of thee be enabled to perform those thing which he taught in word and deed; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
