St. Jerome (a.d. 342-420)

St. Jerome. Hieronimus in Latin. Jeremy & Jeronimo are other versions of his name.)

Jerome is important for a number of reasons; he was a speaker, writer, and leader of the early church. He and other leaders of the early church are sometimes called church fathers. Their works are often called patristics, based on the Latin word for father, pater.

Jerome's & other patristic literature addresses all the issues faced by the early church:

What books belonged in the Bible (esp. the New Testament)?
What was the proper version of the Bible?
Which theological beliefs were required, which permissible, which heretical?
What was the proper organization of the church? Who should lead it? Then as now, the church had a great deal of political infighting to be resolved.
What was the best Christian lifestyle? Modern Christians tend to regard certain areas of their life as religious & others as secular. The devout Christian of that era examined every area of life; no detail was too small. Even the style and color of one's clothing was important. Tertullian (a.d. 160-250?), for example, said to stick to natural colors; if God had meant us to wear blue clothes he'd have created blue sheep.

I. Jerome's Literary Influence

Jerome's most important contribution for the purposes of this course is literary. He was responsible for the most important work of literture in Western Civilization: the Vulgate.¹ The Vulgate is the standard translation of the Bible into Latin and as such is the most . The church came to think of the translation itself as inspired, like the King James Version in English. With its different customs, languages, and political forces, the church and ecclestical (church) Latin provided much of the unity that Western Europe did have. It is a great work of literature in its own right and is also important for its influence on music, painting, architecture, education, poetry, sculpture, etc. There was no area of life it didn't touch directly or indirectly. It even influenced the English translations. The early translations were based largely on the Vulgate, and the early translations continue to exert a strong influence on later translations. Liturgical language tends to change more slowly than other language. Church, for example, is the last place where you'll commonly hear "thee," "thou," & "ye."

¹The word "Vulgate" comes from the Latin "vulgus," common. Latin was the common languague of the Western Roman Empire, just as Greek was in the East. "Vulgar" comes from the same root--it refers to language and behavior of the common & low-class.