Saint Jerome of Stridon

Having learned all he could from the great men of the capital of the world, he resolved to travel in order to see the famous libraries and the scholars of other countries to perfect himself more and more in the knowledge of letters. He first took the road to the Gauls, accompanied by Bonosus, with whom he had been raised in his childhood and who had had the same nurse as him. He passed through Concordia, a small town near Mirandola, in Italy, where he became acquainted with an old man named Paul, to whom he later sent the life of Saint Paul, the hermit, in a letter, which is the 21st of his Epistles. It was from him that he learned that Saint Cyprian called Tertullian his master, as he himself notes in his book of Ecclesiastical Writers. He stayed for some time in Trier, where he copied with his own hand the long treatise of Saint Hilary on the synods. He observes in the preface of the second book of his Commentaries on the Epistle to the Galatians that the language used in this city was the vulgar language of the Galatians, and that they did not use the Greek language, although at that time there was no other in all the East: which makes him judge that they were descended from the Gauls. The account he gives of the main cities of the Gauls, such as Mainz, Strasbourg, Reims, Amiens, Arras, Tournai, Thérouanne, Lyon, Narbonne, Nantes, Toulouse, and many others, shows that he traveled through all their provinces and that he spared nothing to acquire new knowledge, whether in libraries or in the conversation of the great men with whom all these vast countries were filled.

It was in Trier that our Saint took the resolution to serve God without reserve, in order to be, and not only to appear, a Christian. Some believe that he had already received baptism in Rome; others claim that he only received it upon his return. From Gaul, Jerome retired to Aquileia, where he led an ascetic life in a monastery that had just been established there, and became associated with several ecclesiastics of this city, very learned, and whose names often reappear in his writings. He was obliged to leave his retreat, probably because of his sister who had strayed from the paths of salvation, and whom he had the happiness of bringing back. Seeking again a place where he could live with all the freedom of solitude, he did not choose his own country for this, because he would have been too bothered by his relatives; moreover, as he admits in his Epistle XLIII, the corruption there was so great that no other God was recognized there but the belly, nor any other happiness but riches, and, what he deplores more, Lupicinus, who governed the Church there, was a very wicked priest, who lost souls instead of saving them. He did not stop in Rome either; this city was undoubtedly all holy, and virtue was esteemed there, but it was difficult to lead a monastic and solitary life there, because of the number of its inhabitants and the crowd of pilgrims who came there from all parts. Furthermore, being known there, he would have been obliged to conform to others, that is to say, to be seen by his friends and to see them, to visit and receive visits, to give praise on one side, and on the other to tear down the reputation of his neighbor. This is how he speaks in his Epistles XVII and XVIII. He therefore thought it would be better to retire to some distant region, where he would find only occasions to raise himself to God and to work for his perfection. Syria appearing suitable for this design, both because of the holiness of the places and because of the proximity of an infinity of monks who inhabited it, he set out for it, taking his library with him. The companions of this great journey were Heliodorus, Innocent, and Hylas. He spent a few days in Jerusalem to visit the holy places; then he traveled through Thrace, Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia, always with the desire to learn something new. He also stayed in Tarsus, the birthplace of Saint Paul, in order to study the language that this Apostle used in his Epistles. He stopped again in Antioch, at the home of Evagrius, from where he went to confer about the design of his retreat with Theodosius and the other anchorites, and to examine the place where he could dwell before committing himself to it. This solitude, named Chalcis, is situated in a place that separates the Syrians and the Hagarenes; and, apart from the monks who inhabited it, one found there only wild beasts, serpents, and scorpions. He finally arrived there with all his books, whose reading and study were to occupy a good part of his time.

The demon, foreseeing the important services Jerome would render to the Church in this retreat, employed all his malice to make him abandon it. He first cast him into a strange desolation through the loss of all those who had accompanied him; for Heliodorus, whom he loved more than the others, returned to his country under the pretext of a greater good and to assist a sister and a nephew he had left there, without the Saint being able to hold him back with his prayers or his tears. He even wrote him a powerful letter to summon him to fulfill the promise he had made to return; but it was without success. Innocent died of a burning fever; and, some time later, death also took Hylas from him. Besides these misfortunes, which were very painful to him, he was attacked by all sorts of illnesses, among others a very violent fever that seized him in the middle of Lent and reduced his whole body, delicate and otherwise exhausted by fasts, to such a pitiful state that, expecting only the hour of his death, all the things necessary for his burial had already been prepared. It was then that he appeared in spirit before the tribunal of Jesus Christ. Here is how he speaks of it to the virgin Eustochium in his Epistle XXII:

"I was fasting, and yet I was reading Cicero; I was keeping vigil and weeping for my sins; I did not cease after that to read Plautus; and when, having returned to myself, I cast my eyes upon the Prophets, their low and uncultivated style gave me horror. While the demon was thus seducing me with his ruses, I fell ill, and, in the height of the illness, when my life was felt only by a heartbeat, I was caught up in spirit and presented before the tribunal of the sovereign Judge, where the brightness of the lights and the splendors that emanated from those who surrounded Him forced me to prostrate myself on the ground without daring to raise my eyes to look at the majesty of my Master. There I was asked who I was: I answered that I was a Christian; but the Judge said to me: You lie, you are a Ciceronian, and not a Christian, because your heart is where your treasure is. At these words I was silent, and amidst the blows (for the Judge had commanded that I be whipped), I felt in my soul furious remorse of conscience, reflecting within myself on this verse of the Prophet: *In inferno autem quis confitebitur tibi?* Finally, I began to cry out and to say, while melting into tears: 'Lord, have mercy on me; Lord, have mercy on me'; it was the only voice that I made resound amidst the blows. Those who were present threw themselves at the knees of the Judge and begged Him to pardon my youth, to grant me time to do penance, saying that, if I did not do it, and if I read profane authors again, I would be punished even more severely. Then I made an oath in the presence of my God that I would no longer have secular books, that I would never read them; and that, if I broke my word, I wished to pass for an apostate. This protestation was the cause of my freedom: I was let go and I returned to myself. This was not a stupor nor one of those dreams that deceive us during sleep; I call to witness the tribunal before which I appeared, and the sad judgment that gave me such fright, may it please my God that such a thing never happens to me again! Indeed, I felt well, upon waking, that this was a reality, since I bore, on my shoulders, the marks of the whip blows I had received.

Since that time, I have read the holy Scriptures with more ardor than I previously read profane books."

All these trials were followed by horrible temptations of the flesh, by which he was cruelly tormented. His imagination was so filled with dishonest objects that, in the horror of his desert, where he saw only animals, rocks, and trees, he believed himself to be in the midst of the delights and seductions of Rome; but the holy young man, being supported by the grace of the Savior, always triumphed over his enemy through prayers, tears, macerations, and the other austerities that he himself describes in the Epistle we have just cited: "How many times," he says, "being in my hermitage, which the heat of the sun made almost uninhabitable, did I imagine myself to be among the delights of Rome? I remained alone sitting in my cell, my heart flooded with bitterness, and my body like that of an Ethiopian burned by the heat of the sun. I spent entire days shedding tears and heaving sighs toward heaven. And, when I was overwhelmed with sleep, I lay on the bare earth, where I did not even give myself time to rest. I do not speak of drinking or eating, since cold water was the only drink of the monks, however languid they might be, and that eating something cooked was esteemed by them as a sin of lust. I, therefore, poor Jerome, who had condemned myself to this way of life for fear of hell, being in this prison, with no company other than that of scorpions and ferocious beasts, often found myself in spirit in assemblies of young people. My face was pale because of my austerities, while my heart, in a body cold as ice, was inflamed with evil desires, and, although my flesh was already in some way dead, I felt in it the fires of concupiscence. Having no help from the side of creatures, I threw myself at the feet of the Crucifix, and after watering them with my tears, I wiped them with my hair. I fasted for entire weeks to extinguish these embers. I spent days and nights beating my breast, until I heard an interior voice that said to me: It is enough. I entered my cell only with a kind of horror, which I looked upon as the witness of my evil thoughts. And, becoming angry with myself, I went wandering alone in the depths of the deserts, and I prostrated myself in prayer, sometimes in a valley, sometimes in the hollow of the rocks, other times on the summit of the mountains, until finally, after torrents of tears and frequent glances toward heaven, it seemed to me that I was among choirs of angels, where I sang with gladness: "Lord, we run after you to the odor of your perfumes." This is how Jerome rendered useless all the efforts of the demon; but this enemy of our salvation, having been able to gain nothing over him by attacking him as a lion and with open force, attacked him as a fox and by cunning, using heretics to try to seduce the faith of him whose chastity he had not been able to corrupt.

The Arians of Tarsus knew of his merit; they knew that this young man already surpassed the greatest figures of Greece in science and doctrine, as well as in holiness: they came to find him to ask if he admitted one or three hypostases in God. He immediately recognized the venom hidden beneath this question. He replied to them that if by the word hypostasis they meant the divine essence, there was only one in God; but if they meant person, there were three in the Holy Trinity. The various parties in the city of Antioch also did their utmost to attract him to their side: for this Church was then divided into three factions: the Arians, who had Vitalis as their leader, and the Catholics, some of whom recognized Meletius, others Paulinus, as bishop. They all pressed Saint Jerome in particular to join their interests; but they received no other answer than that he was entirely attached to the Roman Church, outside of which there is no salvation. However, as each side maintained that it was in Roman communion, our holy hermit wrote to Pope Damasus, and begged him urgently to tell him with which of the three bishops he should communicate. At the same time, he revealed to him the pape Damase Pope who ordained the two brothers and sent them on a mission. venom hidden under the word hypostasis; and, to receive his reply, he told him to address it to the priest Evagrius, in Antioch, their common friend, who would not fail to have it delivered to his hermitage.

Meanwhile, he was constantly persecuted by the heretics, who asked him every day for new professions of faith. The Arians published that he was not orthodox because he defended the homoousion, that is to say, the consubstantiality of the divine persons; others passed him off as a Sabellian because he maintained three subsistent, true, entire, and perfect persons in the Holy Trinity: the persecution was so great that they finally forced him to abandon his dear solitude. He had remained there for four years, or six according to Baronius, during which he had translated the homilies of Origen and learned the Hebrew language from a Jew who had converted and become a hermit. He confesses that he had extreme difficulty in this study, and that after having tasted the subtleties of Quintilian, the eloquence of Cicero, the gravity of Fronto, and the sweetness of Pliny, it had been a harsh mortification for him to learn an alphabet and to pronounce guttural words: so much so that he had despaired several times of succeeding; that he often renounced it, discouraged by the difficulties he found there; that then the desire to understand this language made him resume his work, in a word, that he had only obtained the understanding of it with inconceivable fatigue. The memory of the heavenly sweetness and divine lights with which his soul was filled in this solitude meant that he always regretted it and carried it everywhere in his heart. This is what he taught Pammachius in his Epistle XXVI.

It is probable that it was upon leaving the desert that he visited Greece, and particularly the city of Athens; after which he went to Antioch, where he studied the Holy Scripture under Apollinaris of Laodicea, without, however, stopping at the contentious doctrine of this learned man, later the author of a heresy with which he tried to infect the Church. He adhered to Paulinus, one of the three bishops of whom we have spoken, in accordance with the answer he received from Damasus, who always favored this party as the most just. Although he no longer resided in the desert, he did not for that reason abandon the habit or the profession of a hermit, and, in the various places where he went to consult skilled people and make new discoveries in the Holy Scripture, he led a retired life in order to devote himself more to prayer and study. In his thirtieth year, he was ordained a priest by the same Paulinus; but he only consented to his ordination on the condition that he would not be attached to any church, and that he would not abandon the monastic profession he had chosen, as he says himself, to weep for the sins of his youth and to bend the mercy of God toward him. This is how he speaks to Pammachius in the sixth letter, and how he defends himself against the vexation of John, bishop of Jerusalem, who wanted to subject him to his Church, even though he had not ordained him. His priesthood not obliging him to remain in Antioch, he continued to travel from one place to another. He spent some time near Jerusalem, in the countryside and in the solitudes, and particularly in Bethlehem, which he tasted from then on as the holiest place where he could retire. He also went to Constantinople to hear Saint Gregory of Nazianzu Bethléem Place of the birth and anointing of David. s, whose reputation was spread everywhere. But this great prelate, knowing the virtue and merit of Jerome, did not treat him as a disciple, but as a friend from whom he could learn many things for the interpretation of the Holy Scripture, because of the perfect knowledge he had of the Hebrew language; which does not prevent our Saint, in his Epistle to Saint Gregory of Nyssa, from boasting of having had this illustrious bishop of Constantinople as his tutor. It was shortly after his priesthood that he finished his Commentaries on the prophet Obadiah, which he had begun while still very young and upon leaving his rhetoric studies; he also corrected what he had already done, admitting that, when he had worked on it, he did not have all the lights necessary for such a great work. He dedicated them to Pammachius, his fellow student and son-in-law of Saint Paula. Pope Damasus proposed several difficulties to him on various passages of Scripture, writing to him for this purpose by Etherius, a deacon, who carried the letters and brought back the answers. He also sent him gifts to show him his affection more tangibly. Certainly, it is no small glory for Saint Jerome to have been thus consulted by the sovereign Pontiff, who is himself the oracle of the Church.

As the factions in Antioch were still troubling the tranquility of the Church, Emperor Theodosius sent letters to the bishops of the West and the East to have them assemble in Rome, so that they might end all these disputes and resolve in synod several difficulties that were being raised in various places regarding points of doctrine. The Orientals, among whom was Paulinus, were very glad to take Jerome with them, because they needed a man who knew Latin and because he was known to Damasus, perhaps also because that Pope wrote to him expressly to call him to this Synod, and even the Emperor obliged him to go there; for he confesses in his Epistle XXVI that he went only against his will and with reluctance. But if he had difficulty resolving to make this journey, the Romans, on the contrary, were very joyful to see again in their city the man they had formerly admired in his youth, and whose reputation had greatly increased the initial idea they had formed of his merit: everyone vied to enjoy the sweetness and light of his conversation, and to give him the most praise. Some praised his penitent and solitary life, others his knowledge of languages; some his intelligence in Scripture, others the purity of his doctrine. The Roman ladies could not tire of hearing him, the priests consulted him, the clergy and the people constantly had their eyes on him, as on the greatest man of the century; in a word, by his piety, his erudition, his honesty, and his obliging manners, he won the hearts of everyone. But Saint Damasus, more than all the others, was delighted to possess him, and, out of regar d for him, h saint Damase Pope who ordained the two brothers and sent them on a mission. e showed great friendship to Paulinus and Epiphanius, with whom he had come. He looked upon him as another Saint Paul, who was to help him with his advice in the government of the Church. Indeed, after having finished the Council and confirmed Paulinus, Bishop of Antioch, he dismissed the prelates and kept Jerome with him, so that he might help him bear a part of the weight of the sovereign pontificate. He gave him the charge of answering all the questions that might be asked concerning religion, of clarifying the difficulties of particular Churches and synodal assemblies, of prescribing to those returning from heresy what they should believe or not believe, and of drawing up rules and formulas for this purpose. Rufinus, in his apology for Origen, admits that it was this great doctor who composed the Confession to reconcile the Apollinarians, and he himself reports, in his 13th Epistle, the various functions he was obliged to perform under the sovereign Pontiff.

However, these laborious occupations did not cause him to diminish any of his austerities, and he practiced them always exactly, as if he were still in the secrecy of a solitude. He continued his prayers as usual, and lived in the silence and recollection of a true monk. He celebrated the holy sacrifice of the Mass devoutly, and the chasuble he used for this august ministry was long preserved in Rome. His chalice is even kept there still, which is sometimes shown to the people to renew their respect for this incomparable doctor who has so well deserved of the Roman Church. The devotion he had for celebrating this divine mystery was so well known to the priest Nepotianus, nephew of Heliodorus, that he bequeathed upon his death the tunic that had served him at the altar. This being so, there is reason to be astonished that Godeau, in his History of the Church, wrote that "Saint Jerome never said Mass, out of a religious fear he had of this formidable sacrifice." One can judge the greatness of his zeal for everything regarding the worship of the Holy Eucharist by the praise he gives to the same Nepotianus, who brought incomparable care to all things related to this mystery. It is in the epitaph he makes of him in his 13th Epistle: "He took care," he says, "that the altar was always of a suitable cleanliness, that the walls of the church were neat, that the floor was well cleaned, that the porter stood often at the door, to admit only those who were to have entry, and that all ceremonies were observed with all possible exactitude. He was almost constantly in the temples, and adorned the basilicas of the martyrs with flowers, branches of trees, and vine shoots. He wanted nothing to appear there that could offend the eyes of the faithful, but that everything there should excite piety and adoration of the divine Majesty." Saint Jerome must undoubtedly have been animated by the same zeal to praise so highly these actions, which have so little brilliance in appearance. Indeed, he watched extremely closely that the divine offices and all ecclesiastical functions were performed with all possible decency. Everything he had noticed as devout and majestic in the churches of Antioch and Jerusalem, the two oldest in Christendom, he introduced to Rome; it was at his instance that Damasus had the Alleluia sung, according to the custom of the Church of Jerusalem, and that at the end of each psalm the Gloria Patri was added, following the example of that of Antioch. He corrected the psalms and the version of the Septuagint, which the Pope then had the ecclesiastics sing. He did the same for the New Testament, which has always been read since in the Church according to his version. He compiled and abridged the Acts of the Martyrs, so that they could be recited at the divine offices. We will speak later of the other works he composed for the universal good of the Christian religion: we will speak now only of what he did in Rome, while still in the flower of his age.

Several Roman ladies, who had a singular veneration for him, also obliged him to write some books. He expounded to Blaesilla, daughter of Saint Paula, Solomon's Ecclesiastes, to inspire in her a contempt for all the things of the world, and from then on he began to write commentaries on Scripture. He gav e Fabiola th sainte Paule Roman noblewoman, disciple of Jerome, and founder of monasteries in Bethlehem. e interpretation of that multitude of names found in the book of Numbers, and explained to her the prophecy of Balaam. He wrote, in favor of Eustochium, the Treatise on Virginity, which is the twenty-second of his Epistles, to combat the error of Helvidius, who took this excellent virtue away from the Queen of Virgins. H e gave Ma Eustochie Daughter of Saint Paula and disciple of Jerome. rcella, a young widow, the understanding of the ten names of God used by the Hebrews. He taught Saint Paula the Hebrew alphabet. All these women were so many holy spouses he had acquired for Jesus Christ, and whom he had led to pass from a common life to the study of Christian perfection.

The goal to which Jerome resolutely called the elite souls who were capable of it was evangelical perfection. "There must be no," he said, "inconsistencies; a sublime ideal and a vulgar life; a widow's or virgin's habit and the habits of a worldly woman. There must be means in keeping with the goal. Whoever chooses the perfect life must walk in the perfect way." — "Your profession as a virgin consecrated to God," he added, "is sovereignly free, and that is what makes its merit; let those who cannot bear its honor renounce it; otherwise, let them fulfill its duties." Such was the energetic direction of Saint Jerome.

Abstinence, fasting, this is what he clearly advised as a habitual practice to these opulent and delicate patricians. He saw only this as certain for the heroic virtue to which they aspired; and, going to seek at the bottom of human nature the decisive and invincible reason for these rigorous austerities: "As long as we are in the tabernacle of the body, surrounded by a mortal flesh," he said, "we can well moderate and tame our inclinations, we cannot destroy them. It is difficult, or rather impossible, whoever one may be, not to know at least the beginning of passion. All flesh has its tendencies and solicits the soul with the lures of mortal pleasure. I tell you these things so that you may know well that human nature is in you, and that these common miseries, if you ceased to keep a severe guard over yourself, could also reach you. Under silk, under sackcloth, the same inclinations dominate us. They fear neither the purple of kings nor the rags of the poor." — "To overcome avarice," he said again, "it is enough to open one's purse; to triumph over a gossiping tongue, silence is enough; against vanity and the taste for foolish finery, a burst of generosity is enough."

Love of God, such was, above all, the nourishment that Saint Jerome wanted to give to the generous hearts he invited to crucify the flesh with its lusts, to die in order to live again. The love of the poor was the second. To lead to all sacrifices, to all devotions, he showed Jesus Christ in the poor, and presented as a sublime compensation for the renunciation of worldly worship and life the happiness of being able to give to the unfortunate. "Since you have embraced eternal chastity," he said, "your riches are no longer yours, or rather they are much more so, since from that day they began to belong to Jesus Christ. For know well that you only really possess what you will have used in charities." But giving one's gold to the indigent is only the first degree of charity. Giving oneself, that is the second. And it is to that point that Saint Jerome wanted to bring the holy women he was leading. He wanted the fruit of that austerity of life which broke their delicacy, and maintained their soul in all its purity, to be to raise them, above all the repugnances of nature, to all the devotions of charity.

Love of God and love of the poor, that is what Saint Jerome substituted for miserable passions and frivolous affections; let us add to this the sweetness of the pure and holy friendship that united all these widows and all these virgins, his disciples, among themselves. With the life of the heart, he also wanted to develop in his disciples, on the ruins of the life of the senses and the frivolous life, the life of the spirit. His great means was Scripture, not only studied as a science for the mind, but especially meditated upon as truth and divine light for the heart. He imposed its reading on all his disciples.

To complete this summary of the direction as he understood it, it is necessary to quickly set forth the advice he gave on this important subject. He rigorously prescribed manual labor to the descendants of the Scipios, the Fabii, and the Camilli, from four points of view: first, to avoid boredom, that weight of worldly lives; then, because it is a duty, even for those whom God has most showered with the gifts of fortune; then because work can be a precious auxiliary of charity; and finally because nothing maintains domestic virtues and the family spirit better. These four points of view, still so current, are indicated with great precision and great delicacy in the following passage from one of his letters: "When the hours destined for the reading of Holy Scripture and for prayer are finished, after the care of your soul has often made you bend your knees, always have your wool in your hands, and either with your thumb pull the thread from the spindle, or force it to follow a weft; or else what others have spun, put it into a ball; adjust it on the loom. Examine your fabric, redo what is poorly done, and prepare other work for yourself. If you are thus occupied, the days will never seem long to you; on the contrary, even the long summer days will seem short to you, for in the evening you will never have finished your task."

What Saint Jerome adds is very remarkable, and cannot be too much meditated upon by the Christians of our day. "By doing this, you will save yourself, and you will save others." What does this mean? Jerome explained it thus: You will save yourself, because you will avoid the peril that Scripture signals: "Every idle soul is agitated by desires"; and because you will not put into your life the void, the great gap that the forgetting of a capital duty, such as the duty of work, always carries with it. "For if a woman believes she can dispense with working because, thanks to God, she lacks nothing, she is mistaken. She must work like everyone else; and if she wants to do it as a Christian, while her hands work, let her soul think of God. Hands and eyes on her work, her heart in heaven." How will she save others? By example. "You will thus be the model of a holy life, and the chastity of those whom laborious habits, contracted by your example, will have saved, will be your gain." Saint Jerome adds a last very astonishing trait: "I will say it simply: even if you distributed all your goods to the poor, nothing will have more value in the eyes of Christ than the works done by yourself, whether for your own use, or to set an example for other virgins, or to offer them to your grandmother and your mother, who will give you in exchange plenty with which to provide for the needs of the unfortunate." There is there, it seems to us, a profound and delicate intelligence of family life, and what these discreet words allow us to glimpse in Christian houses of the considerations of filial piety and the ingenious calculations of charity is admirable. What! manual labor, a woman's work, above charity? Yes, because work is not only the substitution of useful occupations for vain distractions, of serious tastes for frivolous tastes, of a filled life for the void of days: it is also the respect for the aged and suffering grandmother, a virtue blessed by God, the enjoyment of a daughter for a mother, the protection of a virtue in the shadow of the domestic hearth, under the maternal gaze, and finally also the relief of the poor and the fertile resource of charity. That is why Saint Jerome wants to keep, under the shelter of the paternal house, in assiduous work, the young girl, the young widow, near her mother and her grandmother, because happiness is there, with virtue. That is the direction of Saint Jerome, the great Christian direction, as we grasp it for the first time in history.

Among the disciples of Saint Jerome we also see: Melania, Asella, Lea, Albina, Marcellina, and Felicitas, who, through his exhortations, ardently embraced the narrow maxims of virtue. He also converted several men who were so plunged into crime that they led a life more like idolaters than Christians. He called his brother Paulinian to him, not to advance him in the world through his influence, but to teach him virtue and letters. Through his zeal, several beautiful monasteries were then formed in Rome, and the multitude of servants of Jesus Christ who retired there caused the monastic profession, which had previously been considered ignominious, to become glorious and honored by everyone. These relationships with Roman women would have been very suspicious and dangerous for a man less virtuous than he; but the grace of Our Lord, under whose inspiration he acted, sustained him in these dangers. However, slander did not spare him, and affections that were very pure and holy were reproached as criminal liaisons. The freedom with which he rebuked vice drew this calumny upon him; but the shining virtue of his disciples soon justified the master to those who did not envy him and whose judgment was not blinded by brutal passion. His example, nevertheless, should only be followed with extreme reserve. Jerome, after a three-year stay in Rome where slander had come to strike him, returned to Palestine; but before leaving Ostia, he wished to pour out his sorrow, and from the deck of the ship that was to carry him away, he wrote to Asella: "They call me an infamous man, a deceiver, a liar, a magician; and yet they came to kiss my hands while they tore my reputation to pieces in the most pitiless manner... Have I been seen entering the house of any suspicious woman? Have I attached myself to the magnificence of clothes, to a painted face, to the glitter of jewels and gold? I have found myself several times with virgins; I have often explained the Holy Scripture to some of them as best I could. This study obliged us to be together often; assiduity gave rise to familiarity, familiarity gave birth to confidence; but let them say if they have noticed in my conduct anything unworthy of a Christian, anything equivocal in my speech, or passionate in my gaze?

Before I knew Saint Paula, all of Rome esteemed me and applauded my virtue; everyone judged me worthy of the sovereign priesthood... Was there then only one penitent and mortified woman who was capable of touching me, a woman withered by continuous fasts, neglected in her dress, having become almost blind from weeping, and who spent entire nights in prayer? A woman who knew no other song than the psalms, no other conversation than the Gospel, no other pleasure than continence, no other food than fasting? Was there, once again, only this woman in Rome who could have any attraction for me? Touched by her marvelous chastity, no sooner had I begun to see her and show her marks of respect than my merit disappeared, all my virtues vanished! O envy, you who begin by tearing yourself apart!... I was very foolish to want to sing the canticles of the Lord in a foreign land and to abandon the mountain of Sinai to beg for the help of Egypt."

Jerome embarked in the month of August with his brother Paulinian, the priest Vincent, and some other religious, and set sail for Cyprus, where he landed happily and was received with all possible welcome by Saint Epiphanius; from there he went to Antioch, from where Paulinus led him, in the middle of winter, to Judea. Before settling there completely, he went once more to Egypt and visited the monasteries of Nitria; he then resumed his journey to Palestine and retired to Bethlehem. Saint Paula, with her daughter Eustochium, Melania, granddaughter of the consul Marcellinus—who, however, later abandoned Saint Jerome to follow Rufinus, who was his adversary—and many other virgins came to find him there. He chose this place for his solitude out of a singular devotion he held for t he mysteries Sainte Paule Roman noblewoman, disciple of Jerome, and founder of monasteries in Bethlehem. of the Savior's childhood. The sight of this holy place, where the only Son of the eternal Father willed to be born for the salvation of men, where he was recognized by the shepherds and adored by the Magi, was a touching object that ignited his heart every day with new flames of love for his divine Master. It is only six miles from Jerusalem, as noted by Sulpicius Severus, who visited our Saint there and stayed six months with him. His cell was on the road that led to the tomb of King Archelaus. There was a church over the grotto where Jesus Christ came into the world, and an altar over the manger where he was placed at his birth, in order to offer the immaculate Host in the same place where the divine Word had offered himself to his Father for the redemption of the world. Next to this church, Paula had two monasteries built, one for men and one for virgins. Saint Jerome dedicated his days and nights to prayer, study, and work with the other brothers of the monastery. He lived in perfect poverty, without possessing money and without desiring to have any, content with food and clothing. He chastised his body with rigorous fasts and continuous vigils. He slept on the hard ground, and during his rest, his heart did not cease to be applied to God. Nothing came from his mouth but words of holiness, whether to explain Scripture, to speak of virtue, or to praise chastity, which held inconceivable charms for him. He kept himself hidden as much as he could, preferring to be a Saint in reality rather than to appear so in the eyes of men. His great retreat did not prevent him from exercising all the duties of charity toward the pilgrims who were received in a hospital that Saint Paula had founded near the grotto of Bethlehem. He visited them, conversed with them, consoled them, led them to piety, washed their feet, and even those of their camels, and served them at table; in a word, he did his utmost to help them find comfort after the fatigues of their pilgrimage. In the first five years of this solitude, he translated the Book of Ecclesiastes from the Hebrew and composed the beautiful work we have of his against Jovinian. The more he advanced in age, the more he seemed to have ardor to be instructed in what he believed he did not know. And, without considering that the white hair with which his head was beginning to be covered gave him the authority of a master rather than the quality of a disciple, he went to consult those from whom he hoped to learn some secrets for the understanding of Scripture, which was then his sole occupation. The high reputation of Didymus, an old friend of Saint Athanasius and the great Saint Anthony, led him to Alexandria to propose some difficulties to him; he saw him and admired his profound erudition all the more because, having lost his sight in his childhood, he had been able to learn almost nothing from men; he formed such a close friendship with him that Didymus, at his request, dictated five books of Commentaries on the prophet Zechariah and made an exposition of Hosea which he dedicated to him. Saint Jerome, for his part, translated a book On the Holy Spirit that Didymus had composed. He admits that his penetration into Scripture was incomparable; this is why, just as he attributes to Origen, as a singular character, the composition of a large number of books, eloquence to Cicero, subtlety to Aristotle, prudence to Plato, and erudition to Aristarchus, he also gives this author, as a specific difference, the science of the Scriptures. From Alexandria he returned to Bethlehem, where he applied himself again to the study of Hebrew; he again had as a master in this language a Jew who spoke Hebrew with extraordinary purity and grace. Saint Jerome made great progress in this language; he also studied the places and customs mentioned in the Bible, a thing easy at that time and in that region. Pope Clement VIII said that Saint Jerome was assisted and inspired from above to translate the Holy Scriptures. His translation, in fact, eventually caused all others to be rejected and became that of the Church; he also left us excellent Commentaries on almost all the sacred books.

The multitude of pilgrims, especially monks, who came to the grotto of Bethlehem, increased so much day by day that the hospital founded by Saint Paula was no longer large enough to contain them; Saint Jerome resolved to have a larger one built; and, to have the means to cover the expense, he sent his brother to Dalmatia so that he might sell their father's inheritance, which the Goths, who often came to ravage that country, had not yet entirely ruined. Paulinian, upon his return, was, against his will, ordained a priest by Saint Epiphanius. John, Bishop of Jerusalem, condemned this ordination as having been performed in his diocese without his permission; and, although it was represented to him that it had taken place in a monastery that did not fall under his jurisdiction, and that Paulinian was thirty years old, the age required by the Canons for the priesthood, he pushed his discontent so far that he excommunicated all those who supported this ordination, and even Saint Jerome, to whom he forbade entry to the Holy Sepulcher, even though it was permitted to heretics. The consideration of Paula was perhaps the reason he was not driven from that place; for he was on the point of being banished by the favor his adversary found with the governors of the province. Thus, in his sixty-first Epistle to Pammachius, he testifies to his regret at not having actually received the crown of exile, as he had the will disposed to suffer it courageously. Moreover, the ordination of Paulinian was only a pretext to persecute our holy Doctor. Here is the true cause: Saint Jerome had discovered that this prelate, otherwise eloquent, taught, by relying on Origen, that in the Trinity the Son could not see the Father, and the Holy Spirit could not see the Son; that souls were in bodies as in a prison, and that they were in heaven before being united to bodies; that demons and the damned would finally do penance and be saved like the Saints; that before the sin, Adam and Eve had no bodies; and that after the resurrection, there would no longer be a distinction of sex. He had also complained of his allegories and metaphorical interpretations which ruined the truth of the letter of Scripture. These errors had already been condemned at the instance of Saint Epiphanius and Saint Jerome by the Church of Alexandria, under Theophilus, who was its patriarch, and this condemnation had been confirmed by the Roman Church; that is why our Saint could not suffer them to be resurrected; as he was ardent, and did not always dip his pen in oil when writing against those he believed to be infected with bad opinions, he brought this powerful enemy upon himself. The fact seems certain according to the Epistle we have just cited; nevertheless, the Reverend Father Vastelius, a Carmelite, in the edition of the works of John of Jerusalem, which he gave to the public in 1643, works to justify the patriarch of all these accusations; he claims that the Epistle to Pammachius, where they are reported, is not by Saint Jerome, because of the noticeable difference in style, which is very even in all his other works. The reader may consult this book; it suffices for us to have indicated it without entering into the substance of this dispute. The outrages that our Saint received from this patriarch, who did not like him, were not as sensitive to him as his rupture with Rufinus, with whom he had had an extraordinary friendship. This division made a great noise in the Church, and many were even scandalized by it and accused our Saint of too great heat, not wanting to consider that he had very strong reasons to break with a friend of that quality, since he had abandoned the truth of the orthodox faith and had fallen into Origenism. Theophilus of Alexandria reconciled them together, but this reconciliation was not of long duration. Rufinus, having gone to Rome, continued to teach the errors of Origen, and published the book entitled Periarchon, that is to say, On Principles; and, to better insinuate the bad doctrine contained therein, he gave, in an affected manner, great praise to Saint Jerome, who had, long before, translated this work. Finally, he contradicted the good Catholic so well, by spreading the venom of his heresy, that he attracted a quantity of Romans to his party, and even surprised letters of communion from Pope Siricius. Then our Saint, not being able to suffer that this seducer should thus corrupt the faith of the Catholics, declared himself openly against him. He had at the same time to justify himself of the crimes that Rufinus imputed to him, and to refute the falsity of his dogmas; he did it with so much force and eloquence that those who saw the works of one and the other could no longer look upon his adversary as a learned man, seeing him so far removed from the erudition of Jerome. Besides his writings against Helvidius and against Rufinus, he also wrote two excellent books against Jovinian; he was a monk of the monastery that Saint Ambrose governed in the suburbs of Milan; not being able to suffer the discipline of this holy Prelate, although it was full of sweetness, he left it with some others whom he had infected with his bad opinions. He then wanted to return; but as he gave no sign of true penance, and his conversation was judged contagious for his brothers, he could not obtain what he asked. It was following this very just refusal that Jovinian began to teach publicly the errors of Helvidius, to which he added that the state of virginity had no advantage over that of marriage, and that virgins, consequently, did not deserve more than married women; that there was only one same reward for all the blessed; that the flesh of Jesus Christ was not real, but fantastic, and other reveries of this nature. By this pernicious doctrine, he deceived several virgins consecrated to God and made them renounce their holy profession to embrace the state of marriage. Our Saint, who had acquired so many widows and young Roman women for chastity, could not suffer this seducer. He took up the pen against him, fought him, refuted him, confounded him, and showed so manifestly his malice, his corruption, and his error, that he compelled him to be silent. In the heat of the discussion, he sometimes seems to belittle marriage a little too much, which is holy and honorable and the symbol of the alliance of Jesus Christ with his Church, according to the manner of speaking of Saint Paul; but it is only by comparison to the blessed state of virginity, which is much holier and more perfect, and which makes Christian souls the cherished spouses of Jesus Christ himself. The reputation of Jerome, which his holiness and his doctrine always placed above the persecutions of his adversaries, obliged Alypius, a disciple of Saint Augustine, during a trip he made to Jerusalem in the year 393, to pay him a visit in his monastery. He spoke to him so advantageously of the merits of the same Saint A ugustine, his saint Augustin Cited for his definition of fraternal charity. master, who was still only a priest, that our Saint resolved, from then on, to bind and maintain a close friendship with him. He therefore wrote him a letter, which we do not have, to warn him to read the letters of Origen with caution, because of the errors contained therein. Saint Augustine had an extreme joy at the affection he showed him, and desired nothing more than to be able to remain near him, to draw from that sea of erudition with which he knew he was filled. He wrote him three letters, one by Profuturus, the second by Paul, the third by the deacon Cyprian, whom he sent expressly from Africa to Palestine, being already a bishop. In these letters, he begs him to translate into Latin the Greek authors who had made commentaries on Holy Scripture; he testifies to the little satisfaction he has with his version of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin, because people had become accustomed in Christian Churches to the version of the Septuagint, which was very different from his; he asks him what title should be given to his book of Ecclesiastical Writers, because the copies that circulated in Africa were without a title; finally, he takes the liberty of correcting him on the interpretation he had given to the second chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians, where it is spoken of the public correction that this Apostle made to Saint Peter, on the fact that by Judaizing, he made the Gentiles who had embraced Christianity believe that they themselves were obliged to observe the ceremonies of the law. The first of these letters, which preceded the others by a long time, was not brought to our Saint, because Profuturus, who was in charge of it, could not make the trip to the Orient, having been elected bishop, and having died shortly after his election. But some ill-intentioned people, who found it among his papers, published it, and it traveled through Africa, Italy, and the Gauls before Saint Jerome had knowledge of it. It was only Sisinnius, deacon of Saint Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, who, after twelve years, gave him a copy of it. He replied to it, and at the same time to the two others, by a letter which is the eleventh among those of Saint Augustine, and which begins with these words: Tres simul epistolas, imo libellos breves; he shows him the admirable utility of his version of the Old Testament, because of the omissions of that of the Septuagint and the changes that the Jews had made to it. He declares to him what is the title of his book of Ecclesiastical Writers, which the subject matter he treats declared enough by itself. He expands at great length on the dispute of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, which he claims to have been only dispensatory, and by a mutual agreement between them, for the spiritual good of the Jews and the Gentiles. This response gave Saint Augustine reason to treat the matter more thoroughly; and we have said, in the life of these great apostles, what one must think of it, according to the most common sentiment of the Doctors. Since then, these two great lights of the 5th century wrote other letters to each other, some of doctrine, others only of friendship and civility, especially Saint Augustine, who was much younger than Saint Jerome, and who looked upon him as his father and as a Doctor already consumed, sent him some of his treatises, so that he might examine and correct them as he judged appropriate. He also consulted him on several important difficulties of theology, and particularly touching the origin of souls, whose creation was not yet as clearly recognized and as commonly received as it is at present. Finally, all that we have to regret, in the commerce of these two holy Doctors, is that, being extremely distant and not having the convenience of messengers, they could not confer as easily together as the great subjects they had to examine demanded. Paul Orosius, a Spanish priest, was the last messenger that Saint Augustine employed for such a holy commerce; and this holy man was very well paid for his message, since, having had the happiness of conversing with Saint Jerome a short time before his death, he drew from him great lights, from which the Church has profited by the beautiful writings he has since given to the public. Saint Augustine was not the only one who consulted him and who had consideration for him. We have already said that Sulpicius Severus stayed six months with him; and he was so charmed by his doctrine and his holiness that he would have stayed there all his life, if it had been in his power. Hebidia and Algasia sent him, from the extremities of the Gauls, Apodemus, to know his sentiment on extraordinary questions. Sunnia and Fretella deputed persons of trust to him, to learn from him the different versions of the psalms. Pammachius, Oceanus, and a quantity of others wrote to him incessantly from Rome, to have the solution of the difficulties that arose between Catholics and the objections that heretics made. In a word, so many scholars from all parts of the West had recourse to him as to the oracle of his century, that he confesses, in writing to Saint Paulinus, that it was impossible for him to satisfy all these people. What is admirable in this is that, being obliged to write to such a great number of different people, to the Pope, to bishops, to priests, to religious, to clerics, to lords, to virgins, to married women, and to widows, he proportions his style so much to all these conditions that he answers each one according to the reach of his mind, and gives advice and instructions conformable to the state of each individual. Around the year 406, he wrote against Vigilantius, whom, by irony, he named Dormitantius. This heretic was Spanish by nation and rector of a church in Catalonia. He first hid his errors so adroitly under the mask of hypocrisy that Saint Paulinus of Nola, who had been ordained a priest in Barcelona, wrote in his favor to Saint Jerome, and recommended him to him as a man of great piety and who was one of his friends. But when Saint Jerome had seen Vigilantius in Jerusalem and observed his conduct, he withdrew his esteem from him in large part. Scarcely had Vigilantius returned to the Gauls than he began to sow his errors there. He taught that one should render no honor to the relics of the holy Martyrs, and called those who revered them ash-gatherers and idolaters; that all the miracles that were said to be done at their tombs were illusions of the demon; that one must flee the Catholics who entered the basilicas dedicated in their honor, as persons soiled with idolatry, and that it was a folly to light lamps and candles in the church during the day. He also condemned all the vigils that were held there by the faithful, according to the ancient custom, and forbade giving alms to holy places. He preferred those who gave their goods to the poor little by little, to those who gave them all at once. He also renewed the errors of Jovinian against celibacy and virginity and added other extravagant opinions to his impieties. Saint Jerome learned of all these blasphemies through the letters of Riparius and Desiderius, Gallic priests, which were brought to him by the religious Sisinnius, whom Saint Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, was sending to the Orient to assist the monks of Egypt, whom a great famine had reduced to the last necessity. He used the same means to have delivered to this prelate the writing he composed in one night against Vigilantius, where he treats him in the way that his extravagances and impieties deserved. He deplores there the misfortune of the Gauls, who, not having yet borne monsters, had finally produced this one (Catalonia was then a part of the Gauls); and this little work refuted so powerfully the dogmas of this new sect that it was immediately extinguished and buried in oblivion. One can draw from there a strong argument against the Lutherans and the Calvinists, who have renewed the errors of this heresiarch, and show them that the Church of the first centuries had sentiments very opposed to theirs, since it looked upon the propositions of Vigilantius as blasphemies, which they have made no difficulty of resurrecting and teaching to the people, with others that are no less contrary to the faith of the ancient Fathers.

In writing about the prophet Daniel, he had predicted the ruin of the Roman Empire, and his enemies had taken this prediction as a subject to despise and decry his works. But events showed that it was true, and that the Holy Spirit was its author: for, in the year 410, Alaric, king of the Goths, besieged Rome and took it, and, by the pillage he granted to the soldiers, he reduced an infinity of families of this great city to extreme misery. When the account of these catastrophes reached Jerome, pierced to the depths of his soul, he let his grief exhale in eloquent cries; one would have said it was the old Jeremiah making his lamentations heard once more over these new ruins: "The light of the world is extinguished, the head of the Roman Empire is cut off; in the fall of a single city, the entire universe collapses!..." And, to represent this great disaster to himself, he borrowed images sometimes from the Prophets: "Moab has been taken by night; it is by night that its rampart has fallen!" and sometimes from the profane memories of the sack of Troy: "Who will recount the misfortunes of this cruel night? Who will equal the lamentations to the calamities? The ancient city that dominated the peoples is overturned..." And elsewhere; for he is obsessed with this image: "Is it believable? This Rome, enriched with the spoils of the world, this proud sovereign of nations, has fallen, has become the sepulcher of its people, and now it covers all the shores of the East, of Egypt, and of Africa with its fugitive or enslaved sons!"

And, indeed, Jerome soon saw troops of exiles arrive in Bethlehem; it was a lamentable spectacle. Patricians, consulars, noble matrons, widows, virgins, men who previously did not even know their immense fortune, fleeing to the ends of the world from the sword of the barbarians and the ruin of their homeland, came, in the last degree of destitution, to ask for asylum in the monasteries of Paula. Many of them perhaps had once blamed her departure for the Orient. They did not know that she was going to prepare for them, under this distant sky, an asylum for the day of great misfortunes. Thus, sometimes Providence takes pleasure in justifying its Saints. Jerome left everything to gather these remnants of the shipwreck of Rome and the world; he received the priests in his monastery; Eustochium, the virgins and the widows in hers. The hospice was crowded. Jerome multiplied himself to provide for so much misery. But how to relieve them all? "Bethlehem," he wrote, "sees the most illustrious personages of Rome begging at its doors every day. Alas! We cannot give them all aid; we give them at least our tears, we weep together."

In the year 415, he published his Dialogues against Pelagius, whose doctrine he had already fought; but this heresiarch had been absolved in the Council of Dio Pélage Heresiarch opposed by Jerome at the end of his life. spolis, following the simulated abjuration he had made of the errors of which he was accused, deceiving the assembled bishops with his subtleties and equivocal answers. Jerome fought him again in three dialogues between Critobulus and Atticus. He did not wish to name this impostor, out of respect for the Synod that had judged him orthodox; but under the name of Critobulus, he makes him declare the venom of his heresy which he had hidden under beautiful appearances from the Fathers of the Council. Pelagius was extremely irritated by this and published everywhere that envy and jealousy had made this great Doctor compose them; he even pushed his resentment so far that he resolved to take revenge on him. Indeed, many holy women, who lived under the guidance of this Saint, received a cruel death at the hands of a troop of brigands who were of the heresiarch's party; a deacon was caught in the massacre, and Jerome only avoided their rage by a miracle, while the monasteries he governed were burned. Finally, Pelagius, being animated by the spirit of heresy which is always pitiless, forgot nothing to satisfy his vengeance. Baronius, on the year 416, says that John of Jerusalem, who loved Pelagius as much as he hated Saint Jerome, was suspected of having given occasion for these cruelties; for, from the Synod of Diospolis, he had openly shown that he favored the heretic against his accusers; thus, Pope Innocent, to whom Eustochium and the young Paula, daughter of Laeta and granddaughter of the great Saint Paula, made their complaints and sent the account of what had happened, wrote to this bishop in a way that clearly testified that he suspected him of having connived in it: "Your piety," he said to him, "is it not touched by the excesses of cruelty that the demon has exercised against you and yours? Against you, I say, for is it not your condemnation and the shame of your priestly dignity that such great wickedness has been committed in your diocese? Where was your foresight to prevent it? Where were your consolations and your assistance when the evil appeared? And what is lamentable is that the persons who warned me of this excess say that they fear even more evils than they have endured."

This holy Pope wrote, on the contrary, to Saint Jerome to praise him for his constancy and his faith and to console him for this persecution, offering him, moreover, to use all his apostolic authority to repress the insolence of his enemies. But as his extreme modesty in complaining about the outrages that had been done to him had prevented him from naming them to him, he told him that he could do nothing else to stop and prevent them than to write to the bishop of Jerusalem, so that he might watch with more circumspection over what would happen in the future regarding him.

However, neither this great concourse of people who consulted him from all parts of the earth, nor his admirable diligence in fighting heretics as soon as he discovered them, or in writing apologies against his adversaries, nor his tireless assiduity in governing monasteries, nor his continuous application to directing, by letter or by word of mouth, the souls who had confidence in him, nor his laborious charity in rendering hospitality to the pilgrims who visited the holy places, nor finally the persecutions of his enemies; all that, we say, did not prevent him from occupying himself, day and night, in meditating on the law of his Lord, in reading, explaining, and translating the sacred books of the Holy Scripture. We have already spoken of his translations; but, as it is the singular character of this great Doctor to have employed his pen to give the Church faithful versions of the Bible, we will report here, before finishing our history, all that he has done for this, so that Christians may know how much they are indebted to his labors.

There were in his time an infinity of Latin versions of the Old Testament, drawn from the Greek version of the Septuagint, and almost as many of the New; one can even say that there were no fewer than there were volumes, because they were all different from one another; it was necessary, so to speak, to reduce all these versions to unity, in order to purify the source of the divine truths that must spread into the souls of the faithful. Saint Jerome was chosen by God among the other Doctors by a marvelous conduct of his Providence, to work on this great work so desired by the Church and so important to Christianity. For this purpose, he made him born with an ardent inclination to learn the oriental languages, namely: Greek, Syriac, and Hebrew. Then he inspired in him the desire to travel in various countries, so that, becoming the disciple of the greatest men of his century, who were versed in the study of the Scriptures, he learned from them the secrets necessary to execute this design. He also gave him an indefatigable courage to copy the books proper to this enterprise. And finally, to put him in a state to succeed happily, he called him to a retired and penitent life, imprinted in his soul the sentiments of a very profound humility, and gave him a generous contempt for riches, the care of which would only have distracted him; a kind of horror, from his childhood, for all the grandeurs of the earth, the brilliance of which would only have served to obscure the divine lights and those of his beautiful mind; a strong aversion for the great employments that would have stolen from him the most precious moments of his time, and finally a continual distrust of himself, which obliged him to ask for clarification, not only of things he doubted, but also of those he believed he knew perfectly.

It is thus that Jerome, consumed in human sciences and in the intelligence of the holy language, fortified by the spirit of God and animated by the zeal of his glory and the good of his Church, undertook what no one before him had dared to attempt, and what, since him, no one has dared to undertake, for he made two translations of the Old Testament, one from Greek into Latin, following the version of the Septuagint, and the other from Hebrew also into Latin. For the psalms, not only did he translate them as well as the other books, but he also corrected twice the old Latin edition, which was in use in his time and which had been drawn from the common and vulgar Greek version. He reviewed and corrected, with incredible exactitude, by the order of Pope Damasus, the New Testament which, by the negligence of the writers, was then filled with faults and errors, and this translation of the Holy Scripture was found so pure and so accomplished that, not only was it received by individual Doctors, but also by the universal Church which declared it authentic; so that it still serves today to confirm the points of faith. Preachers and theologians cite it in pulpits and in schools, and the Fathers of the general Councils use it to define controversies in matters of religion.

What was admirable in this great man was the ease and promptness with which he produced his works. One would have difficulty believing it if he himself had not written it; for in three days he translated the books of Solomon, and in a single one he put into Latin the book of Tobit, which was previously in the Chaldean language. In fifteen days he dictated commentaries on Saint Matthew, at the instance of Eusebius of Cremona, his disciple, who, being pressed to return to Italy, wanted to take with him this precious work of his master. We have said that he took only one night to compose the learned treatise that he published against the errors of Vigilantius, because Sisinnius, who was to be the bearer of it to Saint Exuperius of Toulouse, being pressed to leave, did not give him more time. What also marks the vivacity of his mind is that he sometimes had six writers to whom he dictated on the spot various matters with as much clarity as if he had been occupied with only one subject. But what is even more astonishing, in his studies, is that, from his youth, he began to be attacked by great illnesses, which made him age before his time and put him in such a state that he remained fourteen years without being able to use his hand to write, nor his eyes to read the Hebrew books at night, and he did not even read them by day except with much difficulty. For the Greek books, he had them read to him by others, because the weakness of his sight no longer allowed him to read them himself. However, notwithstanding his serious occupations and his great age, he did not disdain to lower himself to teach little children, in order to form Jesus Christ in their hearts and to cast there the first seeds of virtue, as we can infer from his epistle VII, to a Roman woman, called Laeta, who had married Toxotius, one of the sons of the great Saint Paula: he begs her to send him her little daughter, so that he can teach her to serve God and to imitate the piety of her grandmother, whose name she bore.

Such was the life of this very great Doctor, until, consumed by the number of his years and exhausted by penance and work, he was seized by a fever that forced him to take to his bed. As he had always kept himself in a great vigor of mind, he then employed it entirely to prepare for death by a humble contrition of heart and by loving transports toward Jesus Christ. Finally, in the presence of the monks and virgins to whom he recommended the practice of humility, patience, charity, and the other Christian and religious virtues of which he had so often spoken to them, he peacefully sent his soul to heaven to receive there the reward he had earned by his immense labors. It was the 30th of September of the year 420, which was, according to Baronius, the eighty-first of his age, although others make him much older, but with little likelihood. His body was buried in the grotto of Bethlehem that he had so often watered with his tears; but, since then, it has been transported to Rome in the church of Saint Mary Major, and placed near the chapel where the holy Crib is kept, in which the Savior of the world was laid at his birth.

Saint Jerome is represented: 1st near death, supported in the arms of some disciples, collapsing under a body exhausted by penance and years; but the gaze is still full of flame, and the soul, by a supreme effort, lifts this failing body, as if to spring toward God; 2nd sailing for Palestine; 3rd disputing against the Pelagians; 4th explaining Scripture to Saint Paula and her daughter; 5th studying Hebrew books; 6th in the desert; 7th tempted in his desert and supported by an angel; 8th meditating on the Holy Scriptures; 9th blessing a lion in the desert; 10th dying: the Saint holds a book, and the angels receive his soul.