Theologian · Patristic
St. Jerome
c. 347–420 · Latin biblical scholarship
Doctor of the Church; one of the four great Latin Doctors; patron of biblical scholars.
Dalmatian scholar, secretary to Pope Damasus, and for thirty-four years a monk in Bethlehem. He translated the Bible into Latin from the Hebrew and Greek (the Vulgate), wrote commentaries and letters of great learning and greater temper, championed virginity and monastic asceticism, fought Pelagius, Jovinian and Origenism, and declared that “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”
Why he matters: The Vulgate was the Bible of the Latin Church for fifteen centuries, and Jerome's insistence on the “Hebrew truth,” on Rome as the touchstone of faith, and on Scripture as the monk's daily food shaped Western exegesis and spirituality.
Where to be careful
His polemics (above all Against Jovinian) disparage marriage in ways the Church does not endorse, and his defense of a “useful lie” in the dispute with Augustine was not accepted.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.