Jerome’s Vulgate made Hebrew, not only Greek, Latin scripture
Saint Jerome (about 342/347–420), commissioned by Pope Damasus I, produced the Latin Bible translation that became the Vulgate. Unlike earlier Latin Old Testaments based on the Greek Septuagint, he tried to work from a Hebrew text—and wrote commentaries across the whole canon.
Born Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus at Stridon, of Illyrian descent, Jerome went to Rome with his friend Bonosus to study rhetoric and philosophy and was not baptised until sometime in the 360s. He later admitted to student escapades followed by bouts of guilt, and described Sunday visits to the martyrs' tombs in the catacombs, where the darkness made him think of Hell. Drawn to penance, he lived for a time among the hermits of the desert of Chalcis, southeast of Antioch, and there first tried to learn Hebrew from a converted Jew.
Back in Rome as a protégé of Pope Damasus I, he revised the Gospels of the old Latin Bible against Greek manuscripts and updated the Psalter. He gathered a circle of educated aristocratic women, among them Marcella, Paula and Paula's daughters Blaesilla and Eustochium; an estimated 40% of his letters went to women, which drew criticism at the time. When Blaesilla died four months after adopting the harsh ascetic regime he urged on her, much of Rome blamed him.
Paula then paid for his stay at a monastery in Bethlehem beside the Church of the Nativity. Having begun in 382 with the New Testament, by 390 he was translating the Hebrew scriptures directly. Earlier Latin Old Testaments all followed the Greek, and Augustine among others thought the Septuagint inspired, so Jerome's choice went against most Christian opinion. His preface sets books such as Wisdom, Sirach, Judith and Tobit outside the canon.
He was prolific in other genres too. His Chronicon, written in Constantinople around 380, reworked and extended Eusebius and became influential in the Latin West despite errors. On Illustrious Men, from 392–393, surveyed four centuries of Christian authors to show that Christian writing could stand comparison with pagan literature. He died on 30 September 420, still writing commentaries, and is counted among the four Great Latin Church Fathers.
Source: Jerome
