Saint Jerome
Born into a wealthy family at Stridon, on the borders of Dalmatia and Italy, he became a doctor and one of the most learned of the early Christians. He was baptized at Rome at age 18. He decided to travel and set out to the Holy Land. At Antioch his travel companions became ill and died. Jerome recovered and resolved to devote himself to the study of divinity. He withdrew to the wilderness of Chalcis, near Antioch, where he lived alone, suffering from bad health and extreme heat. After two or three years he emerged from his retreat and was named a priest. He studied at Constantinople under the Greek doctor of the church Gregory Nazianzens. Back in Rome in 382, Pope Damasus made him secretary and had him revise the Latin translation of the New Testament and of the Psalms. With the death of Pope Damasus he left Rome and established a monastery in Bethlehem near the Basilica of the Nativity, buildings to house three communities of women, and a cell for Jerome to live and work. Here is accomplished his greatest work, the Latin translation of the Bible, known as the Vulgate. After the sack of Rome in 410, Jerome’s retreat was disturbed by refugees from the city and raids by the huns. His remains are said to have been taken to the church of St. Maria Maggiore in Rome in the 13th century. He is usually represented with a lion as he is said to have removed a thorn from the foot of one. His feast day is September 30. (Kremer, 2025) Photo from the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, 2025.
Photo from the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, 2025.
Photo from The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Michigan, 2025. Shows St. Jerome during his time in the wilderness in modern day Syria. Leonardo DaVinci imclue d a stone that represents Jerome’s penitence and the lion that served as his companion.