St. Jerome icon

St. Jerome icon
© Cecilia Lawrence
August 22nd 2017
4.5 x 6 inches
Ink, watercolor, gold leaf

"Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ."
~ St. Jerome

“Blessed indeed is he who ponders
the law of the Lord day and night:
he will yield his fruit in due season.”
- Psalm 1:2-3

“Beloved: Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed,
because you know from whom you learned it,
and that from infancy you have known the Sacred Scriptures,
which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation
through faith in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is inspired by God
and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.”
- II Timothy 3:14-17

I was commissioned to make an icon of St. Jerome along with a number of other saints this past summer. I wasn’t sure initially how to go about depicting St. Jerome, as he is always depicted as very old and often times in the anachronistic garb of a Cardinal (a position in the Church which did not exist in Jerome’s time). I eventually decided on painting him in the garb of a hermit but with a red cloak (instead of a plain black or brown one), as the color red is often associated with him. Jerome holds in his right hand a quill-pen signifying his role as a writer, translator, exegete of Sacred Scripture, and teacher.



:+: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE SAINT :+:

Saint Jerome (March 27th 342 – September 30th 420 A.D.), was born Eusebius Hieronymous Sophronius at Stridon, in the Roman province of Dalmatia along the Adriatic Sea. Little is known of his early years, but his father Eusebius—who was a Christian—evidently thought that the youth had the aptitude for great learning, and the boy was duly sent to Rome to study under the finest teachers, including the famous pagan grammarian Aelius Donatus and a Christian rhetorician named Victorinus. He excelled in literature and the Latin language, along with public speaking and may have looked forward to a career in law for a time. While living as a student in Rome, he pursued frivolous and superficial pleasures and did little to check his wilder impulses which he freely indulged along with his fellow classmates. He attempted to smother his conscience by visiting the catacombs on Sundays and amused himself by deciphering the inscriptions. However, the impression the catacombs made on him was profound, and particularly affected him by reminding him of death and hell. He later wrote: “Often I would find myself entering those crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything was so dark that almost it seemed as though the Psalmist's words were fulfilled, ‘Let them go down quick into Hell.’ Here and there the light, not entering in through windows, but filtering down from above through shafts, relieved the horror of the darkness. But again, as soon as you found yourself cautiously moving forward, the black night closed around and there came to my mind the line of Vergil, ‘On all sides round horror spread wide; the very silence breathed a terror on my soul.’”

While initially skeptical about Christianity, as he became more learned in classical literature and more familiar with pagan practices, he turned away from these things and looked more into Christian beliefs. He eventually converted to the Faith and was baptized by Pope Liberius in 360, when he was in his early twenties. Along with his childhood friend Bonosus, he traveled to Gaul, eventually settling in Trier as he began his own theological studies. While there, he copied St. Hilary of Poitiers’ commentary on the Psalms along with the treatise De Synodis for his friend the monk and historian Tyrannius Rufinus. Jerome then traveled back home to Dalmatia and settled for a time in the city of Aquileia where he continued his theological studies and made many friends among the monks there. Around 373, he and a number of his friends departed for the East, traveling through Athens, Bithynia, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Cilicia, and finally arriving at Antioch later that year. They settled in that city for a time, and Jerome attended the theological lectures held by Bishop Apollinaris of Laodicea.

While in Antioch, two of his friends, Innocent and Hylas, grew sick and soon died, and Jerome became seriously ill as well. It was during this illness that Jerome had a vivid dream that inspired him to set aside his pursuit of classical education and instead devote his time to studying the Sacred Scriptures. In his dream he was standing before Christ as Judge who said to him: “You a Christian? You are a Ciceronian. Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.” Desiring greater solitude and a life of asceticism and penance, Jerome withdrew to the desert of Chalcis southwest of Antioch in 374 around the age of 32. For the next four years, he devoted his life as a hermit to studying and writing, and even learned Hebrew from a Jewish Christian. He struggled to learn Hebrew, and later wrote: “When my soul was on fire with wicked thoughts, as a last resort, I became a pupil to a monk who had been a Jew, in order to learn the Hebrew alphabet…I turned to this language of hissing and broken-winded words. What labor it cost me, what difficulties I went through, how often I despaired and abandoned it and began again to learn, both I, who felt the burden, and they who lived with me, can bear witness. I thank our Lord that I now gather such sweet fruit from the bitter sowing of those studies.” When he returned to Antioch in 378, he was ordained as a priest by his friend Bishop Paulinus. Jerome then left Antioch for Constantinople where he studied Scripture under St. Gregory Nazianzen for two years and translated a number of works by Origen. He then departed again for Rome to assist Bishop Paulinus and his claim to the bishopric of Antioch, which was to be resolved at the Synod of 382. But in the meantime, Paulinus went to Rome to appeal to the pope, and Jerome went with him. In Rome, Pope St. Damasus I was so impressed by Jerome that he became the Pope’s secretary.

It was during his time as the Pope's secretary that Jerome composed his famous reply to Helvidius, an Arian priest who denied the virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

"In his reply, Jerome made use of all the resources of exegesis at his disposal; in particular he found no difficulty in showing that the phrase "brethren of the Jesus," which Helvidius had insisted on interpreting literally, can only have meant Our Lord's first cousins. Jerome also produced a magnificent eulogy of Christian virginity, which was to influence many in times to come. It is hard for us now to realize what a stumbling block virginity was in the society that gave birth to Christianity. All Jewish custom went to exalt maternity above everything; whereas the pagans allowed woman no legal rights as a person at all; she was a perpetual minor, passing from the control of her father to that of her husband. To remain celibate was to set oneself against the power of the paterfamilias, who could do what he chose with his daughters.The very idea of equality between men and women was still, in Jerome's day, thought of as monstrous, at least in pagan society. Thus the Church found itself in total opposition to the Greco-Roman world when, from the first, not only did it proclaim that men and women were equal, but also put forward as an ideal that virginity should be preserved for love of God." (Saint Jerome by Regine and Madeleine Pernoud)

And at the end of his reply to Helvidius, Jerome wrote: "I presume that, having been defeated by the truth, you will now calumniate my life and revenge yourself by defaming me...I must inform you that your insults will honor me, for the mouth you use to slander me has been used to outrage Mary, and the baying of your words will unite the servant of the Lord with His Mother."

In Rome, the Pope asked him to make an authoritative Latin translation of the Bible based on Greek manuscripts of the New Testament as well as revise the Latin Psalter. While working on the translation of his Latin Vulgate Bible, Jerome became acquainted with and befriended some of the leading noblewomen of Rome. These wealthy and influential widows, St. Marcella, St. Lea, and St. Paula, became Jerome’s patrons and friends and assisted him greatly in his work, while he influenced them by his knowledge of the Scriptures and his love for asceticism. Jerome’s influence gradually made these wealthy women turn from their formerly comfortable and influential ways of living and they instead embraced a life of asceticism and consecrated virginity. Jerome’s influence over them gained him many enemies and detractors. One incident, in particular, turned many people against him. One of Paul’s young daughters, Blaesilla, had formerly lived a rather hedonistic and pleasure-loving life, until she came down with a near-fatal influence in 384. After recovering, Jerome along with her mother, persuaded her to take up ascetic practices. The girl was still weak from her illness, and the asceticism was too much for her body to endure and she soon died. Jerome was roundly blamed for the death of the young girl, and the situation was only made worse when Jerome told the devastated Paula (who fainted at the funeral) that her grief was too excessive. But he wrote to her that he promised to make Blaesilla remembered forever: "I swear it, I promise, it is she who will sing my words, it is to her that my labors will be dedicated...her memory, lasting forever, will make up for the shortness of her life. She lives in heaven with Christ, and she will live also in the mouths of men...Thanks to my books she will never die." Public opinion was roused against Jerome over Blaesilla's death, and his enemies also accused him of having an improper relationship with Paula. Additionally, Jerome had frequently written biting and harsh criticisms of the secular clergy, pagans, and the nobility, who he accused of leading lives devoted to frivolity and vanity. With the death of his patron Pope Damasus a mere month later on December 11th 384, Jerome’s position was no longer protected, and this false accusation expelled him from Rome. Jerome again traveled to Antioch around 485, accompanied by his brother Paulinian and some friends, and was later followed by the devoted Paula and her daughter Eustochium.

In 385, the little group made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the company of Bishop Paulinus of Antioch, and visited the Holy Places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Galilee, and eventually also made their way down to Egypt. In Alexandria, Jerome listened to the teachings of Didymus the Blind, and he later went to observe the life of the monks who lived in Nitria. In 388, he once more went to Palestine, and there remained for the rest of his life, living in a cave near Bethlehem, where he dedicated his life to writing, the study of the Sacred Scriptures, and acting as a spiritual director to Paul and her daughter, along with other disciples who flocked to him.

Thanks to Paula’s wealth and influence, Jerome was able to acquire many books and was able to support himself in Bethlehem. Paula established a monastery for men and a convent for women in Bethlehem near the Church of the Nativity, along with a free school and a hospice for pilgrims, saying that “should Mary and Joseph visit Bethlehem again, they would have a place to stay.” During this time, Jerome was able to devote himself wholeheartedly to his writings, and enjoyed the peaceful serenity of Palestine where Christians from all over the Roman world came as pilgrims. Jerome also used his time in writing passionate defenses of Christian doctrine under attack by numerous heresies and controversies, especially Pelagianism and Origenism. Jerome also undertook the arduous task of translating the Old Testament into Latin from the original Hebrew texts.

When Paula died in 404, Jerome was greatly grieved. In 410, the whole Roman world was stunned by the sack of Rome by Alaric. When refugees from Rome began pouring into the East, Jerome wrote, “ Who would have believed that the daughters of that mighty city would one day be wandering as servants and slaves on the shores of Egypt and Africa, or that Bethlehem would daily receive noble Romans, distinguished ladies, brought up in wealth and now reduced to beggary? I cannot help them all, but I grieve and weep with them, and am completely absorbed in the duties which charity imposes on me. I have put aside my commentary on Ezekiel and almost all study. For today we must translate the precepts of the Scriptures into deeds; instead of speaking saintly words, we must act them.” That same year, Jerome’s friend Marcella died, and Jerome wrote of her: “How much virtue and intellect, how much holiness and purity I found in her I am afraid to say, both lest I may exceed the bounds of men's belief and lest I may increase your sorrow by reminding you of the blessings you have lost. This only will I say, that whatever I had gathered together by long study, and by constant meditation made part of my nature, she tasted, she learned and made her own.” In 416, a group of Pelagians, incensed by Jerome’s writings against them, broke into Bethlehem, set the monastery on fire, beat up a number of monks, and killed a deacon, while Jerome was forced into hiding. Paula’s daughter Eustochium died in 420, and Jerome soon afterwards fell ill and died on September 30th 420, at the age of 78. He was then buried in the church of the Nativity.

In the 1200s, Jerome’s body was moved to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome to protect it from the Muslims. St. Jerome was officially made a Doctor of the Church in 1298, and is numbered as one of the Four Great Doctors of the Western Church along with St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Pope Gregory the Great, and St. Ambrose.

I interpret as I should, following the command of Christ: "Search the Scriptures," and "Seek and you shall find." Christ will not say to me what he said to the Jews: "You erred, not knowing the Scriptures and not knowing the power of God." For if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of Gods, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.

Therefore, I will imitate the head of a household who brings out of his storehouse things both new and old, and says to his spouse in the Song of Songs: "I have kept for you things new and old, my beloved." In this way permit me to explain Isaiah, showing that he was not only a prophet, but an evangelist and an apostle as well. For he says about himself and the other evangelists: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news, of those who announce peace." And God speaks to him as if he were an apostle: "Whom shall I send, who will go to my people?" And he answers: "Here I am; send me."

No one should think that I mean to explain the entire subject matter of this great book of Scripture in one brief sermon, since it contains all the mysteries of the Lord. It prophesies that Emmanuel is to be born of a virgin and accomplish marvelous works and signs. It predicts his death, burial and resurrection from the dead as the Savior of all men. I need say nothing about the natural sciences, ethics and logic. Whatever is proper to holy Scripture, whatever can be expressed in human language and understood by the human mind, is contained in the book of Isaiah. Of these mysteries the author himself testifies when he writes: "You will be given a vision of all things, like words in a sealed scroll. When they give the writings to a wise man, they will say: Read this. And he will reply: I cannot, for it is sealed. And when the scroll is given to an uneducated man and he is told: Read this, he will reply: I do not know how to read."

Should this argument appear weak to anyone, let him listen to the Apostle: "Let two or three prophets speak, and let others interpret; if, however, a revelation should come to one of those who are seated there, let the first one be quiet." How can they be silent, since it depends on the Spirit who speaks through his prophets whether they remain silent or speak? If they understood what they were saying, all things would be full of wisdom and knowledge. But it was not the air vibrating with the human voice that reached their ears, but rather it was God speaking within the soul of the prophets, just as another prophet says: "It is an angel who spoke in me;" and again, "Crying out in our hearts, Abba, Father’," and "I shall listen to what the Lord God says within me."
- from a commentary on Isaiah by St. Jerome

The Feast of St. Jerome is celebrated on September 30th.

St. Jerome is the patron saint of Biblical scholars, exegetes, librarians, translators, students, archaeologists, and archivists.

O God, who gave the Priest Saint Jerome
a living and tender love for Sacred Scripture,
grant that your people
may be ever more fruitfully nourished by your Word
and find in it the fount of life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.