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Jerome

Jerome

347 CE–420 CE · Stridon

Jerome (c. 347–420) was the pre-eminent biblical scholar of the early Latin church, whose Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin remained the standard Western text for over a millennium. Born in Stridon on the Dalmatian frontier, he received a classical education in Rome, encountered Western monasticism at Trier, and joined an ascetic community at Aquileia before traveling east to Antioch, where he spent time as a hermit in the Syrian desert and was ordained a priest. He studied Greek theology under Gregory of Nazianzus in Constantinople, then returned to Rome as secretary and biblical adviser to Pope Damasus I. He spent the last 34 years of his life in Bethlehem, where he directed a monastic community and produced his vast output of biblical translations, commentaries, and polemical writings.

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Did you know?

  • He learned Rome had fallen from his monastery in Bethlehem

    When Alaric and the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 CE, Jerome was some 1,400 miles away in his monastery at Bethlehem, at work translating and writing. Recording his shock, he wrote that “the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken.”

    How we know

    Sack of Rome by Alaric, August 410 CE; Jerome (c. 347–420) lived at his Bethlehem monastery from c. 386; the line is from the preface to his Commentary on Ezekiel.

  • He produced the Latin Bible from a cave over three decades

    Jerome, who produced the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible, spent roughly the last 34 years of his life in Bethlehem, where tradition places his study in a cave beside the site venerated as the birthplace of Jesus. He learned Hebrew from Jewish teachers so he could work from the original texts.

    How we know

    Jerome c. 347–420; settled in Bethlehem c. 386 until his death; translator of the Vulgate who studied Hebrew under Jewish teachers.

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Stop 1 of 7347–360Born

StridonCroatia

What they did here

Jerome was born here around 347 CE; the town's exact location is debated but was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia, likely in modern Croatia or Slovenia.

About Stridon

Stridon, a town on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia (its exact site is uncertain, in the western Balkans). It was the birthplace of Jerome (c. 347), who described it as later destroyed by the Goths.

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Jerome’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Jerome’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(11)