Theological Term of the Week: Jerome

Jerome
“[T]he most accomplished scholar of the early Church,”1 who translated the Bible—the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament—into Latin. He was born around 347 and lived until 420.

• From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. H. Needham, page 244: 

[I]n 382 Jerome visited Rome, where pope Damascus … asked him to prepare a new Latin translation of the Bible. Jerome agreed — and it took him 23 years to complete the task. In Jerome’s day, there were many Latin translations of Scripture circulating in the West, but none of them were particularly good. Jerome made an entirely fresh translation, using the Greek of the New Testament and the original Hebrew of the Old Testament as the basis for his new Latin version. He finished it in 405. A work of massive scholarship, it was called the Vulgate, and soon became the accepted translation of the Bible in the Western Latin speaking world, a position it held until the Reformation in the 16th Century.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: Who was Saint Jerome?
2. 5 Minutes in Church History: Jerome
3. Christian Classics Ethereal Library: St. Jerome
4. Christian History: Jerome 
5. Christian History Institute: 405 Jerome Completes the Vulgate

Related terms:

• Ambrose of Milan
• Athanasius
• Basil of Caesarea
• Cappadocian fathers
• Gregory of Nanzianzus
• Gregory of Nyssa
• Hilary of Poitiers
• Irenaeus of Lyons
• John Chrysostom
• Justin Martyr
• Origen
• Sabellius
• Tertullian

Filed under Christian History

1From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power by N. R. Needham.

---

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.