The Bible is, without question, the most translated text in the history of the world. Sections of the book have been translated into over 2,800 languages, and it has been read by more people than any other individual piece of writing. But who was the first to translate the Bible out of its original language? His name was Jerome, and he was canonized for it.
Who Was St. Jerome?
Born in the year 347 at Stridonius, a small town at the head of the Adriatic near the episcopal city of Aquileia, Jerome was the foremost biblical scholar of the ancient Church. His birth name was Eusebius Hieronymous Sophronius, and he became a major intellectual force in the Western Church due to his translation of the Bible, alongside his commentaries on the biblical books.
Jerome’s father was a Christian and took special care that his son was well trained at home. Although his native tongue was the Ilyrian dialect, he quickly become fluent in Latin and Greek. A student of Rome, Jerome was baptized when he converted to Catholicism. At one point, he tried his hand at the monastic life as a hermit in the deserts of Syria. This is what he had to say about that particular experiment:
“In this exile and prison to which through fear of Hell I had voluntarily condemned myself, with no other company but scorpions and wild beasts, I many times imagined myself watching the dancing of Roman maidens as if I had been in the midst of them. My face was pallid with fasting, yet my will felt the assaults of desire. In my cold body and my parched flesh, which seemed dead before its death, passion was still able to live. Alone with the enemy, I threw myself in spirit at the feet of Jesus, watering them with my tears, and tamed my flesh by fasting whole weeks. I am not ashamed to disclose my temptations, though I grieve that I am not now what I then was.”
Translating the Bible
After giving up the monastic life, he decided to travel to Antioch, where he continued his studies of Greek and Hebrew. Jerome was even a secretary to Pope Damasus I from 382 to 384, whereupon he acted as the spiritual director of a number of noble Roman ladies who had also indicated that they were interested in the monastic lifestyle.
It was during this time, when he was secretary to the Pope, that he started on the task of translating the Bible into Latin. It was the popular form of the language at the time, which is what gave the translation its name: The Vulgate, meaning “Of the Common People.”
There had been a translation prior to Jerome’s, a version that is now called the Old Latin Version. But Jerome’s version far surpassed it, not only in terms of literary quality, but also in terms of scholarship. He was well versed in classical Latin, but he specifically wrote in the style that was actually spoken and written by the people of his time.
It is recorded that Jerome died near Bethlehem on September 30, 420. He is widely recognized as the second most prolific writer in ancient Latin Christianity, second only to St. Augustine. He is recognized as a Saint, and he is the patron saint of translators, librarians, and encyclopedists.
