Born in the Illyrian city of Stridon (likely in present-day Bosnia) in the decade of 340 AD, Jerome spent his youth in a spiritual and intellectual quest that led him to Rome, where his frequent visits to the martyrs’ tombs sparked a prolonged process of conversion.
After his baptism in Rome, he traveled with a friend to Gaul (Poitiers and Trier), where he first experienced monastic life.
Jerome’s conversion did not resolve the lifelong tension between his love for Christ and his fascination with the beauty of classical Latin literature. In a dream, Jesus appeared to him and reproached him for being more Ciceronian than Christian.
Jerome then spent time in the Syrian desert and considered becoming a monk (around 375). Back in Rome, he entered the service of Pope Damasus, who entrusted him with revising the Vetus Latina, the first Latin translation of the Bible. In this endeavor, he gained the support of several aristocratic women, including Paula and her daughter Eustochium.
In 385, the three traveled to Syria and Egypt. Paula and Eustochium became nuns and settled in Antioch. Jerome eventually settled in Bethlehem. There, he did not abandon his love for literature but redirected it toward a more spiritual goal: the study of Sacred Scripture.
Paula and her daughter later arrived in Bethlehem. There, Jerome helped them establish the first Latin-speaking monastic community in the Holy Land. Upon Paula’s death in 404, Jerome wrote her eulogy (Letter 108, “Ad Eustochium”), in which he retraced the route Paula took from Antioch to Jerusalem, passing through Phoenicia (Beirut, Sidon, Zarephath, Tyre), Palestine (Caesarea, Antipatris, Emmaus-Nicopolis), and finally reaching Jerusalem. Paula’s itinerary, recorded by Jerome, complements other accounts of early pilgrimages, such as that of Egeria. Half a century after the dedication of the Holy Sepulcher (389), Jerome’s description sheds light on the remarkable achievement of Constantine and Helena in their project to populate the Holy Land with shrines
Christian art typically depicts Jerome as a cardinal (due to his close relationship with Pope Damasus) or as an austere ascetic. In both cases, he is shown writing or reading, as if absorbed in his task of revising the Vulgate.
South of the basilica, within the current Armenian convent, the Crusaders built a columned hall, likely a dining room. In later times, this monastic refectory became known as Jerome’s scriptorium in the eyes of pilgrims.
Source: Henri Gourinard, 2022.
There are two other places that preserve the memory of Jerome: a chapel dedicated to Jerome’s companions (St.Paula, St.Eustochium, and St.Eusebius of Cremona) and the altar of St.Jerome. Although he died in Bethlehem on September 30, 420, no relics of the saint remained in the Church of the Nativity; but in 2018, a small relic was recovered and displayed in the Church of Saint Catherine.
By Henri Gourinard