347–420

Jerome and the Latin Translation of the Bible (the Vulgate)

Jerome was educated and baptized in Rome and then traveled to the East. Living as a hermit at Chalcis in Syria, he experienced a dream-vision reproaching him: "You are a Ciceronian, not a Christian". After this he took up the study of Hebrew.

In 382 he became secretary to Pope Damasus I in Rome, and a circle of learned women gathered around him – Marcella, Paula, Eustochium. After Damasus's death in 384 he left Rome. In 386, together with Paula, he founded two monasteries at Bethlehem, where he lived until his death in 420.

There he translated the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew original ("hebraica veritas") rather than from the Septuagint. This initially troubled even Augustine. The resulting Latin translation, known as the Vulgate, became the normative text of Scripture for the medieval Latin church. Yet it survived into the Middle Ages in many divergent copies.