in 379, and frequent allusions in his works witness to his profiting greatly from his master's mode of interpreting Scripture. He calls him "praeceptor meus" (de Vir. Ill. 117) and appeals to his authority in his commentaries and letters (Comm. on Ephes. v. 3; Epp. l. 1, lii. 8, etc.). He was also acquainted with Gregory of Nyssa (de Vir. Ill. 128). He was attacked, while at Constantinople, with a complaint in the eyes, arising from overwork, which caused him to dictate the works he now wrote. This practice afterwards became habitual to him (pref. to Comm. on Gal. iii.), though he did not wholly give up writing with his own hand; and he contrasts the imperfections of the works which he dictated with the greater elaboration he could give those he himself wrote. He wrote no letters here; but his literary activity was great. He translated the Chronicle of Eusebius, a large work, which embraces the chronology from the creation to a.d. 330, Jerome adding the events of the next 50 years. He translated the Homilies of Origen on Jer. and Ezk., possibly also on Isa., and wrote a short treatise for Damasus on the interpretations of the Seraphim in Isa. vi., which is improperly placed among the letters (Ep. xviii.). These works mark the epoch when he began to feel the importance of Origen as a church-writer, though daring even then to differ from him in doctrine, and also to realize the imperfections of the existing versions of the Scriptures. In the treatise on the Seraphim, and again in the preface to the Chronicle, we find him contrast the various Gk. versions of O.T., studies which eventually forced on him the necessity of a translation direct from the Hebrew. What were his relations to the council of Constantinople in 381 we do not know. It is certain, however, that pope Damasus desired his presence in Rome at the council of 382, which reviewed the Acts of that council, and that he went in the train of bps. Paulinus of Antioch and Epiphanius of Constantia (Salamis) in Cyprus (cxxiii. 10; cxxvii. 7).
Bible Work.—His stay in Rome, from the spring of 382 to Aug. 385, was a very eventful and decisive period in his life. He made many friends and many enemies; his knowledge and reputation as a scholar greatly increased, and his experience of Rome determined him to give himself irrevocably and exclusively to his two great interests, scriptural study and the promotion of asceticism. He undertook, at the request of Damasus, a revision of the version of the Psalms (vol. x. col. 121). He translated from the LXX; and his new version was used in the Roman church till the pontificate of Pius V. He, also at the request of Damasus, revised the N.T., of which the old Versio Itala was very defective. The preface addressed to Damasus (ib. col. 557) is a good critical document, pointing out that the old version had been varied by transcribers, and asking, "If anyone has the right version, which is it?" It was intended as a preface to the Gospels only; but from the record of his works in the list of ecclesiastical writers (de Vir. Ill. 135), which states that he had restored the N.T. according to the original Greek, as well as from other passages (e.g. Ep. xxvii. 3), we infer that the whole version was completed (see Vallarsi's pref. to vol. x.; also Murray's Illus. B. D. (1908), art. VULGATE). He also, at the request of Damasus and others, wrote many short exegetical treatises, included among his letters (on Hosanna, xix. xx.; Prodigal Son, xxi.; O.T. Names of God, xxv.; Halleluia and Amen, xxvi.; Sela and Diapsalma, xxviii.; Ephod and Seraphim, xxix.; Alphabetical Psalms, xxx.; "The Bread of Carefulness," xxxiv.). He began also his studies on the original of O.T. by collating the Gk. versions of Aquila and the LXX with the Heb. (xxxii., xxxvi. 12), and was thus further confirmed in the convictions which led to the Vulgate version. He translated for Damasus the Commentary of Origen on the Song of Songs (vol. x. p. 500), and began his translation of the work of Didymus, the blind Origenistic teacher of Alexandria, on the Holy Spirit, which he did not complete till after his settlement at Bethlehem, probably because of the increasing suspicions and enmity of clergy and people, whom he speaks of as the senate of the Pharisees, against all that had any connexion with Origen (pref. to Didymus on the Holy Spirit, vol. ii. 105), which cause also prevented him continuing the translation of Origen's Commentaries, begun at Constantinople. Jerome was Origen's vehement champion and the contemptuous opponent of his impugners. "The city of Rome," he says, "consents to his condemnation . . . not because of the novelty of his doctrines, not because of heresy, as the dogs who are mad against him now pretend; but because they could not bear the glory of his eloquence and his knowledge, and because, when he spoke, they were all thought to be dumb" (Ep. xxxiii. 4).
Asceticism.—The other chief object of his life increased this enmity, although it also made great advances during his stay at Rome. Nearly fifty years before, Athanasius and the monk Peter (334) had sown the seeds of asceticism at Rome by their accounts of the monasteries of Nitria and the Thebaid. The declining state of the empire had meanwhile predisposed men either to selfish luxury or monasticism. Epiphanius, with whom Jerome now came to Rome, had been trained by the hermits HILARION and HESYCHAS; he was, with Paulinus, the guest of the wealthy and noble Paula (cviii. 5), the heiress of the Aemilian race; and thus Jerome was introduced to one who became his life-long friend and his chief support in his labours She had three daughters: Blessila, whose death, after a short and austere widowhood, was so eventful to Jerome himself; Julia Eustochium, who first among the Roman nobility took the virgin's vow; and Paulina, who married Jerome's friend Pammachius. These formed part of a circle of ladies who gradually gathered round the ascetic teacher of scriptural lore. Among them were MARCELLA, whose house on the Aventine was their meeting-place; her young friend Principia (cxxvii.); her sister the recluse Asella, the confidant of Jerome's complaints on leaving Rome (xlv.); Lea, already the head of a kind of convent, whose sudden death was announced whilst the friends were reading the Psalms (xxiii.); Furia, the descendant of Camillus, sister-in-law to Blesilla, and her
