St. jerome’s reputation rests primarily on his achievements as a translator and as a scriptural exegete. The important service that he rendered to the Church in his doctrinal works is often overlooked or minimized by those who look for originality and independence of thought. St. Jerome was not a theologian in the strict sense of the word. He was no original thinker, and he never abandoned himself to personal meditation of dogma as St. Augustine did.¹ Although he kept strictly to what he found in tradition, the importance of his doctrinal authority is not thereby lessened. He entered into controversy...

When st. jerome arrived in Rome for his second visit in the year 382, his reputation as a scholar and ascetic and as the defender of the faith had preceded him. He had already won recognition for his translation of the homilies of Origen into Latin, for his biography of the monk, Paul, and for the composition of his Chronicle. As early as the year 370, he had organized a society of men at Aquileia who were interested in the ascetic life; and he himself had retired shortly after that, in the year 374, to the desert of Chalcis, east...

A year after st. jerome had written his treatise against Helvidius at Rome, Pope Damasus died and was succeeded by Pope Siricius, who was less intimate with St. Jerome. While Pope Damasus was still alive, the opposition against St. Jerome and his ascetic propaganda remained within bounds. After the election of Pope Siricius, it broke out angrily and St. Jerome felt constrained to leave Rome in the year 385 and seek peace in Palestine. Peaceful and fruitful in literary labors though the years were that he spent at Bethlehem, nevertheless, they were seriously disturbed by no less than five doctrinal...

The last controversy over heretics which was to engage the attention of St. Jerome and sadden the evening of his life at Bethlehem was the Pelagian, in which he seemed to have engaged rather at the instance of others than on his own initiative. His motive in this controversy appeared to have been rather to win than to condemn the Pelagians, and his attitude less hostile than that of St. Augustine. In this struggle, the Church was to have the services of two of the chief opponents of heresies, St. Jerome and St. Augustine,¹ who took an active part in...