St. Jerome 320 420

 

[painting of Saint Jerome]Feastday 30th September                           

Born about 340-342             

Died 420

 

 Born to a rich pagan family, he led a misspent youth. Studied in Rome. Lawyer. Converted in theory, and baptised in 365, he began his study of theology, and had a true conversion. Monk. Lived for years as a hermit in the Syrian deserts. Reported to have drawn a thorn from a lion's paw; the animal stayed loyally at his side for years. Priest. Student of Saint Gregory of Nazianzen. Secretary to Pope Damasus I who commissioned him to revise the Latin text of the Bible. The result of his 30 years of work was the Vulgate translation, which is still in use. Friend and teacher of Saint Paula, Saint Marcella, and Saint Eustochium, an association that led to so much gossip, Jerome left Rome to return to the desert solitude. Lived his last 34 years in the Holy Land as a semi-recluse. Wrote translations of Origen, histories, biographies, and much more. Doctor of the Church, Father of the Church. Since his own time, he has been associated in the popular mind with scrolls, writing, cataloging, translating, etc. This led to those who work in such fields taking him as their patron - a man who knew their lives and problems. 1

 

1. Taken from Patron Saints Index at http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintj06.htm

 

“The destruction of the Holy City, the ruin of the House of God, the dispersion of the chosen people into all the kingdoms of the earth, and their continued existence as a nation, notwithstanding every attempt to exterminate them or to compel them to forsake those ordinances which distinguishes them to this very day from all other nations is emphatically one of the strongest evidences we can have of the truth of the Bible and of our religion. Jerusalem was indeed once a great city, and the Temple magnificent; but the Jews themselves were greater than either; hence while the two former have been given over to spoilation, the latter having been wonderfully (miraculously) preserved. The annals of the world do not contain anything so remarkable in the human experience, so greatly surpassing human power and human experience. Exiled and dispersed, reviled and persecuted, oppressed and suffering, often denied the commonest rights of humanity and still more often made the victim of ruthless fanaticism and bigoted prejudice the Jews are divinely preserved for a purpose worthy of God”1

 

“Therefore let us state what all the ecclesiastical writers have passed down; At the consummation of the world, when the Kingdom of the Romans has been destroyed, when ten kings shall have divided the territory of the Romans between themselves, an eleventh [man] shall rise to [the kingship] of a small kingdom who when he shall have overcome three of the ten kings, i.e. the king[s] of the Egyptians, the Africans and the Ethiopians and consequently as we learn more manifestly –whom he shall have killed, the other seven kings shall submit their necks to the victor [the eleventh king]” 2

 

"Antichrist will be born near Babylon.  He will win the support of many with gifts and money.  He will sell himself to the devil and thereafter will have no guardian angel or conscience." 3

 

“Satan shall exercise his influence over all the powers of the antichrist both over his body and of his soul – namely his will, his intellect and his memory” 4

 

 “Nor do me think him to be the devil or a demon as some others do but one of mankind in whom Satan shall dwell totally…for he is the man of sin, the son of perdition, such that he will seat himself in the Temple as if he were God.”  5

 

“If for the crimes of the Jews (crimes of unbelief), the salvation passed to the Gentiles; by the incredulity of the Gentiles it will pass to the Jews” 6

 

“16. But what am I doing? Whilst I talk about the cargo, the vessel itself founders. He that letteth is taken out of the way, and yet we do not realize that Antichrist is near. Yes, Antichrist is near whom the Lord Jesus Christ "shall consume with the spirit of his mouth." "Woe unto them," he cries, "that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days.17... For thirty years the barbarians burst the barrier of the Danube and fought in the heart of the Roman Empire. Long use dried our tears. For all but a few old people had been born either in captivity or during a blockade, and consequently they did not miss a liberty which they had never known. Yet who will hereafter credit the fact or what histories will seriously discuss it, that Rome has to fight within her own borders not for glory but for bare life…” 7

 

 

References

1.  Rev R. Gerald. Culleton The Prophets and Our Times  (Tan Books and Publishers 1941) p 110

2. Desmond A. Birch Trial Tribulation and Triumph: Before, During and After Antichrist, (Queenship Publishing. 1996) p 230

3. Yves Dupont Antichrist World Trends Magazine (September, 1975)

4. St Jerome, Commentary on the Book of Daniel Chapter 7

5. Desmond A. Birch Trial Tribulation and Triumph: Before, During and After Antichrist, (Queenship Publishing. 1996) p 230

6. ibid p 418

7. St Jerome, Letter CXXII to Ageruchia