Discussion 4: St. Jerome

6 responses to “Discussion 4: St. Jerome”

1. 

   Kraig Stanforth

   June 29, 2025

   I have never read Jerome and only known him as the producer of the Vulgate. What is refreshing is to read his emphasis on Christians reading and understanding the Scriptures. Ironically not long after Jerome later years the Development of the Roman Catholic Church ecclessia had kept the scriptures from the people and as Latin died out as a common language the people still only heard it in Latin , all the way to the 20th century. Yet Tyndale was burned alive for his translation into English so that people may read the Bible in their own language …. Jerome would be with the Tyndales and Wycliffes of their day.
   As far as interpretation- Jerome must have thought even the common man could at least have a surface interpretation of Scripture if he read it or listened to it. This is not a rule for interpretation but a cultural concept- their world had scholars and then everyone else.

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   1. 

      Richard

      July 1, 2025

      Thanks for this, Kraig. It is a bit crazy to me how the Roman Catholic church became so entrenched with Latin Mass and and the Latin Vulgate and so against preaching and translations in local languages. I wonder how much this had to do with the initial split with the Eastern Orthodox Church (Greek) and Martin Luther’s split (German). Fortunately this changed with Vatican II, although a bit late… As for Jerome, it is interesting how he values as such an early time the value of the common person reading Scripture for themselves, even as the Church seemed to try to limit this from happening.

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2. 

   Ron Nelson

   June 30, 2025

   As I’ve mentioned, I approach the scriptures as I did as a new Christian. I sit before God and listen to His words. They are my daily bread, and He means for us to live on these words. When He spoke, worlds were formed. I read “But the anointing that you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, just as it has taught you, abide in Him.” I say, just read it! Humbly and listening. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. He HAS to, because He said those words in James.

   That said, He also said that He gifted some of us to be “apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, for the purpose of equipping the saints for ministry and building up the body of Christ,” and “we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ.” And there are heresies and false teachings which distort the scriptures that can lead us astray. So do I need the “more learned” to help me understand the scriptures? Absolutely. We are the body of Christ, and all of us are needed exercising our God given giftings, working together, so His body is healthy and grows to maturity.

   I think we need both time alone with God and His words, and time with other gifted believers around His words. So Jerome’s words about seeking out the learned resonated with me. Perhaps he wrote about personal time with God’s words elsewhere.

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   1. 

      Richard

      July 1, 2025

      Ron – thanks for your thoughts on the role of Scripture in our lives. You mention Jerome’s words about the unlearned being guided by the learned, which I do think is Jerome’s main point. But he also says, “both the learned and the unlearned can discover different meanings in the same sentence.” So I do not think that he is discounting personal time with God’s words, just that this needs to be supplemented with communal study. As for me, I have benefited greatly by discussing Scripture with our small groups, our theology group, and even one-on-one conversations. When someone gains Scriptural insight through personal reading, I find that I can usually learn from them.

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3. 

   Nicholas Villarreal

   July 3, 2025

   I would like to add context to that 10% to 20% literacy rate commonly quoted is related to both reading and writing, not reading alone. It is estimated that a larger percentage of people in the Roman Empire during the early Christian era of Rome knew how to read some basic Latin (hence the need Jerome and others saw for translation from Greek), but could not write it. Not to completely contradict the point – the half-way literate population (able to read but not to write) was a minority of the population compared to the population during the time of Christ who could read at least one of the written languages (usually Greek as the _lingua franca_, but also Aramaic around the Levant) at the time.

   I have heard the passage from Acts regarding Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch explained similarly to Jerome elsewhere, and find this interpretation to be accurate. Too many times, we have seen that heretical churches and abusive churches arise because people who have no spiritual authority above them start organizations claiming to be Christian. In all cases, it is to at least the spiritual detriment – if not also the physical, mental, and social detriment – of the people attending these congregations. And little wonder. To paraphrase, how can people know what the Scriptures mean unless somebody explains it to them? New interpretations and understandings have always led to false teaching, whether it was Arias holding that Christ was a creation, Nestorius claiming that the divine and human natures of Christ are separate, or Progressive Christianity denying the meaning of the Cross. Even in the Anabaptist tradition, which looked at the Roman and Lutheran churches and found them to be spiritually and Biblically lacking, the people chosen to lead those congregations were steeped in Scripture and had been part of holy orders before divesting from Rome (e.g. Michael Sattler).

   One interesting note regarding the Roman Catholic insistence on the Latin mass was that, due to the popularity of the Bishop’s Bible and the Geneva Bible, along with the Lutherbibel, the Roman Church started making its own vernacular translations of the Scriptures. The Douay-Rheims (which has been updated to the NAB) was in English before the KJV came about, and in Spain, they had the Reina-Valera (named for the priests primarily responsible for it). Others exist. I am sure there are others, but am unfamiliar with them. Ironically, while the Roman Church claims to be the sole entity with the right and ability to correctly interpret Scripture, they have never issued commentaries, and misrepresent the interpretations of the Church Fathers which they present in their canons.

   It is not just a more learned individual teaching a less-learned individual about the Scriptures that is advisable. The more-learned individual also needs to be teaching the Scriptures in a way that is faithful to God. Heaven forbid that a new believer seek out Biblical interpretation from someone like Bart Ehrman.

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   1. 

      Richard

      July 3, 2025

      Nicholas – thanks for the great insights. I love, “It is not just a more learned individual teaching a less-learned individual about the Scriptures that is advisable. The more-learned individual also needs to be teaching the Scriptures in a way that is faithful to God.” Amen to that. A small correction about Nestorianism — it teaches that Christ was two separate persons. Standard doctrine is that Christ was a single person with two natures: human and divine. Eutychianism is the heretical belief that Christ has a single nature that is a mix of human and divine.

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