4th–5th century
Saint Jerome
Scholar and ascetic from Stridon in Dalmatia who lived as a monk in Bethlehem and translated the Bible into Latin.
Biography
Jerome was born around 345 in Stridon in Dalmatia and was sent by his parents to Rome for his education, where he was baptized. He later moved east and lived as an ascetic in the desert of Chalcis, in Syria.
He returned to Rome, where his close association with a devout widow, Paula, and her daughters caused gossip and forced them to leave together, by way of Antioch, for Bethlehem, where they built two monasteries, one for men and one for women.
There Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, the version known as the Vulgate, commissioned by Pope Damasus I. Paula died in 404 and Jerome himself in 420; his relics were later moved to Rome.