JEROME (c. 347–420), properly Eusebius Hieronymus; church father and biblical scholar. Born at Stridon in Dalmatia of a prosperous Christian family, Jerome was educated at Rome under Aelius Donatus, the most eminent grammarian of the fourth century. With Donatus he studied the principal Latin authors, of whom Cicero and Vergil exerted a lasting influence on him. His rhetorical training included the rudiments of philosophy, which held little interest for him, except for dialectics. Rhetoric and dialectics became the tools of his polemics. While in Rome he enjoyed those youthful indiscretions that he would later bitterly lament as immorality. Jerome was nevertheless baptized, perhaps in the year 366.

In his twentieth year Jerome continued his studies at Trier, where the ideal of monasticism took hold of him forever. In 374 he made a pilgrimage to Antioch in Syria, where he mastered Greek and began in earnest his lifelong study of the Bible...