This focus stemmed from his close patron relationships with several prominent female ascetics who were members of affluent senatorial families.

But again, as soon as you found yourself cautiously moving forward, the black night closed around and there came to my mind the line of Virgil, "Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent".

[11][b]The quotation from Virgil reads, in translation, "On all sides round, horror spread wide; the very silence breathed a terror on my soul".

[13] Seized with a desire for a life of ascetic penance, Jerome went for a time to the desert of Chalcis, to the southeast of Antioch, known as the "Syrian Thebaid" from the number of eremites (hermits) inhabiting it.

[15] As protégé of Pope Damasus I, Jerome was given duties in Rome, and he undertook a revision of the Vetus Latina Gospels based on Greek manuscripts.

[18] Even in his time, Jerome noted Porphyry's accusation that the Christian communities were run by women and that the favor of the ladies decided who could accede to the dignity of the priesthood.

Soon after the death of his patron Pope Damasus I on 10 December 384, Jerome was forced to leave his position at Rome after an inquiry was brought up by the Roman clergy into allegations that he had an improper relationship with the widow Paula.

His letters were widely read and distributed throughout the Christian empire and it is clear through his writing that he knew these virgin women were not his only audience.

[4] Additionally, Jerome's condemnation of Blaesilla's hedonistic lifestyle in Rome led her to adopt ascetic practices, but these affected her health and worsened her physical weakness to the point that she died just four months after starting to follow his instructions; much of the Roman populace was outraged that Jerome, in their view, thus caused the premature death of such a lively young woman.

He knew some Hebrew when he started his translation project, but moved to Jerusalem to strengthen his grip on Jewish scripture commentary.

He believed that the mainstream Rabbinical Judaism had rejected the Septuagint as invalid Jewish scriptural texts because of what were ascertained as mistranslations along with its Hellenistic heretical elements.

His patristic commentaries align closely with Jewish tradition, and he indulges in allegorical and mystical subtleties after the manner of Philo and the Alexandrian school.

Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd are not in the canon.

[28] The following passage, taken from Jerome's Life of St. Hilarion which was written c. 392, appears to be the earliest account of the etiology, symptoms and cure of severe vitamin A deficiency:[29] From his thirty-first to his thirty-fifth year he had for food six ounces of barley bread, and vegetables slightly cooked without oil.

But finding that his eyes were growing dim, and that his whole body was shrivelled with an eruption and a sort of stony roughness (impetigine et pumicea quad scabredine) he added oil to his former food, and up to the sixty-third year of his life followed this temperate course, tasting neither fruit nor pulse, nor anything whatsoever besides.

[29]Jerome's letters or epistles, both by the great variety of their subjects and by their qualities of style, form an important portion of his literary remains.

Whether he is discussing problems of scholarship, or reasoning on cases of conscience, comforting the afflicted, or saying pleasant things to his friends, scourging the vices and corruptions of the time and against sexual immorality among the clergy,[30] exhorting to the ascetic life and renunciation of the world, or debating his theological opponents, he gives a vivid picture not only of his own mind, but of the age and its peculiar characteristics.

[31] Due to the time he spent in Rome among wealthy families belonging to the Roman upper class, Jerome was frequently commissioned by women who had taken a vow of virginity to write to them in guidance of how to live their life.

The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, has been laid waste by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemanni, and – alas!

[38]In his Commentary on Daniel,[38] he noted, "Let us not follow the opinion of some commentators and suppose him to be either the Devil or some demon, but rather, one of the human race, in whom Satan will wholly take up his residence in bodily form.

"[38] Jerome identified the four prophetic kingdoms symbolized in Daniel 2 as the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Medes and Persians, Macedon, and Rome.[38](ch.

The source for the story may actually have been the second century Roman tale of Androcles, or confusion with the exploits of Gerasimus (Jerome in later Latin is "Geronimus");[49][d] it is "a figment" found in the thirteenth-century Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine.

[50] Hagiographies of Jerome talk of his having spent many years in the Syrian desert, and artists often depict him in a "wilderness", which for West European painters can take the form of a wood.

The subject of "Jerome Penitent" first appears in the later 15th century in Italy; he is usually in the desert, wearing ragged clothes, and often naked above the waist.

[52] In one of Georges de La Tour's 17th century French versions of St. Jerome his penitence is depicted alongside his red cardinal hat.

Further reminders of the vanitas motif of the passage of time and the imminence of death are the image of the Last Judgment visible in the saint's Bible, the candle and the hourglass.