St. Jerome as Cardinal with Lion (P 004) Label

Formally known as Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus in Latin, St. Jerome (c. 347-420) was born to wealthy pagan parents of Illyrian descent at Stridon, a town now lost to history that was once located near the Adriatic coast in either northeast Italy or the Balkans. As a teenager in Rome, he lived a dissolute lifestyle he would later come to bitterly regret. Baptized in 365, he became a nominal Christian and studied law. Widely traveled and well-educated, he experienced a vision during an illness c. 373/4 that turned him from secular pursuits to the serious study of theology and a life of ascetic repentance. He became a monk, priest, secretary to a pope, theologian, and historian. In 388, he settled at last in Palestine and spent the remainder of his life working in a cave near Bethlehem, the very cave where Jesus was believed to have been born. The result was the work for which he is best known: his translation of most of the Bible into Latin--the translation known as the Vulgate--and his commentaries on the Gospels. One of the most learned men of his day, St. Jerome is a Doctor of the Church and—with SS. Augustine, Ambrose, and Gregory I the Great–one of the Four Latin Church Fathers. He died of old age. + It was during his tenure as secretary to Pope Damasus I (c. 305-384) that St. Jerome earned his red robes and Cardinal’s hat as pictured here… in art and literature, at least. The office of Cardinal as such did not exist in the late fourth-early fifth century; hence, his garb is anachronistic. However, in the Middle Ages, the most widely read and most influential book--after the Bible, of course--was The Golden Legend (or Legenda Aurea Sanctorum) by Bl. Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1226-1298). Accustomed to a Papal Secretariat staffed with Cardinals in his time, Voragine erroneously wrote that St. Jerome “was ordained a Cardinal Priest in the Church of Rome.” Contemporary artists retrofitted St. Jerome accordingly, and a Cardinal’s dress became ever after one of the established features of his iconography. (We particularly like the rakish angle at which St. Jerome wears his galero in this late 19th-century devotional print--even if it is due to the tilt of his head as he reads from one of his books!) + The lion at St. Jerome’s feet is another symbol often associated with him. According to tradition (read: The Golden Legend again), during his sojourn as a monk in the Syrian desert, St. Jerome earned the trust and eternal gratitude of a lion by removing a thorn from its paw. The lion became his devoted companion. + St. Jerome is patron saint of archaeologists, librarians, archivists, translators, students, and Bible scholars. + Feast: September 30 + Image Credit (P 004): Antique image of S. Hieronymus [St. Jerome] from a late 19th-century devotional print in chromoxylography, originally published by Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg, New York, and Cincinnati. From the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.