Saint Jerome (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus)

Born in Stridon in Dalmatia, Jerome was one of the greatest linguistic scholars of the ancient world. Master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, he was commissioned in 382 AD by Pope Damasus I to produce an authoritative revision of the old Latin Bible. Jerome undertook the revolutionary decision to bypass the Greek Septuagint and translate the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew manuscripts preserved by Jewish communities. Working in a cave in Bethlehem, he laboured for over twenty years to complete what would become the Latin Vulgate, which shaped European Christianity and culture for over a millennium.