Saint Jerome: The Early Years

Saint Jerome was a born writer, individual, fresh, sparkling with verve and (at times) vitriol; a great scholar, accomplished in languages, exegesis, and history; and, above all, an ingenious translator, whose Vulgate is the Church's official Latin Bible. Despite the longstanding fame of his literary and spiritual legacies, however, the saint's historical life has not always received equal care. In this equally instructive and entertaining study, Paul Monceaux balances the biographical account of Saint Jerome's youthful years, presenting his first thirty years of life and covering his education and early scholarly success; Rome; his youthful indiscretions and escapades;; his conversion and baptism; his travels and initial forays into the ascetical life; and his hermetic life in the Syrian desert, short-lived but still steeped in suffering and spiritually transformative.