Eusebius Hieronymus, pseudonym Sophronius, popularly known as…

Eusebius Hieronymus, pseudonym Sophronius, popularly known as Jerome, had been confidential secretary and librarian to Pope Damasus, charged with beginning the process of rendering the Bible into Latin. 

Jerome, born in Dalmatia, had fallen from favor following the pope’s death in 384 and for a second time journeyed to the East, making stops in Antioch, Egypt, and Palestine.

Having settled in the summer of 388 at Bethlehem in a monastery established for him by Paula, one of a group of wealthy Roman women whose spiritual advisor he has been, Jerome embarks on what is to be his most productive literary period.

With the aid of Palestinian rabbis, he will translate the Old Testament into Latin from the original Hebrew.

This, together with the New Testament, which he had translated from the Greek before coming to Palestine, will constitute the Vulgate, the standard Latin translation of the Bible used by the Roman Catholic Church.