Jerome (Eusebius Hieronymus), born at Stridon on the borders of Dalmatia and Pannonia of a well-to-do Christian family, had gone with his friend Bonosus to Rome to further his intellectual interests.

There, Jerome had acquired a knowledge of classical literature and had been baptized in 361 at the age of 19.

After several years in Rome, he had begun to develop theological interests with others similarly inclined to asceticism, and had gone with Bonosus to Trier, "on the semi-barbarous banks of the Rhine," where he seems to have first taken up theological studies, and where he copied, for his friend Rufinus, Hilary's commentary on the Psalms and the treatise De synodis.

Next came a stay of at least several months, or possibly years, with Rufinus at Aquileia where he made many Christian friends.

Some of these accompanied him when he set out at about 373 on a journey through Thrace and Asia Minor into northern Syria.

Finding a warm reception in Antioch, where he makes the longest stay, continuing the pursuit of his humanistic and monastic studies, two of his companions die and he himself is seriously ill more than once.

During one of these illnesses (about the winter of 373-374), he has a vision in which he is accused, in a dream, of being "a Ciceronian, not a Christian."

This makes him determined him to lay aside his secular studies and devote himself to the things of God.

His close friend and translator Rufinus will later suggest, however that this vow was not strictly kept, but in any case, Jerome seems to have abstained for a considerable time from the study of the classics and to have plunged deeply into that of the Bible, under the impulsion of Apollinaris of Laodicea, at this time teaching in Antioch and not yet suspected of heresy.