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Jerome was born in Yugoslavia in the fourth century. He had a privileged Christian upbringing, but was known to have sown a few wild oats in his youth. A budding intellectual, Jerome's father sent him to Rome to study when he was In his late teens. He loved classic literature, which was considered pagan, and had a dream in which God appeared and called him “a liar” when Jerome declared himself a Christian. Traumatized by his dream, he joined the clergy but, because of his acid tongue and pointed observations, he was very unpopular with his fellow clergymen. So off he went to the desert to become a hermit and set up a library in which he spent his time writing. He was severely tempted by sins of to flesh, and had a vision that he was surrounded by beautiful naked women. But he righteously threw himself upon his crucifix and beat his chest with a stone, and prevailed. He then befriended a rabbi who taught him Hebrew, which quelled his raging libido. After four years in the desert he returned to Rome, blackened by the sun, and became ordained. He was hired by the Pope to write a Latin translation of the Greek Bible, called the Vulgate, which was the definitive Latin Bible for centuries. When in Rome, the scholarly priest promoted a “marvelous flowing of asceticism” among a group of rich Roman matrons. He believed that it was a sin for a husband to love his wife too much, but conceded that martyrdom was a way to “wash away the dirt of marriage.” Once again, because of his sarcastic wit and austerity, he was despised by both Christians and pagans who scandalized Jerome by spreading vicious rumors about him and St. Paula, one of his patrician lady friends. Paula built him his own monastery in Bethlehem, and after her death he spent the remainder of his perpetually controversial life with Paula’s daughter as his companion. One of the more major conflicts in his later years was the controversy about the Virgin's genitals. Progressive members of the Church were spreading the notion that Jesus had siblings, but Jerome was adamant in his belief that Mary’s hymen had remained intact. Jerome is often depicted with a lion because of a legendary incident where he removed a thorn from the paw of a wild feline, who then became docile at his feet. Jerome is also the patron of students. His feast day is September 30.

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