This episode is brought to you by the Master of Arts and Catholic Education program at the Augustine Institute

Graduate School of Theology. Dedicated to the renewal of Catholic education, this degree

equipped school teachers and administrators to bring Christ to the center of every classroom

through a focus on sacred scripture, theology, Christian anthropology, and the traditional

liberal arts.

Learn more at augustin.edu backslash M-A-C-E. David Bonagura teaches classical languages at St. Joseph's Seminary in New York. His books are Steadfast in faith, Catholicism and the challenges of secularism, staying with the church trusting God's plan of salvation,

and now a translation of St. Jerome's letters entitled Jerome's Tears.

Letters to Friends and Morning are topic today. Welcome, Professor Bonagura.

Hello, Mark, thanks for having me.

First, will you give us a summary of the life of Jerome?

Surely. A quick capsule version.

Yes, the midi virgin. Jerome was a contemporary of St. Augustine. He was a little slightly older. He was born

around 347. He died in 420. He was educated at the highest levels in Rome, really came to a conversion

of faith while he was there, say around 20 or so. He disappeared into the desert for a while,

tried to become a monk, an expert in spirituality,

then returned to Rome where he was personal secretary for Pope Damasus.

And it was Pope Damasus who launched him into the project that he's most known for, which

is translating the scriptures from the original languages into Latin.

He also, so he spent half of his life, his long life, in Bethlehem, living as a monk,

where he translated the scriptures.

We wrote commentaries in the scriptures, and he wrote tons of personal letters to people,

more of an academic kind rather than a short personal kind that we're familiar with today.

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