Today we have invited the people of Dixit Translators to tell us about their employer, St GeronimoThat celebrates September 30.
In the 5th century AD Jerome of Stridon (typical of that time add the place of origin to the name, as we have already commented on other times) translated the Bible into Latin; Until then, the Christian holy book was only in Greek and Hebrew, in addition to some attempts in Latin, so the “Vulgate”, which is how this first translation of the Bible is known in the world, served to bring the people closer Roman the Holy Scriptures.
A man ahead of his time, the fruit of one of the best teachers of that time (Donato) and with such virtue with the Latin and Greek languages, that he led him to the study of the Holy Scriptures.
This study, more in pursuit of a penance that he did not achieve unless he was the secretary of the Holy Pontiff Dámaso, who was in charge of commissioning the translation of the Sacred Books from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, since the existing translations up to that time were not but incomplete or unconnected works and did not correctly reflect the Church’s interpretation of these Scriptures.
Despite his slight knowledge of Hebrew, he moved to Bethlehem, in order to better translate the Holy Testaments. He was instructed, therefore, in the correct interpretation of the Scriptures and for 23 years (from the year 382 to 405) he dedicated himself to the translation of both the New and Old Testaments.
Your translation (the Vulgate) remained in force until the end of the 20th century, when the New Vulgate in 1979 after the Second Vatican Council.
Together with Saint Augustine of Hippo, Saint Ambrose of Milan, Saint Gregory the Great and Saint Jerome, they form what is known as the great Latin Fathers of the Church and Saint Jerome, the exegete, par excellence, of the Fathers of the West.
Without a doubt, his little biography that we collect in these lines would not be complete without commenting on his last years. After being a scourge of the upper social class from his position as a priest in Rome, he retired to Bethlehem, where he spent his last years and founded four convents in the Holy Land (one for men and three for women), where they attended the pilgrims who passed through the city to visit the site where Jesus was born.
Saint Jerome was famous for his famous phrases and his writings, such as the one known in the world “non verbum e verbo, sed sensum exprimere de sensu” that is, “not expressing word for word, but meaning by meaning” that he left written in his famous Ad pammachium de optimo genere interpretandione of the most famous phrases used by us, the translators, to present the virtues of our profession as opposed to the automatic translations that have given so many moments of humor to our colleagues.
As a curious note, although Saint Jerome is the patron saint of translators, the patron saint of the Faculties of Translation and Interpretation is Alfonso X El Sabio.
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