Icon of the Week: St. Jerome

I’m behind on posting pictures of the icon of the week. Last week it was Fra Angelico’s “Penitent St. Jerome, painted in the early 15th century. The picture here is of the original which is now in the Princeton University Art Museum.

Jerome was born in what is now Bosnia in 347 AD. He was drawn to the study of the classics and went to Rome as a young man to further his studies. While he was in Rome he was a typical college student, partying and the like. He went on an extended tour of the Middle East, studying in Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and then back to Rome. He eventually became convinced that his lifestyle was in conflict with his faith and spent some time in the wilderness in repentance. This period in his life became a favorite subject for artists in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Jerome is depicted in a wilderness scene in prayer, reading, or  beating his chest with a stone, as Fra Angelico depicts him here.

An image of Jerome that became popular in the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance is St. Jerome in his study. Jerome was the consummate scholar, and in these paintings he is shown as a Renaissance scholar, often wearing the red robe and hat of a cardinal. For Jerome this is anachronistic since the office of cardinal did not exist in the Roman Catholic Church during his lifetime. He is often portrayed with a lion, as tradition has it that he pulled a thorn from a lion’s paw. Sometimes the lion is shown sleeping on his study floor!

Eventually Jerome settled in as a hermit in Bethlehem, traditionally occupying a cell underneath the Church of the Nativity. When I was in the Holy Land four years ago I had the chance to see the cell from the outside, but since it is now a chapel a mass was in progress and I didn’t want to interrupt it.

Jerome is held in the highest regard for his literary output, most notably the  Latin Vulgate, the translation of the entire Bible in Latin. He probably didn’t do it all from scratch. Many scholars think that he had Latin translations of sections to begin with and he revised those sections and translated the rest. The Vulgate was the standard translation of the Bible for more than a thousand years.

I am drawn to this image of Jerome mostly because of the image of wilderness. The theme of wilderness is very prominent in the Scriptures and in Christian thought in general. The wilderness is a place for reflection and prayer. Lent is a good time to consider Jerome as a guide in the wilderness.