St. Jerome was born in Dalmatia around the year 340. Twenty years later he traveled to Rome where he was baptized. In Rome and in Trier, Germany he studied under some of the Church’s most eminent scholars. But Jerome was as much mystic as he was scholar. He went to the Holy Land, spent over five years in the desert engaged in prayer, penance, and study, finally settling in Bethlehem. There he lived and worked in a cave believed to be the birthplace of Jesus. He died in Bethlehem in the year 420, and his body is buried in Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major.
Jerome, along with St. Augustine, became one of the great scholars of his time. Augustine even declared , “What Jerome is ignorant of, no mortal has ever known.” Jerome was fluent in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and also Chaldaic, the common language spoken throughout much of the ancient Middle East. These skills provided him with the linguistic foundation that enabled him to achieve what most believe to be his greatest accomplishment, the translation of the entire Bible into Latin. This “Vulgate” translation was for centuries the only version of Sacred Scripture used by the Church.
St. Jerome also lived during some very trying times as he witnessed the beginnings of the fall of the Roman Empire. Indeed, the Visigoths under Alaric actually sacked the city of Rome in the early days of the fifth century. Greatly disturbed by what the barbarians were doing to his world, Jerome made the following observations in the year 406, describing the devastation experienced throughout the Empire:
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"Nations innumerable and most savage have invaded all Gaul. The Whole region between the Alps and the Pyrenees, the ocean and the Rhine, has been devastated by the Quadi, the Vandals, the Sarmati, the Alani, the Gepidae, the hostile Heruli, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, and the Pahnonians.
Oh wretched Empire! Mayence [Mainz, Germany], formerly so noble a city, has been taken and ruined, and in the church many thousands of men have been massacred. Worms [Germany] has been destroyed after a long siege. Rheims, that powerful city, Amiens, Arras, Speyer [Germany], Strasburg, - all have seen their citizens led away captive into Germany. Aquitaine and the provinces of Lyons and Narbonne, all save a few towns, have been depopulated; and these the sword threatens without, while hunger ravages within.
I cannot speak without tears of Toulouse, which the merits of the holy Bishop Exuperius have prevailed so far to save from destruction. Spain, even, is in daily terror lest it perish, remembering the invasion of the Cimbri; and whatsoever the other provinces have suffered once, they continue to suffer in their fear.
I will keep silence concerning the rest, lest I seem to despair of the mercy of God. For a long time, from the Black Sea to the Julian Alps, those things which are ours have not been ours; and for thirty years, since the Danube boundary was broken, war has been waged in the very midst of the Roman Empire. Our tears are dried by old age. Except a few old men, all were born in captivity and siege, and do not desire the liberty they never knew.
Who could believe this? How could the whole tale be worthily told? How Rome has fought within her own bosom not for glory, but for preservation - nay, how she has not even fought, but with gold and all her precious things has ransomed her life...
Who could believe that Rome, built upon the conquest of the whole world, would fall to the ground? That the mother herself would become the tomb of her peoples? That all the regions of the East, of Africa and Egypt, once ruled by the queenly city, would be filled with troops of slaves and handmaidens? That to-day holy Bethlehem should shelter men and women of noble birth, who once abounded in wealth and are now beggars?
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St. Jerome’s words remind me of what a modern classical scholar, Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, recently said about our own nation and the many threats, both exterior and interior. it faces -- challenges that mirror those faced by fifth-century Rome.
“Every nation that has survived has had borders that were defensible and clear, and the idea that they have their own space to inculcate their language or traditions or customs, then enhance their constitution. Without that, it’s just short of a migratory, 5th century A.D. Rome where people come across the Danube River and destroy the nation-state…Identity politics is another natural human pathology where we identify by our superficial appearance, and when we start to do that we regress to something like the former Yugoslavia or Rwanda. And that trajectory will be our future unless we stop it and realize that we’re a very rare multiracial democracy that’s given up — each of us — our primary identities as race or [ethnicity] and have absorbed, instead, the idea of Americanism…Tribalism — we could use that word — is now endemic, and everybody is trying to find a tribal affiliation. It’s a search to find a cache, because if you are oppressed or a victim — victimized — then you feel that you have certain rights to compensation, or reparatory action from the government.”
By the way, Dr. Hanson’s many books are all worth reading, and offer us remarkable insights into the similarities and differences between ancient and modern times. I’ve been reading him for years and have learned much from his words. Here’s a link to a brief article he wrote in 2013 in which he addresses the likely decline of America, a decline driven largely by governmental policies that attempt to redistribute wealth: The Decline of America
One comment from the article is especially telling, and seems prophetically to point ahead eight years to our current situation:
“Given our unsustainable national debt — nearly $17 trillion and climbing — America is said to be in decline, although we face no devastating plague, nuclear holocaust, or shortage of oil or food.”
Okay, we haven’t suffered a nuclear attack — at least, not yet — but huge debt, plagues, and shortages certainly abound.
Pray for our nation and our world: “Come, Lord Jesus!” [Rev 22:20]
