J E rome to give him his significant Greek name, Eusebius Hieronymus - was born a.d. 345 at Stridon in Dalmatia, a small town near Aquileia, which was partly destroyed by the Goths during their invasion of 377. His father, Eusebius, and his mother were Christians of moderate wealth and were alive in 373 when Jerome first went to the East, but probably died when Stridon was taken by the barbarians. Jerome himself received a good education at his local school, and then, like most young provincials of talent, he was attracted to Rome, where he studied rhetoric under the great grammarian Aelius Donatus, returning with his friend Bonosus to Aquileia in 370. In that town he established his first society of ascetics, which lasted for three years until some event - referred to by him various as a sudden storm and a monstrous rending asunder - broke up the fellowship, and Jerome with a few of his closer associates went eastwards to Anfioch. But even this small company did not remain long together, and a meeting with the old hermit Malchus made Jerome resolve to seek complete solitude. The adjacent desert of Chalcis was - already full of hermits living under the rule of Theodosius, and Jerome soon became one of their number, sleeping in a bare cell.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.