Jerome
Saint Jerome is the patron of translators, biblical scholars, and librarians for the most direct of reasons: he produced the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the whole Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek that served the Western Church as its standard text for more than a thousand years. To do it he mastered the languages, hunted down manuscripts, and labored for decades in his study at Bethlehem — the very picture of the scholar at his desk that medieval and Renaissance artists loved to paint, often with a lion at his feet. From that vast labor of comparing and emending ancient texts come also his patronage of archaeologists and of all who dig through the past. He is fittingly a patron of students and of Scripture study itself.
Saint Jerome was a priest, theologian, and historian, best known for translating the Bible into Latin — the Vulgate — which became the standard text of the Catholic Church for over a millennium. Born around 347, he was renowned for his scholarship and his fiery temperament. He lived as a hermit in the Syrian desert and later settled in Bethlehem.
