Did you know that the first translation of The Holy Bible from the original language to Latin was done by Croatian?
Maybe not the ‘real’ Croatian, but born on the territory that is today Croatia
Yes. Also known as Jerome of Stridon, born in a small village near Emona (today’s Ljubljana), on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia. St. Jerome (ca. 347-420), one of the four Latin Fathers of the Church (along with Sts. Augustine, Ambrose, and Gregory the Great), is particularly famous for translating the Bible into Latin, known as the Vulgate Bible.
The Holy Bible got it’s first generally accepted translation from the original languages to Latin thanks to a Croatian, St. Jerome. in the 4th century.
Although the translation (named The Vulgate) was written during his lifetime at the beginning of the 5th century, it was accepted in all Christian churches in the 7th century and by that, it became the basis of the Holy Scripture we know today.
St. Jerome was born in the Roman Province of Dalmatia in the village called Stridon/ŠTRIGOVA and since he was only a child he showed great talent in foreign languages, especially Latin. It is known that he had a passionate character that was hard to handle sometimes and he often didn’t function well amongst people which resulted in living as a hermit for one era of his life. Later he climbed the social ladder because of his wide knowledge and became the right hand of Pope Damasus I.
The saint spent four years in the Syrian desert as a hermit, mortifying his flesh and elevating his spirit through study. The subject has given Pinturicchio the opportunity to depict a monumental, rocky landscape, while the lizard and the scorpion call attention to the desolation of the scene. The open book contains a passage from a letter attributed to St. Augustine in which Jerome is compared to St. John the Baptist, another saint who lived in the wilderness.
