Jean-Léon Gérôme: Saint Jerome (1874)

(Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany)

St. Jerome (A.D. 347-420) is a saint of the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Church and the Church of England. He is considered as one of the four Latin doctors of the Church (together with Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose, and Pope Gregory I). The main work of St. Jerome is the translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate) which became the officially Latin version of the Bible of the Catholic Church. St. Jerome lived a an ascetic and is usually pictured with a lion. According to a story Jerome tamed a lion by removing a thorn from its paw and healing it. Saint Jerome is the patron of archeologists, archivists, Bible scholars, librarians, libraries, school children, students and translators. This painting is from 1874.