Victoriano PASTOR JULIÁN

Original title: Erasmo, biógrafo de san Jerónimo: Hieronymi Stridonensis Vita (1516)

Published in Mirabilia Journal 31 (2020/2)  

Keywords: Biography, Erasmus, Humanism, Saint Jerome, Theology.

The life of Jerome of Stridon was written by Erasmus as an introduction to the edition of his Opera Omnia (1516). He developed it mainly from Jerome’s own correspondence, the first four volumes consisting of its edition. Erasmus read and imitated Jerome’s work, due to his piety and knowledge since his youth. This is the reason why the Vita Hieronymi will develop around two axes: Jerome according to Jerome and Jerome according to Erasmus. Thus, he conceives life as a forensic speech in which he defends Jerome’s cause and, at the same time, that of Humanism and of the vera theologia, of which he will be a defender and advocate. Thereby, Jerome’s biography turns, so to speak, into an apologia pro vita sua for Erasmus. In this work, we have translated –for the first time in Spanish language– more than a third of its 1565 lines, keeping the Latin text at the bottom of the page. At the same time, we have studied both Jerome’s and Erasmus’ context, focusing especially on the almost total complicity of both theologians and humanists.