Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Quotes on the Birthplace of St. Jerome

Here we have numerous observations of modern authors that St. Jerome was born in Istria and not in Dalmatia as is often mistakenly believed, taken from English and other non-Italian sources:
“His birthplace, Stridon, has at last been definitely located in the region of Aquileia. Hence Jerome was an Italian, not a Dalmatian or a Slav.”
The Commonweal, Volume 18, 1933
“As for Jerome's origin, much ink together with a not inconsiderable amount of irascibility has been expended in contentions that would nationalize him as an Istrian, Slav, Bohemian, and even as a Spaniard; whereas, quite simply, he was an Italian, born, as he himself tells us, “in the town of Stridon, which has since been destroyed by the Goths, but which was located on the confinium of Dalmatia and Pannonia.” ... Jerome's Stridon, then, was an outlying part of the province of Venetia-Histria, formerly the tenth region of Italy, wedged in between Dalmatia and Pannonia, close by the towns of Hemona and Aquileia.”
The Problem of St. Jerome (The American Ecclesiastical Review, Volume 117), 1947
“It may be taken as certain that Jerome was an Italian, coming from that wedge of Italy which seems on the old maps to be driven between Dalmatia and Pannonia.”
—Maisie Ward, Saint Jerome, 1950
“More recently opinion generally has rallied round F. Cavallera's thesis that Stridon should be located somewhere between and a little to the south of Aquileia, the huge city (as it then was) at the head of the Adriatic, and Emona (Ljubiljana), the fortress town lying at the foot of the Julian and the Karavanke Alps to the west and north respectively. Today the area in question lies in north-western Yugoslavia, but in the fourth century it was Italian, an outlying part of the province of Venetia-Istria.”
—John Norman Davidson Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies, 1975
“St. Jerome was born in 347 at Stridon, a town near Aquileia in the extreme northeast of Italy in the border area near the outlying Roman provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia.”
—Jane M. Hatch, The American Book of Days, 1978
“Jerome was an Italian, born in 345 at Stridon, a town in the northeast of Italy above the boot near the Adriatic Sea.”
—Mary Reed Newland, The Saint Book, 1979
“He was born in Stridon, Italy.”
—Don S. Armentrout, An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church, 2000
“Jerome was born at Stridon, near Aquileia, now part of the Veneto, but then regarded as part of Dalmatia.”
—R. W. Lightbown, Carlo Crivelli, 2004
“Born at Stridon in Dalmatia, then eastern Italy...”
—Barbara Sher Tinsley, Reconstructing Western Civilization, 2006
“Jerome was probably born in 347. He names his hometown as Stridon, a village in the western Balkans under northern Italian influence. It was near Emona, between the Roman provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia.”
Commentary on Matthew (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 117), 2008
“Jerome describes it as oppido Stridonis, quod a Gothis eversum Dalmatiae quondam Pannoniaeque confinium fuit, “the town of Stridon, now destroyed by the Goths, which once stood on the boundaries of Dalmatia and Pannonia,” that is, in the western Balkans, probably to the north and thus within the sphere of North Italian influence.”
—Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship, 2008
“Jerome was born in the north Italian town of Stridon about 347, and was converted and baptized during his student days in Rome.”
Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints, Church Publishing, 2010
“Jerome was born around 340 AD at Stridon, a town in northeast Italy at the head of the Adriatic Ocean.”
—Tom Streeter, The Church and Western Culture, 2012
“Jerome was born to a Christian family in Stridon, a northwestern region of what was then Italy and later northwestern Yugoslavia.”
—Marc Hirshman, A Rivalry of Genius, 2012
“Jerome was born Eusebius Hieronymus of a Christian family in Stridon, Italy.”
—Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok, Who's Who in Christianity, 2013