HAMILTON SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION 79 



in a small Dalmation city, now so utterly decayed that even 

 its site is forgotten. In childhood, he tells us that he learned 

 enough Latin to read his Horace, and in youth went to Rome, 

 studying there under the best teachers. Among his other 

 Roman masters, he mentions Donatus, the famous orator, 

 whose Latin grammer was the favorite text- book for more 

 than a thousand years. That clever little book was one of 

 the few "block books" preserved from times before the in- 

 vention of modern printing. Chaucer writes of it as well 

 known in his day ; and later than his time the old proverb 

 lived on, that "Satan is still over his Donatus" — that is : 

 "The evil one never tires in learning the rudimenis of his 

 craft." In early life, Jerome, like Saint Augustine, nar- 

 rowly escaped ruin from evil allurements ; but better in- 

 fluences prevailed, and he turned a deaf ear to the voice of the 

 sirens. Travel and intercourse with learned fathers of the 

 church developed his talents, and he became Latin secretary 

 to Damasus, the thirty-sixth of the Roman pontiffs. In 

 Jerome's preface to the Vulgate of St. Matthew's gospel-, he 

 says it was at the express wish of Damasus that he under- 

 took to translate anew the scriptures into Latin. 



In early manhood Jerome dedicated himself to the work 

 of translating and elucidating the Bible, a sacred vocation, 

 then, as now, bearing the strange-sounding name Hermen- 

 eutics, from the word Hermeneut, the name given to one 

 who interpreted the service of the early church to worship- 

 pers who used another language. And devoutly and with 

 lifelong indtislry did he keep his vow. Before the death of 

 Pope Damasus, in 384, Jerome had revised the old Latin 

 versions of the New Testament in common use, because from 

 errors of copyists and other variations their differences called 

 for amendment. He also translated some books of the Old 

 Testament, but only part of his work of that period has been 

 preserved. The grand aspiration of Jerome, the desire of his 

 life, was to make a definitive traslation of the scriptures. To 

 carry out that purpose he withdrew for twelve years to a 

 monastery at Bethlehem, where with the aid of three learned 



