Saint Jerome’s 
Posthumous Life: 
Aspects of His 
Reception in the 
Twentieth Century
Filomena Giannotti*
When Saint Jerome died 1600 years ago, he did not have anyone con-
sidered a biographer ex officio, as Ambrosius did with Paulinus or as 
Augustine did with Possidius.
Nevertheless, a wide variety of different materials was collected 
between the eighth and the thirteenth centuries. These materials, 
partly derived from Saint Jerome’s works and legends,1 converged in 
the Speculum Historiale by Vincentius Bellovacensis2 and the Legenda 
Aurea by Jacobus de Voragine.3 Then the cult of the Saint was further 
developed until the sixteenth century through additional materials.4
* University of Siena - DFCLAM (Dipartimento di Filologia e Critica delle Lettera-
ture Antiche e Moderne); filomenagiannotti@gmail.com.
1 See Vaccari, “Le antiche vite”; Lanzoni, “La leggenda”; Cavallera, Saint Jérôme, 
vol. II, 135 ff.; Morisi Guerra, “La leggenda”; Morisi Guerra, Erasmo, Vita di San 
Girolamo, 14 ff., and Clausi, Ridar voce, 105 ff. Cf. also Larbaud, Sotto la protezi-
one, 19. See also “Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Manuscripta,” UCL, available 
online. 
2 See “Bibliotheca mundi. Vincentii Burgundi […] Speculum quadruplex, Natu-
rale, Doctrinale, Morale, Historiale, in quo totius naturae historia, omnium sci-
entiarum encyclopedia, moralis philosophiae thesaurus, temporum et actionum 
humanarum theatrum […] exhibetur […] Opera et studio theologorum benedic-
tinorum collegii Vedastini in […] Academia duacensi,” Bibliothèque nationale 
de France, available online.
3 See Maggioni, Iacopo da Varazze, Legenda aurea.
4 Besides the corpus of Eusebius Cremonensis’ supposed letters to Pope Damasus 
about Jerome’s death, and Augustine’s letter to Cyrillus Alexandriae with his 
reply (vol. 22 of Patrologia Latina by Migne, 237 ff.: see Lanzoni, “La leggenda,” 
37 ff.), there is also De sancto Hyeronimo by Pietro Calo from Chioggia and the 
doI: https://doi.org/10.4312/clotho.3.2.115-127
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FILOMENA GIANNOTTI116
According to Ferdinand Cavallera, one of Jerome’s key modern 
biographers, the modern approach to Jerome began with Hieronymi 
Stridonensis Vita, written by Erasmus of Rotterdam as a preface to 
his commentary on the letters of the Saint. The Hieronymi Strido-
nensis Vita was first published in 1516 in Basilea and then revised and 
corrected in 1524.5
Erasmus’ biography aimed to do justice to the many legends about 
the Saint once and for all. Through his biography, Erasmus wanted to 
recreate Jerome’s existential adventure based on his account as much 
as possible. Therefore, Erasmus did not mention aspects that were not 
considered to be relevant; for instance, the presence, by Jerome’s side, 
of a domestic lion, grateful to the Saint who healed a thorn wound on 
his paw. In addition, Erasmus aimed to refute many of the hagiographic 
inferences related to the Saint, such as his appointment as a cardinal. 
Erasmus Vita is also a passionate apology for Jerome’s work as a 
response to all the misunderstandings, smears, and allegations he 
had been a victim since the time of his Roman detractors and the 
controversy with Rufinus. Erasmus passion in defending his hero 
can probably be explained by identifying many of his own features 
as a Christian humanist, with the characteristics of Jerome, the most 
learned and humanistic among the Fathers. 
Four centuries later, a similar enthusiasm and an analogous pro-
jection of personal individuality on the Saint’s figure inspired another 
work that inaugurates Jerome’s reception into the twentieth century: 
Sous l’invocation de Saint Jérôme by Valery Larbaud. The work had a 
complex and very long genesis.6 For over fifty years, Larbaud traveled 
tirelessly and applied himself to literary and translation tasks, ranging 
from Whitman and Joyce to Gomez de la Serna and Reyes and from 
Svevo to Bacchelli (to mention the most famous writers). At the same 
time, he had the idea of dedicating several essays to this vital section 
of Jerome’s production, such as that of translation. In this way, various 
drafts of the work under consideration were created, as he claimed, to 
Catalogus sanctorum et gestorum eorum by Pietro de Natalibus (see Clausi, Ridar 
voce, 113–114), and above all Hieronymianus by Giovanni d’Andrea, who fixed the 
iconographic rules about Saint Jerome (see Lanzoni, “La leggenda,” 37; Morisi 
Guerra, “La leggenda,” 8 ff.; Morisi Guerra, Erasmo, Vita di San Girolamo, 16, 
and Clausi, Ridar voce, 114).
5 See Morisi Guerra, Erasmo, Vita di San Girolamo.
6 See Colesanti, “Geronimopoli”; Chevalier, Valery Larbaud, and Mousli, Valery 
Larbaud. Larbaud’s quotes are taken from the French edition of 1997 (Larbaud, 
Sous l’invocation).
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SAINT JEROME’S POSTHUMOUS LIFE 117
placer toutes nos réflexions à propos des traducteurs, et de l’art de 
traduire, et de toutes les questions littéraires, morales, philologiques, 
techniques, qui se rattachent à cet art, Sous l’invocation de Saint 
Jérôme, […] considéré comme le patron (au plein sens du mot) des 
traducteurs : ici-bas leur modèle ; du ciel, leur protecteur.7 
The book about Saint Jerome took on quite a peculiar appearance that 
makes it difficult to classify. Not merely an imaginative essay, it can 
be described as an intellectual biography of Jerome or as a pictorial 
review (with many iconographic references) or as a travel book, or-
ganized as a rêverie. The last aspect seems predominant because of 
its articulation in three different itineraries. 
The first is the physical itinerary that, even if only in his imagi-
nation, winds through the actual places related to the saint’s life and 
worship: Stridon, Bethlehem, and Rome. In Rome, the Saint “est 
resté présent par sa gloire,” between Santa Maria Maggiore (where 
he is buried) and the other churches where his worship is still alive: 
Sant’Onofrio al Gianicolo, San Girolamo Dottore or della Carità, and 
San Girolamo degli Schiavoni.8
The second itinerary is iconographic, ranging from portraits 
by Correggio, Raffaello, and Domenichino. Literary comparisons 
sometimes enrich this short pictorial review. An example is provided 
by the comparison between the painting Disputa del Sacramento by 
Raffaello and the one that Larbaud describes as “la phrase toujours 
citée de Sulpice Sévère sur Jérôme.”9 Since Sulpicius Severus portrayed 
Jerome in his Dialogi 1.8–9, the line Larbaud is probably referring to 
is the passage totus semper in lectione, totus in libris est: non die neque 
nocte requiescit: aut legit aliquid semper aut scribit (1.9.5).
The third and last itinerary presents the ingenious idea about 
Hiéronymopolis, which transforms the essay about Jerome into a 
sort of visit to a large city named after the Saint. The exploration of 
Hiéronymopolis begins from the city center, represented by his work 
as a polemicist, author of handbooks, hagiographer, and letter-writer. 
This is usually neglected in favor of his translation work. The longest 
journey in Hiéronymopolis is transversal, which involves several letters, 
including the famous one to Pammachius about translation (Ep. 57). 
Through this last letter, also known as De optimo genere interpretandi, 
it is possible to enter the area “qu’on peut appeler « des étrangers na-
7 Larbaud, Sous l’invocation, 10.
8 Ibid., 17 (cf. 19–20).
9 Ibid., 36.
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FILOMENA GIANNOTTI118
turalisés » ou « des métèques », le vaste Xénodochium hiéronymien: 
son œuvre de traducteur.”10 Here, Hiéronymopolis becomes visible 
with all its monumental splendor, 
entourée de deux enceintes concentriques : l’une basse, très endom-
magée, presque écroulée : sa révision de l’Itala, une des premières 
versions latines de la Bible ; l’autre, au contraire, puissante, épaisse, 
élevée, d’un aspect imposant : la Vulgate. Deux hautes tours dominent 
ces murailles: le Psautier gallican et le Psautier romain.11 
Larbaud adds to this another building metaphor: the Vulgata can be 
contemplated as “le large viaduc qui relie Jérusalem à Rome.” Even if 
the one who built this bridge, the greatest and most influential trans-
lation work ever written, was never elected Pope, he can be rightfully 
defined as an authentic Pontifex.12
Some decades after Larbaud’s essay, Jerome finds himself as a 
protagonist of a novel, published by Jean Marcel in 1990: Jérôme 
ou De la traduction. The author’s full name is Jean-Marcel Paquette 
(1941–2019). He was a Canadian writer and a Medieval history teacher 
and was awarded several prizes.13 The novel about Jerome is part of 
a Late Antiquity triptych, also including the characters Hypatia and 
Sidonius Apollinaris.14 Here Marcel is perfectly at ease among histo-
rical sources by rewriting and recreating them with fantasy and from 
original points of view.
An excellent example of this often brilliant and ironic style is the 
unique narrator, a character who, according to the legend, lived by 
Jerome’s side for a long time. One can easily recognize the figure in 
all the paintings portraying the Saint – namely, his lion. The lion tells 
the story backward, describing the life he had by his owner’s side 
until Jerome’s death when he buried him (the novel begins at this 
point). The lion decides to set down his story in writing and begins to 
10 Ibid., 44.
11 Ibid., 47. Somewhat curiously, Larbaud does not consider Jerome’s third Psalter 
Iuxta Hebraeos here.
12 Ibid., 50.
13 See the webpage on Jean Marcel (jeanmarcel.info): “Fractions 2  lui a valu le prix 
Victor-Barbeau (2000), son roman Hypatie ou la fin des dieux, le prix Molson de 
l’Académie des lettres du Québec (1989), et Le joual de Troie, le prix France-Qué-
bec (1973).”
14 Tryptique des Temps Perdus (Marcel, Hypatie; Marcel, Jêrome; Marcel, Sidoine). 
See Giannotti, Nei pensieri, 127–131, in particular note 45, and Giannotti, “Sido-
nius Reception,” § 2.1. Quotes from Marcel, Jêrome.
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SAINT JEROME’S POSTHUMOUS LIFE 119
study the Saint’s papers. So he starts studying the Greek, Latin, and 
Hebrew alphabets, and he learns to write (he is left-handed due to the 
famous thorn in his paw). Although he has become multilingual, he 
wants to write in that language “qu’à la longue je me suis composée 
de toutes les autres et que j’appelle le léonais.”15 He is leaving to pos-
terity the memories of his unusual adventure and sorting out, at the 
same time, the owner’s confusing life events. The narrator realizes 
that he is a fairytale character who found himself by the Saint’s side 
due to hagiographic circumstances. He also recalls serving another 
anchorite, Gerasimos, as Iohannes Moschos writes in The Spiritual 
Meadow.16 The 107th chapter presents the story of a lion rescued by 
Saint Gerasimos, an anchorite living between Jerusalem and the de-
sert of the Dead Sea, who extracts the thorn from his paw. After his 
recovery, the lion remains at the service of the hermits. Two centu-
ries after Moschos’ death, between the eighth and the ninth century, 
an inexperienced compiler, while working on the Latin translation, 
confuses the names of Gerasimos and Jerome in the Latin version of 
The Spiritual Meadow.17 Moreover, in approximately 1341, a thousand 
years after the birth of Jerome, a devotee of the Saint, and professor of 
Law at the University of Bologna, Giovanni d’Andrea, wrote The Life of 
Saint Jerome and, to spread the worship of the Saint and his image, he 
called the most famous painters from Bologna. After fixing the icono-
graphic criteria, he commissioned two paintings: Jerome, penitent in 
the desert, and Jerome, the translator in his cave. From that point on, 
the lion always appears in paintings. He will start traveling through 
Europe, meeting famous artists such as Leonardo (who painted him 
at least three times), visiting some of the most famous museums in 
Vienna, Washington, and worldwide. However, all this throws him 
into a profound identity crisis. 
15 Marcel, Jêrome, 35. 
16  The Greek version of The Spiritual Meadow can be read, even in a philologically 
approximate form, in vol. 87.3 of Migne’s Patrologia Graeca (2851–3112); see also 
Maisano, Giovanni Mosco, Il prato.
17 The first work confusing the two names is the so-called life Plerosque nimirum 
(n. 3871 of the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina mentioned above and marked 
with I in Vaccari “Le antiche vite,” which dates it to the end of the ninth cen-
tury). For its derivation from the legend of Gerasimo (who died about 475 AD), 
see Vaccari, “Le antiche vite,” 12–14, and Lanzoni, “La leggenda,” 33 ff. For the 
Speculum Historiale, see p. 623 of the edition already mentioned above in note 
2. For Iacopo da Varazze, see De sancto Hieronymo in Maggioni, Iacopo da 
Varazze, Legenda aurea, 142, 54 ff. (pp. 1005 ff.), with further bibliographical 
references.
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FILOMENA GIANNOTTI120
As the subtitle suggests – Jérôme ou De la traduction – translation 
is one of the main themes in the novel. This is a theme that Marcel 
could not avoid since this aspect represents both a turning point for 
the character and the activity that summarizes his importance. Of 
course, Marcel could not help measuring himself with the letter to 
Pammachius, usually entitled De optimo genere interpretandi, and 
writes a few pages about that. According to Marcel’s intentional 
process of exaggeration, the lion claims that the famous method 
non verbum e verbo sed sensum exprimere de sensu would convince 
Jerome to believe that translating would eventually cause him to 
substitute the author with himself. Although he did not expect to 
replace God himself, he did so with those through whom God had 
spoken. This aspect of Jerome’s personality is not limited to evalu-
ating methodical issues, though it is relevant and vital. According 
to Marcel, Jerome’s operation appears to be like the transfer of one 
entire world to another, in other words, like the transfer of the 
Ancient Orient, rock by rock, to the young Rome of Christianity. 
So this ‘translation’ can be considered a broader and more general 
translation from the old to the new.
On the other hand, after reflection, everything in our lives and 
everything surrounding us is translation. As Marcel writes in one 
of his digressions, even the starry sky is an “immense traduction 
d’un rêve.”18 Nevertheless, in his titanic effort and daily struggle 
with the thousands of possible word interpretations, Jerome had to 
develop – according to his lion – not the certainties he already had 
but a progressive awareness of the relativity of human things. There 
is no such thing as a perfect translation, but only translations that 
are less imperfect than others. Even one of the most remarkable 
translations, such as Jerome’s scriptures, does not escape the siege of 
the vanitas vanitatum. It ends up being precarious and in line with 
the general decline that marked the period in which Jerome carried 
out his activities. 
If he had been living a few years after 1990, Marcel’s lion could 
have also boasted of a celluloid life, telling us about the subject of the 
third part of this paper: after an essay and a novel, there is a movie: 
São Jerônimo. It was produced in 1999 and presented at the 2002 
Turin Film Festival and then published in Italy in VHS by San Paolo 
Edizioni in 2004.
The direction, the subject, and the screenplay are all signed by 
the Brazilian Júlio Bressane, who has dedicated several films to the 
18 Marcel, Jêrome, 158.
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SAINT JEROME’S POSTHUMOUS LIFE 121
culture of his own country and whose poetic cinematography is based 
on three fundamental principles:19
1. intersemiotic translation, or transposition from one language to 
another, from the text to the movie;
2. multidisciplinarity, or the overlapping of the arts, with literature 
in a prominent position;
3. what Bressane calls “cinemancia,” or the magical art of under-
standing and capturing light and the illusion of movement. In other 
words, according to Bressane, “la traduzione nel cinema si fa con 
luce-movimento-angolazione-montaggio.”20
Among his films, Cleopatra, an iconography of the ancient 
queen, deserves mention since all of the two hundred sequences 
refer to as many paintings.
In this perception of cinema, the concept of “translation” among 
various arts naturally meets the figure of Jerome, the translator par 
excellence. So, it is a small step from the “primo dei nostri grandi 
umanisti ad affrontare la questione della traduzione” to the cinema, 
“dove tutto si traduce.”21 
As for the plot, which is quite plain, it should be noticed that in 
the film, the events of Jerome’s life are radically simplified, even 
though Bressane himself claimed that he spent five years studying 
Jerome’s works and the iconography related to the  Saint.22 There-
fore, it is somewhat natural that the script occasionally resorts to 
Jerome’s works. 
An excellent example is one of the first scenes in which Jerome 
beats himself with a stone – in line with a common theme of his 
iconography (for instance, in San Girolamo penitente by Lorenzo 
Lotto painted in 1520) – and a voiceover reads several passages from 
the famous Ep. 22, about the vision or dream, with the accusation: 
Ciceronianus es, non christianus.
The simplification previously mentioned depends on the fact 
that the entire biography of the Saint has been reconstructed along 
two main lines. 
The first one is to adapt Jerome’s story to the cinema and to an 
uninterrupted sequence of highly detailed images that gives the vi-
19 For Bressane, see Fina and Turigliatto, Júlio Bressane. See also Bressane, Disli-
mite.
20 On “cinemancia,” see Bressane, Cinemancia; cf. Fina and Turigliatto, Júlio Bres-
sane, 47–49.
21 Fina and Turigliatto, Júlio Bressane, 25.
22 Ibid., 235–323.
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FILOMENA GIANNOTTI122
ewer the impression of passing through a gallery with the paintings 
of the Saint’s life (rather than through his biography). 
The second one is to place symbols before actual events. So the 
movie proceeds through juxtaposed scenes and iconic symbols, 
some of which are intensely evocative. This is the case of the land-
scapes where most of the movie (shot in the Brazilian Sertão) is 
set, with blue skies, enormous boulders, and deserts inhabited 
only by snakes, scorpions, and spiders. This is a way to make 
mortification and ascesis tangible since the enormous boulder 
mentioned above seems almost to be presented as a symbol of 
God. At the same time, a voiceover blames Jerome for his proud 
attitude towards other hermits. From the beginning, the sound-
track is dominated by the wind; however, the scarce vegetation 
does not move. What matters is to evoke the idea of discomfort 
and inner torment. Other iconic symbols are those traditionally 
related to Jerome: the skull, the symbol of human transience and 
of the invitation to a constant meditatio mortis, which is evoked 
both by the aforementioned boulder and by some round ponds 
excavated in the desert rock by erosive agents, is also sometimes 
put on the Saint’s papers.
The lion appears intermittently in the desert and even in Rome 
and in Marcella’s villa, without disturbing those present. He might 
be considered a symbol of Jerome’s inner condition, perhaps a 
connection to the desert. An idea is reinforced by the fact that an 
identical shot of Jerome follows a close-up shot of the lion’s profile 
in the movie. Even the books need to be interpreted from a symbolic 
point of view: Jerome often proceeds across the desert carrying 
enormous manuscripts and giving the evocative impression that 
he is bearing a cross.23
To conclude, once again, one should mention Larbaud and one 
of his unusual ideas: the translator’s prayer. This prayer is to be 
said to Saint Jerome before opening the dictionary and starting any 
new translation (mentally kneeling in front of his grave in Santa 
Maria Maggiore in Rome). This is, actually, a meagre hundredth 
of Jerome’s quotations:24
23 For the image of Jerome under the weight of the books, it was Edoardo Bruno 
who noted how the Saint bears them “come una croce”; Fina and Turigliatto, 
Júlio Bressane, 224.
24 For this and the following quote, see Larbaud, Sous l’invocation, 51. Of course, 
the reference to 30 September alludes to the date Saint Jerome is celebrated in 
the liturgical calendar (to remember his birth in Heaven on 30 September 420).
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SAINT JEROME’S POSTHUMOUS LIFE 123
Le début sera le même que celui de la prière que lui adresse l’Église 
entière le 30 septembre, et qui se trouve au Commun des Docteurs: 
O Doctor Optime… etc., et auquel nous ajouterons d’abord les quatre 
premiers mots de la phrase finale de la Lettre CXL : Aggrediar opus 
difficillimum… ; puis la fin de sa Préface au Pentateuque : Nunc te 
precor… ut me… orationibus tuis juves, quo possim eodem spiritu quo 
scripti sunt libri in Latinum transferre sermonem. Bien entendu nous 
dirons, au lieu de « Latinum » : Gallicum (ou tout autre adjectif tiré 
du nom de la nation dans l’idiome de laquelle nous traduisons). Et, 
mis en français, l’ensemble donnera ceci: Docteur excellent, lumière 
de la sainte Église, bienheureux Jérôme, je vais entreprendre une tâche 
pleine de difficultés, et dès à présent, je vou supplie de m’aider par vos 
prières, afin que je puisse traduire en français cet ouvrage avec l’esprit 
même dans lequel il a été composé. Ainsi, à partir de l’instant où il 
est nommé jusqu’au point final, il n’y a pas un mot qui ne soit de 
lui-même. Nous le citons en lui parlant. Et quel auteur, si rassasié de 
louanges et de gloire qu’il soit, pourrait, même au paradis, accueillir 
avec indifférence un pareil compliment?
The Saint’s reply does not take long to arrive: 
Il comprend aussitôt que ce sont des clients exceptionnels qui s’adres-
sent à lui, des suppliants, qui ont acquis des droits tout particuliers 
à sa bienveillance et à sa protection. Du haut des cieux, entouré de 
sa cour d’anges philologues, grammairiens et lexicographes, plus 
beaux que ceux du Corrège, et qui travaillent, sous sa direction, au 
Dictionnaire sempiternel de toutes le langues qu’ont parlées, parlent 
et parleront les enfants d’Adam, il nous écoute avec faveur ; il nous 
fait signe qu’il consent ; il sourit : Et pour les citations, merci. – Salut 
dès cette vie, et salut aux siècles des siècles, ô notre ami des cieux !
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FILOMENA GIANNOTTI124
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bressane, Júlio. Alguns. Rio de Janeiro: Imago Editora, 1996.
——— . Cinemancia. Rio de Janeiro: Imago Editora, 2000.
——— . Dislimite: Scritti. Piacenza: CaratteriMobili, 2014. 
Cavallera, Ferdinand. Saint Jérôme: Sa vie et son oeuvre; Première 
Partie, Tome I–II. Louvain: Bureau du Spicilegium sacrum 
Lovaniense and Champion, 1922.
Chevalier, Anne, ed. Valery Larbaud. Paris: Éditions de l’Herne, 
1992.
Clausi, Benedetto. Ridar voce all’antico padre: L’edizione erasmiana 
delle lettere di Girolamo. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino editore, 
2000.
Colesanti, Massimo. “Geronimopoli.” In Sotto la protezione di San 
Girolamo, edited by Valery Larbaud, 77–86. Palermo: Sellerio, 
1989.
Fina, Simona, and Roberto Turigliatto, eds. Júlio Bressane. Torino: 
Film Festival Editore, 2002. 
Giannotti, Filomena. Nei pensieri degli uomini: Momenti della for-
tuna di Ambrogio, Girolamo, Agostino. Bologna: Pàtron, 2009.
——— . “Sidonius Reception: Late Nineteenth to Twenty-First Cen-
turies.” In Edinburgh Companion to Sidonius Apollinaris, edited 
by Gavin Kelly and Joop A. van Waarden, 705–729. Edinburgh: 
Edinburgh University Press, 2020. 
Lanzoni, Francesco. “La leggenda di San Girolamo.” In Miscellanea 
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morte di san Girolamo, con introduzione di Vincenzo Vannu-
telli, edited by Vicenzo Vannutelli, 19–42. Rome: Tipografia 
Poliglotta Vaticana, 1920.
Larbaud, Valery. Sotto la protezione di San Girolamo. Translated 
by Anna Zanetello. Palermo: Sellerio, 1989. First edition Paris: 
Gallimard, 1946.
——— . Sous l’invocation de Saint Jérôme: Édition augmentée de 
textes annexes. Paris: Gallimard, 1997. First edition Paris: Galli-
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——— . Jêrome ou De la traduction. Montréal: Leméac Éditeur, 
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——— . Sidoine ou La dernière fête. Montréal: Leméac Éditeur, 1993.
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——— , ed. Erasmo da Rotterdam, Vita di San Girolamo: Edizione 
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Poliglotta Vaticana, 1920.
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FILOMENA GIANNOTTI126
ABSTRACT 
The paper examines three examples of Saint Jerome’s contemporary 
reception. First, in Sous l’invocation de Saint Jérôme, the essay by the 
French writer and translator Valery Larbaud (1946), Jerome’s life is 
imagined as the large city of Hiéronymopolis where three itineraries 
are possible: one that is imaginary to Stridon, Rome, and Bethlehem; 
one that is iconographical through the paintings of Raffaello, Correggio, 
and Domenichino, and one that is literary through Jerome’s works, 
divided into many “city districts,” where an impressive bridge, the 
Vulgata, connects Jerusalem to Rome. – In the eccentric novel Jérôme 
ou de la traduction by the French-Canadian writer Jean Marcel (1990), 
Hieronymus’s famous lion narrates the main episodes of the Saint’s life, 
especially regarding his translations. This is an existential metaphor for 
the passage from the ancient eastern world to early Christian Rome. – 
The poetic movie by the Brasilian director Júlio Bressane, São Jerônimo 
(1999), is not a biographical reconstruction of Jerome’s life, but rather 
a fresco, which consists of some moments of his life and some iconic 
symbols (the skull, the lion, the desert). 
KEYWoRdS: Jerome’s reception, Valery Larbaud, Jean Marcel, Júlio 
Bressane, translation
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SAINT JEROME’S POSTHUMOUS LIFE 127
POSMRTNO ŽIVLJENJE SVETEGA HIERONIMA:  
VIDIKI NJEGOVE RECEPCIJE V DVAJSETEM STOLETJU
IZVLEČEK
Članek obravnava tri primere sodobne recepcije svetega Hieronima. 
Prvič, v Sous l’invocation de Saint Jérôme, eseju francoskega pisate-
lja in prevajalca Valeryja Larbauda (1946), je Hieronimovo življenje 
predstavljeno kot veliko mesto Hiéronymopolis, kjer so možne tri poti. 
Ena je namišljena, v Stridon, Rim in Betlehem; druga je ikonografska, 
skozi slike Rafaela, Correggia in Domenichina; zadnja je literarna, skozi 
Hieronimova dela, razdeljena na številne »mestne četrti«, kjer mogo-
čen most, Vulgata, povezuje Jeruzalem z Rimom. – V ekscentričnem 
romanu Jérôme ou de la traduction francosko-kanadskega pisatelja 
Jeana Marcela (1990) Hieronimov slavni lev pripoveduje o osrednjih 
epizodah iz svetnikovega življenja, zlasti o njegovih prevodih. To je 
eksistencialna metafora za prehod iz sveta starodavnega Vzhoda v 
zgodnjekrščanski Rim. – Poetični film brazilskega režiserja Júlia Bres-
sanea São Jerônimo (1999) ni biografska rekonstrukcija Hieronimovega 
življenja, temveč freska, sestavljena iz trenutkov njegovega življenja in 
osrednjih simbolov (lobanja, lev, puščava).
KLJUČNE BESEdE: Hieronimova recepcija, Valery Larbaud, Jean 
Marcel, Júlio Bressane, prevajanje
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