By Brad Miner
Then one of the elders said to me: “Do not weep. See: the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
– Revelation 5:5
There is a story (probably a legend that echoes the earlier Roman tale of Androcles and the lion) according to which one day, in his study, St. Jerome (c. 342-420), working diligently on the translation of the Holy Bible into Latin, received a visit from a lion. The animal had a splinter stuck in its paw and begged the saint to remove it, which Jerome did, after which man and beast became inseparable.
As a cat lover, I would love to have a lion as a friend, though not as a pet. I have seen videos of a South African “lion whisperer” who raised some abandoned lion cubs and remained friends with them over the years, so that when he goes out into the veld and calls them, they come running, jump, put their paws on his shoulders, and lick his face.
So the story of Jerome and the lion could be true.
Many artists have depicted the scene, though in earlier centuries, some did so without ever having seen a lion, and those lions look like cats, dogs, or gargoyles. However, there were Asian lions in the desert of Israel when Jerome lived there, though by the time he was working on the Vulgate in Bethlehem, lions must already have been a truly rare sight.
But it could have happened. Because God was certainly at work in Jerome’s life, and perhaps Jerome liked cats and, as a reward for his holiness, the Lord decided to give him the greatest of them all.
In many Renaissance and later paintings, Jerome appears in cardinal’s robes, but that is an anachronism. The cardinalate did not become an office of the Church until nearly three centuries after Jerome went to heaven. In some portraits of Jerome, there are memento mori images, like the skull in Caravaggio’s St. Jerome Writing (above).
In one of the oldest paintings depicting him, by Pinturicchio, the saint appears half-naked, contemplating a crucifix he has fixed to the branch of a small tree. On a rock to the left of Jerome there is another book that I like to think is his notebook. To his right is a beautifully bound codex of the Hebrew Scriptures, perhaps. Or, more probably, it is a “first edition” of the Vulgate. In any case, it is partially covered by his red cardinal’s hat.
And next to the hat is the lion, which looks at us warily. Or perhaps it is an expression of concern, because Jerome holds a stone in one hand, which he has been using to mortify his flesh. (So says the tradition.) His other hand points to the open notebook while he fixes his gaze on the radiant image of Christ, fides quaerens intellectum. The lion waits for us to pass in silence and allow the saint to continue with his holy work.
My favorite painting of the saint and the great feline is St. Jerome in His Study, by Niccolò Antonio Colantonio. Its composition is rich in details. Here we see Jerome
concentrated on removing a thorn from the paw of a melancholy and docile lion, using something like a scalpel. The wooden shelves behind him are crammed with a formidable still life of books, letters, scrolls, hourglasses, scissors, sealing wax, knotted cloths, ribbons, and writing instruments, carefully described and bathed in light. His cardinal’s hat is prominently displayed on a table, and below, in the shadows, mice gnaw at the papers that have fallen to the floor.
This suggests that, whether he had a lion or not, Jerome would certainly have benefited from having a housekeeper. But at least Colantonio grants him a very regal lion.
All this is fanciful. But Jerome is truly among the greatest scholar-evangelists of Catholicism (and of the world). Eusebius Sophronius Jerome—that was his name—was confidential secretary to Damasus I, Pope from 366 to 384, and it was Damasus who commissioned him to undertake a thorough revision of the Bible, both Testaments.
Jerome was the right man for the task. A convert to Christianity, he had previously led a life of indulgence not very different from that of the young St. Augustine. (Both men, contemporaries, would become what we would today call frenemies. In the end, however, they reconciled doctrinally and were united.) And, like Augustine, Jerome was very well educated in Latin and Greek. But, needing Hebrew and Aramaic as well, he moved to Israel and hired tutors for both languages. He had spent time in Syria before arriving in Bethlehem, and some of his Jewish teachers were Christian converts and others were not.
The process was exhausting and costly, and he worked for decades: fifteen years just on the Hebrew Scriptures! He continued revising until the end of his life, and he was never shy about lamenting (to Augustine, among others) the burdens that work imposed on his back and his eyes.
Finally, the British Catholic novelist Rumer Godden, whose novels Black Narcissus and In This House of Brede are notable stories about women in cloistered life, wrote in 1961 a charming children’s book (in verse) (illustrated by Jean Primrose), St. Jerome and the Lion. Sadly, the book is currently out of print. The inside of the dust jacket of my first edition copy retains the original price: $2.50. I bought it on eBay for $50. (I indulge myself thinking that perhaps I spoil my grandchildren.) Maybe the publisher will reprint it. In any case, the book ends like this:
Jerome is with the saints, and I am sure that,
by God’s will,
though the hat and the Bible were left behind,
the lion is still with him.
A children’s book about Jerome may seem frivolous, but, according to my reading of the lives of the saints (and thinking of the words of Our Lord in Matthew 18:3 about becoming like children), holiness is usually accompanied by a childlike innocence. And all cats go to heaven.
About the author
Brad Miner, husband and father, is senior editor of The Catholic Thing and senior fellow of the Faith & Reason Institute. He was literary editor of National Review and developed a long career in the publishing industry. His most recent book is Sons of St. Patrick, written with George J. Marlin. His successful The Compleat Gentleman is available in a third revised edition and also as an audiobook on Audible (read by Bob Souer). Mr. Miner has been a member of the board of Aid to the Church In Need USA and also of the Selective Service board in Westchester County, New York.