Jerome

=== Commentaries (405–420) ===
[[File:Antonello da Messina - St Jerome in his study - National Gallery London.jpg|thumb|St Jerome in His Study by [[Antonello da Messina]] ]]

For the next 15 years, until he died, Jerome produced a number of commentaries on Scripture, often explaining his translation choices in using the original Hebrew rather than suspect translations. His [[patristics|patristic]] commentaries align closely with Jewish tradition, and he indulges in [[allegorical]] and [[mystical]] subtleties after the manner of [[Philo]] and the [[Alexandrian school]]. Unlike his contemporaries, he emphasizes the difference between the Hebrew Bible "Apocrypha" and the ''Hebraica veritas'' of the [[protocanonical books]]. In his [[Vulgate#Prologues|Vulgate's prologues]], he describes some portions of books in the Septuagint that were not found in the Hebrew as being non-[[biblical canon|canonical]] (he called them ''[[biblical apocrypha|apocrypha]]'');<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bible/prologi.shtml |title=The Bible |access-date=14 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160113204339/http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bible/prologi.shtml |archive-date=13 January 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref> for [[Book of Baruch|Baruch]], he mentions by name in his ''Prologue to Jeremiah'' and notes that it is neither read nor held among the Hebrews, but does not explicitly call it apocryphal or "not in the canon".<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/?p=233 |title=Jerome's Prologue to Jeremiah |first=Kevin P. |last=Edgecomb |access-date=14 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131231002043/http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/?p=233 |archive-date=31 December 2013 |url-status=live }}</ref> His ''[[Prologus Galeatus|Preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings]]''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vii.iii.iv.html |title=Jerome's Preface to Samuel and Kings |access-date=14 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151202094009/http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.vii.iii.iv.html |archive-date=2 December 2015 |url-status=live }}</ref> (commonly called the ''Helmeted Preface'') includes the following statement:
<blockquote>This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a "helmeted" introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be assured that what is not found in our list must be placed amongst the Apocryphal writings. [[Book of Wisdom|Wisdom]], therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of [[Ben Sira|Jesus, the Son of Sirach]], and [[Book of Judith|Judith]], and [[Book of Tobit|Tobias]], and the [[The Shepherd of Hermas|Shepherd]] are not in the canon. The [[1 Maccabees|first book of Maccabees]] I have found to be Hebrew, [[2 Maccabees|the second]] is Greek, as can be proved from the very style.</blockquote>

[[File:Francisco de Zurbarán 023.jpg|thumb|''Jerome in the desert, tormented by his memories of the dancing girls'', by [[Francisco de Zurbarán]], 1639, [[Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe]]]]