Preach Like Jerome
of Bethlehem.

— Why he’s one of the greats

Walk the text phrase by phrase, question each line, find Christ, end in glory.

Monastic Bethlehem at the turn of the fifth century. Jerome was the greatest Bible scholar of the early Latin church, and he spent his last 34 years in Bethlehem beside the Church of the Nativity, translating Scripture and leading a community of monks. His polished books were written to be read. His sermons were not: they are talks given at services to monks, novices and catechumens, taken down in shorthand “by some monk without, perhaps, even the knowledge of the preacher.” His secret: a world-class scholar who preached plain. He opened the text in the first sentence, asked whose voice was speaking (David, Christ or the Church), then walked the verses phrase by phrase, asking a question of each one and answering it in a line people could remember. He slipped in Hebrew and the Greek versions only when they helped, found Christ and the Church inside the images, named the error that threatened his hearers, and ended with “let us” and a doxology. He talked to his monks as a father: frank about their faults, honest about his own.

• 96homilies in Ewald’s two-volume translation
• 34 yearsliving and teaching in Bethlehem
• 394Letter 52, his counsel on preaching

What makes his style unique

Read the full story: How Jerome Preached →