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Why did Pope Damasus I commission St. Jerome to revise the Latin Bible?
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St. Jerome
Saint Jerome, oil on canvas by JosĆ© de Ribera (Jusepe de Ribera, Lo Spagnoletto), c. 1638ā40; in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
In 382, Pope Damasus I commissioned St. Jerome to revise the Latin Bible because the various translations then in use were inconsistent and lacked a unified, acceptable standard.12
At the time, Jerome was recognized as the leading biblical scholar of his day. Damasus, who had appointed Jerome as his secretary and close adviser, sought to produce a reliable version of the scriptures for the church. This project eventually resulted in the Vulgate, which became the authoritative "common version" throughout Western Christendom.231