Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus was born at Stridon around 347 AD.
He was of Illyrian ancestry, although whether he was able to speak the Illyrian languages is a subject of controversy.
He was not baptized until about 360–366 in Rome, where he had gone with his friend Bonosus of Sardica to pursue rhetorical and philosophical studies. (
This Bosonus may or may not have been the same Bonosus whom Jerome identifies as his friend who went to live as a hermit on an island in the Adriatic.)
Jerome studied under the grammarian Aelius Donatus.
There he learned Latin and at least some Greek, though he probably did not yet acquire the familiarity with Greek literature that he later claimed to have acquired as a schoolboy.

As a student, Jerome engaged in the superficial escapades and sexual experimentation of students in Rome; he indulged himself quite casually but he suffered terrible bouts of guilt afterwards.
To appease his conscience, on Sundays he visited the sepulchres of the martyrs and the Apostles in the catacombs.
This experience reminded him of the terrors of hell:
Often I would find myself entering those crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything was so dark that almost it seemed as though the Psalmist's words were fulfilled, Let them go down quick into Hell.
Here and there the light, not entering in through windows, but filtering down from above through shafts, relieved the horror of the darkness.
But again, as soon as you found yourself cautiously moving forward, the black night closed around and there came to my mind the line of Virgil, "Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent".

His quote from Virgil reads: "On all sides round horror spread wide; the very silence breathed a terror on my soul"—to describe the horror of hell.
He initially used classical authors to describe Christian concepts such as hell that indicated both his classical education and his deep shame of their associated practices, such as the pederasty then found in Rome.
Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus was born at Stridon around 347 AD. He was of Illyrian ancestry, although whether he was able to speak the Illyrian languages is a subject of controversy. He was not baptized until about 360–366 in Rome, where he had gone with his friend Bonosus of Sardica to pursue rhetorical and philosophical studies. (This Bosonus may or may not have been the same Bonosus whom Jerome identifies as his friend who went to live as a hermit on an island in the Adriatic.) Jerome studied under the grammarian Aelius Donatus. There he learned Latin and at least some Greek, though he probably did not yet acquire the familiarity with Greek literature that he later claimed to have acquired as a schoolboy.
As a student, Jerome engaged in the superficial escapades and sexual experimentation of students in Rome; he indulged himself quite casually but he suffered terrible bouts of guilt afterwards. To appease his conscience, on Sundays he visited the sepulchres of the martyrs and the Apostles in the catacombs. This experience reminded him of the terrors of hell:
Often I would find myself entering those crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything was so dark that almost it seemed as though the Psalmist's words were fulfilled, Let them go down quick into Hell. Here and there the light, not entering in through windows, but filtering down from above through shafts, relieved the horror of the darkness. But again, as soon as you found yourself cautiously moving forward, the black night closed around and there came to my mind the line of Virgil, "Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent".
His quote from Virgil reads: "On all sides round horror spread wide; the very silence breathed a terror on my soul"—to describe the horror of hell. He initially used classical authors to describe Christian concepts such as hell that indicated both his classical education and his deep shame of their associated practices, such as the pederasty then found in Rome.
Jerome