Nowadays we can flip through dozens of Bible versions on our smartphones, but there was once a world where a complete copy of the Scriptures was practically impossible to obtain. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate and the Slavonic translation by Cyril and Methodius were a godsend during those dark ages.

<p>Nowadays we can flip through dozens of Bible versions on our smartphones, but there was once a world where a complete copy of the Scriptures was practically impossible to obtain. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate and the Slavonic translation by Cyril and Methodius were a godsend during those dark ages.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC Southeast

Great in God's Sight Season 1

Rhonda Grakov

John: the Soul that Knows its Worth

Polycarp: Eighty-Six Years

Justin Martyr: Philosopher to Child of God

Patrick: Unlikely Freedom

Thomas: The Other Half of Faith

Columba: The Dove of Scotland

Jerome, Cyril, and Methodius: Bibles for East and West

William Wilberforce, Part 1: The Great Change

William Wilberforce, Part 2: The Great Cause

Mark: One Young Man


Hello and welcome to Grading God's Sight, the podcast that explores underrated heroes. We're so glad you've joined us for this episode entitled, Jerome, Searle, and Methodius, Bibles for East and West. Please be sure to subscribe and check out the incredible artwork that goes along with this story on our website thegreatpodcast.org. That's thegreatpodcast.org. Thanks for listening!

By candlelight, a middle-aged man stooped over his desk. Spread out before him lay numerous Hebrew manuscripts, the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets. Carefully, and ever so precisely, he was translating the Old Testament into Latin, which was the common language in much of Western Europe at the time. The Bishop of Rome, that is, the Pope, authorized the translation in the hopes of establishing a universal copy of Scripture that could be understood by all in the Western Roman Empire. This version came to be known as the Latin Vulgate, with Jerome as its translator.

4 centuries later, 2 brothers likewise sat hunched at their writing desks. Their task was similar, to translate the Bible into Slavonic. These brothers, Cyril and Methodius, did for the East what Jerome had accomplished for the West, and now, finally, people from both halves of the vast Roman Empire had access to God's Word in their native tongue. Eusebius Hieronymus, better known as Jerome, lived from 347 to around 420 AD. Due to his dedication to a solitary monastic lifestyle, he may be perceived as somewhat distant and aloof, but God was able to use him nonetheless.

Educated in Rome, he sought to escape the immorality that saturated the city. This inner motivation to leave Rome proved essential for his life's work. Jerome's natural inclination to scriptural study and writing made him an excellent candidate for Bible translation. For a time, he lived in Antioch, Syria, where he was immersed in Old Testament Hebrew. This experience provided him with excellent resources in the surrounding Aramaic and Hebrew-speaking communities and prompted him to base his translation on the original languages.

When ordained as a priest, he only accepted the decision if it allowed him to continue his scholarly interaction with the original texts. While he left an entire library of writings to future generations, the Vulgate, or Common Tongue, was by far his most influential. Not until the Reformation, a thousand years later, would his translation of scripture be challenged. In the Eastern Empire, Cyril and Methodius worked to complete the same object, albeit nearly 5 centuries later. The brothers were well-educated noblemen in a Greek speaking region and were staged to have the connections and knowledge needed for the task at hand.

Their father's elevated army position gave them important entry-level careers. Cyril became personal librarian to the Patriarch, the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He fled Constantinople due to political unrest and learned Hebrew while under self-imposed exile. Methodius, on the other hand, was appointed governor of Macedonia and later moved into an administrative position within a monastery in Asia Minor. The brothers were soon noticed for their talents and hard work.

In 863, they were commissioned as missionaries to the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe. It was during this time that they undertook the massive project of creating a Bible in Old Church Slavonic, the language common in that area. Their work was perhaps greater than Jerome's in that they also devised a new alphabet based on Greek characters. It evolved over the centuries to become the modern Cyrillic alphabet still used in Russian and many other Slavic languages today. To better understand the world in which Jerome, Cyril, and Methodius operated, we need to look at the differences between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires.

At the imperial level, barbarian invasions, political corruption, and plagues, coupled with the Empire's vast size, necessitated an administrative division. But it wasn't until the reign of Constantine in the 300s that this division resulted in a fully separate Eastern Empire. After the secular partition, the Church also split between Rome and Constantinople. Each city housed a church head, the patriarch in the east and the pope in the west. The church didn't officially separate until about 200 years after Cyril and Methodius, but much of the future structure and differences became evident far sooner.

The Eastern Church and Eastern Empire have been described as a blend of Roman law, Christian faith, and Greek philosophy, with a pinch of the Orient. This set it apart noticeably from its Western cousin. All things considered, 1 might ask, why bother to make a new translation of the Bible if old ones were available? As in the division between East and West, language played an important role. The diversity, inaccuracy, and incompleteness of Latin translations in the West required a universal and authoritative edition.

The Pope authorized Jerome's translation to make scripture available to as many as possible, but also to unify a crumbling empire. Similarly, authorities in the East hoped to stabilize the empire by Christianizing the Slavic peoples on their northern frontier. Jerome and his Eastern counterparts paid less attention to the political stresses on the empire and held far more regard for the religious significance of sharing God's Word with the ends of the earth. Their motivations become clear when we examine their lives more closely. Living as a hermit for a large portion of his life, Jerome naturally shied away from political life in favor of religion.

He defined scripture as the divine library, and studying and translating it consumed most of his life. In his studies, he became aware of Babylon as a symbolic entity and eventually came to recognize Rome as the object of this symbolism. Because of this, he came to trade his social network in Rome for the network of believers his new translation would create. Like Jerome, Cyril and Methodius largely gave up their social and political connections as they committed to their missionary and translation work. They faced significant opposition from authorities in the Western Church, eventually requiring them to appeal directly to the Pope, and Methodius was even imprisoned for a time.

It's unlikely the brothers would have persevered under such threatening circumstances if their design was merely political. No, their goal of reaching the Slavonic-speaking peoples for Christ led them to press on despite friction. Today, Jerome's Vulgate and his counterpart's Slavonic translation continue to be used in services of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, respectively. The long-term effects of their work are difficult to fully estimate. Centuries after Cyril and Methodius, numerous individuals from different walks of life all came to a similar conclusion.

The Bible must be made available to all people in their native language. This central idea helped spark the Protestant movement and influence reformers for centuries to come. This podcast wouldn't exist if the Bible weren't available in our common tongue, so it's a serious understatement to say that we are immensely thankful for the likes of Cyril, Methodius, and Jerome. If you feel God is calling you to some gigantic challenge, remember these Christian pioneers. And feel free to take your brother or your sister on whatever adventure awaits.

Thank you for listening to Great and God's Sight, a podcast by GYC Southeast. We hope you have enjoyed this adventure through time and pray it serves to deepen your relationship with God. Each episode aims to draw insight from the life of 1 individual. While we strive to bring you a unique perspective on each believer, we encourage you to use your God-given curiosity to explore these topics for yourself. Please remember to hit the subscribe button and share this episode with your friends via text or social media.

You Never know who might be encouraged! Until next time, we wish you God's blessing as you seek to be great in His sight too.

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Great in God's Sight Season 1

Jerome, Cyril, and Methodius: Bibles for East and West

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Other Teachings in Series

John: the Soul that Knows its Worth

11m

Polycarp: Eighty-Six Years

8m

Justin Martyr: Philosopher to Child of God

11m

Patrick: Unlikely Freedom

10m

Thomas: The Other Half of Faith

9m

Columba: The Dove of Scotland

10m

Jerome, Cyril, and Methodius: Bibles for East and West

10m

William Wilberforce, Part 1: The Great Change

12m

William Wilberforce, Part 2: The Great Cause

13m

Mark: One Young Man

10m

Sound Doctrine