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This article argues that Jerome saw Jewish Nazariteship as providing a foundation for Christian asceticism. Jerome perceived Naziriteship as an epitome of saintly life, prefiguring the lives of the apostles, and realized in the lives of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, in their extreme devotion and standing above the rest of the community, but in an honourable way. Jerome's vision of asceticism reflected his ambiguous relationship with Jewish tradition, both admiring Nazarite ideals and critical of its practice by Law observant followers of Jesus. Understanding the tradition of the Jewish Nazirites through the eyes of Jerome is central not only to understanding the ascetic tradition in the region that saw the birth of Christianity, but to illustrating an important tension within the Christian tradition in general, between emphasis on a personal relationship with God and separation from the community to that end, and emphasis on a common life organized and supported by the hierarchy of the Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims at examining one passage in the Old Latin and Vulgate translations of the Book of Jonah, where Jerome inserted a controversial change by translating the Hebrew qyqywn with the Latin haedera instead of the usual cucurbita. The reasons for this variation are neither immediately evident nor directly stated by the translator, but an analysis of iconographical documents will show that Jerome wanted to exclude the possibility of a millenarian interpretation, which, after the conversion of Constantine, he had to deem heretic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]