St Jerome on the walls of San Miguel

Jerez de la Frontera. Notice the lion at the feet of the Saint noted for his asceticism, support for celibacy and the preservation of virginity, He was forced out of Rome by lascivious clergy who objected to his criticism of their behaviour. He was said to have tamed a lion by removing a thorn from its paw while he was a hermit in the Syrian desert. But this was probably a confusion with the Androcles and the Lion. But he was a scholar second only to St Augustine and translated the Bible into Latin. Born in Dalmatia around 347AD he died inBethlehem in 420 AD - a remarkably long life.