Powerful and strong words from St Jerome. He was a scholar of the Scriptures and spent his life in the Bible. He said this sentence to end a summary where he said that in knowing the Scriptures he had known the power of God. He said as Christ had commanded: “‘Search the Scriptures, and Seek and you shall find.’ … For if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if man who does not know Scripture he does not know the power and wisdom of God.”
St Jerome believed the Bible revealed a person, Jesus Christ. That’s why he would cry out that ignorance of the Scriptures would therefore be ignorance of Christ. To put it in the positive, “The Bible is a love letter from God with your name on it.” (Peter Kreeft) Why would we want to be ignorant of the one who loves us and has written a letter for us?
As Catholics and followers of Jesus we have always been encouraged to know Jesus in the hearing and reading of the Scriptures. These words were proclaimed at the Second Vatican Council: