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Human Agency, Divine Mercy, and the End: Jerome of Stridon and the Developments of Late Antique Eschatology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2026

Katarina Pålsson
Katarina Pålsson*
Affiliation:
Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University , Sweden
*
Email: katarina.palsson@ctr.lu.se
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Abstract

The present study aims at contributing to our understanding of the eschatological developments that took place from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages, with a focus on Jerome of Stridon. The article contextualizes Jerome’s thought by discussing the development of ancient Christian eschatology, from traditional apocalypticism to the eschatological questions which came to the surface in the Jovinianist, Origenist, and Pelagian controversies at the turn of the fifth century. It is argued that Jerome’s eschatology, as it was expressed in biblical commentaries, as well as polemical works produced in the context of these controversies, had several features which reflected, but also would have contributed to, a larger eschatological shift which marked the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Among these, we find an understanding of personal death as a time of judgment, an emphasis on repentance, as well as the idea that the teachers of the church are responsible for the salvation of the people. It is argued that Jerome’s eschatology combined an emphasis on the need of divine mercy with a defense of human free will.

Keywords

Jerome of Stridonthe Pelagian controversyeschatologybiblical exegesisthe Day of Judgment

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Research Article
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Church History , First View , pp. 1 - 18
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
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© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of Church History

I. Introduction

The question of human beings’ possibilities to affect their fate, and ultimately their salvation, has been recurring in the history of Christianity. In the late fourth and early fifth centuries, one of the most debated theological questions concerned the importance of human agency in attaining eternal salvation. While Christian writers sought to defend the idea of human free will, not least in opposition to Manichean determinism, they also theorized on the relation between human freedom and divine grace. The controversy in which these concerns were most clearly expressed was the Pelagian controversy, which took place during the second and third decades of the fifth century.Footnote 1 While Pelagius and Augustine may be seen as two opposite extremes in this conflict – one emphasizing the importance of human responsibility and the other expressing pessimism concerning human possibilities, stressing instead the importance of grace – we find a broad spectrum of theological approaches to this question in Late Antiquity.

In this article, my focus will be on a theologian whose ideas on human agency and divine mercy situate him between Augustine and Pelagius, namely Jerome of Stridon. Finding himself at the threshold between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Jerome is an interesting case study for examining some of the eschatological developments that took place in this period. Considering that he was one of the most important authorities in the Middle Ages, seen as a doctor of the church and having a significant reception, surprisingly little scholarly attention has been directed toward Jerome’s importance as a theologian, and his eschatology in particular.Footnote 2 Especially when one considers Jerome’s position as a moderate voice between Augustine’s ideas on predestination, which were not generally accepted but instead created much controversy in the following centuries, and Pelagius’ ideas, which were considered heretical, there is reason to suggest that Jerome’s assessment of these questions would have been influential in medieval theology.Footnote 3 Unlike Augustine, Jerome, himself shaped by the Origenist tradition, shared with Pelagius an anthropology that emphasized human free will and responsibility.Footnote 4 However, he saw the Pelagian understanding of grace as insufficient, and thought that it deprived God of the ultimate power to save and condemn.

In this article, I examine Jerome’s ideas about the relation between divine mercy and human agency in salvation, as they are expressed in his commentaries on the prophets as well as in polemical works from the 390s onward. In these texts we find, I argue, a reinterpretation of eschatological motifs which is characterized by a defense of human agency and responsibility, but also by an emphasis on human weakness and dependence. The purpose of this study is to contribute to a reassessment of Jerome’s importance as a theologian by discussing how his ideas reflected, but also may have contributed to, a larger shift in Late Antique Christian eschatology, which became increasingly concerned with human sinfulness, repentance, and judgment. Before proceeding to the analysis, it will be essential to contextualize Jerome’s eschatological thought by discussing the societal circumstances that shaped Christian theology in this period.

II. Eschatology in a New Age – From Dualism to Diversity

Christianity has, historically, been an eschatological religion, and in its first centuries, it was also an apocalyptic religion. Besides implying the idea of an imminent end and catastrophes that would precede it, the apocalyptic imaginary was also characterized by dualism: Embedded in the Christian worldview was the narrative of a good church in an evil world, heroically withstanding the persecutors, awaiting its heavenly reward.Footnote 5 The book of Revelation, like the book of Daniel on which it depended, was produced in a context of persecution, which is reflected in the hopes for a restoration of the oppressed and the damnation of the oppressors. This was also an imaginary marked by determinism: God was seen as being in total control over history and would bring about the end, and all that came with it, regardless of human dealings.Footnote 6

According to Richard Bauckham, “the apocalyptic idea of the punishment of the wicked in hell owes its origin and popularity to a problem of theodicy.”Footnote 7 The experience of wrongdoers going through life without being punished, while the righteous suffered unjustly, led to hopes about a correction in the world to come. Also, without the punishment of the wicked, how could God’s justice prevail?Footnote 8 This dualistic outlook continued as long as the church found itself in a socially disadvantaged minority position. Carole Straw has argued concerning the “church of the martyrs,” that “no middle ground, neutrality, or ambiguity existed in a world of stark black and white contrasts. … Rigid dichotomies prevailed.”Footnote 9

Once Christianity had become not only a legalized religion, but also the state religion of the Roman Empire, it was more difficult to uphold a dualistic distinction between the good church and the evil world, since Christianity in significant ways belonged to the world. A religion whose very essence had been found in a commitment to suffer and even risk one’s life for the faith, had rather quickly turned into a convenient choice for the Roman citizen, with the result that not all who converted necessarily did so out of religious conviction and with a wish to change their way of life.Footnote 10 In this context, it was not non-Christian persecutors, but imperfection within the church that shaped eschatological concerns.Footnote 11 Not only was the dualism of traditional apocalypticism impossible to uphold, but so was the expectation that a physical, collective end of the world would come very soon – such views were not only abandoned but even refuted by church writers.Footnote 12 However, this did not mean that Christians ceased occupying themselves with thoughts about the coming judgment and a final vindication or retribution. Instead, apocalypticism was reshaped to fit a context that was very different from the one in which the Book of Revelation was authored: The book itself was allegorized, and ideas about the end shifted from expressing a sense of imminent crisis to becoming part of mainstream eschatology.Footnote 13 We particularly witness an internalization of apocalyptic motifs and a shift of focus from a collective end in an unknown future to the end of each individual by death, as seen in the development of the idea of a particular judgment – that is, human beings were thought to be judged immediately after death; an idea first expressed in antiquity but developed and made into a doctrine in the Middle Ages.Footnote 14 In this connection, scholars have acknowledged the rhetorical potential of apocalytpic motifs for calling Christian sinners to repentance.Footnote 15

The category of Christian sinners – baptized Christians who failed to live a righteous life – would occupy a central place in Late Antique eschatological thought, and not least in the three controversies that would define Jerome’s work during the last decades of his life. In the early 390s, Jovinian, a critic of the radical ascetic movement (represented not least by Jerome), proposed the idea that baptism makes all Christians equal members of the church, and that this equality continues in the world to come. According to one of his theses, there is one and the same reward in Heaven for those who have kept their baptismal vow.Footnote 16 In Jovinian’s view, there were only two categories: the sheep and the goats, that is, the saved and the condemned; the Christians and the non-Christians. In his refutation of these ideas, expressed in Adversus Iovinianum (393), Jerome argued instead for a hierarchy of Christians, even in the eternal life. This idea of a post-mortem hierarchy, based on merits, was one that he would return to in his anti-Origenist polemics. The Origenist controversy was, to a greater extent than the Jovinianist, centered on eschatological questions: the resurrection, post-mortem purgation, and not least the idea of apokatastasis, according to which all rational creatures will ultimately be saved.Footnote 17 One who would join the critique against Origen, but in a different way than Jerome, was Pelagius, a strong defender of free will and human responsibility. In contrast to Jovinian, who emphasized the transformative power of baptism, he proposed a rigorist view, according to which all sinners, Christian believers or not, would perish eternally: Justice should be expected from every Christian.Footnote 18 Jerome was involved in the Pelagian controversy from 414 onward, and as we will see in the following study, he saw a need to mitigate Pelagius’ position.

Thus, the late fourth and early fifth centuries were marked by a variety of eschatological views, many of which appear to have been connected to the question of the future fate of Christian sinners. We find evidence of this variety not least in the works of Augustine. In his De fide et operibus from 413, he targeted Christians who, while being orthodox, held a – in his opinion – much too lenient view concerning what could morally be expected from a Christian. These opponents held that Christians would be saved only because of their faith, and regardless of works. At the beginning of his work, he described this idea as follows:

If the baptized person fulfils the obligations demanded of a Christian, he does well. If he does not – provided he keeps the faith, without which he would perish forever – no matter in what sin or impurity he remains, he will be saved, as it were, by fire; as one who has built on the foundation, which is Christ, not gold, silver, and precious stones, but wood, hay, straw, that is, not just and chaste works but wicked and unchaste works.Footnote 19

It is in his work De civitate Dei that Augustine applies the term misericordes to Christians whom he considers to be too compassionate in their views on sinners’ possibilities to be saved. The abovementioned position is one of several variants that he presents. Others are said to have held the Origenist view that all rational creatures (including the devil) will ultimately be saved; that all human beings will be saved through the intercession of the saints; that heretics will be saved; that Christians who have belonged to the Catholic church will be saved even if they leave the church; and that sinners will be saved if they also perform works of mercy.Footnote 20

Augustine’s misericordes are, in their different variations, symptomatic of the Christian identity crisis emerging from the fourth-century religious and political developments. The eschatological counterpart to the central question “what is it to be a Christian?”Footnote 21 was “who can be saved?” This context, marked by conflict and by diversity in eschatological views, is important to keep in mind not only for understanding Jerome’s explicitly polemical works from the latter part of his career, but also his commentaries on the Old Testament prophets. His writing of these commentaries coincided with his involvement in the three controversies discussed above: It began in the 390s with the commentaries on Nahum, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai, Habakkuk (392–393), Jonah, and Obadiah (396), to be continued in the early fifth century with Zechariah, Malachi, Hosea, Joel, Amos (406), Daniel (407), Isaiah (408–410), Ezekiel (410–414), and Jeremiah (414–416).Footnote 22 Although Jerome expressed his critique against opponents most clearly and argumentatively in polemical works, the commentaries played a significant role as well, for example in criticizing certain “heretical” interpretations as well as exegetical methods, but also in expressing ideas that reflected main concerns related to the controversies in which he was involved.Footnote 23 Thus, the commentaries are important sources for studying not only Jerome’s eschatological thought as such, but also how his views developed as a result of his engagement in these conflicts.

III. The Sins of the Church and the Day of Judgment

In his commentaries on the Old Testament prophets, Jerome typically provided a translation of each passage from the Hebrew as well as from the Greek, and likewise a double interpretation: a literal one, following the Hebrew, and a figurative one, following the Septuagint.Footnote 24 In his figurative interpretation of the prophets, which he often terms “tropological,” Jerome typically understands Judah and Israel as referring to the church. The prophetical laments over the sins of the people are understood as referring to Christian sinners, and the calls to repentance are thought to pertain to conversion either from heresy or a sinful life, or both. In these commentaries, Jerome’s criticism of “orthodox” Christians typically concerns negligence and types of behavior that result from such negligence. Like the Judah/Israel castigated by the prophets, Christians in Jerome’s day are said to have become too relaxed and carefree – he speaks of the church as Ecclesia neglegens. Footnote 25 At present, Jerome complains, faith is rare (cf. Luke 18:8) – it is something that exists on people’s lips, rather than in their hearts.Footnote 26 He frequently remarks that “love has grown cold,” referring to Matthew 24:12.Footnote 27 Likewise, he understands the words in Micah 3:10, about building “Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong,” as pertaining to the unrighteousness in the church.Footnote 28

As a proponent of the ascetic movement, it should not surprise us that many instances of Jerome’s redirection of prophetical words to present-day Christians concern issues of wealth and love of what belongs to the world. The leaders in particular are marked out: “The leaders of my people will be cast forth from their luxurious houses,” spoken of in Micah 2:9 (LXX), are interpreted as referring to “the princes of the church, who abound in luxuries.”Footnote 29 Such persons have failed to imitate the apostles as they have not practiced abstinence.Footnote 30 In the Commentary on Jeremiah, the “prophets” and “priests” rebuked by Jeremiah are understood to be the leaders of the church: Jerome speaks of “kings, priests, prophets, and every inhabitant of Jerusalem” who “will be filled with drunkenness” and are in need of recognizing their sin.Footnote 31 The problem with the leaders is first and foremost their negligence to carry out their most important task, that is, teaching the Law to the people.Footnote 32 Such persons, Jerome claims, have – like bad leaders in ancient Israel – forsaken God and followed other gods instead, since they care more about luxury than the Law, which they should not only teach but also follow themselves as good examples.Footnote 33

This relaxation, in the people of the church and especially its leaders, calls for apocalyptic urgency, and Jerome directs the thundering words of the prophets to his fellow Christians, repeating the warnings about an approaching day of judgment. “God, warning both those who are outside the church and those who sin while abiding within the church, calls them daily to repentance,”Footnote 34 Jerome writes in his Commentary on Hosea, rebuking heretics as well as orthodox sinners. At “the consummation of the world” (consummatio mundi), the Lord will search Jerusalem, his church, with lamps (cf. Zephaniah 1:12), and those who have been scornful and blasphemous will be chastised.Footnote 35

When will this happen? Commenting on the words in Micah 3:12, that “Zion shall be ploughed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,” Jerome applies this warning to the time “at the consummation, and at the end, when charity has grown cold (cf. Matthew 24:12) and faith will be rare (cf. Luke 18:8).”Footnote 36 “At the consummation” would seem to point to the future, but at the same time, we have seen that Jerome could apply the biblical words about love growing cold and faith being rare to his own time. Although Jerome retained the traditional understanding of a day of judgment in the future, he could also, as was increasingly common among Christians at this time, interpret the Day in terms of the death of each individual. The words that “The day of their sentinels, of their punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand” (Micah 7:4) are directed to the negligent church: “Those who have laughed before may mourn,” Jerome claims, referring to the story about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31).Footnote 37 He also asserts that this will happen immediately as they leave the world (statim exeuntes de saeculo, tormenta sustineant).Footnote 38 At the same time, he admits of alternative interpretations: the “now” in the quotation from Micah may refer either to the end of an individual’s life or to the consummation of all things and the Day of Judgment.Footnote 39 In the Commentary on Zephaniah, Jerome recurringly has reason to comment upon the expression “the day of the Lord,” and concerning the words in Zephaniah 1:7, “the day of the Lord is at hand,” he writes: “According to tropology, because the ‘face of the Lord’ is over those who do evil things, to destroy their memory from the earth, and the judgment ‘day is near’ – for compared to eternity, all the time of this age is short – or the death of the individual; let all ‘fear,’ and be silent, lest the Lord’s face … burn up the hay, straw, and wood of sins.”Footnote 40

This is one of several instances in this commentary of Jerome treating the end of the world and the death of the individual together, indicating that the consummation, and the Day of Judgment, can refer to either of them.Footnote 41 John P. O’Connell has, however, argued that there is no good reason to ascribe to Jerome the idea of a particular judgment at death, since he never explicitly speaks of the day of death as a day of judgment; rather, he juxtaposes expressions such as dies iudicii and exitus singulorum (as in Comm. Soph. 1.7, quoted above), without saying that they are one and the same thing, or that what is said about the one can be applied to the other as well.Footnote 42 While it is true that Jerome never explicitly calls the day of death a day of judgment, the very fact that he juxtaposes the final judgment and the day of death, and states that one and the same biblical passage may refer to both, points in the direction that what takes place at death is a kind of judgment. Most importantly, the central message is the same in both cases: Judgment will take place, and in the face of this, individuals as well as the church as a whole need to reform; as becomes clear in the above quotation: “Let all fear.” Although we should refrain from anachronistically ascribing to Jerome the idea of a particular judgment, I suggest that we find in his work the early stages of what would become an important eschatological idea in medieval thought, as well as a rhetoric of reform directly related to the prospect of an approaching end.

This becomes even clearer when we analyze Commentary on Joel 2.1–11: “But understand the day of the Lord as judgment day, or the day of each person’s departure from the body. For what will be for all on the Day of Judgment is fulfilled for each on the day of death.”Footnote 43 This is the only text O’Connell acknowledges as explicitly associating death with judgment, but he also insists that it does not tell us precisely what, in Jerome’s mind, the two days have in common: He remarks that Jerome goes on to give descriptions of the tribulations of the Day of Judgment which can hardly be applied to the individual death.Footnote 44 However, the clue is found, rather, in what Jerome writes before his juxtaposition of the two: He speaks of the need for priests and teachers to “lift up their voices like trumpets,” fulfilling the words in Isaiah 40:9, “so that they might sound the trumpet in Zion, that is, in the church, which means watchtower and height.Footnote 45 And in God’s holy mountain, which is Christ, that all the inhabitants of the earth might tremble or be confounded, and their confusion might draw them to salvation.”Footnote 46 This is what is said immediately before the words about the day of the Lord, and it brings me back to my argument that Jerome’s main point is that judgment is approaching, whether we will face it at the consummation of the world or at death, that people need to reform, and that the authorities of the church are responsible.

This sense of urgency is reflected in warnings about postponing one’s repentance. In his Commentary on Jeremiah, Jerome comments on the words “Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness” (Jeremiah 13:16–17), explaining the importance of doing the work before it is too dark – “before the time of judgment comes.”Footnote 47 When judgment has come, it will be too late to repent. Through penitence, those threatened with punishment may avoid this very punishment. In the Commentary on Amos, he writes: “Notice that a merciful and kind God always announces the future in advance so that he is not forced to apply the punishments.”Footnote 48 It is to the importance of repentance, and the understanding of repentance in terms of mercy, that we now turn.

IV. Repentance – Agency in Response to Mercy

According to Jerome, mercy is found precisely in the possibility to repent by free will. In his commentaries on the prophets, he interprets the opportunities of repentance given to Judah and Israel as pertaining to the church in his own time, explaining that God loves his people and does not want them to perish. The reason why the Lord is enraged and makes threats, Jerome explains, is so that he may take away sins and save human beings. In his Commentary on Zephania, Jerome writes:

“Will God forget to show pity? Or will he hold back his mercies in his wrath? …” (Ps 77.7 f.). And the meaning is: What I used to think, that the Lord abandons sinners forever and limits his mercies once his wrath comes into play, I have come to understand that the reason this is done is so that he might convert everything by the change to his right hand, which is the right hand of the Most High, and this is done so that he may have mercy on those whom he had previously cast away.Footnote 49

The words in Ezekiel 18:23: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that they should turn from their ways and live?” and the very similar language in Ezekiel 33:11, recurringly appear in texts in which Jerome treats this theme.Footnote 50 Not least in his polemics against the Pelagians do we find Jerome expressing the idea that God wishes sinners to be saved; a view expressed in opposition to the more rigorist Pelagian view that all sinners will be condemned to hell. In his Dialogue against the Pelagians, Jerome comments on Pelagius’ statement that: “On the day of Judgment the unrighteous and the sinners will not be spared, but they will be consumed in eternal fires.”Footnote 51 According to Jerome, the Pelagians tried to prohibit (interdicere) the mercy of God. The threat of God, Jerome explains, sometimes “expresses his clemency.”Footnote 52 However, we must note that in Jerome’s idea that humans are threatened in order to be saved, we find, besides an emphasis on mercy, also importance ascribed to human free choice and agency. It is, after all, the individual human being who has to decide whether to repent or not. Jerome’s view on mercy is very different from the idea that sinners will be released from punishment without any effort on the part of the individual, for example as a result of the intercession of saints on the Day of Judgment – what Peter Brown has referred to as an “amnesty” model of salvation.Footnote 53

According to Jerome’s view, a change in human beings is mirrored by a change in God’s way of acting toward them: “If we should repent for our sins, even he himself shall repent of his threat.”Footnote 54 He sometimes speaks of this in terms of God “changing” (mutare) his threats.Footnote 55 In his Commentary on Amos, Jerome explains that “the repentance (paenitentia) of God”Footnote 56 means that if humans turn away from sin, they will not suffer the punishments with which they were threatened: “The Lord of punishments and also of clemency will be changed in either direction, along with our disorders and virtues.”Footnote 57 Commenting on the words in Jeremiah 26:3: “Perhaps they will listen, all of them, and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster that I intend to bring on them because of their evil doings,” Jerome asserts that the expression “perhaps” (forsitan) points to our free will and indicates that a future punishment or reward depends on our choice.Footnote 58 Thus, the purpose of the threat is to give the individual an opportunity to avoid that with which he or she is threatened. The prophet does not predict in order to tell what will happen; rather, he predicts so that it may not happen, as Jerome explains in his Commentary on Ezekiel. Footnote 59

The question of human agency and responsibility concerns not only the relation between God and human beings, but also inter-human relations. We saw above that the leaders of the church are often singled out by Jerome for criticism because of their negligence. This is more serious than the sins of ordinary Christians, since it is the leaders’ responsibility precisely to call to repentance. Especially in his commentaries, it becomes clear that Jerome understands the exegetes and priests of the church as the prophets of their time – they are the ones supposed to mediate the divine word to the people. A person may be saved if he or she listens to a teacher and repents; the teacher, if he is silent, is “accountable for the blood of the one who could have been delivered and rescued from death.”Footnote 60 It is a free choice of the teacher to speak or to be silent, and it is up to the hearer to listen and act or to not listen and perish. Of course, Jerome’s harsh criticism of negligent church leaders must be understood in relation to the self-image that he creates in these commentaries, namely of himself as an orthodox exegete who defends the church against heresy as well as immorality. The “man of the church” (vir ecclesiasticus) calls people to repentance, heretics as well as “those in the church who are negligent.”Footnote 61

It has become clear that Jerome understands the opportunity of repentance itself within the framework of divine mercy. Interestingly, in doing so, he echoes the Pelagian idea that the very ability of human beings to use their free will in order to do what is good, should be seen as an expression of grace. In his Commentary on Jeremiah, written in the context of the Pelagian controversy, we find a defense of free will combined with an emphasis on mercy. Commenting on Jeremiah 18:1–10, Jerome discusses how God may repent from threats that he has made as well as good things that he has intended, depending on the actions of the people. He writes that, “in order to indicate the freedom of the will, he says that he announced evil to one nation or kingdom and good to another, but what he predicted might not come about … God gives a person over to his own will, in order that he may receive either reward or punishment according to his merit.”Footnote 62 However, in the same text, Jerome makes clear that the outcome does not only depend on human choice, but also on divine grace: “For the freedom of the will should be maintained in such a way that bountiful grace excels in all things.”Footnote 63 Important in this commentary, as in all of his anti-Pelagian polemics, is an emphasis on the weakness of the human condition and the limitation of human ability. The words “Convert me, and I shall be converted” (Jeremiah 31:18) mean, Jerome explains, that we are not able to fulfill our repentance without the help of God; that is, not only are we in need of being called to repentance, but we also need assistance in accomplishing it: “God’s aid is so great, and the human condition is so weak, that we are not strong enough to repent unless the Lord converts us beforehand.”Footnote 64 Thus, particularly in his anti-Pelagian polemics, Jerome sought to balance his statements about freedom with an acknowledgment of the sovereign power of God.

V. Merit, Purgation, and Afterlife Hierarchy

Jerome did not only hold that free will mattered in the salvation of a human being, but also argued that our use of free will would determine our place in a post-mortem hierarchy of the saved – most importantly, devoting oneself to a life in renunciation would result in a higher place in Heaven. The first work in which he properly developed this aspect of his eschatology was Adversus Iovinianum. As we have seen, Jovinian had argued that regardless of ascetic practices like fasting and celibacy, one and the same reward awaited all Christians who had been baptized with the right faith. In his refutation of this thesis, Jerome argued that in the world to come, there are not only the two classes of the saved and the condemned, but rather a hierarchy of saints as well as of sinners.Footnote 65 When it came to sinners, he made a distinction between serious (gravia) and light (levia) sins, but it was the internal differences among the righteous which seem to have interested him the most. Referring, among other biblical passages, to the words in John 14:2 about the many mansions of the Father, and to the different kinds of splendor of the sun, the moon, and the stars described in 1 Corinthians 15:41, he argued that all the saved will not be on the same level: There will be differences among the sheep.Footnote 66

In this context, Jerome also applies the words in 1 Corinthians 3:10–15, about having one’s work tested by fire.Footnote 67 Building with bad materials on the foundation of Christ implies that, although the person is saved, he or she will not be on the same level as the one who has built with good materials: “The person whose work is burnt and destroyed, and who suffers the loss of his work, loses the reward for the work, but is saved – although not without probation by fire. It then follows that the one whose work remains, which he has built upon the foundation, will be saved without probation by fire. Therefore, there is difference between one salvation and another.”Footnote 68

Jerome also asserts that although we are created with free will and not forced to do anything (after all, how could we then be rewarded?), it is still the case that the good works with which we choose to build are perfected by God. In the same way, if we build with hay, wood, and stubble, the devil “adds the fire” (supponit incendium).Footnote 69 Thus, already in this work from the early 390s, Jerome expressed an idea of human free will as important, but not all-important, for salvation.

While Jerome does not present an elaborate interpretation of 1 Corinthians 3:10–15 in Adversus Iovinianum, we may, from his commentaries on the prophets as well as from his anti-Pelagian writings, get an idea of the place of this passage in his eschatological thought. First, let us return to the conviction that God does not want any human being to perish. In the tradition of Origen, Jerome imagined that there were punishments that had the function of purifying the human being so that he or she may be saved, and he ascribed a medical function to suffering.Footnote 70 Commenting on the threat directed at the people of Israel in Ezekiel 7:3–4, Jerome writes concerning the words “My eye will not spare you, I will have no pity,” that “this is like a very kind physician,”Footnote 71 who does not hesitate to cause his patients pain by cutting and burning them, knowing that this will save them. He adds the words in Hebrews 12:6: “for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts” (cf. Proverbs 3:12); a passage that returns on multiple occasions in Jerome’s commentaries.Footnote 72 Sinners may come to knowledge of the Lord through healing brought about by pain.Footnote 73 Just like threat, punishment itself is understood as an expression of divine mercy: A doctor, as Jerome writes in another part of his Ezekiel commentary, “is cruel, in order to have mercy.”Footnote 74 In the Dialogus adversus pelagianos, criticizing the Pelagian view on sin and punishment for being too rigorist in condemning all sinners to hell (a theme to which we will return below), Jerome, referring to Hebrews 12:6, writes that “the wounds of sin and unrighteousness” (peccati et iniquitatis uulnera) may be cured.Footnote 75

It is according to this understanding of punishment that we must examine Jerome’s interpretations of trial by fire. It is at the consummation, on the day of the Lord, that the fire will burn – and this, as we have seen, can refer to the end of the world as well as to the death of each individual.Footnote 76 On that day, “there will be a devouring or ‘consuming’ fire, to consume everything in us that is hay, wood and stubble. Hence it is also said of God: ‘God is a consuming fire, and behind him is a burning flame’” (Deuteronomy 4:24).Footnote 77 However, not all sinners will benefit from punishment and from the divine fire. Commenting on the words in Amos that “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2), Jerome remarks that it is the ones whom God knows that may benefit from his punishment, rather than those whom he does not know.Footnote 78 The “house of Jacob,” that is, the church, will be punished but not utterly destroyed (cf. Amos 9:8).Footnote 79 This is how Jerome understands the foundation spoken of in 1 Corinthians 3: The purgation by fire concerns those who have the right foundation, that is, the Christian faith, but who have built upon it with bad works rather than good. This idea of salvation by fire for particularly Christian sinners is clearly expressed in the Commentary on Amos, as Jerome comments on the words in Amos 7:4–5, about the Lord calling for a judgment by fire. The ten tribes of Israel are understood as referring to the heretics, while the two tribes of Judah are interpreted as the church and the sinners of the church. These “confess the right faith, to be sure, but because of the filth of their vices they require purifying flames,” Jerome writes, referring to the words in 1 Corinthians 3.Footnote 80

It is in his Dialogus adversus pelagianos that this idea about purification is most clearly formulated in a theological argument. Jerome accused Pelagius of failing, like Jovinian, to realize that within one and the same category of the saved, and of the condemned, there are differences. Against the Pelagians, Jerome argues – as he had done already in Adversus Iovinianum – that all sinners are not on the same level. He refers to the idea, expressed by Pelagius, that the sinners and the unrighteous will face eternal punishment, and objects that a further distinction has to be made; namely between the impious (impii), on the one hand, and the unrighteous (iniqui) and the sinners (peccatores), on the other.Footnote 81 Different kinds of punishments await different kinds of sinners: While the impious, that is, those who lack the right faith, will perish forever, punishment has a cleansing effect on right-believing sinners. The unrighteous and the sinners – the Christians who are tainted because of bad works – will certainly burn, but not in eternity. Jerome describes himself as holding the position “that both the devil and his entourage and all impious and faithless will perish forever, and that Christians, if they are overtaken by sin, will be saved after the punishments.”Footnote 82

A similar view was expressed already in the Commentary on Isaiah. Here, commenting on Isaiah 66:24, Jerome writes that according to some, sinners will certainly be punished, but not in eternity.Footnote 83 In reply to such ideas, Jerome claims that this belongs only to the knowledge of God, but he also presents his own position: As he would do in the Dialogue, he claims that some post-mortem punishments will be eternal, while some will have a cleansing effect and be temporary. Those who will face eternal punishment are the devil and the impious, that is, those who do not believe in God. On the other hand, “we also think that those who are sinners and impious and yet Christians, whose works will be tested and purified in fire, will receive a sentence from the Judge which will be moderate and mixed with mercy.”Footnote 84 Thus, Jerome certainly qualifies as one of Augustine’s misericordes, a fact to which O’Connell has rightly brought attention - more precisely the kind of misericordes attacked in De fide et operibus, who seem to have drawn particularly on the text from 1 Corinthians 3.Footnote 85

Jerome’s idea of punishment, like his idea of repentance, combines a defense of divine mercy with a defense of human agency. It depends on human beings to build with good works rather than evil. The burning is fueled by vices: “You supplied the material for your own burning, such that [God’s] fire will consume the wood, hay and stubble that are within you,” as Jerome explains in one commentary.Footnote 86 We should note that although Jerome has a lot to say about repentance as an expression of mercy, and the possibility of being purged from sin, this does not mean that those who are saved after repentance and purgation are on the same level as those who were not in need of this in the first place. As we saw in the beginning of this section, Jerome had an idea of the afterlife as diversified, and the distinctions were thought to depend on differences in merit. His view of salvation is inclusive, in not asking for perfection from everyone (in contrast to how he presents Pelagianism), but it is also hierarchical.

We find this approach to repentance already in Adversus Iovinianum. Criticizing his opponent for not distinguishing between grave and light sins, Jerome brings up the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32), which he says that Jovinian had used in order to claim equality between the saved. Jerome argues that “it is one thing to be a regretful, and with tears ask for forgiveness, and another to always be with the father.”Footnote 87 In the Commentary on Amos, commenting on Amos 5:1–2, Jerome explains that the prophet’s lamentation over the fallen Israel, “no more to rise,” can be understood as referring to those who repent after having sinned. The fact that there is “no one to raise her up” means that, although the sinner who repents will be healed, he or she will not be restored to the condition before the fall. Compared to eternal death, repentance is certainly better – but not in comparison to Christian perfection. As in Adversus Iovinianum, Jerome refers to the mansions in John 14:2 as well as the heavenly bodies in 1 Corinthians 15:41 in arguing that salvation will be diversified: “Those who repent after their sin will be compared to other stars [than the saints] in accord with diversity of their merits.”Footnote 88

VI. Conclusions: Jerome between Ancient and Medieval Eschatology

Eschatological ideas always mirror concerns about the present life, and this is clearly seen in the development of Christian eschatology from the first century until the early Middle Ages. The dualism which was typical of early Christian apocalypticism was impossible to maintain in a complex reality in which the church could not be clearly separated from the “world.” The Christianity of the Empire left room for diversity and grades, in this life as well as in the next. However, the development of eschatological thought was far from straightforward. The Christian identity crisis of the late fourth and early fifth centuries was reflected in divergent ideas about salvation and the eternal life. What should be demanded from a Christian? Was baptism enough for salvation – and if not, was penance enough? And who bore the ultimate responsibility for the salvation of Christian souls?

The category of less-than-perfect Christians assumed an important place in eschatological thinking, and although the end of the world was perceived as distant, the emerging idea of a judgment taking place at death implied that the end was always near, and that reform was always called for. Early medieval writers expressed such views in sermons as well as in accounts of aferlife visions, with the aim of educating Christians and calling sinners to repentance. As James T. Palmer has argued, we should avoid strictly distinguishing the “eschatological” (which concerns the individual soul) from the “apocalyptic” (which concerns a collective end) in the medieval imagination: “A preacher reminding his audience of the need to correct sins in the face of ‘the coming Judgement’ worked with the same language of damnation and imminence as one might who spoke of the end of the world. … Apocalypse and eschatology were part of the spectrum of correction.”Footnote 89 In important early medieval theologians like Gregory the Great and Bede the Venerable, we find this emphasis on reform in the face of the end.Footnote 90

The themes of sin, repentance, and individual judgment were, as this article has shown, important also in Jerome’s eschatological thought. In his writings from the time of the Jovinianist, Origenist, and Pelagian controversies, we find him negotiating complex questions of free will, merit, and grace, for heresiological purposes but also, probably, out of actual concern for a church which he thought was in need of collective repentance. Although Jerome criticized the Pelagians for not acknowledging human need of divine mercy, he was himself a defender of free will, and understood the very possibility of repentance within a framework of mercy. A crucial task of the teacher of the church was, according to Jerome, precisely to call the people to repentance by warning about the judgment that would come – much like the Old Testament prophets. While an apocalyptic urgency lingers in his warnings about the coming end, he reinterprets traditional themes, not only by his focus on reform, but also in his understanding of the end as referring to every person’s departure from this world, and of death in terms of judgment. The post-mortem fate will be one based on merit: Those who have repented, or need to be cleansed by fire after death, will not be on the same level as the saints. Jerome’s eschatology is characterized by combining an emphasis on inclusion (correct faith is sufficient for salvation) with an emphasis on hierarchy (all the saved will not be on the same level). The first corresponds to the importance ascribed to mercy, the second to the importance ascribed to free will.

These tendencies certainly reflected eschatological developments already taking place, but Jerome’s importance in securing the orthodoxy of these ideas and transmitting them to an early medieval audience should not be underestimated, considering the degree of his authority and the extensive reception of his work in the following centuries. Although Augustine may have been seen as an even greater authority, his downgrading of human free will was never fully accepted, and neither was, of course, Pelagius’ elevation of it. We may find echoes of Jerome in medieval notions of a particular judgment and post-mortem purification by fire, as well as in the idea that the ultimate responsibility for the salvation of Christians rests particularly with the teachers of the church. Although his interest may have lain in refuting his opponents rather than in elaborating eschatological ideas, it is very probable that Jerome contributed significantly to how later Christians understood the end.

References

1 For this controversy, see Robert F. Evans, Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals (Wipf & Stock, 1968); Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton University Press, 1992), 194–244; Stuart Squires, The Pelagian Controversy: An Introduction to the Enemies of Grace and the Conspiracy of Lost Souls (Pickwick Publications, 2019); and Giulio Malavasi, La controversia pelagiana in Oriente (Aschendorff Verlag, 2022).

2 Although it was not until 1295 that Jerome was officially declared doctor of the church by Pope Boniface VIII, he was ascribed this title already in the early Middle Ages, especially together with Ambrose, Augustine, and, Gregory the Great. Cf. Eugene F. Rice, Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 32–33. For Jerome’s early reception, see Rice, Saint Jerome, 23–48; M. L. W. Laistner, “The Study of St. Jerome in the Early Middle Ages,” in A Monument to Saint Jerome: Essays on Some Aspects of His Life, Works and Influence, ed. Francis X. Murphy (Sheed & Ward, 1952), 233–56; and Elisabet Göransson and Katarina Pålsson, “Textual Transmission and the Construction of Spiritual Authority: The Early Reception of Jerome of Stridon,” Religions 16, no. 11 (2025), https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16111459. For studies on Jerome’s eschatology, see John P. O’Connell, The Eschatology of Saint Jerome (Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary, 1948); and Katarina Pålsson, Negotiating Heresy: The Reception of Origen in Jerome’s Eschatological Thought (Aschendorff, 2021). The impact of the Origenist controversy on medieval eschatology, and particularly the idea of postmortem purgation, has been treated in Isabel Moreira, Heaven’s Purge: Purgatory in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2010), but Jerome assumes a minor place in this study; see for example Moreira, Heaven’s Purge, 162, 164, 209.

3 Augustine’s views on predestination were controversial already during his lifetime, and criticized for downgrading the importance of human free will (concerning this critique, cf. Ep. 225 and 226 in Augustine’s collection: Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 57, 454–81). Particularly the question of double predestination, that is, whether God predestines to salvation as well as damnation, continued to split Christian writers. The Council of Orange (529), while condemning Pelagianism, also condemned the idea of double predestination. Debates continued in the ninth century, involving, among others, Gottschalk of Orbais, Hincmar of Rheims, and John Scottus Eriugena. For an overview of the early conflicts, see David Lambert, “Controversies over Grace and Predestination (430–530),” in The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, ed. Karla Pollmann and Willemien Otten (Oxford University Press, 2014).

4 Concerning differences between Jerome and Augustine, see Alfons Fürst, “Zur Vielfalt altkirchlicher Soteriologie: Augustins Berufung auf Hieronymus im pelagischen Streit,” in Φιλοφρόνησις für Norbert Brox, ed. Johannes B. Bauer (Institut für Ökumenische Theologie und Patrologie an der Universität Graz, 1995), 119–85; Malavasi, La controversia pelagiana, 184–253; and Stuart Squires, “Jerome on Sinlessness: A Via Media Between Augustine and Pelagius,” The Heythrop Journal 57, no. 4 (2016): 697–709, https://doi.org/10.1111/heyj.12063.

5 The expression “apocalyptic imaginary” is used by Alison McQueen, Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times (Cambridge University Press, 2017), 51–62. Concerning the dualistic character of early Christian apocalypticism, cf. McQueen, Political Realism, 26; Jörg Frey, “Apocalyptic Dualism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, ed. John J. Collins (Oxford University Press, 2014), 271–94.

6 McQueen, Political Realism, 26–27; Mladen Popovic, “Apocalyptic Determinism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, ed. John J. Collins (Oxford University Press, 2014), 255–70.

7 Richard Bauckham, The Fate of the Dead: Studies on Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Brill, 1998), 134.

8 Bauckham, Fate of the Dead, 134–36.

9 Carole Straw, “Settling Scores: Eschatology in the Church of the Martyrs,” in Last Things: Death and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, eds. Caroline Walker Bynum and Paul Freedman (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 25.

10 For this transformation and the Christian identity crisis that followed, see, for example, Robert A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 1990); and John R. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford University Press, 2000).

11 This is seen not only in theological works, but also in the development of the apocalyptic genre itself; an important example being the Apocalypse of Paul, in which the descriptions of post-mortem punishment are mainly occupied with Christian sinners: see Theodore Silverstein and Anthony Hilhorst (eds.), Apocalypse of Paul: A New Critical Edition of Three Long Latin Versions (Craner, 1997). For a study, see Emiliano Fiori, “Death and Judgment in the Apocalypse of Paul: Old Imagery and Monastic Reinvention,” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 20, no. 1 (2016): 92–108, https://doi.org/10.1515/zac-2016-0005.

12 Such critique commonly concerned literal interpretations of the Book of Revelation, not least concerning the thousand-year reign spoken of in Rev. 20. See Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (Columbia University Press, 1979/1998), 25–27; and Brian E. Daley, “Apocalypticism in Early Christian Theology,” in The Continuum History of Apocalypticism, eds. Bernard McGinn, John J. Collins and Stephen J. Stein (Continuum, 2003), 239–42.

13 For its reception in the Western church, see E. Ann Matter, “Latin Reception of the Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages,” in The Cambridge Companion to Apocalyptic Literature, ed. Colin McAllister (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 120–36.

14 Helen Foxhall Forbes, “The Theology of the Afterlife in the Early Middle Ages, c. 400–c. 1100,” in Imagining the Medieval Afterlife, ed. Richard Matthew Pollard (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 154–60; and Michael Mecklenburg and Thom Mertens, “Introduction: The Last Judgment in Medieval Sermons,” in The Last Judgment in Medieval Preaching, ed. Thom Mertens, Maria Sherwood-Smith, Michael Mecklenburg, and Hans-Jochen Schiewer (Brepols, 2013), xiv–xix.

15 Matthew Gabriele and James T. Palmer, eds., Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Routledge, 2019); Stephan D. O’Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (Oxford University Press, 1994); and Frank L. Borchardt, Doomsday Speculation as a Strategy of Persuasion: A Study of Apocalypticism as Rhetoric (Mellen, 1990). Peter Brown has shown how ideas of sin and penitence came to dominate the Christian worldview in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages: see, for example, Peter Brown, “The Decline of the Empire of God: Amnesty, Penance, and the Afterlife from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages,” in Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, eds. Caroline Walker Bynum and Paul Freedman (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 41–59, where he speaks of a “‘peccatization’ of the world,” that is, “the definitive reduction of all experience … to two universal explanatory principles, sin and repentance” (58). See also Ellen Muehlberger, Moment of Reckoning: Imagined Death and Its Consequences in Late Ancient Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2019).

16 Concerning the Jovinianist controversy and Jovinian’s theological positions, see Allan J. Budzin, “Jovinian’s Four Theses on the Christian Life: An Alternative Patristic Spirituality,” Toronto Journal of Theology 4, no. 1 (1988): 44–59, https://doi.org/10.3138/tjt.4.1.44; Yves-Marie Duval, L’Affaire Jovinien. D’une crise de la société romaine à une crise de la pensée chrétienne à la fin du IVe et au debut de Ve siècle (Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2003); and David G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy (Oxford University Press, 2007).

17 For this controversy, see Clark, The Origenist Controversy; and Pålsson, Negotiating Heresy, 117–205.

18 Evans, Pelagius, 113–119; Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy, 259–268. For Jerome’s anti-Pelagian polemics, see Benoît Jeanjean, Saint Jérôme et l’Hérésie (Études Augustiniennes, 1999) esp. 245–69, 387–431. Concerning Pelagius’ theology of grace, see Evans, Pelagius, 100–13; and Torgny Bohlin, Die Theologie des Pelagius und ihre Genesis (Almqvist & Wiksell, 1957), 10–45.

19 Augustine, De Fide and Operibus, 1.1 (CSEL 41, 36): quam si tenere et custodire uoluerit, utiliter fecerit; si autem noluerit, retenta fide christiana, sine qua in aeternum periret, in quolibet scelere inmunditiaque permanserit, saluum eum futurum tamquam per ignem, uelut qui aedificauerit super fundamentum, quod est Christus, non aurum, argentum, lapides pretiosos, sed ligna, fenum, stipulam, id est non iustus castosque mores, sed iniquos et inpudicos. Trans. Gregory J. Lombardo, St. Augustine: On Faith and Works (Newman Press, 1988), 7.

20 Augustine, De Civitate Dei 21.17–27 (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 48, 783–805).

21 Markus, The End, 19.

22 See J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (Duckworth, 1975), 163–167, 220–222, 290–294, 298–302, 304–308, 316–317; and Thomas P. Scheck (ed.), Jerome: Commentaries on the Twelve Prophets, vol. 1 (InterVarsity Press, 2016), xv–xxi. For studies of Jerome’s exegetical work in general, see Dennis Brown, Vir Trilinguis: A Study of the Biblical Exegesis of Saint Jerome (Kok Pharos, 1992); Andrew Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2009); Aline Canellis, “Jerome’s Hermeneutics: How to Exegete the Bible?,” in Patristic Theories of Biblical Interpretation: The Latin Fathers, ed. Tarmo Toom (Cambridge University Press, 2016), 49–76; and Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship (University of Chicago Press, 2006), esp. 63–131. For studies particularly on his Old Testament commentaries, see Yves-Marie Duval, Le livre de Jonas dans la litterature chrétienne grecque et latine. Sources et influence du Commentaire sur Jonas de saint Jérôme (Études augustiniennes, 1973); Pierre Jay, L’Exégèse de saint Jérôme: d’apès son « Commentaire sur Isaïe » (Études augustiniennes, 1985); and Michael Graves, Jerome’s Hebrew Philology: A Study Based on his Commentary on Jeremiah (Brill, 2007).

23 Concerning heresiology in Jerome’s commentaries, see Jeanjean, Saint Jérôme, 273–360; Andrew Cain, Jerome’s Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles and the Architecture of Exegetical Authority (Oxford University Press, 2021), 136–60; and Katarina Pålsson, “Jerome and His Readers: Authority, Community, and the Ideal of Humility,” Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture 18, no. 2 (2024): 74–94, https://doi.org/10.18573/jlarc.147. For discussions of how Jerome’s involvement in controversies is mirrored in his commentaries, cf. Kelly, Jerome, 296–308, 316–317; and especially Philip Rousseau, “Jerome on Jeremiah: Exegesis and Recovery,” in Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy, ed. Andrew Cain and Josef Lössl (Ashgate, 2009), 73–83.

24 Canellis, “Jerome’s Hermeneutics,” 72–5. For a discussion of different terms used by Jerome to express the spiritual sense, particularly in the Commentary on Isaiah, cf. Jay, L’Exégèse de saint Jérôme, 215–71.

25 Commentariorum in Osee prophetam 2.5.14–15 (CCSL 76, 62).

26 Commentariorum in Michaeam prophetam 7.5–7 (CCSL 76, 509): Sed et nunc rara fides est, cum aliud in labiis, aliud in corde uersatur.

27 Commentariorum in Sophoniam prophetam 1.12 (CCSL 76A, 670); Comm. Mic. 1.3.9–12 (CCSL 76, 465); Commentarius in Naum 1.2 (CCSL 76A, 527).

28 Comm. Mic. 1.3.9–12 (CCSL 76, 465); Comm. Soph. 1.13–14 (CCSL 76A, 671).

29 Comm. Mic. 1.2.9–10 (CCSL 76, 448): Ecclesiae … principes qui deliciis affluunt. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 1, 58.

30 Comm. Mic. 1.2.9–10 (CCSL 76, 448).

31 In Hieremiam prophetam 3.13.15 (CCSL 74, 130): reges quoque et sacerdotes et prophetae et omnis habitator Hierusalem impleretur ebrietate. Trans. Michael Graves, Jerome: Commentary on Jeremiah, ed. Christopher A. Hall (InterVarsity Press, 2011), 84. Cf. Comm. Hier. 4.23.11–12 (CCSL 74, 219).

32 Comm. Hier. 3.14.18 (CCSL 74, 142–43).

33 Comm. Hier. 3.16.9–12a (CCSL 74, 156–57).

34 Comm. Os. 2.6.6–7 (CCSL 76, 67): Cotidie Deus et eos qui extra Ecclesiam sunt, et qui peccant in Ecclesia commorantes, prouocat ad paenitentiam. Trans. Thomas P. Scheck (ed.), Jerome: Commentaries on the Twelve Prophets, vol. 2 (InterVarsity Press, 2017), 195.

35 Comm. Soph. 1.12 (CCSL 76A, 669–70).

36 Comm. Mic. 1.3.9–12 (CCSL 76, 465): in consummatione, et in fine, quando refrixerit caritas, et rara fides fuerit. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 1, 69.

37 Comm. Mic. 2.7.5–7 (CCSL 76, 508): ut plangeant qui ante riserunt. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 1, 102;

Cf. Commentariorum in Esaiam 8.24.7–13 (CCSL 73, 318).

38 Comm. Mic. 2.7.5–7 (CCSL 76, 508–509).

39 Comm. Mic. 2.7.5–7 (CCSL 76, 509): Quod autem sequitur: Nunc erunt, uel in fine uniuscuiusque uitae intellege, uel in consummatione rerum omnium, et in die iudicii quando generales super uniuersos uenient ultiones.

40 Comm. Soph. 1.7 (CCSL 76A, 663): secundum tropologiam, quia facies Domini est super facientes mala, ut perdat de terra memoriam eorum, et prope est iduicii dies, − quia ad comparationem aeternitatis omne huius saeculi tempus breue est –, siue exitus singulorum; timeant omnes, et sileant, ne facies Domini … peccatorum fenum, stipulam, ligna consumat. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 1, 121.

41 Commenting on the words about punishment over Judah and Jerusalem in Zephania 1:4–5, Jerome writes that evil is removed either at the consummation of the world or at the individual death (Comm. Soph. 1.4–6, CCSL 76A, 662). See also Comm. Soph. 1.13–14 (672); Comm. Soph. 1.15–16 (674); Comm. Soph. 1.17–18 (675); Comm. Soph. 2.3–4 (679). For a list of texts in which Jerome refers the Day of the Lord to the final consummation as well as to the individual death, see O’Connell, Eschatology of Saint Jerome, 81–82.

42 See the discussion in O’Connell, Eschatology of Saint Jerome, 80–87. The expressions vel and sive, often used by Jerome in juxtaposing the consummation of the world and the individual death (cf. the quotation above), are, O’Connell argues, disjunctive rather than conjunctive in these instances: O’Connell, Eschatology of Saint Jerome, 83.

43 Commentariorum in Ioelem prophetam 2.1–11 (CCSL 76, 180): Diem autem Domini, diem intellege iudicii, siue diem exitus uniuscuiusque de corpore. Quod enim in die iudicii futurum est omnibus, hoc in singulis die mortis impletur. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 2, 278.

44 O’Connell, Eschatology of Saint Jerome, 85–6.

45 “Get you up to a high mountain, O herald of good tidings to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, O herald of good tidings to Jerusalem.”

46 Comm. Ioel. 2.1–11 (CCSL 63, 180): ut canant tuba in Sion, id est in Ecclesia, quae interpretatur specula atque sublimitas. Et in sancto Dei monte qui Christus est, ut conturbentur, siue confundantur omnes habitatores terrae, et confusio eos pertrahat ad salutem. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 2, 278.

47 Comm. Hier. 3.13.16–17a (CCSL 74, 131): Prius ergo, quam iudicii tempus adueniat. Trans. Graves, Commentary, 85.

48 Commentariorum in Amos prophetam 1.3.3–8 (CCSL 76, 248): Et nota quod clemens et benignus Deus semper futura praenuntiat, ne cogatur inferre supplicia. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 2, 326.

49 Comm. Soph. 3.10–13 (CCSL 76A, 705): Numquid in sempiternum abiciet Deus, aut non addet ut misereatur ultra, aut continebit in ira sua misericordias suas? Et dixi: Nunc coepi, heac est immutatio dexterae excelsi. Et est sensus: Hoc quod putabam Dominum in aeternum relinquere peccatores, et misericordias suas ira succendente cohibere, intellexi idcirco factum, ut immutatione dexterae suae, quae excelsi est dextera, uniuersa mutaret, et misereretur his quod ante proiecerat. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 1, 153. Cf. for example Comm. Soph. 2.1–2 (CCSL 76A, 677–678); Comm. Hier. 25.4b–5 (CCSL 74, 238); Comm. Ion. 3.10 (CCSL 76, 410); Comm. Dan. 3.9.11 (CCSL 75A, 862).

50 “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live.” See, for example, Comm. Hiez. 6.18.23 (CCSL 75, 245); Comm. Hiez. 10.33.10–20 (CCSL 75, 469–472); Comm. Ioel. 2.12–14 (CCSL 76, 182–183); Comm. Mic. 1.3.5–8 (CCSL 76, 458–461); Comm. Os. 3.12.9–10 (CCSL 76, 136–138); Comm. Os. 3.12.14 (CCSL 76, 140); Comm. Es. 18.65.1 (CCSL 73A, 743); Dialogus adversus pelagianos 1.34 (CCSL 80, 41–43).

51 Dial. pelag. 1.29 (CCSL 80, 36): In die iudicii iniquis et peccatoribus non parcendum, sed aeternis eos ignibus exurendos. My translation. The quotation comes from Pelagius’ non-extant book Liber testimoniorum. In his On the Proceedings of Pelagius, Augustine related that Pelagius was confronted with, and defended, this statement at the synod of Diospolis in 415 (De gestis Pelagii, CSEL 42, 60–63).

52 Dial. pelag. 1.29 (CCSL 80, 36): Et non intellegis comminationem Dei interdum sonare clementiam?

53 Augustine criticizes the idea that sinners can be saved from hell by the saints’ prayers in his refutation of the second type of misericordes, that is, the version claiming that all human beings will ultimately be saved: Civ. 21.18; 21.24 (CCSL 48, 784–5, 789–93). Brown argues that, in contrast to the idea of purifying punishment, this conception implied a belief in “God’s exercise of his sovereign prerogative of mercy” (Brown, “Decline of the Empire,” 46), and had as its model the powerful emperor who could choose to show mercy or to punish, regardless of what the individual did: Brown, “Decline of the Empire,” 45–9.

54 Comm. Ioel. 2.12–14 (CCSL 76, 183): si nos egerimus super peccatis paenitentiam, et ipsum paeniteat comminationis suae. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 2, 280. Cf. Comm. Es. 11.38.1–3 (CCSL 73, 443): Dominus enim paenitens est super malitiis.

55 Comm. Dan. 1.4.24 (CCSL 75A, 816): dicit se suam mutare sententiam. Cf. Commentarium in Zachariam 2.8.13–15 (CCSL 76A, 817): mutat et suum ipse decretum; Comm. Am. 3.9.9–10 (CCSL 76, 344); Comm. Hiez. 10.33.10–20 (CCSL 75, 471).

56 Comm. Am. 3.7.1–3 (CCSL 76, 315). Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 2, 373.

57 Comm. Am. 3.7.1–3 (CCSL 76, 315): cum perturbationibus nostris atque uirtutibus in utramque partem poenarum atque clementiae Dominus commutabitur. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 2, 374.

58 Comm. Hier. 5.26.1–3 (CCSL 74, 253–254).

59 Comm. Hiez. 10.33.1–9 (CCSL 75, 468). Cf. Comm. Es. 18.66.13–14 (CCSL 73A, 782).

60 Comm. Hiez. 10.33.1–9 (CCSL 75, 468): reus est sanguinis eius qui liberari potuit et de morte erui. Trans. Thomas P. Scheck, St. Jerome: Commentary on Ezekiel (Newman Press, 2017), 383.

61 Comm. Hier. 1.3.12–13 (CCSL 74, 35): Quod quidem et ad hereticos uel in ecclesia neglegentes dici conuenit, qui cotidie per ecclesiasticos uiros ad paenitentiam prouocantur. Trans. Graves, Commentary, 22. Cf. Comm. Am. 2.5.16–17, where Jerome writes that “a man of the church who is capable of summoning to repentance imitates his Lord, who says: ‘We wailed and you did not mourn’” (Lk 7.32). ([CCSL 76, 290]: uir ecclesiasticus et potens ad paenitentiam prouocare, imitetur Dominum suum dicentem: Lamentati sumus et non planxistis. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 2, 356.)

62 Comm. Hier. 4.18.1–10 (CCSL 74, 177): Et ut liberum significaret arbitrium, dicit se et mala annuntiare genti et regno illi uel illi et rursum bona; nec tamen hoc euenire, quod ipse praedixerit … dimittat hominem uoluntati suae, ut uel praemia uel poenas suo merito recipiat. Trans. Graves, Commentary, 113–114.

63 Comm. Hier. 4.18.1–10 (CCSL 74, 177): ita enim libertas arbitrii reseruanda est, ut in omnibus excellat gratia largitoris. Trans. Graves, Commentary, 114.

64 Comm. Hier. 6.31.18–19 (CCSL 74, 309): Vide, quantum sit auxilium dei et quam fragilis humana condicio, ut hoc ipsum, quod agimus paenitentiam, nisi dominus nos ante conuerterit, nequaquam implere ualeamus. Trans. Graves, Commentary, 196.

65 This discussion takes place at the end of the second book of Against Jovinian: Adversus Iovinianum 2.18–34 (Patrologia Latina 23, 312–333).

66 Adv. Iovin. 2.23 (PL 23, 318–320); 2.28 (PL 23, 324–325); 2.30 (PL 23, 327).

67 “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved – even though only as one escaping through the flames.”

68 Adv. Iovin. 2.22 (PL 23, 317–318): Si is cujus opus arsit, et periit, et damnum sustinuit laboris sui, perdet quidem laboris praemium, sed ipse salvabitur, non tamen absque probatione ignis: ergo is cujus opus manserit, quod superaedificavit, sine ignis probatione salvabitur, et inter salvationem et salvationem utique erit diversitas aliqua. My translation. A similar interpretation is presented in Adv. Iovin. 2.26 (PL 23, 322–323).

69 Adv. Iovin. 2.3 (PL 23, 286–287).

70 Concerning his reception of Origen’s ideas, see Pålsson, Negotiating Heresy.

71 Comm. Hiez. 2.7.3–4 (CCSL 75, 72): Quod autem dicit: Non parcet oculus meus super te et non misererbor, quasi clementissimus medicus. Trans. Scheck, Commentary, 73.

72 For example: Comm. Am. 1.3.1–2 (CCSL 76, 243–244); Comm. Os. 2.6.10–11 (CCSL 76, 69–70); Comm. Hier. 2.6.7b–8 (CCSL 74, 65–66); Comm. Hier. 2.10.24–25 (CCSL 74, 110–111); Comm. Hiez. 2.7.3–4 (CCSL 75, 71–72); Comm. Es. 17.63.17–19 (CCSL 73A, 731). Cf. Dial. pelag. 1.29 (CCSL 80, 36–37).

73 Comm. Hiez. 2.7.3–4 (CCSL 75, 72); Comm. Hiez. 2.7.27d (CCSL 75, 90); cf. Comm. Es. 1.1.5 (CCSL 73, 11).

74 Comm. Hiez. 7.24.1–14 (CCSL 75, 325): crudelis est ut misereatur. Trans. Scheck, Commentary, 271.

75 Dial. pelag. 1.29 (CCSL 80, 36).

76 Comm. Dan. 2.7.9d (CCSL 75A, 846); Comm. Soph. 1.7 (CCSL 76A, 663); Comm. Soph. 1.15–16 (CCSL 76A, 674); Comm. Soph. 2.3–4 (CCSL 76A, 680); Comm. Naum 1.2 (CCSL 76A, 527); Commentariorum in Malachiam prophetam 3.2–6 (CCSL 76A, 929–32); Comm. Am. 1.2.13–16 (CCSL 76, 241); Comm. Hiez. 9.30.1–19 (CCSL 75, 426); Comm. Es. 10.30.27–29 (CCSL 73, 398); Comm.Es. 18.65.6–7 (CCSL 73A, 748–49); Comm. Es. 18.66.15–16 (CCSL 73A, 782–4).

77 Comm. Ioel. 2.1–11 (CCSL 76, 180): erit ignis uorans, siue consumens, ut omne in nobis fenum, ligna, stipulamque consumat. Vnde et de Deo dicitur: Deus ignis consumens est, et post eum urens flamma. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 2, 278.

78 Comm. Am. 1.3.1–2 (CCSL 76, 244).

79 Comm. Am. 3.9.7–8 (CCSL 76, 343).

80 Comm. Am. 3.7.4–6 (CCSL 76, 316): duas, quibus Iudas praeerat, ad Ecclesiam et Ecclesiae peccatores, qui confitentur quidem rectam fidem, sed propter uitiorum sordes purgantibus se indigent flammis. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 2, 374.

81 Cf. Comm. Hier. 2.5.26–27a (CCSL 74, 61): Impietas aperte negat deum; iniquitas atque peccatum, si confiteatur errorem, facile ad misericordiam flectit deum. (“Impiety openly denies God, whereas the one who has committed injustice or sin, if he will confess his error, easily moves God to pity.” Trans. Graves, Commentary, 39.)

82 Dial. pelag. 1.29 (CCSL 80, 37): et diabolum et satellites eius omnesque impios et praeuaricatores dicimus perire perpetuo, et Christianos, si in peccato praeuenti fuerint, saluandos esse post poenas. My translation. Jerome expresses his position as one between two extremes, that is, Pelagian rigorism and Origen’s idea of apokatastasis; see Pålsson, Negotiating Heresy, 251–7.

83 “And they shall go out and look at the dead bodies of the people who have rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

84 Comm. Es. 18.66.24 (CCSL 73A, 799): Sic peccatorum atque impiorum et tamen Christianorum, quorum opera in igne probanda sunt atque purganda, moderatam arbitramur et mixtam clementiae sententiam iudicis. My translation.

85 O’Connell, Eschatology of Saint Jerome, 156–176. O’Connell is correct in claiming that Jerome seldom elaborates on the state of souls after death and before the final judgment, and we should certainly be aware of ascribing to him a teaching of purgatory: Eschatology of Saint Jerome, 87–101. Brian E. Daley, commenting on the text from the Commentary on Isaiah, remarks: “It is Jerome at his most generous, and perhaps at his most profound.” (Brian E. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology [Cambridge University Press, 1991], 104).

86 Comm. Hier. 3.15.13–14 (CCSL 75, 151): tu enim praebuisti materiam ardoris tui, ut meus ignis tua, quae in te sunt, ligna consumat et faenum et stipulam. Trans. Graves, Commentary, 98. Cf. Comm. Es. 18.65.6–7 (CCSL 73A, 748–9).

87 Adv. Iovin. 2.31 (PL 23, 328–329): Sed aliud est poenitentem esse, et lacrymis veniam deprecari, aliud semper esse cum patre. My translation. He quotes Ezekiel 16:62–63 and 36:31–32.

88 Comm. Am. 2.5.1–2 (CCSL 76, 274): Qui autem post peccatum egerint paenitentiam, pro diuersitate meritorum stellis aliis aequabuntur. Trans. Scheck, Commentaries, vol. 2, 344.

89 James T. Palmer, The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 2014), 50.

90 James T. Palmer, “To Be Found Prepared: Eschatology and Reform Rhetoric ca. 570–ca. 640,” in Gabriele and Palmer, Apocalypse and Reform, 31–49; Palmer, The Apocalypse, 57–68; Peter Darby, “Apocalypse and Reform in Bede’s De Die Iudicii,” in Gabriele and Palmer, Apocalypse and Reform, 77–100.