The Eschatological Aspects of Saint Jerome’s Writings

Abstract

Hieronymus is one of the best known Church Fathers due to the Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate. Interestingly, the uncertainty and diversity of patristic eschatology that resulted from the scriptural treatment of eschatology lasted until Jerome’s time. He has left us no methodological and comprehensive studies of theological questions, since the vir trilinguis was not a theologian, but rather an exegete and a polemist, however, his teaching on most theological subjects remained buried in his work, and this paper attempts to examine his eschatology. After exploring the patristic interpretation of eschatology and judgement, the importance of Jerome’s teaching will be explored, since he lived before the general outlines of Christian eschatology were definitively settled in the minds of Christian writers. This paper will sketch the broad outlines of two important eschatological systems and two particular eschatological errors that claimed adherents before and during Jerome’s lifetime, in which related disputes he himself was also involved, and finally his apocalyptical interpretation of history will be referred to.