Complete Works of Saint Jerome, Vol. IV

all the works that they do, whether it be an idol or Jerusalem, in which the idol was; and when the Lord sets it on fire, no one will be able to extinguish it. We can take all these things regarding contrary dogmas as well: that both masters and disciples perish alike, and all their work is food for the fire.

(Chapter II. — Verse 1.) "The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem." In the previous Vision, which we have already expounded, where the LXX original: "Septuaginta Interpretes" (The Septuagint) translated it as which he saw against Judah and against Jerusalem, in the Hebrew original: "Hebraico" it is written AL JUDA UJERUSALEM (על יהודה וירושלם): and in this one, which is the second, it is contained similarly in Hebrew. And I wonder why the LXX Interpreters said in that one against Judah and Jerusalem, and in this one concerning Judah and concerning Jerusalem; unless perhaps it is because there it is called a sinful nation, a people full of sins, a wicked seed, children of iniquity, and rulers of Sodom, and a people of Gomorrah and a harlot city, and other things of that kind, they translated the meaning rather than the word. And here, because prosperous things are promised immediately: In the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God at the top of the mountains, they understood the prophecy not against Judah and Jerusalem, but concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Although we also read of prosperous things in that one after the threat: I will restore your judges, as they were before, and your counselors as of old: after this you shall be called the city of the just, the faithful city; and in this one, after the prosperous things, there is a fierce threat. Behold, the Lord of hosts, the Master, will take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the strong and the mighty, all the strength of bread, and all the strength of water, and the rest. Therefore, according to the Hebrew, both in that vision and in this discourse which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw, it must be understood concerning Judah and Jerusalem: not against Judah and Jerusalem: or for Judah and Jerusalem, as Symmachus translated it: but absolutely, 31 concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in which both joyful and sad things can be contained. And this must be considered, because there he sees a vision, here the Word, which was in the beginning with God; and in that one, threatening the Jews, he comes to the salvation of the Gentiles; in this one, beginning from the salvation of the Gentiles, with Israel punished, he gathers together believers from both vocations into the Church of Christ.

(Verse 2.) "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains." We read of the last days also in Genesis, when

A Jacob calls his sons and says: Come, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days (Genesis 49:1): afterward to Judah, from whose seed Christ arose, he said: The prince shall not fail from Judah, nor the leader from his loins, until he comes to whom it is reserved: and he shall be the expectation of the Gentiles. In these last days shall be the last hour, of which the Apostle John speaks: My little children, it is the last hour (1 John 2:18); in which the stone cut from the mountain without hands grew into a great mountain, and filled the whole earth: by which the prince of Tyre is said to be wounded in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 28:16, according to the LXX). This mountain is in the house of the Lord, which the Prophet sighs for, saying: 3 One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will require: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, all the B days of my life (Psalm 26:4); and of which Paul writes to Timothy: But if I tarry, that you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). This house is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, who themselves are mountains, as imitators of Christ (Ephesians 2). Regarding this house 4 of Jerusalem, the Psalmist exclaims, saying: They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Sion: he shall not be moved for ever, who dwells in Jerusalem. Mountains are round about it: and the Lord is round about his people (Psalm 124:1). Whence Christ founds His Church upon one of the mountains, and speaks to him: You are Peter, and upon this C rock I will build my church: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). Similar things the saint speaks to his own soul that is longing and impatient to see the house of God: Why are you sad, O my soul, and why do you disturb me (Psalm 41:6)? And again: I have remembered these things and poured out my soul in me: for I shall pass over to the place 32 of the admirable tabernacle even to the house of God: in the voice of joy and confession of the multitude of those that feast (Ibid., 5). The LXX translated: The manifest mountain of the Lord, and the house of God above the heads of the mountains. Which testimony the prophet Micah also placed in the same words: which I have expounded in its own place (Micah 4).

"And it shall be exalted above the hills." He who has been shown and prepared on the heads of the mountains, he shall be exalted above the hills. D Regarding which mountains and hills, the bride also speaks in the Song of Songs: The voice of my kinsman: behold he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping...

1 Palat. is somewhat more correct, Judah Uhirusalaim.
2 "It is written," etc. Thus read the manuscript copies which have an aspiration before Ujerusalem, namely Hujerusalem; according to the custom, as we have already said, of ancient books. MARTIAN.
3 "One thing I have asked," etc. He reads in this manner more often in his commentaries, although in the translation of the Scriptures he said in the feminine gender, one thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will require. Regarding this variety of reading, he argues thus in chapter 7 of Ecclesiastes: "Instead of that which we translated above from the Hebrew discourse: One to one... Symmachus translated it more clearly, one to one... For what we are accustomed to call absolutely and neutrally, that is, 'this I sought, that I wanted to find'; the Hebrews pronounce it in the feminine gender, just as in the psalm: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will require; instead of what is 'one'." MARTIAN.

• Indeed, one thing I have asked, and soon this I will require. Martian also, who retained one and this, praises the Saint Doctor's testimony in chapter 7 of Ecclesiastes. "What we are accustomed to call absolutely and neutrally, that is, 'this I sought, that I wanted to find'; the Hebrews pronounce it in the feminine gender, just as in the Psalm: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will require, instead of what is 'one'."
  4 The same, regarding this house, and Jerusalem.