Complete Works of Saint Jerome, Vol. IV

hills: like is my kinsman to a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel (Song of Songs 2:8, 9).

"And all nations shall flow unto it: and many peoples shall go." For all nations shall serve him, to whom it was said: Ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession (Psalm 2:8): that they may serve him according to Zephaniah under one yoke, of whom the same prophet testifies: From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, they shall bring me sacrifices (Zephaniah 3:10). And in the seventy-first psalm we read: Before him the Ethiopians shall fall down (Psalm 71:9). For in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Philippians 2).

(Verse 3.) "And they shall say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will teach us his ways: and we will walk in his paths." The Gentiles and peoples, by no means content with their own salvation, will exhort one another and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob. Of whom we spoke above, who is the mountain of the Lord prepared and which is the house of the Lord above the top of the mountains. But the house of the Lord is called the house of the God of Jacob, so that we may receive the Old Testament, and not seek another house outside the house of the God of Jacob, according to the Manichaean A follower of the dualistic religious movement founded by Mani in the 3rd century. view. But when we are in the house of the God of Jacob, then he will teach us his ways, through which we may walk to him, and we will walk in his paths, which 1 others also have trodden. Finally, Jesus also, ascending the mountain, taught his disciples the eight beatitudes, and the other things that the Gospel discourse contains (Luke 6). Therefore, the ways of the Lord must be learned first; and afterwards one must walk in his paths.

"For the law shall go forth out of Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." All the Gentiles and many peoples will therefore exhort one another and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and the rest that follows: For the law shall go forth out of Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem: by no means from Sinai, and from the wilderness, and from Mount Horeb: but from Mount Sion, in which Jerusalem is built: and from Jerusalem, in which is the Temple and the religion of God. We read that the Lord often taught in the Temple (Matthew 21): and that it did not behoove a prophet to die outside Jerusalem: and

A above, the word and the law are named together, the princes are commanded to hear the Word: the people to perceive the law with their ears. For he who has first done the law, afterward comes to the word of God. But also the Church, first founded in Jerusalem, sowed the churches of the whole world. And this must be said, that whoever is on the watchtower and in the vision of peace, in him the law and the word of the Lord should be established. And it is beautifully said, not: in Sion and in Jerusalem will the word and law of the Lord be, and remain; but shall go forth, so that from that source he may signify that all nations are to be irrigated by the doctrine of God.

"And he shall judge the Gentiles, and rebuke many peoples." Therefore, there is judgment 2 also among the Gentiles: nor are all unbelievers to be condemned by the same sentence, but according to the diversity of their merits they will suffer different things. But after B he has judged the Gentiles, then he will rebuke many peoples, or, as the LXX translated, much people. And note the order: the Gentiles will be judged, because they are going to believe: For he that does not believe is already judged (John 3:18). But the many people, who are understood to be Israel, will by no means be judged, but will be rebuked, because they did not receive the Son of God sent to them.

(Verse 4.) "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles." All study of warfare will be turned to peace, and instead of discord there will be concord in the whole world. Swords will be changed into plowshares, and spears into sickles, so that, having abandoned the fury of warfare, they may serve agriculture and cut most rich harvests with sickles. Which indeed can also be understood spiritually, when all the hardness of our heart is broken by the plowshare of Christ, and the thorns of vices are eradicated, so that the seed of the word of God may grow into crops: and afterward we may eat the labors of our hands, when they coming shall come with joy, carrying their sheaves (Psalm 125:6).

34 "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they be exercised any more to war." Let us revolve ancient histories, and we will find that until the twenty-eighth 3 year of Caesar Augustus (in the forty-first year of whom Christ was born in Judea) there was discord in the whole world, and individual nations burned with the desire for battle against neighboring peoples, so that they struck and were struck. But when the Lord Savior was born, when under Quirinius, governor of Syria, the first census was made in the world, and the peace of the Roman Empire was prepared for the Gospel doctrine; then all wars ceased, and by no means...

1 I would wish for triverunt (trodden) to be written instead of tribuerunt (granted/allotted), which is meaningless here, although it is read in both the published editions and the manuscripts.
2 The Vatican, with the Palatine, reads: between nations and nations there is to be judged.
3 He seems to have received this from Tertullian, who in chapter 8 of his book Against the Jews, defines the birth of the Savior thus: "Cleopatra reigned with Augustus for thirteen years; after Cleopatra, Augustus reigned for other years, 43; for all the years of Augustus's reign were 56. We see therefore why in the forty-first year of Augustus's reign, in which he ruled after the death of Cleopatra, Christ is born."

• Suetonius in Augustus chap. 22. "Janus Quirinus, he says, which has been closed from the founding of the City only twice before his memory, he closed three times in a much shorter space of time, after peace had been obtained by land and sea." See also Eusebius, Evangelical Preparation, book I, chap. 4; Orosius, book VI, chap. 22, and book VII, chap. 5. Furthermore, Joseph Scaliger teaches in the Chronology of Eusebius, page 161, that this passage of Jerome needs observation. But I do not see a hallucination, because Jerome said that until the 28th year of Augustus there was discord in the whole world. Nor indeed is he speaking there of the Actian victory, or of the consulship of Augustus; but he indicates only that not long before the birth of Christ all wars had ceased and the Lord Jesus was born in the 41st year of the same Augustus's reign. This has been confirmed by the consensus of the old Church. MARTIAN.