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St. Jerome
(A.D. 340- 420)
Doctor Maximus
Sacris Scripturis Explanandis The Nativity of Christ - "Tradition could, then, be preserved more easily in the West than in Judea where there was conflict. After forty-two years, the armies of Vespasian and Titus arrived; Jerusalem was overthrown and destroyed; all the Jews and Christians were driven out, every one of them."
Commentary on Daniel
St. Jerome - Catholic Encyclopedia |
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(On Isaiah 11:10-16)
"Let the wise and Christian reader take this rule for prophetical
promises, that those things, which the Jews and ours, not ours but
Judaizers, hold to be going to take place carnally, we should teach to
have already taken place spiritually, lest by occasion of fables and
inexplicable question of that sort (as the apostles calls them), we
should be compelled to Judaize."
(On Daniel 7:7 / Fourth Empire)
"Verse 7.
"After this, I beheld in the night-vision, and
behold, there was a fourth beast, terrible and wonderful and exceedingly
strong. He had large iron teeth, devouring and crushing, and everything
that was left he stamped to pieces under his feet." The fourth
empire is the Roman Empire, which now occupies the entire world, and
concerning which it was said in connection with the image, "Its lower
legs were of iron, and part of its feet were of iron, and part of clay."
And yet from the iron |76
portion itself Daniel calls to mind that its teeth were iron, and
solemnly avers that they were large in size. I find it strange that
although he had set forth a lioness, a bear and a leopard in the case of
the three previous kingdoms, he did not compare the Roman realm to any
sort of beast. Perhaps it was in order to render the beast fearsome
indeed that he gave it no name, intending thereby that we should
understand the Romans to partake of all the more ferocious
characteristics we might think of in connection with beasts. The Hebrews
believe that the beast which is here not named is the one spoken of in
the Psalms: "A boar from the forest laid her waste, and a strange wild
animal consumed her" (Ps. 79:14). [This is the citation according to the
Septuagint and Vulgate, whose translation of the Septuagint is here
quoted; but the citation in the Hebrew text is Ps. 80:14, and in the
English Version, 80:13.] Instead of this the Hebrew reads: "All the
beasts of the field have torn her." [A more accurate rendering of the
Hebrew would be: ". . .and the moving creatures (or "swarms") of the
field do feed upon her."] While they are all included in the one Empire
of the Romans, we recognize at the same time those kingdoms which were
previously separate. And as for the next statement, ". . .devouring and
crushing, and pounding all the rest to pieces under his feet," this
signifies that all nations have either been slain by the Romans or else
have been subjected to tribute and servitude." (Commentary on Daniel;
in loc.)
(On Daniel 9:27)
"That, "Let him that readeth understand," is said to call us to the mystic understanding of the place. What we read in Daniel is this; "And in the midst of the week the sacrifice and the oblation shall be taken away, and in the temple shall be the abomination of desolations until the consummation of the time, and consummation shall be given upon the desolate." [Dan 9:27, septuagint]
(On Daniel 11:27 /
Nero as Antichrist)
"As for the Antichrist, there is
no question but what he is going to fight against the holy covenant, and
that when he first makes war against the king of Egypt, he shall
straightway be frightened off by the assistance of the Romans. But these
events were typically prefigured under Antiochus Epiphanes, so that this
abominable king who persecuted God's people foreshadows the Antichrist,
who is to persecute the people of Christ. And so there are many of our
viewpoint who think that Domitius Nero was the Antichrist because of his
outstanding savagery and depravity." (Commentary on Daniel;
notes on Daniel 11:27-30)
(On Matthew 22:7)
"By "His armies" we understand that Romans under Vespasian and Titus, who having slaughtered the inhabitants of Judaea, laid in ashes the faithless city." (Matthew 22)
(On Matthew 24:15)
"it may be understood of the statue of Caesar, which Pilate set up in the temple; or of the equestrian statue of Adrian, which stood to the present time in the very Holy of Holies. For, according to the Old Scripture, an idol is called 'abomination;' "of desolation" is added, because the idol was set up in the desolated and deserted temple." (Matthew 24:15, Quoted in
Golden Chain)
(On Matthew 24:24)
"This may be understood of the false prophets. At the time of the Jewish captivity, there were many leaders who declared themselves to be Christs, [marg. note: Josephus, B. J., v. 1] so that while the Romans were actually besieging them, there were three factions within." (Matthew 24:24,
Ibid.)
(On Simon Magus)
"[He said:] I am the Word of God, I am the Comforter, I am Almighty, I am all there is of God." (Quoted in Mansel's
Qnostic Heresies)
(On
Clement of Alexandria)
"The learned scholar
Clement, presbyter of the church at Alexandria, regards the number of
years as a matter of slight consequence, (691) asserting that the
seventy weeks of years were completed by the span of time from the reign
of Cyrus, King of the Persians, to the reign of the Roman emperors,
Vespasian and Titus; that is to say, the interval of four hundred and
ninety years, with the addition in that same figure of the two thousand
three hundred days of which we made earlier mention. He attempts to
reckon in these seventy weeks the ages of the Persians, Macedonians, and
Caesars, even though according to the most careful computation, the
number of years from the first year of Cyrus, King of the Persians and
Medes, when Darius also bore rule, up to the reign of Vespasian and the
destruction of the Temple amounts to six hundred and thirty."
(Commentary on Daniel;
Chapter 9)
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