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

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.