Jerome — Commentary on Scripture

Psalms 18:9

Because we are little and lowly and unable to lift ourselves up to him, the Lord stoops down to us and in his compassionate kindness deigns to hear us. In fact, because we are people and cannot become gods, God became man and inclined himself, as it is written: “He inclined the heavens and came down.”

HOMILY ON PSALM 114(116a)

Psalms 18:11

[Daniel 2:22] "It is He who reveals deep and hidden things, and He knows what is placed in the darkness, and with Him is the light." A man to whom God makes profound revelations and who can say, "O the depth of the riches of the knowledge and wisdom of God!" (Romans 11:33), he it is who by the indwelling Spirit probes even into the deep things of God, and digs the deepest of wells in the depths of his soul. He is a man who has stirred up the whole earth, which is wont to conceal the deep waters, and he observes the command of God, saying: "Drink water from thy vessels and from the spring of thy wells" (Proverbs 5:15). As for the words which follow, "He knows what is placed in the darkness, and with Him is the light," the darkness signifies ignorance, and the light signifies knowledge and learning. Therefore as wrong cannot hide God away, so right encompasses and surrounds Him. Or else we should interpret the words to mean all the dark mysteries and deep things (concerning God), according to what we read in Proverbs: "He understands also the parable and the dark saying." (Proverbs 1:6…

[Daniel 2:22] "It is He who reveals deep and hidden things, and He knows what is placed in the darkness, and with Him is the light." A man to whom God makes profound revelations and who can say, "O the depth of the riches of the knowledge and wisdom of God!" (Romans 11:33), he it is who by the indwelling Spirit probes even into the deep things of God, and digs the deepest of wells in the depths of his soul. He is a man who has stirred up the whole earth, which is wont to conceal the deep waters, and he observes the command of God, saying: "Drink water from thy vessels and from the spring of thy wells" (Proverbs 5:15). As for the words which follow, "He knows what is placed in the darkness, and with Him is the light," the darkness signifies ignorance, and the light signifies knowledge and learning. Therefore as wrong cannot hide God away, so right encompasses and surrounds Him. Or else we should interpret the words to mean all the dark mysteries and deep things (concerning God), according to what we read in Proverbs: "He understands also the parable and the dark saying." (Proverbs 1:6, LXX) This in turn is equivalent to what we read in the Psalms: "Dark waters in the clouds of the sky" (Psalm 18:11). For one who ascends to the heights and forsakes the things of earth, and like the birds themselves seeks after the most rarified atmosphere and everything ethereal, he becomes like a cloud to which the truth of God penetrates and which habitually showers rain upon the saints. Replete with a plenitude of knowledge, he contains in his breast many dark waters enveloped with deep darkness, a darkness which only Moses can penetrate and speak with God face to face (Exodus 33:11), of Whom the Scripture says: "He hath made darkness His hiding-place" (Psalm 18:11).

St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER TWO

Psalms 18:11

This verse suggests the ineffable dispensation of God and our inability to comprehend his wisdom. As with these eyes of ours we cannot look into an unfathomable depth, neither are we able to contemplate the majesty or the wisdom of God.

HOMILY ON PSALM 103[104]

Psalms 18:11

There is no doubt but that the clouds and darkness round about him were the body that the Lord Savior deigned to assume.… He appeared just as he willed to appear and not in accordance with his divine nature. “He made darkness the cloak about him.” If God is light, how is light able to dwell in darkness? In that passage, darkness represents our imperfect knowledge and our infirmity, for we cannot gaze on his majesty. If human eyes cannot, in fact, look on the rays of the sun of this world, a creature, our fellow slave, how much more are there shades and darkness round about the Sun of Justice that he may not be observed or looked on by us?

HOMILY ON PSALM 96[97]

Psalms 18:37

The mind must not through disbelief in the promised blessings give way to despair; and the soul once marked out for perdition must not refuse to apply remedies on the ground that its wounds are past curing.… Lo, I hear his promise: “I will pursue mine enemies and overtake them; neither will I turn again till they are consumed,” so that I, who was once your enemy and a fugitive from you, shall be laid hold of by your hand. Cease not from pursuing me till my wickedness is consumed.

LETTER 122.1

Psalms 19:6

“And there is not one who may hide himself from his heat.” Really there is none who does not have the seeds of the knowledge of God.

BRIEF COMMENTARY ON PSALM 19

Psalms 19:12

It is not my will to conceive sin; I do not want to entertain bad thoughts, and yet I do; I do not want to entertain evil, and, like a captive against my will, I am drawn into evil reflections. Because it is not in my power either to think or not to think evil, that is why I declare, “Surely they are wanton sins that come into my heart,” but since I cannot seem to avoid them, I plead, “Cleanse me from my unknown faults.” Unprovoked they come, but because I harbor them, I beg the Lord, “From wanton sin especially restrain your servant.” Why am I saying all this? Because the prophet said, “I shall please the Lord”; not “I please” but “I shall please,” for no matter how much I strive here, I cannot be a perfect man, a just man. Consequently, the apostle also says, “We know in part, and we prophesy in part,” and “We see now through a mirror in an obscure manner.”

HOMILY ON PSALM 114[116A]

Psalms 19:14

The third division is one of praise that teaches the impossibility of the Law, and since through transgressing it more sin had appeared in the world, the grace of the gospel has been made complete; nor is anyone able to be freed from the filthiness of his thinking except through the advent of the Holy Spirit.

BRIEF COMMENTARY ON PSALM 19

Psalms 21:3

The crown of the Lord is the church gathered from the various nations, about which Paul in the person of the believers says, “My joy and my crown.”

BRIEF COMMENTARY ON PSALM 21

Psalms 23:4

He whom the Lord loves, he corrects.

BRIEF COMMENTARY ON PSALM 23

Psalms 24:7

As our Lord ascends to the Father in triumph, he issues commands to the angels saying, “Open to me the gates of justice; I will enter them and give thanks to the Lord.” These are the gates of which in the twenty-fourth psalm the angels were speaking while they were preparing for the entrance of the Lord: “Lift up, O gates, your lintels; reach up, you ancient portals, that the King of glory may come in!” Aptly are the gates commanded to lift up high and raise aloft their portals, since, in accordance with the dispensation and mystery of the flesh and in conformity with the victory of the cross, he reenters heaven mightier than he had come down on earth. “This gate is the Lord’s; the just shall enter it.” Through this gate, Peter has entered, and Paul, and all the apostles and martyrs, and today the saints continue to go in; through this gate, the thief was the first to pass with the Lord. Have faith, therefore, and be hopeful for your own entrance.

HOMILY 94, ON EASTER SUNDAY

Psalms 24:8

[Daniel 8:16-17] "And I heard the voice of a man in the midst of the Ulai, and he cried out and said: 'Gabriel, make this vision intelligible (Vulgate: make this man to understand the vision).' And he came and stood near to where I was standing." The Jews claim that this man who directed Gabriel to explain the vision to Daniel was Michael. Quite appropriately it was Gabriel, who has been put in charge of battles, to whom this duty was assigned, inasmuch as the vision had to do with battles and contests between kings and even between kingdoms themselves. For Gabriel is translated into our language as "the strength of, or the mighty one of, God." And so at that time also when the Lord was about to be born and to declare war against the demons and to triumph over the world, Gabriel came to Zacharias (Luke 1:11-20) and to Mary (Luke 1:26-27). And then we read in the Psalms concerning the Lord in His triumph: "Who is this king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle; He is the King of glory" (Psalm 24:8). But whenever it is medicine or healing that is needed, it is…

[Daniel 8:16-17] "And I heard the voice of a man in the midst of the Ulai, and he cried out and said: 'Gabriel, make this vision intelligible (Vulgate: make this man to understand the vision).' And he came and stood near to where I was standing." The Jews claim that this man who directed Gabriel to explain the vision to Daniel was Michael. Quite appropriately it was Gabriel, who has been put in charge of battles, to whom this duty was assigned, inasmuch as the vision had to do with battles and contests between kings and even between kingdoms themselves. For Gabriel is translated into our language as "the strength of, or the mighty one of, God." And so at that time also when the Lord was about to be born and to declare war against the demons and to triumph over the world, Gabriel came to Zacharias (Luke 1:11-20) and to Mary (Luke 1:26-27). And then we read in the Psalms concerning the Lord in His triumph: "Who is this king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle; He is the King of glory" (Psalm 24:8). But whenever it is medicine or healing that is needed, it is Raphael who is sent, for his name is rendered as "the healing of," or "the medicine of God" - that is, if one cares to accept the authority of the Book of Tobias (Tobit 12:11-15). And then, when favorable promises are made to the people, and hilasmos, which we might render as "propitiation" or "expiation," is the thing required, then it is Michael who is directed to go, for his name means, "Who is like God?" Of course the significance of the name indicates the fact that the only true remedy is to be found in God.

"And he said to me: 'Son of man, understand that in the time of the end the vision shall be fulfilled.'" Inasmuch as Ezekiel and Daniel and Zechariah behold themselves to be often in the company of angels, they were reminded of their frailty, lest they should be lifted up in pride and imagine themselves to partake of the nature or dignity of angels. Therefore they are addressed as sons of men, in order that they might realize that they are but human beings.

St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER EIGHT

Psalms 25:11

Although the mercy of God mitigated the truth of his judgment, nevertheless, because David was bold enough to make such statements, he was abandoned to his weakness for awhile, and, as you say, to the freedom of his will.

Against the Pelagians 2.19

Psalms 26:3

He seeks justice so that he may tell of mercy.

BRIEF COMMENTARY ON PSALMS 25[26]

Psalms 28:4

Because they do not understand through blessings, they will understand through suffering.

BRIEF COMMENTARY ON PSALM 28

Psalms 28:8

Whoever is baptized in Christ is his anointed.

BRIEF COMMENTARY ON PSALM 28

Psalms 29:8

The desert was the church that, at first, had no children. By the preaching of Christ, this wilderness “was shaken” and “came to labor and gave birth, and there was born in a single day an entire nation.” She who before was called the “wilderness of Cades,” the desert of holiness—inasmuch as she had been barren of virtues—begins “to bring forth stags” and send out in throngs holy people who kill the serpents on earth, contemptuous of their poisons. While they are running throughout the world proclaiming the gospel of Christ, “in his temple all say ‘Glory’ ” to God!

HOMILY ON THE EPIPHANY AND PSALM 28

Psalms 29:8

The souls that were in the desert by yielding to faults are moved to words of repentance, so that leaving those faults they become the habitation of God.

BRIEF COMMENTARY ON PSALM 29

Psalms 32:7-8

[Daniel 11:1] "And from the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up that he might be strengthened and confirmed." Daniel implies, "From the first year of the reign of Darius, who overthrew the Chaldeans and delivered me from the hand of my enemies to the extent of his ability (for even his sealing of the pit of lions with his signet ring was for my protection, lest my adversaries should slay me), I for my part stood before God, and I besought God's mercy upon him, in view of the man's love for me, in order that either he or his kingdom might be strengthened and confirmed. And since I persevered in my prayer, I was answered by God and given to understand the following information. After all, it is a customary thing with the prophets to bring in new speakers abruptly and without warning. So it is in Psalm Thirty-one: for when the prophet has petitioned God and said: "Thou art my refuge from my tribulation which compassed me about; O Thou, who art my rejoicing, deliver me from those who now encompass me," then God is abruptly brought in as the speaker, replying, "I will give thee unde…

[Daniel 11:1] "And from the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up that he might be strengthened and confirmed." Daniel implies, "From the first year of the reign of Darius, who overthrew the Chaldeans and delivered me from the hand of my enemies to the extent of his ability (for even his sealing of the pit of lions with his signet ring was for my protection, lest my adversaries should slay me), I for my part stood before God, and I besought God's mercy upon him, in view of the man's love for me, in order that either he or his kingdom might be strengthened and confirmed. And since I persevered in my prayer, I was answered by God and given to understand the following information. After all, it is a customary thing with the prophets to bring in new speakers abruptly and without warning. So it is in Psalm Thirty-one: for when the prophet has petitioned God and said: "Thou art my refuge from my tribulation which compassed me about; O Thou, who art my rejoicing, deliver me from those who now encompass me," then God is abruptly brought in as the speaker, replying, "I will give thee understanding, and I will instruct thee in this way in which thou shalt go; I will fasten Mine eyes upon thee" (Psalm 32:7-8). So also here, as the prophet relates, "From the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up and interceded that he might be strengthened and that his rule might be confirmed," God suddenly responds:

St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER ELEVEN

Psalms 33:6

There is clear demonstration in this verse that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are the creators of all things.

HOMILY 87, ON JOHN 1:1-14