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St. Jerome on the Antichrist
A pagan philosopher said the Book of Daniel was only history in disguise, and that its last enemy was a Syrian king long dead. St. Jerome answered him verse by verse. The tyrant of Daniel's day was real, he said, but he was a sketch. The full portrait is still to come: a man, not a demon, in whom Satan will dwell, and whom Christ will destroy.
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At a glance
| Who | St. Jerome (c. 347–420), born at Stridon, priest, monk and translator of the Bible into Latin, who spent his last decades in Bethlehem near the Grotto of the Nativity |
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| Standing | Father of the Church Doctor of the Church |
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| The works | Commentary on Daniel, written in Bethlehem around 407–408, a reply above all to the pagan Porphyry; Letter 121, to Algasia (406), question 11, on 2 Thessalonians 2:3; Letter 123, to Ageruchia (409) |
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| Translations | Gleason L. Archer, Jr., Jerome's Commentary on Daniel (Baker, 1958), at tertullian.org (prologue through chapter 6), with the whole scanned book at the Internet Archive; W. H. Fremantle and others, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 6, for the letters at New Advent |
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| Weight | The greatest biblical scholar among the Latin Fathers, reporting what he calls the view of “all the commentators of the Christian Church.” On the core points he speaks for the Fathers; on several details he gives his own opinion or that of his school, and says so. |
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Why Jerome matters here
Jerome gave his life to the Bible. Pope Benedict XVI recalled his words, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” (General Audience, November 7, 2007). When he wrote on Daniel, he wrote as a scholar who knew the Hebrew, the Greek versions and the history of the Seleucid kings, and who still read the prophecy as pointing beyond its own century.
His commentary became the standard reading of Daniel in the West. St. Augustine, writing on Daniel 7 in The City of God, sent readers who wanted the details to Jerome (see St. Augustine on the Last Judgment). St. John Henry Newman quoted him as a witness to the universal tradition (see Newman on the Antichrist). And when St. John of Damascus wrote that the Antichrist is a man and not the devil made flesh, his English editors pointed to Jerome on Daniel 7 as the source (see St. John of Damascus).
The letters: 2 Thessalonians 2 and the falling of Rome
- The question
- Algasia, a Christian woman of Gaul, sent Jerome eleven questions on hard passages of Scripture. The last asked the meaning of 2 Thessalonians 2:3: “unless the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one doomed to perdition.”
- His answer, in summary
- No complete English translation of Jerome's answers is freely available online; the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers gives only the list of questions. We therefore paraphrase from the Latin, and do not quote an English version. Jerome took the “apostasy” (in Latin, discessio, a departure) to mean that all the nations subject to the Roman Empire would depart from it (ut omnes gentes quae Romano imperio subjacent, recedant ab eis). He understood the power that “restrains” the lawless one (2 Thessalonians 2:6–7) to be the Roman Empire, which now holds all the nations (quod nunc universas gentes tenet): it must first withdraw and be taken out of the way, and then the Antichrist will come. He added that the “temple of God” where the lawless one sits may be Jerusalem, as some thought, or the Church, which he judged the truer reading (vel Jerosolymis, ut quidam putant, vel in Ecclesia, ut verius arbitramur). The Latin (Migne's text, with a French translation) is at remacle.org; the critical edition is Isidor Hilberg's (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 56). The Catholic commentator George Leo Haydock summarizes the letter the same way (Haydock on 2 Thessalonians 2).
- Why mystery
- St. Paul did not say what restrains the lawless one, and the Church has not settled it. St. Augustine, reviewing the same opinions, wrote, “I frankly confess I do not know what he means” (City of God 20.19). See 2 Thessalonians 2:6–7.
“He that lets is taken out of the way, and yet we do not realize that Antichrist is near.”
- Teaching
- Three years after the letter to Algasia, amid the barbarian invasions of the West, Jerome saw the restraining power crumbling before his eyes. “He that lets” is the old English for “he who restrains.” He went on: “Yes, Antichrist is near whom the Lord Jesus Christ ‘shall consume with the spirit of his mouth.’”
- What has not come to pass
- Rome was sacked the next year, and the Western Empire fell within the century, but the Antichrist did not come. Like other Fathers, Jerome read the troubles of his own day as the last ones. His mistake was about the hour, not the hope: the Church holds that Christ's coming has been “imminent” since the Ascension, yet that its time is the Father's alone (CCC 673).
Where Jerome speaks for himself
| Point | Jerome | The Church |
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| The Antichrist is a man, not the devil | Yes: a man in whom Satan will dwell | The common teaching of the Fathers; the Church speaks of “the Antichrist” and his deception (CCC 675) |
| Antiochus as a type | A first, partial fulfillment pointing to the last | In harmony with how the Church reads prophecy; the NABRE notes read Daniel 11 chiefly of Antiochus |
| Ten kings dividing the Roman world | The ten horns of Daniel 7 | A patristic reading, not adopted by the Church |
| The Roman Empire as what restrains | Yes, and its fall would come first | Not settled; Augustine confessed he did not know |
| A temple and the Mount of Olives | The Antichrist sits in the Temple and perishes where the Lord ascended (in Letter 121 he judged the “temple of God” more likely the Church) | Opinions of Jerome and his school; not taught by the Church |
| The end near in his day | “Antichrist is near” (409) | The hour is known to the Father alone (CCC 673) |
Jerome's own restraintFor all his learning, Jerome refused to explain what God has not explained. On the forty-five days, the reason “rests in the knowledge of God.” He names no living ruler as the Antichrist and sets no date in the commentary. Where he gives the view of his school, he says so. This site follows him in that, and the Church goes further still: she names no one and sets no date (
CCC 673–675).
For reflection
Can I wait forty-five days more?
Jerome read Daniel's blessing on those who persevere as a blessing on patience: the saints who keep faith even when the Lord seems to delay. Where in my life am I tempted to give up because God has not yet acted? What would it mean to wait for him there, with hope?
Sources
- St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, trans. Gleason L. Archer, Jr. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1958), tertullian.org (transcription of the prologue through chapter 6); scanned book at the Internet Archive. Quotations from chapters 7, 11 and 12 were checked against the scan's searchable text.
- St. Jerome, Letter 121, to Algasia, and Letter 123, to Ageruchia, trans. W. H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W. G. Martley, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 6, New Advent (121), New Advent (123). Latin: Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, ed. I. Hilberg, CSEL 56.
- George Leo Haydock, Catholic Bible Commentary (1859), on 2 Thessalonians 2, Bible Hub
- John Henry Newman, “The Patristical Idea of Antichrist,” Lecture 1, Newman Reader
- Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience on St. Jerome, November 7, 2007, vatican.va
- “St. Jerome,” in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1910), New Advent
- St. Augustine, City of God 20.19, CCEL
- Catechism of the Catholic Church 673–677, vatican.va
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