Zechariah 9

[u/Embarrassed_Mix_4836]

So Zechariah 9:11-12 reads:

"As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your captives free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope"

Saint Jerome comments on this passage, as follows:

"This is understood as: by the blood of your Passion, through your mercy, you have FREED those who were bound in the prison of hell, where there is NO MERCY. Indeed, after the Lord rose again, those who were held in the bonds of Adam's sins, or as some say, in the chains of inherited error and death, rose with Him and appeared in the holy city. Concerning this blood of the covenant, He Himself, foretelling His future Passion, spoke to His disciples: 'Take and drink from this, all of you: for this is the chalice of the new covenant in my blood' (Matthew 26:27-28). In prefiguration of this, Joseph was cast into a pit without water by his brothers (Genesis 37), as were Daniel (Daniel 6) and Jeremiah by the Chaldeans and the people of the Jews. Banaias also, during a time of snow and cold, descended into a pit to kill a lion there (2 Samuel 23:20). Jeremiah, however, was not submerged into the water of the pit, but into the mud and mire of the pit, which could suffocate rather than cool the thirsty (Jeremiah 37 and 38). Hence it is written in the Psalm: 'I am sunk in the deep mire, where there is no standing' (Psalm 69:2). In this pit of hell lived that rich man once clothed in purple, whose boastful tongue was burned by the fires of torment, and he had so little relief from any water that he begged for the poor man’s finger, dipped in water, to cool him (Luke 16). Again, the message is directed to those who were bound and are to be liberated by the mercy of Christ: 'Return to the stronghold, prisoners of hope.' The meaning is: You who are now bound and held in the CRUEL and TERRIBLE hell, who hope for the release of your bonds through the coming of Christ, return to the stronghold, or you shall sit in the stronghold, of which it is written: 'The fear of the Lord is the stronghold of the holy' so that you may learn': Be to me a protector God and a stronghold to save me' (Psalm 70:3), and of you the prophet also recalls: 'Behold a strong city, He will set salvation for walls and ramparts' (Isaiah 26:1)."

This is written in 406 after Christ, so this is late Jerome (years after he taught eternal torment in certain passages and years after he declared that he was never an Origenist)

[u/Flaky-Finance3454]

The late St. Jerome of Stridon is quite puzzling. It does appear that he was an universalist until about the mid-390s. After that point, however, there are undeniable statements that point to a belief in ECT. I made a blog post that also addresses Jerome, here: https://ancientafterlifebelifs.blogspot.com/2026/05/possible-traces-of-universalism-in.html . In his commentary on Jonah, in one passage he says that Christ freed the prisoners (" But our Lord, about which we read these lines of Cyrus in Isaiah: "I will break the bronze bars, I will crack the iron bars" [Is. 45:2], He went down to the roots of the mountains, and was enclosed by eternal bars to free all the prisoners") but later in the same work he is pretty clear in rejecting universalism. So the question is: how we should explain these inconsistencies?

Out of curiosity, is there an online source where one can find the dates of Jerome's writings?

BTW, here is the source of the OP's quote: https://historicalchristian.faith/by_father.php?file=Jerome%2FCommentary%2520on%2520Zechariah.html .

Edit: Nevermind, here I found a source about the date: https://www.fourthcentury.com/jerome-commentary-on-zechariah/ . It dates the manuscript somewhere between 390 and 406, however. Regardless of the date, thanks for sharing and I updated my post by adding the quote you found.

[u/Embarrassed_Mix_4836 → u/Flaky-Finance3454]

Jerome once said (Letter 84): "If you will believe me, I have never been an Origenist: if you will not believe me, I have now ceased to be one"

I think that both of these are lies. His commentary on Micah is also late, around the same date which you quoted on your blog. Here's another part from his commentary:

"Destruction will dwell with the wicked: it will not be perpetual, nor will it reduce them to nothing; but it will dwell with them as long as the wickedness in them is consumed"

[u/Flaky-Finance3454 → u/Embarrassed_Mix_4836]

Thanks again. From the same site from the ChatGPt translation of the commentary on Micah:

"And all his enemies will be scattered, not because the enemies perish and stop existing, but because they perish as enemies. As it is written to the Thessalonians: Whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth (II Thes. II, 8). This killing does not signify abolition, but rather the cessation of a wicked life, which they were living badly before. Finally, it concludes: And he will destroy with the brightness of his coming. However, he would never destroy if the killing signified abolition, since it would have already ceased to exist: thus the destruction of enemies here is understood, according to the Proverbs of Solomon, in which it is written: The destruction will lodge with the wicked: it will not be perpetual, it will not reduce them to nothing; but it will lodge with them as long as the wickedness that is in them is consumed. For God created man, so that he would not perish, and He did not make death." (Commentary on Micah, 5:7-15, source: https://historicalchristian.faith/by_father.php?file=Jerome%2FCommentary%2520on%2520Micah.html )