Letter 59: An answer to five questions put to Jerome by Marcella in a letter not preserved. The questions are as follows. (1) What are the things which eye has not seen nor ear heard 1 Corinthians 2:9?

Letter 59: To Marcella (c. 395 AD) [An answer to five questions Marcella put to Jerome in a letter that hasn't survived. The questions range from eschatology ('What are the things that eye has not seen nor ear heard?' — 1 Corinthians 2:9) to soteriology (whether the sheep and goats of Matthew 25 represent Christians vs. heathens, or good vs. bad people within the church). Jerome answers that the unseen things are spiritual realities discernible only by the Spirit, and refers Marcella to his treatise Against Jovinian for the sheep-and-goats question.] [The full text of this letter exists only as a summary in the available source.]

To Marcella An answer to five questions put to Jerome by Marcella in a letter not preserved. The questions are as follows. (1) What are the things which eye has not seen nor ear heard 1 Corinthians 2:9? Jerome answers that they are spiritual things which as such can only be spiritually discerned. (2) Is it not a mistake to identify the sheep and the goats of Christ's parable Matthew 25:31 sqq. with Christians and heathens? Are they not rather the good and the bad? For an answer to this question Jerome refers Marcella to his treatise against Jovinian (II. §§18-23). (3) Paul says that some shall be alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord; and that they shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17. Are we to suppose this assumption to be corporeal and that those assumed will escape death? Yes, Jerome answers, but their bodies will be glorified. (4) How is Joh. xx. 17, touch me not, to be reconciled with Matt. xxviii. 9, they came and held him by the feet? In the one case, Jerome replies, Mary Magdalen failed to recognize the divinity of Jesus; in the other the women recognized it. Accordingly they were admitted to a privilege which was denied to her. (5) Was the risen Christ before His ascension present only with the disciples, or was He in heaven and elsewhere as well? The latter according to Jerome is the true doctrine. The Divine Nature, he writes, exists everywhere in its entirety. Christ, therefore, was at one and the same time with the apostles and with the angels; in the Father and in the uttermost parts of the sea. So afterwards he was with Thomas in India, with Peter at Rome, with Paul in Illyricum, with Titus in Crete, with Andrew in Achaia. The date of the letter is A.D. 395 or A.D. 396. About this page Source. Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001059.htm>. Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.