The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
All Commentaries on Isaiah 11:6 Go To Isaiah 11
Jerome
AD 420
The others are easy to understand according to the vivifying spirit. For Paul the wolf, who first persecuted and lacerated the church, about whom it was said, “Benjamin is a rapacious wolf,” lived with a lamb—that is, either with Ananias, by whom he was baptized, or with the apostle Peter, to whom it was said, “Feed my lambs.” And the leopard, which first did not change its spots, once it was washed in the fountain of the Lord lay down with the kid—not the goat on the left but the one that is sacrificed at the pasch of the Lord. It is also to be noted that the lamb and the kid will not dwell and recline with the wolf and the leopard, but the wolf and the leopard will imitate the innocence of the lamb and the kid.
The lion, previously most ferocious, and the sheep and the calf lingered together. We also see in the church today that the rich and the poor, the powerful and the humble, kings and peasants, remain together and are ruled in the church by small children, whom we understand to be the apostles and apostolic men, men who are unskilled in rhetoric but not in knowledge. When they are federated among themselves by the discipline of the Lord, such that their families also are united, then the saying will be implemented: “Their young will lie down together.” The lion, moreover, will not eat meat but hay, because it feeds on simple food. Observe also that the cow will not eat meat, but the lion will eat hay. I believe that “hay” in sacred Scripture is understood to be simple words, as is “wheat,” the inner marrow, the meaning which is found in the letter. And it frequently happens that secular men unacquainted with the mysteries are fed by a simple reading of the Scriptures.
The infant also, who is a child with respect to evil, places his hand in the hole of the asp and demons flee from the besieged bodies of men. One who is weaned no longer takes nourishment from the milk of infants but now feeds on solid food. He puts his hand in the den of the serpent, that is, the habitation of Satan himself, and extracts him from it. Hence the apostles were given power to tread on serpents and scorpions and every strength of the enemy. And venomous beasts were previously unable to harm or to kill those who will have lived on God’s holy mountain, which means the church, about which it is said in the Gospel, “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
