1.Here and elsewhere, English quotations from the Bible are from the Douay-Rheims.
Unless otherwise stated, translations from Latin and Old English are mine.
2.This verse was also the focus of a vigorous patristic debate over the limitations of
Christ's
foreknowledge of the events of the last days: see Jules Lebreton, "L'Ignorance du jour du
jugement," Recherches de science religieuse 8 (1918), 281-89.
3.Lest this seem an obvious point, one might contrast it with the views of modern
theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann, for whom the concerns of eschatology are not time, history,
and the cosmos, but the atemporal realization of the eschatological event in the life of the believer:
see Bultmann, "History and Eschatology in the New Testament," New Testament Studies
1
(1954-55), 5-16, and The Presence of Eternity (New York, 1957).
4.To my knowledge, the most comprehensive statement on the history of teachings about
the site of Judgment in Christian tradition is the brief notice on "Circonstances du jugement
général: Lieu du jugement" within the article on "Jugement" by J. Rivière,
Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris, 1908-50), 8: 1721-1828, at col. 1819. Of
some
use for this survey is the index "De tempore et loco judicii" in PL 220: 293-95.
5.Amos N. Wilder, "The Rhetoric of Ancient and Modern Apocalyptic,"
Interpretation:
A Journal of Bible and Theology 25 (1971), 436-53 (at p. 437), cited by Michael Lieb,
The
Visionary Mode: Biblical Prophecy, Hermeneutics, and Cultural Change (Ithaca and London,
1991), p. 6.
6.Pamela Sheingorn, "'For God is Such a Doomsman': Origins and Development of the
Theme of Last Judgment," in Homo, Memento Finis: The Iconography of Just Judgment in
Medieval Art and Drama, ed. David Bevington, Early Drama, Art and Music Monograph
Series
6 (Kalamazoo, 1985), pp. 15-58 (at p. 40).
7.Jerome, Commentarius in Joelem (on Joel 3:2, 12), ed. Marc Adriaen, S.
Hieronymus. Commentarii in prophetas minores, CCSL 76 (Turnhout, 1969), p. 199, lines
35-36, p. 204, line 235 (PL 25: 979D, 984B). Also,
page 92
Jerome,
Epistola 18, ad Damasum papam, ed. Isidor Hilberg, Sanctus Hieronymus.
Epistulae,
CSEL 54 (Vienna, 1910), p. 77, lines 13-14 (PL 22: 362-63), and Liber interpretationis
Hebraicorum nominum, ed. Paul de Lagarde, S. Hieronymus. Opera Exegetica I,
CCSL
72 (Turnhout, 1970), p. 111, lines 16-17, p. 136, lines 28-29 (PL 23: 885-86). John P. O'Connell,
The Eschatology of Saint Jerome (Mundelein, Ill., 1948) argues that even though Jerome
gives no indication that he means to take the Valley of Josaphat metaphorically in these passages,
"the context . . . leads us to believe that Jerome did not accept it literally" (p. 37).
8.Cf. Midrasch Tilim 8 (on Ps 8), as translated by Adolphe Neubauer, La
géographie du Talmud (Paris, 1868; repr. Amsterdam, 1965), pp. 51-52: "La
vallée de Josaphat où Dieu, selon les paroles du prophète, jugera les
peuples, doit être prise au figuré. Le Midrasch dit: 'Une telle vallée n'existe
pas; elle est appellée Jehoschaphat à cause du jugement que Dieu y
prononcera sur les nations.'...La tradition a conservé ce nom chez toutes les sectes
religieuses, et on désigne encore aujourd'hui la vallée de Josaphat comme l'endroit
où doit se tenir le dernier jugement."
9.The earliest such identification is that of the Bordeaux Pilgrim, writing c. 333, who
locates the Valley of Josaphat to the left of the Mount of Olives: Itineraria et alia
geographica, ed. R. Weber, CCSL 175 (Turnhout, 1965), p. 17.
10.For general discussion of this tradition, see J. H. Oswald, Eschatologie, das ist die
letzten Dinge, dargestellt nach der Lehre der katholischen Kirche, 5th ed. (Paderborn, 1893),
pp.
372-74; C. Warren, "Jehoshaphat, Valley of," Dictionary of the Bible, ed. James Hastings
(New York, 1900-05), 2: 561-62; F. Vigouroux, "Josaphat (vallée de)," Dictionnaire
de
la Bible, ed. Vigouroux (Paris, 1912-26), 3: 1651-55; W. Harold Mare, "Jehoshaphat, Valley
of," The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York, 1992), 3: 668-69; "Jehosaphat, Valley of,"
A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, ed. David Lyle Jeffrey (Grand
Rapids, 1992), pp. 391-92; and Gaetano M. Perrella, C. M., "La 'Valle di Giosafat' e il giudizio
universale," Divus Thomas 36 (1933), 45-50. I am indebted to these studies for several of
the examples cited in this paper.
11.Breviarius de Hierosolyma, Forma b, lines 134-40, ed. Weber, Itineraria et
alia geographica, p. 112: "Ad dextera parte ibi est uallis Iosaphat, ibi iudicaturus est Dominus
iustos et peccatores. Et ibi est fluius paruus qui ignem uomit in consummationem saeculi."
12.Anonymous Pilgrim I par. 3, trans. Aubrey Stewart, Palestine Pilgrims' Text
Society 6 (London, 1894; repr. New York, 1971), p. 2.
13.Guide Book to Palestine par. 83, trans. J. H. Bernard, Palestine Pilgrims' Text
Society 6, p. 17.
14.Mandeville's Travels, ed. P. Hamelius, EETS O.S. 153 (London, 1919), p. 76.
page 93
15.Martin Jugie, La mort et l'assomption de la Sainte Vierge. Étude
historico-doctrinale, Studi e testi 114 (Vatican City, 1944), pp. 114, 220, 681-87; Mary
Clayton, The
Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon
England 2
(Cambridge, 1990), pp. 13-14, 16. Cf. Ælfric's sermon on the Assumption of the Virgin,
ed.
and trans. Benjamin Thorpe, The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Being the Sermones
Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric, 2 vols. (London, 1844-46; repr. New York, 1971), 1:
442; and Mandeville's Travels, pp. 63-64.
16.The Wanderings of Felix Fabri, trans. Aubrey Stewart, Palestine Pilgrims' Text
Society 7 (London, 1893; repr. New York, 1971), p. 467. Jugie, La mort et l'assomption,
p.
687, cites an early expression of this idea from a vii/viii-century sermon on the Dormition by
Modestus of Jerusalem, Encomium in Dormitionem Deiparae 14, PG 86: 3312. Both
Theodosius, writing A.D. 530 (Itineraria et alia geographica, p. 119), and Arculf, A.D. 670
(Itineraria et alia geographica, p. 195), claim to be familiar with a church dedicated to
Mary
located in the Valley of Josaphat.
17.The Wanderings of Felix Fabri, pp. 489, 491-92.
18.Julian (d. 690), Prognosticum futuri saeculi 3.2, PL 96: 497-98; Haymo (d. c.
855), Enarratio in Joel prophetam, PL 117: 106, and Expositio in Epist. I ad
Thess. par. 4, PL 117: 772.
19.In roughly chronological order, Honorius (early xii-century), Sacramentarium
62,
PL 172: 778; Rupert of Deutz (d. 1129), Commentaria in Ioel 1.3, PL 168:
242-43; Robert Pullen (d. c. 1146), Sententiarum libri octo 8.26, PL 186: 1001;
Peter
Lombard (d. 1160), Sententiarum libri quattuor 4.84.4, PL 192: 956-57; Magister
Bandinus (xii-century; see PL 218: 418), Sententiarum libri quattuor 4.40,
PL
192: 1111-12; Richard of St-Victor (d. 1173), Adnotationes in Ioelem, PL 175:
359
(attributed to Hugh of St-Victor in Migne; see P. Glorieux, Pour revaloriser Migne: Tables
rectificatives, Mélanges de science religieuse, cahier supplémentaire [Lille,
1952], p. 67); and Martín of León (d. 1203), Sermo 2 in Adventu Domini
par. 50, PL 208: 55 (quoting from Peter Lombard). That not everyone was content with
this
etymological tradition informed by a literal reading of Joel's prophecy is clear from Jerome's late
contemporary Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), who in his commentary on Joel contemptuously
declares
this idea "ridiculous" while those who believe it are "frivolous and inane": Commentarius in
Joelem prophetam, PG 71: 389-92.
20.Werner, Liber deflorationum par. 1, PL 157: 748: "Erit autem
judicium
in valle Josaphat, ut dicitur. Vallis Josaphat dicitur vallis judicii. Vallis est semper juxta
montem. Vallis est hic mundus, mons est coelum. In valle igitur fit judicium, id est in isto mundo,
scilicet in aere, ubi justi ad dexteram Christi, ut oves statuentur; impii autem, ut haedi ad sinistram
ponentur."
page 94
21.Christian Druthmarus (d. 1046), Expositio in Matthaeum par. 56, PL
106: 1469: "Multi autem putaverunt in valle Josaphat, qui est locus in Judaea, futurum esse
judicium, sed nequaquam verum est, quamvis sonet Josaphat judicium, sed in aere erit, ut Paulus
dicit: Rapiemur in aere, et sic semper cum Domino erimus."
22.Peter Lombard, Sententiarum libri quattuor 4.48.4, "De loco iudicii,"
PL
192: 956-57: "Putant quidam Dominum descensurum in vallem Josaphat in judicio, eo quod ipse
per
Joelem prophetam sic loquitur, c. 1: 'Congregabo omnes gentes, et deducam eas in vallem
Josaphat, et disceptabo ibi cum eis...." Hoc quidam pueriliter intelligunt, quod in valle quae
est
in latere montis Oliveti descensurus sit Dominus ad judicium, quod friVolum est, quia non in terra,
sed in spatio hujus aeris sedebit contra locum montis Oliveti, ex quo ascendit.... Josaphat autem
interpretatur judicium Domini. In vallem ergo Josaphat, id est judicii Domini, congregabuntur
omnes impii. Justi vero non descendent in vallem judicii, id est damnationem; sed in nubibus
elevabuntur obviam Christo."
23.Aquinas, In IV Sententiarum 4.48.1.4, in Opera Omnia (Parma,
1852-73;
repr. New York, 1948-50), 7.2: 1170; Quodlibet 10.2, in Opera Omnia 9: 601; and
Summa theologica 4.88.4, in Opera Omnia 4: 639.
24.Miscellanea Tironiana aus dem Codex Vaticanvs Latinvs Reginae Christinae
846
(fol. 99-114), ed. Wilhelm Schmitz (Leipzig, 1896), p. 30: "Interrogatio: Quomodo? Responsio:
Postquam morior, quod resurgam in die iudicii in triginta annorum aetate et venturus sim ad
iudicium in monte oliveti, ubi est medius mundus, unde Christus, filius Dei, ascendit ad Patrem,
ubi
et ipse venturus est iudicare vivos ac mortuos et reddere unicuique secundum sua." I thank
Charles
D. Wright for alerting me to this little-known dialogue.
25.Jerome, Commentarii in Danielem, ed. F. Glorie, CCSL 75A (Turnhout,
1964),
pp. 933-35.
26.Tiburtine Sibyl, ed. Ernst Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen
(Halle, 1898), p. 186, translated in Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic
Traditions
in the Middle Ages, Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies 96 (New York, 1979), p.
50;
Adso, Letter on the Antichrist, ed. D. Verhelst, Adso Dervensis: De ortu et tempore
Antichristi, CCCM 45 (Turnhout, 1976), p. 29, translated in McGinn, Visions of the
End, p. 87. See also Guibert de Nogent's The Deeds of God through the Franks, in
McGinn, Visions of the End, p. 91.
27.For example, a xii-century sermon ed. volker Mertens, "'Von dem iungsten tage':
Eine
Predigt aus dem Umkreis des Predigtbuches des Priesters Konrad," Würzburger
Prosastudien 1, Medium Ævum 13 (Munich, 1968), pp. 102-21 (at lines 118-20, p. 108;
based on Honorius); a xiv/xv-century Palm Sunday sermon, ed. Woodburn O. Ross, Middle
English Sermons Edited from BL MS. Royal 18 B. XXIII, EETS O.S. 209 (London,
page 95
1940), p. 173 (based on Peter Lombard); a Wycliffite homily
on
Matthew 24 in Select English Works of John Wyclif, ed. Thomas Arnold, 3 vols. (Oxford,
1869-71), 2: 405; and a German mystery play, Der Jüngste Tag, dated 1467 from a
manuscript of the Rheinau monastery near Schaffhausen, ed. Franz Josef Mone, Schauspiele
des
Mittelalters (Karlsruhe, 1846), 1: 273-304 (at p. 280).
28.Typical is the Adrian and Epictetus exchange in a xii-century ms., "Ubi erit
consummatio
seculi? In valle Iosaphat": Das mittellateinische Gespräch Adrian und Epictetus nebst
verwandten Texten (Joca Monachorum), ed. Walther Suchier (Tübingen, 1955), p. 35
(AE2 no. 83). For other examples, see Suchier, Das mittellateinische Gespräch, pp. 16
(AE1a, no. 66), 17 (AE1b, nos. 50-51), 35 (AE2 no. 82), and Georg Baesecke, Der
Vocabularius Sti. Galli in der angelsächsischen Mission (Halle, 1933), p. 7 (no. 31).
My
thanks again to Charles D. Wright for bringing these examples to my attention.
29.In addition to the commentaries cited above in notes 7, 18, and 19, see the running
gloss
by Hugh of St Cher which is often reproduced in the margins of early printed Bibles: Biblia
latina cum postillis Hugonis de s. Charo, 7 vols. (Basel, 1498-1504), 5: signature D3v. Other
examples are collected by Cornelius à Lapide, Commentarius in duodecim prophetas
minores, secunda editio Veneta (Venice, 1717), pp. 175-77, 180. See also Thomas de
Chobham
(d. 1327), Summa de arte praedicandi 4, ed. Franco Morenzoni, CCCM 82 (Turnhout,
1988), p. 113, lines 769-71.
30.Ed. Karl Joseph Simrock, Die deutschen volksbücher 12 (Frankfurt,
1865).
31.Inferno 10.10-12, ed. and trans. Charles S. Singleton, Dante Alighieri. The
Divine Comedy, Bollingen Series 80 (Princeton, 1970), 1: 99, cf. p. 145.
32.Piers Plowman, C-Text, 20.411-17, ed. Derek Pearsall, Piers Plowman by
William Langland: An Edition of the C-Text, York Medieval Texts, second series (Berkeley,
1978), p. 337; see Elisabeth Lunz, "The Valley of Jehoshaphat in Piers Plowman,"
Tulane
Studies in English 20 (1972), 1-10.
33.Cursor Mundi (The Cursor o' the World). A Northumbrian Poem of the XIVth
Century in Four Versions, ed. Richard Morris, 7 vols., EETS O.S. 59, 62, 66, 68, 99, 101
(London, 1874-93; repr. 1966), pp. 1312-13, lines 22963-70.
34.The Pricke of Conscience (Stimulus Conscientiae): A Northumbrian Poem by
Richard Rolle de Hampole, ed. Richard Morris, Philological Society (Berlin, 1863), pp.
140-42,
lines 5147-5232.
35.Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, O. P., The Holy Land: An Archaeological Guide from
Earliest Times to 1700, 2nd ed. (Oxford and New York, 1986), p. 106; cf. J. E. Hanauer,
Tales Told in Palestine, ed. H. G. Mitchell (Cincinnati, 1904), pp. 136-38. Having never
been to the Holy Land myself, I am grateful to the peripatetic Timothy Jones for a recent
page 96
eyewitness confirmation of the distribution of cemeteries in
the
Kidron Valley and for introducing me to Murphy-O'Connor's book.
36.James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Viking Compass
Edition
(New York, 1964), p. 113.
37.The Exeter Book, ed. G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie, ASPR 3 (New York
and London, 1936).
38.Johannes Jeremias, Der Gottesberg (Gütersloh, 1919); Richard J.
Clifford,
The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament, Harvard Semitic Monographs 4
(Cambridge, Mass., 1972).
39.Psalms 2:6, 47:3, 77:68, 83:8, 86:1, 98:9, 101:17, 124:1, 131:13; Isaias 24:23; Abdias
17, 21; Hebrews 12:22; Jubilees 1:28, 4:26, 19:13 in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha,
ed.
James H. Charlesworth, 2 vols. (Garden City, New York, 1983-1985) 2: 54, 63, 91. The cosmic
and theophanic associations of Sion (both mountain and city) in the Psalms and Isaiah, and their
probable origins in a pre-Israelite, common Ugaritic-Canaanite mythology, are discussed by John
H.
Hayes, "The Tradition of Zion's Inviolability," Journal of Biblical Literature 82 (1963),
419-26.
40.4 Ezra 2.42-48, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1: 528. Charles E.
Hill,
Regnum Cælorum: Patterns of Future Hope in Early Christianity, Oxford Early
Christian Studies (Oxford, 1992), pp. 98-100, interprets this vision as taking place not at the
earthly
Mount Sion but at a heavenly Mount Sion between the time of Christ's return and the Final
Judgment. Frederick M. Biggs, "The Fourfold Division of Souls: The Old English 'Christ III' and
the Insular Homiletic Tradition," Traditio 45 (1989-1990), 35-51, argues (at p. 43) that
these
verses in particular may have influenced the Christ III poet.
41.Biggs, "The Fourfold Division," pp. 42-45.
42.Whitley Stokes, "The Fifteen Tokens of Doomsday," Revue celtique 28
(1907),
314-15, quoted by Biggs, "The Fourfold Division," p. 44.
43.Some indirect support for Biggs's argument may be had from Brian O'Dwyer Grogan,
"The Eschatological Doctrines of the Early Irish Church" (Diss. Fordham University, 1973), pp.
230-31, who finds the idea of a fourfold division of souls present in two other Anglo-Saxon
narratives, the Vision of Drihthelm (as reported in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica V.12) and
the Vision of the Monk of Wenlock (in Boniface's letter to Eadburga).
44.The following summary is based on the translation by Paul Grosjean, "A Tale of
Doomsday Colum Cille Should Have Left Untold," Scottish Gaelic Studies 3 (1931),
73-83.
The Liber Flavus Fergusiorum is generally dated to the second quarter of s. xv, but Grosjean fixes
the language of this tale "to the eleventh or twelfth century" (p. 74).
45.Grosjean, "A Tale of Doomsday," p. 80. Bracketed phrases are Grosjean's.
46.Tírechán, Collectanea 52, ed. Ludwig Bieler, The Patrician
Texts in the
page 97
Book of Armagh, Scriptores Latini
Hiberniae 10 (Dublin, 1979), pp. 164-65, lines 8-10; Colgan, Vita tertia 85 (BHL 6506-7),
ed. Bieler, Four Latin Lives of St. Patrick, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 8 (Dublin, 1971), p.
180, line 18 - p. 181, line 4; Vita auctore Probo 2.20 (BHL 6508), ed. Bieler, Four
Latin
Lives, p. 212, line 31 - p. 213, line 2; Bethu Phátraic: The Tripartite Life of
Patrick (BHL 6509), ed. Kathleen Mulchrone (Dublin, 1939), pp. 72-75, lines 1323-74; the
Gloucester Vita, ed. Bieler, "Eine Patricksvita in Gloucester," in Festschrift Bernhard
Bischoff zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed. Johanne Autenrieth and Franz Brunhölzl
(Stuttgart, 1971), pp. 346-63, at p. 359 (fol. 150ra, lines 26-28; taken, Bieler suspects, from
Tírechán). Tírechán's Collectanea is mid-to-late
vii-century
(Patrician Texts, pp. 41-43). Bieler, Four Latin Lives, p. 26, dates the Vita
tertia "between c. 800 and c. 1130"; the Vita auctore Probo is variously dated
between
the ninth and eleventh centuries (p. 40); the ms. of the Gloucester Vita is c. 1200. On
these
texts, see further Michael Lapidge and Richard Sharpe, Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature
400-1200 (Dublin, 1985), nos. 301, 367-68, 1184.
47.Muirchú, Vita s. Patricii 2.6, ed. Bieler, Patrician Texts, pp.
116-17, lines 26-29; Vita tertia par. 88, in Four Latin Lives, p. 184, lines 12-14 (cf.
Lapidge and Sharpe, Bibliography, no. 303); Bethu Phátraic, pp. 72-75,
lines
1323-74; "Eine Patricksvita in Gloucester," p. 359 (fol. 150ra, lines 29-30). The story of Patrick's
petitions, including his request to judge the Irish at Doomsday, is repeated in Nennius's
Historia
Brittonum 54: Nennius's "History of the Britons", trans. A.W. Wade-Evans (London,
1938), p. 74. Patrick is also implicitly identified as future judge of the Irish ("around thee on the
Day of Doom the men of Ireland will go to Judgment") in the Old Irish Hymn of Fíacc,
ed.
and trans. Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: A Collection of
Old-Irish Glosses, Scholia, Prose and Verse, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1903), 2: 307-21 (at p. 319,
lines
10-11).
48.McGinn, Visions of the End, pp. 39-40.
