Commentary on Jeremiah 3.73–4.5

[73] “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord will be his confidence (or: hope); and he will be like a tree that is transplanted (or: fruitful) by the waters, which sends out its roots to the moisture; and it will not fear when the heat comes, and its leaf will be green (or: its branches leafy), and in the time (or: year) of drought it will not be anxious (or: will not fear), nor will it ever cease to bear fruit.” Let that be said of the Jews and the heretics, who have hope in a man, namely in their Christ, whom they think will come not as the Son of God but as a mere man. On the contrary, the man of the church, who trusts in the Lord, hears that word, “Know that the Lord, he is God”, trusts in the Lord, and will be compared to that tree of which the first psalm too sings: “And he will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, which will give its fruit in its season, and its leaf will not fall.” “By the waters”: the grace of the Holy Spirit, the diverse gifts. “Which sends out its roots to the moisture”: it receives its abundance from the Lord. But we can also say otherwise, that we have been transplanted from the Jewish drought into the everlasting grace of baptism. “And it will not fear”, he says, “when the heat comes” (either the time of persecution or the day of judgment), “and its leaf will be green” (or, it will have leafy little branches), so that it never fears drought but buds with the grace of all virtues. And when the time or year of drought comes, it will not fear, when the angry Lord has commanded the clouds not to rain rain upon Israel. And what follows, “nor will it cease to bear fruit”, will be able to explain that place written in Mark: that the Lord came to the fig tree and found no fruit on it, because it was not yet the season, and cursed it, that it should bear no fruit for ever. For he who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord is his confidence, even in the time of the Jewish drought will not fear, but will always bear fruit, believing in him who died once for us and dies no more and says: “I am the life.”

[74] “The heart of all is perverse and unsearchable; who will know it? I the Lord, who search the heart and test the reins, who give to each according to his way and according to the fruit of his devices.” The Septuagint: “The heart is deep beyond all things, and it is man; who will know him?”, and the rest likewise. The Hebrew word “enos” is written with four letters, aleph, nun, waw and shin; if it is read “enos”, it means “man”; but if “anus”, “unsearchable” or “desperate”, because no one can find out the heart of men. Symmachus interpreted this place thus: “The heart of all is unsearchable; and who is the man that will find it out?” And our people, with good intention indeed but not according to knowledge, are accustomed to use this place against the Jews: that the Lord and Saviour is man according to the dispensation of the flesh he assumed, and that no one can know the mystery of his birth, according to what is written, “Who will declare his generation?”, except God alone, who searches hidden things and repays each according to his works. But it is better to take it simply: that no one knows the secrets of thoughts except God alone. For he had said above, “Cursed is the man who has hope in man”, and on the contrary, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.” Hence, lest we should think the judgment of men certain, he added that the hearts of almost all are perverse, as the psalmist says, “Cleanse me, O Lord, from my hidden faults, and spare your servant from others' faults” (no doubt from thoughts), and in Genesis: “And God, seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and every thought of the heart was bent on evil at all times”; and again: “For the sense and thought of the human heart are prone to evil from youth.” Through these we learn that God alone knows their thoughts. But if it is said of the Saviour, “And Jesus, seeing their thoughts”, and no one can see thoughts except God alone, then Christ is God, who searches the hearts and tests the reins and will repay each according to his works.

[75] “The partridge has hatched (or: gathered) what it did not lay (or, as the Septuagint translated: the partridge cried out, it gathered what it did not lay); it makes riches, but not with justice; in the middle of his days he will leave them (or: they will leave him), and at his end he will be a fool.” The writers of natural history, of beasts and birds as well as of trees and plants, whose chief among the Greeks are Aristotle and Theophrastus, and among us Pliny the Elder, say that the nature of the partridge is this: that it steals the eggs of another partridge, that is, another's, and broods them and keeps them warm; and when the young have grown up, they fly away from it and leave the strange parent. Such are the rich, who plunder others' goods and, without thought of God's judgment, make riches not with justice, which they leave in the middle of their time, snatched away by sudden death, when it is said to them: “Fool, this night they will demand your soul of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” And nothing is more foolish than not to foresee the end, and to think brief things everlasting. But others, both because of the history above and because of another, in which they say that the partridge is most quarrelsome and unclean, so that the vanquished pollutes …, interpret the devil under its name, because he gathered to himself riches not his own, saying to the Lord: “All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me”; whom his riches, which had been wickedly gathered by him, will leave, and they will return to the Lord through the apostles; and he who seemed to himself most prudent will, in the judgment of all, be a fool. And what the Septuagint says, “the partridge cried out”, is to be referred to the person of the heretics: that this partridge, the devil, cried out through the leaders of the heretics and gathered what he did not lay, and gathered to himself a multitude of the deceived, who afterwards will leave him, and he will be proved the most foolish in the judgment of all.

[76] “A throne of glory on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctification. O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame; those who depart in the land will be written, for they have forsaken the vein (or: fountain) of living waters, the Lord.” The partridge having been forsaken for its folly, the hope of Israel, that is, of the people of God and of those who believe in the Lord, is he who made all things, whose throne is glorious and exalted from the beginning, and the place of sanctification of all believers; not that the Lord is in a place, but wherever he is, the place is sanctified. On the contrary, those who forsake the Lord will be put to shame with everlasting confusion, and those who depart or turn aside from him will be written in the earth, blotted out of the book of the living. For as one who can say with the apostle, “But our citizenship is in heaven”, is written in heavenly places, so one who forsakes the Lord or turns aside from him will be written in the earth with those who mind earthly things. And the cause is plain why they are written in the earth: because they forsook the fountain of life, the Lord, or the fountain of living waters, the Lord, who says in the gospel: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink! He who believes in me, as Scripture says, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. This he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed were to receive.” [77] “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise!” Many physicians in the gospel had treated the woman with the flow of blood, who had spent all her substance on them, and yet she could be healed by no one except him who is the true physician and in whose wings is healing. Hence now too the prophet, having suffered reproaches from the people and often surrounded by plots, desires to be healed and saved by him whose praise is true praise and whose medicine is true medicine.

[78] “Behold, they say to me: Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come! But I was not troubled, following you as shepherd (or: I have not laboured following you), and I have not desired the day of man; you know; what came out of my lips was right in your sight (or: is before your face). Do not be a terror to me, my hope in the day of affliction” (or: do not become a stranger to me, sparing me in the evil day). Those who do not think that what has been said will come say to the prophet, “Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come!”, thinking that the sentence held back was a postponement. “But while they say these things,” he says, “I was not troubled nor did I labour, following you as shepherd, or walking in your footsteps; nor was I content with that end, but I did not desire the day of man”, either a longer life or the prosperity of this world. And he calls him as witness whom he calls as judge: “You know.” It follows: “What came out of my lips was right in your sight”, so that he never lied, never spoke against the Lord's will. “Do not be a terror to me”, he says, “my hope in the day of affliction!” This is clear according to the Hebrew; but according to what the Septuagint translated, saying, “Do not become a stranger to me, sparing me in the evil day”, the sense is: “Do not spare me in the present age, which is evil, but repay me according to my sins, so that I may have everlasting rest! For I know it is written: Whom the Lord loves he corrects; and he scourges every son whom he receives.” The evil day is either the whole of this age, or the day of judgment for those who are tormented for their sins.

[79] “Let those who persecute me be put to shame, and let me not be put to shame! Let them be dismayed, and let me not be dismayed! Bring upon them the day of affliction, and crush them with a double crushing!” The prophet prays against those who reproach him with the word of the Lord and say, “Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come”, that those who persecute him may be put to shame and blush and return to salvation; that they may be dismayed who lie, and not he who foretells the truth; and when the day of vengeance comes, that God may crush them with a double crushing, famine and sword.

[80] “Thus says the Lord to me: Go and stand in the gate (or: the gates) of the sons of the people, by which (or: by which) the kings of Judah come in and go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; and say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, kings of Judah and all Judah (or: Judea) and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates!” “Since”, he says, “they scorn to hear your words and do not come to you to ask what the sentence of God is, go to the most frequented place, either the gates of the temple or of the city, through which kings and all the common people come in and go out, so that they may be compelled by necessity to hear, and you may preach the word of God in season and out of season, and no excuse may remain to them that they did not do it because they did not hear.”

[81] “Thus says the Lord: Guard your souls, and do not carry burdens on the sabbath day, nor bring them in through the gates of Jerusalem! And do not carry out burdens from your houses on the sabbath day, and do no work, but sanctify the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers! And they did not hear nor incline their ear, but hardened their neck” (and, what is not in the Hebrew, “above their fathers”), “so as not to hear me and not to receive discipline. And it will be, he says, if you hear me, says the Lord, so as not to bring burdens through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, and if you sanctify the sabbath day, so as to do no work on it, there will enter through the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David and riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city will be inhabited for ever. And they will come from the cities of Judah and from round about Jerusalem and from the land of Benjamin and from the plains and from the hill country and from the south, bringing burnt offering and victims (or: incense) and sacrifice (or: manna) and frankincense, and they will bring an offering (or: praise) into the house of the Lord. But if you do not hear me, to sanctify the sabbath day and not to carry a burden and not to bring it in through the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it will devour the houses of Jerusalem and will not be quenched.” Rather than tear into pieces the precept of the sabbath renewed through Jeremiah, I decided to set it down whole, so that we may learn everything together. He guards his soul who does not carry the burdens of sins on the day of rest and sabbath, nor bring them in through the gates of Jerusalem, which we ought to take as the virtues. “And do not carry out burdens from your houses”, he says (for they are not to be carried but thrown away entirely), “and do no work”, either servile work or that of which it is written, “Food for the belly and the belly for food; but God will destroy both the one and the other”; but that work must be worked of which the Saviour says: “Work for the work that does not perish.” “Sanctify”, he says, “the sabbath day”, so that we may spend all the time of our life in sanctification, as our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did. And when God had commanded these things, they did not incline their ear (of the mind, that is, not of the flesh), but hardened their neck, rejecting the yoke of the law and, by the metaphor, being like untamed animals. Let us see what is the reward of those who do not carry burdens on the sabbath day and sanctify it. “There will enter”, he says, “through the gates of this city kings”, whose heart is in the hand of God and who rule their bodies, “and princes sitting on the throne of David”, so as to imitate the example of Christ, “and riding in chariots and on horses”, of which it is written, “The chariots of God are ten thousandfold, thousands of those who rejoice; the Lord is among them in Sinai, in the holy place”, and elsewhere, “Your riding is salvation”; every man who confesses God and who dwells in Jerusalem, of which it is said, “His place was made in Salem”, that is, in peace, “and his dwelling in Zion”; and the church of God will be inhabited for ever. “And they will come from the cities of Judah and from round about Jerusalem”, of which we have already spoken, “and from the land of Benjamin”, who is the son of strength and of the right hand, “and from the plains”, which in Hebrew is called “sephela” and signifies the plain understanding of the history, “and from the hill country”, namely lofty doctrines, “and from the south”, of which it is written, “God will come from the south”, whence come warmth and full light and where all cold is driven out, “bringing”, he says, “burnt offerings” (consecrating themselves to God) “and victims” or incense, so as to say, “A sacrifice to the Lord is a contrite spirit”, and, “We are the good odour of Christ in every place”, and elsewhere, “Let my prayer be directed like incense in your sight”; “and sacrifice”, for which the Septuagint put the Hebrew word itself, “manaa”, which by a most wretched custom, or rather the negligence of copyists, is read “manna” in our books; “and frankincense”, of which it is said, “To what purpose do you bring me frankincense from Sheba?”; “and they will bring an offering”, which in Hebrew is called “thoda” and can be translated “thanksgiving”, and which the Septuagint translated “praise”, “into the house of David”, no doubt into the church. These are the rewards of those who sanctify the sabbath and are weighed down by no burden. “But if”, he says, “you do not hear my commands, and do what I commanded not to be done, I will kindle a fire in its gates” (that is, of Jerusalem; that fire of which it is said, “All adulterers, their hearts are like an oven”), “which will devour the houses” or streets “of Jerusalem” (which the Septuagint calls amphoda, Aquila and Symmachus bareis, that is, “towered houses”, and which in Hebrew are called “armanoth”), “and this burning will never be quenched”, as the apostle says: “The fire will test what sort of work each one's is”, and again: “If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” But if our judaizers reject the figurative explanation, they will be compelled either to be Jews and, with the observance of the sabbath, circumcise their foreskins, or certainly to find fault with the Saviour, who commanded the paralytic to carry his bed on the sabbath, as the evangelist says: “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”

Book Four. [1] The devil always threatens a good work; everywhere he lays snares for those who walk, as the prophet tells of the plots of his henchmen: "Beside the path they have set a stumbling block for me," and as the Gospel teaches the same thing more fully, that the birds of the sky snatch up and destroy the seeds thrown beside the road. Why I have used this opening, brother Eusebius, the following discourse will show. Occupied with the crowds that stream here from the whole world and with the cares of the holy brothers and of the monastery, I was dictating my commentaries on Jeremiah at intervals, so that what was lacking in leisure might be made up by diligence, when suddenly the heresy of Pythagoras and Zeno, of apatheia and anamartēsia, that is, "impassibility" and "sinlessness," which was long ago slain in Origen, and more recently in his disciples Grunnius, Evagrius of Pontus, and Jovinian, began to come back to life and to hiss not only in the West but also in parts of the East and on certain islands, especially Sicily and Rhodes, staining many and growing day by day, while they teach it in secret and deny it in public. I was long silent and swallowed my pain in silence, but at the repeated demand of the brothers I was compelled to answer it; yet I have not so far broken out as to name the authors, preferring that they be corrected rather than disgraced; for I am the enemy not of men but of error. They, to pay me back in kind and to sink in the tooth of their resentment, patched together the old slanders of their masters, and showed themselves so tongueless and wretched that they could not even curse in words of their own. Their dirges were refuted at that time by books published against them; whoever cares to read them will clearly see that they are, as Isaiah says, mute dogs that cannot bark, having indeed the will and the rage to lie, but not the skill to invent or to bark. To them I will speak briefly: what you teach is either good or bad. If good, defend it freely; if bad, why do you secretly slay the wretched with error and parade an exposition of the right faith in order to deceive the simple? If it is true, why is it hidden? If false, why is it written? What, I ask, is this madness? The apostle commands us to be ready to give satisfaction to everyone who asks us a reason for the hope that is in us, and the prophet cries: "I spoke of your testimonies before kings and was not put to shame"; yet these men flee the public, whisper in the corners of the lost, and grieve as though on their own account over things they are afraid to confess as their own. And when we say something in general against vices and heretics, they complain that they are being attacked, and by their long-concealed indignation they declare their bad conscience. But if we must take care not to seem to injure an old friendship by cutting down a most proud heresy with the spiritual sword, then we shall have to bear the crosses of a betrayed faith and say with the prophet: "I was turned about in misery while the thorn was driven into me." Let them rather hear the apostle's words: "We must obey God rather than men," and again: "If I were pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ." But, unless they keep quiet, we will pursue these things more fully in a work of its own. Now let us take up the journey begun in Jeremiah, and, running briefly through this fourth volume on him, linger only on what is obscure.

[2] "The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: Arise and go down into the potter's house, and there you will hear my words. And I went down into the potter's house, and behold, he was doing his work on the wheel (or: on the stones). And the vessel he was making of clay with his hands was spoiled; and he turned (or: and again) and made it another vessel, as it pleased him in his eyes to make. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Can I not do with you as this potter has done, house of Israel? says the Lord. Behold, like clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel. Suddenly (or: at the end) I will speak against a nation and against a kingdom, to root out (or: to take away) and to destroy and scatter it. If that nation repents of its evil, which I have spoken against it, I too will repent of the evil which I thought to do to it. And suddenly (or: at the end) I will speak of a nation and a kingdom, to build and to plant it. If it does evil in my eyes, so as not to hear my voice, I will repent of the good which I said I would do to it." Through all the senses we come to judgment and understanding of the mind, by hearing, smell, taste, and touch; but what is seen with the eyes is held more firmly in the mind. Therefore the prophet is ordered to go to the potter's house and there hear the Lord's commands. "And when I had gone," he says, "and had gone down into the potter's house, he was doing his work on the wheel," which the Seventy, misled by the ambiguity of the word, translated "stones"; for abanim, according to the nature of the place and the difference of pronunciation, means both "instrument," that is, the potter's "wheel," and "stones." "And when I saw," he says, "a vessel being made of clay, suddenly it was spoiled"; this happened by God's providence, so that the craftsman's hand, without knowing it, should shape a parable by its mistake. And again that potter, who had lost the vessel of clay while the wheel was running, made himself another, as he saw fit. And at once the Lord said to the prophet: "If the potter has this power, to make again from the same clay what had been spoiled, shall I not be able to do this with you, who, as far as it depends on you, seem to have perished?" And to signify free choice, he says that he announces both evil to this or that nation and kingdom, and again good; and yet what he has foretold does not happen, but the opposite: good comes to the wicked if they repent, and evil to the good if after the promise they have turned to sins. And we say this, not because God does not know that this or that nation or kingdom will do this or that, but because he leaves a man to his own will, so that he may receive rewards or punishments by his own merit. Yet what happens will not at once be wholly the man's, but belongs to the grace of him who has bestowed all things; for freedom of choice must be preserved in such a way that the grace of the giver excels in everything, according to the prophet's words: "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have labored in vain; unless the Lord guards the city, he who guards it has watched in vain." For it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

[3] "Now therefore say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus (or: so) says the Lord: Behold, I am shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you; let each one return from his evil way, and make your ways and your pursuits straight. And they said: We have despaired (or: we will take courage); for we will go after our own thoughts, and each one will do the depravity (or: what pleases) of his evil heart. Therefore thus says the Lord: Ask the nations: who has heard such horrible things as the virgin of Israel has done exceedingly?" The Lord completes the parable which he had taught both by sight and by words, and says: "Behold, I am shaping evil against you," like a potter shaping clay (evil, as in Isaiah, who says, "making peace and creating evil," not that it is evil in itself, but that it seems evil to those who suffer it), "and devising a plan against you," that is, to pass sentence according to desert: "change your works and make your ways straight, so that the punishment too may be changed into prosperity." "But they," he says, "on the contrary said: Let us take courage," in evil works, that is; or, according to Aquila, "we have despaired," and according to Symmachus, "we have failed"; both of which offend God, either that one should think he cannot be saved at all, or that one has lost heart in appeasing God. "And we will go after our own thoughts," he says. Where then is the power of free choice and the judgment of one's own will apart from the grace of God, when it is a great offense to God to follow one's own thoughts and to do the will of a depraved heart? Therefore he adds, saying: "Ask the nations and all the peoples round about, who has done, who has heard, while serving idols, what the virgin of Israel has done exceedingly." He calls her a virgin because she served the one God, as the prophet says: "God is known in Judah, his name is great in Israel."

[4] "Will the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? Or can the cold waters that burst forth and flow down be torn away?" The Septuagint: "Will breasts fail from the rock, or snow from Lebanon? Or will water turn aside, violently carried off by the wind?" Something like this is also the sound of Virgil's lines: "Sooner then shall light stags graze in the air, and the seas leave the fish bare upon the shore, than his face shall slip from our heart"; and in another place: "While rivers run into the seas, while shadows pass over the mountain slopes, while the sky feeds the stars, ever shall your honor, your name, and your praises remain." "As the snow," he says, "cannot fail from the summits of Lebanon, nor is it overcome by any heat of the sun so as to melt entirely, and the streams flowing from the mountains never dry up at their springs, so my name, which is in itself stable and everlasting, cannot be changed; and yet, while other things keep the order of nature, my people has forgotten me." For there follows:

[5] "Because my people has forgotten me, sacrificing in vain and stumbling in their ways, in the paths of the age (or: everlasting), so that they walked in them on a road not trodden." Whoever forgets God and abandons him who says, "I am the way," and sacrifices to strange gods, stumbles in his ways (not God's, but his own) and abandons the ancient and everlasting paths, which are worn by the footsteps of all the saints who worship God. But these walked on a road not trodden, and, having abandoned the worship of God, venerated idols; for this the punishment that follows is brought on: