Homilies on Jeremiah 12.1–12.11

What the prophet is commanded by God to say must be worthy of God; yet it appears not worthy of God if we stay with the letter, so that someone else, hearing the letter, might say: “These writings are foolishness.” But it is the unspiritual man who will say this; for “the unspiritual man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him.” See, then, what the text says: “And you shall say to this people: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel” (let what “the Lord, the God of Israel” says be worthy of the Lord of Israel): “Every wineskin shall be filled with wine. And it shall be, if they say to you, ‘Do we not certainly know that every wineskin shall be filled with wine?’” And those who answer, if they say this standing on the letter, saying they have known that “every wineskin shall be filled with wine,” are lying. For not “every wineskin shall be filled with wine.” There are, at any rate, wineskins filled with oil or some other liquid; so some are lying, for not “every wineskin shall be filled with wine.” And the people answers, saying: “Do we not certainly know that every wineskin shall be filled with wine?” These things will receive such an explanation as we are able. If we know the differences among wines and what is said about them, we shall also see, consistently with them, about the wineskins, that “every wineskin shall be filled with wine” is true. For whether someone is good, a wineskin among wineskins, if we may so name him, he will be filled with wine according to his own goodness; or whether, in the comparison of wineskins and the judgment about them, he is wicked, he too will be filled with wicked wine according to his wickedness. How, then, can we take from Scripture something about the different wines? About the worse, this is written: “For their vine is from the vine of Sodom, and their branch from Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, a cluster of bitterness for them; their wine is the fury of dragons, and the incurable fury of asps.” And about the better: “Your cup, intoxicating me, how excellent it is!” And Wisdom calls to her own mixing bowl, saying: “Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine I have mixed for you.” So there is wine from Sodom, and there is wine that Wisdom mixes. And again: “My beloved had a vineyard on a horn, in a fertile place,” planted by God, the vine called Sorek, which is Chosen and Wonderful. But there is also a vine of the Egyptians, which God strikes, according to what is written: “God struck their vine with hail, and their sycamores with frost.”

Consider for me, then, that all human beings are now, figuratively, able to hold wine. And I name them wineskins in this sense, and say that the base man is filled “with wine of the vine of Sodom,” filled with Egyptian wine and with the wine of Israel's enemies, while the holy man, who has been helped, is filled with wine from the vine of Sorek, and with the wine about which it is written, “Your cup, intoxicating, how excellent it is!”; and again the holy man is filled with the wine that Wisdom mixed. Let these things be understood by me with reference to vice and virtue, so that “every wineskin is filled with wine” may be seen. But if we must also see what comes on account of vice and virtue, punishments on account of vice, blessings and promises on account of virtue, let us show from the sacred writings how punishments and promises are called wine: “Take this cup of unmixed wine, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.” Jeremiah says this, and he adds: “And they shall drink and vomit and go mad and fall.” So here he has named the punishments unmixed wine, which those drink who deserve unmixed wine, that is, unmixed punishment. But there are others who drink a punishment not unmixed but mixed; for “there is a cup in the hand of the Lord, full of a mixture of unmixed wine; he has tilted it from this to that; yet its dregs have not been emptied; all the sinners of the earth shall drink.” If you wish to see also a cup of blessing, which the righteous drink, that of Wisdom would be enough, about which she said, “Drink the wine that I have mixed for you”; but see for me also the Savior going up for the Passover to “a large upper room furnished and adorned,” keeping the feast with the disciples and giving them a cup, about which it is not written that he mixed it; for Jesus, gladdening the disciples, gladdens them with unmixed wine, and says to them: “Take, drink; this is my blood, which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me”; and: “Truly I say to you, I will not drink it from now on until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God.” You see that the promise is “the cup of the new covenant”; you see the punishments as a cup of unmixed wine, and another kind of punishment as a mixed cup, so that for each person what he will drink is mixed according to the worth of his good deeds mixed with wicked deeds. Understand for me that those wholly strangers to godliness, paying no attention to themselves but living at random, drink the unmixed wine about which we cited the words of Jeremiah; while those who have not wholly fallen away, and are sinners, yet unworthy of the cup “of the new covenant,” doing at times better and at times contrary deeds, drink wine “full of a mixture of unmixed.” For God “tilted it from this to that.” From which “this”? I see two cups according to the saying: “He tilted it from this to that; yet its dregs have not been emptied.” Understand for me the cup of your good works in one hand of God; or, if you wish me to speak more boldly, let the cup of your good works be in the right hand of God, and then let your cup of sins be in the left hand of God. So when you are about to be punished for your sins, since you have also done better works, the cup “in the hand of the Lord is full of a mixture of unmixed wine, and he tilted it from this to that,” from the one in the left to the one in the right. For you cannot drink only the cup of good things, since you have not done only good works; nor can you drink only the cup of sins, for you have done some good things. That is why “he tilted it from this to that.” In proportion to your works, the wrath and the punishment are mixed for you, so that the punishment may be either more watery for you or sharper and more painful. For in proportion, as I said before, when the sins are compared with the good things, what comes from the cup of wrath is somehow blunted or not blunted, † being given in some measure for each of the sins. But if you are wholly fair and good, you say: “I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.” “Every wineskin,” then, whether good or wicked, “shall be filled with wine,” and according to the fitness of the wineskin, wine will be put into the wineskin, according to the meaning of the wineskins named here. Oil, then, is not put into the wineskins, nor any other liquid; but every wineskin must be filled with wine.

Then he teaches, for the sake of those who had sinned, as far as the letter goes, in Jerusalem at that time and in Judea, with what kind of wine God is going to fill these wineskins, the sinners. For it is written: “If they say to you, ‘Do we not certainly know that every wineskin shall be filled with wine?’ you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I fill all who dwell in this land, and the kings, the sons of David, who sit on his throne, and the priests.” The one who is about to punish spares no one. Not because someone was called a prophet, if he has sins, will he not be filled with the threats spoken. Not because someone was called a priest and seemed to have the preeminence of a more honored name than the people, does God spare him so that he is not punished when he sins. And what is recorded about those people, says the apostle, was written for our sake, “on whom the ends of the ages have come.” If, then, anyone among these priests (I point to us, the presbyters) or among these Levites who stand around the people (I mean the deacons) sins, he will have this punishment; just as, again, there are certain priestly blessings, about which, God granting, we shall know before long, after the examination of the prophetic word, when Numbers is read; for certain things are going to be said there about priests. “And the priests,” then, “and the prophets and Judah and all who dwell in Jerusalem,” God says, he will fill “with drunkenness,” and will scatter “them, a man and his brother, and their fathers and their sons.” And let us understand this too as follows: God gathers the righteous, but scatters sinners. That is why, while people did not move from the east, God did not scatter them; but when they moved “from the east,” and “a man said to his neighbor, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach to heaven,’” God says about them: “Come, let us go down and confuse their language there,” and each is confused and scattered to some place of the earth. And the people of Israel too, while it did not sin, was in Judea; but having sinned it is then scattered † from the inhabited world and dispersed everywhere. Understand for me something of this kind about all of us too. There is “an assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, where Mount Zion is, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” The blessed will be gathered there, so as to be together. But sinners are punished in this too, that they are not with one another. I know of some in this life who, by way of punishment, wish to hand over to an island, and by way of torment scatter, the household of someone who has offended the emperor: the wife here, one son there, then the other elsewhere, so that not even in misfortune may the mother have the comfort of her son, or brother of brother. Understand something of this kind also in the case of the unjust. You, the sinner, must taste something more bitter under God's arrangement, so that, being disciplined, you may be saved. And just as you punish a servant or a son whom you punish, not simply wishing to torment him, but to turn him back by the pains, so God too will discipline with the pains of suffering those who do not turn back by the word, those who have not been healed. What he inflicts, he inflicts for discipline, according to the saying: “By every pain and scourge you will be disciplined, O Jerusalem.” So that the disciplining pain may increase, those who suffer are scattered from one another, so that this one and that one are not together; for the severity of the pain would be relieved by the comfort each one gets from the other.

And if another reason for being scattered must be added to the account, I will set this out too. Wicked people, when together, plan wicked things and increase them, just as the good, when together with the good, consider good things. So the wicked counsel, which would have been strong with those like it, is broken up and divided when the wicked are scattered from one another. For this reason God arranges that the base are not with one another, perhaps providing for them too, so that their wickedness may not increase together but may diminish as it is broken up. So much on “I will scatter them, a man and his brother, and their fathers and their sons together, says the Lord.” “I will not long for them, nor spare, nor have compassion, from their destruction.”

Those from the heresies seize on such sayings, saying: “Do you see what kind of being the Creator is? The God of the prophets, who says, ‘I will not spare, nor have compassion, from their destruction’? How can this one be good?” But if I take as an example a judge who, for the common good, does not have compassion, and a magistrate who rightly does not show mercy, I will be able to persuade from the example that God, sparing many, does not spare one. I will also take the example of a physician, showing that in sparing the whole body he does not spare one member. For example, let a judge have this purpose: to create peace and to arrange what is beneficial for the nation under him. Let a murderer be brought before him, handsome in appearance and fair to see. Let his mother come forward, offering pitiful words to the judge, so that her old age may be pitied; let the wife of this man, who does not deserve pity, plead; let children standing around him beg for him. In these circumstances what is to the benefit of the community? That he be pitied, or not be pitied? But if pitied, he will return to the same things; if not pitied, he himself will die, but the community will be improved. So if God spares the sinner and pities him and has compassion on him so as not to punish him, who will not be ruined? Which of the base, who stop sinning through fear of punishments, will not be ruined, will not become worse? Such things can be seen happening in the churches too: someone sinned, and after the sin asked for communion. If he is pitied too quickly, the community is harmed; the sin of others increases. But if the judge, by reasoning, not as merciless nor as cruel, but as providing for the one, yet providing more for the many than for the one, considers the harm that will come to the community from the communion of the one and the pardon of his sin, clearly he will cast out the one in order to save the many. See for me also a physician: how, if he spares cutting what must be cut, if he spares cauterizing what must be cauterized, because of the pains that follow such remedies, the disease increases and becomes worse. But if he boldly proceeds to the cutting and the burning, he will heal by not pitying, by seeming not to have compassion on the one being cauterized and cut. So too God administers not one man, but administers the whole world; he governs the things in heaven, the things on earth, everywhere. He considers, then, what benefits the whole world and all that exists; he considers as far as possible the benefit of the one too, but not so that the benefit of the one comes at the cost of the world. That is why eternal fire has been prepared, that is why Gehenna has been made ready, that is why there is also an outer darkness: these are needed not only for the one punished, but above all for the community.

And if you wish to take Scripture as witness that sinners are punished also for the instruction of others, even if they themselves are at times despaired of as regards healing, hear Solomon saying in Proverbs: “When a pestilent man is scourged, the fool will become more shrewd.” He did not say that the one scourged will become more shrewd and more sensible because of the scourges, but says that the fool changes from folly to good sense because of the scourges applied to the pestilent man; for this is what is meant here by the word “shrewdness.” And the fool changes by seeing others scourged. So the punishment of others is to our benefit, if we become worthy of salvation through others being punished. And as the trespass of Israel was of benefit to the salvation of the nations, so the punishment of some will be of benefit to the salvation of others. That is why God, being good, says: “I will not spare, nor have compassion, from their destruction.”

Now that the one head has been dealt with, let us see what the other teaches us: “Hear and give ear, and do not be lifted up, for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord our God before it grows dark, and before your feet stumble on dark mountains; and you will wait for light, and there will be the shadow of death, and they will be put into darkness. But if you do not listen secretly, your soul will weep because of insolence, and your eyes will run down with tears, because the Lord's flock has been crushed.” He wants them both to hear and to give ear, not content with their only hearing or only giving ear. That is why he says, “Hear and give ear.” Then after this he commands them not to be lifted up, and teaches what must be done. What, then, is hearing, and what is giving ear? Let us consider from the word itself. “Give ear” is “receive into the ears”; and “hear,” if it is said in distinction from “give ear,” perhaps means “receive into the mind.” And of the things said in the Scriptures, some are more secret and mystical, and others are immediately useful to those who understand. About the more secret things, I think, “hear” is said; about the things immediately useful and able to benefit the hearer without interpretation, “give ear.” So if we examine the whole of Scripture, “having become approved money-changers,” we shall say: this, hear; this, give ear to. Then, when we have listened and given ear, he commands us: “And do not be lifted up.” For “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.” And the Savior too, in saying, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls,” teaches us not to be lifted up. For among the other human evils this sin too is great in us; sometimes we are lifted up quite irrationally, over things for which one should not be lifted up in the least; and sometimes with some plausibility, because what we are lifted up about seems reasonable; yet even so, to be lifted up over it is not sound.

What I mean will be clear in this way. There are some who are lifted up because they are sons of governors, and because they are of a family with great worldly dignities. Such people, lifted up over a thing that does not depend on their choice and is indifferent, do not even have a reasonable plausibility to lead them to be lifted up. There are those who are lifted up because they have authority to put people to death, and lifted up because they have received what they call promotion, such that they can cut off people's heads. “The glory” of such people “is in their shame.” Others are lifted up over wealth, not the true wealth but that here below; and others are lifted up, for example, over having a fine house or many fields. None of these is worth a word; one must not be lifted up over any of them. But there is plausibility about being lifted up when someone is lifted up because he is wise, and is lifted up conscious that for ten years now he has not touched sexual relations, or has not touched them since childhood; and again another is lifted up because he has worn chains for Christ. Here there is a plausibility that suggests one is reasonably lifted up; but not even over these is one reasonably lifted up, according to the true account. So it is not reasonable to be lifted up even over these. Paul had material for being lifted up, because of the visions, because of the revelations, because of the wonders and signs, because of the labors he labored for Christ, because of the churches he established, making it his ambition to found a church where Christ had not been named. All these were material for him [to be lifted up], if one must speak with plausibility about being lifted up, so that he might have seemed to some rightly to be lifted up. Nevertheless, since even being lifted up over such things is not without danger, the kind Father, as he granted him visions and revelations, so gave him, as a portion of grace, “a messenger of Satan, to buffet him, so that he might not be exalted. And about this he begged the Lord three times that the messenger of Satan might depart from him,” who had been given him so that he might not be lifted up. And the Lord answered him (for Paul was worthy of an answer from the Lord) and said to him: “My grace is sufficient for you; for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So one must not be lifted up over anything; for falling follows being lifted up, according to “Before destruction a man's heart is exalted, and before glory it is humbled.” So much on “Hear and give ear, and do not be lifted up, for the Lord has spoken.”

Let us see also what he commands us to do after this: “Give glory,” he says, “to the Lord our God before it grows dark, before your feet stumble on dark mountains; and you will wait for light.” He wants the one who gives “glory to God” to give “glory to God” while there is light, since God's glory cannot be proclaimed once it has grown dark and darkness has come. When, then, does it grow dark, and when does the darkening not happen? “Work while the light is in you.” “The light is in” you if you have in you him who said, “the light of the world.” As long as this rises on you, glorify God; but know that a darkening can happen, and one must not remain in this darkness, but give glory to God before it grows dark.

Perhaps we shall understand what is written by using a saying of the Gospel spoken by the Savior, which runs thus: “Work while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” There he named this age “day” (and I have added “there” of necessity, for I know that different things are often meant in different places); so he named this age day, and the consummation darkness and night because of the punishments. “For why do you desire the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light,” says the prophet Amos. If you see what grim thing follows after the consummation of the world, with almost the whole human race punished for its sins, you will see that then what surrounds us has grown dark, and no one can any longer glorify God, since the Word of God has commanded even the righteous, saying: “Go, my people, enter your chamber, shut your door, hide yourself for a very little while, until the fury of my wrath has passed.” At the same time let whoever can observe in this that he has said, “a very little while.” But that “little while” is little for God; it is not little for a human being; for one must see that for each being something is small and great. And I will show by an example that for each thing something is small or great. For each animal, so much food is little by comparison with its build, and so much food is much, again by comparison with its constitution. And so what is little for a human being is great for another animal. What is little, say, for a man is much for a child. So the whole time of human life, even of a long-lived man, is short in comparison with the whole of the present age. So too God's “little” is much in relation to us, and a whole age is God's “little.” If, then, it is said, “Go, my people, enter your chambers, shut your door, hide yourself for a very little while,” that little must be thought to be said not in relation to the one commanded to go and enter his own chambers, but in relation to the one who commands it, to whom what is much for this one is little. For if some must enter their chambers “until the fury” of God's “wrath has passed,” and there are those whose “sins are not forgiven, not only in this whole age but also in the whole age to come,” clearly the “little while” is stretched out for those mentioned.

“Give,” then, “glory to the Lord our God.” How do we give glory to the Lord our God? I do not look for giving glory to the Lord our God in sounds and little phrases; rather, the one who gives glory to the Lord God gives it to him in deeds. Glorify God in self-control, in righteousness; glorify God in doing good; give glory to God in courage and endurance; give glory to God in godliness and holiness and the other virtues. And if this is so, and this is how one glorifies God, do not think I blaspheme if I state the opposite; for I will bring Scripture as witness of that too. The self-controlled man glorifies God; the licentious man dishonors God. For like Nebuchadnezzar he overthrows the temple of God, and “destroys the temple of God,” and “through transgression of the law dishonors God” (this too is an apostolic saying). So the sinner brings dishonor upon God. And questions about providence are raised, so that some doubt whether there is providence, for no other reason than wickedness. Take away wickedness, and you do not stumble at providence. Those who stumble at providence say this over and over: “Why are there so many adulterers and so many effeminate, why so many godless and impious?” And it is the sinners who have produced the dishonor to providence, the stumbling blocks to God, the blasphemy against the Creator of the world. So some give glory to God, but others give not glory to God, those who by their sins do what is contrary to the glory of God.