Homilies on Jeremiah 20.2–20.7

For we ask whether, as the wrath of all is evil, but God's is corrective, and the anger of all is harsh, but what is called God's is disciplinary, and the repentance of all of us accuses the weakness of what preceded the repentance, while in God's case his repentance accuses not God but the outside affairs over which the repentance is taken, so too one must understand God's deception as different in kind from our deception, with which we deceive. What, then, is God's deception, which the prophet understood when he ceased being deceived, and, knowing the benefit of having been deceived, says: “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived”? And first I will use a Hebrew tradition, which came to us through a man who fled because of faith in Christ and because he had gone up beyond the law, and came to where we live. He told a story, whether it seems a myth or an account able to bring the hearers closer to “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived.” He said something like this: God does not play the tyrant but reigns as king, and reigning does not compel but persuades, and wishes those under him to submit themselves willingly to his dispensation, so that one's good may not be by necessity but by one's own free will. Paul, knowing this, said in the Epistle to Philemon, to Philemon about Onesimus: “so that your good may not be by necessity but by free will.” The God of the universe could have made what is thought good in us such that we would give alms by necessity and be self-controlled by necessity; but he did not will it. That is why he does not command us to do what we do reluctantly or under necessity, so that what is done may be voluntary. So he seeks a way, so to speak, by which one might willingly do what God wishes. The tradition told me something like this too. He wished to send Jeremiah to prophesy to all the nations, and before all the nations to the people. But since the prophecies had something rather gloomy about them (for they announced punishments, how each would be punished according to his deserts), and he knew the will of the prophet, who did not wish to prophesy the worse things to the people of Israel, he arranged to say: “Take this cup, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.” So God commanded Jeremiah to take a cup, and, urging him to take “the cup of unmixed wine,” he says: “and I will send you to all the nations, having this cup of unmixed wine.” Jeremiah, hearing that he was being sent to all the nations, to serve them a cup of wrath, a cup of punishments, not suspecting that Israel too was going to drink from the cup of punishment, was deceived and took the cup to give all the nations drink; having taken the cup, he heard: “And you will give drink first to [Jerusalem].” Since, then, he expected one thing and met another, on this account he says: “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived.” He gave an account similar to this in the case of Isaiah too. For he also, not knowing what he was going to be commanded to say to the people, hears God saying, according to what is written: “Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people?” And he, it says, answered: “Here I am; send me”; and he hears: “Go and say to this people: You will indeed hear and never understand, and you will indeed see and never perceive. For the heart of this people has grown fat,” and the rest. Since, then, not knowing what he was going to prophesy, and that he was going to threaten such things to the people, he said, “Here I am; send me,” for this reason, he says, in what follows, “A voice of a lion: Cry out,” he did not answer as eager to do what was commanded, but said, “What shall I cry?” For he was wary lest he hear again, as in the former prophecy, “Go and say to this people: You will indeed hear and never understand.” “What,” then, “shall I cry?” “All flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of the grass,” and the rest. He heard nothing in these words against Israel. This is what that man told us, handing on the meaning of “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived.”

But I pray not only to keep what I receive from those who give, nor to bury in the ground the talent of those who speak to me, nor “to tie up in a handkerchief” the mina of those who teach something useful, but to make an increase of the lessons I receive from one who hands on, and is able to hand on, useful things. I pray to make the mina, whether of the Gospel, or of an apostle, or of a prophet, or of the law, manifold. Having heard these things, then, I was considering by myself “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived.” And considering, I pray to find something true on the passage. Perhaps, then, as a father wishes to deceive his son while still an infant for his benefit, since the child cannot otherwise be helped unless he is deceived, as a physician takes pains to deceive the sick man who cannot be healed unless he accepts words of deception, so too the God of the universe, since he has as his purpose to benefit the human race. Let the physician say to the sick man: “You must be cut, you must be cauterized, you must suffer other harsher things”: he would not submit himself. But sometimes he says something else, and hides under the sponge that cutting, dividing knife, and again hides, so to speak, under honey the nature of the bitter and the unpleasant medicine, wishing not to harm but to heal the one being treated. The whole of divine Scripture is full of such medicines. And some are kind things hidden, some bitter things hidden. If you see a father threatening as though he hated his son, and saying frightening things to his son, and not showing his tender affection but hiding his love for his son, you will see that he wishes to deceive the infant; for it does not benefit the son to know the father's love, his friendly intention; he will grow slack and not be trained. That is why he hides the sweetness of his affection and shows the bitterness of the threat. God does something of this kind, analogous to a father and a physician. There are some bitter things which heal even the most righteous and the wisest … for everyone who has sinned must be punished for his sins. “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked.” “Whether sexually immoral, or adulterer, or effeminate, or homosexual, or thief, or drunkard, or reviler, or robber, they will not inherit the kingdom of God.” If this is understood and examined closely by those who cannot see the physician's knife under the sponge, by those who cannot perceive the bitter medicine under the honey, one will lose heart. For who of us is not conscious of having drunk not deliberately and become drunk? Who of us is clean of theft, and of not having procured necessities as he should? But see what the word says: “Do not be deceived, for these will not inherit the kingdom of God.” The mystery of the passage must be kept hidden, so that the many may not lose heart, so that, having learned the facts, they may not expect their departure as rest but as punishment. Or who will be found a Paul, able to say, “For it is better to depart and be with Christ”? My wood must be burned in me. For I know that if I depart, my wood must be burned in me. And the wood I have is revilings, the wood I have is drunkennesses, the wood is thefts, and ten thousand other pieces of wood I have built on my building. You see that all these things escape the notice of most believers, and it is well that they do; and each of us thinks, since he has not worshipped idols, since he has not committed sexual immorality (would that we were clean even of such things!), that when he is released from life he will be saved. We do not see that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or evil.” We do not see him who said, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your practices,” not some and not others. Since, then, the physician sometimes hides the medical knife under the soft and tender sponge, and the father too hides his affection by an appearance of threat, and of the deceptions some remove tumors and varicose veins and whatever else harms the constitution of the body, while the other removes lack of discipline and slackness: the prophet understood mystically that God does something of this kind, and, seeing in what he had been deceived by God for good, says: “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived.” It brought him to so great a grace, to pray and say to God: “Deceive me, if this is beneficial.” For the deception from God is one thing, and the deception from the serpent another. See what the woman says to God: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” And the deception from the serpent removed Adam and his wife from the paradise of God; but the deception that befell the prophet who said, “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived,” brought him to so great a grace of prophecy, to the increase of power in him, to his being made perfect and able to serve the will of the Word of God without fearing man. Understanding these things, then, let us too pray, both for the present and for the future, to be deceived by God. Only let the serpent not deceive us. And elsewhere something akin to this is written, as it is said in Isaiah: “For the Lord has mixed for them a spirit of error.” You will note there too what the spirit of error mixed by God does. And it is well that God did not give the spirit of error unmixed, but, as the prophet named it, mixed it.

I wish to take a risk and give an example of those who have been deceived and benefited. There are some who practice chastity and purity for this reason, and others who practice single marriage for this reason: because they expected that one who has had marital intercourse is lost, that one who has married twice is lost. Let us compare by ourselves what is profitable for the once-married woman: to have been deceived, and to think that the twice-married woman is punished and handed over to eternal punishment, so that she remains once-married and pure; or to know the truth and marry a second time? I think anyone at all who sees what follows can say: it was more blessed to remain pure and not marry twice without being deceived, and to see that the twice-married woman too shares in a certain salvation, but not in as much blessedness as the woman who, though she could have married twice, remained pure; but if she cannot do this, it is better to be deceived, thinking that the twice-married are lost, and through the deception to remain pure, than to know the truth and be in the lesser rank, that of the twice-married. You will find something of this kind also in the case of some who practice chastity and complete purity. And many other things might be found done by us through deception and benefiting us. And how many reputed wise men, having found the truth about punishment and seen through, as they suppose, what was deception, have come to a worse life! It would have profited them to think as they thought before about “their worm will not die,” and that “their fire will not be quenched,” and that “they will be a spectacle to all flesh,” and that “the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire.” But if, imagining something else than their first understanding, they are going “to despise the riches of God's kindness and forbearance and long-suffering,” see whether truly, because they did not think themselves deceived, they have stored up for themselves “wrath on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,” which they would not have stored up had they been deceived. So much because of the deception from God, since the prophet said, “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived.” Let us pass also, separately, to “I was deceived.” Why did he not say only, “You deceived me, O Lord,” but added “I was deceived”? It is sometimes possible to conceive of someone working the deception, and another guarding himself against being deceived and not being deceived. But when the one works the deception, and the other does not guard himself against being deceived but falls into the deception, he might say: “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived.” And coming to the passage I would say something like this: whatever the serpent says to me, whether he tells me the truth or wishes to deceive me, I suspect his words, being persuaded that, whether he deceives me or tells the truth, he harms me. For even his truth harms; nothing beneficial comes from the serpent, since “a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” But whatever God says to me, and I am persuaded that it is God who speaks, I am ready to submit myself. He tells the truth: I accept. He wishes to deceive me: I am willingly deceived; let God alone deceive me. And since I submit myself, persuaded that it is God who speaks, even to be deceived, and do not pry, wishing, when deceived, to be deceived not by another but by God, for this reason I say that not only did you work the deception, but I too underwent being deceived by you; and in this sense I say, “You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived.” And what follows from God's being the one who deceives and man the one deceived? “You were stronger and prevailed.” And having prevailed he is able. But if he does not prevail, then I need labors. “You were stronger and prevailed.”

Next to this he says: “I became [a laughingstock]” … [From the one who handed on] the passage [to me] I heard this: that Jeremiah lived in the times of the greatest sinners (in his time, at any rate, the captivity came about). And they were such sinners as to mock and laugh and jeer if ever the prophet spoke the prophetic introduction, “Thus says the Lord.” The hearers laughed and mocked at what was said. The one who had been deceived, and benefited from being deceived, took care not to say, “Thus says the Lord.” So he too, wishing to deceive for their benefit from the deception, said: “I speak my own words to you, since you do not listen to the words of the Lord.” Then they lent their ears as to the words of Jeremiah, and heard the words of God. This the one who handed the passage on to me told me, examining the introductions and beginnings of the prophecies. Now the beginning of Jeremiah's prophecy with us, as the Seventy have handed it on, with what purpose I do not know, is: “The word of God which came to Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests”; but in the Hebrew and the other editions: “The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah,” and all agreed in saying, “The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah.” Why, then, “the words of Jeremiah”? Because his introduction, in speaking to those who did not wish to listen, was: “Hear my words.” And we too sometimes do such things, when it seems profitable to us. Sometimes we bring words to those from the nations, wishing to bring them to the faith, and if we see that they are prejudiced against Christianity and loathe the name and hate to hear that this teaching is the Christians', we do not make a show of speaking a useful teaching of Christians. But when that teaching has been built up by us as well as we can, and we seem to be winning the hearer, who has listened to what was said with more than passing attention, then we confess that this praiseworthy teaching was the teaching of Christians. And we do something similar to the one who no longer said, “Thus says the Lord,” but: “Hear the words of me, Jeremiah.” So much on “I became a laughingstock.” And are we indignant if ever, when we speak, we are laughed at, when so great a man as Jeremiah says, “I became a laughingstock; all day long I continued being mocked”? Why do I say Jeremiah? My Jesus too was mocked; for “the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things,” it says, “and mocked him.” But “the Lord will mock” all who mock the words of God. “I became a laughingstock.” See what kind of lives the prophets lived: at times laughed at, at times in danger, thrown down, stoned by the people, killed, hated, persecuted; and they suffered and endured all things, so that, according to the will of God, “seeking the glory that comes from the only God,” and preaching the word, they might obtain the end that comes from God. “All day long I continued being mocked”: all day long he continued being mocked.

“For with my bitter word I will laugh.” Laughter is a promise, of which promise the patriarch Isaac bears the name; for Isaac is interpreted “Laughter.” That laughter is a promise is clear from “Blessed are those who weep now”; and the promise is “for they will laugh.” Just as “they will be called sons of God,” and “they will see God,” and “they will inherit the earth,” and “theirs is the kingdom of heaven” are promises, so laughter is a promise; to which promise the weeping that is called blessed is the opposite. And you will inquire whether, in different aspects, the blessed weeping agrees with this good laughter, while another weeping, laid up for those pronounced wretched for contrary things, is opposed to it. For “woe to those who laugh now, for they will mourn and weep”; for the weeping called blessed is one thing, and the one laid up for those who have lived badly is another. Whether that too has some beneficial end, I do not know. What am I saying? Hear Paul. When he taught, he took pains, in speaking, to grieve his hearers. And he confesses that he rejoiced most when someone was grieved by him; for he says: “And who is it that makes me glad, but the one who is grieved by me?” And if anyone is able to move the soul of a hearer, especially of one who has sinned, he prays to speak such words as, spoken with power and array and divine quality and sacred thoughts, will shake the soul of the hearer and move it to mourning and weeping and tears, so that the speaker rejoices † when he sees the audience delighted and filled with what is said. For where he leads to promises, as “through the narrow and hard way,” the way of grief, “to life,” he leads also through weeping to the laughter that is called blessed. But when he does not achieve this, I fear lest he may say such things as: “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.” Why have I said this, but wishing to hint that he says, “With my bitter word I will laugh,” and to set forth the laughter of weeping, and that weeping which those who laugh here will weep, God perhaps taking pains to produce weeping in them? For “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And God takes pains for this, seeing that the one who weeps for his own sins, who laments his own transgressions, has already come to awareness of his own evils. Would that each of us said, for each sin, “Every night I will wash my bed; I will drench my couch with my tears.” Would that each of us said, weeping over his own sins, “My tears have become my bread day and night.” If my word is rather bitter here, and bitter because I am afflicted on its account, those who hear are displeased. Those who are rebuked, when they are burdened by the speaker: I know that the end of my bitter word is to laugh, and to laugh the laughter of the blessed. And perhaps the prophet, knowing this, said: “For with my bitter word I will laugh”: already “with a bitter word,” but I do not yet laugh; rather “with my bitter word I will laugh.”

“I will call on faithlessness and misery.” The righteous man calls on God; the unrighteous too calls on Wisdom: “For it will be,” she says, “when you call on me, but I will not hear you.” There, the unrighteous; and the righteous too clearly call at times on Wisdom: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But here the prophet says, “I will call on faithlessness and misery,” as on God, so on faithlessness; as on the Lord, so on misery. Is it a good thing you call on, Jeremiah, since you declare, saying, “I will call on faithlessness and misery”? But one must consider the agreements we make and the breaking of them, since at times one makes agreements badly; and after making agreements badly, would that we might call on faithlessness to them! So too, if I consider “the broad and spacious way that leads to destruction,” and that walking on it I suffer no misery, I pass over “from the broad and spacious way” and come “to the narrow and hard one,” and, suffering misery, I say: “I will call on misery.” I am going to break the agreements with the world and worldly affairs, so as to take up heavenly agreements: “I will call on faithlessness.” So, leaving the [path] of “the broad and spacious way” and coming “to the narrow and hard one,” so as to become miserable like Paul, I say: “I will call on misery.” For not every man will say, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” But the one who has understood the body of death, who wishes to be delivered from the body of this death, will say, “Wretched man that I am.” But the lover of the body, the common man, who disbelieves in the age to come, does not say, “Wretched man that I am,” but calls himself blessed that he is a man, and that he is in the body of death. If, then, understanding how Paul said, “Wretched man that I am,” I can, not having yet called on misery, call on it by breaking the agreements with wickedness, I say, like Jeremiah: “I will call on faithlessness and misery.” For he did not say, “I will call on faithlessness to God.” I wish to give an example from Scripture of a righteous person who broke agreements, to show how that person called on faithlessness in deed. Judith made an agreement with Holofernes that she would go out for so many days to pray to God, and after so many days would give herself to the bed of Holofernes. Holofernes accepted this agreement. He released Judith for her prayers outside the camp. What ought Judith to have done: keep the agreement or break it? It is agreed: break it; for to break the agreement with Holofernes was blessed before God. Judith was going to break her agreement with Holofernes; she was going to say, “I will call on faithlessness”; and she did call on faithlessness. Would that I too might become such as to say, “I will call on faithlessness,” and call on faithlessness toward the serpent, toward the devil. The serpent once made an agreement with Eve, and she was his friend and the serpent the woman's. But God, as good, took pains that this agreement should be dissolved and this evil friendship scattered, and as the good God he says: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.” Let us, then, hear with understanding how God makes enmity toward the one so as to make friendship toward Christ; for it is impossible to be a friend of opposites at once. And as “no one can serve two masters,” so no one can be a friend both “to God and to mammon,” a friend both to Christ and to the serpent. Friendship with Christ must make enmity toward the serpent, and friendship with the serpent must beget enmity toward Christ. “I will call on faithlessness and misery.” And so that you may better understand “I will call on misery,” I will describe something that happens to ascetics. Often, when it is open to someone to marry and have no trouble from the flesh rising against the spirit, he chooses not to use the right to marry, but to suffer misery and toil, “to pummel the body” with fasts “and enslave it” with abstinence from certain foods, and in every way “by the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the body.” Has not such a one called on misery, when he could have given himself to luxury and pleasure and not called on misery? If anyone, then, can imitate the prophet, let him call on faithlessness, as we have explained, and let him call on misery in his ascetic practices. And the history about Jeremiah happens to be true too, that he lived in chastity; for the Lord said to him, “You shall not take a wife, nor have children.” And he lived in chastity; for he called on faithlessness and misery.