After the expositions of the twelve prophets, of Isaiah, of Daniel, and of Ezekiel, I at last set my hand to Jeremiah for you, brother Eusebius, dedicating to you these little commentaries upon him, so that you may couple this evangelical man with Matthew the Evangelist, whom, at your exhortation, I expounded many years ago in a compressed sense. And because the volume is very long and in many places a plain narrative is woven through it, I admonish your prudence not to seek in it a broad exposition, especially concerning those things which have already been said in the other prophets and are of themselves clear to the understanding. And so I shall endeavour to write, by the hand of shorthand-writers, in such a way that nothing be lacking in the sense, though much be lacking in the words.
I shall prepare for you the warp and the weft and the threads; do you yourself fashion the most beautiful garment, so that you may not only be able to hear us, but also to teach others. As for the little book of Baruch, which is commonly joined to the edition of the Septuagint but is not found among the Hebrews, and the pseudepigraphic Letter of Jeremiah, I judged that they should by no means be expounded; but rather that the order of Jeremiah, confused by the error of copyists, and the many things that are lacking, should be arranged and completed from the Hebrew sources, so that you may hold a new prophet in place of the old, and a true one in place of the corrupted and falsified—setting little store by the rabidness of detractors, who cavil not only at the words but even at the syllables of our writings, thinking that they know something if they disparage the works of others.
As lately an unlearned calumniator burst forth, who thinks my commentaries on Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians deserve reproof, and does not understand—snoring in his excessive folly—the laws of commentaries, in which many opinions of various authors are set down, either with the authors' names left unspoken or expressed, so that it may be the reader's judgment to decide what he ought preferably to choose; although even in the first book of that same work I stated in the preface that I would say things either my own or belonging to others, and that these commentaries were as much the work of the ancient writers as of ourselves. Not seeing this, his forerunner Grunnius once strove to carp at me, to whom I replied in two books.
These things this fellow brings forth as if his own, and they have already been cleared up when another was calumniating—to say nothing of the volumes Against Jovinian, in which he grieves that virginity was preferred to marriage, marriage to second marriage, and second marriage to polygamy. Nor does this most stolid fellow, weighed down by Scottish porridges, recall that in that very work I said: I do not condemn those twice married, nay, nor even the thrice married, and, if it can be, the eight-times married; I will add something further—I even receive the penitent fornicator. Whatever is equally lawful is to be weighed in an equal balance.
Let him read the apology of that same work, which many years ago Rome gladly received against his master, and then he will perceive that he blasphemes with others' voices and is so unskilled that he has not even his own curses, but uses against us the rabidness even of enemies long since buried. But now the proposed work must be undertaken. 'The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin; to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. And it came to pass in the days of Josiah, son of Josiah,
king of Judah, until the completion of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the carrying away of Jerusalem in the fifth month.' The other prophets, such as Isaiah, Hosea, and Joel, were before the captivity of the ten tribes of Israel or of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin; others after the captivity, such as Daniel, Haggai, and Zechariah. But Jeremiah and Ezekiel wove their prophecy with the captivity imminent, though the one of them in the land of Judah, the other in Babylon. Jeremiah, while still a boy, began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah, son of Amon, king of Judah, and he prophesied under his reign for nineteen years, and afterwards under his son Jehoiakim for eleven years, and under Zedekiah, who was the last of the kings of Judah,
for eleven years, up to the fifth month, when Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians. But Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin, three months each—of whom the one was led into Egypt, the other with his mother into Babylon—are reckoned within the aforesaid years. And through this, from the beginning of his prophecy up to the captivity of Jerusalem, in which he himself also was taken, he prophesied for forty-one years, besides that time when he was led into Egypt; and there he prophesied in Tahpanhes, as is contained in this very volume. For 'the words of Jeremiah,' the Septuagint put 'the word of God which came to Jeremiah,' in this sense, namely, that the words of Jeremiah are the word of the Lord.
Now he was of the family of priests who dwelt to the north of Jerusalem, at the third milestone, in the little village of Anathoth. And admirable at the same time is the mercy of the Lord, that, with the captivity now near and the Babylonian army encircling Jerusalem, he nonetheless calls the people to repentance, preferring to save the converted rather than to destroy the offending. For 'the carrying away,' which all others with one consenting voice rendered thus, the Seventy put 'the captivity.' Now after the beginning of Jeremiah's prophesying, in the thirty-fifth year of his prophecy, Ezekiel in Babylon began to prophesy to those who had been taken captive with him. 'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee;
and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee; I gave thee for a prophet unto the nations.' Not that Jeremiah existed before conception, as a heresy suspects, but that the Lord foreknew that he would be—to whom things not yet done are already done—according to that which the Apostle says: 'who calleth those things which are not as though they were.' And that he is sanctified in the womb, we ought to understand according to that saying of the Apostle: 'but when it pleased him, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the nations.' John the Baptist too is sanctified in the womb, and receives the Holy Spirit, and is moved in the womb, and speaks through his mother's mouth. And as for what he said,
'I gave thee for a prophet unto the nations,' means to be understood of that which we shall afterwards read in the prophet himself, namely, that he prophesied not only to Jerusalem but also to many nations round about. Some understand this passage of the Saviour, who was properly the prophet of the nations and, through the apostles, called all peoples. For he indeed, before he was truly formed in the virginal womb and before he came forth from the womb of his mother, was sanctified in the womb and known to the Father—being one who is always in the Father and in whom the Father always is. 'And I said: Ah, ah, ah, Lord God, behold I know not how to speak, for I am a child.' The Septuagint: 'And I said, O Lord God, I know not how to speak, for I am young.' He detests the office
which by reason of his age he cannot sustain, with the same modesty with which Moses too says that he is of thin and feeble voice. But that one, as of great and robust age, is rebuked; to this one his boyhood is granted pardon, which is adorned with modesty and shame. 'And the Lord said to me: Say not, I am a child, since to all things to which I shall send thee, thou shalt go, and whatsoever I shall command thee, thou shalt speak. Fear not before their face, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.' 'Consider not thy age,' he says—'for from another prophet speaking thou hast learned: the grey hair of a man is his wisdom—let it only be a matter of thy will, that thou go forth; me shalt thou have as companion, by whose aid thou shalt accomplish all: open thy mouth, and I will fill it.'
'Consider not the multitude of those to whom and against whom thou art to speak, but me, who am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.' Now the Lord delivers—not that the prophet is free from persecutions and straits, since indeed we read that he suffered many things, but that, being patient, he may overcome all and not yield to distress. 'And the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: Behold, I have given my words in thy mouth.' It is to be noted that here the hand of God is put forth, to touch the mouth of the prophet, and it is said to him: 'Behold, I have given my words in thy mouth'; but in Isaiah it is written: 'and one of the seraphim was sent to me, and in his hand he had a coal, which he had taken with the tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said:
behold, this hath touched thy lips, and it shall take away thine iniquities, and shall cleanse thy sins.' For there, because he was of solid and perfect age and himself simply confesses that he has unclean lips and dwells in the midst of a people having unclean lips, one of the seraphim is sent, who touches his mouth not with a hand but with tongs and a coal, and takes away iniquities and cleanses sins. But here the hand of God himself is put forth—through which he made all things, and which in another place is called the arm—not that it may take away sins, which through boyhood he had not committed in great number, but that it may bestow the grace of speaking. Ezekiel, moreover, devours a book written within and without, containing both the divine mysteries and the plain narrative.
Jeremiah's mouth is touched and the words of the Lord are bestowed, that he may receive confidence to preach. And beautifully, according to the letter, a hand is put forth, so that, seeing the likeness of human limbs, he might not dread the touch of the hand. 'Behold, I have set thee this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root up and to pull down, and to waste and to destroy, and to build and to plant.' This word which we have added from the Hebrew, 'thou shalt waste' or 'thou shalt cast down,' is not found in the Septuagint. And it is to be considered that upon four sad things two joyful ones follow. For neither could good things be built, unless the evil were pulled down, nor the best things planted, unless the worst were rooted out.
For every plant which the heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up; and the building which has no foundation upon the rock, but is constructed upon the sand, is undermined and destroyed by the word of God. But that plant which Jesus shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and destroy with the coming of his presence—namely, all sacrilegious and perverse doctrine—he will utterly destroy forever. Further, those things which are lifted up against the knowledge of God and trust in their own wisdom, which is folly with God, he will scatter and cast down, so that in their stead lowly things may be built, and in the place of the higher things which have been destroyed and plucked up, there may be constructed and planted those things which befit ecclesiastical truth, and that may be fulfilled which the Apostle says:
'ye are God's building, God's husbandry.' Many understand this passage of the person of Christ. For 'Jeremiah' is interpreted 'the exalted of the Lord,' who destroyed the kingdoms of the devil, which he had shown him on the height of the mountain, and destroyed the adversary powers, blotting out the handwriting of errors on the cross. Concerning whom also in the psalm, after the truth of the history, he speaks figuratively: 'Why have the nations raged, and the peoples imagined vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes gathered together into one.' In place of these, plucked up, destroyed, ruined, and drawn down into lower things, the Church of God is built and planted. But concerning the person of Jeremiah there is no doubt;
for we read in what follows that he receives in his hand a cup full of pure wine and is bidden to give it to drink to all the nations round about. 'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said: I see a rod that watcheth. And the Lord said to me: Thou hast seen well, for I will watch over my word to perform it.' For 'a watching rod' the Septuagint rendered 'a nut-tree staff.' We must therefore take pains that the Latin reader may briefly understand the Hebrew etymology. 'Saqed' is called 'a nut,' but 'watch' or 'watchful' or 'to watch' is termed 'soqed.' Whence also in the later passages the watching leopard is set down by this name.
Therefore, from that which is called 'nut,' on account of the similarity of the word, he alluded by a name to the notion of 'watchful.' This indeed is written also in Daniel according to Theodotion, where from the trees schinos and prinos, that is, the holm-oak and the mastic, cleaving and sawing are decreed against the adulterous elders. Otherwise, in the beginning of Genesis too, from 'man,' who is called 'ish,' the woman is called 'ishshah,' as a kind of she-man, because she was taken from man. For 'a nut-tree staff,' Aquila and Symmachus rendered 'a watching rod,' but Theodotion 'an almond rod.' Now the rod watches, considering all the sins of the people, that it may strike and rebuke the offenders. Whence also the Apostle writes to sinners: 'What will ye?
Shall I come to you with a rod, or in charity and in the spirit of meekness?' This is that rod or staff of which David too speaks: 'thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me.' And beautifully he set 'they have comforted me'; for to this end the Lord rebukes, that he may amend. And just as the nut or the almond has a most bitter rind and is girt with a very hard shell, so that, when the harsher and hard parts are stripped away, a most sweet fruit is found, so all rebuke and the labour of continence seems bitter indeed for the present, but bears the sweetest fruits. Whence too there is that ancient saying: 'the roots of letters are bitter, the fruits sweet.' Some understand the watching and nut-bearing rod to be the Lord, of whom Isaiah says: 'there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse.'
Whence also the rod of Aaron, which was thought to be dead, is related to have flowered at the resurrection of the Lord. 'And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying: What seest thou? And I said: I see a boiling pot, and the face thereof from the face of the north. And the Lord said to me: From the north shall be opened—or shall blaze forth—evils upon all the inhabitants of the earth.' To certain sinners torments are given in stages, that they may little by little come to salvation: those who have refused to be amended by the striking rod are cast into the bronze and boiling pot, of which Ezekiel writes more fully, which is kindled from the face of the north, signifying the king of Babylon and the city of Jerusalem. And beautifully it is added:
'From the north shall evils blaze forth upon all the inhabitants of the earth'—either the land of Judaea or indeed the whole earth—concerning whom it is also written in the Apocalypse: 'Woe upon all the inhabitants of the earth.' For the saints are not inhabitants of the earth, but strangers and pilgrims, one of whom says: 'I am a stranger upon the earth and a pilgrim, as all my fathers were,' and another: 'few and evil are my days, in which I sojourn upon the earth.' Whence Peter too writes his catholic epistle to the strangers and pilgrims of Pontus, Galatia, and Cappadocia. And according to the mystical senses Solomon says: 'the north is a harsh wind, but by name it is called right,' by those, namely, who have grown stiff with its cold and have lost the warmth of faith.
'For behold, I will call together all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord; and they shall come, and every one of them shall set his throne in the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and upon all its walls round about, and upon all the cities of Judah. And I will speak my judgments with them concerning all their malice, who have forsaken me and offered libations to strange gods and adored the work of their own hands.' It is doubtful to none that many nations and the kings of the several nations were subject to the Babylonian king; who, having besieged Jerusalem, set their throne and tents round about, and especially at the exits of the gates, that none of those shut within might be able to break out, and that not only Jerusalem but all the cities of Judaea were beset with a like siege.
'And when,' he says, 'the city shall have been captured, then I will speak to them that my judgments were right and that each received what he deserved—not for the other vices to which the human condition is subject, but chiefly for idolatry, through which, forsaking me, they adored the works of their own hands.' Some take this passage in a good sense: namely, that those who have been boiled down and purged through torments in the bronze pot are afterwards princes of Jerusalem, and that after the Lord has had mercy on them, he then reproaches them, because, having forsaken him, they venerated idols. But this is a violent and distorted interpretation; let not the unlearned expositor bring calumny.
'Thou therefore, gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak to them all that I command thee.' Job too is bidden to gird up his loins, and the apostles, that with their loins girt—which Elijah and John the Baptist mortified with leathern girdles—they may hold lamps in their hands, namely, of evangelical preaching. Whoever therefore is about to speak the words of God ought to gird up his loins, knowing that all the power of the devil is in the loins, and the just man says in the psalms: 'my loins are filled with illusions.' And when he has girt his loins, let him hear that which is written: 'Arise, thou that sleepest, and be lifted up, and Christ shall enlighten thee,' that, ever watchful and rising from sleep, he may speak what God has commanded him.
'Fear not before their face, for neither will I make thee to fear their countenance'—or as the Septuagint and the other interpreters have it: 'lest perchance I make thee to fear.' And the sense according to our translation is: 'do not fear before their face; for with me as helper thou wilt not be able to fear them'; according to the Septuagint: 'do not fear before their face, have confidence in my command; for if thou dost not offer what thou hast, so as to cease from fear, I will forsake thee and hand thee over to fear, and I shall in a manner seem to make thee fear, in that I leave thee to dread.' Now this signifies that the truth is always bitter, and that the multitude of men is not to be feared, who, being rebuked, do not endure correction, but lay snares for him by whom they are rebuked. And that which follows according to the Septuagint,
'for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord,' is not found in the Hebrew. And the sense is: 'I will deliver thee, not in such a way that none shall lay snares for thee, but in such a way that, patiently enduring the snares, thou mayest not offend.' 'For behold, I have given thee this day'—or 'behold, I have set thee in this day'—'as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a wall of brass over all the earth, to the kings of Judah, its princes and priests, and the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee, and shall not prevail, for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.' The divine word describes why the prophet ought not to fear.
'I,' he says, 'have set or given thee this day'—that is, in the present life, as long as it is called today—'as if a most secure city,' not as one house or a tower or some ramparts, but a whole city, which, being set upon a mountain, cannot be hidden, of which it is written: 'glorious things are said of thee, city of God,' and: 'I am a strong city, a city that is assailed.' 'And as an iron pillar,' of which the Apostle writes: 'the pillar and ground of the truth.' Whence Peter and John, who were thought to be pillars of the Church, gave the right hands of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas. Nor is this enough, but 'as a wall of brass,' which is corrupted by no rust nor perishes when beaten by rains, but by age becomes stronger.
And thou shalt be such against the kings and princes and people—not of any place whatsoever, but of the earth—who savour of earthly things and know not the heavenly, who bear the image of the man of dust and not of the heavenly one; these, he says, shall fight against thee and shall not prevail. Why, I pray? What is so great a cause of strength, that neither kings nor princes nor priests nor peoples prevail against one man? It follows: 'for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.'
If ever the kings of Judah—which is interpreted 'confession'—and its princes and priests and peoples, that is, the bishops and presbyters and deacons, and the base and ignoble common crowd, should wish to rise up against the holy man, let him have firmness of faith and cease to fear, because with the Lord's help he will overcome. 'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying.' This is not found in the Septuagint, but is added under asterisks from the edition of Theodotion, who interpreted the Hebrew word 'qarath'—for which we have said 'cry' or 'preach'—as 'read.' For it signifies, by reason of its ambiguity, both reading and crying and preaching.
But by the 'ears of Jerusalem' we ought to understand the ears of its inhabitants. 'Thus saith the Lord: I have remembered thee, pitying thy youth and the love of thy espousal, when thou didst follow me in the wilderness, in a land that is not sown.' The Septuagint: 'Thus saith the Lord: I have remembered the mercy of thy youth and the love of thy perfection.' This is said more fully in Ezekiel, when the Lord joins Jerusalem to himself in marriage and, under the person of a wife, unites her to his embraces; or, to show a more ardent affection, he calls her a girl and a young maiden and betrothed; for that which we have not yet obtained, we the more desire, that we may obtain it.
'When,' he says, 'thou didst follow me in the solitude, and after the manner of espousals and dowry I distributed to thee the ornaments of the law and the necklaces of words.' And all this he refers not to her merit, but to his own mercy, through which love too followed. This also, which we have set down, 'in the wilderness, in a land that is not sown,' is not found in the Septuagint. 'Israel is holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his increase; all that devour him offend; evils shall come upon them, saith the Lord.' When it says Israel is the firstfruits of the Lord's increase, it shows that the people gathered from the nations is after the firstfruits, according to that which is written in another place: 'be mindful of thy congregation, which thou hast possessed from the beginning.'
The firstfruits, moreover, are owed to the priests and not to enemies. What follows — 'All who devour him shall offend; evils shall come upon them, saith the Lord' — has this sense: just as those who devour the firstfruits, being in no way of the priestly line, are guilty of a crime, so those who defile Israel shall be made subject to evils, according to that which the holy one speaks in the twenty-sixth Psalm: 'While the wicked draw near against me to eat my flesh, they that trouble me and my enemies were themselves weakened and fell.' For not even from this — that they carry out God's sentence — will they be free from punishment, and evils shall come upon them; for it must needs be that scandals come. But woe to him through whom the scandals come!
'Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord: What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?' This same meaning another prophet also attests: 'My people, what have I done to thee, or wherein have I molested thee? Answer me; for I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and delivered thee from the house of bondage.' Now both names — 'Jacob' and 'Israel' — are set down, not according to the two and ten tribes, but according to the whole people, since Jacob himself was afterward called Israel. And He draws the charge of offense from the fathers.
Not that the sins of the fathers are imputed to the sons, but that the sons also, bearing the likeness of their fathers, are punished both for their own and for their parents' wickedness. We often read that for the sake of holy fathers God has mercy on their sons. But the fathers of a sinful people forsook God — and not briefly, but for a long time — and in place of God followed vanity, namely idols, which profit nothing to their worshippers, and were made like unto them, according to that which is written: 'Let them that make them become like unto them, and all such as trust in them.' And they said not: 'Where is the Lord, who made us come up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the desert, through a land uninhabitable and impassable?'
'through a land of thirst and the image of death, through a land in which no man walked nor any human dwelt?' For 'man' the Septuagint rendered 'son of man,' and for 'image of death' the phrase 'shadow of death' was added from Theodotion. Since this is plain according to the history, that must be considered according to the anagogical sense: that so long as we are in this world and are being led out of Egypt, we ascend little by little, and first pass through deserts and a land uninhabitable — in which a holy man ought not to dwell — and impassable, that He may show the difficulty of the journey;
through a land of thirst, where we always desire greater things and are not content with what is present; and the image or shadow of death — for we always stand in peril, and everywhere the devil stretches out his snares — through a land in which no man walked who is of the age of perfection in Christ — for we shall all rise up into a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ — nor does he ever dwell in it who is a man of God or a son of man, but always hastens toward greater things. From which it is clear that perfection is not on the way, but at the journey's end and in the abode which is prepared for the saints in the heavenly places, and to whom it is said: 'Ye that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God.'
In vain therefore does the new heresy sprung from the old suppose that perfect victory is here, where there is battle and struggle and an uncertain outcome of things to come. 'And I brought you into the land of Carmel, that you might eat the fruit thereof and its good things. And you entered in and defiled my land, and made my inheritance an abomination.' 'In return for the toil of a most arduous journey I gave you an abundance of all things'; for this is what 'Carmel' signifies, which in Hebrew is called 'Chermel' and in our tongue means 'knowledge of knowledge.'
But just as that people polluted and violated the holy land, fruitful in all things, by idolatry, so we who have received the knowledge of the true circumcision eat the fruit thereof, and, if negligence has crept in, we defile God's land and make His inheritance abominable. 'The priests said not: Where is the Lord? and they that held the law knew me not, and the pastors transgressed against me.'