Letters (CSEL) 2 part 13/24

'And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the region round about Jerusalem and from the land of Benjamin and from the plains and from the mountains and from the south, bringing burnt offering and victims — or incense — and sacrifice — or manna — and frankincense, and they shall bring in an oblation — or praise — into the house of the Lord. But if ye will not hearken unto me, to hallow the sabbath day and not to bear a burden and not to bring it in through the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then will I kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the houses of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.' Lest I should tear in pieces the precept of the sabbath established by Jeremiah, it has seemed good to set it all down, that we may learn all things at once.

He guards his soul who bears not the burdens of sins on the day of quiet and of the sabbath, nor brings them in through the gates of Jerusalem — which gates we ought to understand as the virtues. 'And bring not,' he says, 'burdens forth out of your houses' — for they are not to be carried, but to be utterly cast away — 'and do no work at all,' whether servile, or that of which it is written, 'Meat for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them' — but rather that work is to be wrought of which the Saviour speaks: 'Work the work that perisheth not.' 'Hallow ye,' he says, 'the sabbath day,' that we may pass all the time of our life in sanctification, as did our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And when God had commanded these things, they inclined not their ear — the ear of the mind, of course, not of the flesh —, but hardened their neck, casting off the yoke of the law, and by a metaphor bearing the likeness of untamed animals. Let us see what is the reward of those who bear no burdens on the sabbath day and hallow it: 'There shall enter,' he says, 'through the gates of this city kings' — whose heart is in the hand of God, and who reign over their own bodies — 'and princes sitting upon the throne of David,' that they may imitate the example of Christ, 'and riding in chariots and on horses,' of which it is written: 'The chariots of God are ten thousand-fold, thousands of them that rejoice; the Lord is among them in Sinai, in the holy place,' and elsewhere:

'Thy 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 Sion,' and the Church of God shall be inhabited for ever. 'And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the region 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 'sefela' and signifies the plain understanding of history, 'and from the mountains,' namely the lofty doctrines, 'and from the south,' of which it is written: 'God shall 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 a victim,' or incense, so that they may say: 'A sacrifice to the Lord is a contrite spirit,' and: 'We are a sweet savour of Christ in every place,' and elsewhere: 'Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight'; 'and sacrifice,' for which the Septuagint set down the Hebrew word itself, 'manaa,' which by the worst custom — nay rather by the negligence of copyists — is read as 'manna' in our books; 'and frankincense,' of which it is said: 'To what purpose do ye bring me frankincense from Sheba?'; 'and they shall bring in an oblation,' which in Hebrew is called 'thoda' and may be turned into 'thanksgiving,' and which the Septuagint translated as 'praise'; 'into the house of David,' doubtless meaning into the Church. These are the rewards of those who hallow

the sabbath and are weighed down by no burden. 'But if,' he says, 'ye will not hearken to my precepts, and shall do the things which I have commanded not to be done, I will kindle a fire in its gates' — that is, in the gates of Jerusalem, that fire of which it is said: 'All the adulterers, their hearts are as an oven' — 'which shall devour the houses or streets of Jerusalem' — which the Septuagint called 'amphoda,' but Aquila and Symmachus 'bareis,' that is 'towered houses,' and which are called in Hebrew 'armanoth' — 'and this burning shall never be quenched,' the Apostle saying: 'Every man's work, of what sort it is, the fire shall try,' and again: 'If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.'

But if our Judaizers should repudiate the tropical explanation, they will either be forced to become Jews and, with the observance of the sabbath, to circumcise their foreskins, or else certainly to reprehend the Saviour, who commanded the paralytic on the sabbath to carry his bed, the evangelist saying: 'Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, not only because he broke the sabbath, but also said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.' The devil is ever lying in wait for the good work, everywhere setting snares for those who walk, as the prophet relates concerning the ambushes of his satellites: 'Beside the path they have laid a stumbling-block for me,' and the Gospel more fully instructing us in this very thing, that the fowls of the air snatch away and destroy the seed cast beside the way.

Why I have used this preface, brother Eusebius, the following discourse will show. Occupied by the many throngs of those flocking hither from all the world, and by the cares of the holy brethren and of the monastery, I was dictating commentaries on Jeremiah at intervals, so that what was lacking to leisure might be supplied by diligence, when suddenly the heresy of Pythagoras and Zeno concerning 'apatheia' and 'anamartesia,' that is, 'impassibility' and 'sinlessness,' which was long ago slain in Origen and lately in his disciples Grunnius and Evagrius of Pontus and Jovinian, began to revive and to hiss not only in the West but also in the parts of the East, and in certain islands, especially of Sicily and Rhodes, to stain very many and to grow day by day.

while they teach in secret and deny in public. Long keeping silence and devouring my grief in silence, I have been compelled by the frequent expostulation of the brethren to answer it, and yet I have not thus far broken out so far as to set down the names of the authors, preferring that they should be corrected rather than defamed; for I am the enemy not of men but of error. And they, in order to inflict upon me a kind of retaliation and the sting of their own grief, patching together the old calumnies of their masters, have been shown to be so tongue-tied and wretched that they could not even speak ill in their own words. Their dirges, in the books then published against them, were confuted; and whoever shall wish to read these will plainly perceive that they are, according to Isaiah, dumb dogs

who cannot bark, having indeed the will and the madness to lie, but not the art of feigning and of barking. To these I shall speak briefly: either the things you teach are good, or evil. If good, defend them freely; if evil, why do you secretly slay wretched men by error, and, to deceive the simple, boast an exposition of the right faith? If it is true, why is it hidden? If false, why is it written? I ask, what is this madness? The Apostle bidding that we be ready to give satisfaction to everyone who asks of us a reason of the hope that is in us, and the prophet crying out:

'I spoke of thy testimonies before kings, and was not confounded,' these men flee the public and whisper in the corners of the lost, and grieve as though for their own cause for the things which, being their own, they fear to attempt. And although we have spoken generally against every heresy and all heretics, they complain that they themselves are being attacked, and, dissembling their long-nursed indignation, pronounce the evil of their own conscience. But if we must beware lest we seem to wound an old intimacy, if we cut down a most arrogant heresy with the spiritual sword, then we shall have to endure the crosses of a betrayed faith and to say with the prophet: 'I was turned in my anguish, while the thorn is fixed in me.' Nay rather, let them hear that word of the Apostle: 'We ought to obey God rather than men,' and again:

'If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.' But these things we shall pursue more fully in a proper work, unless they hold their peace. Now let us take up the journey begun in Jeremiah, and, briefly running through the fourth volume upon him, let us dwell only on those things which are obscure. 'The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: Arise and go down into the potter's house, and there thou shalt hear my words! And I went down into the potter's house, and behold, he was doing work upon the wheel — or the stones —. And the vessel which he was making of clay with his hands was marred; and turning back — or again — he made it another vessel, as it seemed good in his eyes to make it. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

Can I not do with you as this potter, O house of Israel? saith the Lord; behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel! Suddenly — or in sum — I shall speak against a nation and against a kingdom, to root out — or to take away — and to destroy and to lay it waste. If that nation repent of its evil, concerning which I have spoken against it, I also will repent of the evil which I thought to do unto it. And suddenly — or in sum — I shall speak concerning a nation and a kingdom, to build and to plant it. If it do evil in mine eyes, so that it hear not my voice, I will repent of the good which I said I would do unto it.'

Through all the senses indeed one arrives at the judgment and understanding of the mind — by hearing, smell, taste, touch — but that is more firmly retained by the mind which is discerned by the eyes. Hence the prophet is bidden to go to the potter's house and there to hear the Lord's precepts. 'And when,' he says, 'I had gone and gone down into the potter's house, he was doing work upon the wheel,' which the Septuagint, misled by the ambiguity of the word, translated as 'stones'; for 'abanim,' according to the quality of the place and the diversity of pronunciation, is called both an 'instrument,' that is, the potter's 'wheel,' and 'stones.' 'And when,' he says, 'I beheld a vessel being made of clay, suddenly it was marred,' this happening by God's providence, so that the hand of the craftsman, while he knew it not, might by his error figure forth a parable.

And again that potter, who had marred the vessel of clay while the wheel was running, made another for himself, as it seemed good to him. And straightway the Lord to the prophet: 'If the potter,' he says, 'has this power, that of the same clay he may again make that which was marred, shall I not be able to do this in you, who, as far as in you lies, seem to have perished?' And to signify free will, he says that he both announces evils to this or that nation and kingdom, and again good things; nor yet does that come to pass which he himself has foretold, but on the contrary the reverse happens, so that both good things befall the evil, if they do penance, and evil things the good, if after the promises they turn to sins.

And we say this, not as though God were ignorant that this or that nation or kingdom would do so, but because he leaves man to his own will, that he may receive either rewards or punishments by his own merit. Nor shall the whole of what happens be at once man's own, but of that grace which has bestowed all things; for the freedom of the will is so to be reserved that in all things the grace of the giver may excel, according to that prophetic word: 'Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, in vain he watcheth that keepeth it.' For it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. 'Now therefore say to the man of Judah and the inhabitant of Jerusalem, saying: Thus — or so — saith the Lord:'

'Behold, I am against you, and I devise against you an evil purpose; let every one turn back from his evil way, and make straight your ways and your endeavours!' They who said: 'We have despaired' — or 'We shall be strengthened' — 'for we will go after our own thoughts, and each of us will do the wickedness' — or 'that which pleased his evil heart.' Therefore thus says the Lord: 'Ask the nations: who has heard such horrible things as the virgin Israel has done to excess?' The Lord fulfils the parable which He had taught both by sight and by words. And He says: 'Behold, I fashion evil against you, as the potter fashions the clay' — but 'evil' according to 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 I devise against you a purpose' — that is, to inflict a sentence according to desert —; 'change your deeds and make straight your ways, that even the punishment may be changed into prosperity!' 'They,' He says, 'on the contrary said: We shall be strengthened' — namely in evil works, or according to Aquila: 'We have despaired,' and according to Symmachus: 'We have failed,' both of which offend God: that a man should either think he cannot at all be saved, or should have fainted in spirit from appeasing God — 'and after our own thoughts,' he says, 'we will go.' Where then is there anything apart from grace?

And the power of God-given free will and the judgement of one's own volition, seeing that it is a grave offence against God to follow one's own thoughts and to do the will of a wicked heart? Therefore He goes on, saying: 'Ask the nations and all the peoples round about, who has done this. Who, serving idols, has heard the things which the virgin Israel has done to excess.' He calls her a virgin because she served the one God, as the prophet says: 'In Judah God is known; in Israel His name is great.' 'Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? Or can the cold gushing waters that flow down be drawn away?' The Septuagint: 'Shall the breasts fail from the rock, or the snow from Lebanon? Or shall the water violently carried off by the wind turn aside?' Something like this the Virgilian verse also sounds forth.

'Sooner then shall the stags graze aloft in the air, and the seas leave the fishes bare upon the shore, than that his countenance should slip from my breast'; and in another place: 'While the rivers run into the seas, while the shadows move over the mountains, while the vault of heaven feeds the stars, ever shall your honour and your name and your praises endure.' 'Just as,' He says, 'the snow cannot fail from the heights of Lebanon, nor is it overcome by the heat of the sun so that it all melts away, and the streams flowing down from the mountains are by no means dried up at their sources, so My name, which of itself is stable and everlasting, cannot be changed; and yet, while all other things keep the order of nature, My people has forgotten Me.' For there follows:

'Because My people has forgotten Me, offering libations in vain and stumbling in their ways, in the paths of the world' — or 'the everlasting paths' — 'so as to walk through them on an untrodden road.' He who forgets God and forsakes Him who says: 'I am the way,' and pours libations to strange gods, stumbles in his own ways — by no means 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 have walked on an untrodden road, and having forsaken the worship of God have venerated idols; for which cause punishment is brought in. It follows: 'That their land might become a desolation and a perpetual hissing; every one who passes by it shall be astonished and shake his head.'

'And because they forsook,' He says, 'the worship of God and followed the crooked paths of idolatry, therefore their land has been reduced to a solitude and to an object of wonder and hissing to all, so that those who once saw a most flourishing land and city fallen into desert and ashes may marvel and be stunned, and betray by a gesture of the body the confusion of their soul': for this is what it means to shake the head and to show the stupor of the mind by hissing. This we understand to have been more fully and truly accomplished after the coming of the Lord, when no Jew is by law permitted to enter the land and holy city that once was theirs, but when they come to lament, they marvel and weep over the oracles of the prophets fulfilled in deed.

'Like a burning wind I will scatter them before the enemy' — or 'enemies' —: 'I will show them the back and not the face in the day of their perdition.' To this day the sentence of God abides upon the Jews; throughout the whole world they are scattered before the enemy, the devil, and before the enemy demons; and while by day and by night in the synagogues of Satan they blaspheme the name of God, God shows them His back and not His face, so that they may understand Him ever withdrawing and never coming to them. But the day of Jewish perdition is the whole time after the passion of the Saviour until the consummation of the age, so that, after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel shall be saved. 'And they said: Come, let us devise devices against Jeremiah!'

'For the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet; come, let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words!' This was then the thought of the Jews against Jeremiah — or against the Lord the Saviour — and today it is the thought of the heretics against His servants: to frame calumnies and to forestall holy men with accusation, and not to consider what truth those men speak, but what lie they themselves may construct; for they boast that in their priests and their wise men and their pseudo-prophets the law of God and counsel and eloquence abide, though the Scripture says: 'Into a perverse soul wisdom shall not enter.' 'Give heed, O Lord, to me, and hear the injuries of my adversaries!'

'Shall evil be rendered for good, that they have dug a pit for my soul? Remember that I stood in Your presence to speak good for them and to turn away Your indignation from them.' Therefore give their children over to famine, and hand them over to the power of the sword; let their wives be bereft of children and become widows, and let their husbands be slain by death; let their young men be pierced by the sword in battle; let a cry be heard from their houses! In the figure of the Saviour, Jeremiah indeed endures all these things from the people of the Jews, who are afterwards laid waste when the Babylonian comes; but they are more fully and perfectly fulfilled in Christ.

And when the city was overthrown, they were slaughtered by the Roman sword, not on account of idolatry — which at that time did not exist — but on account of the killing of the Son of God, when the whole people together cried out: 'Away, away with such a one; we have no king but Caesar!' And their imprecation was fulfilled in eternal damnation: 'His blood be upon us and upon our children!' For they had dug a pit for Christ and had said: 'Let us take Him away from the land of the living!' — He who was of such great mercy toward them and stood in the sight of the Father, that He might speak good for them and turn away His indignation from them, so that even on the cross He might say: 'Father, forgive them! For they know not what they do.'

We hasten over the plain passages, that we may dwell upon the more obscure, by no means interpreting the ravings of certain men and their notion of a captivity of the heavenly Jerusalem, but pursuing the plain history and most manifest prophecy with all confidence of words and meanings. 'For you will bring upon them a robber suddenly, because they have dug a pit to catch me, and have hidden snares for my feet. But You, O Lord, know all their counsel against me unto death: be not merciful to their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before Your face; let them be overthrown — or made to stumble — in Your sight; in the time of Your wrath deal with them — or act against them!' If we understand this of Jeremiah, let us refer the sudden robber to Nebuchadnezzar;

but if of the Saviour — which is truer and better — to the Roman army. And lest the sentence of God should seem unjust, He sets forth what they did against Christ, the Son of God, and what they suffered. But what He adds: 'Be not merciful to their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before Your face,' is by no means contrary to the earlier sentence in which He intercedes with the Father for the people; but after the time granted for repentance has passed and they persist in their crime, they are punished not so much for themselves as for others, lest sin unpunished should harm the rest by its example. And what He adds: 'Let them be made to stumble — or overthrown — in Your sight,' is like that saying of Isaiah and of the apostle Peter:

'And you shall not stumble as at a stone of offence and a rock of scandal': of which the prophet also makes mention in the Psalms: 'The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner; this was done by the Lord.' Thus says the Lord: 'Go and take an earthen potter's flask, and take some of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests, and go forth to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entrance of the potter's gate' — or 'Charsith' —, 'and you shall proclaim' — or 'cry out,' or 'read' — 'there the words which I shall speak to you, and you shall say: Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem!'

For 'the potter's flask,' which in Hebrew is called 'bocboc,' the Septuagint rendered 'little jar' (doliolum), and for 'the potter's gate' Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion set down the Hebrew word itself, 'Harsith,' for which the Septuagint, after their custom, added a Greek 'chi' for the aspiration of the letter 'heth,' so as to say 'Charsith' for 'Harsith,' just as it is 'Chebron' for 'Hebron,' and 'Hiericho' for 'Hieriho.' Now the divine Scripture wills the people to be taught not only by their ears but also by their eyes; for, as we have already said, that which reaches the mind through sight is retained by the memory more than that which comes through hearing. 'Take,' He says, 'the flask' — or 'the little earthen jar' — 'and some of the elders':

'of the people and of the priests, and go forth to the valley of the son of Hinnom,' of which we spoke above, where there was the shrine of Baal and the grove and the wood of Siloam, watered by springs. 'And this valley itself,' He says, 'is by the gate,' which in the Hebrew tongue is called 'Harsith,' that is, 'of the potter.' 'And you shall proclaim — or read — there the words which I shall speak with you,' that there may be heard the things I am about to say. And, as we have already said, both 'you shall proclaim' and 'you shall cry out' and 'you shall read' are set down, because the Hebrew word 'carath' signifies these three things. And He wills that the things He is about to say should be heard both by the kings of Judah and by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that is, both the royal stock and all the people, so that they who refuse to hear may be without excuse.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: 'Behold, I will bring affliction — or evils — upon this place, so that whoever hears of it — or of them — his ears shall tingle, because they have forsaken Me and have made this place alien and have offered libations in it to strange gods, whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah knew; and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, and have built the high places of the Baalim to burn their sons with fire as a holocaust to the Baalim, which I did not command — or think — nor speak, nor did it come up into My heart.' This place too some foolishly refer to the heavenly Jerusalem. Lest I should always be admonishing of it, let it suffice to have said this much, that such a mode of explanation is to be avoided;

indeed a heresy, which manifestly overturns and attempts to introduce certain deceptions into the churches of Christ. But there is no doubt to anyone that they set up the idol of Baal in the temple of God, or in the shrine that was in the valley of the son of Hinnom, where there was both the grove of Baal and his altar, upon which they sacrificed and burned their sons. These things the Lord neither thought nor spoke, nor did they come up into His heart — not that God was ignorant of things to come, but that He says He is ignorant of things unworthy of His knowledge, according to that Gospel saying: 'Depart from Me, workers of iniquity, I know you not!' For the Lord knows those who are His, and he who is ignorant shall be ignored. Or certainly these things too are to be received of God in a human manner (anthropopathōs), like the rest.

Now every heretic forsakes God and makes alien the place of God's habitation, which he pollutes by his fraud, and pours libations to strange gods whom neither he himself nor his fathers had known — namely the apostles and apostolic men; and the kings of Judah, that is, the patriarchs of the heretics, fill the place once God's with the blood of the deceived and the innocent — for unless one be foolish and simple, he is not quickly subverted — and they build the high places of the Baalim, while they claim to dispute about lofty matters, and they burn their sons to the idol, whom they have begotten in heresy. All of which the Lord says He is ignorant of, and that it never came up into His thought.

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and this place shall no more be called Topheth and the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter. The Septuagint: Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and this place shall no more be called ruin and the polyandrion (burial-place of many men) of the son of Hinnom, but the polyandrion of slaughter. What the valley of the son of Hinnom is, which in Hebrew is called 'gehennom,' whence too they think 'gehenna' is named, we have said above.

But I wonder what the Septuagint meant by setting 'diaptōsis,' that is, 'ruin,' for 'Topheth,' and for 'valley' 'polyandrion,' which signifies 'a multitude of men,' unless perhaps from the fact that there the people fell and a multitude of men was slain, either spiritually in the error of idolatry, or literally by the Babylonian army, as is read more plainly in what follows. 'And I will dissipate the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will overthrow them by the sword in the sight of their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their lives, and I will give their corpses as food to the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth, and I will make this city an object of stupor and hissing;'

'every one who passes by it shall be astonished and shall hiss over all its plague. And I will feed them with the flesh of their sons and with the flesh of their daughters, and each shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the straits in which their enemies, and those who seek their lives, shall shut them up.'

Although we know that these things also befell the people in the Babylonian captivity, yet they are more fully referred to the times of the Saviour, when they were besieged by Vespasian and Titus, and their city in the days of Hadrian collapsed into everlasting ashes, so that those who had offered their sons to idols, being afterwards compelled by the necessity of famine, should turn them to the use of food, and the flesh of all should be given to the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth; so that those who had abused the gifts of God unto impiety and had sacrificed their own bowels to idols should make their own bellies the sepulchres of their children. 'And you shall break the flask in the eyes of the men who go — or go forth — with you, and you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts:'