Letters (CSEL) 2 part 17/24

so the heretics take testimonies of the Scriptures from the Old and New Testament and steal the words of the Saviour, every one from his neighbour — from the prophets and apostles and evangelists — and take their tongues, that they may utter with their mouth the poisons of their heart, and they slumber a slumber — of whom it is truly said: 'they have slumbered their sleep and found nothing,' or according to the Hebrew — and they say: 'He says,' so that 'the Lord' may be understood, or at least 'the divine word.' The Lord therefore threatens that he himself will come against such teachers, who lead his people astray by their lies and by their portents and marvels. For they promise great and incredible and enormous things, that they may lead the wretched astray;

who have been of no profit to the people of God, and who fulfil that apostolic saying, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of filthy lucre; who are wont to announce prosperity to the wicked and adversity to the good. 'If therefore this people, or a prophet or a priest, shall ask you, saying: What is the burden of the Lord — or, what is the oracle of the Lord? — you shall say to them: You are the burden — or the oracle; for I will cast you off — or, dash you down — says the Lord. And the prophet and the priest and the people that says: The burden — or oracle — of the Lord, I will visit — or, take vengeance — upon that man and upon his house. Thus shall you say every one to his friend and to his brother: What has the Lord answered? and what has the Lord spoken?'

'And the burden — or oracle — of the Lord shall be mentioned no more, for the burden — or oracle — shall be to every one his own word.' The Hebrew word 'massa' Aquila interprets as arma, that is, 'burden' and 'weight'; Symmachus, the Seventy, and Theodotion as 'oracle.' Wherever, therefore, what the Lord threatens is grave and full of weight and toil and unbearable, in the heading also it is called arma, that is, 'weight'; but wherever the Lord promises prosperity, or after a threat promises better things, there it is called 'vision' or at least 'the word of the Lord.' And it was clear from the very heading of the prophecy — 'of weight' or 'of vision' and 'of the word of God' — what kind of oracle would follow.

Because, then, the prophets were wont to announce sad things to the sinful people and to threaten punishments, in order to draw them back to repentance, while the Lord, being merciful and compassionate, long deferred the sentence, the people, deceived and led astray by the fraud of the false prophets, supposed that what the Lord threatened would not come, and had turned a serious matter into sport and jest, and to the prophets as they prophesied they would say, as if mocking: 'Again this man sees the weight and burden of the Lord.' And thus it came about that it was no longer called a 'vision,' but by way of jest and derision a 'burden' and 'weight.' The Lord therefore commands that, whether the people or a prophet or a priest ask Jeremiah what is the weight or what is the oracle of the Lord,

he should answer them and say: 'You are the burden and you are the oracle; for I will take you up and cast you off and dash you down and make you perish. But if anyone hereafter, whether of the prophets or of the priests or of the people, shall dare to name the burden and weight of the Lord, I will visit,' he says, 'upon that man and upon his house, and will blot him out for ever.' Let every one, therefore, say to his neighbour and friend, by no means: What is the burden of the Lord? but: 'What has the Lord answered, and what has the Lord spoken? Forget the old things; let the burden and weight, or oracle, no more resound in your mouth. For to each man his own word and his own work shall be reckoned as a burden and weight, according to that which is written:'

'By thy mouth thou shalt be justified, and by thy mouth thou shalt be condemned.' 'And you have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts, our God. Thus shall you say — or, you shall say — to the prophet: What has the Lord answered you? and what has the Lord spoken? But if you say: The burden of the Lord' — up to this point it is not found in the Seventy: and there follows: 'therefore thus says the Lord: Because you have spoken this word: The burden — or oracle — of the Lord, and I sent to you, saying:'

'do not say: The burden — or oracle — of the Lord; therefore, behold, I will take you up — or, take you away — carrying you off, and will forsake you and the city which I gave to you and to your fathers, from before my face, and I will give you up to everlasting reproach and eternal disgrace, which shall never be blotted out by oblivion.' The Lord commanded that by no means should the word 'burden' and 'weight' and 'oracle' be spoken among the people, but 'answer' and 'word of God.' And because the people had scorned to fulfil this, he interprets the word itself concerning them and says: 'Since you have said what I did not wish, and this, though I often sent prophets and commanded that you should not say it, therefore I will accomplish your word of oracle, burden, and weight upon you in deed;'

'for I will take you up and lift you and carry you and dash you down, and make you fall headlong from on high to the earth — not you only, but also your city, which I gave to your fathers — and I will give you up,' he says, 'to everlasting reproach and disgrace, which shall never be blotted out by oblivion.' And we know that this happened both at the time of the Babylonian captivity; but more fully and perfectly it is fulfilled after the Saviour's passion and resurrection, when the Lord said: 'Your house shall be left to you desolate,' and even unto the end that sentence shall remain. Let us say it also otherwise, at least according to the Seventy: lēmma signifies not only 'oracle,' but also 'gift' and 'present.'

Because, then, the people always promised themselves prosperity, he says that they ought by no means to say this any longer; for they are unworthy of the gifts and presents of God, but rather are to be cast off and utterly abandoned by the help of God. And often things are shown both by words and by the interpretation of names. As the changed names of Abraham, Sarah, Peter, and the sons of Zebedee signify a change of things; and in this same prophet 'Pashhur' is said to mean 'dread' or 'removal' and 'sojourner' or 'stranger.' It is to be noted that the Latin and Greek codices do not have the words 'of the living God, of the Lord of hosts, our God,' and the Hebrews in their volumes read against themselves what properly signifies the mystery of the Trinity.

The fifth book of the commentaries on Jeremiah, brother Eusebius, will take its beginning from two baskets, of which the one will show the sweetness of the right faith, the other the bitterness of the perfidy of the heretics. Although Hananiah, the son of Azzur, oppose Jeremiah, and Shemaiah the Nehelamite desire the prophet to be sent to prison, and Zephaniah the priest conspire in the words of the false prophets, nevertheless the truth can be shut up and bound, but cannot be overcome, which both is content with the fewness of its own and is not terrified by the multitude of its enemies.

Lift up therefore, with Moses, your hands to heaven, and hang up the ancient serpent in the wilderness, and at once Amalek shall be destroyed and the venomous bites shall not prevail, and the people of the Lord, secure, shall pass with Joshua the streams of Jordan, and after the vast solitude shall eat the bread which was born in Bethlehem, our little town. 'The Lord showed me, and behold, two baskets — or, according to Symmachus, hampers — full of figs set before the temple of the Lord, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and his princes and the smith and the locksmith from Jerusalem, and brought them to Babylon. One basket had very good figs, such as the figs of the first season are wont to be.'

'and one basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten because they were bad. And the Lord said to me: What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said: Good figs, very good, and bad, very bad, which cannot be eaten because they are bad. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard for good the captivity of Judah, whom I have sent out from this place into the land of the Chaldeans. And I will set my eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them back into this land, and I will build them up and not tear them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up.'

'And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart. And like the worst figs, which cannot be eaten because they are bad — thus says the Lord — so will I give up — or hand over — Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his princes and the rest of Jerusalem, those who remained in this city and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. And I will give them over to vexation and affliction — or, dispersion — in all the kingdoms of the earth, to reproach and to a byword and to a proverb and to a curse in all the places whither I have driven them. And I will send upon them the sword and famine and pestilence, until they are consumed from the land which I gave to them and to their fathers.'

Some interpret the two hampers or baskets of good and bad figs as the Law and the Gospel, the Synagogue and the Church, the people of the Jews and of the Christians, Gehenna and the kingdom of heaven — of which the one pertains to the punishment of sinners, the other to the dwelling of the saints. But we, knowing according to the apostle Paul that the Law is good and holy and the commandment good and holy, and that the God of both Testaments is one, let us rather refer them to those who at the coming of the Lord and Saviour believed and did not believe: so that those who, incited by the scribes and priests, cried out saying: 'Crucify, crucify such a one,' may be the basket of bad figs;

but those who after his ascension believed from among the people, let them be referred to the good figs and to the best basket and hamper. Yet let us follow the plain and true history: that by the basket of good figs he meant Jeconiah, who had surrendered himself, by the counsel of Jeremiah and the command of God, to the king of Babylon, to whom the Lord also promises prosperity; but by the bad figs Zedekiah, who, contradicting the sentence of God, was taken and blinded in his eyes and led to Babylon and there died.

But God so set his eyes upon them for good — those who submitted to his command — and brought them back into their own land and built them up and did not tear them down and planted them and did not pluck them up, and gave them a heart to know him, that he himself was the Lord, and that they should become his people and he should be their God, that even in captivity he set his eyes upon them and permitted them to till the ground, to build houses, to plant orchards in the region of Babylon; Daniel by the miracles of signs was suddenly made a prince from a captive, and the three young men were gloriously delivered from the fire of the furnace, and when the seventy years were completed, under Zerubbabel and Jeshua the high priest and Ezra and Nehemiah, the greater part returned to Jerusalem.

whose number is contained in the volume of the same Ezra. It is also to be noted that this vision was made to the prophet in the times of Zedekiah, after Jeconiah had been led into 'transmigration'; for it did not say 'captivity,' because he had surrendered himself voluntarily. But by the smiths and locksmiths we ought to understand either the interpreters and teachers of the Law, or craftsmen and workers who enclose gold and gems — an art most precious among the barbarian nations. For 'locksmiths' the Seventy translated 'bound men,' that they might signify the evil of captivity, and of their own accord they added 'rich,' which is not in the Hebrew.

He compares the basket that had the good figs, and very good ones, to the figs of the first season — which in Greek are called proima — namely to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Aaron and Job and the other holy men, of whom one of the twelve prophets speaks: 'I found Israel like a grape in the desert, and I found their fathers like the first figs on the fig tree'; whence we too are called sons of Abraham, and on the contrary it is said to the Jews: 'If your father were Abraham, you would do his works.' But these baskets, which had good and bad figs, were not outside and beyond the Church, but before the temple of the Lord, in that all things lie open to his knowledge.

Nor do these figs which are outside have so great a bitterness as those which after the confession of faith have been changed by apostasy; nor have the good figs which are not in the sight of the temple of God so great a sweetness — such as were the philosophers of the world, who by natural goodness and understanding of the Creator did not so much follow as praise the virtues — as those figs have which are in the temple of God, among which were the prophets and apostles, of whom one fig spoke: 'I have given you milk, not solid food,' and: 'My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.' Whence it is said that in the sight of the temple of God the good figs were very good and the bad figs were very bad.

And lest we be thought to be imposing our own meaning, Scripture itself discloses itself. 'Like these good figs,' it says, 'so will I regard the captivity of Judah, whom I have sent out from this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good' — meaning Jeconiah and the princes who were taken captive with him. And on the contrary concerning the basket that had bad figs: 'And like the figs,' it says, 'that are worst, which cannot be eaten because they are bad, so will I give up Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his princes, and those who fled over into Egypt and those who remained in this city.'

'to vexation and affliction in all the kingdoms of the earth' — when in Egypt too they were taken captive, and Nebuchadnezzar set up his throne in Tahpanhes, and the Lord sent upon them the sword, famine and pestilence, until they were consumed from the land which he gave to their fathers. But as for what he said concerning the good figs: 'I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord,' this is like the apostolic saying: 'It is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish,' so that not only our work but also our will leans upon the help of God.

The interpreter who is always allegorical raves in this passage, and wishing to do violence to the historical truth, refers the captives to the heavenly Jerusalem, and says that they were carried off and transferred into the land of the Chaldeans, and would again return to their former place, like Jeremiah and the other holy prophets; but that others, who were sinners, would die in this land and in the vale of tears. I have set forth the whole passage of this vision together, lest I should divide the sense in the exposition. 'The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah — or, over all the people of Judah — in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah.' These former things are prior to the vision already related;

for that vision took place under Zedekiah, after Jeconiah had been transferred to Babylon, but this one under Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah and the father of Jeconiah. For it was no concern, as I said before, to preserve the chronology of the prophecy, which the laws of history require, but to write whatever they knew to be useful to those who heard and would read; whence in the Psalter also some wrongly seek the order of the psalms according to the sequence of history, which is not observed in a lyric poem. 'This is the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon' — which is not in the Seventy: and there follows: 'which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying.'

In the fourth year of king Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the father of Jeconiah, Nebuchadnezzar received the empire in Babylon, and so it came about that the year which was the first of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon was the fourth in Jerusalem of king Jehoiakim. Then in the eighth year of his reign he led Jeconiah with his mother and princes into captivity, who had reigned only three months after the slaying of his father Jehoiakim. And Jehoiakim was slain in the eleventh year of his reign in Jerusalem. 'From the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, unto this day — this is the twenty-third year — the word of the Lord came to me, and I spoke to you, rising up early in the night and speaking; and you did not hear.'

In the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, who reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years, Jeremiah began to prophesy, and he prophesied under him for nineteen years; to whom succeeded in the kingdom his son Jehoahaz, who, being immediately led into captivity by Neco, king of Egypt, was succeeded in the kingdom by his brother Jehoiakim, in the fourth year of whose reign this word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. And through this it was the twenty-third year of Jeremiah the prophet, from the time he began to speak to the people, and he never ceased to preach, but every day, rising up at dawn and in the night, he spoke to the people; 'and you did not,' he says, 'hear.'

But if, as the heretics of old wish, the Law was given once for a help and the precepts established, which we either keep or do not keep by the will of our own choice, how is it that the prophet always presses forward and daily repeats the commandments of God, which surely, once received, would have sufficed for those to whom they had been given — unless it be to show this, that we always need the help of God and can never suffice by what has once been given, unless it be daily renewed by the admonition of the Lord? 'And the Lord sent to you all his servants, the prophets, rising up early and sending; and you did not hear.'

Not by one prophet, but by all, God always admonished his people, and as it were, stationed on watch and guard, he rose at dawn to warn his people. 'And you did not,' he says, 'hear,' so that the more frequent the admonition, the greater were the sins of those who despised it. 'Neither did you incline your ears to hear, when I said: Turn every one from his evil way and from your most wicked thoughts, and you shall dwell in the land which the Lord gave to you and to your fathers from age to age and even unto age.' So great was the hardness of the people.

so that he would not so much as put on the bearing of a listener nor incline his ear, though the Lord above all was admonishing that each one should turn back from his evil way and from his most wicked thoughts. And O boundless mercy, not to inflict punishment for the crime, but to summon them to repentance both from their evil deeds, which the 'evil way' signifies, and from their most wicked thoughts, which even by themselves, apart from any deed, are reckoned unto sin! And He promises a reward, if they do what has been commanded, that they may dwell in the land which was given to their fathers and taken away because of the vices of the sons. And in that He says: 'from age unto age,' or 'from everlasting unto everlasting,' He shows that God's gifts are perpetual, if those to whom they were given prove worthy of them.

'And do not go after strange gods, to serve them and to worship them, neither provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, and I will not afflict you; and you have not hearkened unto me.' 'And these things,' He says, 'I was warning together with the foregoing, that you should not serve strange gods nor worship them, and that by doing these things you should not provoke me to anger on account of the works of your hands, so that I should do what I did not wish and afflict you; and you have not hearkened unto me.' And that which follows: 'saith the Lord, that you should provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt,' is not found in the Septuagint. 'Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts:'

'Because you have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the kindreds of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant.' 'Because you have provoked me to anger and have done evil unto your own destruction, and have trampled with a proud foot upon Him who calls you to repentance, I will send,' He says, 'unto all the kindreds or nations of the north and I will bring their prince Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant.' Now the Lord sends either angels to stir up the nations, or at any rate He stirs up thoughts of this sort, so that they carry out the Lord's will.

And in that He calls Nebuchadnezzar 'his servant,' he is not called 'servant' in the way the prophets and all the saints are, who truly serve the Lord, but in the sense that in the overthrow of Jerusalem he serves the Lord's will, according to what the Apostle also says: 'whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.' Moreover, that the Chaldeans lie in the northern region with respect to the position of Jerusalem is doubted by no one. 'And I will bring them upon this land and upon its inhabitants and upon all the nations that are round about it, and I will slay them and make them an astonishment and a hissing and everlasting desolations.' These are the rewards of those who despise and are unwilling to hear the words of God; whatever evil, therefore, is brought upon us, our sins have wrought it.

And just as all the nations were then brought against Jerusalem, so today they are brought against the negligent Church, that He may slay them and make them an astonishment and a hissing and everlasting desolations, so that they may be an example and a wonder to all. Now the hissing is a sign of wonder and astonishment, and everlasting desolation is found in those who do not have God as their guardian. 'And I will destroy from among them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bride and the voice of the bridegroom, the sound of the millstone and the light of the lamp. And the whole of that land shall become a desolation and an astonishment.' This too is proved even today in the assembly of the malicious, when their teachers do not teach the word of God, but hiss after the manner of a serpent.

And there perishes among them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, so that they never hear that word of the Apostle: 'Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!' The voice too of the bride, that is, of the Church's faith, and the voice of the bridegroom, that is, of the Lord and Saviour; for he who has the bride is the bridegroom; the sound of the millstone, so that the grain be not ground in it and given as food to the peoples; and the light of the lamp, namely the teaching and knowledge of the prophets. Whence also of John the Baptist it is said: 'He was a burning and shining lamp'; and another prophet says: 'Thy word, O Lord, is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my paths.' 'The whole land of the heretics,' He says, 'shall become a desolation and an astonishment, when its latter end shall be shown to be foolish.'

'And all these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And when the seventy years shall be fulfilled, I will visit upon the king of Babylon and upon that nation, saith the Lord, their iniquities, and upon the land of the Chaldeans, and I will make it everlasting desolations. And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have spoken against it, all that is written in this book, whatsoever Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.'

Just as Jerusalem after seventy years received back its former inhabitants and, its punishments having been discharged, because it obeyed God's sentence, enjoys its former felicity, so the king of Babylon, because he was lifted up in pride and reckoned that it was by his own strength that he reigned over the nations, and not by the Lord's will, shall be destroyed when the Medes and Persians come. And so to this day only ruins of the city of Babylon remain, and the Lord has set it in everlasting desolation and has fulfilled all the words which are contained in the volume of this very prophet. For in what follows, the discourse of Jeremiah describes the evils that Babylon is to suffer. 'Because they served them, though they were many nations and great kings;'

'and I will recompense them according to their works and according to the deeds of their hands.' This is not found in the Septuagint. It signifies, moreover, that Jeremiah prophesied not only against Babylon, but also against the other nations, which were in the Babylonian army and fought against the Lord's people. And so in what follows it is spoken against Egypt and Philistia and Moab and Ammon and Idumea, and Damascus and Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor and Elam and, last of all, against Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans. 'For thus saith the Lord God of Israel unto me: Take the cup of the wine of fury' — or of pure wine — 'from my hand and thou shalt give it to drink to all the nations to which I shall send thee; and they shall drink and be drunken' — or shall vomit — 'and shall rage before the face of the sword.'

'which I will send among them. And I took the cup from the Lord's hand and gave it to drink to all the nations to which the Lord sent me.' The giving to drink of the cup, and of the cup of 'pure' or 'unmixed' wine, which in Greek is called akratou, is a sign of the Lord's fury, that all the nations which warred against God's people should drink of the cup of the Lord's fury, concerning which Isaiah too writes against Jerusalem: 'Thou hast drunk the goblet of fury, the cup of ruin, and hast drained it; therefore rise up!' Now this cup is for that reason drunk by all the nations, that they may vomit and rage. This indeed a perverse interpreter takes in a good sense, as though after the manner of a purgative draught, that whatever of bile and phlegm and noxious humor is in the breast

it compels to go forth and restores the former health. For Jeremiah too he takes the Saviour, in that He gave to drink to all the nations to which He also was sent, so that, idolatry being cast away, they might dedicate themselves to the worship of God. That this is contrary to Holy Scripture the following words will show; for it is not by way of a remedy, as he would have it, but by way of punishment that they are given the unmixed cup to drink. 'To Jerusalem and to the cities of Judah and to its kings and to its princes, to make them a desolation and an astonishment and a hissing and a curse, as it is this day.' 'I thought,' he says, 'that I should give it to drink only to the nations, and therefore I gladly offered myself for this ministry; but among the rest,

nations — nay, before the rest — I gave to drink to Jerusalem and to the cities of Judah and to its kings and to its princes, to make them an astonishment and a desolation and a hissing and a curse. As is also proved by the present example.' Whence he also says above: 'Thou hast deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived; thou wast stronger and didst prevail!' 'To Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to his servants and to his officials and to all his people (and to all in general).' After Jerusalem, Pharaoh drinks, the king of Egypt, and his companions; the princes and all the people drank, and everyone who is not indeed an Egyptian but dwells in his regions, whom the Septuagint rendered symmiktous, that is 'the mingled ones,' the common folk not of the Egyptian region but foreign and immigrant.