'He went,' it says, 'and withdrew on his way,' as though defeated, fulfilling that prophetic saying: 'I have become like a man who does not hear and who has no rebukes in his mouth.' 'And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, after Hananiah the prophet had broken the chain — or yoke-bar — from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, saying: Go and say to Hananiah: Thus says the Lord: You have broken a wooden chain — or yoke-bar — and you shall make — or I shall make — in their place iron yoke-bars — or chains. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have set an iron yoke upon the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.' And what follows — 'and they shall serve him; moreover I have given him also the beasts of the earth' — is not found in the Seventy.
And in the present passage, according to the Seventy, Hananiah is not written as 'prophet,' nor in what follows — lest, as I said before, they should seem to call a 'false prophet' a 'prophet'; but what has this to do with the Hebrew truth? After Jeremiah the prophet had gone his way and swallowed the injury in silence, the word of the Lord came to him, so that the prophet might speak to the false prophet — who gloried in his lie — not in his own words, but might say: 'Thus says the Lord' — although Hananiah too, breaking the wooden yoke-bar, had spoken with the same authority in the sight of the Lord: 'Thus says the Lord'; for a lie always imitates the truth. And what he added:
'You have broken wooden yoke-bars, and you shall make — or you have made — in their place iron chains': this shows that, by refusing the lesser punishment, he became for the people the cause of a greater penalty. Here too the allegorical interpreter raves, calling the wooden yoke-bars and chains the ethereal and airy bodies — of demons, that is, and of hostile powers — while the iron yoke-bars or chains he calls our coarser bodies, which are woven of sinews and bones, of flesh and veins; so that those who have refused, from the heavenly Jerusalem, to undergo lesser torments according to the quality of their sin, are condemned into the chains of our bodies and the wailings of infancy,
and endure the bonds and filth of swaddling-clothes, and serve the devil, the king of Babylon, that is, of this world — as Scripture says: 'The whole world lies in wickedness' — together with the beasts of the earth, those souls which are bound into the bodies of brute animals. An unlearned expositor and follower of the Grunnian slander has compelled me to set forth openly the errors of others, which before I mentioned with concealment, leaving them to the reader's discernment. 'And Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet: Hear, Hananiah, the Lord did not send you, and you have made this people trust in a lie; therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will send you forth — or cast you out — from the face of the earth; this year you shall die.' And what follows: 'because you have spoken against the Lord,'
'And Hananiah the prophet died in that year, in the seventh month' — this is not found in the Seventy, in place of which they merely put: 'and he died in the seventh month.' Here too, in the Seventy, Hananiah is not called 'prophet,' although — according to the Hebrew — holy Scripture calls him 'prophet,' even though in the passage where Jeremiah rebukes him, saying 'Hear, Hananiah, the Lord did not send you,' he kept silent about 'prophet'; for how could he call him 'prophet' whom he denied to have been sent by the Lord? But the truth and order of the history is preserved, as we said above, not according to what he was, but according to what was thought at that time. 'You have deceived,' he says, 'the people with a lie, so that they would not submit to God's decree;'
'therefore know that you shall die this year!' If, when we die, we are freed from the prisons of our bodies — according to that testimony which the heretics wrongly interpret: 'Bring my soul out of prison' — how is death now inflicted upon the false prophet as a punishment? But this too is to be noted, that Jeremiah, having suffered injury from the false prophet, keeps silent while the word of the Lord has not yet come to him, but afterward, sent by the Lord, he boldly rebukes the liar and announces his approaching death. And as to his having died in the 'seventh' month — those who are always accustomed to interpret 'rest' as signified by this number will perhaps falsely claim that he died in the 'seventh' month for this reason, that he might be freed from the evils of the body, according to that which they have brought forward to their advantage:
'death is rest for a man.' But we know that the bodies of believers are temples of God, provided that the Holy Spirit dwells in them. 'And these are the words of the book which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the residue of the elders of the exile, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had led away from Jerusalem to Babylon, after king Jechoniah had departed, and the lady — or queen — and the eunuchs and the princes of Judah and Jerusalem — or, from Jerusalem — and the nobles and craftsmen of Jerusalem, by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and of Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, to Babylon, saying:'
'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exile whom I have carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and dwell in them, and plant gardens — or orchards — and eat their fruit! Take wives and beget sons and daughters; give wives to your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, and let them bear sons and daughters, and be multiplied and do not be few in number! And seek the peace of the city — or land — to which I have carried you, and pray for it to the Lord, for in its peace shall be peace for you!' This letter, or rather the little book of Jeremiah the prophet, is sent to Babylon by Zedekiah's envoys Elasah and Gemariah, to those who had been carried away by Nebuchadnezzar together with Jechoniah and his mother,
so that, on the occasion of the royal embassy, the prophet might also fulfill his own task and admonish the exiled people of what had been commanded him by the Lord. And beautifully he said: 'king Jechoniah departed, and the lady, the eunuchs and the princes of Judah,' and the rest, and: 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exile whom I have carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon' — so that they might appear to have been carried away not by the power of the king of Babylon, but by the will of the Lord. And the word of God is directed first to the elders, then to the priests, thirdly to the prophets, fourthly to all the people, so that, according to the order of age, the prophet's letters too might reach those who were being admonished.
He admonishes them, not in his own words but in the Lord's, to build houses and dwell in them, and to plant gardens or orchards and eat their fruit, to take wives and beget sons and daughters and be multiplied in the place of exile and not be few in number, and to seek the peace of the city or land to which the Lord has carried them, and to pray for it to the Lord. And giving the reasons he says: 'because in the peace of that land shall be peace for you.' To Jeremiah, because after a short time captivity was to fall upon Jerusalem, it is commanded that he take no wife and beget no children. Whence it is also said to us through the Apostle: 'The time is shortened; it remains that those who have wives should be as though they had none.'
But if, because of the strait of the time, the use of wives is taken from those who have them, how much more is it commanded to those who have none that they take none! Yet this whole prophetic oracle enjoins all this so that they may not acquiesce in the false prophets, who promised them a return to Jerusalem after a short time, but that they may know they must tarry a long time in Babylon — so that they must take wives, plant orchards and sow gardens, build houses and beget children. And as for what he added: 'Seek the peace of the city or land,' and again: 'because in its peace shall be peace for you,' that apostolic saying is confirmed in which he commands: 'I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers,'
'intercessions, and giving of thanks, for all men, for kings and for all that are in high station, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all piety and chastity.' Furthermore, according to the mystical understanding: after we have been cast out of Jerusalem, that is, the Church, because of our sins, and handed over to Nebuchadnezzar — of whom the same Apostle says: 'I have handed over such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord' — and again:
'whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme' — we ought not to be complacent, nor, growing sluggish in idleness, to despair utterly of salvation, but first to build houses — not upon sand, but upon rock — and such houses as the midwives too built in Exodus, because they feared the Lord; then to plant gardens or orchards, such as the Lord too planted, a paradise in Eden, and set in it the tree of life, of which it is written: 'It is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; and he who holds her is blessed'; thirdly, to take wives, one of whom is wisdom, of whom Solomon writes: 'Love her, and she will preserve you; embrace her, and she will exalt you,' and in another place:
'Her I sought to take to me as a bride, and I became a lover of her beauty.' Nor does one spouse, wisdom, suffice for us, unless we have the rest also: fortitude, temperance, and justice, that from them we may beget more sons. Let us also give our daughters to husbands, so that the truth of faith — which is signified by the sons — may be joined to good works, which are referred to the daughters, and that good works may be united to the soundness of faith. And begetting such sons and daughters, let us be multiplied in number, so that, destroying the things that belong to little children and growing into the perfect man, we may be worthy to hear: 'I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning,' and with the Apostle let us say to our children:
'for in Christ Jesus, through the Gospel, I have begotten you.' Let us also seek the peace of the Church — our city and our land — that we may be worthy to return to it, from which by the Lord's judgment we were carried away, to dwell in the error of 'confusion' (Babylon); for if she receives us, we shall have peace. At the same time the Lord's clemency is to be considered: he commands us to pray for our enemies and to do good to those who persecute us, so that we may not be content with our own salvation alone, but may seek the salvation of our enemies as well. 'For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:'
'Let not your prophets who are in the midst of you seduce you, nor your diviners, and pay no heed to your dreams which you dream, for these prophesy falsely to you in my name, and I did not send them, says the Lord.' That there were prophets — or rather false prophets — and diviners and dreamers in Babylon among those whom Nebuchadnezzar had led away with Jechoniah and his mother, the prophet Ezekiel testifies, writing against them, whom Jeremiah too commands not to be believed. But at that time, when this letter was being sent, Ezekiel had not yet begun to prophesy in Babylon; for this discourse is sent at the beginning of king Zedekiah's reign.
But Ezekiel began to prophesy in the fifth year of Jechoniah's exile, which was the same year of Zedekiah's reign. Furthermore, according to the tropological sense, we ought to understand as false prophets those who receive the words of the Scriptures otherwise than the Holy Spirit sounds them, and as diviners those who pronounce the conjecture of their own mind and the uncertainties of the future as though they were true, without the authority of the divine words; and as dreamers those who do not hear that which is written: 'Give not sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids' — of whom the apostle Jude also speaks:
'In like manner these dreamers also defile the flesh, but despise dominion' — whose mind by no means keeps watch, but, weighed down by the drowsiness of arrogance and error, is surrounded by the horror of night; to whom the apostle Paul also speaks: 'Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten you.' 'For thus says the Lord: When the seventy years shall have begun to be fulfilled in Babylon, I will visit you and raise up over you my good word, to bring you back to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of affliction, to give you an end and patience — or hope.'
'And you shall call upon me and go — or, according to Symmachus, find — and pray to me, and I will hear you. You shall seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart, and I will be found by you, or I will appear to you.' 'Do not,' he says, 'believe your false prophets, diviners, and dreamers, who promise you a return to Jerusalem soon! For unless the seventy years shall have been completed — when Cyrus, king of the Persians, releases the captives — you shall by no means return to your homeland; and then I will fulfill my promises, to bring you back to this place; for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord.' He says that he knows what he thinks, but that they, with their prophets, diviners, and dreamers, do not know it;
therefore the knowledge of things to come belongs to God alone. 'That I may give you,' he says, 'an end and patience': the end of captivity and patience amid present labors, or hope of things to come. 'Then you shall call upon me and go to Jerusalem and pray, and I will hear you.' Certainly, even without the calling and prayer of the captives, the Lord could have fulfilled what he had promised, but he exhorts them to prayers, so that they may be worthy to receive what has been promised. 'You shall seek and find me, when you seek with all your heart,' according to that saying of the Gospel: 'Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.' According to the anagogical sense, we are engaged for so long in the 'confusion' of this world,
until we may be worthy to receive the 'rest' of the sevenfold number, and, penance being accepted, God fulfills what he promised, and we are brought back to our place, the Church; for the Lord seemed to strike in order to heal, and he will give us the end of our labor and of our patience. And we shall call upon him and return to the Church and pray, and shall be heard. We shall seek and find him, when we have sought him with all our heart, and then he will appear to us. Some interpret the 'seventy years' according to that which is written: 'The days of our years are in themselves seventy years'; and when these shall have been completed, then let us return to the Lord with all our heart and be heard, and let there be an end of our labor and of our patience;
for now we possess all things in shadow and image. 'And I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring back your captivity and gather you from all the nations and from all the places to which I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will cause you to return from the place to which I made you migrate — because you said: The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon. For thus says the Lord to the king who sits upon the throne of David, and to all the people dwelling in this city, and to your brethren who did not go out with you into exile; thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will send upon them the sword, famine and pestilence, and I will make them like bad figs which cannot be eaten because they are so worthless.'
'And I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, and I will give them over to affliction among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse and an astonishment and a hissing and a reproach to all the nations to which I cast them out, because they have not heard my words, says the Lord, which I sent to them by my servants the prophets, rising up in the night and sending them; and you did not hear, says the Lord. You therefore hear the word of the Lord, all you exile, whom I sent forth from Jerusalem to Babylon!' Up to this point it is not found in the Seventy — the passages which I have marked with asterisks; for the rest, in which either single verses or a few words were omitted by them, overcome by weariness I was unwilling to note, lest I should cause disgust to the reader.
But the Lord promises to those who were in exile that after seventy years of captivity he will cause them to return from all the nations and from all the places to which he had driven them, and, the captivity being relaxed, to recover their former state and homeland. 'And since I,' he says, 'am going to do these things of my own accord, and will restore you at a fixed time, you are deceived in vain and think that you have prophets in Babylon who promise you false things; but know this, that you ought by no means now to hope for a return, but to build houses, plant orchards, take wives and beget sons and be multiplied in number and await the promised time.'
'Hear what the Lord speaks to Zedekiah, who now reigns in Jerusalem, and to all the inhabitants of his city — that is, to your brethren who refused to obey my decree and to migrate to Babylon with you — namely, that they can by no means escape captivity, but shall die by sword and famine and pestilence, and he will make them like bad figs.' These Theodotion (and Aquila's first edition) translated 'sudrinae,' the second edition 'the worst,' Symmachus 'the last'; in Hebrew they are called 'suarim,' but by a fault of the copyists, in place of the middle syllable or letter, the Greek 'delta' crept in for 'alpha,' so that instead of 'suarim' one reads 'sudrim.'
And just as the basket or hamper which held the good figs is said to have had 'first-ripe' figs, so the other basket, which held the bad figs, is written to have had 'the latest' figs. 'And I will pursue,' he says, 'those who now dwell in the city of Jerusalem, with sword, famine, and pestilence, so that at first by the siege, immediately, those who have been able to remain and escape may be scattered throughout all lands and be to all an example of cursing, of astonishment, of hissing, and of reproach, among whom I will cast them out.'
'because they have not heard my words, says the Lord, which I spoke to them through my servants, rising in the night and sending, and I never ceased to admonish them,' that they might imitate you, who now in exile enjoy secure repose, until the promise of the Lord is fulfilled.
'But you, who have obeyed my decree and have handed yourselves over to the king of Babylon, hear what I am about to say.' Here too the raving interpreter dreams of the fall of the heavenly Jerusalem, and supposes the prophecy to be directed to those who dwell in the Babylonian region of this world — namely, that they did well to descend willingly into these bodies and, in the land of the Chaldeans, to build houses, plant orchards, take wives, beget children, and by good works to be restored, after seventy years, to their former place and to the heavenly Jerusalem;
but that those who have been unwilling of their own will to descend to earthly things will suffer these things which the Lord threatens against Zedekiah and his people — who refused to imitate their brethren and to come into Babylon — namely, that he will send upon them the sword and famine and pestilence, that is, the want of all things, and will make them like the worst figs, which cannot be eaten at all, and will pursue them with an everlasting sword and give them over to affliction among all the kingdoms of the earth; whereby, that is, they become no longer men but demons, airy powers, and are, before all the angels who preside over the several provinces, a curse and an astonishment and a hissing and a reproach to all the nations.
And that they will suffer this for this reason, because they refused to hear the words of the prophets in the heavenly Jerusalem, who exhorted them to descend to earthly things and to take on the body of lowliness, and, penance being performed, after the true sabbath-rest to possess their former place. Let him have said these things; and when his disciples and the dung of the Grunnian household hear them, they think that they alone hear the mysteries, and they regard us, who despise these things, as though brute animals, and call us 'men of mud' (pēlousiōtai), because, set in the mire of this body, we cannot perceive heavenly things. 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and to Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who prophesy to you in my name falsely:'
'Behold, I will hand them over into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and he shall strike them down before your eyes. And from them a curse shall be taken up by all the exile of Judah that is in Babylon, saying: May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire, because they committed folly — or iniquity — in Israel and committed adultery with the wives of their friends — or fellow-citizens — and spoke a word in my name falsely, which I did not command them; I am judge and witness, says the Lord.' The Hebrews say that these are the elders who committed folly in Israel and committed adultery with the wives of their fellow-citizens, to one of whom Daniel says: 'O one grown old in evil days,' and to the other:
'O seed of Canaan and not of Judah, beauty has deceived you and lust has perverted your heart! Thus you dealt with the daughters of Israel, and they in fear spoke with you; but a daughter of Judah did not endure your iniquity.' And as for what the prophet now says: 'and they spoke a word in my name falsely, which I did not command them,' they think this to be signified: that they so deceived the wretched little women who are carried about by every wind of doctrine, by telling them that, since they were of the tribe of Judah, Christ was to be begotten of their seed; and these women, enticed by desire, offered their bodies as though they were to be the mothers of Christ. But that which is said in the present passage — 'whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire' — seems to run counter to the history of Daniel.
For that history (of Susanna) asserts that they were stoned by the people at Daniel's verdict; but here it is written that the king of Babylon roasted them in the fire. Hence by most, and almost all, of the Hebrews that account is not received, as though it were a fable, nor is it read in their synagogues. 'For how,' they say, 'could it have come about that captives, destined to be stoned, should have had power over their princes and prophets?' And they affirm this rather to be true, which Jeremiah writes — that the elders were indeed convicted by Daniel, but that the sentence against them was passed by the king of Babylon, who over the captives, as victor and lord, held authority.
How many even from our own flock, like Ahab and Zedekiah, prophesy a lie in the name of the Lord and work folly in Israel, and commit adultery with the wives of their fellow citizens who were begotten in the same city of the Church! These the true Nebuchadnezzar scorches in the fire of sin, as the prophet Hosea says: 'They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker.' Blessed is he who takes up the yoke from his youth and sits alone, because he is filled with bitterness, and can say with David: 'I have not sat in the council of the malicious, and I will not go in with those who work iniquity!' And what the prophet now added, 'I am the judge and the witness, says the Lord,' has this meaning:
'These things which I say concerning the two false prophets, who speak a word in my name falsely, which I did not command them, I have by no means known by mere opinion, but I myself know that they are true — I whom no one can conceal from, nor escape the truth of my judgment.' 'And to Shemaiah the Nehelamite likewise you shall say'; and what follows: 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are in Jerusalem' — this is not found in the Septuagint; and again they added of their own: 'I did not send you in my name'; and consequently, according to the order: 'And to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest'; and again from the Hebrew: 'and to all the priests'; and then the narrative is woven: 'The Lord has appointed you priest in place of Jehoiada the priest,'
'that you should be leader — or teacher and overseer — in the house of the Lord over every madman and one who prophesies, that you should put him in the stocks and in prison' — or into custody and into the pillory, which Symmachus rendered mochlon (a bar), and Aquila set down the Hebrew word itself, 'sinac.' 'And now why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who prophesies to you? For concerning this he has sent to us in Babylon, saying: It is a long time; build houses and dwell in them, and plant gardens and eat their fruit!' So Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet.
Shemaiah, from the place 'Nehelam,' which is interpreted 'torrent,' had been led away with King Jeconiah into Babylon, and prophesied falsely to the people that they would quickly return to Jerusalem. But that he was a false prophet the following words of Jeremiah demonstrate: 'Thus says the Lord to Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, and I did not send him.' Since therefore Jeremiah had sent letters to those who were in Babylon, saying: 'Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit; take wives and beget sons!' and after other things had added: 'Let not your prophets who are in your midst, and your diviners, deceive you!' and then next:
'because these prophesy to you falsely in my name, and I did not send them, says the Lord' — Shemaiah, understanding that this was written against him under the common designation of false prophets, sends letters to Jerusalem, to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, and to the rest of the priests, against Jeremiah, [asking] why he is not rebuked by Zephaniah the priest — whose office it is to discern between prophets, who speak by the Holy Spirit and who by the contrary spirit — and why he is not ordered to be shut up in prison, that he might pay the penalty for his lie and cease any longer to trip up the people. Jehoiada was the priest who handed over the government to Joash after the killing of Athaliah, and slew the priest of Baal. This, then, is what he writes: