'Why do you not imitate Jehoiada the priest and put to death Jeremiah the false prophet? For the Lord has appointed you in place of Jehoiada, that you may have care of the temple and above all discern who speak by the Holy Spirit and who by a demonic spirit' — and that the discernment of spirits belongs to the Lord's grace the Apostle also records — 'why,' he says, 'have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth?' What he himself deserved as a false prophet he charges upon the prophet, and by his lie forestalls the truth. Hence too the sons of darkness are reckoned more prudent than the sons of light in this generation, and while we act patiently and await the salvation of the wretched, the heretics get ahead of us and call us by their own name, blind men leading the blind into a pit.
'He sent to us in Babylon,' he says, 'saying: It is far off.' This is his whole grievance: that against his own lie Jeremiah wrote the truth, that the return was far off, and that after seventy years they would return to Jerusalem; whence they ought to build houses, plant orchards and eat their fruit, take wives and make sons — as the preceding discourse related. When Zephaniah the priest, to whose name in particular the letter had been written, received it, he read it to Jeremiah, in a manner mocking him and rebuking him by the very reading, [asking] why he dared to write such things into Babylon. 'And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying: Send to all the captivity, saying: Thus says the Lord to Shemaiah the Nehelamite:
Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, and I did not send him, and he has made you trust in a lie, therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will visit upon Shemaiah the Nehelamite and upon his seed; he shall not have a man dwelling in the midst of this people, nor shall he see the good which I will do for my people, says the Lord, because he has spoken transgression against the Lord.' Shemaiah the false prophet, indeed a Nehelamite, who had drawn foreign and troubled waters from the 'torrent,' is angry that against his lie Jeremiah has written the truth, and he sends letters to Zephaniah the priest, [asking] why the prophet dared to write the truth, and he desires him to be shut up in prison, that he may not speak.
Zephaniah also secretly accuses the prophet, when he reads the letter of the liar and boasts that he holds the accusation against him. How much more guilty of wickedness are those who defend false prophets and cherish liars and make the ill-conceived notions of others to be their own sins! Let the false prophet therefore hear, let the priest understand, what through him he too deserves to hear: 'Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will visit upon Shemaiah.' It is the Lord who speaks this, not the prophet — that he will visit upon Shemaiah the Nehelamite, not for a remedy, but for the punishment of the liar, according to what is written: 'I will visit their iniquities with a rod and their sins with scourges.'
And he visits not only upon the false prophet, but also upon his seed — all the disciples whom he deceived by his error. 'He shall not have,' he says, 'a man dwelling in the midst of this people.' Let the wicked stock be blotted out from the assembly of the saints, and let him not sit in the midst of those who rest, who could not stand with those who stand, nor heard that: 'If he had stood in my substance.' And whereas the Lord promises the perfection of all virtues when the seven-fold time is completed, that man shall not see the good which he was claiming for himself in the present time. And all this will happen because he has spoken transgression against the Lord, in saying that with the captivity of sins already loosed they would return to Jerusalem — to whom the Apostle threatens: 'Now you are full,
now you are already made rich. Without us you have reigned; and would that you did reign, that we too might reign with you!' The great length of the volume of the prophet Jeremiah overcomes our resolve, so that, however briefly, we still say much. Hence the present sixth book of commentaries on Jeremiah will contain the mystical promises, which the Jews, and those of ours who judaize, think are to be fulfilled at the consummation of the world; for as yet they cannot prove them to have been fulfilled under Zerubbabel.
But we, following the authority of the apostles and evangelists, and especially of the apostle Paul, show that whatever is promised to the people of Israel in a carnal sense has been spiritually fulfilled in us, and is being fulfilled today; and that between Jews and Christians there is no other contest but this: that, since both they and we believe that Christ the Son of God was promised, and the things that are to be under Christ, we say they have been fulfilled, they say they are yet to be fulfilled. We, therefore, who already believe that Christ has come, must necessarily teach that the things said to be under Christ have been fulfilled, and that we are the sons of Abraham, of whom it is written: 'God is able of these stones to raise up sons to Abraham' — to whom the promise was made:
'And in your seed all nations shall be blessed.' The chosen vessel, teaching that this blessing has been fulfilled in Christ, says: 'He did not say, in seeds, but in seed, which is Christ.' Pray therefore, brother Eusebius, to Christ the Lord of laws, that by the same labor and grace of the Spirit with which we have interpreted the promises of the other prophets, and especially of Isaiah, we may be able also to expound this prophet, who, as much as he seems simple and easy in words, is so much the most profound in the majesty of his meanings. 'This is the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: Thus says the Lord God of Israel, saying: Write for yourself all the words that I have spoken to you in a book!
For behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will turn back the return of my people Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I will bring them back — or make them dwell — in the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.' While the false prophets in Babylon were promising that the people who had been captured with Jeconiah would soon return, and Hananiah the son of Azzur was preaching the same in Jerusalem, the prophet Jeremiah asserted that this indeed would come to pass — not within two years, as they lied, but when the seventy years were completed — and now he is commanded to write in a book and hand over to memory the things which the Lord foretells as coming.
From this it is clear that the time of the prophecy was by no means near, but that these things were to be fulfilled long afterward, when Israel and Judah return to their own land; and that must be fulfilled which Ezekiel prophesied — that two rods were to be joined together as one, and that David would reign as king, of whom he writes: 'And my servant David shall be king over them, and there shall be one shepherd of them all.' If therefore we have said anything in that prophecy, it must also be understood in the present passage — especially since Ezekiel prophesied the same things at that same time in Babylon, and Jeremiah in Jerusalem. 'And these are the words which the Lord spoke to Israel and to Judah, since thus says the Lord: We have heard a voice of terror — or of fear; there is dread and no peace.
Ask and see, whether a male gives birth! Why then have I seen the hand of every man upon his loins like a woman in labor, and all faces turned to paleness?' First sad things are announced, so that after the magnitude of the evils joyful things may follow; for health is more welcome when sickness has been driven off, and the magnitude of grief is turned into a magnitude of joys. But what he says is this: so great will be the fear and so great the dread, that, peace being put to flight, all things will be filled with wars and blood, and even men — whose proper task it is to fight against their adversaries — a womanish terror will seize, and they will bring their hands not at all to weapons, but to holding their reins, as if a woman giving birth were clasping her flanks and loins.
Whence too the faces of all will be turned to paleness, testifying by the pallor of countenance the dread of heart. Some interpret this passage according to the tropological sense thus, so that they set alongside it that testimony: 'From fear of you, O Lord, we conceived and were in labor and gave birth; we have wrought the spirit of your salvation upon the earth,' and that apostolic word in which he says: 'My little children, whom I again bring forth in travail, until Christ be formed in you' — they compare it to this example; which is manifestly to pertain not to terror but to joy, whereas the present Scripture signifies the time of the devastation of Israel and of its ruin. 'Woe, for great is that day, nor is any like it, and it is a time of tribulation for Jacob! and out of it he shall be saved.'
He foretells the time of misery, in order to introduce the time of joy. 'When,' he says, 'such great evils have gone before, so that the grief of all men is compared to the grief of a woman in labor, nevertheless the time of Jacob's tribulation — that is, of the people of God — will be changed into prosperity, and out of it too he shall be saved' — the word 'time' is to be understood — 'of which the discourse had proceeded.' By 'Jacob' understand the twelve tribes, which were saved by no means under Zerubbabel, as some falsely suppose, but by the evangelical calling. 'And it shall be in that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will break his yoke from your neck and burst his bonds, and strangers shall no longer have dominion over him, but they shall serve — or work for — the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.'
This is that David, whom the Gospel also mentions: that he would grant to us, that being delivered without fear from the hand of our enemies, we might serve him in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. For as the first Adam and the second Adam are described according to the truth of the body, so also David the Lord and Savior — because according to the flesh he is entirely from David, holy Mary contributing whatever was in her from the stock of David, while he had his origin and conception from the Holy Spirit. And what he says, 'I will break his yoke from your neck and burst his bonds,' undoubtedly must be understood of the devil under the figure of Nebuchadnezzar.
'You therefore, do not fear, my servant Jacob, says the Lord, nor be dismayed, O Israel, for behold, I will save you from a far land and your seed from the land of their captivity, and Jacob shall return and be at rest and abound in all things, and there shall be none whom he fears, for I am with you, says the Lord, to save you. For I will make a full end of all the nations among which I have scattered you; but you I will not make a full end of, but I will chastise — or instruct — you in judgment, that you may not seem to yourself blameless,' or 'and cleansing I will not cleanse you.' This periope (passage) is not in the Septuagint, and in most manuscripts of the common edition it has been added under asterisks from Theodotion.
But the divine word promises, and calls Jacob and Israel more intimately 'his servant' — just as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are called 'servants of God,' and Moses too and the other prophets, and the apostle Paul at the beginning of his epistles glories in this title — so that both the two and the ten tribes, that is, the twelve, may know that they are to be saved from a far land, and their captivity to be loosed, and peace restored, and that they will be filled with every abundance, according to what is said in the psalm: 'Let there be peace in your strength, and abundance in your towers!' And this will be because they will fully enjoy the presence of the Lord, when the adversary nations, which had captured them, shall perish, and these shall be freed from the nations.
And he teaches them that they have been handed over by no means for punishment, but for instruction, so that they might be marked out as his own, not destroyed as strangers; for he who does not believe is already judged, that is, prejudged unto destruction. And what he added: 'that you may not seem to yourself blameless,' or according to Symmachus: 'and cleansing I will not cleanse you,' or according to Aquila: 'when I have instructed you through judgment, I will by no means make you innocent,' signifies this: that all the world needs the mercy of God, and no one, however holy he may be, proceeds secure to the judge;
against the new heresy joined to the old, which supposes that in this age and in this mortal flesh, before this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal puts on immortality, there is perfection in anyone, and that all can at once fulfill the just virtues. 'For thus says the Lord: Incurable is your fracture, most grievous your wound. There is none who judges your judgment for the binding up; the benefit of cures is not for you. All your lovers have forgotten you, they will not seek you; for I have struck you with the blow of an enemy, with cruel — or harsh — chastisement. Because of the multitude of your iniquity your sins have become hard — or been multiplied. Why do you cry out over your affliction? Your grief is incurable;
because of the multitude of your iniquity and because of your hard sins I have done these things to you.' He speaks as if to a beautiful woman, to whom he had said above: 'I will chastise you in judgment, that you may not seem to yourself blameless,' or 'guiltless'; and through a metaphor he speaks to Jerusalem, that by God's judgment she has been most grievously wounded, and by no other than himself who had struck her can she be healed by his care — 'there is none,' he says, 'who judges your judgment' — nor can the skin of a scar be drawn over so deep a wound. 'Wherever you turn yourself, there is no benefit for you, because you have offended him who is the true and only physician. All your lovers have forgotten you,' whether priests or princes, or certainly the guardianship of angels, by which, before you offended the Lord, you were fenced round.
'They will not seek you,' acting contrary to the Apostle, who sought the believers and not the things which were the believers'; 'for I have struck you with the blow of an enemy, with cruel chastisement.' A friend strikes in one way, an enemy in another; a father in one way, a foe in another. The one beats to correct, the other strikes to kill; whence too the prophet says tearfully: 'O Lord, rebuke me not in your fury, neither chastise me in your wrath!' But this was done because 'on account of the multitude of your iniquity your sins have become hard.' And what follows: 'Why do you cry out over your affliction? Your grief is incurable, because of the multitude of your iniquity,' is not in the Septuagint — evidently because it is said a second time:
'because of the multitude of your iniquity and your hard sins,' and those who were copying supposed it had been added at the beginning. And the sense is: 'That I struck you with the blow of an enemy, that I beat you with cruel chastisement, the multitude of your iniquity and your hard sins brought about, which could not be healed except by the most biting powder and the burning cautery and the sharpest iron, with which I might cut off the rotten and incurable flesh. And yet, on account of the multitude of your iniquity and your hard sins, I have done this to you not of my own will, but compelled by the reasoning of medicine.' 'Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured, and all your enemies shall be led into captivity, and those who lay you waste shall be laid waste, and all your plunderers I will give for plunder.
For I will draw a scar over you and heal you of your wounds, says the Lord. Because they called you outcast — or scattered — O Zion, saying: this is she who had none to seek her.' And under Zerubbabel we recognize that these things were done, when the Babylonians and Chaldeans laid waste the Assyrians, that is, Nineveh, and again the Medes and Persians captured the Babylonians and Chaldeans, and Babylon was destroyed; then Zion began to have a Lord who sought her, and the scar was drawn over that wound and she was healed of her plagues — which is more fully and more perfectly fulfilled in Christ. 'Thus says the Lord:
Behold, I will turn back the return of the tents of Jacob, and I will have mercy on their dwellings — or captivity — and the city shall be built upon its own height, and the temple shall be founded according to its own order. And out of them shall go forth praise and the voice of those who make merry, and I will multiply them and they shall not be diminished'; and what follows: 'and I will glorify them and I will not lessen them,' is not in the Septuagint. 'And their sons,' he says, 'shall be as at the beginning, and their assembly shall remain before me, and I will visit upon all who trouble it. And its leader shall be from itself, and its prince shall be brought forth from its midst, and I will bring him near and he shall approach to me; for who is this who applies his heart to draw near to me? says the Lord;
and again what in the Hebrew follows, but is not in the Greek: 'and you shall be to me,' he says, 'for a people, and I will be to you for a God.' Whose type went before in Zerubbabel and Ezra, when the people returned and the city began to be built on its own height and the religion of the temple to be observed, and the rest that is contained in the very volume of Ezra; but more fully and more perfectly it was fulfilled in the Lord and Savior and the apostles, when the city was built upon its own height — of which it is written: 'A city cannot be hidden which is set on a mountain' — and the temple founded according to its own order and ceremonies, so that whatever was done carnally among the former people might be spiritually fulfilled in the Church.
Then went forth praise or thanksgiving — for this is what 'thoda' signifies — so that all the apostles might say: 'Grace to you and peace,' and the voice of those who make merry, not with that play by which 'the people ate and drank and rose up to play,' but with that by which David played before the ark of the Lord. And they were multiplied and not diminished, so that the whole world believed in God the Savior; and they were glorified, that what is written might be fulfilled: 'Glorious things are said of you, O city of God!' And its sons — that is, the apostles — were as they were at the beginning: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the princes of the race of Israel. Then the Lord visited upon all who troubled the people of God, namely the adversary powers.
And its leader was from itself — no doubt the Lord and Savior according to the flesh from the race of Israel — and its prince was brought forth from its midst. The Father brought him near to himself, and he approached to him, so that the Son might say: 'I am in the Father and the Father in me,' because no one can so apply his heart to the Lord, nor be so joined to the Father as the Son. And what it says according to the Hebrew only, but not according to the Septuagint: 'and you shall be to me for a people, and I will be to you for a God,' we see fulfilled in deed partly in Israel and wholly in the multitude of the nations. 'Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord, fury going forth, a rushing storm shall settle upon the head of the impious; the Lord will not turn back the wrath of his indignation, until he does and fulfills the thought of his heart;
in the last of days you shall understand these things.' The whirlwind of the Lord's fury and the rushing storm and tempest shall rest upon the head of the impious, whether of the demons or of those who blasphemed the Son of God; and he will not turn back the wrath of his indignation, until he does and fulfills the thought of his heart and Jerusalem is surrounded by an army and utterly destroyed. But just as a craftsman cannot be understood except by the completed work, nor the diligence of medicine except after health has been attained, so, when the overthrow of Jerusalem and the casting off of the former people has come about, then believers will understand that the rejection of the Jews is the occasion of our salvation.
'In that time, says the Lord, I will be God to all the families of Israel — or to the race of Israel — and they themselves shall be to me for a people.' Unless the thought of the Lord be fulfilled and his fury rest upon the head of the impious, the Lord of the universe cannot be God to the families of Israel; but this he says to the remnant, which have been made safe. But if it is objected to us, that which was said: 'I will be God to the race of Israel,' or 'to all the families of Israel,' let us take an example: 'If you were the sons of Abraham, you would do the works of your father'; and the Apostle writes: 'See Israel according to the flesh.' From which he teaches that there is another Israel according to the spirit.
He therefore is Israel who beholds God with his mind, or who is most upright before the Lord; and Israel of this sort shall be the people of God. 'Thus says the Lord: The people who remained from the sword found grace in the desert; Israel shall go to his rest.' Septuagint: 'Thus said the Lord: I found the warm one in the desert with those who had perished by the sword; go and do not kill Israel!' Ridiculously in this passage the Latin manuscripts, by the ambiguity of the Greek word, interpreted 'lupines' instead of 'the warm'; for the Greek THERMON signifies both, and this itself is not in the Hebrew. For it is written 'hen,' which Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion interpreted charin, that is, 'grace';
only the Septuagint put 'warm,' supposing the last letter to be 'm.' For if we read 'hen' with the letter 'n,' it means 'grace'; if with 'm,' it is interpreted 'warmth.' But the sense according to the Hebrew is: the people of the Jews, who had remained from the Roman sword, or at least had been able to avoid the wrath of the Lord's fury, found grace in the desert of the nations, so that amid the throng of the nations they might be saved in the Church; whence Israel shall go and find his rest, which he had always hoped for, which the oracles of the prophets had promised him. Furthermore, according to the Septuagint the understanding is this: the Lord found the warm and living apostles and their companions in the desert of the nations among those who had been killed by their own unbelief and had no warmth of life.
Whence it is commanded to the angels and to those who are in the ministry of God, that they should not kill all, lest Israel be utterly destroyed; and it is said to them: 'Go and do not kill Israel; let there be some who live, some who are warm with the ardor of faith, some who escape the cold of unbelief and death, whom the Lord may find in the desert!' 'The Lord appeared to me from afar — or to him: and with everlasting love I have loved you; therefore I have drawn you, having mercy. And again: But I will build you and you shall be built, O virgin Israel. You shall yet adorn yourself with your timbrels — or take up your timbrels — and go forth in the chorus of those who make merry. You shall yet plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; plant plantings and gather the vintage!'
'For there shall be a day in which the watchmen shall cry out on Mount Ephraim: Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God!' Because Israel had offended the Lord and had said: 'We have no king but Caesar,' and: 'Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours,' and had withdrawn far from God, therefore after much time the Lord appeared to him — not in the time of Zerubbabel and Ezra, after they were again captured — but with everlasting love he loved him, which shall be blotted out by no end, and he drew him, having mercy; for by no means by merit, but by clemency was he saved. And again, he says, I will build you and you shall be built, O virgin Israel. Let us understand this properly of the Church;
for those rave who sigh after a golden and jeweled Jerusalem of their own, consecrating their avarice in the mystery of the Lord's city. 'You shall yet adorn yourself with your timbrels,' that you may sing to the Lord in the churches, when all the flesh of evil works in you has been consumed. 'And you shall go forth in the chorus of those who make merry' with the throngs of the nations, 'you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria' — by no means in valleys and lowly places, but on the mountains of Samaria, which after the captivity of the people of Israel were possessed by foreigners. To whom it is said: 'Plant plantings and gather the vintage!' Then was the day of the Lord, in which the watchmen — namely the apostles and apostolic men — cried out on the mountain of 'Samaria' and on the mountain of 'Ephraim,' one of which sounds 'guardianship,' the other 'fruitfulness';
but what do the watchmen of Samaria say, indeed what do they cry out on Mount Ephraim? 'Arise, you who lie down, leave lowly things, spurn the sacrifices of victims' — 'a contrite spirit is a sacrifice to the Lord' — 'let us go up to Zion, that is, into the Church, where there is the contemplation and beholding of God; and when we have been in Zion, indeed when we have ascended to it, we shall ascend together to the Lord our God.' 'For thus says the Lord: Exult with joy, O Jacob, and neigh against the head of the nations; sound forth, sing, and say: Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel!' Significantly, not all Israel is saved, but the remnant of Israel, at the Lord's command and saying:
'Exult with joy, you who are of Jacob, and neigh at the head of the nations, referring all things to it, because the tail was once turned into the head; sound forth and sing and say!' What is that which they are commanded to say? 'Save, O Lord, your people.' What people? Surely the remnant of Israel, which according to election have been saved, concerning whom Paul also, taking up the testimony of Isaiah, says: 'Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have become as Sodom and been made like unto Gomorrah.' 'Behold, I will bring them from the land of the north, and I will gather them from the ends of the earth'; and what follows: 'in the solemnity of the Passover';
'And he shall beget many sons' is not found in the Hebrew, but is read only in the Septuagint; in its place among the Hebrews is written: 'Among them shall be the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she that gives birth together, a great assembly of those returning hither.' The remnants of the people of Israel are gathered by the apostles and apostolic men, of whom we read above: 'The watchmen shall cry out on the mountain,' and to whom it is commanded: 'Sound aloud and sing and speak, that the remnants of Israel may be saved.' And the Lord himself promises that he will bring them back from the land of the north wind, which is the harshest wind.
Now the north is called by the name 'right hand' because of unbelief and because of coldness towards the love of the Lord; and he will gather them from the ends of the earth not at any other time, but at the solemnity of the Passover, that is, in the season of the Lord's passion, when the Lord was crucified and that was fulfilled which he himself promised in the Gospel: 'When I shall be lifted up, I will draw all things to myself.' Then he begot a great people, so that the word of Isaiah might be fulfilled: 'For a nation was born at once'; for in one day three thousand and five thousand men believed. And as to what is written in the Hebrew:
'Among them shall be the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she that gives birth together, a great assembly of those returning hither' — although this was fulfilled even according to the letter, in that the blind saw and the lame walked, yet it can better be understood according to the anagogical sense, namely that those who before were blind through faithlessness afterwards believed in the Saviour; and those who were lame, to whom Elijah once spoke, 'How long do you halt on both feet?', afterwards walked; and the people who sat in darkness and the shadow of death beheld a great light, and the lame ran, and the woman with child bore sons — a great assembly of those returning to the faith.