Homilies on Jeremiah

Homilies on Jeremiah

continued

Homily 18

1a There are two visions in a row that have been read from Jeremiah. The first concerns the clay vessel in the potter’s hand, which, after it is broken, can be put right, for it can be reshaped. The second vision concerns the earthenware jar, which, once it has been smashed, cannot be mended. When it was clay, if it was broken, even if it had already been shaped, then because it was clay it could become dough again a second time and be made a second time. But when, after being clay, it has become fired earthenware and has been hardened by the fire, then after the earthenware is broken it cannot be mended. What this means, let us first consider in general terms, and then, if God grants it, we will examine it word by word. As long as we are in this life, we are being shaped, if I may put it this way, like clay vessels by a potter, and we are shaped either toward evil or toward virtue. But we are shaped in such a way that our wickedness can be broken, so that a new and better creation may come about, and so that our progress, after it has been given form, can be dissolved back into a clay vessel.

1b But when we have passed beyond the present age and come to the end of life, and are then set on fire, either by the fire of the burning arrows of the evil one, whatever we then become, or by the divine fire (for indeed “our God is a consuming fire”), if, I say, we become whatever we become under this fire or that, and if we are broken, whether we are broken and lost after having been good vessels or after having been worthless vessels, we are not made anew, and our make-up admits no improvement. For this reason, as long as we are here, as if in the potter’s hand, even if the vessel slips from his hands, it can be healed and made anew. This much has been said somewhat in a preliminary way, before we examine the rest in the discourse: let it be said of the two kinds of vessels, the clay one which has not yet been hardened into earthenware, and the second one, which has already become earthenware.

2a Let us now look at the words themselves, and at what is said about the clay vessel in the potter’s hand. Let us see how the word in the prophet, the Lord who prophesies in him, gives us other and not small openings for interpreting what happens with the thing formed in the potter’s hand. “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: Rise and go down to the house of the potter.” Jeremiah is above; he has gone up beyond the clay vessels. The clay vessels are below, and the nature that governs the clay vessels, coming down together with those it governs, is below. For this reason the word spoken to Jeremiah from the Lord says to him: “Rise and go down to the house of the potter, and there you will hear my words.” To Moses it is said, “Go up the mountain and hear.” To Jeremiah it is said, “Go down to the house of the potter and hear.” For each one who hears a word is either taught about things higher up or learns about things lower down. If I am being taught about the lower things, I go down in the word, so that I may see the lower things. If I am learning about the higher things, I go up in the word to the higher things, so that I may behold what is there. So that all of you may follow what is said as well as you can, I will use examples from Scripture too, and along with the example I will bring out clearly the interpretation I have given. “At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

2b There is a certain wisdom concerning each of these: wisdom about the heavenly things, how the heavenly things are arranged; wisdom about the things under the earth, since there is also a wisdom of God about the ordering of the things under the earth; and likewise about the things on earth. If I am going to take in the wisdom about the heavenly things, I go up to the heavens, as Moses went up to the top of the mountain, so that the voice from heaven might be heard by him, as it is written. For he was about to be taught heavenly forms of worship. There is a shadow and a pattern of heavenly mysteries in the written laws of worship, as the apostle taught when he said: “They serve a pattern and shadow of the heavenly things.” So just as I go up when I am about to be taught about the heavenly things, in the same way, if I need to learn about the things under the earth, even if I have become a prophet, I go down. And perhaps for this reason Samuel, when he was taught the things under the earth, went down below and came to be in Hades. He was not condemned to be in Hades, but became a scout and an observer of the mysteries under the earth. The things the apostle says about wisdom may be of this kind too, distinguished by the knowing of “what is the breadth and length and depth and height.” If you are going to know the height, you go up in the word to the height. If you are going to know what lies between the height and the depth, you know the breadth and the length. The mind that is able to follow the Son of God, led by the word that teaches about everything, reaches everywhere. And it follows him by renouncing the world and taking up the cross. For the one who can follow Jesus is the one who can say: “The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

2c This saying needs some comfort and explanation: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there you will hear my words.” It has to be compared with the saying, “Go up, and you will hear my words.” Some of those who hear go up in order to be taught, though they do not necessarily go up in the body. Others go down while their soul stays on high, in order to see the Word who is highest speaking about the lowest things. My Lord Jesus Christ himself has gone up and has come down: “The one who went up is the same one who came down, far above all the heavens.” So if you too intend to understand the one who went up to the highest place, the Word who speaks about the highest things, and to grasp the one who came down to the lowest places, who teaches about the lowest things, then “do not say, Who will go up into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down), “or, Who will go down into the abyss?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). “But what does the Scripture say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” Through this word you go up into heaven. The word is near you concerning the ascent, and the word is near you concerning the lowest things. What else could this be but the Word, whom the holy person can have within himself everywhere? For “the kingdom of heaven is within you.”

3 So the prophet goes down to the potter’s house and tells what he saw. He says: “And behold, he was doing work with his hands, and the vessel that he was making in the clay fell apart in his hands. And he made it again into another vessel, as it pleased him to make it.” But I do not know what the prophet saw when he was at the potter’s. He saw the potter working. The vessel being made was of clay. The vessel fell apart. Why exactly did he not say, “He let the vessel go from his hand,” or lay the blame on the potter? It is because the passage is about living vessels, which fall apart through their own doing. That is why it says, “The vessel fell apart from his hands.” So pay attention to yourself as well. You are in the hands of the potter and are still being shaped. Take care that you do not, through your own fault, fall out of his hands. No one snatches anyone “out of his hands,” as it is said in the Gospel according to John. But it is not written that, just as no one snatches, so no one falls out of his hands. For free will is free. And I say: no one will snatch anyone from the hand of the shepherd, and no one can take us from the hand of God. But we ourselves, if we are careless, can fall out of his hands.

4 “And the word of the Lord came to me: Shall I not be able to do with you, house of Israel, as this potter does? says the Lord.” Each person understands what is written according to his ability. One takes its meaning more on the surface, as if drawing from a spring on level ground. Another goes deeper, as if drawing up water from a well. Both can be helped, since the same thing is a spring to one and a well to the other. The Gospel bears witness to this when it tells the story of the Samaritan woman. There the same thing is called both “spring” and “well,” sometimes one and sometimes the other. Let anyone who is able consider this closely, so as to see that what is the same in substance is a spring to the shallower view and a well to the deeper. This is my introduction to the explanation that is coming, concerning the clay vessel that fell from the potter’s hand and was shaped again. Some have looked at this more simply and understood it that way. I will set before you their account and explanation. After that, if we have something deeper, we will explain that too. They say that what is shown here may be the resurrection. If the clay vessel fell from the potter’s hands and he makes “another vessel” from the same material, the same clay, “as it pleased him,” then God, the potter of our bodies and the craftsman who built us, can do the same. When this body falls apart and is broken for whatever reason, he can take it up again, renew it, and make it more beautiful and better, “another vessel, as it pleased him to make.” Let this explanation also have its due.

5a Let us listen to the Lord himself as he explains and says: “Shall I not be able to do with you, house of Israel, as this potter does? says the Lord. Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hands. At one moment I will speak against a nation and a kingdom, to uproot them and destroy them; and that nation will turn back from the evils about which I spoke to it, and I will change my mind about the evils I had planned to do to them. And at another moment I will speak concerning a nation and a kingdom, that it be built up and planted; and they will do evil in my sight and not listen to my voice, and I will change my mind about the good things I said I would do for them, says the Lord.” We see that this passage about the potter’s house does not refer to any individual, but to two nations. For at the start he says he is going to speak about nations, to hint something to those who are able to hear unspeakable mysteries: “At one moment I will speak against a nation.” Look for the “moment” and for the first nation, against whom he speaks of destruction because of their sins. Yet even after speaking of destruction because of their sins, he still promises that if they repent, he will change his mind about the evils he said he would do to them. Then again he speaks about a second nation, that a whole nation be “built up and planted.” And since this nation, which is being built up and planted, has a good promise but is able to sin, he says, after saying these things, that if they fall away from good works, “I will change my mind about the good things I said I would do for them.” Who, then, are the two nations: the first one named, against which the word utters a threat, and the second, to which a promise is made? He threatens in such a way that, if they repent, he will not carry out the threat. He promises in such a way that, if the second nation falls away and proves unworthy of the promises, it will not obtain them.

5b The whole plan of God for the people of the world is set out above all with regard to two nations. The first nation was Israel; the second, since the coming of Christ, is this nation of ours. To the first, God made the threats he made, and we see what became of the threats against the first nation. They have been taken into captivity; their city was razed; the holy place was torn down; the altar was thrown down; nothing of their ancient sacred things is still preserved among them. For God said to that nation: Repent; and they did not repent. After this had been said to them, God speaks to this second nation about its being built up. But he sees that this nation too consists of human beings who can fall away again. For this reason he threatens this nation also, and says: Even though I have spoken beforehand about the building, the planting, and the cultivation, this nation too is going to sin; and if it sins, the same things that were said to those others because of their sins will happen to it, and they will suffer them unless they repent. Search the whole Scripture, and you will find that most of what is said concerns these two nations. God chose the fathers and gave them a promise. He brought out of Egypt a people from the fathers’ stock. He was patient with them when they sinned. He trained them as a father does. He brought them in and gave them the land of promise. He sent them prophets at the proper times; he disciplined them and turned them back from their sins. He was patient, always sending those who would heal them, until the chief physician came: the prophet who surpasses prophets, the physician who surpasses physicians. When he came, they betrayed and killed him, saying, “Away with him, away with him from the earth! Crucify him, crucify him!” Immediately visitation came upon the nation. The place where my Jesus was crucified was made desolate, and God chose another nation. See how great the harvest is, even if the workers are few.

5c God also arranges things in another way. The net is always being cast into the sea of this life, and fish of every kind are gathered. He sends out “the many fishermen.” He sends out “the many hunters,” and they hunt on “every mountain” and on “every hill.” See how great a plan there is for the salvation of the nations. “See then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward” the first nation, which fell; but toward you, the second nation, promises and “kindness, if you continue in the kindness; for you also will be cut off.” For the axe did not lie at the root of the trees only at that time. The axe is ready to come again. “The axe lies at the root of the trees” — that is what my Jesus said then, prophesying about Israel, among whom the axe was present. He himself was the axe for the unfruitful tree, and he said, “Already the axe lies at the root of the trees.” All the trees there that bore no fruit were cut down, thrown into the fire, and punished. But now another field has come into being, corresponding to the first, of which it was said: “Bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance, in your prepared dwelling place.” God has brought his nation in to the mountain of his inheritance. As for the mountain, I do not look for it as the Jews do, among lifeless woods. The mountain is Christ. In him we were planted; on him we have been kept safe. So take care. Even if God is patient, the master of the house may come and say, “For three years now I have been coming to this fig tree, and it has borne no fruit. Cut it down. Why should it also use up the ground?” For the one who comes to the gathering and bears no fruit is using up good ground, Christ, the mystery of the church.

6a “At the end I will speak concerning a nation or a kingdom.” The word “end” might seem to be used casually. But it is said with a particular meaning. In the phrase “I will speak concerning a nation or a kingdom,” the “end” is of this kind: to the first nation the “end” is spoken as “I will tear down,” and to the second nation, “I will build you up.” Again, “I will uproot” is said to the first, and “I will plant” to the second. Now, since the “end” has been spoken, must the end therefore happen? According to Scripture, God, who does not change his mind, is said to change his mind. Let us pay attention to the wording, so that, if we are able to give an answer about how these things are said, we may accept the passage. “At the end I will speak,” he says, “concerning a nation or a kingdom, to remove them and destroy them; and if that nation turns from the evils that I spoke against it, I will also change my mind about the evils that I planned to do to them. And at the end I will speak concerning a nation or a kingdom, to build it up and plant it; and they will do evil in my sight so as not to hear my voice, and I will change my mind about the good things that I spoke of doing to them.” We are required to give an answer about God’s change of mind. For changing one’s mind seems to be a fault, and unworthy not only of God but even of a wise man. I cannot imagine a wise man changing his mind. As the word is commonly used, the one who changes his mind does so because he has not planned well. But God, who foreknows what is to come, cannot have planned badly and therefore change his mind. How then does Scripture bring him in saying “I will change my mind”? And I am not yet saying that in the books of Kingdoms it is written, “I regret that I anointed Saul as king,” and that it is said of him in general, “and changing his mind about evils.” But see what we are taught about God in general.

6b Take note of what we are taught about God in general. In one place we read, “God is not like a man, to be threatened, nor like a son of man, to be warned.” From that saying we learn that God is not like a man. But another passage teaches that God is like a man. It says, “The Lord your God disciplined you, as a man might discipline his son,” and again, “he bore with his ways as a man bears with his son.” So when the Scriptures speak of God as he is in himself, and do not mix his dealings with human affairs, they say he is not like a man. “Of his greatness there will be no end,” and “he is to be feared above all gods,” and “Praise him, all you angels of God; praise him, all his powers; praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you stars and light.” If you gather up the sacred writings, you would find countless other passages to which you can apply “God is not like a man.” But when the divine ordering of things is woven into human affairs, it takes on a human mind, manner and language. Think of how we speak to a two-year-old child: we lisp for the child’s sake. If we kept up the dignity of grown men and spoke to children without coming down to their way of talking, the children could not understand. Think of God in the same way when he deals with the human race, and especially with those who are still infants. Notice how we who are grown men change our words for babies. We give bread a special name for them, and we call drinking by another word. We do not use the speech we use with grown people our own age, but some other childish, baby-like word. And if we name their clothes for the children, we give those a different name too, as though inventing a child’s name.

6c Are we then imperfect at such times? And if someone overheard us talking with children, would he say, “This old man has become a fool; this man has forgotten his beard and his grown age”? Or is it allowed, in accommodating ourselves to a child, not to speak the language of an elder or of a fully grown person, but a child’s language? God also speaks to children. The Savior says, “Behold, I and the children whom God gave me.” It could be said to the old man who speaks to the child like a child (or, to put it more strongly, like a baby): “You have borne your son’s ways; you have put on the baby’s manner and taken up his condition.” Understand the Scripture in the same way when it says, “The Lord your God bore your ways, as a man might bear the ways of his son.” Those who translated from the Hebrew seem not to have found this word in use among the Greeks. As in many other cases, they fashioned it themselves and made up “he bore your ways” (that is, he put on your ways), “as a man might bear his son’s ways” (following the example I have given). So since we repent, when God speaks to us while we are repenting, he says, “I repent.” And when he threatens us, he does not pretend to be one who foreknows, but threatens as one speaking to babies. He does not make a show of having known “all things before they came to be.” Rather, if I may put it this way, he plays the part of the baby and pretends not even to know what is going to happen. So he threatens a nation for its sins and says, “If the nation repents, I also will repent.” O God, when you threatened, did you not know whether the nation would repent or not? And what of when you made your promise? Did you not know whether the man, or the nation to whom the word was spoken, would stay worthy of the promises or not?

6d But he does not pretend to know. You could find many such human-sounding expressions in Scripture, such as: “Speak to the sons of Israel; perhaps they will listen and repent.” God did not say “perhaps they will listen” as though he were in doubt. God does not doubt, so that he should say “perhaps they will listen and repent.” He says it to show you at length your own free will, so that you will not say: “If he foreknew that I would be lost, I must be lost; if he foreknew that I would be saved, I must by all means be saved.” So he does not pretend to know what is going to happen with you, in order to preserve your free will by not having settled beforehand, or foreknown, whether you will repent or not. And he says to the prophet, “Speak, perhaps they will repent.” You will find countless other things like this said about God bearing the ways of man. If you hear of God’s wrath and his anger, do not suppose that wrath and anger are passions in God. They are arrangements of the use of words, meant to turn the infant around and make him better. We too put on a fearsome face for children, not out of our real disposition but as a matter of management. If we kept the gentleness of our soul toward the infant in our face, and showed him the tender affection we have for him, without turning ourselves aside or, so to speak, changing ourselves for the sake of his turning around, we would ruin him and make him worse. So in the same way God is said to be angry, and he says he is furious, so that you may turn and be made better. And truly he is neither angry nor furious; but you will experience what belongs to anger and fury, when, because of your wickedness, you fall into hardships that are hard to bear, whenever he disciplines you with what is called the wrath of God.

7 Next, after the account of the two nations, the first to which the threat is given and the second to which the promise is given, he says (evidently speaking to the first group): “And now speak to the men of Judah and to those living in Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am shaping evils against you.” Because these things that I am shaping against you are in my hand, they can fall through. Make them fall from my hand, so that I may change the evils I am shaping against you and make them good. You would not find it said: “Look, I am shaping good things against you,” with the corresponding things following, so as then to show that he lets the good things he is shaping fall from his hands in order to make them evil. No, he shapes evils according to the example already given, and in shaping evils he is managing things. (Leaving aside the interpretation already given for “it fell from my hands.”) The point is that if it falls, I do not know what the end of the evils being shaped will turn out to be.

8a “Let each one turn back from his evil way, and make your practices better.” Sometimes the simpler folk say: “Blessed are the people of old, because they heard the Lord speaking through the prophet”: “And the Lord spoke to them.” But the Lord also says to us now, through what is written, “Let each one turn back from his evil way.” The Lord himself speaks with you, saying: “And make your practices better.” But those to whom the words of exhortation about repentance were spoken gave an answer. Let us see what they answered, so that we do not give such answers ourselves. What do they say in reply? “We will be brave, for we will go after our own turnings away, and each of us will do what is pleasing to his evil heart.” Even if you do not say it in words, if your life is such that you sin, then by your wicked actions after the words of exhortation you are saying the same thing in effect: “We will be brave, for we will go after our own turnings away, and each of us will do what is pleasing to his evil heart.” What is “we will go after our turnings away”? There are those who began to put [their hand to the plough] and to [take hold of] the good, and then turned away from it into worthless things. So whenever someone puts [his hand to the plough] and turns back, he will go “after his turnings away.” For he will go after those things he turned away from, and runs back to those sins which he had abandoned.

8b So consider those who hear these words. Some are catechumens who have left the Gentile way of life. Others are believers who have already made progress in “stretching forward to what lies ahead.” If their life has become wicked, they are saying nothing other than this: “We will go after our turnings back, and each of us will do what pleases his heart.” And note that it is not just any heart, but “his evil heart.” For there is an evil heart, and there is a good heart. So let no one go “after his turnings back,” and let no one do “what pleases his evil heart.” “Therefore,” the Lord says to those who answer this way, “ask among the nations: who has heard such dreadful things as the virgin Israel has done, and done to excess?” This too may seem to have been said without any deeper meaning. But consider the church that comes from the nations. [The text here is corrupt; the sense seems to be that it is addressed among the nations, and that it will be said:] “Ask among the nations; hear what dreadful things the virgin Israel has done, and done to excess.” Let us compare the life of those who sinned with the life of those who turned and believed, and we will see the difference. Those people did dreadful things, for they killed “the Lord of glory.” These others, though those people did dreadful things, turned to him, who was put to death and died at their hands for the sins of the world. So “ask among the nations: who has heard such dreadful things as the virgin Israel has done, and done to excess?”

9a “Will breasts fail from the rock, or snow from Lebanon? Or will water carried violently by the wind turn aside? For my people have forgotten me. They burned incense to emptiness, and they will grow weak in their ways, [on] everlasting [lines/ropes], so as to walk on paths that have no road for a journey, so as to hand their land over to desolation and to everlasting hissing.” Here he has spoken of different kinds of water. The first is in the words “Will breasts fail from the rock?” The second is in the words “or snow from Lebanon?” The third is in the words “Will water carried violently by the wind turn aside?” These three kinds of water are the springs of water for which the soul of the righteous longs, as it is likened to the deer. So each one may say: “As the deer longs for the springs of water, so my soul longs for you, O God.” Who, then, has become like the deer, an enemy of the race of snakes, and untouched by their venom, as the story is told of the deer? Who has thirsted for God so much that he can say, “My soul has thirsted for the living God”? Who has so thirsted for the breasts of the rock? “And the rock was Christ.” Who has so thirsted for the Holy Spirit that he can say, “As the deer longs for the springs of water, so my soul longs for you, O God”? If we do not thirst for the three springs of water, we will not find even one spring of water. The Jews seemed to thirst for one spring of water, God. But because they did not thirst for Christ and the Holy Spirit, they have nothing to drink even from God. Those from the heresies seemed to thirst for Christ Jesus. But because they did not thirst for the Father, who is the God of the law and the prophets, for that reason they do not drink even from Jesus Christ.

9b Others hold to one God but despise the prophecies. They have not thirsted for the Holy Spirit who is in the prophets. For that reason they will not drink from the Father’s spring either, or from the one who cried out in the temple and said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.” So the “breasts” do not “fail from the rock.” It is those people who “forsook the spring of living water.” The spring of living water did not forsake them. God puts himself far from no one. Rather, “those who put themselves far from him will perish.” God draws near to some, and he meets the one who comes to him. When the son who had eaten up his property came back, his father met him. And God promises through the prophets, “I will be nearer to them than the tunic is to their skin.” For he says, “I am a God who draws near, and not a God far off, says the Lord.” So the “breasts” will not “fail from the rock.” These are the waters of Jesus. Nor will “the snow from Lebanon” fail. These are the waters of the Father. For “frankincense” (libanos) is the sacred incense according to the law of God, and it is offered on the altar, “pure frankincense, in equal measure.” The mountain has the same name as this frankincense, and snow comes down from Lebanon, just as the water of the Holy Spirit does. About that water it is said, “Will water carried violently by the wind turn aside?” For it is indeed carried by the wind. The water of the Holy Spirit does not “turn aside” and does not flee. Rather, each of us, when we sin, becomes a runaway from drinking of the Holy Spirit.

10 “For my people have forgotten me; they have burned incense in vain.” Everyone who sins has forgotten God. But the righteous man says, “All this has come upon us, and we have not forgotten you, nor have we acted unjustly,” and he has not burned incense in vain. We must understand what “they burned incense in vain” means. If we take up again what was said earlier on the hundred and fortieth Psalm, we will see what “they burned incense in vain” is. In that Psalm something like this was said: “Let my prayer be set before you like incense.” So my prayer is a compound [made of?] . . . a fine and delicate heart. When our heart is not made thick and heavy, the prayer sent up becomes like incense before God. If then the prayer of the righteous man is incense before God, the prayer of the unrighteous man is also incense, but incense of such a kind that it can be said of it and of the unrighteous man praying, “They burned incense in vain.” It is like what is written about Judas: “Let his prayer become sin.” In praying, he burned incense in vain. Let us understand still more who it is that burns incense in vain. “Three times a year,” it says, “every male of yours shall appear before the Lord your God.” Right after this it adds, “You shall not appear before me empty.” So of those who come, [the text breaks off here; the Greek that follows is lost.]

Homily 19

10 . . . [the beginning is lost] . . . of the meaning of Scripture, which comes upon an eye able to take in the clarity of the sacred writings. I have said these things by way of introduction, to stir up and rouse both myself and those who are listening to pay attention to what has been read. Let us ask that Jesus come and appear to us, and that he teach us now what is written here. 11a “Jeremiah prophesied. And Pashhur son of Immer, the priest, heard the words of the prophecy.” Many others, we may suppose, heard Jeremiah, at least as far as the plain sequence of the prophecy goes, yet no one else is recorded as having heard him so readily except Pashhur. The Scripture took care to say whose son he was: Immer’s. It also says that he held the office of priest, and what rank he had among the people: he was appointed chief officer of the house of the Lord at the time when Jeremiah was prophesying these words. It is recorded that when Pashhur heard the words of this prophecy, he struck Jeremiah. Nor was he content with striking him; he also threw him into a kind of pit [or: stocks, cistern, a “cataract”]. The Scripture took care to say where this pit was: at the Gate of Benjamin. It was in a place where there was an upper room, and an upper room belonging to nothing other than the house of the Lord. The Holy Spirit recorded that these things happened to Jeremiah because of his prophecy, and that they were done by Pashhur. Then it says: on the next day Pashhur brought Jeremiah out of the pit. And Jeremiah, once brought out, said to Pashhur: the Lord did not give you the name Pashhur. Another name has been set on you. As Jacob was given Israel, as Abram was given Abraham, as Sarah was given Sarra, so he has given you the name Exile [or: Sojourner]. And the reason he has called you Exile is that the Lord says: “See, I am giving you over to exile, together with all”—with whom? Not with your wife, your sons and your daughters, but with your friends. And when you are given over to exile, your friends will fall by the sword. Then, as though there were a difference for those who fall by the sword, whether they fall by the sword of enemies or by the sword of others, it says that the friends of the man who threw Jeremiah into the pit will fall by the sword of their enemies.

11b “And your eyes,” it says, “will see these things that are prophesied. But I will give you and all Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon,” after your friends have suffered these things. They will carry them off into exile in Babylon and cut them down. For they will cut down the king of Judah and the people of Judah with the sword, and this time the words “of their enemies” are no longer added, as they were in the earlier case of those who were called friends of Pashhur. Then it says: “And I will give all the strength of this city, and all the treasures of the king of Judah, and all the labors of this city into the hands of their enemies.” The enemies will plunder the treasures, take what has been mentioned, and lead Judah and its king away to Babylon. “And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, go into captivity in Babylon. There you will die, and there you will be buried, you and all your friends to whom you prophesied lies.” The whole passage needed to be cut short and made clear. I am not yet speaking of its deep meaning (if we are able to take that in at all), but only of its wording and the plain statement itself. Even an ordinary reader, who looks carefully at the letters and does not read casually, can understand it that far. What then do these words intend? Here is the struggle: to set out the purpose of these writings. And I admit that on my own I cannot explain them. I need, as I said before, the appearing of the power of Jesus, in so far as he is wisdom, in so far as he is word, in so far as he is truth, so that his appearing may make light upon the face of my soul.

12a [The text is missing here.] The magicians of the Egyptians also had staffs, which were meant to discredit the staffs of Moses and Aaron as not coming from God. But the staffs that come from God overturn those of the sophists and magicians: “Aaron’s swallowed them up.” For his staff was enough for this even without the staff of Moses. So Pashhur “struck Jeremiah the prophet,” and he did it in keeping with his character: “and he struck Jeremiah the prophet.” The words “the prophet” are added as well. Here, then, the man who struck Jeremiah struck the prophet. It is also recorded in Acts that someone struck Paul, ordered to do so by Ananias the high priest. That is why Paul said, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall.” Even to this day the Ebionites, commanded by a lawless high priest of the word, strike the apostle of Jesus Christ with abusive words. And Paul says to such a high priest of the word, “God is going to strike you.” Such a high priest looks handsome on the outside, and is a whitewashed wall. Christ says: “I gave my back to the whips, my cheeks to the slaps, and I did not turn my face away from the shame of spitting.”

12b Simple believers understand this as referring only to that one time, when Pilate scourged him and the Jews plotted against him. But I see Jesus every day “giving his back to the whips.” Go into the synagogues of the Jews, and see Jesus being scourged by them with the tongue of blasphemy. See those gathered from the nations, plotting against Christians, working out how they may seize Jesus; and he “gives his own back to the whips.” Consider the Word of God being insulted, slandered, hated by unbelievers. See that “he gave his cheeks to slaps.” He taught that if someone strikes you on the cheek, you should turn the other as well, and he does this himself. So many strike and scourge him, and he is silent and does not speak. For it is written that he did not speak while he was being scourged. And to this day Jesus has not “turned his face away from the shame of spitting.” Who among those who treat the teaching with contempt does not, in a sense, spit even now on Jesus, who puts up with it?

13a Now that the prophet has been struck, it follows that we should tell of others who were struck, such as the apostle and anyone else who has been struck, and so set beside them what concerns Jesus himself. So “Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and threw him into the cataract that was in the gate of Benjamin of the upper room.” The cataract belonged to the upper room of Benjamin. Jerusalem, where God’s temple stands, is in the inheritance of Benjamin. Anyone who can listen to the divine readings will find this in the inheritance as recorded in the book of Joshua son of Nun. Since the temple was in the inheritance of Benjamin, whose name means “Son of the right hand” (for nothing about the temple of God is on the left), he threw him “into the cataract that was in the gate of Benjamin of the upper room of the house of the Lord.” Since there was an “upper room in the house of the Lord,” he “threw” the prophet “into the cataract.” Let us also pray that we may now take Jeremiah and bring him up into the upper room “in the house of the Lord.” I will show from Scripture that the upper room stands for the mind that is high and lifted up, because Scripture bears witness of the saints that they received the prophets into upper rooms. In the third book of Kingdoms it is recorded that a widow received Elijah the prophet at Zarephath in the region of Sidon, and she lodged the prophet “in her upper room.” And in the fourth book, the woman who received Elisha prepared a room for him in the upper chamber. The sinner Ahaziah, on the other hand, fell from the upper room. Jesus also commands you not to come down from the housetop. For he says that when such and such things happen, “then let the one on the housetop not come down to take what is in his house.” The one who flees in persecutions is not forbidden to go up onto the housetop; he is told not to “come down from the housetop to take what is in his house.” It is good, then, to be in upper rooms, good to be on housetops and to find oneself somewhere high up. And the wonderful apostles too, as it is recorded of them in Acts, when they were together and devoted themselves to prayer and to the word of God, were in an upper room.

13b And because they were in an upper room, they were not down below. That is why “tongues as of fire appeared to them, distributing themselves.” Peter also, when he was sending up his prayer to God, “went up on the roof.” If he had not gone up on the roof, he would not have seen “a vessel coming down from heaven, like a linen sheet, let down from heaven by four corners.” And she who did the acts of charity, “Tabitha, which when translated is called Dorcas,” was not down below either, but “in the upper room.” Peter went up there and raised her from the dead. Jesus also was about to celebrate this feast, of which we keep the symbol in the Passover, with his disciples. They asked him, “Where do you want us to prepare the Passover for you?” He said, “As you go, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. He will show you a large upper room, spread with couches, swept and ready. Prepare the Passover there.” So no one who keeps the Passover [as Jesus does, with Jesus] is down below. He is up in a large upper room, a swept upper room, an upper room that is adorned and ready. And if you go up with him to celebrate the Passover, he gives you the cup of the new covenant. He gives you the bread of blessing as well, and he freely gives you his own body and his own blood. For this reason we urge you: “Go up to the height; lift up your eyes on high.” And as for me, if I teach the divine word, the Word says: “Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good news to Zion. Lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good news to Jerusalem. Lift it up, do not be afraid.” I say all this because of Pashhur. There was “an upper room in the house of the Lord, at the gate of Benjamin,” right at hand. Yet he did not bring the prophet up to the upper room. Instead he “threw him into the cataract,” down below.

14a “And it happened on the next day that Pashhur brought Jeremiah out of the cataract.” O Lord Jesus, come again! Make these things clear to me, and to those who have come for spiritual food. How is it that “on the next day” he brings “Jeremiah out of the cataract”? For as long as today lasts (and “today” is this whole present age), the sinner throws the prophet down into the cataract. But when the present day stops and tomorrow comes, then he repents and brings him out of the cataract. Then Jeremiah tells him what Pashhur will suffer. What does he say to him? “The Lord has not called your name Pashhur, but Migrant. For thus says the Lord.” This Pashhur, as his sins deserve, is going to be carried off to Babylon. He will not go alone but with his friends. For he is handed over to Nebuchadnezzar, goes off into Confusion, and is punished for his sins, because he “threw the prophet into the cataract.” Who, then, are the friends of Pashhur, whose name goes with the blackness of the mouth? They are all who accepted his words, who were blackened together with his blackened mouth, who took in the teachings of blackness. “And they will fall by the sword of their enemies.” Those appointed over the punishments are the ones who hold the swords and [drink and] make them fall. The Word prophesies about them and says, “And your eyes will see.” These things that are prophesied, he says, “your eyes will see.” “And I will give you and all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon.” Whoever in Judah is found so sinful as to be worthy of the king of Babylon, of Confusion, will be handed over to him. And the king of Babylon takes those who sin. By the historical account the king of Babylon is Nebuchadnezzar, but by the deeper meaning he is the evil one. The sinner is handed over to him, since he is both an enemy and an avenger.

14b That the sinner is handed over to him, let Paul teach you. In one place he speaks about Phygelus and Hermogenes: “whom I handed over to the one who had committed fornication” [the text seems confused here]. Elsewhere he says: “When you are gathered together, and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to hand such a person over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of [the mouth Melania, into the hands of the king of Babylon, and they carry him off to Babylon].” [The last words are garbled in the Greek and mix Paul’s text with Jeremiah’s.] “And they will cut them down with the sword. And I will give all the strength of this city.” It is easy to say that this is prophesied about Jerusalem. All its strength, and everything brought into it, was then handed over to the king of the Babylonians. It is easy to say that this is prophesied about “this city,” which in the days of the Savior was handed over to its enemies. The sons of Jerusalem went into captivity, and the city was torn down. But if you examine the matter and look at the city as made not of stones but of people, you will see that those people, that Jerusalem, were handed over “into the hands of the king of Babylon” because of their impiety and sin against Christ. And you are Jerusalem now. So if the word now threatens Jerusalem, be afraid. If you sin, you are a sinful Jerusalem, and you may be handed over, so that you are no longer Jerusalem but become Babylon and Confusion, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonians, takes you. “And all the labors” of Jerusalem he hands over. How does he hand over “all the labors”? If after training and struggling you fall away and sin, all your labors have come into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. How are they all your labors? If you fall after toiling much for the truth, it will be said to you: “Did you suffer so many things for nothing?” Those who know that they have drawn up many labors for virtue’s sake ought especially to be afraid. They should fear that, [when they have become Jerusalem] and some sin has happened, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, may [take] their labors.

14c To help you see more clearly how Nebuchadnezzar takes the labors of Jerusalem when she sins, I will use what is written in Ezekiel, which reads like this: “If the righteous man turns away from his righteous deeds and commits a transgression, I will not remember his righteous deeds which he did.” Why? Because Nebuchadnezzar takes the righteous deeds that were done with labor, and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, wipes them out. “And all the honor” of Jerusalem he takes. This is when a person has been given honor by God, and “being in honor” “did not understand” and sinned. So if you know you are in honor, and you were called to that honor, and then you dishonor yourself again through your sins, the Babylonian king takes the honor of Jerusalem. “And all the treasures of the king of Judah.” Jerusalem is rich, but if she sins, the Babylonian takes her treasures. “And they will plunder them and take them and bring them to Babylon. And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, go into captivity in Babylon, and there you will die, and there you will be buried.” The one caught in Confusion dies in Babylon. And the one who is set against being buried together with Christ is buried in Babylon. For there is also a good burial with Christ, through baptism, as in “we were buried with Christ, and we were raised with him.” Being buried with Christ is a mystery. In the same way it is a mystery, [when it happens] through lawlessness, for someone who is a sinner to be buried in Babylon. “And all your friends,” he says, “to whom you prophesied lies, will go there.” Whoever explains the words of God badly, and throws the prophetic words into the pit, does prophesy, but he prophesies lies. For when someone explains the prophetic words, if he speaks truly, he himself also prophesies, and prophesies true things. But if he lies, he is a false prophet, speaking falsely about the prophetic words.

15a Now the first passage is finished, so let us begin the second. Right from its opening words it contains matters of no small importance. As we pay attention to the text, let us again ask Jesus to come. Let us urge him to come more visibly and more brightly, so that when he comes he may teach all of us whether the prophet was speaking the truth in what follows, as we ought to think of a prophet, or was lying, which it is not right to say of a holy prophet. He says to God: “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived. You took hold of me and you prevailed. I became a laughingstock; all day long I have gone on being mocked. For I will laugh at my bitter word; I will call upon faithlessness and misery. For the word of the Lord has become a reproach to me and a mockery all day long. And I said, I will not name the name of the Lord, and I will not speak any more in his name. And it became in my heart like a burning fire, blazing in my bones. I am worn out on every side and cannot bear it, for I heard the slander of many gathering around me.” They were obviously saying: “Rise up, and let us rise up against him, you men who are his friends. Watch for his scheme, to see whether he will be deceived. Then we will be able to overcome him and take our vengeance on him.” But while they were saying these things, the prophet says: “And the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior. Therefore they pursued, and they could not understand. They were greatly ashamed, because they did not understand their dishonors, which will never be forgotten.” This is the second passage of the reading. How, then, can the prophet say, “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived”? Does God deceive? I am at a loss how to handle this text. If, out of regard for God and his word, I look for anything fitting to say about him, what I am going to say needs a generous and careful handling. The prophet speaks as one who has ceased to be deceived. He says, “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived,” as though his first schooling and introduction had come to him through deception. It is as though he could not be schooled in the basics and brought into godliness unless he were deceived first, so that later he might come to recognize the deception.

15b One useful example is enough for the matter before us. We speak to children as we guide them. We do not speak to them as to adults. We speak to them as to children who need training. We deceive children by frightening them, so that they stop the undisciplined behavior of children. We frighten them by telling tales of deception, because of what belongs to their childishness. By deception we make them afraid, so that they go to their teachers, recite their lessons, and do what suits the progress of children. We are all children to God, and we need the upbringing that children need. For this reason God, in sparing us, deceives us, even if we do not perceive the deception in time. His purpose is that, once we have grown beyond infancy, we are no longer trained by deception but by actual events. A child is led to fear in one way, and a person who has advanced in age and passed beyond childhood is led in another. For if I am able to guide him by deception [text uncertain], then God who deceives may say, “I will train them by the hearing of their affliction.” I will set out accounts of how God deceives for salvation, and speaks to someone so that the sinner stops doing what he would have done if he had not heard certain words. Take the one who said, “Yet three days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Was he speaking the truth, or was he not speaking the truth, but deceiving with a deception that turns people around? If that turning around had not happened, it would no longer have been a deception but already the truth of what was said, and the overthrow would have followed for Nineveh. It was up to the hearers. Either they were deceived and believed what was said as true, and so were benefited and not overthrown. Or, if what was said had not come true and they had not been deceived but had realized that it would not happen, they would have despised what was said as a deception. Then they would have suffered not “Yet three days and Nineveh will be overthrown,” but, I dare to say, things much harsher than that.

15c For the Ninevites had sinned. If they had not repented, then perhaps “Yet three days and Nineveh will be overthrown” would have happened. But suppose that this had not happened; something worse would have happened: they would have been handed over to eternal fire. For this reason a different punishment is stated in the law for those who are being trained like children. But for those to whom “the fullness of time” has come, other punishments are written down. Compare the punishments of sinners under the law with the punishments of sinners under the gospel, and you will see that those people, like infants, heard of punishments suited to infants, while we, as those who have come of age, hear of harsher punishments. If a man or a woman was an adulterer back then, the threat was not Gehenna, not eternal fire, but this: “he shall be stoned with stones”; “let the whole congregation stone him.” The adulterer found among those people, the adulteress found among them, will say when departing: “If only the word had said this of me as well: the people threw stones at me, and I was not being kept for the eternal fire!” For not only the adulterer but also the one who says to his brother “Fool!” is “liable to the Gehenna of fire.” But if the one who says “Fool!” to his brother “will be liable to the Gehenna of fire,” what will the adulterer be liable to? I look for some punishment greater than the Gehenna of fire. And perhaps I would say that Gehenna is for involuntary sins, for those who can be cleansed. But just as, for the good, the righteous, “what God has prepared for those who love him has not entered the heart of man,” so what he has prepared for sinners, for fornicating and committing adultery, “has not entered the heart of man.” For if what makes the one who says “Fool!” to his brother liable had entered the heart, it is clear that what has been prepared for those who have sinned in worse ways is greater than anything that enters the heart.

15d I cannot conceive of anything greater than Gehenna; I only believe that what has been prepared for adulterers is something greater than Gehenna. In this way I come also to the remaining punishments under the law. And I take an apostolic saying that agrees with these and that stays silent about my punishment if I sin, since I do not want to accept “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived” and be rightly deceived. But what does the apostle say? “Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse a punishment, do you think, will he be thought worthy of who has trampled on the Son of God?” Name the punishment, Paul; tell us what it is. But he says, “I do not state it.” The punishment of those who sin under the gospel is greater than what is said, greater than what is heard, greater than what is imagined. For this reason the prophet was brought in like a child: he heard, and was afraid, and was disciplined, and after this was brought to maturity, saying: “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived.” And you also, as long as you are a child, fear the threats, so that you do not suffer what lies beyond the threats: the eternal punishments, the unquenchable fire, or perhaps something even greater than that, which is laid up for those who have lived beyond the bounds of the right word. May we never experience any of these things. Instead, being brought to maturity in Christ Jesus, may we be justified in a way worthy of the heavenly feasts and of the Passover there, in the ascent in Christ Jesus, to whom belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.