Homilies on Jeremiah 1.0–1.15

Homily 1. When Jeremiah began to prophesy, under which kings he prophesied, and what was said to him next by the Lord.

God is quick to do good, but slow to punish those who deserve punishment. Though he could bring punishment on those he condemns in silence, without first testifying against them, he never does so; even when he condemns, he speaks, and his purpose in speaking is to turn the one about to be condemned away from the condemnation. There are many examples of this to be taken from the Scriptures, but a few that come to hand will suffice, so that we may come to the purpose of the readings before us. The Ninevites had become sinners and were condemned by God: in three more days Nineveh was to be overthrown. God did not wish to condemn it in silence, but, giving them room for repentance and conversion, he sent a prophet, so that when he said, “Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” those who had been condemned might not be condemned, but might repent and obtain God's mercy. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah had been condemned, as is clear from God's words to Abraham; yet the angels did their part, wishing those who did not wish to be saved to be saved, and saying to Lot, “Have you any sons-in-law here, or sons, or daughters?” They knew well that those men would not follow Lot, but they were acting from their own kindness and love for humankind and from that of him who sent them.

You will find the same thing in the case of Jeremiah. The time of his prophecy is recorded, when he began and until when he prophesied. Then the reader, if he does not attend to the reading or examine the purpose of what is written, will say that this is history, and it has been recorded when Jeremiah began to prophesy and after how long a time of prophesying he stopped. “What is this history to me? I have read it; I have learned that he began to prophesy ‘in the days of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign’; then ‘it came in the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah,’ as he prophesied ‘until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah.’ And I have learned that his prophecy stretched over three kings, ‘until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.’” What, then, are we taught through these things, if we attend to the reading?

God condemned Jerusalem for its sins, and they had been sentenced to be abandoned to captivity. Nevertheless God, who loves humankind, when the time was at hand, sends this prophet too, from the third reign before the captivity, so that those who were willing might take heed and repent because of the prophetic words. He sent the prophet to prophesy both under the second king after the first and under the third, until the very time of the captivity. For God, who is long-suffering, was granting a respite even one day, so to speak, before the captivity, urging the hearers to repent so that the gloomy things of the captivity might cease. That is why it is written that Jeremiah prophesied “until the captivity of Jerusalem, until the fifth month.” It had begun, and still he was prophesying, as though saying: “You have become captives; even so, repent; for if you repent, the things of the captivity will not advance, but the mercy of God will stand over you.” So we have something useful from the record that gives the times of the prophecy: that God in his love for humankind urges his hearers not to suffer the things of captivity. Such things concern us too. If we sin, we too are going to become captives. For “to hand such a one over to Satan” differs in nothing from handing over the people of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar; for as they were handed over to him for their sins, so we are handed over for our sins to Satan, who is a Nebuchadnezzar. And “whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may be taught not to blaspheme,” says the apostle about other sinners.

See, then, how great an evil it is to sin, that people are handed over to Satan, who takes captive the souls of those abandoned by God; and God does not abandon without cause or without judgment those whom he has abandoned. For when he sends rain upon the vineyard, and the vineyard bears thorns instead of grapes, what will God do but “command the clouds not to rain” upon the vineyard? Because of our sins captivity hangs over us too, and unless we repent we are going to be handed over to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, so that the spiritual Babylonians may tear us apart. While these things hang over us, the words of the prophets, the words of the law, the words of the apostles, the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ speak to us of repentance and summon us to conversion. If we listen, let us believe him who said, “I too will repent of all the evils that I spoke of doing to them.” So much for the introduction.

After the introduction it is written that “the word of the Lord came to him,” that is, clearly, to Jeremiah. And what does the word of the Lord say to him? Something exceptional, beyond what was said to the other prophets; for we have found this said to none of the prophets. Abraham was called a prophet, in “He is a prophet and will pray for you,” yet God did not say to him, “Before I formed you in the womb I know you, and before you came out of the womb I have sanctified you.” Rather, Abraham was sanctified at some later time, when he went out of his land and his kindred and his father's house. Isaac was born by promise, and we have not found this word said even to him. And why need I list the ones that follow? Jeremiah received an exceptional gift: “Before I formed you in the womb I know you, and before you came out of the womb I have sanctified you.”

We are not unaware that some refer these words, as being too great for Jeremiah, to our Savior and Lord. And one should know that most of them fit him and can be referred to the Savior, as I shall set out; but a few of the things said to Jeremiah press hard on this interpretation, since they cannot, in the view of most, apply to the Savior. Which, then, are the ones that fit the Savior? “To all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid before them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” These might not yet seem to be referred to the Savior; but what follows, “And the Lord stretched out his hand to me and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. Behold, I have set you today over nations and kingdoms, to root out and to pull down,” presses hard on the interpretation that refers them to Jeremiah. What nations did he root out? What kingdoms did he overthrow? For it is written, “Behold, I have set you today over nations and kingdoms, to root out and to pull down.” And what authority did Jeremiah have “to destroy,” which is said to Jeremiah in “and to destroy”? And whom did Jeremiah build up, so many that it could be said “and to build”? Jeremiah says, “I have not profited, nor has anyone profited me.” How then was it given to him “to build and to plant”? How will “to plant” fit Jeremiah? These words, referred to the Savior, do not press hard on the interpreter, since in them Jeremiah is a symbol of the Savior. But the words about to be set out press very hard even on the most intelligent man who wishes to show how they too can fit the Savior: “And I said: O Master, Lord, who are, behold, I do not know how to speak.” He who is wisdom, he who is power, brought us “the fullness of the Godhead” which “dwelt in him bodily”; how then can “I do not know how to speak” fit the Savior? And further, “I am too young” is forbidden to the Savior as something he said wrongly; for if the Lord says to him, “Do not say this,” clearly he forbids it as something not rightly said. These words, then, do not fit the Savior, while the former do not seem awkward when applied to him. Now it is not hard to say that these are referred to Jeremiah and those to the Savior. But a fair-minded person will be very much pressed in this passage, seeing that to cut up words spoken in one connected sequence, whether to Jeremiah or to the Savior, and to say that these, being too slight for Christ, fit Jeremiah, while those, being too great for Jeremiah, fit not Jeremiah but Christ, is the mark of unfair people. So let the whole be referred to Jeremiah; and let even the things that seem too great for Jeremiah be interpreted.

Everyone who has received words from God and has the grace of the heavenly words has received them “to root out and to pull down nations and kingdoms.” But if everyone who has received words from God is said “to root out nations and kingdoms,” do not understand the nations and kingdoms bodily. Rather, consider human souls ruled by sin, according to what is said in the apostle, “Let not sin therefore reign in our mortal body,” and, seeing the many kinds of sins, interpret figuratively both the nations and the kingdoms as the evils in the souls of human beings, which are rooted out and pulled down by the words of God given either to Jeremiah or to anyone at all. And so both the first sayings, which press hard when applied to the Savior, can fit Jeremiah, and the second can fit Jeremiah for one who knows how to interpret figuratively. One of my hearers will say to me: “Exercise the other interpretation too, and try to show that the whole of what is written fits the Savior.” About the second group, do not worry; for it is plain that the Savior rooted out the kingdoms of the devil and pulled down the nations by abolishing the pagan way of life. But here, where it seems blasphemous with regard to the Savior, exercise the interpretation somehow: how can the Savior say, “I do not know how to speak, for I am too young,” and the rest? You see that the argument is in straits. We know the Savior as Lord. We seek to refer these things to the Savior in a way worthy of the Word and true to the truth. We must take the Scriptures as witnesses; for our conjectures and expositions without witnesses are untrustworthy. And “at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established” fits expositions better than human beings, so that I may establish the words of the interpretation by taking two witnesses, from the New and the Old Testament, or three, from the Gospel, from a prophet, from an apostle; for so every word will be established. How then can we refer these things to the Savior? Bring forward the Old Testament as witness: “For before the child knows good or evil, he disobeys wickedness in order to choose the good.” And these things are said outright about the Savior in Isaiah: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.” And there it goes on, “Before the child knows.” And if we must take an example from the Gospel too: Jesus, not when he had become a man but while still a child, since “he emptied himself,” was advancing (for no one advances who is already perfect; he advances who needs advancement). So “he advanced in stature, he advanced in wisdom and in favor with God and men.” Coming down here and having emptied himself, he was taking back again the things of which “he emptied himself,” having emptied himself willingly. What is absurd, then, in his having advanced “in wisdom and stature and favor with God and men,” and in its being true of him that “before he knows good or evil he will choose the good and disobey wickedness,” and the things I cited from Isaiah?

But someone will say: “Even if you can refer to the Savior his not knowing how to choose, does it not offend you to say these things about the Only-begotten, about the firstborn of all creation, about him who was announced before his conception, according to ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you’; and yet you say, ‘He does not know how to speak’?” See whether you can find in the passage something worthy and great about the Savior: that there are certain things of which he is greater for not knowing them than for knowing them. And I use his own voice as witness that there are things he does not know. He says to those who say to him: “Did we not eat in your name, and drink in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works? Depart from me; I never knew you.” Does “I never knew you,” said there by the Savior, show his power to be less, or greater and more wonderful, because he did not know those who were worse and perishing? For he knew the excellent and better, and “the Lord knew those who are his,” and “if anyone does not know, he is not known.” The sinner, then, is not known by God. One of my listeners will say to me: “You have shown that he does not know sinners, you have shown that he does not know the workers of lawlessness, for they are not worthy of his knowledge; but how will you show that ‘I do not know how to speak,’ said by the Savior, is something great and glorious?” Speaking is a human thing; to speak is to use a language, for example the tongue of the Hebrews, or of the Greeks, or of some others. If you go up to the Savior and see him as the Word who was “in the beginning with God,” you will see that he does not know how to speak, since speaking is human; but he does not know it because what he knows is greater than speaking. And if you compare the tongues of angels with the tongues of men, and see that he is greater even than the angels, as the apostle testified in the Epistle to the Hebrews, you will say that he was greater even than the tongue of angels when he was God the Word with the Father. So he learns, and as it were takes up, a knowledge not of great things but of lesser and smaller ones. And just as I learn, forcing myself to lisp, when I talk with little children (for I do not know how to speak childishly, so to say; being grown, I force myself to converse with children), in the same way the Savior too, while he is “in the Father” and abides in the majesty of God's glory, does not speak human things and does not know how to utter words to those below. But when he comes into a human body, he says at the beginning: “I do not know how to speak, for I am too young”: younger because of his bodily birth, but older as “the firstborn of all creation”; younger, because he has come to dwell in this life “at the end of the ages” and later. So he says “I do not know how to speak,” meaning: I know things greater than speaking, I know things greater than this human voice. Do you wish me to speak to men? I have not yet taken up a human language; I have your language, O God; I am your Word, O God; I know how to converse with you; to men I do not know how to speak, “I am too young.”

“Do not say, ‘I am too young,’ for to all to whom I send you, you shall go.” So he stretches out his hand, touches his mouth, gives him words, and gives him words on account of the kingdoms, so that he may root them out. He had no need of rooting words when he was “in the Father,” nor of words that pull down and destroy the worse things; for nothing there deserved to be pulled down, nothing deserved to be rooted out. It is a great thing, just as “I do not know you, for you are workers of lawlessness,” said thus by the Savior on account of the surpassing greatness of his glory: “I do not know how to speak” is equivalent to “I do not know how to speak human things.”

Whether it is said to Jeremiah or to the Savior, “Before I formed you in the womb I know you,” if you read Genesis and observe what is said about the creation of the world, you will find that Scripture, speaking with great precision, did not say, “Before I made you in the womb I know you.” For when the one “according to the image” was being created, “God said, Let us make man according to our image and likeness”; he did not say, “Let us form.” But when he took “dust from the earth,” he did not make the man but “formed the man,” and “put in the paradise the man whom he had formed, to work it and keep it.” … of making and of forming, that the Lord, whether speaking to Jeremiah or to the Savior, did not say, “Before I made you in the womb,” but “Before I formed you”; for what is from the dust of the earth, this is fashioned in the womb. “Before I formed you in the womb I know you.” If the Lord knew everyone […], he would not have said to Jeremiah as something exceptional, “and I know you.” So God knows those who excel; God knows those worthy of his knowledge, and “the Lord knew those who are his”; but the unworthy God does not know, just as the Savior too says, “I never knew you.” We human beings, as far as we make progress, judge some things worthy of our knowing them, and some things we do not even wish to hear, so that we may not know or see them, while other things we wish to know. And what of the God of the universe? Does he wish to know Pharaoh, does he wish to know the Egyptians? They are not worthy of God's knowledge; but Moses is worthy, and each of the prophets is such. You must do many things rightly for God to begin to know you. Jeremiah he knew before he formed him in the womb; another he begins to know when he is thirty years old, another when forty. These are secret teachings: about the Savior they are not in question, but about Jeremiah they need attention from those who have ears.

How does he say, “Before I formed you in the womb I know you, and before you came out of the womb I have sanctified you”? God sanctifies certain people to himself. This one he did not wait to sanctify after he had come to birth, but already sanctified him before he came out of the womb. If you refer it to the Savior, it is not hard to say that he was sanctified before he came out of the womb. If you refer it to the Savior, he was sanctified not only before he came out, but even earlier. But this Jeremiah was sanctified before he came out of the womb.

“I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” If you look for “I have appointed you a prophet to the nations” in the case of Jeremiah, observe in what follows that he is commanded to prophesy “against all the nations,” and there is a heading, “What Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations”: against Elam, against Damascus, against Moab. So we have it that “he prophesied against all the nations,” in accordance with the literal statement “I have appointed you a prophet to the nations” spoken to him. But if we take the higher sense: if it concerns Jeremiah, we have already spoken of it; if it concerns the Savior, what need is there even to speak? He truly prophesied to all the nations; for as he is ten thousand other things, so he is also a prophet. As he is high priest, as he is Savior, as he is physician, so he is also a prophet. Moses, at any rate, prophesying about him, spoke of him not merely as a prophet but in exceptional terms: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers like me; you shall listen to him, and whoever does not listen to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from his people.” This, then, is the one appointed also as prophet “to the nations,” and he received grace from God poured out on his lips, so that not only when he was present in the body, but now also, when he is present in power and by the Spirit, he may prophesy “to all the nations,” so that his prophecy may reach from all the nations and draw human beings to salvation.

“And I said, O Master, Lord, who are, behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am too young. And the Lord said to me: Do not say, ‘I am too young,’ for to all to whom I send you, you shall go.” We have often said that one can be a child according to the inner man, even if one is in the old age of the body; and sometimes one can be a child according to the outer man but a grown man according to the inner. Such was Jeremiah, already having grace from God while still at the age of a child in body. That is why the Lord says to him, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’” And a sign that he was not too young but “a mature man” is: “To all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid before them.” The Word of God knows that those who carry the word as envoys are in danger among their hearers; for when they are rebuked they hate them, when they are reproved they persecute them. The prophets suffer anything at all: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house,” which we mentioned recently too. So God, in sending the prophet, knows how many dangers he will undergo, and says to him: “Do not be afraid before them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” What Jeremiah suffered is recorded: he was cast into a pit of mire and stayed there “eating one loaf a day” and drinking only water, and ten thousand other things that he suffered his prophecy has made known. “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?” was said to the Jews. And it is necessary that “those who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus” be persecuted in every way by the opposing powers through whatever vessels they find. Therefore let those who are persecuted not be surprised, but do everything, praying only that they may be persecuted unjustly and not justly: not for injustice, not for sin, not for greed. And if someone is ever persecuted for righteousness' sake, let him hear: “Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and utter every evil word against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven; for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

“For I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord. And the Lord stretched out his hand to me and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me.” Note the differences between Jeremiah and Isaiah. Isaiah says: “Having unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of hosts.” And since he confessed that he had not unclean deeds but only words (for so far only was he a sinner), “the Lord did not stretch out his hand,” but “one of the seraphim touched his lips with his hand and said: Behold, I have taken away your iniquities.” But since this man was sanctified “from the womb,” no tongs are sent to him, nor a coal “from the altar” (he had nothing that deserved the fire); rather the very hand of the Lord touched him. That is why he says, “The Lord stretched out his hand to me and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. Behold, I have set you today over nations and kingdoms, to root out.” Who is so blessed as to root out, by the words given by God, the kingdoms, which are many, which “the devil shows”: kingdoms of the opposing powers, kingdoms according to the sins? For it is written: “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. Behold, I have set you today over nations and kingdoms, to root out.” As there are kingdoms, so there are also nations; and a kingdom cannot be called a kingdom unless it has nations under it. For example, there is a kingdom of sexual immorality, and each act of sexual immorality is a nation of it†. One kingdom is the generic sin itself of greed and defrauding, and there are many kingdoms in those who have many kinds of sins. Then, in each sinner, understand the nations under the kingdom, as if to say that so-and-so has many nations of the kingdom of sexual immorality, so-and-so has many nations of the kingdom of defrauding, of slander, of anger. It is the task of the words of God, sent against “nations and kingdoms,” “to root out and to pull down.” To root out what? The Savior taught, saying, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted out.” There are things within souls that “the heavenly Father has not planted”; for all “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” are plants not planted by the heavenly Father. If you wish to see whose plants such thoughts are, hear that “an enemy has done this,” who sowed “weeds among the wheat.” So God stands by with his seeds, and the devil too. If we give “place to the devil,” the “enemy” sows a plant “which the Father did not plant,” to be rooted out entirely; if we do not give “place to the devil” but give place to God, God joyfully sows his seeds in our ruling faculty. Do not think, then, that Jeremiah received a gloomy gift from God because he is appointed “over nations and over kingdoms, to root out.” God is good, rooting out by his words the evil things: the kingdoms hostile to the kingdom of heaven, the warring nations hostile to the nation of God. “To root out and to pull down.”

There is a building of the devil, and there is a building of God. The building “on the sand” is the devil's, for it rests on nothing firm, stable, or united; but the building “on the rock” is God's. See what is said to those who belong to God: “You are God's field, God's building.” The words of God, then, are “over nations and kingdoms, to root out and to pull down and to destroy.” If something is rooted out but what was rooted out is not destroyed, what was rooted out still exists. If something is pulled down but the stones of the demolition are not destroyed, what was pulled down still exists. So it is the work of God's goodness, after rooting out, to destroy what was rooted out, and after pulling down, to destroy what was pulled down. Read carefully how such things are destroyed, in the case of the things that are destroyed and rooted out: “The chaff you shall burn with unquenchable fire,” and “Bind the weeds in bundles and give them to the fire”; so after being rooted out it is destroyed. If you wish to see also the things of the building of wicked material that are destroyed after the demolition: that house pulled down because of leprosy becomes dust, and, having become dust, is thrown “outside the city,” so that not a stone remains, as in “I will grind them like the mud of the streets”; for the worse things must in no way hold together. Something was pulled down: let not the stones be useful for another building which the evil one can build. It was rooted out: let him not again find seeds in the things rooted out, so as to sow the weeds again; for having the seeds of the weeds by all means, he sowed them. That is why “bind the weeds and burn them with fire,” so that after being rooted out they may be destroyed, and after being pulled down the devil's building may be destroyed.