Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues to rebuke the idols and crimes of the Jews, and to lament the destruction impending upon them: just as Christ, seeing the city, wept over it saying: If you had known, even you, and indeed in this your day, the things that pertain to your peace, Luke 19:41. First therefore, he wishes for himself a fountain of tears to bewail the calamity of Jerusalem. Second, verse 3, he rebukes the deceits and slander of the Jews. Third, verse 10, he depicts the desolation of Jerusalem. Fourth, verse 15, he says that God will feed the Jews with wormwood and gall. Fifth, verse 17, he summons mourning women to bewail Jerusalem. Sixth, verse 21, he says that death, that is, the Chaldeans, ascended through the windows. Seventh, verse 23, he warns them not to glory or hope in their own wisdom, strength, riches, or in circumcised flesh, but in the Lord.
WHO WILL GIVE WATER TO MY HEAD? — The Hebrew reads: Who will make my head waters, and my eye a vein, or fountain of tears? That is to say: O would that my whole brain and head were turned into waters (by which is signified abundance), and my eyes into veins of tears (by which is signified the perpetuity of tears); so that I might worthily bewail the calamity of Jerusalem that is at hand! So says St. Jerome: "If I were entirely turned into weeping, yet the drops of my tears would not be sufficient, but rather the abundance of a river, and still I would not have wept worthily enough." So also Rabanus and Hugh, who hold these to be the words of God; for God speaks in verse 3. Better is the view of Theodoret and others generally, who consider these to be the words of Jeremiah. See here how great was the compassion and zeal in Jeremiah. Truly did Gregory of Nazianzus say, Oration 3: "The tears of good men are a flood against sin, and a purification of the world."
There are physicians who teach that the fountain of tears is the heart. For they teach that there are three sources of exhalations in man: the stomach, the liver, and the heart. The stomach sends vapors upward, which are discharged through the nostrils; the fumes of the liver, through the ears; but those of the heart are poured out through the eyes or as tears. Therefore the fountain of tears is a contrite and grieving heart.
Tropologically, St. Bernard applies these words with far greater reason to the torments of hell, Sermon 16 on the Song of Songs: "Who, he says, will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes, that I may anticipate the weeping, and the gnashing of teeth, and the hard bonds of hands and feet, and the weight of chains that burn but do not consume? Alas for me! my mother, why did you bear me a son of sorrow, a son of bitterness, of indignation and of eternal weeping!"
Describing the power and efficacy of tears, St. Lawrence Justinian, in his book On the Wood of Life, chapter 9, exclaims: "O humble tear! Yours is the power, yours is the kingdom. You do not fear the tribunal of the Judge, you impose silence on the accusers of your loved ones, there is none who would prevent you from approaching God. If you enter alone, you will not return empty. What more? You conquer the unconquerable, you bind the Almighty, you move the Son of the Virgin, you open heaven, you put the devil to flight."
Achsah asked her father (Caleb, Joshua 15:18) for watered land: because from our Creator, the grace of tears must be sought with great desire. Hence the soul receives the upper springs when it afflicts itself with tears from desire for the heavenly kingdom: and it receives the lower springs when it fears the punishments of hell through weeping.
St. Gregory, Book 5 of the Dialogues, chapter 34, and Register of Letters, epistle 23: "Achsah, he says, sighing, asked her father for the upper and lower springs."
This gift St. Magdalene had, weeping for her sins, and with tears watering and washing the feet of Christ; whence she heard from Him: "Your sins are forgiven you."
Truly did St. Chrysostom say, Homily 6 on Matthew: "Just as after heavy rains, the air becomes clean and pure, so also after the rain of tears there follows serenity and tranquility of mind."
Rightly therefore does the Psalmist testify of himself, Psalm 42:4, saying: "My tears have been my bread day and night, while it is said to me daily: Where is your God? These things I remembered, and I poured out my soul within me."
And Sirach 35:18: "Do not the tears of the widow run down her cheek, and her cry against him who causes them? For from the cheek they ascend even to heaven, and the Lord who hears will delight in them."
Again the Psalmist, Psalm 56:9: "You have placed my tears in Your sight;" and Jeremiah, Lamentations 3:48: "My eye poured down streams of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people."
Let us therefore pray with St. Augustine from the depths of our heart: "Give me, O Lord, the upper and lower springs. Grant me this grace for Your sake, that as often as I think of You, speak of You, write of You, read of You, confer about You; so often may I weep copiously and sweetly with tears springing up in Your sight, so that my tears may become my bread day and night. I beg You, good Jesus, by all Your mercies, by which You deigned to wonderfully help us who were lost, give me the grace of tears, which my soul greatly desires," that I may bewail my sins and those of my neighbors.
THE SLAIN, — that is, those about to be slain by the Chaldeans.
Vulgate Text: Jeremiah 9:1-26
1. Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? And I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. 2. Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfarers, and I will leave my people, and depart from them? Because they are all adulterers, an assembly of transgressors. 3. And they have bent their tongue like a bow of falsehood and not of truth: they are strengthened in the land, because they have gone forth from evil to evil, and they have not known Me, says the Lord. 4. Let every man guard himself from his neighbor, and let him not trust in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully. 5. And a man will mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth: for they have taught their tongue to speak falsehood: they have labored to act wickedly. 6. Your habitation is in the midst of deceit: in deceit they have refused to know Me, says the Lord. 7. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will melt and test them: for what else shall I do before the daughter of My people? 8. Their tongue is a wounding arrow, it has spoken deceit: with his mouth one speaks peace with his friend, and secretly lays snares for him. 9. Shall I not visit upon these things, says the Lord? Or shall not My soul take vengeance on such a nation? 10. Upon the mountains I will take up weeping and lamentation, and upon the beautiful places of the desert, mourning: because they are burned, so that no man passes through: and they have not heard the voice of the possessor: from the bird of the sky to the cattle, they have migrated and departed. 11. And I will make Jerusalem into heaps of sand, and dens of dragons: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, so that there is no inhabitant. 12. Who is the wise man who may understand this, and to whom the word of the Lord's mouth may come that he may declare it, why the land has perished, and is burned up like a desert, so that none passes through? 13. And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken My law, which I gave them, and have not heard My voice, and have not walked in it: 14. and they have gone after the depravity of their own heart, and after the Baals: which they learned from their fathers. 15. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. 16. And I will scatter them among the nations, which they and their fathers have not known: and I will send the sword after them, until they are consumed. 17. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Consider, and call the mourning women, and let them come: and send for those who are skilled, and let them hasten: 18. let them make haste, and take up a lamentation over us: let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids flow with waters. 19. For a voice of lamentation is heard from Zion: How are we laid waste and greatly confounded? Because we have left the land, because our tabernacles are cast down. 20. Hear therefore, O women, the word of the Lord: and let your ears receive the word of His mouth: and teach your daughters lamentation, and every one her neighbor mourning. 21. Because death has ascended through our windows, has entered our houses, to destroy the children from without, the young men from the streets. 22. Speak: Thus says the Lord: And the dead body of man shall fall like dung upon the face of the land, and like hay behind the back of the reaper, and there is none to gather it. 23. Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches: 24. but let him who glories, glory in this, to know and understand Me, that I am the Lord, who exercises mercy and judgment and justice on the earth: for these things please Me, says the Lord. 25. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord: and I will visit upon every one who has circumcised foreskin, 26. upon Egypt, and upon Judah, and upon Edom, and upon the children of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all who have their hair cut round, dwelling in the desert: because all the nations have foreskin, but all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.
Verse 2
2. WHO WILL GIVE ME IN THE WILDERNESS A LODGING PLACE? — That is to say: Would that I were permitted to dwell in the desert, so that alone with God and the angels
I might dwell, lest I should see such great crimes of men! So say St. Jerome and St. Thomas; whence the Septuagint translates: Who will give me in the wilderness a most remote dwelling? That is, some most remote place, for example, a hermitage, where I might hide myself after the manner of St. Anthony or St. Paul the hermit.
Hence St. Jerome, inviting Heliodorus to his solitude: "O desert, he says, blooming with the flowers of Christ! O solitude, in which those stones are born from which in the Apocalypse the city of the great King is built! O wilderness, more intimately enjoying God! What are you doing, brother, in the world, you who are greater than the world? How long do the shadows of rooftops oppress you? How long does the prison of smoky cities confine you?"
And to Rusticus: "For me the town is a prison, solitude is paradise;" and St. Anthony, having seen and heard St. Paul the first hermit (as St. Jerome writes in his Life), said to his companions: "Woe to me, a sinner, because I falsely bear the name of monk! I have seen Elijah, I have seen John in the desert, and truly I have seen Paul in paradise."
For examples of holy bishops and preachers who, having renounced their office and rank, fled to the solitary and monastic life, see Blessed Peter Damian, Epistle 9 to Pope Nicholas II.
Allegorically, Jeremiah wishes to hide and rest in the desert of the nations, that is, in the Church of Christ, says Blessed Irenaeus, Book 4, chapter 41.
BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL ADULTERERS, AN ASSEMBLY OF TRANSGRESSORS. — "Adulterers," both in the proper sense and mystically, that is, idolaters. Theodore the Studite aptly applies this passage against the Moechian heretics, who approved the adulterous marriage (since the former wife Maria was still living and had been repudiated) of the Emperor Constantine with Theodote, as though the Emperor were exempt from divine laws and not bound by them. For thus he writes about the Council of Constantinople, in which in the year of the Lord 809 this heresy was approved, to Pope Leo III: "There was formed, according to Jeremiah the prophet, an assembly truly of transgressors, and a council of adulterers; for what was there said on account of the fornication of idols, here has been made manifest through the confirmation of an adulterous union. Both have despised the same Lord, the former through the laws, the latter through the transgression of the Gospel;" and further: "But they cloak their cause with a shameless defense. For they decree that the union of an adulterous marriage is a dispensation. They define that divine laws can do nothing in the case of kings: they forbid the imitation of those who resisted for truth and justice even unto blood, such as the Forerunner and Chrysostom;" and then: "What therefore is to be said to these things, O Blessed One, except that Apostolic word: Now many Antichrists have arisen, if we are not all subject to divine laws and canons? Save us, Chief Shepherd of the Church that is under heaven: we perish."
THEY HAVE BENT THEIR TONGUE LIKE A BOW OF FALSEHOOD. — So that from the tongue as from a bow they might hurl arrows, that is, deceits, slanders, and every kind of falsehood, with which they might pierce their brothers and neighbors. So says Theodoret. But St. Jerome understands by "falsehood" the blasphemies hurled against God, such as that God has no providence, that He does not care for His own people, namely the Jews: for this is what the atheists were then asserting. The former sense is plainer, and verse 4 demands it. The Psalmist laments the same thing, Psalm 64:4: "They have bent, he says, a bow, a bitter thing, to shoot in secret at the blameless;" and Psalm 11:3: "They have prepared their arrows in the quiver, to shoot in the dark at the upright of heart."
Verse 3
3. THEY ARE STRENGTHENED. — The Hebrew reads: they have prevailed, that is, as Vatablus says: They obtain dignities in the land, not through truth, but through evil arts, namely through frauds and slanders, or, as Maldonatus says, that is: They have progressed from evil to evil, weaving deceit upon deceit, fraud upon fraud.
Verse 4
4. LET EVERY MAN GUARD HIMSELF FROM HIS NEIGHBOR, — there is no trust among them: No guest is safe from his host, no father-in-law from his son-in-law; even brotherly affection is rare: but each one strives to depress, slander, deceive, and overthrow the other. Wisely indeed did Agesilaus, a pagan though he was, as Plutarch testifies, whenever he heard anyone giving testimony about the praise or blame of others, say that the character of those who spoke should be examined no less than the character of those about whom they spoke.
Let those take note of this who in any commonwealth, congregation, fraternity, or religious order slander their companions, calumniate them, depress them, and bring them into the hatred or contempt of others: these indeed are vipers, who gnaw and tear the entrails of their brothers, indeed of their mother, namely their congregation: upon whom the curse of God, which Jeremiah here threatens against the Jews, will rage both in the present and for eternity. Rightly indeed does St. Bernard, Sermon 3 On the Dedication of the Church, call such men traitors, who make the temple of the Lord a den of demons.
Moreover, each individual word here carries great weight and pathos. First, verse 3, he says: "They have bent their tongue like a bow of falsehood, and not of truth," that is: The tongue was given by God to be a bow of truth and blessing; but slanderers make it a bow of falsehood and cursing. Second, "they are strengthened in the land," because those powerful in tongue, by their sharp wit and jests, draw all after themselves, so that men hang upon their words. Third, "they have gone from evil to evil," progressing from one slander to another, from one calumny to another. Fourth, "they have not known Me, says the Lord," they do not reverence Me as lawgiver, nor fear Me as the avenger of slander. Fifth, "every brother will utterly supplant:" it is a brother's duty to lift up and raise his brother; but these depress and trip him up. Sixth, "every friend will walk deceitfully:" they pretend to be friends to one's face, but behind one's back they show themselves to be enemies; to the face they praise, behind the back they blame. Seventh, "a man
will mock his brother:" they not only criticize their character, but also through contempt deride and scoff at them. Eighth, "they have labored to act wickedly:" they scrutinize everything, examine everyone in order to hear something to criticize, they strive to bring their brother into contempt and scorn before all. Ninth, "your habitation is in the midst of deceit," they are full of deceits, and surrounded by them on every side, so that one dwelling among them cannot escape them. Tenth, "their tongue is a wounding arrow:" they wound unexpectedly and pierce like arrows.
Verse 6
6. YOUR HABITATION IS IN THE MIDST OF DECEIT. — These are the words of God to Jeremiah, that is: You dwell among deceitful men, who have their tongue in honey but their heart in gall. So say St. Jerome, St. Thomas, Vatablus, and Lyranus. Moreover, feigned friendship is a double iniquity; just as feigned fairness is doubled iniquity. For to the prior iniquity are added simulation and hypocrisy, as St. Augustine says in the Sentences, number 219.
Otherwise the Chaldean, Hugh, and Lyranus understand these as the words of Jeremiah to the people, that is: You lie, O people, beset by sins and deceits, so that you cannot rise again.
THEY REFUSED (through deceit, on account of their deceits and crimes, they refused) TO KNOW (and acknowledge) ME.
Verse 7
7. BEHOLD, I WILL MELT AND TEST THEM. — The Septuagint reads: I will examine them with fire, that is, with the most burning war of the Chaldeans. For what else should I do to My people, except to chastise and correct them as a son? So say St. Jerome, Hugh, and St. Thomas; therefore I wish to purify them like gold in the furnace of tribulation, and to polish away the rust of their sins, not to consume them entirely. So Sirach 27:6 says: "The furnace tests the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation tests just men."
Verse 8
8. A WOUNDING ARROW — The Chaldean renders: sharp. The slanderous and detracting tongue is like a three-pronged sword, which gives three wounds with a single blow, because it wounds and kills first, the listener; second, the one being slandered; third, the slanderer himself, says St. Bernard.
Concerning these the Psalmist says, Psalm 5:11: "Their throat is an open tomb, with their tongues they dealt deceitfully." And Psalm 140: "The venom of asps is under their lips." And Psalm 57:5: "The children of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." And Psalm 64:4: "They have sharpened their tongues like a sword." And Ecclesiastes 10:11: "If a serpent bites in secret, he who slanders in secret is no better." And Sirach 28:15: "The whisperer and the double-tongued are cursed: for they have troubled many who were at peace. A third tongue has disturbed many, and scattered them from nation to nation." And the Apostle, Galatians 5:15: "If you bite and devour one another, take heed lest you be consumed by one another." Romans 1:30: "Slanderers, hateful to God." And James 3:5: "Behold how great a fire sets ablaze how great a forest; and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity." And verse 8: "The tongue no man can tame: an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." Proverbs 24:9: "The slanderer is the abomination of men."
St. Bernard in a sermon: "The slanderer, he says, and the willing listener, each carries the devil on his tongue. If you are poor, he considers you vile and abject; if rich, ambitious, avaricious, and greedy; if affable, dissolute; if a preacher or teacher, a seeker of honor and human favor; if silent, useless; if fasting, a hypocrite; if eating, a glutton." Cassiodorus on the Psalms: "Teeth, he says, are named from taking away (demendo), and therefore the tongues of slanderers are fittingly called teeth; because just as teeth take away portions of food, so also these gnaw away the reputations of men."
Truly Plautus in the Captives: Like mice we always eat another's food, When things are published by our teeth. And Horace, Book 1 of the Satires, Satire 4: He who gnaws at an absent friend, who does not defend him when another blames him, who seeks the unrestrained laughter of men and the reputation of a wit, who can fabricate things unseen, who cannot keep a secret: this man is wicked; beware of him, Roman.
And Cicero in On Duties: "To detract from another, and to increase one's own advantage at another man's disadvantage, is more against nature than death, than pain, than all other things that can happen either to the body or to external goods. For in the first place they destroy the fellowship and society of men."
Truly Plautus: "If you speak insults, you will hear them;" and Terence in the Andria: "If he continues to say to me what he wishes, he will hear what he does not wish." And Euripides: "The tax on an unbridled mouth is calamity."
Moreover, St. Bernard, Sermon 24 on the Song of Songs, graphically describes the cunning of slanderers: "You will see, he says, deep sighs sent forth first by the slanderer, and thus with a certain gravity and slowness, with a sad face, downcast eyebrows, and a plaintive voice, the slander comes forth; and indeed all the more persuasive, inasmuch as it is believed by those who hear it to be spoken not from an envious heart, but rather from a sympathetic and grieving disposition, rather than from malice. I grieve, he says, vehemently, because I love him greatly, and I could never correct him in this matter, and indeed it had long been well known to me about him, but it would never have been made known through me; but since the matter has been revealed through another, I cannot deny it, it is truly so." Indeed, prudent men judge that the greater part of mankind is damned on account of the sin of slander and cursing, and that even in religious orders and congregations otherwise upright and secure, there is no greater danger to salvation than from the tongue and from slander; indeed, in these it is not rarely that sin is committed not only venially, but also mortally in this matter, and all the more dangerously because the slanderers themselves do not notice it, or excuse it under the pretext of zeal.
Truly St. Jerome says to Celantia: "Few, he says, are those who renounce this vice, and the desire for this evil has invaded the minds of men to such an extent, that even those who have departed far from other vices, fall into this one as if into an unexpected snare."
Verse 10
10. UPON THE MOUNTAINS (that is, on account of the devastation of the mountains of Judea I will lament, because all things have been burned by fire), SO THAT NO (that is, so that there is scarcely a) MAN PASSING THROUGH.
UPON THE BEAUTIFUL PLACES OF THE DESERT. — The Hebrew reads: on account of the habitations of the desert, that is, the lairs of wild beasts, which are empty since the beasts have been driven away, as he explains shortly after. The Septuagint reads: upon the paths of the desert, that is, because the desert has been so devastated that neither man nor beast passes through its paths.
THEY HAVE NOT HEARD (men in the desert) THE VOICE OF THE POSSESSOR, — that is, as the Hebrew miqne indicates, of cattle possessed, and of one possessing and grazing the fields, that is, they have not heard the bleating of sheep or the lowing of oxen: because all the cattle and birds have either been carried off by the Chaldeans, or have fled from Judea as it was burned and desolated, due to the lack of fodder and the devastation and horror of the place. So say the Chaldean, Vatablus, and Pagninus.
Otherwise St. Thomas: "They have not heard, he says, the voice of the possessor," that is, of the master and owner, who was leaving his lands as if deserted. Otherwise also Lyranus: They did not hear the voice of God who possessed them.
Verse 11
11. I WILL MAKE JERUSALEM INTO HEAPS OF SAND, — that is, of rubble. SO THAT (that is, such that) THERE IS NO INHABITANT.
Verse 12
12. WHO IS? — That is to say: What wise man or Prophet can explain to us the cause of so great a calamity upon the Jews? Whence the Lord, responding, assigns the cause: "Because they have forsaken My law." SO THAT THERE IS NONE WHO, etc.
Verse 14
14. AFTER THE BAALS. — The Septuagint reads: after the idols, that is, after the gods of the neighboring nations.
Verse 15
15. I WILL FEED THIS PEOPLE WITH WORMWOOD. — The Chaldean: I will bring upon them tribulation bitter as wormwood, and I will give them to drink the cup of the worst curse. So say St. Jerome and Theodoret. And this for their purification and medicine, says Hugh: for wormwood has the power of purging.
Verse 16
16. I WILL SEND THE SWORD AFTER THEM. — Because the Chaldeans, after taking Jerusalem, pursued the Jews fleeing to Egypt, and either killed or captured them. So says Theodoret. UNTIL THEY ARE CONSUMED, — until the greater part of them are killed, namely those who have been destined by God for death on account of their sins: for otherwise He promised that the whole people would not be consumed, but that a remnant would be saved, chapter 5, verse 10.
Verse 17
17. CONSIDER (in Hebrew hittonenu, that is, take heed) AND CALL THE MOURNING WOMEN, — who are accustomed at funerals and in times of grief, with a mournful voice, and beating with their torn hands, to provoke the people to tears: for this custom still endures to this day in Judea, where both male chanters of laments, and still more women, naturally disposed to weeping and every kind of emotion, and trained and hired for this purpose, with loose hair and bared breasts, rouse all to weeping with their modulated voice. So says St. Jerome. The Gentiles called these women keeners (præficæ), because they were placed in charge of the mourning.
Flute-players were also employed at funerals. Hence Ovid: The flute played at mournful funerals. See the comments on Matthew 9:23, that is, God says: You will not be able, O Jews, to sufficiently bewail the calamity of Jerusalem by yourselves, unless you also summon keeners skilled in lamentation.
THE SKILLED, — those experienced in lamenting. So in Exodus chapter 31, verse 3, and elsewhere, wisdom is taken for any kind of skill and art.
Verse 18
18. LET THEM TAKE UP A LAMENTATION OVER US (lamenting and saying): LET OUR EYES SHED TEARS. — For this is the voice of the keeners rousing all to weeping. It is a mimesis.
Verse 20
20. AND TEACH YOUR DAUGHTERS, — not music, not love songs, about which St. Cyprian says, in his book On the Singularity of Clerics: It is better to hear a hissing basilisk than a girl singing; but "lamentation."
Verse 21
21. DEATH HAS ASCENDED THROUGH THE WINDOWS, — namely of the citadels, towers, and houses clinging to the walls, that is: Not through the gates, but over the walls death entered the city of Jerusalem, that is, the Chaldeans bringing death to the Jews, so as to kill the children and young men in the streets. It is a metonymy. So say Vatablus, a Castro, and Sanchez. The unexpected and sudden irruption of the Chaldeans into Jerusalem is signified; inasmuch as they burst in not through the gates, where there are watchmen, but through the windows of the walls, secretly, like a thief.
Second, as St. Jerome, St. Thomas, and Lyranus say, that is: So great will be the strength, speed, and fury of the Chaldeans that they will not wait to open the doors of the houses, but will climb through the windows and rooftops, to penetrate into the houses, and there kill the little ones and the young, so that none survives who dwells in the lanes and streets, as they used to before. This is what Joel says, chapter 2, verse 9: "They will climb the houses, they will enter through the windows like a thief."
Tropologically, through the windows, that is, through the bodily senses, the death of sins enters for the destruction of the soul. So say St. Jerome, and at length St. Gregory, Book 21 of the Morals, chapter 11, and Ambrose, in his book On Flight from the World, chapter 1. Hence St. Bernard, Sermon 24 on the Song of Songs: "Death, he says, enters through our windows, when with itching ears and eyes, we strive to serve one another the deadly cup of detraction." Therefore, just as for a most fortified city and tower, however great the walls, they are of no avail if it has openings or windows left open, through which entry is available to the enemy: so all the defenses of grace avail the soul nothing, if it has the windows of the senses left open, through which carnal phantoms and desires may enter the soul.
Therefore the guarding and closing of the senses must be most careful: because through them either life or death enters the soul, say Theodoret and Origen, Homily 3 on the Song of Songs. The same teach St. Ambrose, Lyranus, Jerome, Chrysostom, Gregory, and Aponius, whose words worthy of reading are cited in the proverb, adage 834. Through the failure of this guarding we have perished, and Eve has destroyed us all. For, as it is said in Genesis 3: "The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and beautiful to the eyes, and delightful in appearance; and she took of its fruit, and ate." So Holofernes was captured through his own eyes, as it is said in Judith 16: "Her sandals ravished his eyes, and her beauty made his soul captive." Hence Job wisely says, chapter 31: "I made, he says, a covenant with my eyes, that I should not so much as think of a virgin."
Wherefore the Greeks aptly derive eros, that is love, from horao, that is to see: because love is born from sight. But Plato in the Cratylus derives it from irrhein, that is to flow in: because love like a fiery liquid flows through the eyes into the soul. Wisely says Seneca, Epistle 96: "It is easier to prevent the beginnings of passions than to govern their force." And Aristotle, says Valerius Maximus, Book 7, chapter 2, gave a most useful precept: that we should consider pleasures as they depart: for by thus considering them, he diminished them: for he presented them to our minds as weary and full of repentance, so that they might be less eagerly desired. It is commonly said: "What the eye does not see, the heart does not love." Hence Job: "I made, he says, a covenant with my eyes." Again Seneca, in his book On Remedies against Fortune: "For how many desires, he says, were the eyes made, for how many things, which rather than see you should have plucked out your eyes! Do you not understand that blindness is part of innocence? To one man his eyes show adultery, to another incest, to another a house to covet, to another a city and all evils; they are incentives of vices and guides of crimes."
David, a most holy man, seeing Bathsheba, fell into adultery and murder; Genesis 6: the sons of God seeing the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, desired them, and from them were born wicked giants, who were the cause of the flood. Rightly therefore does the Psalmist say, Psalm 119: "Turn away my eyes, lest they see vanity." This is the reason why God fortified the eye with so many tunics, eyelids, and eyebrows, as St. Ambrose teaches, Book 6 of the Hexaemeron, chapter 9, so that the Psalmist rightly says, Psalm 17: "Guard me as the pupil of the eye."
St. Peter, Epistle 2, chapter 2, rebukes men who desire as many women as they see: "Having, he says, eyes full of adultery, and of unceasing sin." And Sirach chapter 31: "What was created more wicked than the eye?" He speaks of the eye of the envious; but the same reasoning applies to others. Wherefore St. Jerome calls his teacher Didymus the Blind his "seer," because with the eyes of the body closed he had clearer eyes of the mind. Rufinus reports, Book 11 of the History, that St. Anthony said to Didymus: "You lack, he says, those eyes which flies and mice have; but rejoice, because you have the eyes which angels have, through which God is seen, through which a great light of knowledge is kindled for you."
See the comments on Lamentations 3:51. Again Theodoret: Through the windows, he says, that is, through the thought and meditation of error, error itself has entered into the soul.
Verse 23
23. LET HIM NOT GLORY, — that is: The Jews glory in the counsels of their wise men, in the strength of their soldiers, in the riches of the city, as if by these they will be safe against the Chaldeans; but they err. For true glorying is to know and understand God, that is, God's providence, that He alone is the one who exercises mercy, and mercifully delivers whom He wills; not the wise, the strong, or the rich: He also inflicts just punishment on whom He wills, from which no wise man, strong man, or rich man can deliver. Therefore neither wisdom will deliver the wise, nor strength the strong, nor riches the rich in that calamity which threatens Jerusalem with death; but knowledge will deliver, that is, faith, hope, invocation, and worship of the Lord. So says St. Jerome. Paul cites this passage in 1 Corinthians 1:31, as I explained there.
Morally, St. Thomas says: Man ought not to glory in wisdom. First, because it is transitory. Isaiah 29:14: "The wisdom of his wise men shall perish, and the understanding of his prudent men shall be hidden." Second, because it is imperfect. Ecclesiastes 8:17: "I understood that of all the works of God, man can find no reason for the things that are done under the sun." Third, because it is harmful. 1 Corinthians 8:1: "Knowledge puffs up, but charity builds up." Fourth, because it is laborious. Ecclesiastes 1, last verse: "In much wisdom is much vexation; and he who increases knowledge, increases sorrow."
Our own Lipsius writes admirably about himself in the Preface to his Notes on the book On the Cross: "The further I advance on this road of life, the more and more I perceive the darkness enveloping the mind, and the weakness of the body. Heraclitus used to say of old that when he was young, he knew nothing; when old, he was ignorant of nothing; but with me the very opposite has happened: I who once seemed to know something, now know little or nothing. And, O wretches that we are! what are we, our learning, our fame? We ourselves are dust, learning is opinion, fame is wind." Truly so the matter stands: I myself experience this in me: this is what the truly learned feel and know.
Likewise, man ought not to glory in strength. First,
because it is fragile. Job 6:12: "Neither is the strength of stones my strength, nor is my flesh made of bronze." Second, because it is frequently useless. Ecclesiastes 9:11: "I saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favor to the skilled; but time and chance in all things." Third, because it is not pleasing to the Lord. Psalm 147:10: "He does not delight in the strength of the horse: nor does He take pleasure in the legs of a man." Fourth, because it is an occasion of sin. Wisdom 2:11: "But let our strength be the law of justice; for that which is weak is found to be useless."
Likewise, man ought not to glory in riches. First, because they are transitory. James 5:2: "Your riches have rotted, and your garments are moth-eaten." Second, because they are insufficient. Proverbs 17:16: "What does it profit a fool to have riches, when he cannot buy wisdom?" Third, because they impede the word of God. Matthew 13:22: "The deceitfulness of riches chokes the word, and it becomes fruitless." Fourth, because they are harmful. Ecclesiastes 5:12: "Riches kept to the harm of their owner." Thus far St. Thomas.
Hear also Isidore, in his oration On Humility: "Those who glory in external things are surpassed in these by animals. You are endowed with great bodily mass? What is this, if compared with the bulk of an elephant? You are strong and fearless? But a lion far surpasses you, of whom it is written: The lion, bravest of animals, will not cower at anyone's approach. You are distinguished in song and modulation of voice? But the swan, the nightingale, and many other songbirds produce a greater marvel in their singing. You are handsome? And the peacock excels in remarkable beauty, and many other birds, and even harlots glory in beauty. Do you excel in some art? What in this regard is wiser than bees, whose works what painter, what geometrician could imitate? You wear fine and delicate clothing? Here the spiders surpass you. You are swift of foot? Again, the hare, the deer, etc. hold the first place. You are endowed with keen sight? Not like the deer, or the eagle. You hear acutely? But the donkey more acutely. You have a keen sense of smell? The dog surpasses you." And the poet truly says: The pig surpasses you in hearing, the lynx in sight, the ape in taste, the vulture in smell, the spider in touch.
Finally, the golden maxim of St. Augustine in the Sentences, number 129: "The vice by which man is first overcome is the last he conquers. For when he has overcome all other sins, the danger remains that the mind, conscious of nothing against itself, may glory in itself rather than in the Lord."
Verse 25
25. I WILL VISIT UPON EVERY ONE WHO HAS CIRCUMCISED FORESKIN, — that is: You have no reason to glory, O Jews, because you are circumcised in the flesh, as sons of Abraham, and therefore are to be protected by God and not to be devastated: for likewise many other nations, especially those neighboring or related to the Jews, indeed descended from Abraham, such as the Idumeans, Ammonites, Moabites, and Saracens, are accustomed to be circumcised: yet all of them will be devastated by the Chaldeans, because they have an uncircumcised heart and soul, just as you do. For God seeks the circumcision of the soul, not of the body: internal worship, not external. So say St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rabanus, Hugh, and others. Hence he adds:
Verse 26
26. UPON EGYPT. — The Egyptians were circumcised in imitation of the Jews who had sojourned among them. Here Jeremiah predicts that the Egyptians, equally with the Jews, will be devastated by the Chaldeans.
Note: The Egyptians and other nations practiced and observed circumcision, as St. Jerome, Philo in his book On Circumcision, Herodotus in the Clio, and others testify; not as a Sacrament, containing the profession of faith and obedience toward God, together with the profession of the coming Messiah, and moreover the expiation of original sin; but as a custom and rite preserved from their ancestors and transmitted to posterity, and at that time praised and honored. For the same reason Muhammad prescribed circumcision for his followers.
But Sanchez rightly observes that circumcision among the Egyptians and other gentiles was not common, but a private practice of a few. For Scripture calls all the nations uncircumcised, and distinguishes the Jews from them in that the latter are circumcised, the former uncircumcised. Hence Jeremiah clearly adds shortly after: "Because all the nations have foreskin."
Again, that the Ammonites were uncircumcised is clear from their leader Achior, who on account of the victory, Judith chapter 14, verse 6, was converted and circumcised. The same is gathered about the Idumeans from Epiphanius, in his book On Weights, where he reports that Esau their ancestor had artificially restored his foreskin and erased the mark of circumcision: and it is very probable that his descendants followed him in this. Hence Josephus, Book 13 of the Antiquities, chapter 17, narrates that the Idumeans, conquered by Hyrcanus, were compelled to be circumcised and to adopt Judaism.
The sense therefore is, that is: I will punish the circumcised Jews equally with the Idumeans and other uncircumcised nations: because the Jews have only the flesh circumcised, but in mind they are as uncircumcised as the nations.
Again, some nations "have their hair cut round," and thus have, as it were, a circumcised head; since then, are the Jews to be considered better or superior to these, who have not the head but only the genitals circumcised? So say Pagninus, Vatablus, Isidore, and Sanchez.
UPON ALL WHO HAVE THEIR HAIR CUT ROUND, DWELLING IN THE DESERT. — These are the Saracens or Arabs, says St. Jerome, whose custom it was to cut their hair in a round fashion: just as we see some Germans and Hungarians nowadays being shorn in a round cut above the ears. This is why God forbade it to the Jews, Leviticus 19:27, as I said there, that is: From this calamity of the Chaldeans, the hair going round the head will not exempt the Arabs, nor will the hair cut in the shape of a crown (in which they glory) any more than circumcision will exempt the Jews from the same.
Otherwise Theodoret; for he understands this as referring to the shearing not of the head, but of the cheeks: for the Arabs used to pluck out the hairs of their cheeks; hence the Syriac and Arabic translate: Shaved on the chin.
Otherwise also the Hebrews, Lyranus, R. Solomon, Pagninus, and Vatablus: for they derive the Hebrew ketsite from the root qets and translate: and upon all who are cornered or placed at the extremity in a corner, that is, upon the most remote nations who dwell in the corner of the desert; for these seemed to the Jews to dwell at the ends of the earth.
BECAUSE ALL THE NATIONS HAVE FORESKIN, — that is: First, because other nations are uncircumcised in body; but Israel is uncircumcised in heart and mind, that is, rebellious, stubborn, and hardened, and therefore will be punished by Me above other nations. So say St. Jerome, Theodoret, and Lyranus.
Second, all the nations are better than the Jews, because they do not pretend, but are outwardly as they are inwardly, namely uncircumcised in both soul and body; but the Jews are circumcised in body, uncircumcised in soul: which hypocrisy displeases Me more than if they were not circumcised at all, says Maldonatus.
Hence some understand those with their hair shorn as the Jews. For Josephus also, Book 1 Against Apion, narrates that the Jews serving in the camp of Xerxes had their hair shorn. But that the shorn refers to the nations, not the Jews, is clear both from what is added: "Dwelling in the desert;" and because of the Ishmaelites, namely Dedan, Tema, and Buz, Jeremiah says in chapter 25:23 and chapter 49:32: "Those who have their hair cut round."