Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Jeremiah, cast into prison by the chief of the priests on account of the destruction he threatened against Jerusalem in the preceding chapter, threatens and confirms to him, and to his friends and all the Jews, that very same destruction. Second, he grieves greatly that on account of these sad prophecies he is so hated by the Jews: whence, in verse 7, he complains that he was deceived by God: but soon, in verse 11, he resumes hope and courage: and finally, in verse 14, he curses the day of his birth.
Vulgate Text: Jeremiah 20:1-18
1. And Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who had been appointed chief in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these words. 2. And Pashur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks, which were at the upper gate of Benjamin, in the house of the Lord. 3. And when the next day dawned, Pashur brought Jeremiah out of the stocks, and Jeremiah said to him: The Lord has not called your name Pashur, but Terror on Every Side. 4. For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will give you over to terror, you and all your friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes shall see it: and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon: and he shall carry them away to Babylon, and shall strike them with the sword. 5. And I will give all the wealth of this city, and all its labors, and every precious thing, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah I will give into the hand of their enemies; and they shall plunder them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon. 6. But you, Pashur, and all the inhabitants of your house, shall go into captivity, and you shall come to Babylon, and there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, you and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsehood. 7. You de- ceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived: You were stronger than I, and You prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long, everyone mocks me. 8. For whenever I speak, I cry out, I proclaim violence and devastation: and the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and a derision all day long. 9. And I said: I will not remember Him, nor will I speak any more in His name: and it became in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones: and I was exhausted, unable to bear it. 10. For I heard the whisperings of many, and terror on every side: Denounce him, and let us denounce him: from all the men who were at peace with me, and who watched my side: perhaps he will be deceived, and we shall prevail against him, and take our vengeance on him. 11. But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior: therefore those who persecute me shall fall, and shall be weak: they shall be greatly confounded, because they did not understand the everlasting reproach that shall never be blotted out. 12. And You, O Lord of hosts, who test the just, who see the heart and the mind: let me see, I pray, Your vengeance upon them: for to You I have revealed my cause. 13. Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord: for He has delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of the wicked. 14. Cursed be the day on which I was born: the day on which my mother bore me, let it not be blessed. 15. Cursed be the man who announced to my father, saying: A male child is born to you; and gladdened him as with joy. 16. Let that man be like the cities which the Lord overthrew and did not repent: let him hear a cry in the morning, and a wailing at noontime: 17. who did not kill me from the womb, so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb an everlasting pregnancy. 18. Why did I come forth from the womb, to see toil and sorrow, and that my days should be consumed in shame?
Verse 1
1. PASHUR, etc., CHIEF IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD. — This Pashur was not the high priest, as St. Jerome holds, because in these times Hilkiah, Azariah, Seraiah, and Josedech succeeded one another in order of generation in the pontificate, as is clear from 1 Esdras 7:1, and from Josephus, and from 1 Chronicles 9:45, where the lineage of Pashur and Immer is described, and is distinct from the line and stock of the high priests: but he was one of the temple overseers; for various duties and offices of the temple, such as offerings, sacrifices, singers, maintenance, etc., there were various overseers, and these were called chiefs. Maldonatus says otherwise: He was, he says, the chief, that is, second to the high priest.
Verse 2
2. AND HE PUT HIM IN THE STOCKS — that is, as from Symmachus St. Jerome explains, into a place where men are tortured, tormented, confined, and examined. Festus understands by the 'stocks' a bond by which the neck and feet are restrained, and says it is called 'nervum' because such bonds were first made from hardened sinews. More recent commentators translate it as stocks. It was, say Vatablus and R. Joseph Kimchi, an instrument consisting of various beams coming together from opposite sides, and it had three holes, one into which the neck was thrust, and two for each hand; so also Vilalpando, book 3 On the Temple, chapter 24. But St. Jerome indicates that the stocks were rather for the feet than for the neck, when he writes that Paul and Silas were fastened in these stocks, Acts 16. For it is said of them there: "He fastened their feet in the stocks;" and Job says of himself, chapter 13, verse 17: "You have put my feet in the stocks." Where the Syriac translates stocks as shackles, by which the feet of prisoners are bound. Whence Sanchez probably holds that the stocks were a torture in which, in a beam marked with various holes, the legs of prisoners and martyrs were inserted spread apart and separated, so that they were dislocated more or less, according as they were more or less stretched: whence in the Acts of the Martyrs we read that governors ordered them "to be stretched to the fourth or fifth hole," just as is done on the rack. So Eusebius, book 6, chapter 32, writes of Origen that his feet were stretched to the fourth hole. And Rufinus, book 5, chapter 2, calls this torture 'the stocks.' So also Baronius in the Martyrology for January 22. That it was certainly an instrument of great torture and cruelty is clear from the fact that it wrung from Jeremiah such great lamentations and words of cursing, in verse 14. So St. Cyprian, book 4, epistle 3, writes of the martyr Celerinus: "For nineteen days he was kept in prison,
WHICH (the stocks, or the instrument of the stocks: for our translator uses 'nervum' in the neuter gender) WAS AT THE GATE. — Note: This gate was not properly a gate of the temple, as some think, but of the city, namely of the old walls on Zion, to which the temple was adjacent; and therefore this gate was also called the gate of the temple, because it was near the temple, and through it alone one went to the temple. It is called Benjamin, because through it one went into the tribe of Benjamin. It is called Upper, because it was both in the upper part of the city, and rose above nearly all the other gates of Jerusalem. There was also another lower gate of Benjamin, of which chapter 37, verses 10 and 11 speak, situated in the new walls toward Mount Moriah, as Vilalpando teaches from Bochart, Adrichomius, and others, book 3 On the Temple, chapter 24; see him. Near this gate was a prison, into which false prophets were cast, and also ministers of the temple, when they had committed some offense. For this place was subject to the temple and to the temple overseers. So the Chaldean, St. Thomas, Theodoret, Hugo, Lyranus. Sanchez says otherwise: The gate of Benjamin, he says, was so called because it was in the lot of the tribe of Benjamin; for since Jerusalem was situated partly in the lot of the tribe of Benjamin, partly in the lot of the tribe of Judah, hence the gate, both of the temple and the city, that was in the lot of Benjamin, was called the gate of Benjamin; while that which was in the lot of Judah was called the gate of Judah.
Verse 3
3. THE NEXT DAY PASHUR BROUGHT JEREMIAH OUT — perhaps fearing that Jeremiah might be killed by the squalor of the place and the pain of the stocks and torture, if he were detained there longer; and consequently he himself (as the one who had cast Jeremiah into that place) would be charged with his death. So Vilalpando in the place cited.
THE LORD HAS NOT CALLED YOUR NAME PASHUR, BUT
TERROR ON EVERY SIDE. — In Hebrew לא פשחור כי מגור, lo phassur ki magor. First, some derive Pashur from פשה pasa, or פוש pus, that is, expanding, roaming, luxuriating; and חור chur, that is, brightness, or hero, or principality, as if to say: You are called Pashur, that is, luxuriating, bright, heroic or princely; but soon you shall be called terror. Whence note: מגור magor properly means terror; yet the Septuagint and Theodotion translate magor as μέτοικον, that is, a migrant; Aquila, a foreigner; the first edition, one looking around; Symmachus, one taken away, or gathered and forced together; the Syriac, a stranger and a wanderer, or even a beggar; the Arabic of Antioch, a foreigner and one going in circles; the Arabic of Alexandria, a transferal, or a change, a departure. The sense is, as if to say: O Pashur, from your authority and power you grow insolent and wanton, you proudly accuse me, the prophet of God, and shamelessly strike me, and against my threatening prophecy, which is true, you falsely promise prosperity to the Jews. Know therefore that your liberty and boldness, which you bear in name and in reality, will be changed into terror, luxury into the distress of poverty, palaces into prison, rest into exile, authority into servitude, the white priestly robe into the squalid garment of captives. Therefore henceforth you shall be called and shall be, not Pashur but Magor, that is, not swelling but trembling, not dread but fear, not strength but terror, not brightness but pallor, not light but cross, not luxury but mourning, not applause but lamentation. To this view Lyranus, Pagninus, and Sanchez subscribe, who interpret Pashur as 'increase of brightness or principality.'
confined, he was in the stocks and in chains; but with his body placed in bonds, his spirit remained free and unbound. He lay among his punishments stronger than his punishments, the imprisoned one greater than his imprisoners, the prostrate one more exalted than those standing, the bound one stronger than those who bound him, the judged one more sublime than his judges; and although his feet were bound in the stocks, the serpent was trampled, crushed, and defeated. The bright marks of his wounds shine in his glorified body." The Arabic translates 'stocks' as 'circle' or 'ring'; it signifies therefore that it was round. The Septuagint and Theodotion translate it as καταράκτην, that is, a broken-off place, namely a deep pit, into which prisoners are usually lowered. Whence R. David translates, into prison: the Syriac interprets it as an enclosure, or a place fortified all around for confining prisoners or enemies.
Verse 4
4. YOU AND ALL YOUR FRIENDS. — It seems that this Pashur was one of the priests deceiving the people, saying: "Peace, peace, when there was no peace;" and therefore the Prophet here threatens punishments to his friends who had believed him, as well as to himself. So Amaziah is punished together with his wife and children, because he did not believe that Amos was announcing the word of God, Amos 7:16. See here how destructive flatterers are, especially priests or counselors: for these destroyed Jerusalem, which would have stood if it had believed not them, but Jeremiah its reprover. Quintus Curtius truly said: "Flattery more often overthrows the resources of kings than the enemy does." Plutarch narrates in the Laconica that a certain citizen very freely rebuked Demaratus: when another person was indignant that he should criticize such a man, Demaratus responded: "He has done me no wrong; for those who speak to please,
do harm; but not those who speak with harshness." Hence Pythagoras also said: "One should rather rejoice at those who reprove us than at those who flatter us, whom we ought to regard and flee as enemies." See more on Ezekiel 13, at the end, and Isaiah 3:12.
Verse 7
7. YOU DECEIVED ME. — The Syriac, You flattered me; the Arabic, You deceived, You mocked me. For I thought from Your words, O Lord, in chapter 1:5, that I would prophesy against the nations, not against the Jews, who are so hostile to me,
OF HIS — as if to say: I will no longer make mention of the divine word and oracle. The Prophet does not mean that he deliberately thought this and resolved it, because that would have been sinful; but only that from a human impulse and fear, this came into his mind; which impulse Christ likewise felt and expressed in His passion saying: "Let this cup pass from Me." So Maldonatus. Second and better, St. Jerome holds that Jeremiah, overcome by shame and by the mockeries of the Jews, who said he was a false prophet, an enemy of the fatherland, a friend and traitor of the Chaldeans, resolved to cease from prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem, especially since through it he accomplished nothing among unbelievers. In which matter he sinned with some venial pusillanimity and timidity: for God wanted him to continue in his prophecy, as follows. So a Castro.
AND THE WORD OF THE LORD BECAME IN MY HEART LIKE A FIRE — as if to say: While from a spirit of human fear I hold back the word of God, and do not wish to preach it, it became like a burning fire, and was shut up in my bones, so that by no means could I endure its heat, as if to say: God did not want the gift of prophecy to be idle in me, but compelled me by constant urging to prophesy, even to rebels and the obstinate. So St. Jerome. Thus Amos says, chapter 3:8: "The Lord God has spoken, who shall not prophesy?" and the Psalmist, Psalm 119:140: "Your word is exceedingly refined by fire." Therefore St. Chrysostom, homily 1 On Lazarus, volume 2, gives this rule from Jeremiah to the preacher: that he should not grow weary, nor be silent at any time, whether there be someone who listens, or not. And Gregory, 23 Moralia 10: "Let not the preacher be silent, lest he make himself a partner of the delinquent by the consent of his silence, because the crimes of the delinquent grow when they are silent." Add that the obstinate wicked seem to conquer the word of God by their hardness, if the preacher falls silent before them. God therefore wills that they should conquer by constant preaching, not be conquered. So St. Stephen severely rebuked the most stubborn Jews, to defend the glory of God, and thereby seized and obtained the occasion of martyrdom, Acts 7.
Rightly says St. Bernard, book 4 On Consideration to Eugenius: "Do what is yours: for God will take care of what is His well enough without your worry and anxiety. Plant, water, give care: and you have fulfilled your part. God will give the increase when He wills: God, I say, not you: and if perhaps He should not will it, nothing is lost to you:" for your labor remains, your charity, your merit, your reward, and that in full.
Sanchez says otherwise: Jeremiah gives here, he says, the reason why he shrank from announcing the word of God, or from prophesying, "and," that is 'because,' "it became in my heart like a raging fire," as if to say: I will no longer prophesy, because the word of God so burns and torments the innermost feelings of my soul, as if a sacred fire were burning my innards and bones: I can endure these torments no longer, and I succumb to them; therefore I shall desist from the word of God, and lay it aside from my heart. Whence he adds: "I was exhausted, unable to bear it." But
So say St. Jerome, Rabanus, and St. Thomas. But Jeremiah knew the contrary: for up to this point he had continually prophesied against the Jews. Better therefore Theodoret and Vatablus explain it, as if to say: I refused the office of Prophet, saying: I am a boy; You induced me to it, promising that I would be like an iron pillar; and behold, everyone overwhelms me, and I succumb to prison, afflictions, hatred, mockeries, and jeers of the Jews, who are not so much my fellow citizens as my enemies. Therefore it seems to me that I was silently and craftily led and deceived into these chains and afflictions. Here the exposition of Sanchez can be referred to: Scripture, he says, sometimes says that something was done with the intention and feeling with which it is usually done by men, even though in reality it was far otherwise. So we are commanded by Christ to hate father, mother, and even our own soul, that is, to leave aside their suggestions when they conflict with the law or voice of God; which however in reality is rather to love them than to hate them. So Christ is said in Galatians 3 to have been made a curse for us, because He suffered such things as those suffer who are cursed by the Lord. So Jeremiah could be said to have been led by God, because he endured such things while obeying Him as one who is led into ambush by another usually endures. Jeremiah speaks from a human spirit of pusillanimity and anxiety of soul, as also Job in chapter 3; for God had forewarned him that he would suffer much, but would be strengthened by Him to overcome all things, and to struggle free from all of them. This is the genuine sense. Third, Lyranus explains it thus, as if to say: If I am deceived and prophesy falsely, as the Jews and false prophets say, then by You, O Lord, I am deceived, which is impossible; and therefore they are lying: but I speak and prophesy the truth.
YOU WERE STRONGER THAN I, AND YOU PREVAILED — when, namely, You made me, though I was resisting, undertake the office of Prophet, chapter 1:6.
Verse 8
8. CRYING OUT INIQUITIES. — That is, denouncing to them the punishment for iniquity; in Hebrew it is: I cry out violence and devastation, which namely the Chaldeans will inflict upon Jerusalem; and although I cry out these things daily, they do not believe, but ridicule me as though insane, or as a false prophet, because they see that nothing I threaten comes to pass, but that it is drawn out and delayed for a long time. Truly St. Augustine says in the Sentences, number 122: "Great is the labor of the good, to tolerate contrary morals; he who is not offended by them profits little. For the iniquity of another's sin torments the just man as much as he departs from his own."
Vatablus says otherwise, as if to say: From the time I began to speak, I cry out violence and devastation, namely that it is being inflicted upon me, which the French say: Je crie au meurtre (I cry murder). But this sense is too narrow and forced.
Verse 9
9. AND I SAID (I thought to myself): I will not remember
But the first exposition, being the more common, is also the more fitting.
Verse 10
10. FOR I HEARD — as if to say: The jeers and insults that formerly compelled me to act, now, inflamed with zeal for God, compel me to speak: for God will be present so that I may overcome all mockeries. So St. Jerome, Rabanus, Hugo. And St. Gregory, 13 Moralia 10, says that the jeers and the increasing sins of the Jews compelled Jeremiah to break, out of charity, the silence he had proposed to himself. Lyranus says otherwise, as if to say: For I heard, that is, I will not be silent, even though I hear curses. Others refer these words to verse 9, so that he continues to enumerate his persecutions; which is very fitting. For a mind that is sick and afflicted, as Jeremiah's was, does not speak in sequence, but from the tumult of emotions now speaks of this, now of that; now interrupts one discourse, now resumes and continues the former one.
THE WHISPERINGS OF MANY (saying): DENOUNCE HIM, AND LET US DENOUNCE HIM. — For 'denounce' the Hebrew is הגידו haggidu, that is, 'report,' namely some crime or calumny against Jeremiah; and we will report to the king, namely by accusing him. FROM ALL. — Refer to "I heard the whisperings," namely from all who were formerly my friends, and now watch my side, who observe all my actions, saying: Let us see if Jeremiah is in any way deceived and falls, so that we may report him to the king. So St. Thomas and Lyranus. But the Chaldean, Vatablus, Pagninus translate: All who were formerly my friends watch for my stumbling, that is, whether I stumble in some matter, and say something wrongly,
so that they may report it to the king. For in Hebrew צלע tsela signifies both 'side' and 'stumbling' that occurs at the side, and a fall. Therefore Jeremiah was here a type of Christ, whom the Jews often tested, to catch Him in His speech, Matthew 22:15 and elsewhere.
Verse 11
11. THEY DID NOT UNDERSTAND THE EVERLASTING REPROACH — which they will incur from their destruction, which I threaten against them, and which they ridicule. Vatablus translates: They gained nothing by their prudence; the Chaldean, they shall not prosper, for what is done prudently, prospers.
Verse 12
12. TESTER OF THE JUST. — The Septuagint has, testing just things, You who weigh the merits of each person, and justly reward them.
Verse 13
13. SING. — This is an exclamation of the Prophet giving thanks to God, because in the spirit he had seen that he would be delivered from his afflictions, and the people from Babylon. Note here the alternating movements and surges of the soul, and the struggle between nature and grace in Jeremiah. For at one moment, in verses 4, 11, 13, encouraged by God he hopes, is strengthened, and exults; at another, in verses 7, 9, 14, 15, 16, left to himself and his enemies, he seems dejected and despairing. Whence immediately, considering the pressing dangers, and that greater conflicts against the Jews loom before him, he grieves and curses the day of his birth. For since he says here: "Sing to the Lord, etc., because He has delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of the wicked;" hence in order to show how great and how serious these evils are,
Verse 14
14. CURSED BE THE DAY ON WHICH I WAS BORN. — In a similar way St. Job, chapter 3, curses the day of his birth. Some think these words are said by Jeremiah with a disturbed mind: for they seem to be the words of a despairing, impatient, vengeful soul. Whence Calvin says that these are the voices of a desperate man, a sacrilegious fury against the Jews, blasphemies and insults against God, the author of nature and birth. But let this blasphemy depart, which St. Jerome, Origen, Theodoret, and others refute, on the grounds that shortly before Jeremiah had praised God so affectionately; and who would believe that he here sinned with mortal sin, indeed with the gravest execration — he, I say, who was sanctified from the womb?
Second, Origen, as cited by St. Jerome, responds that souls which previously dwelt in the heavens, and now have been thrust on earth into bodies, as into a prison, rightly mourn and curse their incarnation. But this is heresy.
Third, Isidore holds that this is a conditional curse, as if to say: If any day were ill-fated and deserving of being cursed, it would be the day of birth.
Fourth, Origen responds yet again differently: The day of Jeremiah's birth, he says, had long since passed, and no longer existed, and was nothing; whence Jeremiah did not sin by cursing it: because he cursed a thing that did not exist, that is, nothing. But against this stands the fact that that day had existed and had been a creature of God: and it is not lawful to curse any creature of God, whether it be present or past. Furthermore the messenger of that day
still existed, at least in soul: and Jeremiah likewise curses this messenger here, in verse 15. Fifth, Father Pineda on Job, chapter 3, originally holds that St. Job's curses and complaints against God arose from a great, uncontrolled, and angry love toward God. For a great love is accustomed, from its own vehemence and lack of restraint, to be angry with a friend, when it thinks itself injured by him, or treated less kindly, and by that very reasoning kindles itself more, and more stirs up and increases the friendship by stimulating the friend. So St. Job, out of love, complains and remonstrates with God as with a friend, that he is afflicted by Him with so many evils, in order that by this confidence and vehemence of love he may excite and inflame both God's love for him, and his own love for God. Hence Lucian in the Dialogue of Mercury and Maia: "Those who love are angry," he says. And it is commonly said: "The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love." Consequently he holds that these complaints are a sign not of pusillanimity but of strength. For Cicero teaches that among brave men, while they engage in a hard struggle, groans and cries do not weaken the strength of the soul but increase and confirm it, Tusculan Disputations 2: "As in the stadium," he says, "runners shout as loudly as they can, athletes do the same when they exercise: boxers even when they strike their opponent, in throwing their fists they groan. If therefore groaning in pain will avail for strengthening the spirit, we shall use it."
I grant that those who love and the brave do groan and become angry in sharp pain; but they are not accustomed to curse their friend, much less God. Add: Jeremiah here accuses not God, but the day of his birth, and curses it.
Sixth, St. Chrysostom, homily 4 On the Patience of Job (whom Father Thomas and Hugo follow) holds that these words are not those of one wishing, but only declaring his internal pain, not in order to do injury to anything, but so that while he seems to turn against creatures, he plainly turns away from injuries and blasphemy against God: "Just as," he says, "if someone afflicted with an abscess is cut with a knife by the doctor, having no way to resist the one cutting, he strikes the bystanders and bites those standing near, inflicting nothing on them and unable to raise his hands against the doctor: so too Job, fearing the magnitude of blasphemy, does injury to inanimate things, and increases his confidence through suffering, not daring against God, but finally accusing himself;" and then: "He does not curse a creature, but his own day: I have power over my day, I do not curse the Creator, I curse my own day," as if to say: I curse the day, not insofar as it is God's day, but insofar as it is mine, that is, I curse myself, so wretched, and my birth. But although this in itself is not blasphemous, nor injurious to God, it is nevertheless the sign of an impatient and pusillanimous mind: and it is too light, not fully expressing the pathos and gravity of this speech and feeling. Add that he who curses himself indirectly and tacitly curses his author and creator: for the curse upon a creature rebounds and overflows upon its creator. See St. Thomas and Cajetan, II-II, Question 76, where they teach when cursing is a mortal sin, when venial, when none at all. Wherefore Lyranus holds that these words only express the feeling of the lower part of the soul, to which however reason does not consent: just as in supreme anxiety, pain, and desperation, pain wrings from a person certain words and gestures of supreme desperation, as if by an impulse of nature, which reason cannot restrain. But here too many things are said in order and as if with reason, and the Prophet should have corrected this faulty movement of nature; just as Christ in His passion corrected His own, though it was in itself good. This opinion, however, can be conveniently explained, as will shortly be clear.
Seventh, St. Gregory, on Job 3, thinks these words should be understood mystically, namely that the Saints, including Jeremiah, curse original sin, in which each person was born on his day; and again that by this phrase Job and the Saints pray to be transferred from mortality to blessed eternity, as if to say: "Let the changeable day perish, and the light of eternity break forth." And St. Ambrose, book 4 on Luke, chapter 4: "Remembering his carnal generation, he desires the day to perish, so that his day may be counted in regeneration. Let the worldly day perish, he says, so that the spiritual day may arise." But these are mystical interpretations.
Whence also, applying these words mystically to the fallen antipope, Blessed Peter Damian, book 1, epistle 20: "Rightly,
he says, say: Cursed be the day on which I was born, etc. Here it is not the day on which the man was born that is cursed; but rather the prosperity by whose seduction he fell into sin is condemned. On which day, namely, you would in a way have died in the womb, if you had ceased from the guilt which you had begun, indeed in which you were being ill-born."
Eighth, Maldonatus thinks these words are said according to the opinion of others: Because, he says, others would curse that unfortunate day and the beginning of so many evils. But in the following verses to the end of the chapter, Jeremiah repeats these things in such a way that he seems to speak from his own feeling.
Ninth, Sanchez responds that Jeremiah grieves over the day of his birth not absolutely, but determinately, namely he grieves that he was born on that particular day and time, at which he would see the destruction of his nation. Or rather he grieves over and curses the sin which he seemed to have committed in calling God a deceiver, saying, verse 7: "You deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived," as if to say: I so repent of this word and deed, that I would prefer not to have been born, rather than to have sinned so shamefully against my God. But Jeremiah himself assigns another cause, in the last verse, saying: "Why did I come forth from the womb, to see toil and sorrow, and that my days should be consumed in shame?" Whence also in verse 8, beginning to complain, he says: "The word of the Lord has become a reproach to me. And I said: I will not remember Him, nor speak any more in His name." Where he plainly indicates that the hatred, insults, and beatings which he endured from the Jews, on account of his sad and threatening prophecies, were the cause of his pain and anguish of spirit, which wrung this curse from him.
I respond therefore with Cajetan at the place cited, and with Christopher a Castro, that it is a Hebrew manner of speaking, so that by a curse they understand only the interjection of one wishing, as if to say: Would that this had not been. So Job, chapter 3, "curses," that is, wishes by saying: "Let the day on which I was born perish;" for just as the good of a day is to exist, so its evil is not to exist. He therefore curses the day of his birth, that is, he as it were wishes it evil, namely non-existence: because of so many evils, both common ones — that he should prophesy and see the destruction of his city and nation — and personal ones — that on account of this he should be hated by all, as a false prophet and an enemy of the fatherland, and be a reproach to all — that day had been for him the cause and the gate, as if to say: Would that that day had never been, would that I had never been born! for it is better not to be, than always to be wretched and so miserable. Jeremiah uses this phrase for pathos, to show what great distresses and what serious evils he suffers, and how unwillingly he threatens and proclaims the destruction of Jerusalem, so that the Jews may see that he does not proclaim it willingly but compelled by God.
You will say: The misery of this life is the material for patience and glory in heaven, and is willed by God; whence it is to be borne bravely, and one should not wish that a person not exist; for this is a sin, and the sign of a mind that is de-
fective and pusillanimous, especially in Jeremiah, whom God had sanctified in the womb, and to whom He had promised every help and strength, so that he had a certain hope of his deliverance and salvation. I respond: Jeremiah here abstracts from the state of grace, merit, sin, from the ordination of God, from the future state of glory, and considers only natural goods and evils. For these are the voices of pure nature, and wishes, or rather vellieties and desires concerning a past and impossible thing, which the vehemence of pain expresses as it were naturally, and reason, clouded and almost overwhelmed by pain, permits, indeed elicits, in order to show the gravity of its evil, and to alleviate it by this complaint, as if to say: If I consider the natural advantages and disadvantages, which exist both in life and in death, it is better and I would have preferred to have perished and never to have been born, than to live. For then I would have lacked all the afflictions of life, which I experience as so great that all its advantages and pleasures cannot be compared with them. So Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 2, says: "The day of death is better than the day of birth," and chapter 4, verse 2: "I praised the dead more than the living: and I judged him happier than both, who has not yet been born, nor seen the evils that are done under the sun." For if a soul about to enter a body could see all the evils it would suffer in it, it would recoil, and would say: I prefer not to be born, than to be born to such great miseries. For this life has more gall than honey. I abstract from the dangers of sinning, which in this life are continuous and very great, on account of which St. Ambrose said, in his book On the Good of Death, chapter 4: "What is death, if not the burial of vices and the resurrection of virtues?" Hence also St. Paul groans, Romans 7: "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?"
In a similar manner and for a similar reason, St. Jerome, to indicate his innermost grief, conceived from the death of his friends and from the slander of his rivals, as though he himself were the cause — inasmuch as he was inducing virgins to excessive rigor and fasting by his writings — uses these words of Jeremiah, epistle 25 to Paula, consoling her on the death of her daughter Blesilla: "I call to witness, my Paula, Jesus, whom Blesilla now follows; I call to witness the holy angels whose company she enjoys, that I endure the same torments of grief that you suffer; I am a father in spirit, a nurse in charity, and sometimes I say: Let that day perish, on which I was born. And: Woe to me, mother, why did you bear me, a man said to be a cause of strife to the whole earth?" So Elijah, suffering persecution from Jezebel on every side, so that he could barely escape, "asked for his soul that he might die, and said: It is enough for me, Lord; take my soul," 3 Kings 19. Hence also Virgil, in Aeneid 1, sings, or rather laments:
O thrice and four times blessed they, To whom it chanced to fall before their fathers' eyes Beneath the lofty walls of Troy!
And Seneca:
Life takes on the character of death, when it is dragged out slowly With groans.
Cursed therefore means evil, that is, very miserable — a day which Plautus in the Bacchides calls wicked:
For by heaven I know for certain, Vulcan, Moon, Sun, Day — four gods — Never shone upon a more wicked one.
You will say second: Jeremiah curses not only the irrational day, but also a rational man, namely the messenger: which is a mortal sin. Some respond that this messenger was a wicked man, namely Pashur, worthy of every curse. But this is a frivolous invention. I respond therefore with St. Jerome that it is a hyperbole. For it is the nature of grief to hyperbolically accuse and detest anything that in any way pertains to the matter over which one grieves, even if it is free from blame, indeed from reason and soul, and to vomit forth its bitterness upon it, as though it were the cause or at least the occasion of the blow received. So Virgil, depicting a grieving mother in Eclogue 5, says:
When she embraced the pitiable body of her son, The mother calls both the gods and the stars cruel.
So David, 2 Kings 1:21, accuses and curses the mountains of Gilboa, because they were the occasion, that is, the place of the slaughter of Saul and Jonathan, saying: "O mountains of Gilboa, let neither dew nor rain come upon you, nor fields of firstfruits: for there the shield of the mighty was cast away, the shield of Saul." Therefore Jeremiah means only to say: Would that I had never been born, and consequently would that there had never been a man announcing this, not insofar as he is a man but insofar as he is a messenger! That is, would that that day had never been, and consequently neither so ill-fated a messenger of so ill-fated an event!
Tropologically, from St. Gregory's Gloss: The same, he says, may be said in the person of a sinner, so that we may curse the day of the birth of sin and guilt, in which the devil is the father, concupiscence the mother, and the day is the production of guilt in an external act: which day is cursed when a person through penance detests his sin.
Verse 16
16. HE DID NOT REPENT — namely God, that He overthrew the Pentapolis, that is, He did not change His sentence, He did not rebuild it, but overthrew it forever, as if to say: Would that in like manner that man had never existed, just as those five cities utterly destroyed by the Lord no longer exist!
LET HIM HEAR A CRY IN THE MORNING. — By morning and noon he means the whole day. So St. Jerome, as if to say: Let that messenger be all day long in the disturbance of mind that is customary among those who dwell in a city
under siege, or who are involved in the mourning of parents and other grave calamity, who hear cries and mourning all day, as if to say: This messenger announced so ill-fated a thing, that he seems worthy not of good news nor a reward, but rather of affliction similar to that of besieged people; worthy, I say, not if you consider the messenger himself, but if you consider the thing announced.
St. Jerome notes that all these things are added and exaggerated by hyperbolic periphrasis, to show the vehemence of grief, and all these things signify only this: Would that that day had not been, and the messenger! So Aeneas, to express the utmost grief of his soul, says in Aeneid 2:
Whom did I not madly accuse, both of men and gods?
Verse 17
17. WHO (not the messenger, as the Chaldean, Hugo, Lyranus say, but God, or the Lord, who preceded: or by a Hebraism, 'who,' that is 'because,' and so Rabanus, the Greek, and three manuscripts read) DID NOT KILL ME FROM THE WOMB — that is, in the womb (for often ב le-min, that is 'in,' is taken for min, that is 'from, out of'), namely the Lord, the author of nature and generation, whose it is to kill and to give life in the womb; whence follows: SO THAT MY MOTHER MIGHT HAVE BECOME MY GRAVE, AND HER WOMB (the mother's matrix) AN EVERLASTING PREGNANCY — that is, always pregnant, so that never born but dying in the womb, I would have had the same thing as both grave and receptacle, as if to say: Would that my mother had always carried me in her womb and never brought me into the light!
A learned man says otherwise: 'Ut,' he says, is placed for 'utinam' (would that), as we often read in Terence and the comic writers: ut, that is, would that the gods and goddesses destroy you, as if to say: Would that I had perished in the womb! So that this is a different wish from the former one, by which he wished to be killed immediately upon being brought from the womb into the light. But then one should have said 'ut fieret esset,' not 'ut fieret,' etc. For one already born cannot return to the womb to be buried there.
Note: Jeremiah does not wish to die in original sin, but abstracts from it, as I said on verse 14.
Finally, St. Chrysostom, homily 4 On the Patience of Job, and others note that the grace of the Gospel is greater than that of the Law, because the holy Prophets suffered, but grieved; the Apostles and Martyrs suffered, but gloried. "Everything weak," says Seneca, "is by nature querulous," and everything querulous is feminine: for it is manly in adversity not to complain, but to overcome bravely, and to rejoice and glory in them.
St. Bernard, epistle 336 to Pope Eugenius: "I have read," he says, "in a certain wise man: He is not a brave man whose spirit does not grow in the very difficulty of circumstances. But I say: A faithful man should trust all the more amid scourgings." He adds: "You, friend of the bridegroom, prove yourself a friend in need." Blessed Dorotheus, a great master of the spiritual life: "A sure sign," he says, "of contempt for the world is to be disturbed by nothing." St. Ignatius: "I desire," he says, "that meekness by which every force and power of the prince of this world
is weakened." Farmers love a harsh winter: for the greater the cold, the more the crops take root in the earth, and the more they draw the sap of the soil: and consequently in summer they expect a greater harvest. So generous Saints love hardships: for from them they will reap more joyful fruits of patience and virtues in this life, and of glory in the future: see what was said on Isaiah 25:3. St. Jerome knew this, and so when harassed by rivals he writes to Asella, epistle 99: "I give thanks to my God, that I am worthy to be hated by the world. What fraction of the hardships have I endured, I who serve the cross? They charged me with the infamy of a false crime; but I know that through good and bad repute one arrives at the kingdoms of heaven."
Martinian, Saturian, and their two brothers, when by order of Genseric, king of the Vandals, they were to be dragged with feet bound behind the backs of racing chariots through the thorns of forests and thickets, and killed by a long and cruel death, each one said farewell to the others thus: "Brother, pray for me; God has fulfilled our desire; in this way one arrives at the kingdom of heaven. And so praying and singing psalms, with the angels rejoicing, they gave up their pious souls," says Victor of Utica, book 1 on the Vandals. The same Victor, book 2, narrates that confessors of Christ, condemned by King Huneric to exile, and proceeding on their way, were met by a woman holding an infant by the hand, and thus exhorting him: "Run, my lord; you see all the saints, how they go and hasten to their crowns." And when the confessors asked her why she was hurrying so from such a long journey, she responded: "With this little servant of yours I am hurrying to exile, lest the enemy find him alone, and call him back from the way of truth to death." And below he narrates that very many crowds of the faithful came out to meet the martyrs, and casting their little children at the feet of the martyrs cried out: "To whom do you leave us miserable ones, while you proceed to your crowns? Who will baptize these?" And when they wished to go together into exile, they were forbidden and sent back by the torturers. In the same place he reports that the confessors were so confined in prison that, heaped one upon another, they lay like swarms of locusts, in filth and stench, suffering the ultimate torment, yet singing a hymn with exultation: "This is the glory of all His saints."
The same, book 3, narrates that the matron Dionysia, when being flogged under the same Huneric, said: "Torture as you please, but do not strip my modest members;" and when she could not obtain this, and between the blows of the rods rivers of blood flowed over her whole body: "Servants of the devil," she said, "what you think you do to my shame, is itself my praise:" indeed the martyr herself was strengthening others for martyrdom. She had an only son of tender age and delicate, whom when she saw trembling with fear of punishment, she so strengthened him by striking him with nods of her eyes and maternal authority, that he was rendered far braver than his mother. To him, placed amid cruel floggings, she thus spoke: "Remember,
my son, that in the name of the Trinity we were baptized in Mother Church: let us not lose the garment of our salvation, lest the one who invites us come and not find the wedding garment, and say to the ministers: Cast him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping of eyes and gnashing of teeth. That punishment is to be feared which never ends. That life is to be desired which is always possessed." Thus strengthening her son with such words, she quickly made him a martyr, and embracing the victim herself, she buried him in her own home with joy.
The pagans also had seen this, but as through a shadow, especially the Stoics, who through patience strove for apathy and impassibility, and tranquility of soul. Whence Plutarch, in his book On Tranquility of Mind: "Unconquered and courageous," he says, "we shall respond to fortune with these words, which Socrates, when seen to be speaking against Anytus and Meletus, turned against the judges themselves: Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me. For fortune can afflict me with some disease; but it cannot make one who is good, brave, and magnanimous become base, ignoble, and envious;" and above: "Let us imitate Anaxagoras, who hearing that his son had died, said: I knew that he whom I had begotten was mortal; and at each blow of fortune let us say: I knew that I possessed riches destined to last only for a day and unstable; I knew that my office could be taken away by those who had bestowed it upon me; I knew that my wife was a good woman, but still a woman; I knew that my friend was a human being, an animal easily changeable (as Plato says). For this sort of preparation and formation of the mind, if any adversity should happen, will avert the leaping of the heart and trepidation, and will calm the disturbance of the mind: for one will not say: I did not think this, I did not expect this.
"Whence Carneades held that all pain arises from the fact that something happens to us unexpectedly;" and again: "Excessive desire for such things begets the sharpest fear of losing them, and pain in their loss. He is free from this who, restraining this desire, says to fortune: It is pleasant if you give something;
small the pain, when you take it away.
"Demetrius, when he had captured Megara, asked Stilpo whether anything had perished for him in that plundering; to whom Stilpo said: I saw no one who carried away my things:" for fortune plunders riches, not wisdom, not constancy of mind, which are the things and goods of the wise. "He does not fear death who, yielding to fate, says: God Himself will release me as soon as I wish; who says: I have forestalled you, O fortune! and blocked all your approaches to me." And at the beginning of the book: "Just as the thyme, the sharpest and driest herb, provides honey to the bees: so wise men pluck something fitting and useful from the most adverse circumstances. Diogenes was driven into exile: not even this was bad: for having become an outcast he began to philosophize. Zeno of Citium,
hearing that his ship with all his goods had been sunk, said: I commend your deed, O fortune! which reduces us to a cloak and a portico. What prevents you from imitating this? You stumbled in holding some office? You will live afterwards in the country, managing your own affairs. Seeking the friendship of some prince, you suffered a rebuff? You will live free from dangers and business. Through calumny or envy some hissing occurred, and an unhappy outcome? You may sail with a favorable wind to the Muses and the Academy, which is what Plato did after he shipwrecked his friendship with Dionysius.
"For acquiring tranquility of mind, it helps greatly to consider illustrious men who have borne with equanimity the same fortune as ours. Is it troublesome to you that you lack children? Consider the kings of the Romans, none of whom left his kingdom to his son. Is poverty heavy for you? Who among the Boeotians would you rather be than Epaminondas, or among the Romans than Fabricius? Was your wife unfaithful? Have you not read the inscription at Delphi:
Agis possesses me, king of land and sea alike?
And have you heard that his wife Timaea was violated by Alcibiades? Yet this did not prevent Agis from becoming the most illustrious and greatest of the Greeks." Thus far Plutarch.
Hear also Seneca: "I will despise the whole kingdom of fortune;" and: "I would rather fortune have me in her camp than in her pleasures; I am tortured, but bravely — it is well; I am killed, but bravely — it is well." So he himself, epistle 68. The same in On Remedies of Fortune: "Pain threatens: if it is slight, let us bear it: patience is easy. If it is severe, let us bear it: the glory is not small. Pain is a hard thing: rather, you are soft. Few have been able to bear pain: let us be among the few. We are weak by nature: do not defame nature; she bore us brave. Let us flee from pain: but what of the fact that it follows those who flee?" The same, book 3 On Anger, chapters 5 and 6: "The soul that is bowed by injury is not great. Either one stronger or one weaker than you has injured you. If weaker, spare him: if stronger, spare yourself. There is no surer proof of greatness than that nothing can happen to provoke you. The upper part of the world, more orderly, and near the stars, is neither compressed into cloud, nor driven into storm, nor whirled into a tornado — it is free from all tumult; the lower regions are struck by lightning. In the same way a lofty soul, always at rest and stationed in calm tranquility, pressing within itself those things by which anger is contracted, is modest and venerable." Finally, this is the voice of the wise man: "Misery is the good mother of prudence." And from the Greek, ἔπαθες, ἔμαθες: "By those things by which you were injured, you were taught."
AND THAT MY DAYS SHOULD BE CONSUMED IN SHAME — that is, that I should end my life ignominiously. Similar is Job chapter 10:18; and 1 Maccabees 2:7.