Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Jeremiah consoles and encourages his scribe Baruch to steadfastness — Baruch being afflicted by the anger and threats of King Jehoiakim — by promising him safety in the common destruction of the Jews. These events occurred in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. This is a hysterologia (a reversal of chronological order); for this chapter should be appended to chapter XXXVI.
Vulgate Text: Jeremiah 45:1-5
1. The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book from the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying: 2. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, Baruch: 3. You said: Woe is me, for the Lord has added grief to my sorrow; I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest. 4. Thus says the Lord: Say this to him: Behold, what I have built, I am tearing down; and what I have planted, I am uprooting — even this whole land. 5. And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I am bringing evil upon all flesh, says the Lord; but I will give you your life as a prize of war, in all places wherever you go.
Verse 1
1. These words — not those of this chapter, but those which are said to have been written in chapter XXXVI: for this passage pertains to that, as is evident from comparing both chapters. Hence in verse 1 they are said to have occurred in the fourth year of Jehoiakim.
You will ask: Why did Baruch grieve so? Rabbi Solomon responds, first, that it was because, after serving the prophet Jeremiah for so long, he had not yet received the gift of prophecy, as Joshua received it by serving Moses, and Elisha by serving Elijah. But there is nothing to indicate such ambition in a holy man.
Secondly, Theodoret and Rabanus think he grieved on account of the calamity threatening the people, in which he himself would be involved.
Thirdly, and best, Hugo and Lyranus, from verse 1 and chapter XXXVI, verse 10, think he grieved because, after the scroll he had written at Jeremiah's dictation was torn up and burned by Jehoiakim, he was again commanded by God to write the same and read it before the people — the same message now filled with greater threats — and he feared (as in fact happened) that he would be sought out by the raging king Jehoiakim for imprisonment, or rather for a cruel death. The cause of his grief, therefore, was faintheartedness and fear of imprisonment and death. Hence, groaning, he says: 'The Lord has added grief to my grief,' that is, one writing to another, one danger to another. For from the danger of the first writing I had escaped by flight; now I am called back to both — from rest to struggle, and that the ultimate one.
Verse 5
5. Do you seek great things for yourself? — namely the office of prophesying, say Vatablus and the Hebrews. But secondly and better, 'great things' means rest and a prosperous life without pain, trouble, and danger. So Theodoret. He therefore calls 'great things' a rare, exquisite, and superfluous repose: that Baruch alone should enjoy leisure while the entire people was about to suffer greatly, to be uprooted and led into captivity, and that he should not expose himself to danger by reading the book to the people, but should live alone in wretched Jerusalem, free from all evil and fear — meaning: You are a cowardly soldier, who for the salvation of the people do not dare to expose your life; you alone wish to be idle, you wish to suffer nothing for the conversion and salvation of the people. And even if you accomplish little with the people, at least try, and do what is your duty, and consider: if my countrymen are to suffer such terrible things, why should I not also suffer something light with them and for them? For as the Wise Man says: As a bird is born to fly, so man is born to toil and suffering — that is, to do and endure many hard things.
Aristides says admirably, volume II, Rhodian Oration: 'Example alone renders calamities lighter.' The same author in the same place: 'As the touchstone tests gold, so calamities test brave men.'
Thus Hildebrand, Cardinal and Archdeacon of the Holy Roman Church, who was later created Pope and called Gregory VII, objected to Blessed Peter Damian when he wished to resign the Cardinalate and the Bishopric of Ostia and retire to the quiet of a monastery: 'Behold,' he said, 'Peter seeks a hiding place, and under the pretext of penance seeks to avoid coming to Rome; he schemes to gain leisure through disobedience, and while others rush into battle, this man seeks the shade of ignoble shadows.' What Peter replied to this may be seen in his tenth letter to Pope Alexander II and Archdeacon Hildebrand, where among other things he says that as penance for refusing the Bishopric, the Pope had imposed on him a hundred years' penance — which consisted of daily reciting the psalm Miserere while continuously performing the discipline, that is, flagellating himself, and this for a hundred years, if he should live so long. This penance he redeemed in a single year, namely by repeating the discipline each day as many times — that is, a hundred times — for the duration of the psalm Miserere, so that by the end of the year he would equal the aforementioned number, as he himself writes elsewhere about himself.
John Frederick, Duke of Saxony, desired to take the empire from the Austrian family. Luther gave him counsel that if he wished to change the empire, he should change the religion. Following Luther's perfidy and counsel, the Duke took up arms against Charles V, but foolishly: for he was defeated and captured by Charles, and deprived of his Duchy and Electoral power, which the Emperor transferred to Duke Maurice, John Frederick's cousin, and to his family, in which it still remains.
Conversely, King Clotaire, son of Chilperic, having followed the sound counsel of St. Columban, was increased by two kingdoms. For when Theudebert and Theuderic, kings and brothers, were disputing about the boundaries of their kingdoms, and each sought help from Clotaire against the other, Clotaire sought counsel from St. Columban, who, with a prophetic spirit, told him and advised: Assist neither of them; for within three years the kingdom of both will come under your power. The king obeyed, and as the man of God had said, so it happened, as Jonas relates in the Life of St. Columban, and from him Baronius, in the year of our Lord 612.
Likewise Feletheus, king of the Rugii, following the counsel of St. Severinus, escaped the plots of his enemies, as Eugippius narrates in his Life, and from him Baronius, in the year of our Lord 473.
Thus Christ called the Apostles and their followers not to idleness but to struggles; not to honors but to contempt; not to security but to dangers to be faced on land and sea everywhere. This firm and certain resolution had been set for himself by Father Gonsalvo da Silveira of our Society, noble by birth (for he was the son of the Count of Sortelha in Portugal), but nobler still by his constant labors and at last by a glorious martyrdom, which he suffered in Monomotapa. For in a letter to Father Cotinho he writes thus: 'I desire to beg and to eat nothing except what I have begged from door to door; to hear confessions continually until there is no penitent left for me to hear; to keep vigil until no work remains; to preach until I am hoarse; to mortify myself unto death. For I can die in the execution of these things; but with the grace of God I will not grow cold, I will never grow weary, but I will continually seek the means and ways by which I may always be crucified with Christ Jesus.'
Thus St. Teresa heard and learned from Christ: 'Daughter, merit does not consist in enjoying, but in working, suffering, and loving. Paul is said to have been caught up into paradise once, but to have suffered many times. My Mother heard from Simeon: A sword shall pierce your own soul. To the greater Saints God gives greater crosses.' Therefore she constantly prayed: 'Lord, let me suffer or die.'
Blessed Father Francis Borgia, third Superior General of our Society, wisely said that three things would preserve and promote our Society: first, prayer, for this unites us to God; second, obedience, for this unites all to the head, and consequently unites all among themselves; third, persecutions, for these tear us away from the world and unite us to ourselves, so that we may so compose our actions that our enemies or rivals have nothing to criticize. Therefore, just as in winter trees draw inward, recalling sap and warmth from the branches to the root, and thereby fix, fortify, and strengthen it more in the earth: so also a person in persecution is drawn back from human consolation to himself and to his heart, and fixes and strengthens it more in virtue and in God. These three things equally preserve and promote the virtue of every faithful person and Saint.
There is a famous emblem: 'The reward comes from labor.' Hear Claudian in the Epithalamium of Honorius:
No one enjoys the true fragrance of flowers, Or robs the Hyblaean bees of their honeycombs, If he fears for his brow, if he dreads the thorns. Thorns arm the roses, bees guard the honey; Joys grow from difficult strife.
I will give you your life as a prize — that is, safe; the Hebrew says, as spoil; the Septuagint, as profit. In the words of Aeschylus:
Divine aid is accustomed to attend the one who toils.