Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
By way of recapitulation he shows that Christ's priesthood surpasses the Aaronic as the body surpasses the shadow; then, in verse 6, he passes from priesthood to testament, and teaches that the old testament, like the priesthood, has been abolished by the new one of Christ, inasmuch as it does not write God's laws on tablets of stone, but on the heart and mind.
Vulgate Text: Hebrews 8:1-13
1. Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such a high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens, 2. a minister of the holies, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord hath pitched, and not man. 3. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is necessary that He also should have something to offer; 4. if then He were on earth, He would not be a priest: seeing that there were already those who offered gifts according to the law, 5. who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. As it was answered to Moses when he was about to finish the tabernacle: See (saith He), make all things according to the pattern which was shewn thee on the mount. 6. But now He has obtained a better ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better testament, which is established on better promises. 7. For if that former one had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8. For finding fault with them He saith: Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord: and I will perfect, over the house of Israel and over the house of Juda, a new testament; 9. not according to the testament which I made to their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt: because they continued not in My testament, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. 10. For this is the testament which I will dispose to the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: putting My laws into their mind, and on their hearts I will write them: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people: 11. and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: Know the Lord: for all shall know Me from the least to the greatest of them: 12. because I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more. 13. Now in saying «new,» He has made the former old. And that which decayeth and groweth old is near its end.
Verse 1: Now of the Things Which We Have Spoken This Is the Sum
As if to say: The chief point, sum and summary of what I have said and am saying about the excellence of Christ's priesthood is what follows. So the Syriac; or as Chrysostom has it: the "sum" or chief point, that is, the principal and greatest matter, to which as to a target the other things I have said about Christ as pontiff are referred, is what I shall now expound. But the former sense is plainer, both because in Greek it is not kephale, that is head, but diminutively kephalaion, that is little head or sum, namely because it is brief and as it were a summary of what has been said; and because in fact Paul in this chapter performs a recapitulation, and what the whole epistle disputes about the excellence of Christ's new pontificate and the infirmity of the old ones, and about their abrogation, in this chapter he summarily encompasses and forcefully confirms.
Note the Hebraism, "over these things," that is "of these things." For the Hebrews sometimes explain the regimen of the genitive by ב bet, that is in, or by על al, that is over.
We have such a high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of majesty in the highest. — This is the chief point, sum and summary of what has been said, namely that Christ far surpasses not only the Aaronic priests but also the angels, and is such and so great, that He sits above all at the right hand of God.
Note: "Throne of majesty," that is the throne of majesty, on which namely sits the majesty of God the Father, so that God the Father is called "greatness" or "majesty"; just as we are accustomed to call kings "royal Majesty," and to call princes "Highness." Or secondly, "throne of greatness" or majesty, is the greatest and most august throne, of supreme majesty and glory. Both senses are Theophylact's, and both are from the Hebrew phrase.
Furthermore, Christ sits at the right hand of the Father not only as God, but also as man: for as man He is pontiff. Hear St. Cyril in the Council of Ephesus, epistle to Anastasius, etc.: "That the incarnate Word sits with God, and is of equal glory with God and the Father, even in the flesh, as being one Son, even when He was made man, the most wise Paul makes manifest, writing: We have such a high priest, who sits at the right hand of the throne of majesty in the highest." For in Christ this man and this God are the same, on account of the same hypostasis. Whence Cyril adds: "Therefore the choir of the holy Prophets contemplated even the incarnate Son on the throne of divinity."
In the highest. — In Greek en hypselois, that is, in the heavens.
Verse 2: A Minister of the Holies, and of the True Tabernacle, Which the Lord Hath Pitched
A minister of the holies. — Because Christ makes saints, and is the author of true sanctity, says Chrysostom and others, and as one passing among the saints in heaven will minister to them. But the word "of the holies" here is not of masculine gender, but neuter; nor does it signify men, but the sanctuary. "Of the holies," therefore, that is, the public minister of sacred things in the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies (for this is leitourgos), namely the priest and pontiff, is Christ. This is clear from what follows; for in explaining "of the holies," he adds, "and (that is) of the tabernacle (sanctuary) which the Lord pitched, and not man," as if to say: Christ is the pontiff not of the old sanctuary made by man, namely Moses, which consisted of the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies; but of the new, namely the Church prefigured by the old Holy Place and Holy of Holies, which not Moses but God constructed; for the Holy Place signified the Church of Christ walking on earth and tending toward the Holy of Holies, that is, toward heaven, to the Church Triumphant — as if Paul were saying: Christ is priest both of the Church Militant and of the Church Triumphant, because in the Militant He offers daily through His priests the sacrifice of the Eucharist, which He Himself first offered and instituted in it while He lived; but in the Triumphant He is pontiff, because He Himself first opened the way to heaven, when through His own blood He entered into the Holies, having found eternal redemption, as the Apostle says in chapter IX, and there He intercedes for us.
Which He pitched. — Therefore heaven is neither moved, nor is it round, but fixed, and consisting fixedly in its quadrature, says St. Chrysostom. The former is true, namely that the empyrean heaven, in which the Blessed are, is not moved but is fixed and immobile. The latter, namely that it is square, not spherical, at least as regards the convex surface, is also taught by Luis de Molina in the treatise On the Work of the Six Days, and the Conimbricenses in book II On the Heaven, chapter V, Question I, article 2. St. John also intimates this in Apocalypse XXI, where speaking of heaven he says: "The city is laid out as a square"; which can be taken literally, as it sounds. But better will you take this square, as also the stones, streets, walls and other ornaments of that heavenly city, which St. John describes in that chapter, not literally, but symbolically: namely that partly for ornament, partly for firmness, partly and especially for amplitude and convenience, by which it is opened to all the regions of the world, it is called and presented as square: for square cities are most firm, most ornate and most convenient for those entering and going out, inasmuch as by the four sides of their square they look toward the four regions of the world, so that through the gates of each side, men from any region can enter and go out directly. And this is what John wishes to signify by this quadrature of heaven, namely that on its four sides it looks toward the four regions of the world, and on each of these has three, that is many and abundant gates, by which from all the regions of the world the Saints and elect may enter heaven. For he refers to and explains what he had said in verse 13, that this city has three gates on the East, three on the North, the same number on the South and on the West. Wherefore there is nothing that compels us to say that the empyrean heaven is of a different shape from the other heavens, and is square: and so what Aristotle and the philosophers in book II On the Heaven, chapter IV, teach, namely that heaven is spherical because the spherical figure is the most perfect and most capacious, can also be attributed to the empyrean heaven.
Verse 3: For Every High Priest Is Appointed to Offer Gifts and Sacrifices
"Sacrifices" are bloody victims; "gifts" are unbloody, as I said in chapter V, verse 1. The Apostle proves what he said in verse 2, namely that Christ, although He sits at God's right hand in heaven, is nevertheless there a "minister of the holies," that is of the sanctuary, and a priest, who namely ministers to God by sacrificing and by offering sacred victims and gifts; he proves it thus: Christ, although He sits in heaven, is nevertheless pontiff; but every pontiff offers gifts and victims: therefore Christ also in heaven offers His victims and gifts, namely His sacrifice on the cross, which He once offered on Mount Calvary, and now also offers the very same to the Father in heaven by continual commemoration, chapter IX, verse 12.
Secondly and properly, Christ in heaven offers the sacrifices of the Mass, which are celebrated daily throughout the whole world; for in these the first and principal priest who consecrates, offers, and performs the transubstantiation, is Christ.
Verse 4: If Then He Were on Earth, He Would Not Be a Priest
As if to say: If Christ's priesthood were such as you, O Jews, require, namely that your Messiah should always dwell among you in Solomon's temple, and there sacrifice and do those things which the Levitical and Aaronic priests did: "He would not even be a priest," in Greek oud' an en hiereus, that is, Christ would not even be a priest and pontiff: both because for this earthly priesthood and for procuring and obtaining its earthly goods the legal and Levitical priests would suffice, nor would another priest be needed according to the order of Melchisedech, namely Christ; and because Christ, if He were only an earthly priest, would not have offered a victim worthy of Christ, that is of the Redeemer and Savior, which would suffice for our salvation. For no victim was worthy and sufficient to unbar heaven and to bring us heavenly goods and salvation, except Christ Himself immolated on the cross, slain, and having ended His earthly life. So Oecumenius.
From these things the Apostle gathers that Christ is pontiff and minister of the Holies not only on earth, but also in heaven, as has preceded.
From this passage badly understood, recently a certain Faustus Socinus of Siena fabricated an impious dogma, and spread it in Poland and Holland, namely that Christ was not a priest on earth, but only in heaven, and so that He offered no sacrifice or ransom of our redemption on the cross; and consequently that Christ was not Redeemer and Savior, but only the Teacher of men, who by His holy life merited that after death He should become priest and pontiff in heaven. Whence before the cross and resurrection He was indeed a Prophet, but only a man, who therefore was not to be called otherwise than Jesus of Nazareth; but after the resurrection He was made Christ, and so was henceforth to be called. This blasphemous dogma not only renews and surpasses the ancient Arianism, Nestorianism and Pelagianism, but also overthrows Christ and Christianity entirely. But the foundation drawn from this passage and from chapter IX, verses 11 and 24, where the Apostle says that "Christ being come a high priest of the good things to come, entered into heaven, that He may appear before the face of God for us," is null: for in these and similar passages the Apostle only teaches that Christ is our pontiff not only on earth, as Aaron was, but also in heaven, and so is an eternal pontiff, as David had promised in Psalm CIX, in the sense which I explained on chapter VII, verses 3 and 21.
For that the Apostle wishes and teaches that Christ on earth and on the cross was pontiff, and that He properly offered His expiatory sacrifice for the sins of the whole world on earth, not in heaven, where there is no place for sacrifice, but for reward, is clear both from other things, and from what he says in chapter IX, verse 14: "The blood of Christ, who through the Holy Spirit offered Himself unspotted to God, shall cleanse our conscience"; and so he adds that by Christ's blood the new testament and covenant was established, by which God forgives us our sins through Christ's merits and the sacrifice accomplished on the cross, confers grace and promises the heavenly kingdom. And in verses 26 and 28: "Christ," he says, "was offered once (where, if not on the cross?) to exhaust the sins of many." Again, in chapter X, verse 14: "By one oblation (of the cross)," he says, "(Christ) has perfected forever them that are sanctified." And throughout in Romans, Galatians, Corinthians and other epistles the Apostle proclaims that Christ died for our sins, and that we cannot be justified from them through the works of the law, but only through the faith and merits of Christ: and so He is entirely engaged in teaching that there is no other way or hope of justice and salvation than through the blood and death of Christ, and Him slain on the cross, "who has been made for us justice, sanctification and redemption."
Verse 5: Who Serve Unto the Example and Shadow of Heavenly Things
As if to say: The Levitical priests "serve" (in Greek latreuousin, that is, with latria and great reverence they serve) the tabernacle, that is, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies; which is only an example, in Greek hypodeigma, that is sub-showing, obscure picture, representation, type and shadow of heavenly things, which are accomplished in the Church, both the earthly and militant, and especially the heavenly and triumphant, by Christ. For first, the sacrifices and victims which the Levitical priests daily offered on the altar of holocausts signified the sacrifice of the Mass, which Christ daily offers through His priests in the Church.
Whence Chrysostom and Theophylact beautifully and truly note that the Levitical priesthood was only a hypodeigma, that is, an obscure and slight representation of our priesthood, and that ours is here called by the Apostle "heavenly," because it has a heavenly victim, namely the body of Christ, and therefore has angels present; and because it obtains heavenly goods, opens heaven for us, and consequently because it requires a heavenly life from its ministers. "Here," they say, "in our mysteries there is nothing earthly, but all things are heavenly and spiritual; where there are angelic hymns, where there are the keys of the kingdom of heaven, where there is the remission of sins, and again the binding and loosing, where our conversation is in heaven, how are not the things which are with us heavenly?"
Secondly, that the pontiff, having immolated victims, entered with blood once a year into the Holy of Holies, signified that Christ, through the immolation of His blood and life, would enter into heaven, that there with God He might be our pontiff, interceding for us and unbarring heaven for us, of which it will be spoken in chapter IX, where he calls these very heavenly things heaven itself, of which the Jewish and earthly Holy of Holies were examples.
Note this passage for the veneration of holy images. For the Apostle here says that the Jews paid latria and the highest cult of that age to the tabernacle, as to a hypodeigma, that is, the image and picture of heavenly, invisible and divine things: for this is what the word latreuousin signifies. The Jews, adoring the propitiatory of the ark, were adoring God represented through it, and as it were sitting on it as on His throne. For just as the Saints are venerated in their image, so also God.
As it was answered (kechrematistai, that is, was spoken by a divine oracle) to Moses, when he was about to finish the tabernacle. — "Was about to finish," that is, was wishing or thinking to finish, for in Greek it is mellein epitelein, that is, when he was about to finish the tabernacle.
See, He saith, make all things according to the pattern which was shewn thee on the mount. — He cites the last verse of Exodus chapter XXV, whose literal sense is this: See, O Moses, that you make the tabernacle, the candlestick, the ark, and the other things pertaining to the tabernacle according to the pattern which I have during these forty days you spent with Me on Sinai described to you with a living voice, and proposed for you to behold by some sensible image. That this is the literal sense is clear from what precedes, especially chapter IX, where God promises this idea of the tabernacle to Moses.
Secondly, allegorically, this idea of the tabernacle, as well as the tabernacle itself, was an idea of Christ and the Church: and so the Apostle in this passage signifies that there was also shown to Moses an idea, or an allegorical and anagogical exemplar, namely heavenly things, that is the spiritual tabernacle, namely the Church of Christ, both militant and triumphant, which was signified by this material Mosaic tabernacle; so that according to this exemplar of the Church, Moses was commanded to construct his material tabernacle, in such a way and form that it might correspond to the Church as to its type and exemplar, and might aptly refer to it and represent it: so that Moses might see, at least in general and confusedly, that the tabernacle which he was about to construct, and its altars, vestments, victims and other vessels, were types, shadows and pictures, by which the Messiah with the Church, and His heavenly goods, and especially the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ were depicted. So teach Anselm here, and Bede on Exodus chapter XXV. For the tropological sense, see the last verse of Exodus XXV.
Verse 6: But Now He Has Obtained a Better Ministry
As if to say: Christ has received a better and more excellent priesthood than the Levitical and legal priests: more excellent, I say, by as much as the new testament, of which Christ is mediator, surpasses the old, and promises greater goods to His own: for the old testament pledges, promises and provides earthly goods, but the new heavenly goods.
Verse 7: For If That Former One Had Been Faultless, No Place Would Have Been Sought for a Second
For "had been faultless" the Greek is en amempton, that is, would have been irreprehensible: he therefore calls "fault" of the law, not sin, as if that old law contained something evil, as the Manichaeans wished. For that law was holy, as the Apostle says, Romans VII, verse 12; but by way of intensification and amplification, he calls "fault" the infirmity and defect of the law, because namely it could not justify and save men: and in this respect the law was as it were reprehensible and to be corrected. For the law of Christ tacitly rebukes the old law, and convicts it of infirmity, when it abolished and removed it, as if to say: If the law and old testament could have removed faults and sins, if there had been no defect in it to be supplied and corrected, no place would have been sought for a second, that is, a second, namely a new, testament would not have been introduced and substituted in its place.
Note the hypallage: "place of a second," that is a second in the place, or placed and set in the place of the first.
Others explain thus, "if it had been without fault," that is, if the law had not been the occasion of fault: for thus to the Romans chapter VII, verses 5 and 11, the Apostle says that the law works death. Thus cold is called slothful by metonymy, because it makes men torpid and slothful. But this sense seems to be beside the mind and scope of the Apostle. For the Apostle does not press this occasion of sin here, but only the weakness and impotence of the law to justify. Yet this sense follows from the prior one; for because the law commanded sins to be avoided, and yet did not give grace to avoid them, hence it was occasion of greater sin: for without grace the law cannot be fulfilled nor sins avoided. Others again refer "had been without fault" not to the old testament, but to the men who lived under it, who by its power could not be without fault. But that Paul speaks here not of men, but of the testament, is plain from the very words, and from the little particle nam. The first sense therefore is the genuine one.
Verse 8: For Finding Fault with Them He Saith: Behold the Days Shall Come
He proves that the old testament and law was not without fault, and therefore that another, namely the new testament, was introduced by God, from this that Jeremiah reproves the Jews, saying in chapter XXXI: "Because they themselves did not continue in My testament, and I neglected them, says the Lord."
Note: The Apostle speaks circumspectly, "reproving them," namely the Jews; but not reproving it, namely the law or testament; for this would have been odious to the Jews to whom the old law was held in marvelous veneration: yet tacitly when he reproves the Jews, he reproves their law, as weak and feeble, which namely could not make the Jews obedient to itself and good; thus the vices of disciples are usually ascribed to the pedagogues: for the law of the Jews was a pedagogue. Whence soon Jeremiah adds, and from him Paul, that God will introduce a new testament in place of the old, which will confer copious grace on Christians, that they may spontaneously keep the law of Christ, and become good and holy; as if Paul were saying: Jeremiah reproves the Jews, who were under the old testament, that they sinned against the law, and because this their testament and law could not prevent, take away, and remove these sins, therefore he promises a new testament and law of grace, which will take away and remove sins, and in place of the rebellious Jews will introduce Christians obedient to the law and will of God in all things. So Chrysostom and Theophylact.
Behold, the days will come, saith the Lord: and I will consummate a new testament upon the house of Israel, and upon the house of Juda. — For "consummabo" in Hebrew it is כָּרַתִּי karati, that is, I will strike and cut a testament, that is, a new covenant. See on this phrase what was said at 1 Corinthians XI, 25.
Secondly, "the house of Israel" he calls the ten tribes which under Jeroboam made schism from the house of Juda, that is, from the two tribes of Juda and Benjamin; as if to say: Christ by His new covenant and testament will again join the twelve tribes already cut and divided into one people, into one kingdom, into His one Church.
Note: Symbolically the Apostle, as also the Prophet, by the house of Juda understands any Jews, but by the house of Israel the Gentiles; because as the house of Juda alone retained the true temple and worship of God, so the house of Israel turned aside to the golden calves, and then to the rites and idolatry of the Gentile Assyrians, IV Kings XVII, verses 22 and following. And so the Israelites became as it were Gentiles. Therefore the Prophet and Apostle signify that both Gentiles and Jews, and so all the faithful and all peoples, will be partakers of this new testament and grace of Christ.
Verse 9: Not According to the Testament Which I Made with Their Fathers
As if to say: This new testament will not be such as the old was, made with the fathers; but far more excellent than that which I struck with Moses.
Excellently St. Augustine, sentence 384: "As the art of medicine," he says, "although it remains the same and is in no way itself changed, yet changes its precepts for the sick, because our health is changeable: so divine providence, although it be itself wholly unchangeable, yet variously aids the changeable creature, and according to the diversity of diseases commands or forbids different things to different men, that from the vice from which death begins, and from death itself, it may bring back and strengthen to its nature and essence those things which are failing, that is, tending to nothingness."
In the day when I took hold of their hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt. — "On the day," that is, at the time: for not on the same day on which God led out the Hebrews from Egypt, but only on the fiftieth day after the exodus, did He give them the law on Sinai.
Note the word "apprehendi," as if to say: I, God, so loved the people Israel, that as a father I took him by the hand not as a servant, but as My son and child, and led him out of Egypt, and on the fiftieth day after gave him the law, and entered into covenant with him, that he, mindful of so great a deliverance, might exactly keep it; which yet he did not perform.
Because they themselves did not continue in My testament, and I neglected them, saith the Lord. — For "neglexi" in Hebrew it is בָּעַלְתִּי בָם baalti bam, that is, I dominated them, or over them, dominated, I say, not as a spouse or husband, as Vatablus and the more recent translators render, but as an enemy, repelling them from Me and My Church, neglecting, reprobating, and destroying them. Whence the Septuagint, which Paul follows here, openly translates, "emelesa auton," that is, I neglected, despised, reprobated them. So also R. Joseph Kimchi translates, I loathed, I abominated them; as if Jeremiah were saying: Because the Jews did not keep the conditions of My covenant, namely My laws, hence I rejected them, and made the covenant void, and decreed to establish a new people for Myself, and to enter into a new covenant with them. By this sentence both the old people, and the old law, and the old testament are repelled: the people, because they did not stand firm in the pact: the law, because it did not make its people obedient; but the testament and pact, because the people broke the conditions of the pact, and consequently the pact itself. Therefore in turn God broke and rescinded this His pact.
Verse 10: For This Is the Testament Which I Will Make to the House of Israel After Those Days
The word "quia" is not here causal, but expletive, or rather adversative, in the Hebrew manner; as if to say: But this is the testament and covenant, namely the new, which I will introduce and establish in place of the old.
After those days. — That is, after I shall have neglected and rejected the unbelieving Jews from Me and My Church.
Note: As God entered into the old pact and covenant on Sinai with the Hebrews, Exodus XIX and XXIV, by which He bound Himself to be the God and protector of the Hebrews, and to give them the land of Canaan, under this condition, if the people would obey Him and keep His laws, and that covenant was confirmed in Exodus chapter XXIV by the blood of victims, and by the common feast of the contracting parties. For Moses and Aaron in the role of God's herald ate with the people from the covenantal victim: for Moses here was as it were the herald and mediator of God and the people. By similar reason and manner God entered into the new covenant with Christians, whose herald and father patratus is Christ, by which covenant God in the whole Gospel binds Himself to give to Christians His grace, remission of sins, friendship, adoption as sons, every help and protection for working and living well, and finally the inheritance itself of eternal life, under this condition, if they obey Him, if they receive and observe the faith and law of Christ, which is brief and easy, namely of faith and the sacraments: hence it is called new, because it brings new promises, precepts, Sacraments, new grace, new life, a new man.
Note secondly: Christ confirmed this new covenant with His own blood, making Himself a victim on the cross; secondly, by the feast of the Eucharist, which He communicates to all to the end of the world. Not therefore only on the mountain, in that long sermon which He has in Matthew chapters V, VI, VII, as Theodoret would have it, but in His whole life, in the whole Gospel, did Christ institute this covenant, where the contracting parties are God and the Apostles, and other Christians, and Christ is the herald.
Note thirdly: As the old covenant was promulgated on Mount Sinai at Pentecost, so the new on Sion at Pentecost; and as in the old the law was given on stone tablets, as the condition of the covenant, so in the new the law was given, but on the tablets of the heart: that one written with a brush, this with the Spirit of the living God, because through Christ grace and charity is poured forth into our hearts, that is, into our free will, through prevenient, accompanying, and sanctifying grace. Therefore free will is not here taken away, as Calvin would have it, but is altogether presupposed in the word "free," and because, as I said, this covenant, as also any other, requires a condition on our part, namely that we obey God calling and cooperate with His grace, pursue justice, and persevere in it, if we wish to obtain the heavenly inheritance. As therefore Moses descended from Sinai to the people bearing the tablets of the law, so the Apostles, descending from Sion bearing in mind the Holy Spirit and His dogmas and gifts, came down to all nations, and proposed and communicated them to them.
Giving My laws into their mind, and on their heart I will inscribe them. — For "dando" in Hebrew it is נָתַתִּי natatti, that is, I will give, and this is clearer: for they are words of the new testament and pact. The Septuagint, however, which Paul here follows, translates didous, that is, giving, or by giving. Which comes to the same.
I will give. — Note: The thing which God promised to us by His new covenant and testament is the Holy Spirit, or the law of grace and charity breathed and inscribed upon the mind. Whence St. Augustine, book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter XXI: "What," he says, "are the other laws written by God on hearts, except the very presence of the Holy Spirit?" On the contrary, in the old covenant, the law written on tablets was not the thing promised, but the condition of the covenant.
Yet here note: God does not write the Holy Spirit on heart and mind by Himself alone, as He alone wrote the old law on stone tablets; but He requires the consent and cooperation of free will: and this is the condition of the covenant both new and old. Therefore God now inscribes His law and counsels not on books, or tablets, or fringes, as formerly among the Jews, but on the very mind and intellect of Christians, when He imprints on him faith and prudence in things to be done, and frequent illuminations and illustrations, by which He shows the mind how beautiful the law of Christ is, how useful, divine, sweet; how foul sin is, how easy repentance, how pleasant the pious and Christian life.
Secondly, He inscribes these on the memory, when He imprints the memory of these on man, and continually renews and refreshes it. Thirdly, He inscribes these on the heart and will, when He infuses into him pious affections, complacencies, impulses, promptness, and finally charity toward the law of God, that he may say: "Lord, give what You command, and command what You will." So St. Augustine, book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter XVII and following.
And I will be to them a God, and they themselves shall be to Me a people. — It is a Hebraism; as if to say: I will be to them God, and they themselves shall be to Me a people, namely chosen, singular, and peculiar: for though I am the God of all men, and all are My people, yet Christians who love Me I will hold as My peculium, as My Church, as My people, so that with respect to them I may seem to neglect the rest, and not to hold them as My people.
Note the emphasis in the word "God": "I will be to them God," that is, I will be to them a most clement father, provider, protector, bestower of grace, glory, beatitude, and of all good things; vice versa they themselves shall be to Me a people, because they will acknowledge, believe, serve, worship, and obey Me, will hope and love as their God, lord, and most loving father. He alludes to Exodus XIX, 5: "You shall be to Me a peculium out of all peoples, and a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation."
Verse 11: And Every Man Shall Not Teach His Neighbor, Saying: Know the Lord
First, St. Augustine, book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter XXIV, Anselm, and Cajetan think this is said of the Blessed; as if to say: When through the new testament we shall pass into heaven, and shall be blessed, then no one will any longer teach another, because the new law, the clear and blessed vision of God, will teach all sufficiently and more.
But this is beside the mind both of Jeremiah and of Paul. For each speaks of the knowledge and grace which the new testament brings to the faithful in this life, since the old testament brought little of light, wisdom, and grace to the Jews.
Secondly, St. Thomas and Ambrose think these are said of the Apostles, who were taught by the Holy Spirit and needed no other teacher. But this also is too narrow: for both the Prophet and the Apostle speak of any sons of the new testament, and to them promises this light and this grace.
Thirdly, St. Jerome on Jeremiah XXXI explains thus, as if to say: In the time of the new Testament, the faithful will not seek out Jewish or philosophical teachers, as they did before, nor will they seek Jewish traditions, nor philosophical reasons, that they may come to the faith and knowledge of the true God. But this also does not explain the mind of the Prophet, who here seems to exclude not only Jewish or Gentile, but also Christian teachers.
Fourthly and better, Theodoret, Theophylact, Oecumenius, and St. Augustine, book On the Grace of Christ, chapter XII, explain thus, as if to say: In the new law, Christians will not need great labor to learn what is necessary for salvation; but they will do it easily, so that even boys (as we see happens) immediately learn and grasp these things, both because the precepts of the new law are few, namely those of the decalogue, of faith, and of the Sacraments; and because God gives them great illuminations, so that with God teaching interiorly they immediately perceive these things. But neither does this sense exhaust the mind and depth of the Prophet, as will soon appear.
I say therefore that this is the genuine sense of this passage, as if to say: All who through catechesis and baptism have been made Christians (for he speaks of the faithful, not of the unbelievers), both in the primitive Church and afterwards, will have the knowledge, love, worship, and fear of the one true God, and will utterly despise their former idolatry: for God will so interiorly by His grace illuminate their mind, and inflame their heart and will, that, having spontaneously cast off idols and every superstition, they may acknowledge, worship, and love the true God.
Where note first: This knowledge of the Lord, of which Jeremiah here speaks, is not bare and speculative, but affectionate and practical; as if to say: "Know the Lord," and worship Him known, fear and love Him in return. It is a metalepsis. Whence Jonathan the Chaldean translates thus: a man shall not teach his neighbor any more, saying: Know to fear the Lord, because all shall learn that they may know My fear. The same Jonathan, on Hosea IV, where ours has "there is no knowledge of God in the land," has thus: there is none who walks in the fear of the Lord in the land. Therefore Jeremiah and Paul do not speak of the knowledge of all the mysteries and articles of faith, but only of the knowledge and worship of the true God: for this is "know the Lord." This is plain from the reason which he subjoins: "Because I will be propitious to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more," as if to say: When Christians will see themselves rescued by God through Christ from the most miserable state of sin and eternal damnation, they will straightway acknowledge God their liberator, will give Him thanks, and will be wholly carried away into love and obedience to Him, namely so that they may strive to obey God's laws and will in all things.
Hence note secondly: Jeremiah here does not exclude the ministry and doctrine of the Apostles, and of other teachers and preachers of the Gospel: for these, as the Apostle says Eph. IV, 11, God placed in the Church to teach, edify, and perfect it. But he presupposes them here. For he speaks to Christians, who have been catechized and baptized by the Apostles and other teachers. Therefore Jeremiah only wishes to teach that in the new law the knowledge, worship, love, and obedience of God will be so easy, when the preaching of the Gospel has been heard, that men spontaneously rush to it: whereas in the old Testament the Jews could scarcely be compelled even by threats and penalties to abandon idols, and to know, worship, love the true God and obey Him; and this would come about because God will not inscribe this knowledge, worship, and law of Himself on stone tablets, as He did for the Jews, but on the mind and heart of Christians: namely by illuminating the mind with such great light, and impelling the will with such efficacy and sweetness, that men are seized into knowledge and love of Him. Yet this does not exclude that, for these things to be begun, increased, promoted, and for other things to be added which pertain to the institution and knowledge of the particular mysteries of faith and laws of Christ, one should teach, exhort, and excite another: for to this, as I said, God placed Apostles, teachers, and Pastors in the Church.
Wrongly therefore do the Anabaptists and other Innovators try to prove from this that the private spirit of each man is the judge of controversies of faith and the interpreter of sacred Scripture, and is the rule both of what is to be believed and of what is to be done. For that spirit is private and secret, which cannot be seen or known by others, indeed by the very man who has it, whether it be black or white: and each will say that he has this spirit, since we experience these private spirits to be most contrary and conflicting among themselves, whence in the Church there will be the greatest confusion and dissension. For Jeremiah and the Apostle here speak not of this private spirit, but of the public and common spirit of all Christians; and they say it does not interpret the Scriptures, but teaches each one interiorly and excites him to the knowledge and love of the true God, and that this is necessary; so much so, "that unless this spirit be present in the heart of the hearer, the discourse of the teacher is idle," as St. Gregory says, homily 30 on the Gospel. Thus St. John, epistle I, chapter II, verse 27, says: "His unction teaches you of all things," as if to say: It is not necessary that pseudo-apostles teach you the faith (for that they are dealt with is plain from verse 22), for you have already learned it, and learn it through me and the Apostles, with the unction of the Holy Spirit cooperating, which both at other times, and especially in the sacrament of Confirmation, you have received. For it is necessary that what the Apostles teach you outwardly, the Holy Spirit teach you inwardly. "For unless He teach you within, every noise of human voice is empty," as St. Augustine says on that passage.
Thus from Isaiah chapter LIV, says St. John in the Gospel chapter VI, verse 45: "And they shall all be taught of God." In Hebrew limmude, in Greek didaktoi, that is, taught by God, who namely will be the foremost teacher of Christians, to teach, illumine, and inflame their mind interiorly at the external voice of Christ and His disciples: whereas formerly through the Prophets, through the priests, through the Scripture and the law in the old Testament He taught the Jews more exteriorly than interiorly, who for that reason remained untaught, rude, cold, and torpid in the love and worship of God.
Note: The more anyone purifies his heart, and joins himself to God by prayer, the more he is taught interiorly by God. Hence St. Anthony, as St. Athanasius testifies, frequent and almost continuous in prayer, had received this gift from God, that, if while sitting on the mountain he was ignorant of any matter, and would inquire into the notion of it within himself, it would soon be revealed to him by God as he prayed. Similar God-taught men were St. John the Evangelist, Simeon Stylites, St. Paul the first Hermit, St. Dominic, St. Francis, and others.
Verse 13: But in Saying New, He Has Antiquated the Former
For "veteravit" in Greek is pepalaioke, that is, He has made antiquated, declared to be ancient and old; as if to say: When God through Jeremiah says: "I will consummate a new testament," He plainly signifies that the prior Mosaic testament, at this very time of Jeremiah, was little by little being made antiquated, growing old, and falling, and therefore would not endure, but would gradually grow more and more old and perish, until shortly after it would utterly fall and be abolished through the new testament to be introduced by Christ. All these things Paul therefore says, in order to draw the Hebrews from Moses to Christ, and to teach them that they ought not to wonder that God abrogated the old testament given by Himself (as being weak and insufficient for justice and salvation) through the new of the new Messiah Savior, since this was promised and predicted so many ages before by Jeremiah.