Jeremiah, Lamentations

Dean O. Wenthe, Thomas C. Oden, Thomas C. Oden

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780830897377

Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, prophesied for four decades under the last five kings of Judah—from 627 to 587 B.C. His mission: a call to repentance. Among the apostolic fathers, Jeremiah was rarely cited, but several later authors give prominent attention to him, including Origen, Theodoret of Cyr, and Jerome, who wrote individual commentaries on Jeremiah, and Cyril of Alexandria and Ephrem the Syrian, who compiled catenae. Justin and Irenaeus made use of Jeremiah to define Christians over against Jews. Athanasius made use of him in trinitarian debates. Cyril of Jerusalem, Irenaeus, Basil the Great, and Clement of Alexandria all drew on Jeremiah for ethical exhortation. Lamentations, as might be expected, quickly became associated with losses and death, notably in Gregory of Nyssa's Funeral Oration on Meletius. By extension the fathers saw Lamentations as a description of the challenges that face Christians in a fallen world. In this Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume, readers will find some ancient authors translated into English here for the first time. Throughout they will gain insight and encouragement in the life of faith as seen through ancient pastoral eyes.

JEREMIAH

JEREMIAH’S CALL FROM THE WOMB
JEREMIAH 1:1-5

OVERVIEW: Jeremiah is considered to be one of the major prophets (AUGUSTINE). The call to Jeremiah first came during the days of the godly king Josiah, whose godliness lay in stark contrast to those kings who came before him or those who followed him (THEODORET). God’s choice of Jeremiah was based on his foreknowledge concerning Jeremiah (AUGUSTINE), and thus God consecrated Jeremiah to be a prophet even before he was born (THEODORET). Thus, God demonstrated his care and concern especially for the weak and helpless (ORIGEN), for the unborn who are formed by the Word of God and given life by him as full human beings even in the womb (METHODIUS, TERTULLIAN, IRENAEUS, CYRIL OF JERUSALEM). The child in the womb is capable of faith, as is seen by God’s Word to Jeremiah as well as the actions of John the Baptist in the womb (MAXIMUS, JEROME). One is made a child of faith not in the mother’s womb, however, but in the power of baptism (LEO).

These opening words in Jeremiah were also used by the ancient Christian writers to demonstrate a twofold nature in Christ, the divine and fleshly: the former from the Father, the latter from a virgin (LACTANTIUS, AMBROSE). The Son is not created or formed but is the Father’s image and Word begotten from eternity (ATHANASIUS, AMBROSE).

1:2 In the Days of Josiah

JEREMIAH IS ONE OF THE MAJOR PROPHETS. AUGUSTINE: Jeremiah, like Isaiah, is one of the major prophets, not of the minor, like the others from whose writings I have just given extracts. He prophesied when Josiah reigned in Jerusalem and Ancus Martius at Rome, when the captivity of the Jews was already at hand; and he continued to prophesy down to the fifth month of the captivity, as we find from his writings. Zephaniah, one of the minor prophets, is put along with him, because he himself says that he prophesied in the days of Josiah; but he does not say till when. Jeremiah thus prophesied not only in the times of Ancus Martius but also in those of Tarquinius Priscus, whom the Romans had for their fifth king. For he had already begun to reign when that captivity took place. CITY OF GOD 18.33.1

KING JOSIAH’S FAMILY. THEODORET OF CYR: King Josiah’s father was Amon, an impious man. His grandfather was Manasseh, who had instructed Josiah’s father in his impiety. Josiah, on the contrary, went the exact opposite of them, siding with the party of the godly. His children, however, showed no interest in their father’s virtue and imitated their forefathers’ godlessness. Knowing this in advance, therefore, the God of all elected the prophet in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign and commanded him to foretell the calamities that would befall both city and people. ON JEREMIAH 1.ARGUMENT.2

1:5 Called and Consecrated in the Womb

THE CALLING. AUGUSTINE: Moreover, this calling, which works through the opportune circumstances of history, whether this calling is in individuals or in peoples or in humankind itself, comes from a decree both lofty and profound. To this relates the following passage: “In the womb have I sanctified you.” ON EIGHTY-THREE VARIED QUESTIONS 68.6.3

CONSECRATED FROM THE WOMB. THEODORET OF CYR: God’s choice of Jeremiah was not without basis: knowledge preceded it. Notice it says that God had knowledge and then he consecrated, for he knows everything before it happens. Now, he employed the word consecrated, meaning “he appointed.” Then God also mentions the task for which he selected him: “I appointed you as prophet to the nations.” Thus, he prophesies not only concerning the fortunes of the Jews but also the other nations. “I replied, O Lord and Master that you are, see, I do not know how to speak, because I am a child.” The prophet recognized the one addressing him. This is why he called him by a title having to do with lordship. When the mighty Moses was once speaking, remember, and wanted to learn the divine name, the Lord said, “I am the one who is.”4 He imitates Moses’ timidity by saying youth is not up to prophesying. The Lord, however, urges him not to put forward the excuse of youthfulness but to do as he is told. ON JEREMIAH 1.1.4-6.5

GOD CARES FOR THE WEAK AND FRAIL. ORIGEN: We forget that the words “Let us make man according to our image and according to our likeness”6apply to each person. When we fail to remember the one who formed a person in the womb, and formed all people’s hearts individually and understands all their works,7 we do not perceive that God is a helper of those who are lowly and inferior, a protector of the weak, a provider of shelter of those who have been given up in despair and Savior of those who have been given up as hopeless.8 COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 13.167-68.9

GOD’S GIFT OF CHILDREN. METHODIUS: So, if God still forms human beings, shall we not be guilty of audacity if we think of the generation of children as something offensive when even the Almighty is not ashamed to make use of them in working with his undefiled hands. BANQUET OF THE TEN VIRGINS 2.2.10

GOD CREATES SOUL AND BODY IN THE WOMB. TERTULLIAN: Read the word of God that was spoken to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” God not only forms us in the womb; he also breathes on us as he did at the first creation, when “the Lord God formed man and breathed into him the breath of life.”11 And God could not have known a person in the womb, except in his entire nature: “And before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified you.” Well, was it then a dead body at that early stage? Certainly not. For “God is not the God of the dead but of the living.” ON THE SOUL 26.12

LIFE AT THE EMBRYONIC STAGE. TERTULLIAN: The embryo therefore becomes a human being in the womb from the moment that its form is completed. The law of Moses,13 indeed, punishes with due penalties the one who shall cause an abortion, inasmuch as there exists already the rudiment of a human being that has imputed to it even now the condition of life and death, since it is already liable to the issues of both, although, by living still in the mother, it for the most part shares its own state with the mother. ON THE SOUL 37.14

THE WORD OF GOD FORMS US IN THE WOMB. IRENAEUS: The Word of God is the one who forms us in the womb, as he says to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you came forth from the belly, I sanctified you and appointed you to be a prophet among the nations.” And Paul, too, says this in the same way, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, that I might declare him among the nations.”15 AGAINST HERESIES 5.15.3.16

GOD GIVES AND FORMS THE FLESH OF HUMANITY. CYRIL OF JE...