Jeremiah the prophet was from the priests of Anathoth, sanctified in the womb, as is evident in the first chapter, and sent or appointed by God to preach from his childhood. He foretold the captivity of that people by Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Chaldeans; the capture and burning of the city by him; the destruction of the temple; and the leading of Zedekiah, king of Judah, with many others into Babylon. He reproved the people’s sins and exhorted them to repentance. Because they did not correct themselves, he saw with his own eyes all the evils he had prophesied come upon them.
After the city had been captured, Jeremiah was honored by King Nebuchadnezzar himself and remained with the common people who were left in burned and desolate Jerusalem. But afterward, when Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon had placed over those left there, had been killed, Jeremiah comforted those who feared the king’s vengeance because of Gedaliah’s killing, counseling them on God’s behalf not to descend into Egypt but to remain safely there. They did not believe or acquiesce in his words, but went on into Egypt, taking Jeremiah himself with them; and finally, when he reproved them, they stoned him in Egypt.
By his virginity Jeremiah dedicated an evangelical man of Christ and the Church. He seems more rustic than certain other prophets, as Jerome says in the prologue, but he is their equal in meaning, since indeed he prophesied by the same Spirit. The simplicity of his speech came to him from the place in which he was born, for he was from Anathoth, a little village three miles distant from Jerusalem. He also laments Jerusalem’s ruins with a fourfold alphabet, namely in the Threni or Lamentations, signifying the ruin of the Church in wicked Christians.
In addition to the prophecy of the scourges of the Jewish people and many other matters, he also prophesied many mysteries of Christ. For concerning His Incarnation he says in chapter 31, “The Lord has created a new thing upon the earth.” Here it must be noted that Christ’s conception and Nativity are called a creation. It was new that a virgin conceived and that a virgin gave birth. It was new that there should be a living man without sin. It was new that God should be born having become man.
“A woman shall encompass a man,” that is, the Virgin Mary, without the seed of a man, shall have Christ, the Son of God, within the enclosure of her womb. She will not create or generate Him by a human operation but by a divine one. She shall encompass in her womb the Son of God as a “man,” that is, one perfect in knowledge and virtue.
Concerning Christ’s Passion he says in chapter 11: “But You have shown me, and I have known; You showed me their pursuits. And I was like a meek lamb that is carried to the sacrifice. And I did not know that they had devised counsels against me, saying: Let us put wood into His bread, and let us root Him out of the land of the living, and let His name be remembered no more.”
The Jews and our Judaizers, as is said in the Gloss, expound these words of Jeremiah. For when he reproved the sins of the people and threatened them with evils to come, many planned to kill him because of such things, using various plots and methods, as is evident in Jeremiah 38. Hence the princes also sought and obtained from King Zedekiah that he be cast into a cistern or pit in which there was mud, not water, so that he might die. But Abdemelech, the Ethiopian eunuch of the king, petitioned the king on his behalf that he might be drawn out, which was done. At first the prophet did not know these malicious plans of theirs, but afterward they were revealed to him by God. Among other things, some sought a hidden means of killing him, such as by poison. This is what they mean when they say, “Let us put wood,” that is, something secretly poisoned, “into his bread,” namely, his food or drink.
But according to the holy doctors, it is better expounded of Christ. Hence both before and after these words the prophet foretells the destruction of the Jews by the Romans in punishment for so great a crime of theirs. The prophet therefore speaks in the person of Christ to the Father, saying, “Lord”—namely, Father—“You have shown me.” For all knowledge of truth is from God as the first teacher. “Their pursuits,” that is, the plots and machinations of the Jews against Me.
“And I was like a meek lamb that is carried to the sacrifice”: I did not resist or complain, but conducted Myself meekly and patiently in My capture. “And I did not know,” that is, I dissembled and kept silent as though I did not know their plots, although this was not actually so. “They devised counsels against Me,” for the chief priests and Pharisees gathered a council, saying, “What shall we do?” and so forth; and from that hour they planned to kill Him. They also said, “Not on the feast day,” and so forth, lest He escape.
They say, “Let us put wood into His bread”: the wood, namely, of the cross, into His bread, that is, into His life, because He had once said, “I am the living bread.” That is: let us take His life from Him through death on the wood of the cross. Or let us contradict and resist His teaching, which is spiritual bread, and place a stumbling block in His teaching, namely, the ignominy of the cross. For by killing Him with so ignominious a death, no one will believe in Him as Messiah or as the true God He names Himself to be, since one dead upon the wood of the cross is called accursed in the law, namely with the curse of infamy.
“And let us root Him out of the land of the living,” that is, let us remove Him entirely from this world, so that, just as what is uprooted is wholly abolished, His teaching and name may no longer be in the memory of men. Hence it is added, “And let His name be remembered no more.” But the very contrary of their malicious thought and intention occurred, for Christ, who before the Passion was known only in Judea, became known, glorious, and exalted throughout the whole world.
§ I. That Christ, the Messiah Promised in the Law, Is True God
That Christ, the Messiah promised in the law—whom the Jews, because of their faithlessness, await as still to come, and in whose place they will receive Antichrist as Messiah, as Christ foretold to them in John 5—is true God, which the Jews themselves deny, is shown in Jeremiah 23, where it is said: “Behold, the days come, says the Lord, and I will raise up for David a just shoot; and a king shall reign and shall be wise, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth,” and so forth.
The Jews expound these words of Zerubbabel, because he was that leader who brought the people out of the Babylonian captivity; Judah was saved, as were those few from Israel who were in that captivity, and, upon returning to those regions, they dwelt confidently in the land of promise. They therefore say that Zerubbabel’s name was called “the Lord our Just One,” because the Jews in this manner imposed the name of God upon their sons, as in Emmanuel, Deodatus, and the like.
But since Zerubbabel was not a king either before or after the return from that captivity, this exposition must be rejected as false and another, true one set down. “Behold, the days come,” that is, the time of the Incarnation. “And I will raise up for David a just shoot”: David, that is, Christ, who was made from David’s seed, that is, lineage, not by male seed but by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Hence in the Psalm: “The Lord swore to David,” and so forth; “Of the fruit of your womb I shall set upon your throne,” namely to reign.
It says “of the fruit” pointedly, because in the conception of children seed descends from the father’s loins, but the matter of conception is derived from the mother’s womb. Because, therefore, there was no seed of a man in Christ’s conception, but matter prepared from the Virgin Mother, it said “of the fruit of the womb,” not “of the fruit of the loins.” It is as though to say: the fruit of Mary, who descends from David—which fruit is Christ Jesus, without a father on earth—will sit upon David’s kingdom in the spiritual kingdom of the Church.
All the other kings of Judah died and ceased to be kings. But Christ, descending from David, from the time He began to reign, namely when He was incarnate, never ceased to be king; rather, His kingdom always endures, because He rules the Church militant and triumphant. He also possessed and possesses temporal power and dominion as Lord of all, but He used it [read: but He did not use it], namely by living with a royal court and exercising royal power. He is therefore properly said to have been raised up.
Christ is properly called the just shoot because Christ alone was just in the shoot, that is, in His conception. This can be said of no one else, since according to the common opinion of the doctors all are conceived in sin. Hence another reading has “the just Orient.” Ezekiel 34 says, “I shall raise up the shoot of justice who is named.”
“And a king shall reign and shall be wise.” He is indeed a true temporal king as regards dominion, although not as regards its use; a spiritual king governing the Church; and an eternal king ruling over and satisfying the blessed. He shall be wise with every kind of divine and human wisdom—blessed, acquired in life, and experiential—governing all things most excellently and conducting each to its appointed end.
“And He shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.” This shall be manifest in the Second Advent, when, judging the world, He shall render to each according to his works, as justice requires. He also executed judgment in the First Advent between the devil and man, whom the devil held captive, and justice by making satisfaction for the sin of the human race and thus paying Adam’s debt. Hence Christ said as the Passion drew near, “Now is the judgment of the world,” and so forth, in John 12.
“And in those days,” namely those of this First Advent, “Judah shall be saved,” that is, some from the kingdom of Judah, “and Israel,” that is, some from the people of Israel, “shall dwell confidently,” trusting in God, Christ Jesus. If the words “He shall execute judgment,” and so forth, are referred to the Second Advent, namely to the Final Judgment, then “in those days”—that is, near the Final Judgment—Judah and Israel shall be saved, because when Antichrist, whom they held to be the Messiah, is dead, the Jews shall be converted, as the Psalm says, “at evening,” namely at the end of the world, believing in Christ; and they shall dwell confidently in the Church.
“And this is the name by which they shall call Him”—namely, the people of Judah and Israel converted at the First Advent or near the Second—“the Lord our Just One.” By this it is shown that this David, that is, Christ who is raised up, shall be Lord of all and consequently God. Thus, because He is Lord, He is to be revered and feared through true faith; because He is just, He is to be awaited with confidence, since He will render very good things to the good; and because He is ours, He is to be embraced and loved through true charity.
From this prophecy it is shown that Christ, the Messiah promised through the prophets, is true God and man, because all the Hebrews commonly hold that this prophecy was spoken of the Messiah. Just as true humanity is intimated by the words already cited, “I will raise up for David a just shoot,” so His divinity is shown by what is said here: “This is the name by which they shall call Him, the Lord our Just One.”
This is confirmed by the Hebrew text, because where we have “the Lord our Just One,” in Hebrew there is the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton. This name is the most proper among the divine names, and on this account is said of none but the true God. Rabbi Moses, the greatest doctor of the Hebrews, declares the same in the Guide for the Perplexed, saying that all the divine names are derived from divine works except the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton, which is appropriated to the Most High Creator because, according to him, it signifies the divine essence with its intrinsic properties.
The other divine names are imposed from divine works, as is evident from the names Eloy and Adonay, which among the others appear more proper. Nevertheless, the name Eloy is imposed to signify God from general providence, and for this reason the name is communicated to others. For judges and wise men are also sometimes called Eloy in Scripture. Hence in the Psalm, where the Latin says, “I have said: You are gods,” the Hebrew has, “You are Eloy.” Similarly, the name Adonay is imposed from universal presidency, and therefore this too is communicated to others, so that the powerful and rulers are called Adonay.
It is not so with the name Tetragrammaton, which signifies the naked and pure divine essence without reference to anything external. Thus this name cannot be communicated to another, as the aforesaid Rabbi Moses says. From this it is concluded that, since Christ the Messiah is called by this name, He is true God.
But certain Jews object against the foregoing that even the name Tetragrammaton is said not only of God but also of other things. For in the final chapter of Ezekiel it is said of the city described there, “And the name of the city, the Lord,” where in Hebrew there is the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton. And in Genesis 22, where we have, “And Abraham called the name of that place, The Lord sees,” the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton, is in the Hebrew. And in the Book of Judges, where we have, “And Gideon called the name of the altar that he had built, The peace of the Lord,” the Hebrew says, “The Lord, peace,” and the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton, is used there. From these passages it seems that Tetragrammaton is said not only of the true God but also of a city, a place, and an altar.
The response is that this is of no force, for none of the foregoing is named simply and absolutely by God’s proper name, the Tetragrammaton; each is named with an addition from some effect of Him who is the true God. This is not incongruous, just as if a man were called Deodatus or God-given because some effect of God had then appeared, on account of which he is said to have been given by God. But no one is called “God” absolutely, for that would be impious.
So too in the matter at hand. When it is said in Ezekiel, “The name of the city, the Lord,” and the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton, is in the Hebrew, this is not said absolutely but with the addition “the Lord is there”; or the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton, is there in the Hebrew to indicate that the city ought thus to be named from the Lord’s dwelling in it. This is evident from the Chaldean translation, which thus expounds the name of the city: “From the day on which the Lord made His divinity descend.”
So also in Genesis it does not say absolutely, “Abraham called the name of that place the Lord,” but with the addition “sees,” saying, “The Lord sees”: the Lord saw Isaac’s affliction and humiliation and delivered him from death by preparing the ram; or it was because Abraham saw in spirit that Solomon’s temple would be built there, in which the Lord would look upon the prayers and offerings of the people. This is expressly found in the Chaldean translation, and likewise in the other cases.
Other Jews, seeing themselves hemmed in by these arguments, expound the prophecy differently, corrupting the text and saying that the Hebrew is not as Jerome translated it, but, “This is his name by which the Lord our Just One shall call him.” Thus the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton, would refer not to the Messiah as another God, but to the true God, who will call that Messiah to liberate the Jewish people from servitude when it pleases Him.
No argument can be made against this exposition except that they corrupt that text in order to deny Christ’s divinity. Yet certain learned Christians have confirmed under oath that they themselves saw it in ancient Hebrew Bibles just as Jerome translated it. Nor should it be believed that so great a man as Jerome translated otherwise than the Hebrew truth stood, since he published that translation in the presence of so many learned Jews and Catholics.
Moreover, to convict them of falsification, recourse must be had to other translations that they cannot reasonably deny, from which that falsity can be detected. First, the translation of the Seventy, made from Hebrew into Greek by Jews of the greatest learning, has the text just as in our translation made by Jerome from Hebrew into Latin. This is evident from the office of the Church, taken from that translation of the Seventy. For it says there, “And they shall call Him,” not “the Lord shall call Him,” “our Just One”—namely, those converted from Judaism. Thus “Lord,” in place of which Tetragrammaton stands in Hebrew, is referred to the Messiah Himself.
Since the Seventy could not put the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton, in Greek with its proper signification—either because they found no name that corresponded so properly, or, if they did find one, because they wished to conceal from Ptolemy the mystery of divinity in the Messiah lest he, being incapable of so great a mystery, take scandal—they therefore did not set it down properly, as also happened in several other places. In its place they wrote, “They shall call Him Kyrios,” which Greek word signifies “lord” in Latin. That is a common name and can be said both of God and of any great prince.
Jerome translated from Hebrew into Latin in the same manner. Because he did not have in Latin a proper name corresponding to the Hebrew name Tetragrammaton, he put “Lord” in Latin. Since that name is commonly said both of God and of the princes of the world, Christ the Messiah’s divinity could not be proved from our text itself according to Jerome’s translation, but it can be proved from the uncorrupted Hebrew text.
The falsity of the Jews is also evident from the Chaldean translation, which is authoritative among them. For it is said there: “Behold, the days shall come, and I shall establish for David the just Messiah.”
Hence it is evident that this prophecy speaks of the Messiah, Christ. And it follows: “And this is the name by which they shall call Him, the Lord our Just One.” Where the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton, is placed in Hebrew, “Lord” is placed in Chaldean. Nor does it say there, “He shall call Him,” but “they shall call” or “they shall name Him.” Thus the Tetragrammaton is referred to the Messiah Himself.
It must also be considered that Sacred Scripture has been written in several ways. In one way it was written in pure Hebrew, as the Old Testament was first delivered, namely in the Hebrew language and Hebrew letters. In another way it was written in Hebrew, but not purely so: in the Chaldean language but with Hebrew letters. Hebrew and Chaldean are closely related idioms having the same number of letters. Although those letters differ in shape, nevertheless they agree in sound and force, as Jerome says, and therefore one idiom can more easily be written with the letters of the other.
Many therefore wrote the Old Testament in this manner, and especially Jonathan son of Uzziel, whose writing is so authoritative among the Jews that no one dares contradict it. For this reason, in notable books of the Hebrews pure Hebrew is placed in one column and the Chaldean written by this Jonathan in another column in Hebrew letters; and the Jews use the Chaldean as an exposition, because some things that are very obscure in pure Hebrew are put more clearly and as though expounded in that Chaldean.
That translation is therefore of much value for a matter of this kind. For they were most learned in both languages, as Josephus relates in Book 12 of the Antiquities. Yet they did not always translate word for word, but sometimes and often sense for sense, changing or deliberately concealing some things that could have been a cause of error to Ptolemy, king of Egypt.
When the Jews are convicted through the translations of the Seventy and the Chaldean that the Messiah is God, some of them seek another subterfuge, saying that although the Messiah is named God, He will nevertheless not be God but a mere man, though He be most holy and greater than Moses. But this is impossible, because if He permitted Himself to be called by the Lord’s name, the Tetragrammaton, and were not such in reality—that is, true God—but only in name, He would incur the sin of blasphemy. Hence He would not be most holy but wicked.
§ II. On the Evangelical Law to Be Given
Concerning the evangelical law to be given, Jeremiah 31 says: “After those days I will put My law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Immediately before these words the Lord says: “I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah”—that is, with those converted to the faith from those nations—“a covenant, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant that they made void. This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.” Then follows what was placed above: “After those days,” and so forth.
The Apostle adduces this authority of Jeremiah in Hebrews 8 to show that the New Testament succeeds the Old and that the law of the letter was changed into the law of the Spirit, so that those legal or ceremonial observances might be fulfilled spiritually, not literally. The prophet therefore makes mention of two covenants or pacts that the Lord made with men: the first He made with the ancient people of Israel, the second with the Christian people.
Here it must be known that foedus, “covenant,” is said to come from foeda porca, “a foul sow,” because, as is evident in the pacts of the ancients, an animal was slaughtered in the midst of those making a pact with one another, and as its blood was poured out it was said: “So may the blood of him who violates this pact be poured out.” Moses did this when he made a covenant or pact with the Israelite people after their departure from Egypt. For after the law had been read, he took the blood of calves killed in sacrifice and sprinkled it over the people, saying: “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you concerning all these words,” as is found in chapter 44 [read: chapter 24]. The veil before the tabernacle, which concealed what was within, such as the ark and the like, was also sprinkled with that blood.
They therefore made this pact with God to observe that law insofar as it lay beneath a figure, but they kept that pact neither in the figure nor in the thing figured. For it was figured that they would receive the blood of Christ, prefigured in the calf and the lamb, yet they remained in the figured veil alone and did not penetrate to the enclosed mysteries within.
This blood of Christ, truly poured out when He was slaughtered in the midst of the world, is the covenant between us and our God, so that we may fear Him and keep His commandments. If we transgress this pact confirmed by Christ through His blood, the transgressor’s blood shall be poured out in the same way, because we shall be slain eternally.
If, therefore, the Lord ought to make a new pact with men, as Jeremiah says here, God Himself must remove the old pact that men made void so that the new may arise with greater force in men. That pact of the old law was written upon hard stones because it was given to the hard nature of the Jews; but this covenant of the new law was written in hearts of flesh, not with ink or a visible pen, but by the Holy Spirit, according to the words of Ezekiel: “I shall take away from you the stony heart and give you a heart of flesh.”
Hence the prophet adds, “After those days”—namely those of the old law, or of the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension—“I will put My law,” namely that of the Holy Spirit, which was first given in the upper room to the apostles on the day of Pentecost, “in their inward parts,” not on stones but in their innermost recesses, “and I will write it in their heart.”
Here note that this law is said to be written in the inward parts and in the heart because this evangelical law has to illuminate and move man. It is therefore rightly said to be in the inward parts, that is, in the affections, and in the heart, that is, in the reason. These are the two tablets upon which the new law is written in the inner man, so that we may believe with the heart and love with the affection.
Hence those who believe and love, receiving the law of the Holy Spirit in the heart, are those who truly fear and honor God. On this account there follows what is added afterward: “I will be their God, and they shall be My people,” namely a peculiar people who have God drawing near to them.
Because this evangelical law is confirmed and established, and no other law in the world succeeds it, as certain heretics have said, Jeremiah therefore adds: “If these laws fail before Me, then also shall the seed of Israel fail, so that it is not a nation before Me.” Yet Christ says, “This generation shall not pass away until all things are accomplished,” in Luke 21, namely the things that must occur before the Final Judgment.
That God changes His sentence concerning threatened scourges or promised prosperity according as man is changed from good to evil or conversely is shown when the Lord says in Jeremiah 18: “I will suddenly speak against a nation and against a kingdom, that I may uproot, pull down, and destroy it. If that nation repents of its evil, I also will repent of the evil that I thought to do to it. And I will suddenly speak concerning a nation and a kingdom, that I may build and plant it. If it does evil in My eyes and does not hear My voice, I also will repent of the good that I thought to do to it.”
Here Jerome says: “For God is angry not with men but with vices; if these are changed, there will be nothing with which God may be angry,” in On Penance, distinction 1, Wherefore.