Homilies on Jeremiah and 1 Kings 28

Homily 28 : Jeremiah 28.6–9

HOMILY 28 (51) Jeremiah 28.6–9 (51.6–9) ( from Jerome’s Latin translation) On what was written: “Flee from the midst of Babylon” up to the place where it says: “Her judgment has reached up to heaven, elevated up to the skies.” ust as our body bases itself in some place of the earth, in the same way also the soul according to its condition, is in a comparable place of the earth. What I am saying will become more clear in this way. Our body is in Egypt or in Babylon or in Palestine or in Syria or in some other place. Likewise the soul is in some place with the same name as the earth; one is in Babylon, another in Egypt, another in the region of the Ammanites; and so, according to the meaning of Scriptures, souls are spiritually differentiated with a diversity of places by the nature of their life. (2) It is in Babylon when it is confounded, when it is disturbed , when devoid of peace it endures the war of the passions , when an uproar of malice rages around it; then, as we say, it is in Babylon, and the prophetic word refers us to that soul when it says, Flee from the midst of Babylon and let every man save his soul.1 For as long as anyone is in Babylon he cannot be saved. Even if he has remembered2 Jerusalem there, he mourns and says, How will we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?3 And because it is impossible, based in Babylon, to praise God with instruments—since the instruments there for the hymns 260 1. Jer 28.6 (51.6). 2. Cf. Ps 136.1. 3. Cf. Ps 136.4. HOMILY 28 261 of God are indeed unused—accordingly it is said through the Prophet: There upon the river of Babylon we sat, and we wept while we remembered Zion; among the willows in their midst we hung up our instruments.4 Our instruments have been hung up, as long as we are in Babylon, among the willows of the rivers of Babylon. If however we come to Jerusalem, to the place of the Vision of Peace, the instruments, which before were hanging unused, are then taken up into the hands, then we play the cither continually and there is no time when we do not praise God through the instruments which we have in our hands. (3) Thus, as we began to say, the soul is always in some comparable place of the earth: just as the soul5 of the sinner is in Babylon, so conversely the soul6 of the just man is in Judea. Yet even in Judea itself it is assigned to varied places according to the quality of life and faith. For either it is in Dan, whose areas are at the borders of Judea, or in a little higher and better place than Dan, or in the central areas of Judea, or around Jerusalem, and there in the most beautiful spot of all, which rests in the midst of the city of Jerusalem. Yet he who is a sinner and is burdened with excessive crimes, he is in Babylon. (4) One in a slightly less severe condition and not yet reaching up to the summit of sins sojourns in Egypt and in parts of Egypt. And just as those who are in Judea do not all have equal positions—one, in fact, is in Jerusalem, another in Dan, another in Nephtal, another in the border of Gad— so also for all those in Egypt. They do not dwell in equal places in Egypt: one lives in Taphnis, another is in Memphis, another in Syene, another in Bubastis,7 places the Prophet Ezekiel, when he also explains the names of parts of Egypt, attests are sounds full of mysteries. (5) If any reader is a spiritual man who judges all things and he is judged by no one,8 not only will he allegorize the major re4 . Ps 136.1. 5. “The soul,” I have added. 6. “The soul,” I have added. 7. Ezek 30.13–18. 8. Cf. 1 Cor 2.15. gions as Judea and Egypt and Babylon, but also as smaller areas of the earth. And just as in Judea is Jerusalem and Bethlehem and its other cities, so in Egypt when he reads Diospolis...