Homilies on Jeremiah and 1 Kings 28

Homily 12 : Jeremiah 13.12–17

HOMILY 12 Jeremiah 13.12–17 On “And you will say to this 1 people: ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Every skin will be filled with wine,”’” 2 up to, “and your eyes will pour forth tears because the flock of the Lord was crushed.” hat the prophet is appointed to say for God ought to be worthy of God,3 but it appears that it is not worthy of God when we rely on the letter,4 for someone might say when hearing the letter: These texts are foolish. But the unspiritual man will say this, for the unspiritual man does not receive what is of the spirit of God. For it is folly to him.5 Observe then the text which says: And you will say 6 to this people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel,”—let what the Lord God of Israel says be worthy of the Lord God of Israel7 —“‘Every skin will be filled with wine.’ And it will happen, if they say to you: ‘Are we so ignorant indeed that we do not know that every skin will be filled with wine?’” 8 And if 9 those who answer , holding to the literal word, say these things and state 110 1. “This,” an addition of Klostermann from LXX and quotations in text. 2. “With wine,” an addition of Cordier from Jerome. Nautin includes it in his translation but not in his Greek text. 3. In S, “not” follows “God,” but it does not appear in Jerome. 4. gravmma. The literal interpretation. 5. 1 Cor 2.14. 6. “You will say,” a correction of Cordier from Jerome. S has “he will say.” 7. “What the Lord God of Israel says,” an addition of Klostermann from Jerome. 8. Jer 13.12. 9. “If,” an addition of Klostermann from Jerome. HOMILY 12 111 that they know that every skin will be filled with wine, they are lying . For not every skin will be filled with wine. In fact, there are skins filled with olive oil or other liquid, and some also remain empty.10 Thus, they lie. For not every skin will be filled with wine, and the people answer by saying: Are we so ignorant that we do not know that every skin will be filled with wine?—a question which will result, in accordance with our abilities, in this kind of explication. If we see the differences of the wines and the statements made concerning them, in them we will see consequently what is true concerning the skins: Every skin will be filled with wine. For either there is a certain, let us say, good skin among the skins, and it will be filled with wine to the degree of its own goodness, or there is a wicked skin, as compared with skins and by a judgment on what concerns them, and it will be filled with a wine of wickedness to the degree of its wickedness. (2) Thus how is one to understand from the Scripture the different wines? Concerning the worse wines the following has been written: For from the vine of Sodom their vine comes, and their shoots from Gomorrah. Their grapes from the grape of wrath, the cluster is of bitterness for them. Their wine is the desire of dragons and the incurable desire of asps.11 But concerning the better wines it says: Your very strong cup intoxicates me,12 and wisdom summons to its wine bowl when it says, Come, eat my bread and drink the wine which I have diluted for you.13 Thus there is wine from Sodom and there is wine which wisdom dilutes . And again: A vine arose for my beloved on a mountain-peak in a fertile area,14 a vine called the Vine of Sorek, planted by God, a certain Chosen and Wondrous vine.15 But there is also the vine of the Egyptians which God beats according to what was written: God has beaten down their vine with hail, and their sycamores with frost.16 10. “And some also remain empty,” an addition from Catena and Jerome. 11. Deut 32.32–33. 12. Ps 22.5. 13. Prov 9.1, 5. 14. Isa 5.1. 15. Cf. Onom. sacra I.199.76. 16. Ps 77(78).47. 2. And so, observe that in an allegorical sense all men are now able to contain wine. And17 I call...