This homily, preached, most likely, in the late 230s, provides a typical example of Origen’s extensive surviving preaching on the Hebrew prophets. Here, as in other such homilies, he seeks to inoculate his hearers against being so scandalized by the passage’s harsh language as to deny the goodness of the God of the Old Testament. He encourages reading the Old Testament “in a hidden manner,” indicating that a literal reading, besides being a stumbling block to the morally sensitive, actually induces other Christians to observe Jewish high holy days. At the same time, he urges his hearers to take seriously the prophet’s warning that those who persist in sin will face severe punishment from God. The punishment is, he argues, an aspect of God’s oikonomia demonstrably necessary both for society as a whole and for sinners themselves. In so far as ecclesiastical authorities participate in God’s oikonomia, they need to act likewise, exercising a rigorous discipline for the good of the individual sinner and, even more, of the whole community.
The translation is from Origène, Homélies sur Jérémie, vol. 2, ed. Pierre Nautin = SC 238, Paris, Cerf, 1977, pp. 10–50.
Text
On “And say to the people, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Every jar shall be filled” ’ ” to “Your eyes shall drop tears, because the Lord’s flock has been crushed” (Jer. 13:12 –17).
What the prophet was ordered by God to say ought to be worthy of God. Yet it seems that this is not worthy of God, if we stay at the literal level, inviting someone to say, on the basis of the letter, “These letters are foolishness.” This is what the soulish man says, for “The soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to him” (1 Cor. 2:14). Look at what the text itself says: “And say this to the people: ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel’ ” – let what “the Lord God of Israel says” be worthy of the Lord God of Israel – “Every jar shall be filled with wine, and it shall be if they say to you, ‘Are we so ignorant as not to know that every jar shall be filled with wine?’ ” (Jer. 13:12). If those who make this response do so in such a way as to stick to the verbal level, saying that they have known that every jar shall be filled with wine, they speak falsely, for it is not the case that every jar shall be filled with wine. There are, in fact, jars filled with olive oil or other fluids, and some stay empty. Therefore they speak falsely, for it is not the case that every jar shall be filled with wine. Yet the people replied saying, “Are we so ignorant as not to know that every jar shall be filled with wine?” We shall interpret this to the best of our ability as follows. If we regard the different wines and what is said about them, we shall see, following the logical consequences of what is said about wines, that “every jar shall be filled with wine” is true. If there is a jar among the jars that is, so to speak, good, it will be filled with wine according to its goodness, and if there is one that is bad as jars go and in comparison with others, according to its bad quality it shall be filled with bad wine.
How is it possible to learn from Scripture about the different wines? This is written about the worse kinds: “For their vine is a vine of Sodom and their tendrils are from Gomorra, their cluster is a cluster of bile, grapes of bitterness to them; their wine is the wrath of serpents and the incurable wrath of asps” (Deut. 32:32–3), but about the better kinds: “How strong is the cup that inebriates me!” (Ps. 22:5 [23:5]) and Wisdom invites to her mixing bowl saying: “Come, eat my bread, and drink wine which I have mixed for you” (Prov. 9:5). Thus there is a wine of Sodom and a wine which wisdom mixes, and again, “My beloved had a vine on a mountain peak in a fertile place” (Isa. 5:1), which was called the vineyard of Sorek, because it is Chosen and Marvelous, and there is the vine of the Egyptians which God struck according to the passage: “God has struck their vine with hail and their little figs with hoar-frost” (Ps. 77:47 [78:47]). 2 Consider then that all men may be regarded figuratively as vessels of wine and call them, accordingly, “jars.” I say that the scoundrel is filled with the wine of the “vine of Sodom,” filled with the wine of the Egyptians and of the enemies of Israel. But the one who is holy and has been benefited is filled with the wine of the vine of Sotek and the wine of which it is written: “How strong is the cup that inebriates me!” and he is also filled with the wine from which Wisdom makes her mixture.
These things must therefore be interpreted in terms vice and virtue if you are to obtain insight into “Every jar shall be filled with wine.” If one also needs to see the consequences of vice and virtue – punishments as the consequence of vice, but blessings and promises as the consequence of virtue – we shall cite from the Holy Scriptures how punishments and promises are referred to as wine. “Take the cup of this unmixed wine and you shall make all the nations drink from it against whom I sent you,” God says to Jeremiah and adds: “and they shall drink, and shall vomit, and shall go mad, and shall fall” (Jer. 32:15–16). Does he not here refer to punishments as unmixed wine, which they drink who are worthy of unmixed wine, that is, unmixed punishment? There are others who drink not unmixed punishment, but mixed, indeed “The cup is in the Lord’s hand full of a mixture of unmixed wine, and he has poured from the one into the other, except that its lees have not been drained, and all the sinners of the earth shall drink” (Ps. 74:9 [75:8]). If you would like to see the “cup of blessing” (1 Cor. 10:16), which the just drink, this word of Wisdom will suffice: “Drink the wine which I have mixed for you” (Prov. 9:5). See also the Savior approaching the Passover in a large upper room well furnished (see Mk. 14:15) and ornamented, feasting with his disciples and offering them a cup, about which it is not specified that it was mixed. For Jesus, gladdening the disciples, gladdens them with unmixed wine and says to them: “Take, drink, this is my blood, which has been shed for you for the remission of sins. Do this, whenever you drink it, for my remembrance” (Mt. 26:26– 8; Lk. 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25) and “Truly, truly I say to you. I shall not drink from now on until I drink it with you anew in the kingdom of God” (see Mt. 26:29). You see the promise, which is the cup of the new testament (1 Cor. 11:25). You see the punishments – the cup of unmixed wine, and another sort of punishment, the mixed cup – so that for each person it is blended according to the proportion of beneficial activity mixed with evil activity which he drinks. Imagine that the one group, being total strangers to piety and totally unconcerned with themselves, but living heedlessly, are drinking the unmixed wine in the passage from Jeremiah. However, the other group, not entirely renegades and sinners but unworthy of the cup of the new testament – sometimes doing beneficial deeds but at other times the opposite – are drinking a mixture of unmixed wine. For God has poured from the one into the other. Which one? We see two cups according to: “he has poured from the one into the other, except that its lees have not been drained.” Imagine that the cup of your good deeds is in one of God’s hands. If you allow me to speak so daringly, let the cup of your good deeds be in God’s right hand and let the cup of your sins be in God’s left hand. You cannot drink only from the cup of good things, since you have not done good deeds only, nor can you drink only from the cup of sins, since you have done some useful things, therefore he “has poured from the one into the other.” According to the proportion of your deeds, you will have poured out for you wrath and punishment, so that the mixture of punishment may either be more watered down or more sharp and obnoxious. For, as I have already said, in proportion to the mixture of sin with good deeds, the pain from the cup of wrath will be either tempered or untempered, in so far as it is administered to each of the sins. But if you are entirely good and admirable, you say, “I shall take the cup of salvation, and I shall call upon the name of the Lord” (Ps. 115:4 [116:4]).
According to the discourse about those things here called jars, “Every jar,” therefore, either admirable or evil, shall be filled with wine and wine will be poured as it is appropriate to the quality of the jar. Oil or any other fluid will not be poured into the jars, but every jar must be filled with wine. 3 Then he teaches – because of sinners, at the level of the text, in “Jerusalem” and then in “Judah” (Jet. 13:13) – with what sort of wine God is going to fill these jars, that is, sinners. It is written: “if they say to you, ‘Are we so ignorant as not to know that every jar shall be filled with wine?’ you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord, see, I am filling all those who dwell in this land, the kings and the sons of David sitting upon his throne, and the priests’ ” (Jer. 13:12–13). He who is going to punish shall spare no one. Someone shall not avoid being filled with these threats just because he is called “prophet” but still sins. God does not spare someone just because he is called “priest” and seems to have the superiority of a name more honorable than that of the people, so that he will not be punished when he sins (see Jer. 13:13). But things written about those people, says the Apostle, “were said for our sake, on whom the ends of the ages have come” (see 1 Cor. 10:11, 9:10). If therefore someone sins among the priests here – I indicate our presbyters – or in the levites here who attend the people – the deacons, I say – he shall have this punishment. There are, again, certain priestly blessings which we shall soon, God willing, have occasion to see, when, after we have finished interpreting the prophetic books, the book of Numbers is read, for some things are said there concerning priests.
“And the priests,” therefore, “the prophets, Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (Jer. 13:13), says God, “he shall fill with drunkenness and he shall scatter them, each man and his brother, and their fathers and their sons” (Jer. 13:13–14). And we understand this thus: God gathers the righteous, but he scatters sinners. Therefore when men did not stir from the East, God did not scatter them, but when they stirred from the East and “each man said to his neighbor, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, the head of which will reach to heaven’ ” (Gen. 11:3–4), God said concerning them, “Come, going down, let us confuse their speech there” (Gen. 11:7), and each one was confused and scattered to one particular place on the earth. And the people of Israel, as long as it did not sin, was in Judea, but when it sinned, each was scattered to some place in the inhabited world and dispersed everywhere.
Understand that something similar occurs with regard to each of us. There is a certain church of the firstborn registered in heaven (see Heb. 12:23), where Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, are located (see Heb. 12:22). The blessed will be gathered there to be together, but the sinners will receive an additional punishment of not being with others. I know that some in this world like, as a punishment, to banish to an island a person disturbing their rule, and, for added torture, scatter that person’s family, sending the wife here, one son there, another somewhere else, so that, even in her misfortune, the mother may not take comfort in her son, or one brother in another. Understand that something similar happens to the unrighteous. You, a sinner, must taste something very bitter, being under God’s careful management, so that, having been corrected, you may be saved. Just as you do not punish a servant or a slave whom you punish simply out of a desire to torture, but so that, by means of his distress, he may change, so God also punishes, by making them suffer distress, those who have been changed by reason and have not been healed. It is as an instructor that he involves them in such things, as it says: “By every distress and scourge you shall be corrected, Jerusalem” (Jer. 6:7–8). It is so that one who is instructing may increase their distress that those who are distressed are scattered apart from each other, so that one may not be with another, for the intensity of distress would be relieved by their mutual consolation.
If I need to add to this discussion another reason for dispersion, I shall put forward this one: when the evil are together, they are concerned only with evil and augment it, just as the good are concerned only with good. The evil intention, which becomes stronger among those who are like-minded, is diluted and dispersed when the bad are scattered from each other. For this reason God plans for the immoral not to be with each other, perhaps acting providentially on their behalf, so that their evil may not increase, but may diminish by being diluted.
This is implied in “I shall scatter them, a man from his brother and fathers from their sons at the same time, says the Lord. I shall not regret, and I shall not spare, and I shall not have pity on them in their destruction” (Jer. 13:14). 5 The adherents of heresies attack such words, saying, “See what sort of being is the creator, the god of the prophets, who says, ‘I shall not spare, and I shall have not pity on them in their destruction.’ How can he be good?” But take the example of a magistrate who, for the sake of the common welfare, does not have pity, or of a judge who, for good reason, does not have mercy. By this example I can make a persuasive case that it is in order to spare many that God does not spare one. I shall also take the example of the doctor who, for the sake of the whole, does not spare one part of the body.
Assume that a magistrate’s responsibility is to foster peace and to establish a beneficial regime for the nation under him. Now assume that a murderer is arraigned before him. Assume that this murderer is handsome and personable. Assume that his mother appeals to the magistrate for mercy, begging him to spare her old age. Assume that the scoundrel’s wife petitions for mercy. Assume that his children stand around begging on his behalf. In this case what is appropriate for the common good? Should he have mercy on this man or refrain from mercy? If he has mercy the man will resume his previous behavior; if he does not have mercy the man will die, but the common good will be benefited. Thus if God should spare the sinner and have mercy on him – having such pity as not to punish him – who would not be incited to sin? What wicked persons and sinners, who are restrained only by fear from committing sins, would not be incited to sin and thereby become worse? It is possible to see such things occurring in the churches. Someone sins; he has asked for communion after his sin; if he is treated with mercy prematurely, the community will be incited to sin; the sin of others will be increased. If, after consideration, the magistrate – not merciless or cruel, but concerned about the one man and even more concerned about the many – looks ahead to the harm that would come about to the community from presence among them of the one man and the indulgence of his sin, clearly he will remove the one man, so that many may be safe.
Consider the physician. If he spares to cut what needs to be cut, or forbears to cauterize what needs to be cauterized because of the pains that accompany such therapies, the illness will increase and grow worse. But if, following this example, he proceeds boldly to cutting and cauterization, he heals by withholding mercy, by appearing not to have pity on that man who is to be cauterized and cut. Likewise God manages not just one man, but the entire world. He universally administers matters both heavenly and earthly. Therefore he looks out for what is appropriate for the whole world and all of its beings, and as far as possible he also looks out for the individual, but not in such a way as to procure what is appropriate for the individual at the expense of injuring the world. For this reason eternal fire is prepared (see Mt. 18:8 and 25:41), for this reason Gehenna (see Mt. 18:9, 23:33) has been made ready, for this reason there is a certain outer darkness (see Mt. 18:12). These are necessary, not just for the one punished, but, even more, for the community.
If you desire Scriptural testimony to the effect that sinners are punished in order to instruct others, even if hope for their own potential healing is abandoned, listen to Solomon saying in Proverbs: “By scourging the troublemaker, the thoughtless will be made more astute” (Prov. 19:25). He does not say that the one scourged will become more acute and thoughtful as a result of the scourging, but he says that the thoughtless will change from thoughtlessness to thoughtfulness by means of the scourges applied to the troublemaker. Is not the punishment of others beneficial to us, if we become worthy of salvation because others have been punished? As the fall of Israel brought about the salvation of the gentiles (see Rom. 11:11), so Israel’s punishment brings about the salvation of others. Therefore, being good, God says, “I shall not spare, and I shall not have pity on them in their destruction.”
Now that we have delineated one passage, let us see what the next one teaches us:
Listen, give ear, and do not be proud, because the Lord has spoken, “Give glory to the Lord your God before the night falls and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and you shall wait for the light. There is the shadow of death, and they are made into shadows. If you do not listen in a hidden manner, your soul will wail before the face of violence, and your eyes shall drop tears because the Lord’s flock has been crushed.”
(Jer. 13:15–17)
He wishes them to “listen” and “give ear”; it will not suffice only to listen or only to give ear, so it says, “Listen, give ear,” and after this he orders them not to exalt themselves and teaches them what must be done. What then is “listen” and what is “give ear”? Let us learn from the words themselves. “Give ear” means “receive in the ear” and “listen,” if it is said in contrast to “give ear,” means “receive in the mind.” Since, among the things said in the Scriptures, some are more ineffable and mystical, but others are immediately useful to those who understand them, I think that “listen” is said concerning the more ineffable and “give ear” is said concerning those that are more immediately useful and able without interpretation to assist those who hear them.
When we interpret the entire Bible, having become “sound moneychangers,” we shall say “listen” to one thing and “give ear” to another thing. Then, when we have listened and given ear, he orders us “do not be proud.” For “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled” (Lk. 14:11, 18:14). The Savior also, when he says, “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt. 11:29), teaches us not to be proud. For along with the other human vices, this sin abounds in us. Often enough we pride ourselves entirely irrationally for things no one ought to be proud of, but even when this is not so and we pride ourselves for good reason, it is not healthy to pride ourselves.
I shall make my meaning plain: there are some who are proud because they are the children of governors and the offspring of great worldly dignitaries. Such persons, priding themselves because of something involuntary and indifferent, have no plausible reason to make them proud. Some are proud because they have authority to pronounce a capital sentence – they pride themselves on having achieved what they call “progress” to a position where they can chop off human heads. The glory of such persons is in their shame (Phil. 3:19). Others pride themselves on wealth – not the genuine wealth, but the wealth here below. Others pride themselves, for example, on a beautiful house or many fields. None of these things is worthy of consideration; one should not pride oneself on any of these things. The justifiable thing about which to be proud, should someone be proud, is being wise, and one might pride oneself on the consciousness that one has not engaged in carnal pleasure for ten years or from childhood on, or, again, someone might be proud because he had been imprisoned for Christ’s sake. Such things are justifiable grounds for reasonably being proud, but not even because of these things, if one refers to true reason, should one reasonably be proud.
This is why it is not possible to pride oneself reasonably even on these things. Paul had occasion for priding himself on account of visions (2 Cor. 12:1), apparitions (see Acts 16:10, 18:9), marvels and signs (see Rom. 15:19; 2 Cor. 12:12), the labors he accomplished for Christ, and the churches he established in his zeal to found a church wherever Christ was not named (see Rom. 15:20). All these things would be occasions for his being proud, if we must speak about justifiable reasons for being so. To some it might have seemed appropriate for him to be proud, but, nonetheless, since it was not without danger to be proud even on account of such things, the benevolent Father, even as he was endowing him with visions and apparitions, also gave him, as if it were a gift of grace, an angel of Satan, to buffet him, so that he would not be overly proud concerning which three times he entreated the Lord that the angel of Satan, which he had given him by design so that he would not be proud, might depart from him (see 2 Cor. 12:7–8). And the Lord replied to him – for Paul deserved a response – “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). Therefore there is nothing we ought to be proud about, for a fall results from being proud according to: “the heart of a man exalts itself before distress, and it humbles itself before glory” (Prov. 18:12).
Thus we deal with “Listen, give ear, and do not be proud, because the Lord has spoken.” 9 But see how after this he commands us to do certain things: “Give glory” he says “to the Lord your God before the night falls and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and you shall wait for the light.” He wishes the person who gives glory to the Lord to give glory while it is light, because the glory of the Lord cannot be announced once night has fallen and it is dark. When is it that night falls, and when is it that night has not fallen? “Work while the light is in you” (see Jn. 9:4, 12:35), for the light is in you if you have in you him who said “I am the light of the world” (Jn. 8:12). As long as that light rises for you, glorify God, but know that a certain darkness can occur, and you must not wait for that darkness, but give glory to God before the darkness.
10 Perhaps we shall understand this by employing a gospel text where it is said by the Savior: “Work while it is day, for the night comes when no one can work” (Jn 9:4), Here “day” is the term for this world – it is necessary to add “here,” for I know that in other passages other things are meant. “Day” is therefore the term for this world, “darkness” and “night” are its termination by punishments, for “Why do you desire the day of the Lord. It is also darkness and not light” (see Am. 5:18), says the prophet Amos. If you see what the distress will be after the consummation of the world – a distress that will attend to almost the entire race of men who are to be punished for their sins – you will see that the entire environment will be darkened and no one will any longer be able to praise God, so that the Word has even enjoined the just saying: “Go, my people, enter your cellar, lock your door, hide yourselves a little while, until the fury of my wrath has passed” (Isa. 26:20). Notice at the same time, in this passage, if possible, that it says “a little while,” but this “little while” is little to God, it is not little to a man; it is necessary to see that it is little or great according to the individual concerned. I shall offer an example to show how it is little or great according to the individual concerned: for each individual animal a certain amount of food may be little by comparison to its structure, or such an amount may be much by comparison, again, to its constitution. Thus what is little for a man may be great for some other animal. What is little, for example, for a man is much for a child. Thus the span of a human lifetime is little, even when it is of an aged person, in comparison with the whole of the present age. If, therefore, it is said: “Go, my people, enter your cellar, lock your door, hide yourselves a little while,” the little is to be considered as being said not from the perspective of the one ordered to go and enter into his cellar, but from the perspective of the one commanding these things, to whom a thing is little which is much to that other person. Indeed if, until the fury of God’s wrath is past, some must enter into their cellars, but there are some for whom their sins are not forgiven, not only in the whole of this age, but in the whole of the age to come (see Mt. 12:32), it is evident that the “little” lasts as long as I have mentioned.
“Give glory,” then, “to the Lord our God.” How shall we give glory to the Lord our God? It is not by clamor and slogans that I seek to give glory to the Lord our God, it is rather by deeds that one who gives glory to the Lord actually does so. In temperance we shall glorify God, in justice, in well-doing we shall glorify the Lord. Give glory to the Lord in courage and endurance. Give glory to the Lord in well-doing and holiness and the rest of the virtues. If this is the case and in this way someone glorifies God, do not assume that I blaspheme when, similarly, I adduce the witness of the opposite expressions. The temperate person glorifies God; the debauched person dishonors God. Like Nebuchadnezzar he topples the temple of God and defiles the temple of God (see 1 Cor. 3:17) and through the transgression of the Law he dishonors God (see Rom. 2:23). The expression itself is apostolic. Does not the sinner therefore confer dishonor on God, and if doctrines concerning providence are brought into question, so that some doubt if there is a providence, is there any other reason for this than vice? Remove vice, and providence will be no stumbling block for you. Turning the proper order upside-down, those who question providence say such things as ”Why are there adulterers?“ and “Why are there effeminate men?” (see 1 Cor. 6:9) “Why are there so many godless and impious?” Sinners are the ones who have brought dishonor upon providence, and cavils against God, and blasphemy against the creator of the world. Therefore let some give glory to God. Those who act contrary to the glory of God by sinning do not give glory to God.
“Give glory to the Lord your God before the night falls and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains” (Jer. 13:16). There are certain dark mountains; there are certain bright mountains. Since both of them are mountains, both of them are imposing. The bright mountains are the holy angels of God, the prophets, Moses the minister (Num. 12:7) and the apostles of Jesus Christ. All these are bright mountains, and I think that it is said concerning them in the Psalms: “Their foundations are on the holy mountains” (Ps. 86:1 [87:1]). And what are the dark mountains? “Those lifting up their heights against the knowledge of God” (see 2 Cor. 10:5). The devil is a dark mountain, the rulers of this world who are being destroyed (see 1 Cor. 2:6) are dark mountains, and the epileptic petty demon (see Mt. 17:5) was a mountain, and it was a dark mountain about which the Savior said: “Say to this mountain” (Mt. 17:20). For, regarding the epileptic, when the word was put to him and the disciples were saying, “Why cannot we cast it out?” (Mt. 17:19), the Savior replied: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain” (concerning which you are strained, concerning which you are inquiring) “you will say to this mountain, move over there, and it will move” “From where?” From the man. “To where?” To its own familiar place. Those who stumble do not stumble on bright mountains, but on dark mountains, whenever they have come to be with the Devil and his angels, the dark mountains.
“[A]nd you shall wait for the light” (Jer. 13:16). It is possible that “and you shall wait for the light” is connected with “You shall give glory to our God”. If you were to “Give glory to the Lord your God before the night falls and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains” it is obvious that, if the night falls “you shall wait for the light” and the light will come next for you. Another person might say (I do not vouch for the interpretation) that those who stumble on dark mountains will wait beside the dark mountains, awaiting the light of mercy. If someone goes upon dark mountains, we see what is there: “there is shadow of death” (Jer. 13:16). Where there are dark mountains, there is the shadow of death brought about by those dark mountains.
“[A]nd they are made into shadows. 13 If you do not listen in a hidden manner, your soul will wail before the face of violence” (Jer. 13:17) Those who listen “in a hidden manner,” listen, but others, even if they listen, do not listen “in a hidden manner.” What is listening “in a hidden manner” but “we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, that which is hidden, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory” (1 Cor. 2:7) and where it is said elsewhere “most of the works of God are in secrets” (Sir. 16:21)? If I listen to the law, either I listen to it in a hidden manner, or I do not listen to it in a hidden manner. The Jew does not listen to the law in a hidden manner. Therefore he is outwardly circumcised, not knowing that “he is not a Jew, who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward, in the flesh” (Rom. 2:28). But he who listens about circumcision in a hidden manner, is circumcised in secret (Rom. 2:29). He who listens to the things ordained in the law concerning the Passover in a hidden manner eats Christ the Lamb, for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7), and knowing what sort of thing the flesh of the Word is, and knowing that it is genuine food, he partakes of it, for he has understood the Passover in a hidden manner. The ordinary Jew therefore killed the Lord Jesus and is today responsible for the murder of Jesus because he did not listen either to the law or to the prophets in a hidden manner. Whenever you read about the unleavened bread, it is possible to listen in a hidden manner; it is possible to listen outwardly to the commandment. As many among you as celebrate the unleavened bread, the bodily unleavened bread – for the Passover is near – do not listen to the commandment that says, “If you do not listen in a hidden manner, your soul will wail.” Also regarding the Sabbath there are women who, not having listened to the prophet, do not listen in a hidden manner, but listen outwardly, not washing themselves on the day of the Sabbath, returning to the poor and weak elements (see Gal. 4:9), as if Christ has not come among us, he who has perfected us and conveyed us from the legal elements to the gospel perfection.
Therefore we are careful, in reading the law and the prophets, never to fall subject to the prophecy: “If you do not listen in a hidden manner, your soul will wail before the face of violence.” As many of you women who observe the Jewish feast because of not understanding the day of propitiation (see Lev. 25:9) after the advent of Christ do not listen to propitiation in a hidden way, for to listen to propitiation in a hidden way is to listen to how God offered Jesus as a propitiation for our sins (see Rom. 3:25) and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn 2:2). Also if the gospel parables are read, and there is one who listens to things externally, he does not listen to them in a hidden way, but if the listener is an apostle or one of those who enter into the house (Mt. 13:16) of Jesus, he approaches Jesus and asks about the obscurity of the parable, and Jesus interprets it. Then he becomes a listener to the gospel, listening to it in a hidden way, so that his soul may not wail, for the soul wails of those who do not listen in a hidden way.
Why, surprisingly, does it not say “You shall wail, if you do not listen in a hidden way” but “your soul shall wail”? There is a certain wailing when only the soul wails, and perhaps the Savior teaches us about that wailing when he says: “There is wailing” (Mt. 8:12) and when he says: “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and wail” (Lk. 6:25). He speaks of that wailing with which the prophet threatens us here saying: “If you do not listen in a hidden manner, your soul will wail before the face of violence” – for when you have experienced violence, you wail –“and your eyes shall drop tears because the Lord’s flock has been crushed” (Jer. 13:17). If you should now see the Jewish condition and compare them with their condition in past times, you will see how “the Lord’s flock has been crushed.” For that was once the Lord’s flock and since “they judged themselves unworthy, the Word was turned towards the Gentiles” (see Acts 13:46). Since that flock of the Lord was crushed, should not we, the “wild olive, engrafted contrary to nature on the cultivated stock” (Rom. 11:17) of the patriarchs, be all the more fearful that this flock of the Lord not sometime be crushed? For it is going to be crushed sometime according to what was said by the Savior, when “because of increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold” (Mt. 24:12). To whom does this discourse apply? Is not “the love of many will grow cold” said about so-called Christians? About whom is the word: “When he comes, will the Son of Man find faith on the earth?” (Lk. 18:8)? Is it not about us? Therefore let us be sure to do all things so that this flock of the Lord may daily improve, that it be healthy, that it heal itself and that all tribulation stay away from our souls, so that we may be perfected in Jesus Christ “to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Pet. 4:11).
