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 JEREMIAS

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JEREMIAS

mission as a lesser evil than a liopeless struggle, was interpreted by the war party as a lack of patriotism. Even at the present day, some commentators wish to regard Jeremias as a traitor to his coimtry- — Jeremias, who was the best friend of his brethren and of the people of Israel (II Mach.. xv, 14), so deeply did he feel the weal and woe of his native land. Thus was Jeremias loaded with the curses of all parties as the scapegoat of the blinded nation. During the siege of JeriLsalem he was once more condemned to death and thrown into a miry dungeon; this time a foreigner res- cued him from certain death (xxxvii-x.xxix).

Still more violent than these outward battles were the conflicts in the soul of the prophet. Being in full sympathy with the national sentiment, he felt that his own fate was boimd up with that of the nation; hence the hard mission of announcing to the people the sen- tence of death affectetl him deeply; hence his oppo- sition to accepting this commission (i, 6). With all the resources of proj^hetic rhetoric he sought to bring liack the people to "the old paths" (vi. 16), but in this cndca\oiir he felt as though he were trying to effect that "the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots" (xiii, 23). He heard the sins of his people crying to heaven for vengeance, and forcibly expresses his approval of the judgment pronounced upon the blood-stained city (ef. vi). The next moment, how- ever, he prays the Lord to let the cup pass from Jeru- salem, and wrestles like Jacob with God for a blessing upon Sion. The grandeur of soul of the great .sufferer appears most plainly in the fervid prayers for his peo- ple (cf. especially xiv, 7-9, 19-22), which were often offered directly after a fiery declaration of coming pun- ishment. He knows that with the fall of Jerusalem the place that was the scene of revelation and salva- tion will be destroyed. Nevertheless, at the grave of the religious hopes of Israel, he still has the expecta- tion that the Lord, notwithstanding all that has hap- pened, will bring His promises to pass for the sake of His name. The Lord thinks "thoughts of peace, and not of affliction ", and will let Himself be found of those who seek (xxix, 10-14). As He watched to de- stroy, so will He likewise watch to build up (xxxi, 28). The prophetic gift does not appear with equal clear- ness in the life of any other prophet as alike a psy- chological problem and a personal task. His bitter outward and inward experiences give the speeches of Jeremias a strongly personal tone. More than once this man of iron seems in danger of losing his spiritual balance. He calls down punishment from heaven upon his enemies (cf. xii, 3; xviii, 23). Like a Job among the prophets, he curses the day of his birth (xv, 10; XX, 14-18); he would like to arise, go hence, and preach instead to the stones in the wilderness: "Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging place . . . and I will leave my people, and depart from them?" (ix, 2; Heb. text, ix, 1). It is not improbable that the mourning prophet of Anathoth was the author of many of the P.salms that are full of bitter re- proach.

After the destruction of Jerusalem, Jeremias was not carried away into the Babylonian exile. He re- mained liehind in Chanaan, in the wasted vineyard of Jahweh, that he might continue his prophetic office. It was indeed a life of martyrdom among the dregs of the nation that had been left in the land. .\t a later date he was dragged to Egypt by eniigrating Jews (xl-xliv). According to a tradition first mentioned by Tertullian (Scorp.,viii), Jeremias was .stoned to death in Egypt liy his own countrymen on accoimt of his dis- courses threatening the coming pimishment of God (cf. Ileb., xi, 37), thus crowning with martyrdom a life of steadily increasing trials and sorrows. Jere- mias would not have died a.s .Jeremias hail he not died a martyr. The Roman Martyrology assigns his name to 1 .May. l'o.st<?rity sought to atone for the sins his oontcmporarjcs bad committed against him. Even

during the Babylonian Captivity his prophecies seem to have been the favourite reading of the exiles (II Par., xxxvi, 21; I Esd., i, 1; Dan., ix, 2). In the later books compare Ecclus., xlix, S sq.; II Mach., ii, 1-8; XV, 12-16; Matt., xvi, 14.

IV. Characteristic Qualities op Jeremias. — The delineation in II and III of the life and task of Jere- mias has already made plain the peculiarity of his character. Jeremias is the prophet of mourning and of symbolical suffering. This distinguishes his per- sonality from that of Isaias, the prophet of ecstasy and the Messianic future, of Ezechiel, the prophet of mys- tical (not typical) suffering, and of Daniel, the cos- mopohtan revealer of apocalyptic visions of the Old Covenant. No prophet belonged so entirely to his age and his immediate surroundings, and no prophet was so seldom transported by the Spirit of God from a dreary present into a brighter future than the mourn- ing prophet of Anathoth. Con.sequently, the life of no other prophet reflects the history of his times so vividly as the life of Jeremias reflects the time immedi- ately preceding the Babylonian Captivity. A som- bre, depressed spirit overshadows his life, just as a gloomy light overhangs the grotto of Jeremias in the northern part of Jerusalem. In Michelangelo's fres- coes on the ceilings of the Sistine chapel there is a masterly delineation of Jeremias as the prophet of myrrh, perhaps the most e.xpressive and eloquent figure among the prophets depicted by the great master. He is represented bent over like a tottering pillar of the temple, the head supported by the right hand, the disordered beard expressive of a time of in- tense sorrow, and the forehead scored with wrinkles, the entire exterior a contrast to the pure soul within. His eyes seem to see blood and ruins, and his lips ap- pear to murmur a lament. The whole picture strik- ingly portrays a man who never in his life laughed, and who turned aside from scenes of joy, because the Spirit told him that soon the voice of mirth should be silenced (xvi, S sq.).

Equally characteristic and idiosyncratic is the lit- erary style of Jeremias. He does not use the classi- cally elegant language of a Deutero-Isaias or an Amos, nor does he possess the imagination shown in the symbolism and elaborate detail of Ezechiel. neither does he follow the lofty thought of a Daniel in his apocalyptic vision of the history of the world. The style of Jeremias is simple, without ornament and but little polished. Jerome speaks of him as "in verbis simplex et facilis, in majestate sensuum profundissi- mus" (simple and easy in words, most profound in majesty of thought). Jeremias often speaks in jerky, disjointed sentences, as if grief and excitement of spirit had stifled his voice. Nor did he follow strictly the laws of poetic rliytlun in the use of the Kiruih, or elegiac, verse, which had, moreover, an anacoluthic measure of its own. Like these anacoluthse so are also the many, at times even monotonous, repetitions for which he has been blamed, the only individual ex- pressions of the mournftil feeling of his soul that are correct in style. Sorrow inclines to repetition, in the manner of the prayers on the Mount of Olives. Just as grief in the East is expressed in the neglect of the outward appearance, so the great re[)resentative of elegiac verse of the Bible had neither time nor de- sire to adorn his thoughts with a carefully chosen diction.

Jeremias also stands by himself among the prophets by his manner of carrying on and developing the Messianic idea. He was far from attaining the full- ness and clearness of the Messianic gospel of the Book of Isaias; he does not contribute as much as the Book of Daniel to the terminology of the gospel. Above all the other great prophets. Jeremias was sent to his age, and oidy in very isolalcii inslanees does he throw a jirophetic light in \crbal propliecy on the fullness of

time, as in his celebrated discourse of the Uood Shep-