Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/395

 JEREMIAS

337

JEREMIAS

herd of the House of David (xxiii, 1-5), or when he most beautifully, in chapters xxx-xxxiii, proclaims the deliverance from the Babylonian Captivity as the type and pledge of the Messianic deliverance. This lack of actual Messianic prophecies by Jeremias has its compensation; for his entire life became a living personal prophecy of the suffering Messias, a living illustration of the predictions of suffering made by the other prophets. The suffering Lamb of God in the Book of Isaias (liii, 7) becomes in Jeremias a human being: " I was as a meek lamb, that is carried to be a victim" (Jer., xi, 19). The other seers were Messianic prophets; Jeremias was a Messianic prophecy em- bodied in flesh and blood. It is, therefore, fortunate that the story of his life has been more exactly pre- served than that of the other prophets, because his life had a prophetic significance. The various parallels between the life of Jeremias and of the Messias are known: both one and the other had at the eleventh hour to proclaim the overthrow of Jerusalem and its temple by the Babylonians or Romans; both wept over the city which stoned the prophets and did not recognize what was for its peace; the love of both was repaid with hatred and ingratitude. Jeremias deep- ened the conception of the Messias in another regard. From the time the prophet of Anathoth, a man be- loved of God, was obliged to live a life of suffering in spite of his guiltlessness and holiness from birth, Israel was no longer justified in judging its Messias by a mechanical theory of retribution and doubting his sinlessness and acceptablencss to God because of his outward sorrows. Thus the life of Jeremias, a life as bitter as myrrh, was gradually to accustom the eye of the people to the suffering figure of Christ, and to make clear in advance the bitterness of the Cross. Therefore it is with a profound right that the Offices of the Passion in the Liturgy of the Church often use the language of Jeremias in an applied sense.

V. The Book op the Prophecies op Jeremias. — (A) A nah/su nf Contnits. — The book in its present form has two main divisions; chapters i-xlv, discourses threatening punishment which are aimed directly against Juda and are intermingled with narratives of personal and national events, and chapters xlvi-li, dis- courses containing threats against nine heathen na- tions and intended to warn Juda indirectly against the polytheism and policy of these peoples. In chapter i is related the calling of the prophet, in order to prove to his suspicious countrymen that he was the am- bassador of God. Not he himself had assumed the office of prophet, but Jahweh had conferred it upon him notwithstanding his reluctance. Chapters ii-vi contain rhetorical and weighty complaints and threats of judgment on account of the nation's idolatry and foreign policy. The very first speech in ii-iii may be said to present the scheme of the Jeremianic discourse. Here also appears at once the conception of Osee which is typical as well of Jeremias: Israel, the bride of the Lord, has degraded herself into becoming the paramour of strange nations. Even the temple and sacrifice (vii-x), without inward conversion on the part of the people, cannot bring salvation ; while other warnings are united like mosaics with the main ones. The "words of the covenant" in the Thorah recently found under Josias contain threatenings of judgment; the enmity of the citizens of .\nathotli agiiinst the herald of this Thorah reveals the inf:itii:ition of the nation (xi-.xii). Jeremias is commanded to hide a linen girdle, a symbol of the priestly nation of Sion, by the Euphrates and to let it rot there, to tjT^ify the downfall of the nation in exile on the Euphrates (xiii). The same stern symbolism is exjiressod later by the earthen bottle which is broken on the rocks before the Earthen Gate (xix, 1-11). .^ccordingfothecustomof the prophets (III Kings, xi, 29-:!l: Is., viii, 1-4; Ezech., V, 1-12), his warnings are accompanied by forcible pantomimic action. Prayers at the time of a VIII.— 22

great drought, statements which are of much value for the understanding of the psychological condition of the prophet in his spiritual struggles, follow (xiv-xv). The troubles of the times demand from the prophet an unmarried and joyless life (xvi-xvii). The Creator can treat those he has created with the same supreme authority that the potter has over clay and earthen vessels. Jeremias is ill-treated (xviii-xx). A con- demnation of the political and eccle.siastical leaders of the people and, in connexion with this, the promise of a better shepherd are uttered (xxi-xxiii). The vision of the two baskets of figs is narrated in chapter xxiv. The repeated declaration (ceterum censco) that the land will become a desolation follows (xxv). Struggles with the false prophets, who take wooden chains off the people and load them instead with iron ones, are detailed. Both in a letter to the exiles in Babylon, and by word of mouth, Jeremias exhorts the captives to conform to the decrees of Jahweh (,xxvi- xxi.x). Compare with this letter the "epistle of Jere- mias" in Baruch, vi. A prophecy of consolation and salvation in the style of a Deutero-Isaias, concerning the return of Ciod's favour to Israel and of the new, eternal covenant, is then given (x.xx-x.xxiii). The chapters following are taken up largely with narra- tives of the last days of the siege of Jerusalem and of the period after the conciuest, with numerous bio- graphical details concerning Jeremias (xxxiv-.xlv). (B) Literary Criticism of the Book. — Much light is thrown on the production and genuineness of the book by the testimony of chapter xxxvi: .leremias is directed to write down, either personally or by his scribe Ba- ruch, the discourses he had given up to the fourth year of Joakim (04 B. c). In order to strengthen the im]jression made by the prophecies as a whole, the in- dividual pretlictions are to be united into a book, thereby preserving documentary proof of these dis- courses until the time in which the disasters threatened in them shoidd actually come to pass. This first au- thentic recension of the prophecies forms the basis of the present Book of Jeremias. .According to a law of literary transmission to which the Biblical books are also subject — hahent sua fatn lihelli (books have their vicissitudes) — the first transcript was enlarged by various insertions and additions from the pen of Ba- ruch or of a later prophet. The attempts of com- mentators to separate these secondary antl tertiary additions in different cases from the original Jere- mianic subject-matter have not always led to as con- vincing proof as in chapter Hi. This chapter should be regarded as an addition of the post-Jeremianic period based on IV Kings, xxiv, IS-xxv, 30, on account of the concluding statement of li: "Thus far are the words of Jeremias." Cautious literary criticism is obliged to observe the principle of chronological ar- rangement which is perceptilile in the present compo- sition of the book, notwithstanding the additions: chapters i-vi belong apparently to the reign of King Josias (cf. the date in iii, (i); vii-xx belong, at least largel_y, to the reign of Joakim; xxi-xxxiii partly to the reign of Sedecias (cf. xxi, 1; x.xvii, 1; xxviii, 1; xxxii, 1), although other portions are expressly as- signed to the reigns of other kings: xxxiv-xxxix to the period of the siege of Jerusalem; xl-xlv to the period after the destruction of that city. Conse- quently, the chronology must have been considered in the arrangement of the material. ^Modern critical analysis of the book distinguishes between the por- tions narrated in the first person, regarded as directly attributable to Jeremias, and those portions which speak of Jeremias in the third person. -According to Scholz, the book is arranged in "decades", and each larger train of thought or series of speeches is closed with a song or praver. It is true that in the book parts cla.ssically perfect and highly poetic in character are often suddenly followed by the most commonplace prose, and matters given in the barest outline are not