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
