Jeremias 51
Jerome · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Jeremias 51:6
Turn back also to Jeremiah and pay heed to what he has written of like import: "Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver everyone his soul." For "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen and is become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit." It is true that Rome has a holy church, trophies of apostles and martyrs, a true confession of Christ. The faith has been preached there by an apostle, heathenism has been trodden down, the name of Christ is daily exalted higher and higher. — LETTER 46.12
Jeremias 51:6
The Lord's command was given through Jeremiah: "Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every person his soul." To the day of its death the nation never returned to Chaldea or regretted the fleshpots of Egypt or its strong-smelling meats. Accompanied by its virgin bands, it became a fellow citizen of the Savior; and now that it has ascended from its little Bethlehem to the heavenly realms it can say to the true Naomi: "Your people shall be my people and your God my God." — LETTER 108.32
Jeremias 51:7
"Strangers with the inhabitants of Tyre." Where we have alienigenae [foreigners], the Hebrew text has Philistim, which is interpreted, a cup of poison, for heretics are all drunk from the cup of Babylon, of which Jeremiah says, "The golden cup of Babylon that made the whole earth drunk." Note: "the golden cup of Babylon." Babylon connotes confusion: "a cup truly golden," the teachings of philosophers and the eloquence of orators. Who, indeed, has not been misled by the philosophers? Who has not been seduced by the orators of this world? Theirs is a golden cup, the splendor of eloquence on the outside but within full of poison that they could never conceal except under the gleam of gold. You taste the sweetness of their eloquence, to be sure, and do not suspect the fatal poison. "Strangers with the inhabitants of Tyre." Tyre stands for "narrowness." Truly, there is no room there, not the wide open heart of Christ, as the apostle says to the Corinthians: "In us there is no lack of room for you, but in your heart there is no room for us." — HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 62
Jeremias 51:7
Church people are truly rustic and simple people, but all the heretics are Aristotelian and Platonic. Briefly, that you may know that gold is the usual simile for worldly eloquence, that the heretic's tongue, for example, is as brilliant as gold, hear the words of the prophet: "Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of the Lord." Note how he describes the Babylon of confusion. This world, therefore, is that golden cup. All nations drink from that cup of gold. — HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 11
Jeremias 51:15
"His lightnings illumine the world," Jeremiah says. "The Lord who established the world by his wisdom and brings up clouds from the end of the earth; he makes the lightning flash in the rain." "His lightnings illumine the world." The philosophers, who are always discoursing on the nature of things, say that unless the winds cause a collision among the clouds, fire cannot escape from them; but when they have been aroused to a kind of rivalry in thundering, lightning flashes forth. We can observe a similar phenomenon in producing fire from stones. We have called attention to this to note more easily a similar marvel in the mystery of the Savior. We have our clouds, prophets and apostles, as another psalm says: "Your truth, to the clouds." If to the clouds of this sky he transmits his truth, what does the prophet mean in still another psalm when he says, "Truth shall spring out of the earth"? Now, "your truth, to the clouds" is certainly a figure of the prophets and the apostles. — HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 73
Jeremias 51:28
[Daniel 5:30-31] "On that same night Belshazzar, King of the Chaldeans, was slain, and Darius the Mede succeeded to his kingdom at the age of sixty-two." Josephus writes in his tenth book of the Jewish Antiquities that when Babylon had been laid under siege by the Medes and Persians, that is, by Darius and Cyrus, Belshazzar, King of Babylon, fell into such forgetfulness of his own situation as to put on his celebrated banquet and drink from the vessels of the Temple, and even while he was besieged he found leisure for banqueting. From this circumstance the historical account could arise, that he was captured and slaughtered on the same night, while everyone was either terrified by fear of the vision and its interpretation, or else taken up with festivity and drunken banqueting. As for the fact that while Cyrus, King of the Persians, was the victor, and Darius was only King of the Medes, it was Darius who was recorded to have succeeded to the throne of Babylon, this was an arrangement occasioned by factors of age, family relationship, and the territory ruled over. By this I mean that Darius was sixty-two years old, and that, according to what we read, the kingdom of the Medes was more sizable than that of the Persians, and being Cyrus's uncle, he naturally had a prior claim, and ought to have been accounted as successor to the rule of Babylon. Therefore also in a vision of Isaiah which was recited against Babylon, after many other matters too lengthy to mention, an account is given of these things which are to take place: "Behold I Myself will rouse up against them the Medes, a people who do not seek after silver nor desire gold, but who slay the very children with their arrows and have no compassion upon women who suckle their young" (Isaiah 13:17-18). And Jeremiah says: "Sanctify nations against her, even the kings of Media, and the governors thereof and all the magistrates thereof and all the land under the power thereof" (Jeremiah 51:28). Then follow the words: "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor during the time of its treading; yet a little while, and the time of its harvesting will come" (Jeremiah 51:33). And in testimony of the fact that Babylon was captured during a banquet, Isaiah clearly exhorts her to battle when he writes: "Babylon, my beloved, has become a strange spectacle unto me: set thou the table and behold in the mirrors those who eat and drink; rise up, ye princes, and snatch up your shields!" (Isaiah 21:4-5). — St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER FIVE
Jeremias 51:33
[Daniel 5:30-31] "On that same night Belshazzar, King of the Chaldeans, was slain, and Darius the Mede succeeded to his kingdom at the age of sixty-two." Josephus writes in his tenth book of the Jewish Antiquities that when Babylon had been laid under siege by the Medes and Persians, that is, by Darius and Cyrus, Belshazzar, King of Babylon, fell into such forgetfulness of his own situation as to put on his celebrated banquet and drink from the vessels of the Temple, and even while he was besieged he found leisure for banqueting. From this circumstance the historical account could arise, that he was captured and slaughtered on the same night, while everyone was either terrified by fear of the vision and its interpretation, or else taken up with festivity and drunken banqueting. As for the fact that while Cyrus, King of the Persians, was the victor, and Darius was only King of the Medes, it was Darius who was recorded to have succeeded to the throne of Babylon, this was an arrangement occasioned by factors of age, family relationship, and the territory ruled over. By this I mean that Darius was sixty-two years old, and that, according to what we read, the kingdom of the Medes was more sizable than that of the Persians, and being Cyrus's uncle, he naturally had a prior claim, and ought to have been accounted as successor to the rule of Babylon. Therefore also in a vision of Isaiah which was recited against Babylon, after many other matters too lengthy to mention, an account is given of these things which are to take place: "Behold I Myself will rouse up against them the Medes, a people who do not seek after silver nor desire gold, but who slay the very children with their arrows and have no compassion upon women who suckle their young" (Isaiah 13:17-18). And Jeremiah says: "Sanctify nations against her, even the kings of Media, and the governors thereof and all the magistrates thereof and all the land under the power thereof" (Jeremiah 51:28). Then follow the words: "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor during the time of its treading; yet a little while, and the time of its harvesting will come" (Jeremiah 51:33). And in testimony of the fact that Babylon was captured during a banquet, Isaiah clearly exhorts her to battle when he writes: "Babylon, my beloved, has become a strange spectacle unto me: set thou the table and behold in the mirrors those who eat and drink; rise up, ye princes, and snatch up your shields!" (Isaiah 21:4-5). — St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER FIVE