Jeremiah the Prophet

CONCERNING S. JEREMIAH THE PROPHET

SLAIN IN EGYPT.

Jeremiah the Prophet, slain in Egypt (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

[1] We begin this month of May with the highest and most holy men, Jeremiah of the old law, Philip and James of the number of the twelve Apostles, and another James the Brother of the Lord, first Bishop of Jerusalem, Princes of the new Testament: and there will follow, as though a harvest growing through the whole world, very many Saints. Accordingly, lest the bulk of this work grow into the immense, the most illustrious things which are written of S. Jeremiah, these may be read in the very many Interpreters of his prophecy. But Jeremiah was, that we may embrace his deeds in few words, Epitome of the Acts was, I say, a Priest, Doctor, Prophet and Apostle; already from his mother's womb, as very many judge, sanctified, and consecrated to that office. About the fifteenth year of his life, by the testimony of S. Jerome, he began to prophesy, immediately sent by God to preach to the Jews and the other nations the coming of King Nebuchadnezzar, the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, and the extermination of the neighboring provinces and kingdoms. Among the threatenings, rebukes, and laments, he mingles here and there glad promises about the Jews to be brought back from Chaldea, about the world to be redeemed through Christ, about the Gentiles to be brought into the Church, about the manifold grace and felicity of the new Testament. But, for all his labor, he brought nothing back from his ungrateful fellow-citizens, except reproaches, bonds, prison and death, overwhelmed with stones. By which title he is celebrated as a Martyr by Tertullian, Epiphanius, Jerome, Isidore, and others.

[2] His sacred memory is recalled on these Kalends of May among the Orientals, Greeks, Latins. For the Arabo-Egyptian Martyrology which we have, rendered into Latin for us by Gratia Simonius the Maronite, has this: On the first day of May the memory of Jeremiah the Prophet sanctified. worship among the Orientals, In the Typicon of S. Sabas the Abbot, which can be had in Syriac, Jeremiah the Prophet is indicated. The Greeks in the city of Constantinople on this day celebrate the solemn feast of S. Jeremiah in the venerable Apostle-shrine of the holy and Prince of the Apostles Peter, which is situated near the most holy and great church. As is indicated in the MS. Greek Synaxarion of the Claromontane College of the Society of Jesus at Paris and in the printed Menaea, and the Greeks, where also the praise of the same Prophet is promulgated in hymns, odes and canticles. Let it suffice for us the eulogy, which in the very old Menologion written by the command of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus of Constantinople in the tenth century of Christ is set forth, and is rendered into Latin in this manner.

[3] Jeremiah, the chosen Prophet of God, in the Menologion of the Emperor Basil was from the region of Judea; and he prophesied many things indeed, but especially the storming of Jerusalem. Wherefore he received the Ark of the law, and all the sacred things which were in it, and hid them in a rocky cave, having thus addressed those who then were present: The Lord has migrated from Sinai into heaven, and again will come into Sinai with power: and the sign of his coming will be to you, when all the nations shall adore wood. And when he had said these things, immediately upon that cave, in which he had hidden the Ark, a cloud appeared, overshadowing that place for a whole day. He afterwards sustained several afflictions from the Jews, because he had reproved their crimes. But when afterwards he had gone into Egypt, he foretold that it would come to pass, that all their idols would be shaken and would fall, on account of the Savior, a boy to be born of a Virgin in a stable. And at last when he dwelt in Taphnis a city of Egypt, overwhelmed with stones by the people, he departed from life, buried near the house of Pharaoh. These things in the said Menologion.

[4] Almost all the same things are recounted in the Alexandrian Chronicle, as Raderus calls it, and several things about the burial, miracles, and translation of the Relics are added, in these words: Jeremiah of Anathoth, in the Alexandrian Chronicle, at Taphnas of Egypt overwhelmed with stones by the people, fell. He lies in that place, where Pharaoh had dwelt. For the Egyptians attended him with great veneration, because they had been heaped by him with great benefits, while wishing them well, he turned away from them the monsters, which the Greeks call crocodiles, the Egyptians menephoth. Further, whoever even today, having professed Christ, pray in that place, and collect dust from that place, cure men bitten by them, and many put crocodiles to flight from those waters. We have received from the posterity of Antigonus and Ptolemy, men of great age, that Alexander King of the Macedonians, when he visited the Prophet's tomb, and had learned those things which he had foretold about himself, carried his ashes to Alexandria, and raised for them an illustrious monument adorned on every side: whence it came about that asps were kept away thence, as also from the river. These things in the said Chronicle. John Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow book 10 on the Lives of the Fathers chapter 77 inserts these things: Then I say, and the Meadow of John Moschus, said he, to my lord Sophronius: Let us go to the Tetrapylon, and let us remain there. But that place is venerable to the Alexandrians; for they say that the bones of Jeremiah the Prophet, taken from Egypt, were there placed by Alexander the founder of the city.

[5] More than one memory of the same Prophet still survives in the Holy Land, The celebrity in the place which is thought to have been of his nativity: and is religiously visited by Pilgrims. For first between Rama and Jerusalem, about ten miles from the city, there occurs in a most pleasant valley an ample temple (as Quaresmius book 4 chapter 7 and lately brought thence Fr. Antony Gonzales book 2 chapter 6 report) still almost entire, but stripped of roof and ornaments, and beside it the walls and ruins of a formerly Franciscan Convent, under the title of S. Jeremiah, whom the inhabitants believe to have been born there. Nor does it greatly stand in the way that he is called, of Anathoth, but Anathoth was not in this place, on this side, but the third mile above the holy city, according to Jerome: for nowhere is Jeremiah said in sacred Scripture to be of Anathoth or born of Anathoth, but only said to have been of the Priests who were in Anathoth; or, as the Chaldee has, who took his inheritance in Anathoth, because namely he had a field bought there: which notwithstanding he could both have been born and have dwelt elsewhere. Another memory of the same Prophet is at the walls of the holy city, outside the Damascus gate. Namely the cave which they call of Jeremiah, because in it he is believed to have wept the destruction impending over Jerusalem and to have dictated the Threnes. But it is a cavern, as Quaresmius says, of square form, ample and spacious, supported by a single column of the same rock, likewise in his cave containing about thirty paces square: above which, he says, at the height of ten or twelve feet there is shown a place like a bed, which was for the Prophet for a couch.

[6] But not far off is another place, like a cave or cistern, oozy and miry; which is thought to have been that into which the Saint was cast. Which lest it seem contrary to Scripture, Quaresmius observes that the Prophet was shut up altogether four times: and first chapter 10 verse 2 when Phassur put him in the stocks, which was in the upper gate of Benjamin, in the house of the Lord, within the city in its southern region, destined for false prophets and ministers of the temple when they had transgressed in anything. Secondly when Jerusalem was besieged, when he was shut up in the court of the prison which was in the house of the King of Judah, Chapter 32 verse 2. Thirdly chapter 37 verse 14 the Princes being angry against Jeremiah, having beaten him sent him into the prison which was in the house of Jonathan the Scribe… into the house of the pit and into the dungeon. This place too is within the city near the royal house, [and the neighboring pit or lake, into which after the prison thrice changed he was let down.] so that thence he could easily be secretly summoned and brought to the King. Fourthly finally chapter 38 verse 6. They took Jeremiah and cast him into the lake of Melchias the son of Amelech which was in the entrance of the prison … into the lake in which there was no water, but mud. But about this place nothing is added which would dissuade it from having been in the Northern part, or even outside the walls of the city: since within and without there could have been various prisons; and in this place that last one was, into whose lake (for such pits even in most prisons are had today, for the most criminal accused) by a rope then indeed the Saint was let down, but afterwards prepared for the memory of the Prophet

he entered through the gate and the stairs, of which the relics are today beheld. Refer hither the various places of Scripture, indicating a similar manner of prison usual among the Jews. Psalm 87 verse 7 They have laid me in the lower lake, in dark places and in the shadow of death. Psalm 39 verse 3 He brought me out of the lake of misery and from the mud of dregs. Zachariah 9 verse 11 Thou hast sent forth thy prisoners out of the lake in which there is no water. But whether it is to be understood of the last or of some other place within the city what Nicephorus says book 8 chapter 9 of Helena the mother of Constantine, who in the pit of Jeremiah constructed wonderful works, thou wilt define with difficulty.

[7] The Latins also on these Kalends of May celebrate the birthday of S. Jeremiah the Prophet in the older Martyrologies, wont to be more often alleged by us, the Casinense, Barberino, Altempsiano, Worship among the Latins of S. Cyriacus, of the Queen of Sweden, and others, then those which Bede, Rabanus, Ado, Notker, Wandelbert published. But Usuard has this greater eulogy: On the Kalends of May. In Egypt of Jeremiah the Prophet, who overwhelmed with stones by the people fell at Taphnas: and there is added in today's Roman Martyrology, and there he was buried: at whose tomb the faithful (as S. Epiphanius reports) were wont to supplicate, and dust being taken thence they heal the bites of asps. There is cited in the Notes by Baronius a book, which is commonly attributed to S. Epiphanius on the Lives of the Prophets: but in this almost the same things are contained concerning S. Jeremiah, which we have preferred to give from the Greek Menologion of the Emperor Basil and the Alexandrian Chronicle. He is also worshipped on the first day not impeded, in the Patriarchal Church and diocese of Venice, S. Jeremiah the Prophet Martyr with a semidouble rite. Hence some Relics carried to Prague are noted in the Diary of the Metropolitan church, as placed within the crystal of the same silver gilded little case, in which are contained the Relics of S. James the Apostle.

[8] It pleases to add an Epitaph composed by our Salian. This mausoleum closes, O Traveler, not relics, but a balsam fragrant with the Lily of virginity; not dry bones, but a treacle to poisons, an amulet salutary for putting to flight serpents, lizards, asps, Epitaph from Salian. and crocodiles. This power gave him He, who long ago against the evil demons, the serpents of Tartarus and their worship, and the dregs of the Israelites addicted to them rendered the Prophet invincible. For He had given him from a boy into a fortified city, and into an iron column, and into a brazen wall over all the earth, against Kings and Princes and Priests and the people of the land. But no wonder that Jeremiah was powerful against the asp and the basilisk, and trod down the lion and the dragon; who sanctified from the very womb, admitted nothing of their right in himself in his soul, nothing defiled in his body throughout the whole course of his life: most like through his whole life to Him, who had no mortal, nor even any of the immortals, equal. For whom and in whose type assailed with calumnies, vexed with mockeries, surrounded with snares, he underwent the yoke and chains; likewise buffets and scourges, darkness and a miry pit he experienced: and after he had deplored with many and assiduous tears the city and commonwealth of the Jews, perishing by a double disaster; finally overwhelmed with a hail of stones by the impious throng of fugitives, he flew away into the bosom of S. Abraham and the other Patriarchs on the first of May, in the seventh month from the descent into Egypt. In the XLII year of his prophetic office, of his age almost LV. Philip Labbe in the Chronological Epitome of sacred and profane History part 2, places the slaying of S. Jeremiah in the year of the World three thousand four hundred forty-seventh, The time of the slaying of Rome founded the hundred forty-seventh, before the vulgar Era of Christ the six hundred seventh.

[9] Let the whole matter be concluded by a nocturnal vision, made to Judas Maccabeus, who describing it in the second book of Maccabees in chapter XV, said, that there appeared with Onias another man wonderful in age and glory and with a habitude of great dignity about him. But Onias answering said: The protection of S. Jeremiah. This is the lover of the brethren and of the people of Israel: this is he who prays much for the people and for the whole holy city, Jeremiah the Prophet of God. But that Jeremiah stretched forth his right hand, and gave to Judas a golden sword saying, Take the holy sword, a gift from God, in which thou shalt cast down the adversaries of my people Israel.