Jeremias 2
Augustine of Hippo · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Jeremias 2:13
Iniquity lies to itself either by corrupting the nature you have made and ordained or by perverting it. It lies to itself when it practices an immoderate use of things permitted or when it burns for things forbidden to that use which is against nature. It lies to itself when convicted, raging with heart and voice against you as it kicks against the goads, or when—breaking through the pale of human society—they audaciously rejoice in private cliques or divisions on the basis of whether they have been pleased or offended. These things happen whenever you are abandoned and whenever, from a self-willed pride, they choose to align themselves instead with something false that they cherish instead of you, O Fountain of life, the one, true Creator and Ruler of the universe. — Confessions 3.8.16
Jeremias 2:13
Doubtless the heretics, who follow the teachings of demons, who think up false systems under the impulse of their spirit, who let it be known that they have seen visions that they have not seen and by their deadly arguments sow their seed in foolish and credulous hearts—doubtless these are the ones who do not hold the head, namely, Christ, the source of truth. Whatever is opposed to his teaching is without sense, and these are the "blind, leaders of the blind," of whom I think it is said, "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water." — LETTER 121
Jeremias 2:13
The arrogance of pride, the pleasure of lust and the poison of curiosity are the motions of a dead soul. It is not that it is dead in such a way as to lack all movement; rather, it dies by "abandoning the fountain of life" and thus is taken up by the transitory world and is conformed to it. — Confessions 13.21.30
Jeremias 2:18
If we are not false servants of God, if there is in us a spark of that fire whereby "charity seeks not its own," we certainly should make our good works appear, not only before God but even before people, for fear that, while drinking of quiet waters in our own conscience, we should be constrained by careless feet to drive the sheep of the Lord to drink the troubled waters. — LETTER 125
Jeremias 2:21
All they that refuse Christ for King become strangers. Wherefore strangers are they made? Because even that vine, though by Him planted, when it had become sour what heard it? "Wherefore hast thou been turned into sourness, O alien vine?" It hath not been said, My vine: because if Mine, sweet; if sour, not Mine; if not Mine, surely alien. — Expositions of the Psalms, Psalm 56.3
Jeremias 2:21
For it is by similitude, and not by any personal propriety, that He is thus called a vine; just as He is also termed a sheep, a lamb, a lion, a rock, a corner-stone, and other names of a like kind, which are themselves rather the true ones, from which these are drawn as similitudes, not as realities. But when He says, "I am the true vine," it is to distinguish Himself, doubtless, from that vine to which the words are addressed: "How art thou turned into sourness, as a strange vine?" For how could that be a true vine which was expected to bring forth grapes and brought forth thorns? — Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 80.1
Jeremias 2:30
"Some of those measures do not succeed," you say. Is a remedy, then, to be discontinued because the illness of some patients is incurable? You are looking at those who are so hardened that they are not affected by such correction. Concerning these it has been written: "In vain have I struck your children. They have not received correction." — LETTER 93:1.3