Jeremias 16
Origen of Alexandria · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Jeremias 16:16
He who was caught by the fishers of Jesus and who comes up from the sea, he also dies, but he dies to the world. He dies to sin, and after having died to the world and to sin, he is made to live by the Word of God and receives another life. If you could apprehend hypothetically when the soul of the fish changed, after coming out from the fishly body, it became something better than the fish.… Having come up from the sea, falling into the nets of the disciples of Jesus, after you come out, you change the soul. You are no longer a fish that struggles in the salty waves of the sea, but your soul immediately changes and transforms itself and becomes better and more godly than what it was formerly. But that it does transform itself and change, hear Paul, who says, "And we all with unveiled face, reflecting the glory of God, are being transformed to the same image from glory into glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit." And this transformed fish that was caught by the fishers of Jesus, after it has abandoned the way of life in the sea, makes his way in the mountains so that he no longer needs the fishers who brought him. — HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 16:1.2
Jeremias 16:20
"If a person will make gods for himself." Not only do people make gods for themselves from statues, but you will also find people making gods for themselves from their imaginations. Such people can imagine another god and creator of the world other than the divine plan of the world recorded by the Spirit, other than the true world. These all have made gods for themselves, and they have worshiped the works of the hands. So, too, I believe is the case either among the Greeks, who generate opinions, so to speak, of this philosophy or that, or among the heretics, the first who generate opinions. These have made idols for themselves and figments of the soul, and by turning to them they worship the works of their hands, since they accept as truth their own fabrications. — HOMILIES ON JEREMIAH 16:9.1