Fathers

Loading…

What the Fathers say

Jeremiah 4:22

Eastern Fathers

Justin Martyr

In the beginning, God commanded that you do these things because of your wickedness. In the same way, because of your determination to remain wicked, or rather, because you are increasingly prone to do it, he uses the same precepts to call you to remember it or come to know it. But you are a people hard-hearted and without understanding, both blind and lame, children without faith, as he himself says, honoring him only with your lips, far from him in your hearts, teaching doctrines that are your own and not his.

Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter XXVII ↗

Irenaeus

And therefore the scribes and Pharisees, too, who from the times of the law had begun to despise God, did not receive His Word, that is, they did not believe on Christ. Of these Esaias says: "Thy princes are rebellious, companions of thieves, loving gifts, following after rewards, not judging the fatherless, and negligent of the cause of the widows." And Jeremiah, in like manner: "They," he says, "who rule my people did not know me; they are senseless and imprudent children; they are wise to do evil, but to do well they have no …

Against Heresies 4:2.6 ↗

Western Saints

Jerome

Because my foolish people did not acknowledge me: they are foolish and senseless children. They are wise to do evil, but do not know how to do good. The cause of their brokenness, devastation, fleeing, and trumpet sound is that the people have become foolish, not by nature, but by their own deliberate choice. And this foolishness is further proven by the fact that they do not know God, and the wise children have become foolish and senseless. …

Commentary on Jeremiah ↗