Mary Chilton Callaway - Jeremiah Through the Centuries

Jeremiah the Man

“He was the most compassionate of the prophets.”

Gregory Nazianzus, Oration 17, 373 ce

“It was this good man’s unhappiness to be a Physician to a dying State.”

John Trapp, A Commentary upon Jeremiah, 1660

“Jeremiah is by no means wanting either in elegance or sublimity, although, generally speaking, inferior to Isaiah in both … His thoughts indeed are somewhat less elevated … but the reason of this may be, that he is mostly taken up with the gentler passions of grief and pity, for the expression of which he has a peculiar talent.”

Robert Lowth, cited in B. Blaney, Jeremiah, and Lamentations. A New Translation with notes … 1784 , p. 8

“Every thing relating to Jeremiah shows him to have been a man of an equivocal character.”

Thomas Paine, Age of Reason II, 1795

“Jeremiah has a kind of feminine tenderness and susceptibility; strength was to be educed out of a spirit which was inclined to be timid and shrinking.”

F.D. Maurice, Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament: A Series of Sermons, 1853, p. 370

“He was set by God’s hand as a solitary beacon on a lofty tower, in a dark night, in a stormy sea; lashed by waves and winds, but never shaken from his foundations.

Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln 1875, The Books of Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel in the Authorized Version, p. x

“Jeremiah’s ministry may be summed up in three words: good hope, labour, disappointment.”

John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol.8 Sermon 9. ‘Jeremiah, A Lesson for the Disappointed’ p. 127

“Of the truth of his conviction he never had a moment’s doubt; he knew that Jehovah was on his side, that on Him depended the eternal future. But, instead of the nation, the heart and the individual conviction were to him the subject of religion.”

Wellhausen, Prolegmena to the History of Israel, Trans. John Sutherland Black, Allan Menzies p. 491

“There are always Jeremiahs who go about saying that we have never had such bad times.”

Daily Express, 23 February 1928

“In the midst of danger he was brave. In the midst of trouble he was true. In the midst of confusion he was calm. In the midst of dark he was a flame.”

Roy L. Smith, Writing Scripture Under Dictators, Nashville: Abingdon‐Cokesbury, 1943, p. 60

“Jeremiah was a weak and timid man, but God’s power worked in him.”

George André, The Prophet Jeremiah , Sunbury, PA: Believers Bookshelf, 1988

“We hear him as he secretly talks with God.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. ‘The Significant Contributions of Jeremiah to Religious Thought’ (unpuslished seminary paper, 1948) in The Papers of MLK, Jr . Vol. 7, p. 181

“He was accused of fantasizing, being stubborn, disturbing the peace and being an enemy of the people, as have those in every age even up to the present day who were seized and possessed by God.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, sermon, 21 January 1934, DBWE 13, p. 347

“Jeremiah was truly the genius of torment and dissent; the Euripides, the Pascal or the Dostoevsky of the Old Testament.”

Thomas Römer, ‘La conversion du prophète Jérémie à la thèologie deutéronomiste,’ 1997

“Polarity of emotion is a striking fact in the life of Jeremiah. We encounter him in the pit of utter agony and at the height of extreme joy, carried away by divine wrath and aching with supreme compassion.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets

The Book

“The book of Jeremiah is all doom.”

Talmud, Baba Batra 14

“In order that nothing be lacking in the sense even though much is lacking in the words, I have prepared the warp and the woof for you; you yourself will weave the most beautiful garment.”

Jerome, In Hieremiam , Prologue

“Frequently in the first part there is something in a later chapter which really took place before that which is spoken of in an earlier chapter. So it seems as though Jeremiah did not compose these books himself, but that the parts were taken piecemeal from his utterances and written into a book. For this reason one must not worry about the order or be hindered by the lack of it.”

Martin Luther, Preface to the Prophet Jeremiah, 1532

“It is a necessary thing to the understanding of the prophets to know the stories of the times wherein they prophesied.”

Myles Coverdale, Marginal Note to Jer. 1:1, 1535

“We may all very profitably read the Prophet Jeremy, who is full of incitation to repentance and new obedience.”

John Trapp, Commentary on Jeremiah , 1660

“The prophecies of Jeremiah, which are related historically, are also taken from various chronicles; for not only are they heaped together confusedly, without any account being taken of dates but also the same story is told in them differently in different passages.”

Benedict Spinoza, A Theologico‐Political Treatise , 1670

Were I … to write in such a disordered manner, no body would read what was written, and every body would suppose, that the writer was in a state of insanity. The only way to account for the disorder is, that the book is a medley of detached unauthenticated anecdotes, put together by some stupid book‐maker, under the name of Jeremiah.”

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part II 1795, Paris, pp. 48, 52

“The prophet’s individuality is so impressed on his writings as to disarm suspicion of their authenticity.”

Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, 1875, The Books of Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel in the Authorized Version , p. x .

“Though it was ‘the word of the Lord, ’ these communications were ‘words of Jeremiah; ’ his personality, temperament, experiences, style of thought, modes of expression, are all stamped upon these Divine messages. Inspiration does not obliterate, scarcely subordinates individuality.”

Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary , Vol. 17: 8, Funk & Wagnalls, 1892

“As a lad I started to read the Scripture through according to the familiar schedule, three chapters each weekday and five on Sunday, by which we were assured that in a single year we could complete the reading of the Book. I got safely through Numbers and Leviticus, even Proverbs did not altogether quench my ardor, but I stuck in the middle of Jeremiah and never got out. I do not blame myself, for how can a boy read Jeremiah in its present form and understand it?”

Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Modern Use of the Bible , 1930, p. 21

“It is a hardy adventurer who decides to brave the book of Jeremiah.”

Andrew Shead, www.matthiasmedia.com

“The book of Jeremiah does not contain stories about arks or whales or a talking donkey. The stories in this book can be a little difficult for children to understand.”

Annabelle Lee, eHow Contributor to site for children’s activities for Jeremiah Bible Stories

Actualizations

“I myself was initiated under Moses the God‐beloved into his greater mysteries, yet when I saw the prophet Jeremiah and knew him to be not only himself enlightened, but a worthy minister of the holy secrets, I was not slow to become his disciple.”

Philo of Alexandria, Cherubim II.49

“Jeremiah’s case is the case of all the Ministry, placed between two gulfs, two seas, two rocks, two fires: God’s curse, and the world’s hatred.”

John Hull Lectures upon the Lamentations of Jeremiah, 1620, p. 6

“Although he were not … free from all fault (for he had his out‐bursts) yet he was … a man of singular sanctimony and integrity, good of a little child, a young Saint, and an old Angel; an admirable Preacher … a pattern to all Preachers of the Gospel.”