Augustine of Hippo — Commentary on Scripture

Jeremiah 17:7

No, I say that either before the law, or in the time of the Old Testament, they were freed from sins, not by their own power, because "cursed is everyone who has put his hope in humankind," and without any doubt those are under this curse whom also the sacred psalm notifies, "who trust in their own strength," nor by the old covenant that gives birth to bondage … but I say that they were freed by the blood of the Redeemer, who is the one Mediator of God and people, the Christ Jesus.

AGAINST TWO LETTERS OF THE PELAGIANS 1:12

Jeremiah 17:7

"They shall not be ashamed in the evil time." In the day of trouble, in the day of distress, they shall not be "ashamed," as one is ashamed whose hope deceives him. Who is the person who is "ashamed"? The one who says, "I have not found that which I was in hope of." Nor undeservedly either. You hoped for it from yourself or from a person, your friend. But "cursed is one who puts his trust in humankind." You are ashamed because your hope has deceived you; your hope that was based on a lie. - "Expositions of the Psalms 37.8"

Jeremiah 17:9

The inquirer, then, might say that the prophet says only that Christ is God, without any reference to his human nature. Yet, in our apostolic doctrine, Christ is not only God in whom we may safely trust but also the mediator between God and humankind—the man Jesus. The prophet explains this in the words in which he seems to check himself, and to supply the omission: “The heart,” he says “is inscrutable above all things, and he is man, and who shall know him?” He is man in order that, in the form of a servant, he might heal the hard in heart and that they might acknowledge as God him who became man for their sakes, that their trust might be not in humankind, but in God—man.

REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICHAEAN 13:8

Jeremiah 17:9

His manhood was much more plainly and readily recognized by strangers, who, indeed, were not wrong in believing him to be man, but they did not understand his being God as well as man. Hence Jeremiah says, “He is man, and who shall know him?” He is a man, for it is made manifest that he is a brother. And who shall know him? For it is concealed that he is a husband [to the church]. This must suffice as a defense of our father Abraham against Faustus’s imprudence and ignorance and malice.

REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICHAEAN 22:40

Jeremiah 17:10

God searches our heart and perceives that it is there where our treasure is, that is, in heaven.… He alone perceives what in our inward conscience each of us thinks and delights in. Delight is the end of care because our whole goal in life is to reach what we think and care about most and attain it. God, who searches the heart, therefore sees our cares.… And when he finds that our cares incline neither to the lust of the flesh, nor to the lust of the eyes, nor to the pride of life … but to the joys of things eternal, which are spoiled by no change, he provides direction for the righteous. - "Expositions of the Psalms 7.9"

Jeremiah 17:12

As if anticipating that the inquirer would ask next by what plain mark a young disciple, not yet able to distinguish the truth among so many errors, might find the true church of Christ, since the clear fulfillment of so many predictions compelled him to believe in Christ, the prophet answers this question in what follows and teaches that the church of Christ, which he describes prophetically, is conspicuously visible. His words are, “A glorious high throne is our sanctuary.” This glorious throne is the church, of which the apostle says, “The temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”

REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICHAEAN 13:13

Jeremiah 17:14

No evil person does good. And if no evil person does good, how could an evil person make himself good? He who is eternally good can make an evil person good. “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved.”

SERMON 61:2

Jeremiah 17:14

So, the reason that we, being bad, have a good Father is in order that we may not always remain bad. No bad person can make a good one. If no bad person can make a good one, how can a bad person make himself good? The only one who can make a good person out of a bad one is the one who is always good. “Heal me, Lord,” he says, “and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved.”

SERMON 61:2

Jeremiah 17:16

The Lord has indeed made every day—not only has made but also continues to make. I mean, he makes every day as follows: he makes his sun rise on the good and the bad and sends rain on the just and the unjust. So we are not to imagine that this ordinary kind of day, which is common to good and bad alike, is meant in this place, where we heard, “This is the day that the Lord has made.” What particular sort of day can it be when it says, “Let us exult and be joyful in it”? What sort, but a good one? What sort, but a very choice, lovable, desirable one, the sort about which Jeremiah said, “And I have not yearned for the day of men, you know it well”?

SERMON 229B.2

Jeremiah 19:11

Notice here “the rod of direction” that is described. “You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity.” Draw near to that “rod.” Let Christ be your King: let him rule you with that rod, not crush you with it. For that rod is “a rod of iron,” an inflexible rod. “You shall rule them with a rod of iron and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Some he rules; others he “breaks in pieces.” He “rules” those who are spiritual; he “breaks in pieces” those who are concerned about earthly desires.… Would he so loudly declare that he was about to strike you if he really wanted to strike you? He is, then, holding back his hand from the punishment of your offenses; but you dare not hold back. Turn around and face the punishment for your offenses, for there can be no unpunished offenses. Punishment therefore must be executed either by you or by him. You should plead guilty then in order that he may grant you a reprieve. - "Expositions of the Psalms 45.16"

Jeremiah 20:14

The apostle says, "God commends his charity toward us, because when as yet we were sinners, Christ died for us. Much more now that we are justified in his blood shall we be saved through him from the wrath." Of this wrath he says, "We were by nature children of wrath even as the rest." Of this wrath Jeremiah says, "Cursed be the day when I was born." Of this wrath holy Job says, "Let the day perish wherein I was born." Of this wrath the same Job says again, "Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries."

AGAINST JULIAN 6:24.77-78

Jeremiah 23:16

I know other persons, however, whom an abysmal lack of wisdom and prudence so deceives and tricks that they think that the faith that they pretend to have will help them before God without the works of justice. They commit abominable crimes without fear by reason of this kind of error, while they believe that God is the avenger not of crimes but of lack of faith. Not only are they willing thus to ruin themselves, but also they strive by their snares to trap others in whom there is not light of divine knowledge. Do not listen to the words of the prophets who invent a vain vision for themselves, which they speak as false prophets from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those that reject the words of the Lord, "Peace shall be yours," and to all who walk according to their own desires, to everyone who walks in the error of his heart, they have said, "No evil shall come on you."

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 13

Jeremiah 23:24

Jesus said, “He that sent me is with me.” He had already said this before, but he is constantly reminding them of this important point. “He sent me,” and “He is with me.” If then, O Lord, he is with you, it is not so much that the One has been sent by the other but rather that you both have come. And yet, while both are together, one was sent, the other was the sender. Incarnation is a sending, and the incarnation itself belongs only to the Son and not to the Father. The Father therefore sent the Son but did not withdraw from the Son. For it was not the case that the Father was absent from the place to which he sent the Son. For where could the Maker of all things not be? Where could he not be who said, “I fill heaven and earth”?

TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 40:6

Jeremiah 23:24

A person’s conscience accuses itself if he doesn’t love someone who loves him, or love in return someone who loves him, expecting nothing from that person but indications of his love. So he mourns if someone dies, experiences the gloom of sorrow, that saturating of the heart in tears. All sweetness turns into bitterness on the loss of the life of the dying, the death of the living. Blessed is the one who loves you and has his friend in you.… For he alone loses none dear to him. All are dear to him who cannot be lost. And who is this but our God, the God who created heaven and earth and fills them, because by filling them he created them? No one loses you but the one who leaves you.

Confessions 4.9.14

Jeremiah 23:24

It was by this same divine creative force, which knows not what it is to be made but only how to make, that roundness was given to the eye, to the apple and to other objects that are by nature round and that we see all about, taking on their form with no extrinsic cause but by the intrinsic power of the Creator, who said, “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” and whose wisdom “reaches from end to end mightily and orders all things sweetly.”

City of God 12.26

Jeremiah 23:24

The question still remains whether they will see God with their eyes open and by means of these bodily eyes. For, of course, if spiritual eyes in a spiritual body can see no better than our present eyes can see, then it will certainly be impossible for even spiritual eyes to behold God. If the spiritual realm, without material form, circumscribed by no place but everywhere wholly present, is to be visible to the eyes of a spiritual body, then those eyes will most certainly have to have a power altogether unlike the power of any eyes on earth. It is true that we say that God is in heaven and on earth, and he himself through a prophet says, “I fill heaven and earth.” But this does not mean that in heaven we shall say that God has one part there and another part on earth. For he is entirely in heaven, and he is entirely on earth. He is in both simultaneously, not merely successively—which is utterly impossible in the case of any material substance.

City of God 22.29

Jeremiah 23:24

Therefore, God is poured forth in all things. He says by the prophet, “I fill heaven and earth,” and, as I quoted a short time before of his wisdom, “He reaches from end to end mightily and orders all things sweetly.” It is likewise written, “the Spirit of the Lord filled the whole world,” and one of the psalms has these words addressed to him: “Where shall I go from your Spirit, or where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I descend into hell, you are there.”Yet God so permeates all things as to be not a quality of the world but the very creative substance of the world, ruling the world without labor, sustaining it without effort. Nevertheless, he is not distributed through space in a physical sense so that half of him should be in half of the world and half in the other half of it. He is wholly present in all of it in such a way as to be wholly in heaven alone and wholly in the earth alone, and wholly in heaven and earth together; not confined in any place, but wholly in himself everywhere.

LETTER 187:14

Jeremiah 23:24

Listen to him: “Come to me, all you who labor.” You do not put an end to your labor by running away. You prefer to run away from him, do you, not to him? Find somewhere, and run away there. But if you cannot run away from him, for the good reason that he is present everywhere, the next thing to do is to run away to God, who is present right where you are standing. Run away, then. So, you see, you have run away beyond the heavens, he is there. You have gone right down to hell, he is there. Whatever solitary places of the earth you may choose, there he is, the one who said, “I fill heaven and earth.” So if he fills heaven and earth and there is nowhere you can run away to from him, do not go on laboring with all that trouble. Run away to him where he is present right beside you, to avoid experiencing him as he comes to judge you.

SERMON 69:4

Jeremiah 23:24

Through the indescribable wisdom of God residing in the Word, we understand that all things are with him and the Word himself is all things. Is not the beauty of the field in a manner with him, since he is everywhere and has said, “Heaven and earth I fill”? What is not with him, of whom it is said, “If I shall have ascended into heaven, you are there. If I descended into hell, you are present”? - "Expositions of the Psalms 50.18"

Jeremiah 23:24

How shall I call on my God—my God and my lord? For when I call on him, I ask him to come into me. And what place is there in me into which my God can come—into which God can come, even he who made heaven and earth? Is there anything in me, O Lord my God, that can contain you? Do indeed the heaven and the earth that you have made and in which you have placed me, contain you? Or, since nothing could exist without you, does whatever exists contain you? Why, then, do I ask you to come into me, since I indeed exist and could not exist if you were not in me? Because I am not yet in hell, though you are even there. For “if I go down into hell, you are there.” I could not exist, O my God, I could not exist at all, unless you were in me. Or should I not rather say that I could not exist unless I were in you, “from whom, through whom and in whom are all things?” It is even so, O Lord, even so. Where do I ask you to be, since I am in you? Or, from where can you come into me? Where may I go beyond heaven and earth, in order that my God may then come into me, he who has said, “I fill heaven and e…

How shall I call on my God—my God and my lord? For when I call on him, I ask him to come into me. And what place is there in me into which my God can come—into which God can come, even he who made heaven and earth? Is there anything in me, O Lord my God, that can contain you? Do indeed the heaven and the earth that you have made and in which you have placed me, contain you? Or, since nothing could exist without you, does whatever exists contain you? Why, then, do I ask you to come into me, since I indeed exist and could not exist if you were not in me? Because I am not yet in hell, though you are even there. For “if I go down into hell, you are there.” I could not exist, O my God, I could not exist at all, unless you were in me. Or should I not rather say that I could not exist unless I were in you, “from whom, through whom and in whom are all things?” It is even so, O Lord, even so. Where do I ask you to be, since I am in you? Or, from where can you come into me? Where may I go beyond heaven and earth, in order that my God may then come into me, he who has said, “I fill heaven and earth.”

Confessions 1.2.2