Книга пророка Иеремии, Глава 5, стих 8. Толкования стиха

DOERS OF THE SAVIOR’S COMMANDS. ATHANASIUS: Let us then, as is becoming, as at all times, yet especially in the days of the feast, be not hearers only, but doers of the commandments of our Savior. Having imitated the behavior of the saints, we may enter together into the joy of our Lord who is in heaven, which is not transitory but truly abides. . . . But they who are not doers are compared, in their disgrace, with beasts without understanding, and becoming like them in unlawful pleasures, they are spoken of as wanton horses. Also, for their craftiness, errors and being laden with death, they are called, by John, a “generation of vipers.” FESTAL LETTERS 2.2.

LUST CHANGES PEOPLE. BASIL THE GREAT: Angels do not change. Not one of them is a child, or a young man, or an old man, but in whatever state they were created, in the beginning, in that state they remain. Their substance is preserved pure and inviolate for them. But we change in our body, as has been shown, and in our soul and in the inner person, always shifting our thoughts with the circumstances. In fact, we are one sort of person when we are cheerful and when all things in our life are moving forward with the current. But we are another sort in precarious times, when we stumble against something that is not according to our wishes. We are changed through anger, assuming a certain savage state. We are also changed through our lusts of carnal things, becoming like beasts through a life of pleasure. “They become amorous horses,” being madly in love with their neighbors’ wives. The deceitful person is compared with a fox, as Herod was. The shameless person is called a dog, like Nabel the Carmelian. Do you see the variety and diversity of our change? Then, admire him who has fittingly adapted this title to us. For this very reason, a certain one of the interpreters seems to me to have handed over beautifully and accurately the same thought through another title. He says, “For the lilies,” in place of, “For them that shall be changed.” He thought that it was appropriate to compare the transitory state of human nature with the early death of flowers. But since this word has been inflected in the future tense (It is said, “For them that shall be changed,” as if at some time later this change will be shown to us), let us consider whether there is suggested to us the doctrine of the resurrection, in which a change will be granted to us, but a change for something better and something spiritual. HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 17.1-2 (PS 44).

CONTENTMENT SHOULD LEAD TO RESTRAINT. BASIL THE GREAT: Fasting can be utilized as a weapon against demonic armies: “For this kind does not come out except through prayer and fasting.” Many good things come from fasting, but being satiated introduces the beginnings of insolence. It immediately rushes in alongside the delicacy you are eating and it accompanies rich sauces. All kinds of licentious behavior begin grazing at its table. After this, men start becoming “lusty horses” toward women because all this luxury begins to start a maddening itch that enters into their soul. Those who get drunk begin perverting themselves against nature, using a male like a female, or vice versa. Fasting, by contrast, reveals the proper boundaries for marriage. It curtails the excesses of even those things that may be permitted by law but that are abstained from by agreement so that the couple can devote themselves to prayer.

But we should not limit the goodness of fasting only to abstaining from foods. True fasting, in whatever form, is the enemy of evil. “Loose the chains of injustice!” Forgive your neighbor when an offense occurs against you and forgive his debts. Do not “fast in order to bring about judgment and strife.”

You may not eat meat, but you devour your brother. You abstain from wine but hold on to insolence. You wait till evening to indulge in a meal but spend the day in court. “Woe to those who are drunk, but not from wine!” Wrath can also be a drunkenness of the soul, making it senseless, like wine. Grief can also feel like being drunk, weighing down the mind. Fear is another form of drunkenness whenever it fears something where there is no need for fear, because the psalmist says, “deliver my soul from the fear of my enemy.” When taken together, each of these passions that allow the mind to be taken over and to go out of control is rightly termed drunkenness. . . . Guard against this kind of drunkenness, but do not be given over to the kind that comes from wine, either. Do not start being a water drinker just because you have been drinking too much. Do not let drunkenness be what leads you into fasting. The door that leads to fasting is not entered through drunkenness. Neither is greed the entryway into justice, nor is intemperance the way to sound judgment. In summary, evil never leads to virtue. There is another door into fasting. Drunkenness leads to intemperance. Contentment is what opens the door to fasting. HOMILY ON FASTING 1.9-10.

LUSTFUL PEOPLE ARE LIKE BEASTS. BASIL THE GREAT: Humanity . . . did not understand and neglected to follow God and to become like his Creator. And becoming a slave of the passions of the flesh, “he is compared with senseless beasts and is become like them.” Now he is like an amorous horse that neighs after his neighbor’s wife. Now like a ravenous wolf, lying in wait for strangers, but at another time, because of his deceit toward his brother, he makes himself like the villainous fox. Truly, there is excessive folly and beast-like lack of reason that he, made according to the image of the Creator, neither perceives his own from the beginning nor even wishes to understand such great dispensations that were made for his sake. At least, he should learn his own dignity from them, but he is unmindful of the fact, and he throws aside the image of the heavenly, but he has taken up the image of the earthly. HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 19.8 (PS 48).

EXCESS OF FOLLY. CHRYSOSTOM: Some are so cold and senseless that they are always looking only for the things that are here and saying such things as, “Let me enjoy all the present things for a time, and then I will consider things out of sight. I will gratify my belly. I will be a slave to pleasures. I will make full use of the present life; give me today, and take tomorrow.” What foolishness! How are these people any different from goats and swine? For if the prophet allows that they are not to be considered human when they “neigh after their neighbor’s wife,” who shall blame us for considering them to be goats and swine and more insensible than donkeys when they hold as uncertain those things that, in the end, are even more evident than what we see? HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 13.7.

WITHOUT GOD, MEN BECOME LIKE ANIMALS. IRENAEUS: The prophets compare them to irrational animals, because of the irrationality of their conduct: “They have become like horses lusting for females. Each one of them neighs for his neighbor’s wife.” And again, “Man, when he is honored, was made to be like cattle.” This means that, for his own fault, he is compared with cattle, rivaling their irrational life. And we also, as the custom is, do designate people like this as cattle and irrational beasts. AGAINST HERESIES 5.8.3.

RECKLESS YOUNG MEN. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: The neighing horse depicts the recklessness of young men. CATECHETICAL LECTURES 9.13.

THE FREEDOM OF CHRISTIANS. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: At another time, he speaks of us under the figure of a colt. He means by that that we are unyoked to evil, unsubdued by wickedness, unaffected and high-spirited only with him our Father. We are colts, not stallions “who whinny lustfully for their neighbor’s wife,” beasts of burden unrestrained in their lust. Rather, we are free and newly born, joyous in our faith, and hold fast to the course of truth. We are swift in seeking salvation, and we spurn and trample on worldliness. CHRIST THE EDUCATOR 15.

LUST TURNS PEOPLE INTO BEASTS. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: If birth is an evil, then the blasphemers must place the Lord who went through birth and the virgin who gave him birth in the category of evil. Abominable people! In attacking birth they are maligning the will of God and the mystery of creation. This is the basis of Cassian’s docetism, Marcion’s too, yes, and Valentinus’s “semi-spiritual body.” It leads them to say, “Humanity became like cattle in coming to sexual intercourse.” But it is when a man, swollen with lust, really and truly wants to go to bed with a woman not his own, that that sort of man actually becomes a wild beast. “They turned into stallions crazed for mares; each was whinnying for his neighbor’s wife.” STROMATEIS 3.17.102.1-3.

GOD’S REBUKE SERVES HIS SAVING INTENT. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Rebuking censures what is base and highlights what is noble. This is shown by Jeremiah: “They were horses mad for females. Each one neighed for his neighbor’s wife. Shall I not visit them for these things? says the Lord. Should not I avenge my soul against such a nation as this?” He everywhere interweaves fear, because “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of reason.” CHRIST THE EDUCATOR 1.9.

HOW MANY RICH ARE CONSUMED BY LUST. SALVIAN THE PRESBYTER: Murder is rare among slaves because of their dread and terror of capital punishment, but it is common among the rich because of their hope and trust in impunity. Perhaps we are wrong in putting in the category of sins what the rich people do, because, when they kill their slaves, they think that it is legal and not a crime. Not only this, they abuse the same privilege even when practicing the filth of unchastity. How few among the rich, observing the sacrament of marriage, are not dragged down headlong by the madness of lust? To how few are not home and family regarded as harlots? How few do not pursue their madness toward anybody on whom the heat of their evil desires centers? It was about such people that the divine Word said, “They are become as stallions rushing madly on the mares.” THE GOVERNANCE OF GOD 4.5.