Salvian the Presbyter

In his own words on Jeremiah

• Jeremiah 2:37

  Our soldiers were brought low by a similar disdaining pride and by the same outcome. That saying of the prophet was brought home to our army: "The Lord shall cast aside your confidence, and you shall not have prosperity." We were confident in our own wisdom and strength, contrary to the command of God, who says, "Let not the wise person glory in his wisdom or the strong person in his strength, but let him who glories glory in this, to know and understand me, because I am the Lord."

  THE GOVERNANCE OF GOD 7:11

• Jeremiah 5:2

  Who among us has amended his life, or what part of the Roman world, no matter how afflicted, is corrected? As we read, "For all have declined, they have become useless at same time." Therefore, the prophet cries out to God and says, "You have struck them, and they have not sorrowed. You have consumed them, and they have refused to accept discipline. They have hardened their faces harder than a rock and were unwilling to return." Present affairs show how truly this applies to us.

  THE GOVERNANCE OF GOD 7:12

• Jeremiah 5:8

  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

• Jeremiah 8:9

  What is a holy title without merit but an ornament set in the mud? The Holy Scriptures have testified to this in writing: "A golden ring in a swine's snout, a woman fair and foolish." And in us the title Christian is like a golden ornament. If we use it unworthily, we seem to be swine with an ornament.…For this reason, our God spoke elsewhere about the Hebrew people to the prophet, saying, "Call his name, Not Beloved." And again to the Jews, "You are not my people, and I am not your God." But he showed clearly elsewhere why he said this about them, for he said, "They have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters." And again: "For they have cast away the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them."

  THE GOVERNANCE OF GOD 4:1

• Jeremiah 23:24

  Elsewhere we read the words of the prophet: "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" God tells why he fills all things: "because I am with you to save you." Behold, the Lord shows us not only his rule and its all pervading fullness but also the power and benefits accruing from this very fullness. For the fullness of divinity carries as its reward the salvation of what it fills. Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, said, "for in him we live and move and are."

  THE GOVERNANCE OF GOD 2:2

• Jeremiah 44:21-22

  God spoke to sinners through his prophet, because "the Lord remembered these things and," he says, "he ascended over his heart, and the Lord was not able to bear more because of the evil of your endeavors and the abominations that you have done; and your land is made into a desolation, a wonder and a curse." Through these things, therefore, it has already happened that the greater part of the Roman world is become a desolation, a wonder and a curse.

  THE GOVERNANCE OF GOD 6:8