Annotatio CCXXXII

”Every bottle shall be filled with wine, and all the kings and priests [shall be filled] with drunkenness.” — Jeremiah 13:12

Jerome, in book 3 on Jeremiah, brought forward these things to the elucidation of this passage:¹ “The Prophet shows that we are a fragile vessel, according to the Apostle, saying, ‘We have this treasure in earthen vessels’; and that it cannot but be that there is fulfilled in us that which is written, ‘There dwelleth no good in my flesh’; and again, ‘For the good which I will, this I do not, but the evil which I will not, this I work’; and then, ‘Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ But by this drunkenness, by which we forget the precepts of God, and by vices and sins, the whole human condition is filled — the prophet saying, ‘No living [man] shall be justified in thy sight’ — not in comparison with God (as the old and new heretics, and the patrons of heretics, wish), but in respect of his knowledge. For man sees in the face, God in the heart; and what to us sometimes seems beautiful, is found sordid in his eyes. Not only the ignoble common crowd and the vile populace, but the kings of the churches, who sit upon the throne — the priests themselves also, the second grade in ecclesiastical honor — are filled with the variety of sins.”

This passage of Jerome the heretics of our times abuse in two ways. Bodius, in the Collectanea, drags it to the defenses of the Lutherans, who teach that no one — however perfect — is truly just in this life, but that in all [men] sin, worthy of the wrath of God, remains until death. Again, those who impugn the Ecclesiastical power² adduce the last clause of this passage against the Sacerdotal power, which they contend must be subjected to the secular magistrate. But both violently wrest these words: for as regards the dignity of the Priest and of the King, we have already shown above — namely, in Annotation 166 — that Jerome here spoke of the Jewish priesthood, not of the Christian. But in the other words of the proposed sentence, we say that Jerome had regard to the human condition, destitute of the grace of God: for no one is just without the aid of divine grace,³ nor can [anyone] long remain without a deadly crime. But if thou press [the point] that he pronounced these things also of the just, in whom the divine grace is present, infused through the Holy Spirit: we will answer that Jerome must be understood of light and venial errors, and not of deadly and pernicious crimes. For there are many venial vices, from which no one — however just, the holy Virgin excepted — is altogether freed. For there is, even in the saints [who have been] repaired by grace, a certain downward inclination to sinning, from the frailty of the flesh —” inclination, which Paul called “indwelling sin,” because it arose from sin, and was left, for the punishment of sin, for the contest and exercise of the just;⁴ and from this also many venial sins emerge, the just being unwilling. Looking to this, therefore, Paul exclaimed, “Unhappy man that I am,” etc.;⁵ and, “I know that there dwelleth no good in my flesh,” and, “Not the good which I will do I do, but the evil which I will not”;⁶ and David, directing his mind to the venial but continual errors of the saints, said: “No living [man] shall be justified in thy sight,”⁷ if he be examined according to the rigor of the divine justice — because “Seven times a day the just [man] falleth.”⁸