Annotatio CCXXXVIII

”The Lord make thee like Sedecias and Achab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire.” — Jeremiah 29:22

Jerome, in commentary 5 on Jeremiah, appended to this passage such an exposition:¹ “The Hebrews say that these two were the presbyters [elders], of whom Daniel says to the one, ‘O thou that art grown old in evil days,’ and to the other, ‘O thou seed of Chanaan, and not of Juda, beauty hath deceived thee: thus did ye to the daughters of Israel, and they for fear conversed with you.’ But that which is at present said — ‘whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire’ — seems to be contrary to the history of Daniel. For he asserts that they were stoned by the people according to the sentence of Daniel; but here it is written that the king of Babylon roasted them in the fire — whence also by very many, and almost all the Hebrews, that [book] is not received, as [being] a fable, nor is it read in their synagogues. For how, they say, could it be that captives should have the power of stoning the princes set over their own prophets? And they affirm this to be more true, which Jeremiah wrote — that the presbyters [elders] were indeed convicted by Daniel, but that the sentence was carried out upon them by the king of Babylon, who over the captives, as victor and lord, held the command.” Rufinus, in the second book of the Invectives, accuses Jerome, that under the assumed person of a Jew he confuted the history of Susanna with various arguments. Thou hast these things more fully in Annotations 245 and 250 of this book.