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| The illustration depicts Abimelech asleep beneath the fig tree, with his basket of figs and Jerusalem in the distance. It is an artistic reconstruction in a Byzantine-inspired style, not a reproduction of a historical icon. |
Introduction
On November 4, the Greek Orthodox Synaxarion preserves an unusual narrative concerning the Prophet Jeremiah, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the miraculous seventy-year sleep of Abimelech. According to the account, as the Babylonian armies prepared to capture Jerusalem, Jeremiah was instructed by God to conceal the sacred vessels of the Temple in a rock. Abimelech, an Ethiopian who had previously rescued the Prophet from a cistern, was sent to the vineyard of Agrippa to gather figs for the sick. There, beneath a tree, he fell asleep and remained asleep for seventy years, awakening only after the Babylonian captivity had run its course. Unaware of the passage of time, he returned to Jerusalem carrying the same figs, which had miraculously remained fresh. His bewilderment upon discovering that the city and its inhabitants had changed, and his eventual conversation with an elderly man who explained what had happened, form the central episode of the narrative.
The account has a much older literary background. It belongs to the tradition of the Paralipomena of Jeremiah (Παραλειπόμενα Ιερεμίου), also known as the Rest of the Words of Baruch and associated with 4 Baruch, an ancient apocryphal work transmitted in both Greek and Ethiopic. Its distinctive episodes, particularly Abimelech's prolonged sleep and the preservation of the figs, are part of this wider literary tradition.
The Bollandists, in their Acta Sanctorum under November 4, take particular note of the narrative's place in the Greek liturgical calendar: “Abimelech's ecstasy, which, if credence is to be given to a small apocryphal work, written in Ethiopian and Greek, took place at the time of the Babylonian captivity, is commemorated today in the Synaxarion of the Greeks.” They reproduce its Greek title from the November Menaion published in Venice in 1843 by Bartholomew of Koutloumousiou. They also identify the account with an apocryphal work preserved in Greek and Ethiopic, referring readers to editions and studies by August Dillmann, Antonio Maria Ceriani, James Rendel Harris, and Alexander Vasiliev. The Bollandists characterize the material as belonging chiefly to the genre of legendary narratives, and their discussion does not attempt to establish its historical authenticity.
Further evidence of its place in the liturgical manuscript tradition appears in Hippolyte Delehaye's study of the Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae, published in the Bollandist Propylaeum ad Acta Sanctorum Novembris in 1902. There, the narrative of Jeremiah's lamentation is listed among the longer, spiritually beneficial accounts transmitted in a particular family of Synaxarion manuscripts. Thus, the November 4 reading is not merely an incidental entry in a modern calendar, but a narrative with a documented place in the Greek Synaxarion tradition. The precise reason for its assignment to this particular date, however, has not been established other than it being spiritually beneficial.
An interesting feature of the text is the critical treatment it received from Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite in his Synaxarion of the Twelve Months of the Year. In the notes accompanying the narrative, Saint Nikodemos distinguishes between its contents and what he considers to be supported by Holy Scripture. In particular, he challenges the account that Jeremiah went to Babylon, arguing instead, on the basis of the Book of Jeremiah and the testimony of Theodoret of Cyrus and Theophylact of Bulgaria, that the Prophet went to Egypt after the fall of Jerusalem. He also explains why he deliberately omitted certain episodes that he considered contrary to Scripture. His comments are therefore valuable not only for understanding the narrative but also for seeing how a later Orthodox compiler approached the apocryphal material preserved in the liturgical tradition.
The following is the account as transmitted in the Synaxarion, together with the explanatory notes of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite.
On this day we relate a narration about the Prophet Jeremiah’s Lamentation over Jerusalem, and its fall, and about Abimelech’s ecstasy.
By St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite
Verses
Why do you lament in vain over the insolent city,
O you who are the most sorrowful of the Prophets?
Why do you lament in vain over the insolent city,
O you who are the most sorrowful of the Prophets?
The great Prophet Jeremiah was from a village called Anathoth. He prophesied many things concerning Jerusalem and Babylon, and likewise concerning the Incarnation of the Son of God, in which the full power and might of prophecy are revealed. Once, Pashhur, the son of Immer, the chief officer of the house of the Lord, severely beat this Prophet. He also placed him in the stocks because Jeremiah was mourning and grieving over the enslavement that Jerusalem was destined to suffer. But since the providence of God delivered the Prophet from the stocks, he, having been set free, prophesied and said to Pashhur: “Your name shall become that of an exile and a stranger from this land of Jerusalem, and your apostasy shall also bring you under condemnation, for cursed is the man who performs the work of the Lord negligently.” “Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord carelessly” (Jeremiah 31:10).
In the days of King Jehoiakim, Jeremiah lamented over Jerusalem. The false prophets urged the priests to put him to death. But Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, who was with Jeremiah, prevented them from killing him. Then the Lord said to Jeremiah: “Make wooden bonds for yourself and put them around your neck. And I will send you to the kings of Moab, Idumea, Tyre, and Sidon.” Having done this, the Prophet placed them around his neck. Then Hananiah, the son of Azzur, the false prophet, arose, took the bonds from Jeremiah’s neck, and broke them before the eyes of the people, saying: “Thus has the Lord spoken to me: I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon from the necks of all the nations.” Then Jeremiah said to the false prophet: “Deceitful are your lips, and your heart belches forth poison, for this is what the truth and God say: You have broken wooden bonds? In their place I will make iron bonds, says the Lord Almighty, and I will place them upon the necks of the nations. But you, Hananiah, will soon surrender your soul.” And, behold, a wonder! The deed followed the Prophet’s words, for that man died seven months later.
In the eighteenth year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, Jeremiah was lamenting over Jerusalem. For this reason, he was put in prison when the Chaldeans and Babylonians had almost approached Jerusalem. But I do not know how the Prophet came out of the prison and went to the land of Benjamin on an errand he had to attend to. There he was seized by the people of the Chaldeans, beaten by them, and thrown into prison.
After Jeremiah had spent a considerable time there, King Zedekiah sent for him and secretly brought him out of prison. Then he said to him: “Since you have received a kindness from me, tell me what is going to happen during my reign.” The Prophet replied: “It is not I who speak to you, O king, but the Spirit of God speaks within me. And what I have written, I have written; that is, what I have written is true and unalterable.” Thus the blessed Prophet was put back in prison. The accusers again troubled the king, saying that Jeremiah, even while in prison, was discouraging the hearts of the warriors, since he proclaimed not peace but war and turmoil. Therefore, they said, it would be better for one man to be put to death for the salvation of the many. The king said to them: “Behold, he is in your hands.” Then they threw Jeremiah into the cistern of Malchiah and into the mire of the dead.
When Abimelech learned of this, he said to the king: “Why have you mistreated the man Jeremiah, O king?” The king replied: “I did not do this of my own will, but because of fear of the people.” Then he said: “Take thirty strong men with you, go, and bring him out of the cistern.” Abimelech went quickly and, by the power of God, brought Jeremiah out unharmed. Then the king, taking Jeremiah aside, said to him: “Do not conceal from me what I am about to ask you.” Jeremiah replied: “Why do you turn away from the truth, O king? I am not a herald of falsehood, even if you put me to death many times.” The king swore, saying: “As the God of my fathers lives! I will not kill you for anything you may tell me, nor will I hand you over to the hands of bloodthirsty men.” Then Jeremiah said to the king: “If you heed my counsel, O king, and go out and surrender to the Babylonians, know that you will save your life, and this city of Jerusalem will not be destroyed. But if you stand against them, know that you will not escape from their hands, and this city will be destroyed by fire.” But because the king considered the Prophet’s words mere foolishness, he did not escape the war and the onslaught of the Babylonians. They came, therefore, surrounded the city of Jerusalem, and, by preventing the food that came from outside from entering it, caused a great famine in the city.
The king, fearing that he would be killed inside the city, fled by night together with his men. The Chaldeans pursued him, captured him, and killed his sons before his eyes. They put out the eyes of King Zedekiah, bound him, and took him down to Babylon, where they placed him inside a mill, treating him as a plaything. He remained in this punishment until the final days of his life. Nabuzaradan, the chief cook of King Nebuchadnezzar, entered Jerusalem, burned it, and reduced the Temple of God to dust, in accordance with Jeremiah’s word. After seventy years, the enslavement of Jerusalem was brought to an end, as will be related later.
But how the capture and enslavement of Jerusalem took place, and what the things spoken by the Lord to Jeremiah were, we shall now relate here.
In those days, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah, saying: “Jeremiah, go out of the city together with Baruch, for I will destroy it because of the multitude of the sins of the people who dwell in it. For your prayers are like immovable pillars in the midst of this city, and they surround it like a wall of adamant. Therefore, go out of it before the power and army of the Chaldeans surround it.”
Then Jeremiah spoke to God, saying: “I beseech You, Lord, grant me, Your servant, permission to speak before You.” And the Lord said: “Speak.” Then Jeremiah said: “Lord, are You handing this city over into the hands of the Chaldeans so that they may boast and say that they have conquered it? My Lord, if it is Your will that this city be destroyed, let it be destroyed by Your hands, and not by the Chaldeans.” And God said: “You must rise and go out of it. The Chaldeans will not boast, for unless I open the gates of Jerusalem to them, they cannot enter it by themselves. Go to Baruch and tell him what I am telling you. At the sixth hour of the night, come to the walls of the city and look, for unless I open them to the Chaldeans, they cannot enter Jerusalem by themselves.”
After the Lord had said these things, He departed from Jeremiah. Jeremiah went to Baruch and revealed these things to him. Then the two of them went to the Temple, tore their clothes, placed ashes upon their heads, and lamented over the city of Jerusalem. When they came to the walls of the city at the sixth hour of the night, they heard the sound of trumpets. For Angels had come down from Heaven, holding torches in their hands, and had taken their places upon the walls of the city. When Jeremiah and Baruch saw them, they wept and said: “Now the word that God spoke is true.” And they said to the Angels: “We beseech you, do not destroy the city until we have spoken to God.”
Then Jeremiah spoke, saying: “I beseech You, Lord, command that I may speak before You.” And the Lord said: “Speak.” Jeremiah said: “Behold, we have been informed that You will hand Jerusalem over into the hands of its enemies, and that Your people Israel will go as captives to Babylon. What, then, are we to do with the holy vessels of Your Temple?” And the Lord said: “Entrust them to the earth, saying: ‘Hear, O earth, the voice of God, who established you upon the waters and sealed you with seven seals and seven times, and who, after these things, will restore your beauty. Guard the holy vessels of the liturgy until the gathering together of the beloved people.’”
Then Jeremiah spoke again, saying: “I beseech You, Lord, what am I to do concerning the Ethiopian Abimelech, who has shown many kindnesses to me, Your servant? For he brought me out of the muddy cistern into which they had cast me. I do not want him to witness the destruction of the city, lest he become paralyzed and die from fear, since he is timid and fainthearted.” And the Lord said to Jeremiah: “Send him to the vineyard of Agrippa, and I will shelter him beneath the shadow of the mountain until the people return from captivity.”¹
Then Jeremiah, in accordance with God’s command, took the holy vessels of the liturgy and placed them inside a rock. He sealed it with his ring, inscribing upon it the name of God, that is, the Tetragrammaton, Jehovah, which, according to the Seventy, means “Lord.” And, behold, a wonder! The impression of the seal became so deep that it looked as though it had been engraved with an iron chisel. A cloud covered the rock, so that it would be difficult for people to recognize it. This rock is in the wilderness where the Ark of God had previously been constructed in the time of Moses.²
In the morning, Jeremiah said to Abimelech: “Take the basket, child, and go to the vineyard of Agrippa by way of the mountain road, and bring figs so that the sick among the people may eat, for their joy is in you, and their glory rests upon your head.” He immediately went to the vineyard. When he arrived there, the sun had set. And behold, the armies of the Chaldeans came and surrounded Jerusalem. Then the great Angel sounded a trumpet, saying: “Let the entire army of the Chaldeans enter the city, for behold, the gate has been opened for you.”
Then Jeremiah took the keys of the Temple, went out of the city, and threw them down before the sun, saying: “Take these and guard them until that day on which the Lord will call you to account for them, for we have not been found worthy to guard them.”
Abimelech, meanwhile, took the figs in the heat of the day, found a tree, and sat beneath its shade to rest for a little while. And, lowering his head beneath the basket, he—behold, a wonder!—fell asleep there for seventy years. This happened by God’s command, because of the word He had spoken to Jeremiah: “I will shelter him.”
After the seventy years had passed, he awoke and said: “I slept sweetly, but only for a little while, and therefore my head feels heavy, since I have not had enough sleep.” Opening the basket, he found the figs still dripping with milk, as though he had picked them only a short while before. And he said: “I would like to sleep a little longer, but since Jeremiah sent me in such haste and with such urgency, if I sleep, I will be delayed, and this will grieve him. Therefore, let me go more quickly, so that I may gladden him, and I will sleep there.”
Taking the figs, he went to Jerusalem. He recognized neither Jerusalem nor his own house, nor any of his relatives or friends. And he said: “Blessed is the Lord! An ecstasy has come upon me today. Is this city not Jerusalem? My mind has become confused because I have not had enough sleep.”
He went out of the city and, looking at the landmarks, said: “This is truly my city; I have not been mistaken.” He entered the city again and, after searching, found none of his relatives or friends. And he said: “Blessed is the Lord! A great ecstasy has come upon me.”
Once again, he went out of the city and remained there grieving, not knowing what to do. Putting the basket down, he said: “Here I will sit until the Lord takes this ecstasy away from me.”
While he was sitting there, behold, an old man was coming from his field. Abimelech said to him: “I ask you, old man, what city is this?” The old man replied: “It is Jerusalem, child.” Abimelech said: “Where are Jeremiah the Prophet and Priest of God, and Baruch the reader, and all the people of the city? For I have not found them.” The old man replied: “Are you not from this city? Have you remembered Jeremiah and the people only today, and are you asking about them after so many years? The people are in Babylon, child. They have now been there for seventy years, having become captives of King Nebuchadnezzar. And how is it that you, who are young and were not yet born at that time, are asking about those whom you have not even lived long enough to see?”
When Abimelech heard these things, he said to the old man: “If you were not an old man, and if it were not forbidden to dishonor someone older than oneself—for Sirach says, ‘Do not dishonor a man in his old age’ (8:6)—I would certainly laugh at you and tell you that you are mad, since you say that the people went as captives to Babylon. Even if the floodgates of heaven were to open, and the Angels of God were to come down to take them by force and authority, they still could not have gone to Babylon so quickly. For how little time has passed since my father Jeremiah sent me to the vineyard of Agrippa to get a few figs, so that we might give them to the sick among the people! As I was going along, I slept for a little while beneath a tree because of the heat. Thinking that I had been delayed, I uncovered the figs and found that they were still dripping with milk, just as when I had picked them from the fig tree. How, then, can you say that the people were taken captive to Babylon in so short a time? And so that you may know that I am not telling you lies, take the figs and look.”
When the old man saw the figs, he said: “O child, you are the son of a righteous man, and for this reason God did not wish to show you the desolation of this city, but brought upon you such an ecstasy. Behold, the people have been in Babylon for seventy years, counting from the day on which they were taken captive. And so that you may know, child, that what I am telling you is true, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for the crops have not yet begun to grow. Look also at the fig trees, for the season of figs has not yet arrived. Thus, be assured and believe my words.”
Then Abimelech, coming to his senses as though awakening from drunkenness, looked carefully at the land and the trees upon it, and said: “Blessed is the God of heaven and earth, the rest of the souls of the righteous.”
Then he said to the old man: “What month is this?” The old man replied: “The twelfth, child, that is, February.” Then the old man took some figs from Abimelech, blessed him, and departed.
Notes:
1. We note here that the following words are also found in the Synaxarion: “But you, Jeremiah, go with the people to Babylon and remain with them, proclaiming the good news.” These words, however, are not found in Holy Scripture. Rather, someone else wrote them carelessly and boldly, as it seemed right to him, without carefully considering what is contained in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah. For in that book we read that Jeremiah did not go to Babylon. Instead, after the capture of Jerusalem, he went down to Egypt, to Tahpanhes (which in Greek is called Daphnae), and prophesied there.
This is confirmed, first, by the forty-third [= fiftieth] chapter of Jeremiah, where he himself says: “And they entered into Egypt, and they entered into Tahpanhes. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying,” and so forth.
It is also demonstrated by the fifty-first [= twenty-eighth] chapter of the same book, where Jeremiah said the following to Seraiah: “And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, when you come to Babylon, and see and read all these words. […] And it shall come to pass, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates” (verse 61). Jeremiah would not have spoken these words if he himself had been going to Babylon.
Second, this is confirmed by the wise Theodoret. For in the heading of Psalm 136, he says: “Some, having dared to do a bold thing, ascribed this psalm to Jeremiah. But Jeremiah was not carried off to Babylon together with the captives. Rather, after spending a short time in Jerusalem, he was compelled by the lawless Jews to accompany them on their journey to Egypt. How, then, is it fitting for him to say, ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept’?” The same Theodoret says nearly the same things in the heading of Psalm 64, which is titled, “A song of Jeremiah and Ezekiel,” and so forth.
Third, this is confirmed by Saint Theophylact of Bulgaria. For in the introduction to his interpretation of Jonah, he says: “The king of the Babylonians (that is, Nebuchadnezzar) deemed the divinely inspired Jeremiah worthy of such honor that he gave him the freedom to choose his place of residence. He led all the other kings and rulers away as captives, but to this man alone he gave the authority to live wherever he wished.”
We also note the following: in the Greek-Latin edition of Theodoret’s works published in Leipzig, this too is mentioned in the annotations to the heading of Psalm 64: that Jeremiah built a high tower, shut himself inside it, and there composed the Lamentations, weeping bitterly over Jerusalem on the one hand and the enslavement of the people on the other. It appears that, after composing the Lamentations in the land of Jerusalem, he then went down to Egypt.
But Baruch also did not remain in Jerusalem, as is written here. Rather, he first went down to Egypt together with Jeremiah. This is demonstrated by the forty-third [= fiftieth] chapter of Jeremiah. He then went to Babylon. Five years after the capture of Jerusalem, he read his book to the people. This is made clear in the first chapter of that book, where it says: “In the fifth year, in the seventh month, at the time when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem, Baruch read the words of this book in the hearing of Jeconiah and in the hearing of all the inhabitants of Babylon, by the river Sud” (Baruch 1:2).
For this reason, we did not translate the account that Baruch and Abimelech sent a letter to Jeremiah in Babylon by means of an eagle, that Jeremiah sat upon a dead man and was raised up, that Jeremiah returned to Jerusalem together with the people, and similar things. These accounts are not true, since they contradict Scripture.
I also did this after consulting other teachers and discerning scholars, especially the most holy and most wise former Patriarch of Constantinople, Lord Gregory, who advised me to leave these passages untranslated.
The fact that Jeremiah did not go to Babylon, but went to Daphnae and was stoned there, is also attested in the Synaxarion for the first of May, under the commemoration of Jeremiah. Alexander Mavrocordatos also bears witness to this in his Judaica; see there. Moreover, it is perfectly clear from the letter Jeremiah sent to those who were about to be taken captive to Babylon, and from what he tells them concerning not worshipping the gods and idols of Babylon, that Jeremiah did not go to Babylon. For if he had gone there, what need would there have been for him to write a letter? See this letter after the Book of Baruch.
2. But where did Jeremiah keep these things? See more precisely the note in the Synaxarion of Jeremiah, under the first of May.
Source: From the book: The Synaxarion of the Twelve Months of the Year by Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, Volume I. Domos Publications, 2005. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
