Jerusalem’s lawlessness worse than Sodom’s
Symmachus rendered “as haste” (Lamentations 4:6) suddenly, and “they did not labor” as “which they did not wound.” For what is swifter than a divine word that has said: “behold, your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:38) and has handed over by willing alone? And Jerusalem’s lawlessness was magnified beyond that of Sodom. Those had only the natural law; these also a written one and prophets and as many wonders as God was working among them. And those sinned toward angels and toward like human beings; these toward the Savior and redeemer—formerly from Egypt, and now from worship of demons—if they had received the one who came primarily toward them. For “I was not sent,” he says, “except unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24)
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Klagel. Jerem. 4, 6. Σύμμαχος τὸ μὲν ὥσπερ σπουδή, ἐξαπίνης ἐξέδωκε, τὸ δὲ οὐκ ἐπόνεσαν, ἣν οὐκ ἔτρωσαν. τι γὰρ θείου συντομώτερον λόγου φήσαντος· «ἰδοὺ ἀφίεται ὑμῖν ὁ οἶκος ὑμῶν ἔρημος« καὶ μόνῳ παραδόντος τῷ βούλεσθαι; ἡ ἀνομία δὲ τῆς Ἱερουσαλὴμ ὑπὲρ τὴν Σοδόμων ἐμεγαλύνθη. οἱ μὲν τὸν φυσικὸν νόμον εἶχον μόνον, οἱ δὲ καὶ γραπτὸν καὶ προφήτας ὅσα τε παραδόξως ὁ θεὸς ἠργάζετο έν αὐτοῖς. κάκεῖνοι μὲν ἥμαρτον εἰς ἀγγέλους καὶ τοὺς ὁμοίους ἀνθρώπους· οὐτοι δὲ εἰς τὸν σωτῆρα καὶ λυτρωτὴν πάλαι μὲν ἐξ Αἰγύπτου, νῦν δὲ δαιμόνων λατρείας, εἴπερ ἐδέξαντο τὸν πρὸς αὐτοὺς ἐλθόντα προηγουμένως. «οὐκ ἀπεστάλην« γάρ φησιν «εἰ μὴ εἰς τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἀπολωλότα οἴκου Ἰσραήλ.