Fragments on Lamentations · §36 · Origen of Alexandria

Zion the mountain; Jacob surrounded by afflictors

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Zion, she says, is the mountain, and Jacob the people, and Jerusalem the mother-city. And God commanded to Jacob commandments through which, being transgressed, he was surrounded by enemies; and according to Symmachus and according to another edition of the Seventy, the Lord commanded those afflicting him to come to be round about him—to the powers arranged unto harming (Lamentations 1:17).

Greek

Klagel. Jerem. 1, 17. Σιών φησι τὸ ὄρος, τὸν δὲ λαὸν Ἰακώβ, τὴν δὲ μητρόπολιν Ἱερουσαλήμ. ἐνετείλατο δὲ ὁ θεὸς τῷ Ἰακὼβ ἐντολὰς δι' ἄς παραβαινομένας ὑπ' ἐχθρῶν ἐκυκλώθη, κατὰ δὲ Σύμμαχον καὶ καθ’ ἑτέραν ἔκδοσιν τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα ἐνετείλατο κύριος κύκλῳ αὐτοῦ γενέσθαι τοὺς θλίβοντας αὐτόν, αὐτόν, ταῖς εἰς τὸ κακοῦν τεταγμέναις δυνάμεσιν.

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About this text

Origen on Lamentations: Jeremiah's grief for captive Jerusalem, read also as the soul taken captive by sin and set free by Christ.

Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–c. 254) was a Christian teacher in Alexandria and head of the catechetical school. This English is his fragments on Lamentations.

The full commentary is lost. What survives are short passages kept in later chains of quotations. He sets out the literal sense, the Hebrew form of the book, and its historical setting, and he compares the Greek translations.

A reader meets Jeremiah lamenting the fall of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem read both as the city and as the soul. Origen quotes Symmachus, Aquila, and Theodotion. He also cites Paul, David, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Zechariah, and Daniel. He uses Septuagint book names and Psalm numbering.

EditionKlostermann, Origenes Werke III (GCS 6, 1901)

We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Greek on any section to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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