Fragments on Lamentations · §39 · Origen of Alexandria

Virgins and young men as the holy who share suffering

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After the perceptible: understand virgins as those living in incorruption, and young men as those well-approved in virtue. For often even the holy ones suffer with those liable (Lamentations 1:18).

Greek

Klagel. Jerem. 1, 18. Μετὰ τὸ αἰσθητόν, παρθένους νόει τοὺς ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ βιοῦντας, νεανίσκους δὲ τοὺς ἐν ἀρετῇ εὐδοκίμους. πολλάκις γὰρ καὶ οἱ ἅγιοι τοῖς ὑπευθύνοις συμπάσχουσιν.

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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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