Fragments on Lamentations · §61 · Origen of Alexandria

Lift hands by good works; infants faint without the Word

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Lift your hands toward him through the working of the good things. The contest is not about chance matters—your infants failing through lack of the divine Word and standing upon the beginning of all the ways out, of the commandments of God, and not able to advance without God’s cooperation and of the bread that strengthens the heart (Lamentations 2:19) (Psalm 104:15).

Greek

Klagel. Jerem. 2, 19. Αρον πρὸς αὐτὸν χεῖράς σου διὰ τῆς τῶν καλῶν ἐργασίας. οὐ περὶ τῶν τυχόντων ὁ ἀγών, δι' ἀπορίαν τοῦ θείου λόγου τῶν σῶν ἐκλειπόντων νηπίων, καὶ ἱσταμένων ἐπ' ἀρχῆς πασῶν ἐξόδων, τῶν ἐντολῶν τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ προβῆναι μὴ δυναμένων ἄνευ θεοῦ συνεργείας καὶ τοῦ στηρίζοντος ἅρτου καρδίαν.

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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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