Fragments on Lamentations · §64 · Origen of Alexandria

Neighbors’ feast of refuge emptied by wrath

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Those dwelling round about me, she says, in Judea were thinking the feast unto me a refuge, hoping salvation from there; of whom none has been left because of your wrath brought upon them. For through the things in which I sinned, the enemies have become many and powerful (Lamentations 2:22).

Greek

Klagel. Jerem. 2, 22. Οἱ κύκλῳ μου, φησί, τὴν Ἰουδαίαν οἰκοῦντες τὴν εἰς ἐμὲ ἐορτὴν ἐνόμιζον καταφυγήν, σωτηρίαν ἐντεῦθεν ἐλπίζοντες· ὡν οὐδεὶς ὑπολέλειπται διὰ τὴν σὴν αὐτοῖς ἐπενεχθεῖσαν ὀργήν. δι΄ ὡν γὰρ ἥμαρτον, πολλοὶ καὶ δυνατοὶ γεγόνασιν οἱ ἐχθροί.

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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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