Fragments on Lamentations · §78 · Origen of Alexandria

Not cast off forever; stop weeping after worthy repentance

This also fits toward those in the captivity saying the things in the seventy-third Psalm: “why, O God, have you thrust away unto the end? has your wrath been angered upon sheep of your pasture?” (Psalm 74:1) And in concert is “the Lord will not thrust away unto the end, nor will he be wrathful unto the age” (Psalm 74:1); and he will say to the one who has repented toward worth: “let your voice leave off from weeping, and your eyes from tears.” (Jeremiah 31:16)

Greek

Klagel. Jerem. 3, 31. Ἁρμόζει τοῦτο καὶ πρὸς τοὺς έν τῇ αἰχμαλωσίᾳ λέγοντας τὰ ἐν τῷ ἑβδομηκοστῷ τρίτῳ Ψαλμῷ· «ἱνατί, ὁ θεός, ἀπώσω εἰς τέλος; ὠργίσθη ὁ θυμός σου ἐπὶ πρόβατα νομῆς σου;« σύμφωνον δὲ τὸ «οὐκ εἰς τέλος ἀπώσεται κύριος οὐδὲ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα μηνιεῖ«· ἐρεῖ δὲ τῷ πρὸς ἀξίαν μετανοήσαντι· «διαλειπέτω ἡ φωνή σου ἀπὸ κλαυθμοῦ, καὶ οἱ ὀφθαλμοί σου ἀπὸ δακρύων.

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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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