Fragments on Lamentations · §80 · Origen of Alexandria

Stop blaming the Creator; judge our own deeds

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Vainly, then, murmuring we bring the cause up upon the Creator; which the living human being does not have to do; for such a choice belongs to those dead in sins—unless perhaps it convicts the one living according to sin and blaming God. As having, then, no other cause than ourselves alone, having judged the things come about from ourselves let us turn back (Lamentations 3:39–40).

Greek

Klagel. Jerem. 3, 39. 40. Μάτην ἄρα γογγύζοντες ἐπὶ τὸν δημιουργὸν τὴν αἰτίαν ἀνάγομεν· ὅπερ ὁ ζῶν ἄνθρωπος οὐκ ἔχει ποιεῖν· νεκρῶν γὰρ ἐν ἁμαρτίαις ἡ τοιαύτη προαίρεσις, εἰ μὴ ἅρα διελέγχει τὸν ζῶντα καθ’ ἁμαρτίαν, καὶ θεὸν αἰτιώμενον. ὡς οὖν ἑτέραν αἰτίαν οὐκ ἕχοντες ἢ μόνους ἑαυτούς, τὰ παρ' ἑαυτῶν γενόμενα κρίναντες ἐπιστρέψωμεν.

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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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