Fragments on Lamentations · §94 · Origen of Alexandria

Gold-sons become clay pots in slavery

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Those prideful upon wealth, he says, or even more honorable than gold—how were they so likened to the cheap and shatterable ones, having been led away unto slavery? And he said they were likened to these also when, having gone down into the potter’s house and taking a vessel, he shattered it; and Isaiah also likened them to a city that has fallen, “and its falls will be as shatterings of a vessel.” (Lamentations 4:2) (Jeremiah 18:2–4) (Isaiah 30:14)

Greek

Klagel. Jerem. 4, 2. Οἱ κομῶντες ἐπὶ πλούτῳ , φησίν, ἢ καὶ χρυσίου τιμιώτεροι πῶς οὔτω τοῖς εὐτελέσι καὶ συντριβομένοις ἀπαχθέντες εἰς δουλείαν εἰκάσθησαν; ἔφη δὲ τούτοις αὐτοὺς ἀπεικάζεσθαι καὶ ἡνίκα κατελθὼν x003E;εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ κεραμέως< λαβὼν ἀγγεῖον δὲ αὐτοὺς καὶ Ἡσαΐας πόλει πεσούσῃ, >καὶ τὰ πτώματα< >αὐτῆς ἔσται ὡς συντρίμματα ἀγγείου<.

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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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