Fragments on Lamentations · §97 · Origen of Alexandria

Siege thirst; famine of hearing the Word

These things they have suffered both being besieged and being led away. And you would also say that “they endured a famine not of bread, not of water” (Amos 8:11) according to the prophetic word, “but of hearing a word of the Lord.” (Amos 8:11) For which reason he prophesies of them as newborns.

Greek

Klagel. Jerem. 4, 4. Ταῦτα πε Πόνθασι πολιορκούμενοί τε καὶ ἀπαγόμενοι. λέγοις δ ἂν καὶ ὡς >λιμὸν ὑπέμειναν οὐκ ἄρτου, οὐχ ὓδατος< κατὰ τὸ προφητικόν, >ἀλλὰ τοῦ ἀκοῦσαι λόγον κυρίου<. διὸ νεογνῶν αὐτῶν προφητεύει.

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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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