Lamentations

will it rest, when the Lord hath commanded it, and hath made a covenant with it there?

XXXVII. Thus saith the Lord: The Chaldeans departing from Jerusalem to fight against Pharao, shall return, and shall take the city, and shall burn it with fire.

XXXVIII. Thus saith the Lord: Whosoever shall remain in this city, shall die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence; but he that shall flee to the Chaldeans, shall live.

XXXIX. Nabuchodonosor taketh Jerusalem, blindeth Sedechias, killeth his sons and the nobles, and liberateth Jeremiah.

Say to Abdemelech: I will deliver thee, and thy soul shall be for a prey unto thee, because thou hast put thy trust in me.

XL. Nabuzardan saith to Jeremiah: If it please thee to come with me into Babylon, I will set my eyes upon thee; but if it please thee not, dwell with Godolias, whom the king of Babylon hath set over the cities of Juda.

XLI. Ismahel killeth Godolias, and taketh the people: Johanan pursueth him, and delivereth the people, with whom, fearing the Chaldeans, he thinketh to flee into Egypt.

XLII. Johanan and the princes consult Jeremiah: to whom he saith: Remain in Judaea, and obey the Chaldeans: for all that shall enter into Egypt, shall die by the sword, by famine and by pestilence.

XLIII. They despise him and flee, and carry Jeremiah with them into Egypt. Jeremiah prophesieth in Taphnis: Nabuchodonosor shall come, and shall strike the land, the temples and the gods of Egypt.

XLIV. Why, O ye Jews, do ye provoke God by sacrificing to strange gods in the land of Egypt?

Behold I will deliver Pharao Ephree into the hand of them that seek his life.

XLV. Thus saith the Lord to Baruch: Thou hast said, Woe is me, for the Lord hath added sorrow to my sorrow.

Behold what I have built, I will destroy: and thou seekest great things for thyself? I will give thee thy life for a prey.

XLVI. Thus saith the Lord against the army of Pharao Nechao: Prepare the shield, stand in the chariots, polish the spears, put on the coats of mail.

A fair and beautiful heifer is Egypt: a gadfly from the north shall come upon her. After this she shall be inhabited as in the days of old.

XLVII. Thus saith the Lord against the Palestines: Baldness shall come upon Gaza, Ascalon shall be silent.

O sword of the Lord, how long wilt thou not be quiet? Return-

XLVIII. To Moab: Flee, save your lives, and ye shall be as the tamarisk in the desert.

Give flowers to Moab, for she shall go forth flourishing: cursed be he that prohibiteth his sword from blood.

XLIX. To the children of Ammon: Howl, Hesebon, for Hai is laid waste: Melchom shall be taken, his priests and his princes together.

I have made thee small among the nations, despicable among men, O Edom.

How have they forsaken the praiseworthy city, the city of joy?

I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the walls of Benadad.

L. Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is overthrown.

A sword against the Chaldeans, saith the Lord, and against the inhabitants of Babylon, a sword against her diviners, a sword against her mighty men, a sword against her horses, and against all the common people of her.

LI. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and let every man save his own life: for this is the time of vengeance from the Lord: he will render unto her a recompense.

Babylon is a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, that maketh all the earth drunk: the nations have drunk of her wine, and therefore they have been moved.

Behold I come against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth: I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.

Sanctify against Babylon the nations, the kings of the Medes, the governors thereof, and all the land of his dominion.

I will make the Chaldeans drunk, that they may be stupefied, and may sleep an everlasting sleep.

I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, and like rams with kids.

The heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, shall rejoice over Babylon: for the spoilers shall come upon her from the north, saith the Lord.

Ye that have escaped the sword, go away, stand not still: remember the Lord afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

Say to Saraias: When thou shalt come to Babylon, thou shalt read all the words of this book, and thou shalt cast the book into the midst of the Euphrates, and shalt say: Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise up from the affliction that I will bring upon her.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

This is the most pathetic and affectionate part of all Scripture. For Jeremiah, as Isidore of Pelusium testifies (book I, epistle 298), was the most calamitous of all the Prophets, and thus likewise the most mournful everywhere, stirring all to sorrow, lamentation and weeping. Jeremiah, I say, or rather the Holy Spirit through Jeremiah, in these Lamentations appears to have gathered together all his laments, and to have given full rein to compassion, lamentation and tears. And this deservedly, since he saw all his prophecies, threats, warnings and entreaties come to nothing, all things lamented, the city of Jerusalem which he so greatly desired to save, Judaea, the commonwealth, and the kingdom of his people, that temple of Solomon the wonder of the world, the people of God, and indeed the entire Synagogue and the Church of God laid waste, overthrown and burned by the Chaldaeans. Therefore he laments justly and inconsolably, and sighs with unspeakable groanings, so that by his example he might teach his fellow citizens to groan and do penance, that they might obtain pardon from God, and the restoration of the nation, city and commonwealth: as indeed they did obtain it, when in the seventieth year of captivity they were sent back to their homeland by Cyrus, the city and temple were rebuilt, the commonwealth and Church were restored.

with tears let us bewail before God. Wherefore Paschasius rightly thinks this sad song of Jeremiah can be called the Lamentations of lamentations, or the Lamentations of lamentations; just as the joyful Epithalamium of Solomon is called the Song of songs: for as nothing is more joyful than that, so nothing sadder than this can be found in Scripture or among the pagans, so that compared with it the tragedies of Seneca and similar works appear to be shadows, and the plays of poets composed and fashioned by rhetorical art. For here it is not art that speaks and grieves, but the divine Spirit himself, who had wholly possessed Jeremiah, so that he might bewail the destruction of his nation and the people of God with unspeakable groanings.

Again, mystically this Jerusalem thus laid waste is commonly understood to be the commonwealth and society of men, or the human race in Adam overthrown by the devil's fraud, and cast down from its primeval happiness, paradise and original innocence. But properly and particularly this Jerusalem is the soul, which consenting to mortal sin, is deprived of the state of justice and the kingdom of God, and undergoes the dominion, yoke and tyranny of the demon, and suffers calamities far greater than Jerusalem of old, or any kingdom or commonwealth ever overthrown, so that the penitent rightly uses these Lamentations, and among other things says that in chapter III, 12: 'He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for his arrows. He hath shot into my reins the daughters of his quiver;' and verse 15: 'He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath inebriate me with wormwood.' See wonderful examples and laments of the penitent in John Climacus, step 5 On Penance; and likewise in the Life of St. Mary Magdalene, St. Mary of Egypt, and St. Pelagia the penitent.

Hear also St. Jerome concerning himself, in his epistle to Florentinus: 'I am ashes, and the vilest part of mud, and already dust: I am defiled with all the filth of sinners, and day and night I await with trembling to render the last farthing. But yet because the Lord hath loosed the bound, and upon the humble and trembling his word rest-

It is shown near Jerusalem, and is depicted in its geography to the south of the city, not far from Haceldema, the pit of Jeremiah, in which he himself, beholding Jerusalem laid waste by the Chaldaeans, grieving and weeping, dictated these Lamentations, where the Empress Helena built wonderful works, as Adrichomius says from Nicephorus in his Description of Jerusalem, number 224.

Therefore Jeremiah gives us here a type, example and song, which in the overthrow of cities, kingdoms, commonwealth and Church, which in public calamity and disaster, such as we have seen and see many of these years in Belgium, we should use in the same words, so that with intimate feeling of compassion we might bewail these slaughters both of bodies, and more of souls, with bloody

This book is called in Hebrew איכה echa, that is, how; because it begins with this word. The Hebrews in their Commentaries call it קינות kinot. The Septuagint calls it Threnoi, that is, lamentations or weeping. The Lamentations were translated from Hebrew into Latin by St. Jerome, into Greek by Symmachus and the Septuagint. For long ago the version of Aquila and Theodotion in the Lamentations was desired. This title is not in the Hebrew, but in the Greek and Latin Bibles, and in the Arabic text of Alexandria, though it is wanting in the Antiochene text (added, it seems, by the Septuagint; whence it is not canonical Scripture; yet it has been approved by the Church, which prefixes the same title to the Latin Bibles, even the Roman ones); it is: 'And it came to pass, after Israel was carried into captivity, and Jerusalem was made desolate, that Jeremiah the prophet sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation in Jerusalem, and sighing with a bitter mind, and wailing said.' Whence it is clear that the author of the Lamentations is Jeremiah, and the whole Church holds this. Again, that the Lamentations were com-

Prolegomena

posed by Jeremiah, not before the destruction of Jerusalem, as some have thought, but after it: for the title clearly states this.

You may ask whether this title is canonical Scripture, and of the same authority as the Lamentations? St. Bonaventure, Lyra, Sanchez, a Castro, and Francis Lucas in his Biblical Notes deny it, and they think that some interpreter added it to the Lamentations in order to set forth the argument of the Lamentations, so that he might at the same time aptly and consequently join them with the last chapter of Jeremiah, in which the desolation of Jerusalem is narrated at length, by a brief summary of the same. There are two reasons: the first is that this title is lacking in many manuscripts, as Lyra and Lucas testify; the second is that it does not exist in the Hebrew, but in the Septuagint version, whence it appears to have been added by them; but those interpreters were merely translators, not canonical writers. The same must be said of the heading or title which is prefixed to the sixth chapter, and of the title prefixed to Ecclesiastes, as Jansenius judges in that place.

Again, in many Bibles this title is lacking, and is passed over by many interpreters, namely by Theodoret, Eusebius, Olympiodorus, St. Jerome, Paschasius, Rabanus, Rupert and others. For they make no mention of this title in their Commentaries.

To the first point of the other opinion, I reply:

First, those words of the preface of the Bibles of Clement VIII: 'In this edition it seemed good to set forth nothing that is not canonical, nothing spurious, nothing foreign;' are not the Pope's, but those of the author of the preface, who was one of the Doctors who presided over the correction and edition of these Bibles by command of the Pope, which was done, as he himself says, only with the Pope's assent, not however with his decree and definition of individual matters. Therefore, when he says, Nothing that is not canonical, understand it not by the Pope's decree, but by the opinion and judgment of those who presided over the edition.

Second, 'nothing,' that is, no book or part of a book that is not canonical, 'seemed good to set forth,' such as are set forth in other Bibles, as are the Prayer of Manasses, the books III and IV of Ezra: which therefore in this Roman edition were rejected, as the author of the preface himself immediately explains in what follows. By nothing, therefore, he does not mean the titles of books, but the books themselves and the text of Scripture itself: wherefore even if the titles of books, chapters, chapter numbers, verses, etc., are added to this edition, it is truly said that nothing that is not canonical was added to it. Thus P. Serarius, Prolegomena to the Bible, chapter xx and preceding. And learned men at Rome assured me of the same, and especially the most illustrious Cardinal Bellarmine, the author of that preface, who also in book I On the Word of God, chapter xx says: 'The little preface which is prefixed to the Lamentations of Jeremiah also appears to be apocryphal: for it is neither in the Hebrew manuscripts, nor in all the Latin ones, and is not touched upon by expositors.' Finally, if anyone carefully weighs the words of that preface already cited, and compares them with what follows, he will see that by not canonical, not titles, but books or parts of books that are not canonical are alone excluded: by spurious, however, marginal concordances, notes and various readings are excluded, which are read written in the Plantinian Bibles and others: by foreign, finally, prefaces and arguments of books, which are seen prefixed to them in other Bibles from St. Jerome. For thus the author seems to explain these words in parts, while he relegates these three classes of things from these Pontifical Bibles, in the order already mentioned in what follows.

Whence it follows that only this preface or title of the Lamentations is not foreign, but intrinsic; because namely it has been placed within the context of the Bibles from time immemorial, not as canonical Scripture, but as the title of the book and of canonical Scripture, added and prefixed to it for its argument by some ancient scribe, or by the Septuagint: just as to the Gospel of St. Matthew, not by St. Matthew, but by someone else, this title was added as if intrinsic, 'The Gospel according to Matthew.' For by the same person a similar title was added to the other Gospels, to distinguish them from one another, namely this: 'The Gospel according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John.' On which see Maldonatus, Preface to St. Matthew. Thus to Lamentations v, this title was added by someone, Prayer of Jeremiah, for this is what it is in Hebrew.

P. Gresser holds the contrary opinion, tome I Defense of Bellarmine, book I, xiv, whose reason is first that in the Roman Bibles published by command of Clement VIII in the Preface, certainly from the mind and will of the Pope, it is said that in this edition of the Bibles nothing that is not canonical is contained; and for that reason he rejected the Prayer of Manasses, and the books III and IV of Ezra, because they are not canonical. But in those Bibles this

To the second point, I have already said that these Doctors excluded the prefaces of St. Jerome, not for the reason that they are not canonical, but because they are recent and foreign, not ancient and intrinsic, such as these of the Septuagint, which by the use of so many centuries inserted into Scripture have grown together with it, and therefore seem to it as if intrinsic.

To the third I reply: in certain Greek codices, such as the Complutensian, this title is not placed, but is prefixed to the first chapter; in Latin Bibles, however, even in these very Roman ones, it is clearly prefixed, even if in the same character as the printed text; whereas in the Plantinian and other editions it is seen in a different and smaller character. Finally, in the Greek, Royal and Roman Bibles, aleph and the first verse of Lamentations are not annotated in the margin to this title, but immediately after it at the beginning of the text: by which it is signified that Lamentations begins from it, not from this title. And thus the Church in Holy Week begins Lamentations from aleph and from the text, not from this title.

The title of Lamentations, equally as the title of Ecclesiastes, are inserted, or rather prefixed to the text of canonical Scripture: therefore each is canonical Scripture. Second, because the Romans rejected the titles and prefaces of St. Jerome from this edition, on the ground that they are not canonical: since therefore they place these two, they judge them to be canonical. Third, because the Septuagint (as is evident in the Royal and Roman edition) do not prefix this title to Lamentations, but place it in their very text itself, and begin them from it, and make it the beginning of chapter 1.

The prior opinion, as it is more common, so it appears more true. For this title is not of a canonical author, namely Jeremiah, but of the Interpreters, namely the Septuagint, whence it does not exist in the Hebrew, nor in the Syriac, nor in the Arabic, nor in the Chaldean: which is a sign that its author is not Baruch. For he would have written in Hebrew, as he wrote Lamentations themselves, at the dictation of Jeremiah.

laid waste, nor captured: therefore these Lamentations are not concerning the disaster of Josiah.

Second, Eusebius thinks that Jeremiah here in his first acrostic bewails the captivity of Joachin or Jeconiah. But this opinion is opposed by the same thing as the prior: for under Joachin the city was not laid waste, but under Zedekiah.

I say therefore that the argument of Lamentations is: Here Jeremiah bewails the destruction of the city and temple, and the overthrow made by the Chaldeans, and the captivity of King Zedekiah and the whole people. For to this all the sentences of Lamentations aptly agree, and either presuppose or signify it. Whence it is clear that Jeremiah wrote these Lamentations in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, which was the nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar: for in that year he himself captured and laid waste Jerusalem. Thus Origen, Theodoret, Olympiodorus, Procopius. Where note: The destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans was a type of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and the Romans; indeed, what was begun by Nebuchadnezzar was perfected and consummated by Titus: and so these Lamentations can be understood completely concerning the destruction of the Jews by the Romans, as will be evident in chapter IV, verses 10 and 20. Thus St. Jerome, Theodoret and others.

Interpreters disagree concerning the argument of Lamentations. First, the Hebrews, the Chaldean, Rabanus, Maldonatus here, and St. Jerome in Zechariah chapter xii, think that Jeremiah here bewails the disaster and death of Josiah king of Judah, when he was struck down by Pharaoh Necho; for that Jeremiah then lamented Josiah is evident from II Paralipomenon xxxv, 25. But here was another lamentation, and other lamentations, which intervened. For in these our Lamentations Jeremiah bewails the desolation and devastation of Jerusalem, as is evident both from the title already mentioned, and from the very sentences of Lamentations: but at the time of Josiah Jerusalem was not

Note first: Lamentations were written by Jeremiah from a great affection of sorrow and compassion; whence they are full of emotions: and therefore the sentences often do not cohere. For just as one who grieves and is afflicted vehemently, cries out without order now, now weeps, now is indignant, now beseeches, and turns himself to every passion: so Jeremiah here indulges in these same emotions and his sorrow, without order or ordered discourse, and gathers sentences as it were tumultuously, as sorrow pours them forth.

Note second: The artifice here is greater than in the other prophecies; for he writes in verse, not indeed in certain numbers of times and feet, as the Latins and Greeks are accustomed, but as the Hebrews, in a certain almost fixed number of syllables; and at the beginning of the verse weaving through the Hebrew letters in the order of the alphabet, which David also does in Psalm cxviii. For the first verse begins with aleph, the second with beth, the third with ghimel, and so consequently. Wherefore these verses are acrostics. And so that this very thing may be signified in the Greek and Latin version, for this reason these letters, aleph, beth, ghimel, etc., are written whole in the margin for each verse, which is not done in the Hebrew text; because there each verse begins from individual letters, that is from words which begin from individual letters, in their order. Moreover Jeremiah uses these letters of the alphabet, so that through them as it were elements, says Rupert, like children, we may be led to the knowledge of God, and to the compunction of heart and amendment of life, equally as the Jews. In a similar manner and reason Origen teaches from the Hebrews that there are as many books of the Old Testament as there are letters of the Hebrews, namely 22. Because, he says, just as letters are elements for all wisdom, so those books are beginnings for all knowledge of God.

Moreover, among the Greeks such a poem is called an acrostic, especially when from the first letters of several verses following in continuous order, some discourse is connected, as Cicero testifies in book II of On Divination, as happens in certain poems of Ennius and the Sibylline oracles. Such is that Sibylline oracle, whose first letters yield this meaning: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior; which Eusebius records in book IV of the Life of Constantine, whose initial letters in turn yield this word: ichthys, that is, fish, by which name Christ is accordingly sometimes called by the Fathers.

Another mystery does not lie hidden in these letters of the alphabet, say Lyra and Vatablus, unless you wish to interpret the etymologies of Hebrew letters, as St. Jerome does in epistle 155 to Paula of the City. Others, however, such as Rupert, Hugh, and St. Thomas, think that some mystery is contained here which escapes us. Sanchez holds that these letters were added as it were notes, which would recall to the Hebrews in memory not only the beginning of individual verses, but also their entire numerous composition; just as in artificial memory, images presented to the imagination recall to memory all that is to be learned and spoken. But each person forms and fashions for himself images suited to him, nor does it appear how individual letters here could represent entire verses for each person.

Note thirdly: There are here four alphabets according to four chapters. In the first alphabet, cap. 1, under individual letters, three twelve-syllable verses are concluded. In the second alphabet, cap. II, three verses likewise are contained under one and the same letter, of which the first has 16, the remaining two 12 syllables. In the third, cap. III, three verses are placed not only under one letter, but also begin with the same letter, of which one, not preserving order, has 12, others 14 syllables. In the fourth, cap. IV, under one letter it comprises two verses. Here therefore are dimeters, in the others trimeters. Wherefore St. Jerome, in epistle 155 to Paula of the City, says they are written as it were in Sapphic meter, that is, trimeter. For otherwise they do not have the feet and numbers of Sapphic verse; and their number and measure is now unknown. For the ancient Hebrew poetry has perished.

Symbolically, by this fourfold alphabet is signified that Jeremiah laments not only the sins of the Jews, but also of the four regions of the world, that is, of the whole world, and invites all to lament them. Whence also hell is said to be opened, and to extend to 1600 stadia, Apocalypse xiv, 20. For this number is the square of forty. For forty times forty make 1600, so as to signify that hell is opened to the four regions of the world, to receive the impious rushing into it from every side. Thus Peter Bongus in the book On the Mystery of Numbers.

Note fourthly: The purpose of writing the Lamentations was that Jeremiah might testify in this poem his charity and compassion toward his country, and by its modulation might ease his own and his fellow citizens' sorrow, and might bend others to compassion, all-

says he, these lamentations I read (and I read them whenever I wish to correct the sense of present happiness by that reading), my voice is broken in reading, and I am overwhelmed with tears, and as it were that disaster comes before my eyes, and I join mourning with the mourner.'

and to penance, reconciliation with God, and flight from sins. Wherefore St. Gregory of Nazianzus, in oration 1 of reconciliation: 'Whenever

The purpose and aim therefore of the Holy Spirit and of Jeremiah in writing the Lamentations was, first, to perform funeral rites for Jerusalem now laid waste and as it were dead. For he celebrates here her funeral and obsequies, as of his country and most beloved mother, and thereby at the same time eases his own sorrow and that of his fellow citizens. For to this end was the funeral song invented. Second, this poem is as it were an epitaph, which transmits the memory of Jerusalem to posterity. Third, the same is a stimulus to penance, so that the Jews, converted to God, might obtain pardon and the restoration of themselves and Jerusalem from God. Fourth, tropologically, there is given here a form and pattern of sacred mourning and penance, of which more presently. St. Chrysostom, homily on the title of Psalm L: 'Prophets, he says, are as it were certain painters of virtue and warfare,' by which we contend against sins and the devil. 'Other Prophets paint other virtues. Jeremiah is a painter both of the cross and of compunction.' For in this he excelled, and impresses it upon the reader: for everywhere the lamenter groans and weeps: because 'great, he says, as the sea is thy sorrow, O Jerusalem!'

Moreover, compunction is the mother of devotion and of all virtues. If you wish to feel devotion, give yourself to solitude and compunction, and, as the Psalmist says, in your bed and in your heart be compunct; for, as Psalm 50 says: 'A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.' And the author of the book On the Spirit and the Soul, vol. III, St. Augustine, chapter 49: 'Meditation,' he says, 'begets knowledge, knowledge begets compunction, compunction begets devotion, devotion perfects prayer.' For compunction first begets humility: for who would be proud, who considers that he has deserved hell? Second, patience, so that he may bravely, indeed cheerfully, receive all humiliations, mortifications, illnesses, adversities, tribulations, persecutions, and give thanks to God, and sing with St. Theodore in torments: 'I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall be always in my mouth.' Blessed be God, who gently in this life of mine chastises my sins, lest he punish them with the eternal fires of hell. Third, love of God; for who would not supremely love God, from whom he confesses he has freely obtained pardon for the offense of his divine majesty, been snatched from hell, and restored to heaven? Fourth, love of neighbor: for he who has offended God, now recognizing the gravity and unworthiness of this offense, strives to compensate for it by the conversion of others, who may honor and glorify God; as St. Paul repaired and compensated for his persecution of the Church by the conversion of all the Gentiles, and by the perpetual and heroic labors and persecutions which he generously and continually endured for its propagation.

Fifth, compunction turns the mind away from the earth and from all earthly concupiscence, and joins it to God. For he who is truly compunct, the world becomes bitter to him, and he tastes nothing but God. Whence St. Bernard in the tract On the Manner of Living Well, chapter 10: 'Good compunction,' he says, 'is a desirable treasure, and an unspeakable joy in the mind of man. The soul which has compunction in its heart makes progress toward salvation: the tears of the penitent are reckoned as baptism before God.' And shortly after: 'Compunction of the heart is the health of the soul. Compunction of the mind is the illumination of the soul; because then the soul is illuminated, when it is compunct unto tears. Compunction of tears is the remission of sins; because then sins are forgiven, when they are brought to memory with tears. Compunction brings the Holy Spirit to itself: because when the mind is visited with the Holy Spirit, immediately man weeps for his sins.'

For these reasons, illustrious Saints, who at some time committed mortal sin, devoted themselves their whole life to compunction and penance. For although they knew that God had already forgiven them this sin, yet from zeal for the love and honor of God, they wished continually to avenge in themselves his offense. Considering deeply how great is that divine majesty, power, and goodness, and how it is wounded and offended by sin, they were unwilling to spare themselves, but continually to punish this sin, so that by doing penance they might restore to God the love and honor which they had wounded by sinning.

St. Mary Magdalene had heard from Christ: 'Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much;' and yet for thirty years until her death in her cave, a penitent, she devoted herself to continual tears, sighs, penances, and prayers, and made herself an example of penance to all ages.

Peter knew that he had denied Christ, and that Christ had looked upon him and forgiven him this fault; and yet every night at the cock's crow, says St. Clement, falling upon his knees with most abundant tears he wept for it, so much so that his eyes from constant weeping appeared as if sprinkled with blood, says Nicephorus, book II, chapter 37.

St. Paul had heard, after his persecution, called by Christ: 'This man is a vessel of election unto me;' and yet he places himself everywhere among the penitent: 'I,' he says, 'am the least of the Apostles, who am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God,' I Corinthians 15:9. And: 'A faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. But for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show forth all patience, for an information to them that would believe in him unto life everlasting,' I Timothy, chapter 1:15.

The royal Prophet knew that the sin of murder and adultery had been forgiven him by God. For as soon as he was rebuked by the prophet Nathan, he said: 'I have sinned against the Lord,' and from him he heard: 'The Lord also hath taken away thy sin,' II Kings 12:13; and yet he is continually compunct, sighs, weeps, and begs for pardon. 'I will wash,' he says, 'my bed every night: I will water my couch with my tears,' Psalm 6:7. And Psalm 79:6: 'Thou wilt feed them with the bread of tears: and thou wilt give them tears to drink in measure,' that is, in great measure, so that I may pour forth showers and torrents, indeed rivers of tears, which I may drink and consume.

St. Augustine also, when dying, gave himself to tears, and weeping meditated upon and recited the Penitential Psalms, and for this reason admitted no one to him except a physician. And he added that no one, however well-disposed in conscience, should allow himself to depart from life without penance. Thus Possidius in his Life, chapters 30 and 31.

St. Augustine also, when dying, gave himself to tears, and weeping he meditated upon and recited the Penitential Psalms, and for this reason he admitted no one to himself except a physician. And he added that no one, however much his conscience might be clear to him, ought to depart from life without penance. Thus Possidius in his Life, cap. xxx and xxxi.

To pass over others, St. Ephrem excelled among all the Fathers in this spirit of compunction, who in all his writings sounds nothing other than death, judgment, lamentation, and penance, so that in him this beatitude of Christ is fulfilled: 'Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.'

Nearest to St. Ephrem is St. Jerome, who throughout his epistles teaches and inculcates penance, austerity, contempt of the world, and the perfect life both by word and example: for which reason his epistles, by their freedom of speech, efficacy, acrimony, and equally by the elegance of style, by the spirit and precepts of virtues and perfection accommodated to each state, surpass all the epistles of all the Fathers and Doctors, and are golden and most worthy to be read and studied assiduously by all.

With this spirit of compunction he imbued all his disciples and followers, and namely St. Paula and Eustochium. Whence concerning St. Paula he writes thus in her Epitaph: 'In her you would believe there were fountains of tears: so much did she bewail even light sins, that you would believe her guilty of the gravest crimes. And when she was frequently admonished by us to spare her eyes and preserve them for the reading of the Gospel, she said: The face must be disfigured, which I have often painted against God's commandment with purple, and ceruse, and stibium; the body must be afflicted, which has been devoted to many luxuries; prolonged laughter must be compensated by weeping.' But in Epistle 17, St. Jerome, in the name of St. Paula, inviting St. Marcella to Bethlehem, thus speaks in her person: 'When we shall have returned through Shiloh and Bethel to our cave, we shall sing continually, weep frequently, pray without ceasing: and wounded by the arrow of the Saviour, we shall say together: I have found him whom my soul sought: I will hold him, and will not let him go.' Again St. Jerome writing to Eustochium: 'Let us love Christ, he says, and always seek his embraces; and every difficulty will easily appear, we shall think all things that are long to be brief, and wounded by his arrow through each moment we shall say: Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged!'

Moreover the matter, object, cause and stimulus to compunction is manifold, but chiefly threefold. First, are one's own sins: for the sign of true penance and conversion is to mourn and bewail them perpetually, even though they have already been remitted. Second, the sins of others, infidelity, heresy, ravages, persecutions, public calamities of cities, provinces, kingdoms, and the whole Church. Thus St. Augustine, when the Vandals were invading Africa and besieging Hippo, he himself shut up in the city by them, continually bewailed not his own, but the city's and Africa's ruin, as Possidius testifies in his Life, chapter 29. Third stimulus is this exile, in which we are surrounded by so many perils, temptations, afflictions, and misfortunes. For who placed in it does not groan, does not sigh toward heaven, toward God? Certainly St. Paul sighed: 'Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' The Psalmist sighed: 'As the hart panteth after the fountains of water: so my soul panteth after thee, O God. My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God: when shall I come and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God? These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me: for I shall go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God.' Psalm 41:2; and: 'Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest?' Psalm 54:7.

Excellently St. Gregory in book VI, epistle 187: 'There are, he says, two kinds of compunction. One, which fears eternal punishments: another, which sighs after heavenly rewards. A soul thirsting for God is first pricked by fear, then by love. For before all else it afflicts itself in tears, because, while it recalls the number of its evils, it greatly fears to suffer eternal torments for them. But when fear has been consumed by long anxiety of sorrow, a certain security of presumed pardon is born, and the mind is inflamed with love of heavenly joys, and weeps most bitterly, because it is delayed from the kingdom. For the mind contemplates what those choirs of Angels are, what that society of blessed spirits, what the vision of the internal charity of God,' etc. And he adds that this is the lower and upper watering, which Axa asked of her father Caleb, Joshua 15. See the same, book 23 of the Morals, chapter 13, which is entirely on this matter.

Note fifth: The Rabbis are deceived, when they think these Lamentations of chapters I, II and IV are that book which Joakim burned, Jeremiah 36; but that chapter III of Lamentations contains another book, which in the same chapter 36, by God's command, Jeremiah restored in place of the one burned, and at his dictation Baruch rewrote. For first, that book was one of threats concerning the future destruction, but these Lamentations are bewailings concerning the destruction already accomplished and past. Second, that book contained threats not only against Judah, but also against other nations, as is evident there verse 2; but the Lamentations concern only the destruction of Jerusalem and Judaea. Third, there verse 29, it is said that in that book was written: 'The king of Babylon shall come speedily, and shall lay waste this land;' but these words are not found in the Lamentations.

Tropologically, Jeremiah here mourns the captivity of the soul under sin, as Origen says, which is held bound in Babylon, that is in the confusion of vices, as Olympiodorus says. For this soul, widowed from God her spouse, made tributary to the devil, often pays tribute to him every single day, indeed every hour, of new works of evil and falls, and of new guilt equally as of punishment; and therefore she is exiled and proscribed from God, from heaven, from the Saints and Angels, from all good and virtue. For the devil is the true Nebuchadnezzar, that is the siege of anguish, as Olympiodorus says, namely he is a most cruel tyrant. Wherefore the Blessed Isaiah the Abbot, vol. II of the Library of the Holy Fathers, discourse 29, wrote lamentations of the soul subjected to sins, in the manner of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, in which among other things he thus bewails:

'Woe to us, who in this brief span of life have given ourselves to pleasure, because in order to satisfy the unjust and brief desires of the flesh, we have made ourselves unworthy of the most delightful spectacle of divine glory!'

'Woe to us, who cherish and nourish our flesh, which is destined to dissolve into corruption and to become food for worms, in sins, and do not fear the fire in which we are to be tormented perpetually, nor the worm that never sleeps!'

'Woe to us, who do not compare mortality with immortality, and neglect the divine and fearful righteousness.'

'Woe to us, who feel the diseases and pains of the body so easily; but in the sickness and most grievous wounds of the soul we have no feeling whatsoever!'

'Woe to us, who, although we are about to render an account of every action, of every idle word, and of all wicked and impure thoughts before a most severe judge, yet conduct the whole time of our life as though we were to be free, owing no account to anyone, without any concern for this matter!'

'Woe to us, who cannot bear the bites and stings of fleas, lice, lice, flies, gnats, and bees; but from the great dragon, who opens his horrible jaws to devour and swallow us, and wounds us with all the pestilential stings of death, we neither strive to flee, nor do we implore any aid against him!'

Hear similar lamentations of St. Jerome concerning the calamities of his age (such as we also experience) in the Epitaph of Nepotian: 'For more than twenty years Roman blood is shed daily between Constantinople and the Julian Alps. The Goth, Sarmatian, Quad, Alan, Hun, Vandal, and Marcomanni lay waste, drag away, and plunder Scythia, Thrace, Macedonia, Dardania, Dacia, Thessalonica, Epirus, Achaia, Dalmatia, and all of Pannonia. How many matrons, how many virgins of God, and freeborn and noble bodies have been made sport of by these beasts! Bishops have been captured, priests slain, and the various offices of clerics destroyed. Churches have been overturned, horses have been stabled at the altars of Christ, the relics of Martyrs have been dug up. Everywhere there is mourning, everywhere groaning, and a great image of death. The Roman world is falling, and yet our neck is not bent in submission.' And further down: 'Happy Nepotian, who does not see these things, who does not hear these things. We wretches, who either suffer, or see our suffering brothers enduring such things, and yet wish to live, and think those who lack these things are to be wept for rather than counted blessed. We feel that God is offended, and we do not appease Him. By our sins the barbarians are strong, by our vices the Roman army is overcome, and as if these calamities were not enough, civil wars have consumed more than the enemy's sword. Wretched Israelites, in comparison with whom Nebuchadnezzar is called the servant of God. Unhappy we, who so greatly displease God that through the fury of the barbarians His wrath rages upon us. Hezekiah did penance, and one hundred eighty-five thousand Assyrians were destroyed by one Angel in one night. Jehoshaphat sang the praises of the Lord, and the Lord overcame for him who praised. Moses fought against Amalek, not with the sword, but with prayer. If we wish to be raised up, we are cast down. O shame, and a mind foolish even unto unbelief! The Roman army, victor of the world and its master, is overcome by these, fears these, is terrified at the sight of those who cannot even walk, who, if they touch the ground, think themselves dead. And do we not understand the voices of the Prophets: A thousand shall flee at the pursuit of one? Nor do we cut away the causes of the disease, so that the disease might likewise be taken away, and straightway we might see arrows take the place of javelins, tiaras give way to helmets, horses to cavalry.'

Latebrius explains the Lamentations concerning the Blessed Virgin mourning the torments and cross of Christ. But this sense is not proper, but only accommodated.

How certain passages from the Lamentations properly by allegory apply to the passion of Christ, I shall say in chapter III.

According to the prescription of the Rabbis, the Jews read the Lamentations in their synagogues on the ninth day of the month of Ab, that is July; because on that day Israel fell, and Jerusalem was burned together with the temple.

Allegorically properly, the Lamentations are the mourning for the Church militant, when she is vexed by persecutors on account of the sins of her faithful; for this is the allegorical Jerusalem laid waste. Thus Alvarus of Pelagius adapts these Lamentations in all respects to the Church, in book II of On the Mourning of the Church at the beginning, where he mourns the defects and abuses of the laity, the clergy, and the Religious in particular. See also Cardinal Bellarmine, in the book On the Groaning of the Dove.

Note: In Volume V of St. Jerome's works there exist Commentaries on the Lamentations, but they are not by St. Jerome; this is evident both from the style and from the fact that in them are found sentences drawn from St. Gregory the Pope, who lived far later than St. Jerome. The manuscript codex of Gemblacensis attributes them to the Venerable Bede. In the works of Rabanus published at Basel these Commentaries are contained, and they plainly appear to be Rabanus's.

Origen, Olympiodorus, Theodoret, Procopius also wrote on the Lamentations, and in later centuries Lyra, Hugh and many others, among whom excels Paschasius Ratbertus, Abbot of Corbie, who flourished in the year of the Lord 880. Most recently from our Society wrote Martin Delrio, Gaspar Sanchez, and Christopher of Castro.

later, drawn from him. The manuscript codex of Gemblacensis attributes them to the Venerable Bede. In the works of Rabanus published at Basel these Commentaries are contained, and they plainly appear to be Rabanus's. Origen, Olympiodorus, Theodoret, Procopius also wrote on the Lamentations, and in later centuries Lyra, Hugh and many others, among whom excels Paschasius Ratbertus, Abbot of Corbie, who flourished in the year of the Lord 880. Most recently from our Society wrote Martin Delrio, Gaspar Sanchez, and Christopher of Castro.