Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Lamentations of Jeremiah
how will it rest, when the Lord has commanded it, and appointed it there?
XXXVII. Thus says the Lord: The Chaldeans withdrawing from Jerusalem to fight against Pharaoh will return, and will take the city, and will burn it with fire.
XXXVIII. Thus says the Lord: Whoever remains in this city will die by the sword, and by famine, and by pestilence; but whoever flees to the Chaldeans will live.
XXXIX. Nebuchadnezzar captures Jerusalem, blinds Zedekiah, kills his sons and the nobles, and frees Jeremiah.
Say to Abdemelech: I will deliver you, and your life will be saved, because you have trusted in Me.
XL. Nebuzardan says to Jeremiah: If it pleases you to come with me to Babylon, I will set my eyes upon you; but if not, dwell with Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon has appointed over the cities of Judah.
XLI. Ishmael kills Gedaliah and captures the people: Johanan pursues him and liberates the people, with whom, fearing the Chaldeans, he plans to flee into Egypt.
XLII. Johanan and the princes consult Jeremiah: to whom he says: Remain in Judea and obey the Chaldeans: for all who enter Egypt will die by the sword, famine, and pestilence.
XLIII. They despise him and flee, and drag Jeremiah with them into Egypt. Jeremiah in Tahpanhes prophesies: Nebuchadnezzar will come and will strike the land, the temples and the gods of Egypt.
XLIV. Why, O Jews, do you provoke God by sacrificing to foreign gods in the land of Egypt?
Behold, I will deliver Pharaoh Hophra into the hand of those who seek his life.
XLV. Thus says the Lord to Baruch: You said, woe is me, for the Lord has added sorrow to my sorrow.
Behold, what I have built, I destroy: and do you seek great things for yourself? I will give you your life as a prize.
XLVI. Thus says the Lord against the army of Pharaoh Necho: Prepare the shield, stand in your helmets, polish the lances, put on your breastplates.
Egypt is a beautiful and elegant heifer: a gadfly from the north will come upon her. After these things she shall be inhabited as in the days of old.
XLVII. Thus says the Lord against the Philistines: Baldness has come upon Gaza, Ashkelon has fallen silent.
O sword of the Lord, how long will you not rest? How-
XLVIII. To Moab: Flee, save your lives, and you shall be like tamarisks in the desert.
Give wings to Moab, for she shall go forth in bloom: cursed is he who withholds his sword from blood.
XLIX. To the sons of Ammon: Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai is destroyed: Milcom shall be taken captive, his priests and his princes together.
I have made you small, O Edom, among the nations, contemptible among men.
How have they abandoned the praiseworthy city, the city of joy?
I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it will devour the ramparts of Ben-hadad.
L. Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is defeated.
A sword upon the Chaldeans, says the Lord, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, a sword upon her diviners, a sword upon her mighty men, a sword upon her horses, and upon all her mixed multitude.
LI. Flee from the midst of Babylon, and let each one save his life: for it is the time of the Lord's vengeance: He will repay her in kind.
Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand, intoxicating all the earth: the nations drank of her wine, and therefore they were shaken.
Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, who corrupt the whole earth: I will roll you down from the rocks, and make you a burnt mountain.
Consecrate the nations against Babylon, the kings of Media, her captains, and all the land of her dominion.
I will make the Chaldeans drunk, that they may fall asleep and sleep a perpetual sleep.
I will lead them down like lambs to the slaughter, and like rams with he-goats.
The heavens and the earth and all that is in them shall sing over Babylon: for from the north the destroyers shall come upon her.
You who have escaped the sword, come: remember the Lord from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your heart.
Say to Seraiah: When you come to Babylon, read all the words of this book, and throw the book into the midst of the Euphrates, and say: Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the affliction.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Preface
These are the most pathetic and emotionally moving part of all Scripture. For Jeremiah, as (according to the testimony of Isidore of Pelusium, Book I, Epistle 298) he was the most afflicted of all the Prophets, so likewise as the supreme singer of laments he everywhere stirs all to sorrow, mourning, and weeping. Jeremiah, I say, or rather the Holy Spirit through Jeremiah, in these Lamentations seems to have gathered together all his laments, and to have given full rein to compassion, wailing, and tears. And rightly so, since he saw that all his prophecies, threats, warnings, and entreaties had fallen to nothing, that all was lost, that the city of Jerusalem which he so greatly desired to save, Judea, the commonwealth, and the kingdom of his nation, that famous temple of Solomon which was the wonder of the world, the people of God, and indeed the entire Synagogue and the Church of God had been devastated, overthrown, and burned by the Chaldeans. Justly therefore he laments inconsolably, and sighs with unspeakable groans, so that by his example he might teach his fellow citizens to groan and to do penance, that they might obtain from God pardon and the restoration of their nation, city, and commonwealth: as in fact they did obtain, when in the 70th year of captivity they were sent back to their homeland by Cyrus, and the city and temple were rebuilt, and the commonwealth and Church were restored.
we may bewail with tears before God. Wherefore Paschasius rightly judges that this sorrowful song of Jeremiah may be called the Lamentations of lamentations, or the Mourning of mournings; just as Solomon's joyful Epithalamium is called the Song of Songs: for as nothing more joyful than that can be found in Scripture, so nothing more sorrowful than this can be found either in Scripture or among profane authors, so that compared with it the tragedies of Seneca and the like appear to be mere shadows, and the plays of poets composed and contrived by rhetorical art. For here it is not art that speaks and groans, 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 groans.
Again, mystically this Jerusalem so devastated is commonly understood as the commonwealth and society of mankind, or the human race overthrown in Adam by the deceit of the devil, and cast down from its primeval happiness, paradise, and original innocence. But properly and especially this Jerusalem is the soul which, consenting to mortal sin, is deprived of the state of justice and the kingdom of God, and submits to the kingdom, yoke, and tyranny of the devil, and is compelled to experience and endure calamities far greater than Jerusalem of old, or any kingdom or commonwealth that was overthrown, so that the penitent may rightly take up these Lamentations, and among other things say that verse from chapter III, 12: 'He bent His bow, and set me as a target for the arrow. He sent into my loins the daughters of His quiver;' and verse 15: 'He filled me with bitterness, He made me drunk with wormwood.' For astounding examples and laments of penitents, see 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 speaking of himself, in his epistle to Florentinus: 'I am ashes, and the vilest part of clay, and already cinder: I, stained with all the filth of sins, day and night await with trembling to pay the last farthing. But yet because the Lord sets free the captives, and upon the humble and trembling He rests His words-
There is shown near Jerusalem, and depicted in its chorography to the south of the city, not far from Haceldama, the cave of Jeremiah, in which he, looking upon Jerusalem devastated by the Chaldeans, grieving and weeping, dictated these Lamentations, where the Empress Helena constructed marvelous works, as Adrichomius says from Nicephorus in his Description of Jerusalem, no. 224.
Jeremiah therefore gives us here a pattern, example, and song, which in the overthrow of cities, kingdoms, the commonwealth, and the Church, which in public calamity and disaster, such as we have seen and continue to see very many of in these years in Belgium, we may take up in so many words, so that with the inmost feeling of compassion we may bewail these slaughters of both bodies and, even more, of souls, with bloody
Summary
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 Threnoi, that is, lamentations or weepings. The Lamentations were translated from Hebrew into Latin by St. Jerome, into Greek by Symmachus and the Septuagint. For already in ancient times the version of Aquila and Theodotion in the Lamentations was lacking. There is no title in the Hebrew, but there is one in the Greek and Latin Bibles, and in the Arabic text of the Alexandrian edition (in the Antiochene it is lacking); it was added, as it seems, by the Septuagint; hence it is not canonical Scripture; yet it has been approved by the Church, which prefixes the same title to the Latin Bibles, including the Roman edition. It reads: 'And it came to pass, after Israel had been led into captivity, and Jerusalem was desolate, Jeremiah the prophet sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and sighing with a bitter soul, and wailing, he said.' From which it is clear that the author of the Lamentations is Jeremiah, and the whole Church holds this. Again, that the Lamentations were com-
Prolegomena
composed by Jeremiah, not before the destruction of Jerusalem, as some have thought, but after it: for the title clearly states this.
You will ask whether this title is canonical Scripture, and of the same authority as the Lamentations themselves? St. Bonaventure, Lyranus, Sanchez, a Castro, and Franciscus Lucas in his Notes on the Bible deny this, and judge that it was added to the Lamentations by some translator, in order to prefix a summary to the Lamentations, by which he might at the same time fittingly and consequently connect them with the last chapter of Jeremiah, in which the devastation of Jerusalem was narrated at length, by a brief summary of the same. There are two reasons: the first, that this title is lacking in many codices, as Lyranus and Lucas testify; the second, that it does not exist in the Hebrew, but in the Septuagint version, whence it appears to have been added by them; but they were merely translators, not canonical authors. The same must be said of the inscription, or title, which is prefixed to chapter six, and of the title prefixed to Ecclesiasticus, as Jansenius holds there.
Again, in many Bibles this title is absent, and it is passed over by many commentators, namely by Theodoret, Eusebius, Olympiodorus, St. Jerome, Paschasius, Rabanus, Rupert, and others. For these make no mention of this title in their Commentaries.
To the first argument of the other opinion, I respond:
First, those words of the preface to the Bible of Clement VIII: 'In this edition it seemed good to include nothing that is not canonical, nothing borrowed, nothing extraneous;' are not the words of the Pontiff, but of the author of the preface, who was one of the Doctors who presided over this correction and edition of the Bible by the Pontiff's command, which was done, as he himself says, merely with the Pontiff 'approving,' not truly decreeing and defining each particular. Therefore when he says, Nothing not canonical, understand this not by the Pontiff's decree, but by the opinion and judgment of those who presided over the edition.
Second, 'nothing,' that is no book, or non-canonical part of a book, 'it seemed good to include,' such as are found appended in other Bibles, namely the Prayer of Manasseh, and Books III and IV of Esdras: which therefore were rejected in this Roman edition, as the author of the preface himself explains by adding immediately after. By nothing, therefore, he does not mean the titles of books, but the books themselves and the text of Scripture itself: therefore even if there are added to this edition titles of books, chapters, chapter numbers, verses, etc., it is still truly said that nothing not canonical has been added to it. So Father Serarius, Prolegomena to the Bible, chapter 20 and preceding. And the same was asserted to me at Rome by learned men, and especially by the most illustrious Cardinal Bellarmine, the author of that preface, who also in Book I of On the Word of God, chapter 20, says: 'The short preface which is prefixed to the Lamentations of Jeremiah also seems to be apocryphal: for it is not found in the Hebrew codices, nor in all the Latin ones, and it is not discussed by the commentators.' Finally, if one carefully weighs the words of that preface already cited, and compares them with what follows, one will see that by not canonical, only books or non-canonical parts of books are excluded, not titles: by borrowed are excluded the marginal concordances, notes, and variant readings that are found written in the Plantin and other Bibles: and by extraneous, finally, the prefaces and summaries of books that are found prefixed to them from St. Jerome in other Bibles. For thus the author seems to explain these words in detail, as he relegates these three classes of things from these Pontifical Bibles, in the order already stated in what follows.
Whence it follows only that this preface, or title of the Lamentations, is not extraneous but intraneous; because, that is, it has been placed within the context of the Bible from time immemorial, not as canonical Scripture, but as the title of a book and of canonical Scripture, added and prefixed to it as a summary by some ancient scribe, or by the Septuagint: just as to the Gospel of St. Matthew, not by St. Matthew but by some other person, this title was added as something intraneous, '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: 'The Gospel according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John.' On which see Maldonatus, Preface to St. Matthew. So in Lamentations 5, this title, the Prayer of Jeremiah, was added by someone, for this is found in the Hebrew.
Father Gresserus holds the contrary, Volume I of the Defense of Bellarmine, Book I, chapter 14, whose argument is first, that in the Roman Bible published by order of Clement VIII, in the Preface, surely according to the mind and will of the Pontiff, it is said that this edition of the Bible contains nothing that is not canonical; and for this reason they rejected the Prayer of Manasseh, and Books III and IV of Esdras, because they are not canonical. But in those Bibles this
To the second, I have already said that these Doctors excluded the prefaces of St. Jerome, not because they are not canonical, but because they are recent and extraneous, not ancient and intraneous, as are these of the Septuagint, which, having been inserted into Scripture through the use of so many centuries, seem to have coalesced with it, and therefore appear to be quasi-intraneous.
To the third I respond that in some Greek codices, such as the Complutensian, this title is not placed within but before the first chapter: and in the Latin Bibles, even in these very Roman ones, it is clear that it is placed before, even though it is printed in the same typeface as the text; whereas in the Plantin and other Bibles it is seen to be set in a different and smaller typeface. Finally in the Greek, Royal, and Roman Bibles, aleph and the first verse of the Lamentations are marked in the margin not at this title, but immediately after it at the beginning of the text: by which it is signified that the Lamentations begin from that point, not from the title. And so the Church in Holy Week begins the Lamentations from aleph and from the text, not from this title.
the title of the Lamentations, just as the title of Ecclesiasticus, are inserted, or rather prefixed, to the text of canonical Scripture: therefore each is canonical Scripture. Second, because the Romans rejected from this edition the titles and prefaces of St. Jerome, because they are not canonical: since therefore they include these two, they judge them to be canonical. Third, because the Septuagint (as is evident in the Royal and Roman editions) do not prefix this title to the Lamentations, but place it in their very text, and begin them from it, and make it the beginning of chapter 1.
The former opinion, as it is more common, so it seems more true. For this title is not from the canonical author, namely Jeremiah, but from the translators, 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 the Lamentations themselves, at Jeremiah's dictation.
devastated nor captured: therefore these Lamentations are not about the disaster of Josiah.
Second, Eusebius thinks that Jeremiah here in his first acrostic laments the captivity of Jehoiachin or Jeconiah. But the same objection stands against this opinion as against the former: for under Jehoiachin the city was not devastated, but under Zedekiah.
I say therefore, the subject of the Lamentations is this: Jeremiah here laments the destruction of the city and temple, and the overthrow wrought by the Chaldeans, and the captivity of King Zedekiah and the whole people. For all the statements of the Lamentations fittingly agree with this, and either presuppose or signify it. Whence it is clear that Jeremiah wrote these Lamentations in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, which was the 19th of Nebuchadnezzar: for in that year he captured and devastated Jerusalem. So Origen, Theodoret, Olympiodorus, Procopius. Note here: 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 in their fullest sense as concerning the destruction of the Jews by the Romans, as will appear in chapter 4, verses 10 and 20. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, and others.
Concerning the subject of the Lamentations, commentators disagree. First, the Hebrews, the Chaldean, Rabanus, Maldonatus here, and St. Jerome on Zechariah chapter 12, think that Jeremiah here laments the disaster and death of Josiah king of Judah, when he was slain by Pharaoh Necho; for that Jeremiah then mourned Josiah is clear from 2 Chronicles 35:25. But this was a different lament, and different dirges, which have been lost. For in these Lamentations of ours, Jeremiah bewails the desolation and devastation of Jerusalem, as is clear both from the title already cited and from the very statements of the Lamentations: but in the time of Josiah, Jerusalem was not
Note first: The Lamentations were written by Jeremiah from an immense feeling of sorrow and compassion; hence they are full of emotions: and therefore the sentences often do not cohere. For just as one who grieves and is afflicted intensely, without order now cries out, now mourns, now is indignant, now entreats, and turns himself to every passion: so Jeremiah here indulges the same emotions and his grief without order or orderly discourse, and heaps up his thoughts as if in confusion, as his sorrow pours them forth.
Note second: The artifice here is greater than in the other prophecies; for he writes in verse, not indeed with fixed measures of times and feet, as the Latins and Greeks are accustomed, but as the Hebrews do, with a fairly fixed number of syllables; and weaving the Hebrew letters in the order of the alphabet at the beginning of the poem, which David also does in Psalm 118. For the first verse begins with aleph, the second with beth, the third with gimel, and so on in order. Therefore these verses are acrostics. And so that this same feature might be indicated in the Greek and Latin versions, for this reason these letters, aleph, beth, gimel, etc., are written out in full beside each verse in the margin, which is not done in the Hebrew text; because there the individual verses begin in order from individual letters, that is from words that begin with individual letters. Moreover, Jeremiah uses these letters of the alphabet, so that through them, as through elements, says Rupert, like children, we as well as the Jews might be led to the attainment of the knowledge of God, and to compunction of heart and amendment of life. In a similar manner and reasoning, 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 the elements leading to all wisdom, so those books are the beginnings leading to 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 phrase is formed, as Cicero attests in Book 2 of On Divination, as is done in certain poems of Ennius and the Sibyls. Such is that Sibylline acrostic whose first letters yield this phrase: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior; which Eusebius records in Book 4 of the Life of Constantine, and the initial letters of this phrase in turn yield the word ichthys, that is, fish, by which name accordingly Christ is from time to time called by the Fathers.
No other mystery is hidden in these letters of the alphabet, say Lyranus and Vatablus, unless one wishes to interpret the etymologies of the Hebrew letters, as St. Jerome does in Epistle 155 to Paula Urbica. Others, however, such as Rupert, Hugh, and St. Thomas, think that some mystery is contained here that is hidden from us. Sanchez judges that these letters were added as marks, which would recall to the Hebrews' memory not only the beginning of each verse, but also the entire metrical composition of them; just as in the art of memory, images presented to the imagination recall to memory everything that is to be learned and said. But each person fashions and invents such images as are fitting for himself, and it is not apparent how here individual letters could represent entire verses to individual persons.
Note third: There are here four alphabets corresponding to four chapters. In the first alphabet, chapter 1, under each letter three dodecasyllabic verses are contained. In the second alphabet, chapter 2, three verses are likewise contained under one and the same letter, of which the first has 16 syllables and the remaining two have 12. In the third, chapter 3, three verses are not only placed under one letter, but each one also begins with that same letter, of which one, without preserving the order, tends to have 12 syllables and the others 14. Fourth, chapter 4 comprises two verses under each letter. Here therefore are dimeters, in the others trimeters. Wherefore St. Jerome, in Epistle 155 to Paula Urbica, says they are written as if in Sapphic meter, that is, in trimeter. For otherwise they do not have the feet and measures of Sapphic verse; and their number and measure is now unknown. For the ancient poetry of the Hebrews has perished.
Symbolically, by this fourfold alphabet it is indicated that Jeremiah bewails 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 bewail them. Whence hell is also said to stand open and to extend to 1600 stadia, Apocalypse 14:20. For this number is the square of forty. For forty times forty makes 1600, to signify that hell stands open to the four regions of the world, to receive the wicked rushing into it from every side. So Petrus Bongus in his book On the Mystery of Numbers.
Note fourth: The purpose of writing the Lamentations was that Jeremiah by this song might attest his love and compassion for his fatherland, and by its modulation might soothe his own grief and that of his fellow citizens, and might move others to compassion, and-
he says, 'I read these lamentations (and I read them whenever I wish to chastise my sense of present happiness by that reading), my voice breaks off while reading, and I am overwhelmed by tears, and that calamity seems to come before my eyes, and I join my mourning with the mourner.'
might incite all to penance, reconciliation with God, and the avoidance of sin. Wherefore St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 1, the Pacificatory: 'Whenever
The end and purpose therefore of the Holy Spirit and of Jeremiah in writing the Lamentations was, first, to perform funeral rites for Jerusalem, now devastated and as if dead. For he here celebrates her funeral and obsequies, as those of a most beloved fatherland and mother, and thereby at the same time soothes his own grief and that of his fellow citizens. For this is the purpose for which the funeral song was invented. Second, this song is a kind of epitaph, to transmit the memory of Jerusalem to posterity. Third, it is itself a spur to penance, so that the Jews, converted to God, might obtain from God pardon and the restoration of themselves and of Jerusalem. Fourth, tropologically, here is given a model and form of sacred mourning and penance, about which more shortly. St. Chrysostom, Homily on the Title of Psalm 50, says: 'The Prophets are, as it were, certain painters of virtue and of the warfare' by which we fight against sins and the devil. 'Other Prophets paint other virtues. Jeremiah is the painter both of the cross and of compunction.' For in this he excelled, and this he impresses upon the reader: for everywhere as a singer of laments he groans and weeps: because 'great as the sea is your destruction,' he says, O Jerusalem!
Moreover, compunction is the mother of devotion and of all virtues. If you wish to experience devotion, give yourself to solitude and compunction, and, as the Psalmist says, be pierced in your bedchamber and in your heart; for, as Psalm 50 says: 'A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit, a contrite and humbled heart, O God, You will not despise.' And the author of the book On the Spirit and Soul, Volume III of St. Augustine, chapter 49, says: 'Meditation begets knowledge, knowledge begets compunction, compunction begets devotion, devotion perfects prayer.' For compunction begets first, humility: for who would be proud who considers that he has deserved hell? Second, patience, so that he may bravely, indeed eagerly, endure all humiliations, mortifications, illnesses, adversities, tribulations, and persecutions, and give thanks to God, and sing with St. Theodore in his torments: 'I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall always be in my mouth.' Blessed be God, who gently chastises my sins in this life, 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 having offended the divine majesty, has 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 continually and generously sus-
tained. Fifth, compunction draws the mind away from the earth and every earthly desire, and joins it to God. For to one who is truly pierced with compunction, the world grows bitter, and nothing satisfies except God. Whence St. Bernard, treatise On the Manner of Living Well, chapter 10, says: 'Good compunction is a desirable treasure, and an unspeakable joy in the mind of man. The soul that has compunction in its heart advances toward salvation: the tears of penitents are reckoned as baptism before God.' And shortly after: 'Compunction of heart is the health of the soul. Compunction of mind is the illumination of the soul; for then the soul is illuminated when it is pierced to tears. Compunction of tears is the remission of sins; for then sins are forgiven when they are recalled to memory with tears. Compunction brings back the Holy Spirit to itself: for when the mind is visited by the Holy Spirit, immediately the man weeps for his sins.'
For these reasons the illustrious Saints, who at some time committed mortal sin, devoted their whole lives to compunction and penance. For although they knew that God had already pardoned this sin for them, yet out of zeal for divine love and honor, they wished to continually avenge His offense upon themselves. For profoundly considering how great is the divine majesty, power, and goodness, and how much these are injured and offended by sin, they would not spare themselves, but continually punished this sin, so that by doing penance they might restore to God the love and honor which they had injured by sinning.
St. Magdalene had heard from Christ: 'Many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much;' and yet for thirty years until her death, doing penance in her cave at La Sainte-Baume, she devoted herself to continual tears, groans, penances, and prayers, and established herself for all ages as a model of penance.
Peter, who had denied Christ, knew that Christ had looked upon him and had pardoned this fault; and yet every night at the cock's crowing, says St. Clement, falling on his knees he bewailed it with most abundant tears, to such a degree that his eyes from continual weeping appeared as if sprinkled with blood, says Nicephorus, Book 2, chapter 37.
St. Paul, called by Christ after his persecution, had heard: 'This man is My chosen vessel;' and yet he everywhere places himself among the penitents: '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,' 1 Corinthians 15:9. And: 'It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. But for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show all patience, for the instruction of those who would believe in Him unto eternal life,' 1 Timothy 1:15.
The royal Prophet knew that his sin of murder and adultery had been forgiven him by God. For as soon as-
having been rebuked by Nathan the prophet, he said: 'I have sinned against the Lord,' and heard from him: 'The Lord also has taken away your sin,' 2 Samuel 12:13; and yet he was continually pierced with compunction, groaning and weeping, entreating 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: 'You will feed us with the bread of tears: and give us tears to drink in measure,' that is, in great measure, so that I may send forth showers and torrents, indeed rivers of tears, which I may drink and imbibe.
St. Augustine even when dying gave himself to tears, and weeping he meditated upon and recited the Penitential Psalms, and therefore admitted no one except the physician to himself. And he added that no one, however good his conscience, should venture to depart this life without penance. So Possidius in his Life, chapters 30 and 31.
To pass over others, among all the Fathers St. Ephrem excelled in this spirit of compunction, who in all his writings sounds nothing other than death, judgment, mourning, and penance, so that in him this beatitude of Christ might be fulfilled: 'Blessed are those who mourn: for they shall be comforted.'
Closest to St. Ephrem is St. Jerome, who throughout his letters teaches and inculcates by word and example penance, austerity, contempt of the world, and the perfect life: for which reason his letters, in freedom of speech, effectiveness, sharpness, as well as in elegance of style, spirit, and precepts of virtues and perfection adapted to every state of life, surpass the letters of all the Fathers and Doctors, and are golden and most worthy to be continually read and studied by all.
With this spirit of compunction of his he imbued all his disciples and followers, and particularly St. Paula and Eustochium. Whence he writes thus of St. Paula in her Epitaph: 'In her you would believe there were fountains of tears: so she would bewail light sins, that you would believe her guilty of the most serious crimes. And when she was more frequently admonished by us to spare her eyes and preserve them for the reading of the Gospel, she would say: That face must be disfigured which, against the commandment of God, I have often painted with rouge, and white lead, and antimony; that body must be afflicted which has been given to many pleasures; long laughter must be compensated by perpetual weeping.' And in Epistle 17, St. Jerome, speaking in the name of St. Paula, inviting St. Marcella to Bethlehem, says in her person: 'When we have returned through Shiloh and Bethel to our cave, we shall sing continually, weep frequently, pray unceasingly: and wounded by the arrow of the Savior, we shall say together: I have found Him whom my soul sought: I will hold Him, and not let Him go.' Again St. Jerome, writing to Eustochium, says: 'Let us love Christ, and let us always seek His embraces; and everything difficult will seem easy, we shall think everything short that is long, and wounded by His arrow at every moment we shall say: Woe to me, that my sojourn has been prolonged!'
Moreover, the material, object, cause, and stimulus for compunction is manifold, but chiefly threefold. The first is one's own sins: for it is a sign of true penance and conversion to perpetually mourn and bewail them, even though already forgiven. The second is the sins of others, infidelity, heresy, depredations, persecutions, the public calamities of cities, provinces, kingdoms, and of the whole Church. So St. Augustine, when the Vandals were invading Africa and besieging Hippo, himself besieged in the city by them, continually bewailed not his own but the disaster of the city and of Africa, as Possidius testifies in his Life, chapter 29. The third stimulus is this exile, in which we live surrounded by so many dangers, temptations, troubles, and misfortunes. For who, placed in it, does not groan and sigh for heaven, for God? Certainly St. Paul sighed: 'Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?' The Psalmist sighed: 'As the deer longs for the springs of water, so my soul longs for You, O God. My soul thirsted for God, the living fountain: when shall I come and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread day and night, while it is said to me daily: Where is your God? These things I remembered, and I poured out my soul within me: for I shall pass 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.
St. Gregory says admirably in Book 6, Epistle 187: 'There are two kinds of compunction. One that fears eternal punishments: the other that sighs for heavenly rewards. The soul thirsting for God is first pierced with compunction by fear, then by love. For first it afflicts itself in tears, because, as it recalls the number of its evils, it dreads suffering eternal punishments for them. But when through long anxiety of grief the fear has been consumed, a certain security arising from the presumption of pardon is born, and the soul is inflamed with love of heavenly joys, and weeps most bitterly because it is deferred from the kingdom. For the mind contemplates who those choirs of Angels are, what that society of blessed spirits is, what that vision of the inward charity of God is,' etc. And he adds that this is the irrigation from below and from above which Achsah asked from her father Caleb, Joshua 15. See the same author, Book 23 of the Moralia, chapter 13, which is entirely on this subject.
Note fifth: The Rabbis err when they think that the Lamentations of chapters 1, 2, and 4 are the book that Jehoiakim burned, Jeremiah 36; and that chapter 3 of the Lamentations contains the other book which in the same chapter 36, by God's command, Jeremiah restored in place of the one that was burned, and which Baruch rewrote at his dictation. For first, that book contained threats about a future destruction, but these Lamentations are mourning over a destruction already accomplished and past. Second, that book contained threats not only against Judah, but also against other nations, as is clear from the same passage, verse 2; but the Lamentations concern the destruction of Jerusalem and Judea alone. Third, in the same passage, verse 29, it is said to have been written in that book: 'The king of Babylon will come swiftly, and will devastate this land;' but these words are not found in the Lamentations.
Tropologically, Jeremiah here bewails the captivity of the soul under sin, says Origen, which is held bound in Babylon, that is, in the confusion of vices, says Olympiodorus. For this soul, widowed from God her spouse, made tributary to the devil, pays tribute of new evil works and falls, and of new guilt as well as punishment, on each and every day, indeed every hour, and therefore is exiled and banished from God, from heaven, from the Saints and Angels, from every good and virtue. For the devil is the true Nebuchadnezzar, that is, the seat of anguish, says Olympiodorus, namely, the cruelest tyrant. Wherefore Blessed Isaiah the Abbot, in Volume 2 of the Library of the Holy Fathers, Oration 29, wrote lamentations of the soul subject to sins, in the manner of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, in which, among other things, he thus mourns:
'Woe to us, who in this brief span of life are given over to pleasure, because in order to satisfy the unjust and brief desire of the flesh, we make ourselves unworthy of the most delightful spectacle of divine glory!'
'Woe to us, who nourish and pamper our flesh in sins, which is to be dissolved into putrefaction and become food for worms, and we do not dread the fire in which we are to be perpetually tormented, nor the worm that never sleeps!'
'Woe to us, who do not compare mortality with immortality, and neglect the divine and fearsome justice.'
'Woe to us, who so easily feel the diseases and pains of the body; but in the most grievous sickness and wounds of the soul we lack all sensation!'
'Woe to us, who, though we are to render account for every action, for every idle word, and finally for all wicked and impure thoughts before the most severe Judge, yet as if we were going to be free, liable to render no accounts, we pass the entire time of our life without any concern for this matter!'
'Woe to us, who cannot bear the bites and stings of fleas, and lice, and vermin, and flies, and gnats, and bees; but from the huge dragon who opens his horrible jaws to devour and swallow us, and to wound us with all the pestilent stings of death, we neither strive to flee, nor implore any help against him!'
Hear similar laments of St. Jerome over the disasters of his own age (such as we too experience in ours) in the Epitaph of Nepotian: 'It is twenty and more years now that between Constantinople and the Julian Alps, Roman blood is poured out daily. Scythia, Thrace, Macedonia, Dardania, Dacia, Thessalonica, Epirus, Achaia, Dalmatia, and all the Pannonias are being devastated, dragged off, and plundered by the Goth, the Sarmatian, the Quadian, the Alan, the Huns, the Vandals, the Marcomanni. How many matrons, how many virgins of God, and freeborn and noble persons have been the sport of these beasts! Bishops have been captured, priests slain, and the offices of various clergy destroyed. Churches have been overturned, horses stabled at the altars of Christ, the relics of Martyrs dug up. Everywhere mourning, everywhere groaning, and the manifold image of death. The Roman world is falling, and yet our stiff neck does not bend.' And below: 'Happy Nepotian, who does not see these things, who does not hear them. We are wretched, who either suffer, or behold our suffering brothers enduring so much, and yet we wish to live, and think those who are free from these things should be wept for rather than considered blessed. We long since have felt God offended, and yet we do not appease Him. By our sins the barbarians are strong, by our vices the Roman army is overcome, and as if these disasters were not enough, civil wars have consumed almost more than the enemy's sword. Wretched Israelites, in comparison with whom Nebuchadnezzar is called a servant of God. Unhappy are we, who displease God so much, that through the fury of the barbarians His wrath rages against us. Hezekiah did penance, and 185,000 Assyrians were destroyed by one Angel in one night. Jehoshaphat was singing the praises of the Lord, and the Lord was conquering on behalf of the one who praised Him. Moses fought against Amalek not with the sword but with prayer. If we wish to be raised up, let us prostrate ourselves. O shame, and a mind stupid to the point of unbelief! The Roman army, conqueror and master of the world, is conquered by these, fears these, is terrified by the sight of those who cannot walk, who, if they touch the ground, think themselves dead. And we do not understand the words of the Prophets: A thousand shall flee at the pursuit of one? Nor do we cut out the causes of the disease, so that the disease may likewise be removed, and we may immediately see arrows yielding to javelins, turbans to helmets, pack-horses to war-horses.'
Latebrius explains the Lamentations as concerning the Blessed Virgin mourning the torments and cross of Christ. But this sense is not the proper one, but only accommodated.
But how certain passages from the Lamentations properly apply by allegory to the Passion of Christ, I shall discuss in chapter 3.
The Jews read the Lamentations in their synagogues on the ninth day of the month of Ab, that is, of July, according to the prescription of the Rabbis; because on that day Israel fell, and Jerusalem with the temple was burned.
Allegorically, properly the Lamentations are a lament over the Church Militant, when she is harassed by persecutors on account of the sins of her faithful; for this is the allegorical Jerusalem laid waste. So Alvarus of Pelagius adapts these Lamentations throughout to the Church, in Book 2 of the Lament of the Church at the beginning, where he bewails the defects and abuses of laypeople, Ecclesiastics, and Religious in particular. See also Cardinal Bellarmine, in his book On the Groaning of the Dove.
Note: In Volume 5 of St. Jerome's works there exist Commentaries on the Lamentations, but they are not by St. Jerome; and this is clear both from the style, and because in them are found passages taken from St. Gregory the Pope, who was far later than St. Jerome. The Gembloux manuscript attributes them to the Venerable Bede. In the works of Rabanus published at Basel, these Commentaries are also contained, and they plainly appear to be by Rabanus.
There also wrote on the Lamentations: Origen, Olympiodorus, Theodoret, Procopius, and in later centuries Lyranus, Hugh, and many others, among whom Paschasius Radbertus, Abbot of Corbie, who flourished in the year of the Lord 880, excels. Most recently from our Society have written Martinus Delrio, Gaspar Sanchez, and Christophorus a Castro.
were later than Jerome, excerpted. A manuscript codex of Gembloux attributes them to the Venerable Bede. In the works of Rabanus printed at Basel, these Commentaries are also contained, and they plainly appear to be by Rabanus. Origen, Olympiodorus, Theodoretus, Procopius also wrote on the Lamentations, and in later centuries Lyranus, Hugo, and many others, among whom Paschasius Ratbertus, Abbot of Corbie, who flourished in the year of the Lord 880, excels. Most recently from our Society, Martinus Delrio, Gaspar Sanchez, and Christophorus a Castro have written.