How does the city sit lovely, that was full of people! how has she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how has she become a slave!
All Commentaries on Lamentations 1:1 Go To Lamentations 1
Glossa Ordinaria
AD 1480
St. Paschasius. There are Canticles of Canticles; there are also Lamentations of Lamentations.
The book of Solomon is called the ‘Canticles of Canticles’, Jeremiah’s Threni the
‘Lamentations of Lamentations’. For as the Canticles excel, in which the
bridegroom or the bride enjoys sweet embraces, so do the Lamentations, in
which the bridegroom’s absence from the bride is deplored by many ways of
weeping, whence it is said: How doth the city sit solitary &c. In those Canticles,
several persons are introduced to wedding bliss; in these Lamentations, many
are deplored who have been taken away. Canticles are proper in the heavenly
fatherland, lamentations in this life’s misery. Therefore, David says: A hymn
becomes You in Zion, O God, and elsewhere: Blessed is the man whose help is from thee;
in his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps, in the vale of tears, in the place which he hath
set.
St. Paschasius. He laments by means of a fourfold alphabet, as both we and the world
consist of four elements – fire, air, water, earth – in order that we who are
made of four elements, should grieve by way of four alphabets. That the
prophet laments not only the present, but also the future and the past, the
Book of Proverbs reveals, where you read that the entire Judea and Jerusalem
mourned Joshua, and Jeremiah in particular.
Beneath the four cardinal directions he laments by means of a fourfold
alphabet the trespasses of the present world, inviting everyone to wailing. For
this number is material, since both man and the world are composed of four
elements. Four are the seasons, four the climates; our age likewise consists of
four parts: both of the day, the week, the month and the year. Therefore this number, somehow material and square and solid, matches everything with
itself, not only worldly things, but also celestial, so that they will stand firm.
Four are the evangelists, four the excellent virtues, whence the others originate,
by which, as by the four rivers of paradise, all the germs of virtue are watered.
Since, therefore, we, who do wrong within and without, consist of four
elements, it is just that we together with the prophet lament in a fourfold
number, and by means of a material number renew ourselves inside and
outside, that the single wailing of the letters should be opposed to the single
degradations of morals and bodies, that we, who are held captive upon the rivers
of Babylon, absolved by penitence and grace, shall enjoy true liberty in our own
Zion.
St. Paschasius. It is an accepted fact that there are many kinds of wailing, many diversities
of tears. We bemoan our own detriment differently from another’s. In one way
we lament owing to our yearning for the heavenly fatherland, in another way
because of the immensity of our offenses and in dread of hell. We lament
differently on account of the distress of heart than we do of love for pious
recollection. Divine Scripture explains these diversities of weeping in different
places, when it describes the various passions and lamentations of individuals.
Hence David: My tears have been my bread day and night &c, and elsewhere: I have
labored in my groanings, every night I will wash my bed: I will water my couch with my
tears. And Jeremiah: My eye is troubled through indignation &c. The faithful are
moved by these passions, who have recalled to their minds that whole volume
of Ezekiel, in which there had been written lamentations and songs and woe.
St. Paschasius. In Lamentations, we have decided to expound the ruin of the earthly city as
well as the forfeit of the Church and the hazard of souls and, owing to the
suitability of the passages, direct the meanings according to three times.
The Threni, as St Jerome says, were in Hebrew composed by means of the
rules of metre. Hence, in Latin, the single Hebrew letters, with which, in
Hebrew, every verse takes its beginning, are put before every separate sentence,
and not so many letters lack mystical sense, since not one tittle, nor one jot of the
law shall pass away. Thus, the understanding of every single letter should be
adapted to every single sentence.
Aleph is interpreted as ‘doctrine’. The true doctrine is, however, that by
which God is known and the state or weakness of each and everyone is not
ignored. Hence Isaiah: Glorify ye the Lord in instruction. Then Jeremiah, in a spirit
of grief, says: How doth the city sit solitary &c. He does not lament the walls of the
city but, figuratively, his people taken into captivity. Hence Isaiah: And the
daughter Zion shall be left as a covert in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,
and as a city that is laid waste. This is a forceful prophet’s outcry, full of wailing,
full of pain, full of astonishment and dismay.
Gilbert. It is manifest that the Lamentations of Jeremiah are in a special way
punctuated by the clause of speech, or colored by means of asyndeton. For
the case is said to be briefly completed without a presentation of the whole
sentence, which is succeeded by another clause of the speech, as this is: Weeping
she has wept in the night &c. Occasionally, by way of asyndeton, connecting
particles are removed, separate parts are brought forth in this fashion: How doth
the city sit solitary &c, and in a rhetorical manner the speech sometimes consists
of two clauses, sometimes of three or more.
St. Paschasius. A lamentation is a compunction, infused by the gift of the Holy Ghost in
the hearts of men, either due to moaning over the present life or yearning for
the everlasting. We read David’s laments over Saul and Jonathan and over
Absalon. Ezekiel wept with much weeping, Peter cried bitterly. But these are justly
called the ‘Lamentations of Lamentations’ and so extend genus to species, as
sometimes species is extended to genus. So the ruin of the earthly Jerusalem
and of the people are deplored, that the detriments of the present Church may
be bewailed. So the new people’s community with the old, who, dashing from
the faith, are being captured, is lamented, as is the ruin of each and everyone’s
soul, which used to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. So Lamentations allude
to the present captivity, under which this prophecy takes place, that the
captivity under Titus and Vespasian may not be entirely forgotten. Finally the
prophet, considering all the adversities and ruins of present life both wails and
moans individual things, so that the individuals may learn to deplore their own,
while he pities common and foreign offenses.
