The roads to Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
All Commentaries on Lamentations 1:4 Go To Lamentations 1
Gregory of Nyssa
AD 394
“Call for the mourning women,” the prophet Jeremiah says. In no other way can the burning heart cool down, swelling as it is with its affliction, unless it relieves itself by sobs and tears.… You have heard certain mournful and lamenting words of Jeremiah that he used to mourn Jerusalem as a deserted city and how among other expressions of passionate grief he added this, “The ways of Zion do mourn.” These words were uttered then, but now they have been realized. For when the news of our calamity shall have been spread abroad, then will the ways be full of mourning crowds and the sheep of his flock will pour themselves forth and like the Ninevites utter the voice of lamentation, or, rather, will lament more bitterly than they. For in their case their mourning released them from the cause of their fear, but with these no hope of release from their distress removes their need of mourning. I know, too, of another utterance of Jeremiah, which is reckoned among the books of the Psalms. It is that which he made over the captivity of Israel. The words run thus: “We hung our harps on the willows and condemned ourselves as well as our harps to silence.” I make this song my own. For when I see the confusion of heresy, this confusion is Babylon. And when I see the flood of trials that pours in on us from this confusion, I say that these are “the waters of Babylon by which we sit down and weep” because there is no one to guide us over them. Even if you mention the willows, and the harps that hung there, that part also of the figure shall be mine. For, in truth, our life is among willows, the willow being a fruitless tree, and the sweet fruit of our life having all withered away. Therefore we have become fruitless willows, and the harps of love we hung on those trees are idle and the strings no longer vibrate. “If I forget you, O Jerusalem,” he adds, “may my right hand be forgotten.” Suffer me to make a slight alteration in that text. It is not we who have forgotten the right hand but the right hand that has forgotten us; and the “tongue has cleaved to the roof of” his own “mouth” and barred the passage of his words, so that we can never again hear that sweet voice. But let me have all tears wiped away, for I feel that I am indulging more than is right in this sorrow for our loss.
Our Bridegroom has not been taken from us. He stands in our midst, although we see him not. The Priest is within the holy place. He has entered into that within the veil, where our forerunner Christ has entered for us. He has left behind him the curtain of the flesh. No longer does he pray to the type or shadow of the things in heaven, but he looks on the very embodiment of these realities. No longer through a glass darkly does he intercede with God, but face to face he intercedes with him; and he intercedes for us and for the “negligences and ignorances” of the people. He has put away the coats of skin, no need is there now for the dwellers in paradise to wear such garments as these; but he wears the clothing that the purity of his life has woven into a glorious dress. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death” of such an individual, or rather it is not death but the breaking of bonds, as it is said, “You have broken my bonds asunder.” Simeon has been allowed to leave. He has been freed from the bondage of the body. The “snare is broken, and the bird has flown away.” He has left Egypt behind, this material life. He has crossed not this Red Sea of ours but the black, gloomy sea of life. He has entered on the land of promise and holds lofty conversations with God on the mountain. He has loosed the sandal of his soul, that with the pure step of thought he may set foot on that holy land where there is the vision of God. Having therefore this consolation, you who are conveying the bones of our Joseph to the place of blessing should listen to the exhortation of Paul: “Do not mourn as others who have no hope.”
