LAMENNAIS

lamennais, hugues felicite robert de (1782-1854), french priest, and philosophical and political writer, was born at saint malo, in brittany, on the 19th of june 1782. he was the son of a shipowner of saint malo ennobled by louis xvi. for public services, and was intended by his father to follow mercantile pursuits. he spent long hours in the library of an uncle, devouring the writings of rousseau, pascal and others. he thereby acquired a vast and varied, though superficial, erudition, which determined his subsequent career. of a sickly and sensitive nature, and impressed by the horrors of the french revolution, his mind was early seized with a morbid view of life, and this temper characterized him throughout all his changes of opinion and circumstance. he was at first inclined towards rationalistic views, but partly through the influence of his brother jean marie (1775-1861), partly as a result of his philosophical and historical studies, he felt belief to be indispensable to action and saw in religion the most powerful leaven of the community. he gave utterance to these convictions in the _reflexions sur l'etat de l'eglise en france pendant le 18^(ieme) siecle et sur sa situation actuelle_, published anonymously in paris in 1808. napoleon's police seized the book as dangerously ideological, with its eager recommendation of religious revival and active clerical organization, but it awoke the ultramontane spirit which has since played so great a part in the politics of churches and of states. as a rest from political strife, lamennais devoted most of the following year to a translation, in exquisite french, of the _speculum monachorum_ of ludovicus blosius (louis de blois) which he entitled _le guide spirituel_ (1809). in 1811 he received the tonsure and shortly afterwards became professor of mathematics in an ecclesiastical college founded by his brother at saint malo. soon after napoleon had concluded the concordat with pius vii. he published, in conjunction with his brother, _de la tradition de l'eglise sur l'institution des eveques_ (1814), a writing occasioned by the emperor's nomination of cardinal maury to the archbishopric of paris, in which he strongly condemned the gallican principle which allowed bishops to be created irrespective of the pope's sanction. he was in paris at the first bourbon restoration in 1814, which he hailed with satisfaction, less as a monarchist than as a strenuous apostle of religious regeneration. dreading the _cent jours_, he escaped to london, where he obtained a meagre livelihood by giving french lessons in a school founded by the abbe jules carron for french emigres; he also became tutor at the house of lady jerningham, whose first impression of him as an imbecile changed into friendship. on the final overthrow of napoleon in 1815 he returned to paris, and in the following year, with many misgivings as to his calling, he yielded to his brother's and carron's advice, and was ordained priest by the bishop of rennes. the first volume of his great work, _essai sur l'indifference en matiere de religion_, appeared in 1817 (eng. trans. by lord stanley of alderley, london, 1898), and affected europe like a spell, investing, in the words of lacordaire, a humble priest with all the authority once enjoyed by bossuet. lamennais denounced toleration, and advocated a catholic restoration to belief. the right of private judgment, introduced by descartes and leibnitz into philosophy and science, by luther into religion and by rousseau and the encyclopaedists into politics and society, had, he contended, terminated in practical atheism and spiritual death. ecclesiastical authority, founded on the absolute revelation delivered to the jewish people, but supported by the universal tradition of all nations, he proclaimed to be the sole hope of regenerating the european communities. three more volumes (paris, 1818-1824) followed, and met with a mixed reception from the gallican bishops and monarchists, but with the enthusiastic adhesion of the younger clergy. the work was examined by three roman theologians, and received the formal approval of leo xii. lamennais visited rome at the pope's request, and was offered a place in the sacred college, which he refused. on his return to france he took a prominent part in political work, and together with chateaubriand, the vicomte de villele, was a regular contributor to the _conservateur_, but when villele became the chief of the supporters of absolute monarchy, lamennais withdrew his support and started two rival organs, _le drapeau blanc_ and _le memorial catholique_. various other minor works, together with _de la religion consideree dans ses rapports avec l'ordre civil et politique_ (2 vols., 1825-1826), kept his name before the public. he retired to la chenaie and gathered round him a host of brilliant disciples, including c. de montalembert, lacordaire and maurice de guerin, his object being to form an organized body of opinion to persuade the french clergy and laity to throw off the yoke of the state connexion. with rome at his back, as he thought, he adopted a frank and bold attitude in denouncing the liberties of the gallican church. his health broke down and he went to the pyrenees to recruit. on his return to la chenaie in 1827 he had another dangerous illness, which powerfully impressed him with the thought that he had only been dragged back to life to be the instrument of providence. _les progres de la revolution et de la guerre contre l'eglise_ (1828) marked lamennais's complete renunciation of royalist principles, and henceforward he dreamt of the advent of a theocratic democracy. to give effect to these views he founded _l'avenir_, the first number of which appeared on the 16th of october 1830, with the motto "god and liberty." from the first the paper was aggressively democratic; it demanded rights of local administration, an enlarged suffrage, universal freedom of conscience, freedom of instruction, of meeting, and of the press. methods of worship were to be criticized, improved or abolished in absolute submission to the spiritual, not to the temporal authority. with the help of montalembert, he founded the _agence generale pour la defense de la liberte religieuse_, which became a far-reaching organization, it had agents all over the land who noted any violations of religious freedom and reported them to headquarters. as a result, _l'avenir's_ career was stormy, and the opposition of the conservative bishops checked its circulation; lamennais, montalembert and lacordaire resolved to suspend it for a while, and they set out to rome in november 1831 to obtain the approval of gregory xvi. the "pilgrims of liberty" were, after much opposition, received in audience by the pope, but only on the condition that the object which brought them to rome should not be mentioned. this was a bitter disappointment to such earnest ultramontanes, who received, a few days after the audience, a letter from cardinal pacca, advising their departure from rome and suggesting that the holy see, whilst admitting the justice of their intentions, would like the matter left open for the present. lacordaire and montalembert obeyed; lamennais, however, remained in rome, but his last hope vanished with the issue of gregory's letter to the polish bishops, in which the polish patriots were reproved and the tsar was affirmed to be their lawful sovereign. he then "shook the dust of rome from off his feet." at munich, in 1832, he received the encyclical _mirari vos_, condemning his policy; as a result _l'avenir_ ceased and the _agence_ was dissolved. lamennais, with his two lieutenants, submitted, and deeply wounded, retired to la chenaie. his genius and prophetic insight had turned the entire catholic church against him, and those for whom he had fought so long were the fiercest of his opponents. the famous _paroles d'un croyant_, published in 1834 through the intermediary of sainte-beuve, marks lamennais's severance from the church. "a book, small in size, but immense in its perversity," was gregory's criticism in a new encyclical letter. a tractate of aphorisms, it has the vigour of a hebrew prophecy and contains the choicest gems of poetic feeling lost in a whirlwind of exaggerations and distorted views of kings and rulers. the work had an extraordinary circulation and was translated into many european languages. it is now forgotten as a whole, but the beautiful appeals to love and human brotherhood are still reprinted in every hand-book of french literature. henceforth lamennais was the apostle of the people alone. _les affaires de rome, des maux de l'eglise et de la societe_ (1837) came from old habit of religious discussions rather than from his real mind of 1837, or at most it was but a last word. _le livre du peuple_ (1837), _de l'esclavage moderne_ (1839), _politique a l'usage du peuple_ (1839), three volumes of articles from the journal of the extreme democracy, _le monde_, are titles of works which show that he had arrived among the missionaries of liberty, equality and fraternity, and he soon got a share of their martyrdom. _le pays et le gouvernement_ (1840) caused him a year's imprisonment. he struggled through difficulties of lost friendships, limited means and personal illnesses, faithful to the last to his hardly won dogma of the sovereignty of the people, and, to judge by his contribution to louis blanc's _revue du progres_ was ready for something like communism. he was named president of the "societe de la solidarite republicaine," which counted half a million adherents in fifteen days. the revolution of 1848 had his sympathies, and he started _le peuple constituant_; however, he was compelled to stop it on the 10th of july, complaining that silence was for the poor, but again he was at the head of _la revolution democratique et sociale_, which also succumbed. in the constituent assembly he sat on the left till the _coupe d'etat_ of napoleon iii. in 1851 put an end to all hopes of popular freedom. while deputy he drew up a constitution, but it was rejected as too radical. thereafter a translation of dante chiefly occupied him till his death, which took place in paris on the 27th of february 1854. he refused to be reconciled to the church, and was buried according to his own directions at pere la chaise without funeral rites, being mourned by a countless concourse of democratic and literary admirers. during the most difficult time of his republican period he found solace for his intellect in the composition of _une voix de prison_, written during his imprisonment in a similar strain to _les paroles d'un croyant_. this is an interesting contribution to the literature of captivity; it was published in paris in 1846. he also wrote _esquisse de philosophie_ (1840). of the four volumes of this work the third, which is an exposition of art as a development from the aspirations and necessities of the temple, stands pre-eminent, and remains the best evidence of his thinking power and brilliant style. there are two so-called _oeuvres completes de lamennais_, the first in 10 volumes (paris, 1836-1837), and the other in 10 volumes (paris, 1844); both these are very incomplete and only contain the works mentioned above. the most noteworthy of his writings subsequently published are: _amschaspands et darvands_ (1843), _le deuil de la pologne_ (1846), _melanges philosophiques et politiques_ (1856), _les evangiles_ (1846) and _la divine comedie_, these latter being translations of the gospels and of dante. part of his voluminous correspondence has also appeared. the most interesting volumes are the following: _correspondance de f. de lamennais_, edited by e. d. forgues (2 vols., 1855-1858); _oeuvres inedites de f. lamennais_, edited by ange blaize (2 vols., 1866); _correspondance inedite entre lamennais et le baron de vitrolles_, edited by e. d. forgues (1819-1853); _confidences de lamennais, lettres inedites de 1821 a 1848_, edited by a. du bois de la villerabel (1886); _lamennais d'apres des documents inedits_, by alfred roussel (rennes, 2 vols., 1892); _lamennais intime, d'apres une correspondance inedite_, by a. roussel (rennes, 1897); _un lamennais inconnu_, edited by a. laveille (1898); _lettres de lamennais a montalembert_, edited by e. d. forgues (1898); and many other letters published in the _revue bleue_, _revue britannique_, &c. a list of lives or studies on lamennais would fill several columns. the following may be mentioned. a blaize, _essai biographique sur m. de lamennais_ (1858); e. d. forgues, _notes et souvenirs_ (1859); f. brunetiere, _nouveaux essais sur la litterature contemporaine_ (1893); e. faguet, _politiques et moralistes_, ii. (1898); p. janet, _la philosophie de lamennais_ (1890); p. mercier, s.j., _lamennais d'apres sa correspondance et les travaux les plus recents_ (1893); a. mollien et f. duine, _lamennais, sa vie et ses idees_; _pages choisies_ (lyons, 1898); the hon. w. gibson, _the abbe de lammenais and the liberal catholic movement in france_ (london, 1896); e. renan _essais de morale et de critique_ (1857); e. scherer, _melanges de critique religieuse_ (1859); g. e. spuller, _lamennais, etude d'histoire et de politique religieuse_ (1892); mgr. ricard, _l'ecole menaisienne_ (1882), and sainte-beuve, _portraits contemporains_, tome i. (1832), and _nouveaux lundis_, tome i. p. 22; tome xi. p. 347. lamentations (_lamentations of jeremiah_), a book of the old testament. in hebrew mss. and editions this little collection of liturgical poems is entitled [hebrew: eiha] _ah how!_, the first word of ch. i. (and chs. ii., iv.); cf. the books of the pentateuch, and the babylonian epic of creation (a far older example). in the septuagint it is called [greek: threnoi], "funeral-songs" or "dirges," the usual rendering of heb. [hebrew: kinot] (am. v. 1; jer. vii. 29; 2 sam. i. 17), which is, in fact, the name in the talmud (_baba bathra_ 15a) and other jewish writings; and it was known as such to the fathers (jerome, _cinoth_). the septuagint (b) introduces the book thus: "and it came to pass, after israel was taken captive and jerusalem laid waste, jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over jerusalem, and said...," a notice which may have related originally to the first poem only. some septuagint mss., and the syriac and other versions, have the fuller title _lamentations of jeremiah_. in the hebrew bible lamentations is placed among the _cetubim_ or hagiographa, usually as the middle book of the five _megilloth_ or ferial rolls (canticles, ruth, lamentations, ecclesiastes, esther) according to the order of the days on which they are read in the synagogue, lamentations being read on the 9th of ab (6th of august), when the destruction of the temple is commemorated (_mass. sopherim_ 18). but the septuagint appends the book to jeremiah (_baruch_ intervening), just as it adds ruth to judges; thus making the number of the books of the hebrew canon the same as that of the letters of the hebrew alphabet, viz. twenty-two (so jos. c. ap. i. 8), instead of the synagogal twenty-four (see _baba bathra_ 14b). _external features and poetical structure._--these poems exhibit a peculiar metre, the so-called "limping verse," of which am. v. 2 is a good instance: "she is fallen, to rise no more-- maid israel! left lorn upon her land-- none raising her!" a longer line, with three accented syllables, is followed by a shorter with two. chs. i.-iii. consist of stanzas of three such couplets each; chs. iv. and v. of two like am. v. 2. this metre came in time to be distinctive of elegy. the text of lamentations, however, so often deviates from it, that we can only affirm the _tendency_ of the poet to cast his couplets into this type (driver). some anomalies, both of metre and of sense, may be removed by judicious emendation; and many lines become smooth enough, if we assume a crasis of open vowels of the same class, or a diphthongal pronunciation of others, or contraction or silence of certain suffixes as in syriac. the oldest elegiac utterances are not couched in this metre; e.g. david's (2 sam. iii. 33 f. abner; ib. i. 19-27 saul and jonathan). yet the refrain of the latter, '_eik naf 'lu gibborim_, "ah how are heroes fallen!" agrees with our longer line. the remote ancestor of this hebrew metre may be recognized in the babylonian epic of gilgamesh, written at least a thousand years earlier:-- _ea-bani ibri kutani_ | _nimru sha ceri_ "eabani, my friend, my little brother! | leopard of the wild!" and again:-- _kiki luskut_ | _kiki luqul-ma_ ibri sha arammu_ | _itemi tittish_ "how shall i be dumb? | how shall i bewail? the friend whom i love | is turned to clay!" like a few of the psalms, lamentations i.-iv. are alphabetical acrostics. each poem contains twenty-two stanzas, corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the hebrew alphabet; and each stanza begins with its proper letter. (in ch. iii. each of the three couplets in a stanza begins with the same letter, so that the alphabet is repeated thrice: cf. psalm cxix. for an eight-fold repetition.) the alphabet of lamentations ii. iii. iv. varies from the usual order of the letters by placing _pe_ before _ain_. the same was doubtless the case in ch. i. also until some scribe altered it. he went no further, because the sense forbade it in the other instances. the variation may have been one of local use, either in judea or in babylonia; or the author may have had some fanciful reason for the transposition, such as, for example, that _pe_ following _samech_ ([hebrew: sp]) might suggest the word [hebrew: sifdu], "wail ye!" (2 sam. iii. 31). although the oldest hebrew elegies are not alphabetic acrostics, it is a curious fact that the word [hebrew: aidach], "was he a coward?" (sc. [hebrew: libo]; is. vii. 4), is formed by the initial letters of the four lines on abner (om. [hebrew: ve], line 3); and the initials of the verses of david's great elegy are [hebrew: ha amshech eze], which may be read as a sentence meaning, perhaps, "lo, i the avenger" (cf. deut. xxxii. 41, 43) "will go forth!"; or the first two letters ([hebrew: he'alef']) may stand for [hebrew: hoi ahi], "alas, my brother!" (jer. xxii. 18; cf. xxxiv. 5). in cryptic fashion the poet thus registers a vow of vengeance on the philistines. both kinds of acrostic occur side by side in the psalms. psalm cx., an acrostic of the same kind as david's elegy, is followed by psalms cxi. cxii., which are alphabetical acrostics, like the lamentations. such artifices are not in themselves greater clogs on poetic expression than the excessive alliteration of old saxon verse or the strict rhymes of modern lyrics. (alliteration, both initial and internal, is common in lamentations.) as the final piece, ch. v. may have suffered more in transmission than those which precede it--even to the extent of losing the acrostic form (like some of the psalms and nahum i.), besides half of its stanzas. if we divide the chapter into quatrains, like ch. iv., we notice several vestiges of an acrostic. the _aleph_ stanza (verses 7, 8) still precedes the _beth_ (verses 9, 10), and the _ain_ is still quite clear (verses 17, 18; cf. i. 16). transposing verses 5, 6, and correcting their text, we see that the _jod_ stanza (verses 3, 4) precedes the _lamed_ (verses 6, 5), _caph_ having disappeared between them. with this clue, we may rearrange the other quatrains in alphabetical sequence, each according to its initial letter. we thus get a broken series of eleven stanzas, beginning with the letters [hebrew: alef] (verses 7, 8), [hebrew: beth] (9, 10), [hebrew: hei] (21, 22), [hebrew: vav] (19, cf. psalm cii. 13; and 20), [hebrew: nun] (1, 2), [hebrew: het] (13, [hebrew: horim]; 14), [hebrew: iod] (3, 4), [hebrew: lamed] (6, [hebrew: latzadim]; 5, [hebrew: hibkiru] ... [hebrew: ol]), [hebrew: nun] (11, 12), [hebrew: ayin] (17, 18), and [hebrew: shin] (15, 16), successively. an internal connexion will now be apparent in all the stanzas. _general subject and outline of contents._--the theme of lamentations is the final siege and fall of jerusalem (586 b.c.), and the attendant and subsequent miseries of the jewish people. in ch. i. we have a vivid picture of the distress of zion, after all is over. the poet does not describe the events of the siege, nor the horrors of the capture, but the painful experience of subjection and tyranny which followed. neither this nor ch. ii. is strictly a "dirge." zion is not dead. she is personified as a widowed princess, bereaved and desolate, sitting amid the ruins of her former joys, and brooding over her calamities. from verse 11c to the end (except verse 17) she herself is the speaker:-- "o come, ye travellers all! behold and see if grief there be like mine!" she images her sorrows under a variety of metaphors (cf. ch. iii. 1-18); ascribing all her woes to yahweh's righteous wrath, provoked by her sins, and crying for vengeance on the malicious rivals who had rejoiced at her overthrow. the text has suffered much. verse 5c read: [hebrew: bashevi] (v. 18), "into captivity," [hebrew: zarim] (v. 7), "adversaries." for verse 7, see budde, v. 14: [hebrew: nishkod], read [hebrew: nikshar], "was bound." verse 19c read: [hebrew: aval lhashiv nefesh velo matzu ki bikshu] "for they sought food to restore life, and found it not:" cf. septuagint; and verses 11, 16. verse 20: the incongruous [hebrew: ki maro mariti], "for i grievously rebelled," should be [hebrew: nihmeru rahamai], "my inwards burn"; hos. xi. 8. verses 21 f.: "all my foes heard, rejoiced that it" (cf. psalm ix. 13), "thou didst. bring thou" ([hebrew: havee et]), "the day thou hast proclaimed; let them become like me! let the time" ([hebrew: et]; see septuagint) "of their calamity come!" chapter ii.--"ah how in wrath the lord | beclouds bath-sion!" the poet laments yahweh's anger as the true cause which destroyed city and kingdom, suspended feast and sabbath, rejected altar and sanctuary. he mentions the uproar of the victors in the temple; the dismantling of the walls; the exile of king and princes (verses 1-9). he recalls the mourning in the doomed city; the children dying of hunger in the streets; the prophets deluding the people with vain hopes. passers-by jeered at the fallen city; and all her enemies triumphed over her (verses 10-17). sion is urged to cry to the lord in protest against his pitiless work (verses 18-22). here too emendation is necessary. verse 4a: [hebrew: hetziv hatzev], "he fixed his arrow," sc. on the string (septuagint, [greek: estereosen]); cf. psalm xi. 2. add at the end [hebrew: kila (et) apo], "he spent his anger:" see iv. 11; ezek. vii. 8, xx. 8, 21. verse 6: [hebrew: vaifratz gader mishkano], "and he broke down the wall of his dwelling-place" (septuagint [greek: tho skenoma autou]; cf. psalm lxxxiv. 7f., where [hebrew: moed] follows, as here). is. v. 5; psalms lxxx. 13, lxxxix. 41. perhaps [hebrew: vaiehares], verses 2, 17. but septuagint [greek: kahi diepetasen] = [hebrew: vaifros] (i. 13, 17) = [hebrew: vaifros] (iv. 4) or even [hebrew: vaifrotz]. verse 9, perhaps: "he sunk ([hebrew: tava]) her gates in the ground,--he shattered her bars; he made her king and her princes wander ([hebrew: ybir], jer. xxiii. 1)--among the nations without torah" (cf. ezek. vii. 26 f.). verse 18: "cry much" ([hebrew: rabat]; or bitterly, [hebrew: mar], zeph. i. 14) "unto the lord, o virgin daughter of zion!" verse 19 is metrically redundant, and the last clauses do not agree with what follows. "for the life of thy children" was altered from "for what he hath done to thee" ([hebrew: al sheolel leha]); and then the rest was added. the uniform gloom of this, the most dirge-like of all the pieces, is unrelieved by a single ray of hope, even the hope of vengeance; cf. chapters i. iii. iv. _ad fin_. chapter iii.--here the nation is personified as a man (cf. hos. xi. 1), who laments his own calamities. in view of i. 12-22, ii. 20-22, this is hardly a serious deviation from the strict form of elegy (_klagelied_). budde makes much of "the close external connexion with ch. ii." the truth is that the break is as great as between any two of these poems. chapter ii. ends with a mother's lament over her slaughtered children; chapter iii. makes an entirely new beginning, with its abruptly independent "i am the man!" the suppression of the divine name is intentional. israel durst not breathe it, until compelled by the climax, verse 18: cf. am. vi. 10. contrast its frequency afterwards, when ground of hope is found in the divine pity and purpose (verses 22-40), and when the contrite nation turns to its god in prayer (verses 55-66). the spiritual aspect of things is now the main topic. the poet deals less with incident, and more with the moral significance of the nation's sufferings. it is the religious culmination of the book. his poem is rather lyrical than narrative, which may account for some obscurities in the connexion of thought; but his alphabetic scheme proves that he _designed_ twenty-two stanzas, not sixty-six detached couplets. there is something arresting in that bold "i am the man"; and the lyrical intensity, the religious depth and beauty of the whole, may well blind us to occasional ruggedness of metre and language, abrupt transitions from figure to figure and other alleged blemishes, some of which may not have seemed such to the poet's contemporaries (e.g. the repetition of the acrostic word, far more frequent in psalm cxix.); and some disappear on revision of the text. verse 5, perhaps: "he swallowed me up" (jer. li. 34) "and begirt my head" (septuagint) "with gloom" ([hebrew: afela] is. lviii. 10, cf. verse 6, yet cf. also [hebrew: halaa], neh. ix. 32). verse 14: "all my people," rather _all peoples_ (heb. mss. and syr.). verse 16b, rd. [hebrew: yflishani], "he made me bore" (i.e. grovel) "in the ashes:" cf. jer. vi. 26; ezek. xxvii. 30. verse 17a should be: [hebrew: vaiznah leolam nafshi] "and he cast off my soul for ever:" see verse 31; psalm lxxxviii. 15. verse 26: "it is good _to wait_" [hebrew: leohil] "_in silence_" ([hebrew: dumam] is. xlvii. 5); or "it is good _that he wait and be silent_" ([hebrew: ki yohil vedamam]; cf. verse 27). verse 31, add [hebrew: nafsho], "his soul." the verse is a reply to 17a. verses 34-36 render: "to crush under his feet ... adonai _purposed_ not" (gen. xx. 10; psalm lxvi. 18). verse 39, [hebrew: hai] (gen. v. 5; or [hebrew: haya] neh. ix. 29) is the necessary second verb: "why doth a mortal complain?" (or "what ... lament?"). "doth a man live by his sins?": man "lives by" righteousness (ezek. xxxiii. 19). for the wording, cf. psalm lxxxix. 49. verse 43a: "thou didst encompass with" (rg. [hebrew: savota]; hos. xii. 1) "anger and pursue us." syntax as verse 66a. verse 49, rd. [hebrew: tefune] (cf. ii. 18 also). verse 51: "mine eye did hurt to herself" [hebrew: lenafsha]), "by weeping over my people:" verse 48: ch. i. 16; jer. xxxi. 15. verse 52: "they quelled my life in the pit" (sheol; psalms xxx. 4, lxxxviii. 4, 7; verse 55); "they _brought me down to abaddon_" ([hebrew: horiduni abaddon]; cf. psalm lxxxviii. 12). verse 58: "o plead, lord, the cause of my soul! o redeem my life!"; cf. psalm cxix. 154. if the prayer for vengeance begins here, budde's "deep division in the middle of an acrostic letter-group" vanishes. verse 59, rd. [hebrew: uti], "my perverting;" inf. pi. c. suff. obj.; cf. verse 36. verse 61b repeated by mistake from 60b. perhaps: "wherewith they dogged my steps:" [hebrew: shihrefu ekvotai]: psalm lxxxix. 51 f. verse 63, rd. [hebrew: komem], as usual, and [hebrew: neginatam], as in verse 14 and job xxx. 9. verse 65: "thou wilt give them madness" (cf. arab. _gunun_; _magnun_, mad) "of heart; thou wilt curse and consume them!" ([hebrew: tohar tohlam]). chapter iv. "ah, how doth gold grow dim,-- the finest ore change hue!" the poet shows how famine and the sword desolated zion (verses 1-10). all was yahweh's work; a wonder to the heathen world, but accounted for by the crimes of prophets and priests (jer. xxiii. 11, 14, xxvi. 8, 20 ff., xxix. 21-23), who, like cain, became homeless wanderers and outcasts (verses 11-16). vainly did the besieged watch for succours from egypt (jer. xxxvii. 5 ff.); and even the last forlorn hope, the flight of "yahweh's anointed," king zedekiah, was doomed to fail (verses 17-20; jer. xxxix. 4 ff). edom rejoiced in her ruin (ezek. xxv. 12; xxxv. 15; obad.; psalm cxxxvii. 7); but zion's sin is now atoned for (cf. is. xl. 2), and she may look forward to the judgment of her foe (verses 21-22). verse 6d, perhaps: "and their ruin tarried not" ([hebrew: ukt yihel piryam]); cf. pro. xxiv. 22. verse 7d: "their body" (rd. [hebrew: noiham]) "was a sapphire:" see ct. v. 14; dn. x. 6. verse 9: "happier were the slain of the sword than the slain of famine! for they" (septuagint om.), "they passed away" ([hebrew: halhu] septuagint; psalm xxxix. 14) "with a stab" (ju. ix. 54; is. xiii. 15; jer. li. 4), "suddenly, in the field" ([hebrew: pitom besh']; jer. xiv. 18). verse 13, add [hebrew: hi] after [hebrew: nevieia]; cf. ju. xiv. 4; jer. xxii. 16. verse 17c: "while we watched" (septuagint) "continually:" [hebrew: betzapoteinu tzafu]. verse 18: "our steps were curbed" ([hebrew: tzaru] mss.; see pro. iv. 12; job xviii. 7) "from walking in our open places" (before the city gates: neh. viii. 1, 3); "the completion of our days drew nigh" ([hebrew: karev yom meleot yameinu]; cf. lev. viii. 33; job xx. 22), "for our end was come" (ezek. vii. 2, 6, &c.). verse 21, septuagint om. uz (dittogr.?); "settler in the land!" (i.e. of judah; cf. ezek. xxxv. 10, xxxvi. 5. perhaps [hebrew: yorashti ha'] "seizer of the land"). chapter v.--a sorrowful supplication, in which the speakers deplore, not the fall of jerusalem, but their own state of galling dependence and hopeless poverty. they are still suffering for the sins of their fathers, who perished in the catastrophe (verse 7). they are at the mercy of "servants" (verse 8; cf. 2 kings xxv. 24; neh. v. 15: "yea, even their 'boys' lorded it over the people"), under a tyranny of pashas of the worst type (verses 11 f.). the soil is owned by aliens; and the jews have to buy their water and firewood (verses 2, 4; cf. neh. ix. 36 f.). while busy harvesting, they are exposed to the raids of the bedouins (verse 9). jackals prowl among the ruins of zion (verse 18; cf. neh. iv. 3). and this condition of things has already lasted a very long time (verse 20). verses 5 f. transpose and read: "to adversaries" ([hebrew: latzarim]) "we submitted, saying" ([hebrew: leemor]), "'we shall be satisfied with bread'" (cf. jer. xlii. 14); "the yoke of our neck they made heavy" (neh. v. 15: [hebrew: ehbidu al haam]); "we toil, and no rest is allowed us." verse 13: "nobles endured to grind, and princes staggered under logs" ([hebrew: horim] for [hebrew: bahurim], which belongs to verse 14; [hebrew: sarim] for [hebrew: nearim]. eccl. x. 7; is. xxxiv. 12; neh. iv. 14; v. 7; vi. 17). verse 19, "but thou..." psalm cii. 13 ([hebrew: ve] fell out after preceding [hebrew: vav], verse 18). verse 22, omit [hebrew: em]; dittogr. of following [hebrew: ma]. _authorship and date._--the tradition of jeremiah's authorship cannot be traced higher than the septuagint version. the prefatory note there may come from a hebrew ms., but perhaps refers to chapter i. only ("jeremiah sang _this dirge_"). the idea that lamentations was originally appended to jeremiah in the hebrew canon, as it is in the old versions, and was afterwards separated from it and added to the other megilloth for the liturgical convenience of the synagogue, rests on the fact that josephus (ap. i. 1, 8) and, following him, jerome and origen reckon 22 books, taking ruth with judges and lamentations with jeremiah; whereas the ordinary jewish reckoning gives 24 books, as in our hebrew bibles. there is no evidence that this artificial reckoning according to the number of letters in the hebrew alphabet was ever much more than a fanciful suggestion. even in the septuagint the existing order may not be original. it appears likely that lamentations was not translated by the same hand as jeremiah (noldeke). unlike the latter, the septuagint lamentations sticks closely to the massoretic text. the two books can hardly have been united from the first. on the strength of 2 chron. xxxv. 25, some ancient writers (e.g. jerome _ad_ zech. xii. 11) held that jeremiah composed lamentations. when, however, josephus (ant. x. 5, 1) states that jeremiah wrote an elegy on josiah still extant in his day, he may be merely quoting a little too much of chron. loc. cit.; and it is obvious that he need not mean our book (see whiston's note). it is urged, indeed, that the author of chronicles could not have imagined a prophet to have sympathized with such a king as zedekiah so warmly as is implied by lamentations iv. 20; and, therefore, he must have connected the passage with josiah, the last of the good kings. however that may have been, the chronicler neither says that jeremiah wrote _all_ the elegies comprised in _the qinoth_, nor does he imply that the entire collection consisted of only five pieces. rather, the contrary; for he implies that _the qinoth_ contained not only jeremiah's single dirge on josiah, but also the elegies of "all the singing men and singing women," from the time of josiah's death (608) down to his own day (3rd century). the untimely fate of josiah became a stock allusion in dirges. it is not meant that for three centuries the dirge-writers had nothing else to sing of; much less, that they sang of the fall of jerusalem (presupposed by our book) before its occurrence. upon the whole, it does not seem probable, either that the chronicler mistook lamentations iv. for jeremiah's dirge on josiah, or that the book he calls _the qinoth_ was identical with our qinoth. later writers misunderstood him, because--on the ground of certain obtrusive similarities between jeremiah and lamentations (see driver, l.o.t. p. 433 f.), and the supposed reference in lamentations iii. 53 ff. to jeremiah xxxviii. 6 ff., as well as the fact that jeremiah was the one well-known inspired writer who had lived through the siege of jerusalem--they naturally enough ascribed this little book to the prophet. it is certainly true that the same emotional temperament, dissolving in tears at the spectacle of the country's woes, and expressing itself to a great extent in the same or similar language, is noticeable in the author(s) of lamentations i.-iv. and in jeremiah. and both refer these woes to the same cause, viz. the sins of the nation, and particularly of its prophets and priests. this, however, is not enough to prove identity of authorship; and the following considerations militate strongly against the tradition. (i.) the language and style of lamentations are in general very unlike those of jeremiah (see the details in nagelsbach and lohr); whatever allowance may be made for conventional differences in the phraseology of elegiac poetry and prophetic prose, even of a more or less lyrical cast. (ii.) lamentations i.-iv. show a knowledge of ezekiel (cf. lamentations ii. 4c; ez. xx. 8, 21; lam. ii. 14; ez. xii. 24; xiii. 10, 14; lam. ii. 15; ez. xxvii. 3; xxviii. 12; lam. iv. 20; ez. xix. 4, 8) and of is. xl.-lxvi. (lam. i. 10, [hebrew: mahmadim]; is. lxiv. 10; lam. i. 15; is. lxiii. 2; lam. ii. 1; is. lxvi. 1; lam. ii. 2c; is. xliii. 28; lam. ii. 13 _the 3 verbs_; is. xl. 18, 25; lam. ii. 15c; is. lx. 15b; lam. iii. 26 [hebrew: dumam]; is. xlvii. 5; lam. iii. 30; is. i. 6; lam. iv. 14; is. lix. 3, 10; lam. iv. 15; is. lii. 11; lam. iv. 17c; is. xlv. 20; lam. iv. 22; is. xl. 2). jeremiah does not quote ezekiel; and he could hardly have quoted writings of the age of cyrus. (iii.) the coincidences of language between lamentations and certain late psalms, such as psalms lxix., lxxiv., lxxx., lxxxviii., lxxxix., cxix., are numerous and significant, at least as a general indication of date. (iv.) the point of view of lamentations sometimes differs from that of the prophet. this need not be the case in i. 21 f. where the context shows that the "enemies" are not the chaldeans, but judah's ill neighbours, edom, ammon, moab and the rest (cf. iv. 21 f.; iii. 59-66 may refer to the same foes). ch. ii. 9c may refer to popular prophecy ("_her_ prophets"; cf. verse 14), which would naturally be silenced by the overwhelming falsification of its comfortable predictions (iv. 14 ff.; cf. jer. xiv. 13; ezek. vii. 26 f.; psalm lxxiv. 9). but though jeremiah was by no means disloyal (jer. xxxiv. 4 f.), he would hardly have spoken of zedekiah in the terms of lam. iv. 20; and the prophet never looked to egypt for help, as the poet of iv. 17 appears to have done. it must be admitted that lamentations exhibits, upon the whole, "a poet (more) in sympathy with the old life of the nation, whose attitude towards the temple and the king is far more popular than jeremiah's" (w. robertson smith); cf. i. 4, 10, 19, ii. 6, 7, 20c. (v.) while we find in lamentations some things that we should not have expected from jeremiah, we miss other things characteristic of the prophet. there is no trace of his confident faith in the restoration of both israel and judah (jer. iii. 14-18, xxiii. 3-8, xxx.-xxxiii.), nor of his unique doctrine of the new covenant (jer. xxxi. 31-34), as a ground of hope and consolation for zion. the only hope expressed in lamentations i. is the hope of divine vengeance on judah's malicious rivals (i. 21 f.); and even this is wanting from ch. ii. chapter iii. finds comfort in the thought of yahweh's unfailing mercy; but ends with a louder cry for vengeance. chapter iv. suggests neither hope nor consolation, until the end, where we have an assurance that zion's punishment is complete, and she will not again be exiled (iv. 21 f.). the last word is woe for edom. in chapter v. we have a prayer for restoration: "make us return, o yahweh, and we shall return!" (i.e. to our pristine state). had jeremiah been the author, we should have expected something more positive and definitely prophetic in tone and spirit. (the author of chapter iii. seems to have felt this. it was apparently written in view of chapter ii. as a kind of religious counterpoise to its burden of despair, which it first takes up, verses 1-20, and then dissipates, verses 21 ff.). (vi.) it seems almost superfluous to add that, in the brief and troubled story of the prophet's life after the fall of the city jer. xxxix.-xliv.), it is difficult to specify an occasion when he may be supposed to have enjoyed the necessary leisure and quiet for the composition of these elaborate and carefully constructed pieces, in a style so remote from his ordinary freedom and spontaneity of utterance. and if at the very end of his stormy career he really found time and inclination to write anything of this nature, we may wonder why it was not included in the considerable and somewhat miscellaneous volume of his works, or at least mentioned in the chapters which relate to his public activity after the catastrophe. budde's date, 550 b.c., might not be too early for chapter v., if it stood alone. but it was evidently written as the close of the book, and perhaps to complete the number of five divisions, after the model of the pentateuch; which would bring it below the date of ezra (457 b.c.). and this date is supported by internal indications. the divine forgetfulness has already lasted a very long time since the catastrophe ("for ever," verse 20); which seems to imply the lapse of much more than thirty-six years (cf. zech. i. 12). the hill of zion is still a deserted site haunted by jackals, as it was when nehemiah arrived, 445 b.c. (neh. i. 3, ii. 3, 13, 17, iv. 3). and the conditions, political and economic, seem to agree with what is told us by nehemiah of the state of things which he found, and which prevailed before his coming: cf. esp. neh. v. 2-5 with lamentations v. 2, 10, and neh. v. 15 with lamentations v. 5, 8. there is nothing in chapter i. which nehemiah himself might not have written, had he been a poet (cf. neh. i. 4). the narrative of neh. xiii. throws light on verse 10; and there are many coincidences of language, e.g. "the province" (of judea), neh. i. 3, cf. verse 1; "adversaries" [hebrew: tzarim], of judah's hostile neighbours, verse 7, neh. iv. 11; "made my strength stumble," verse 14, cf. neh. iv. 4 (heb.); the prayers, verses 21 f., neh. iv. 4 f. (heb. iii. 36 f.), are similar. the memory of what is told in neh. iv. 5 (11), ezra iv. 23 f., v. 5, may perhaps have suggested the peculiar term [hebrew: meshabeah], _stoppage_, _arrest_, verse 7. with verse 3 "judah migrated from oppression; from greatness of servitude; she settled among the nations, without finding a resting-place," cf. neh. v. 18 end, jer. xl. 11 f. the "remnant of the captivity" (neh. i. 2 f.) became much attenuated (cf. verse 4), because all who could escape from the galling tyranny of the foreigner left the country (cf. verse 6). verses 11, 19 (dearth of food), 20 (danger in the field, starvation in the house) agree curiously with neh. v. 6, 9 f. chapters ii. and iv. can hardly be dated earlier than the beginning of the persian period. they might then have been written by one who, as a young man of sixteen or twenty, had witnessed the terrible scenes of fifty years before. if, however, as is generally recognized, these poems are not the spontaneous and unstudied outpourings of passionate grief, but compositions of calculated art and studied effects, written for a purpose, it is obvious that they need not be contemporary. a poet of a later generation might have sung of the great drama in this fashion. the chief incidents and episodes would be deeply graven in the popular memory; and it is the poet's function to make the past live again. there is much metaphor (i. 13-15, ii. 1-4, iii. 1-18, iv. 1 ff.), and little detail beyond the horrors usual in long sieges (see deut. xxviii. 52 ff.; 2 kings vi. 28 f.) acquaintance with the existing literature and the popular reminiscences of the last days of jerusalem would supply an ample foundation for all that we find in these poems. literature.--the older literature is fully given by nagelsbach in lange's _bibelwerk a.t._ xv. (1868, eng. trans., 1871, p. 17). among commentaries may be noticed those of kalkar (in latin) (1836); o. thenius in _kurzgefasstes exeg. handbuch_ (1855), who ascribes chapters ii. and iv. to jeremiah (comp. k. budde in _z.a.t.w._, 1882, p. 45); vaihinger (1857); neumann (1858); h. ewald in his _dichter_, vol. i. pt. ii. (2nd ed., 1866); engelhardt (1867); nagelsbach, op. cit. (1868); e. gerlach, _die klagelied. jer._ (1868); a. kamphausen in bunsen's _bibelwerk_ iii. (1868); c. f. keil (1872) (eng. trans., 1874); payne smith in _the speaker's commentary_; reuss, _la bible: poesie lyrique_ (1879); t. k. cheyne, at end of "jeremiah," _pulpit commentary_ (1883-1885); e. h. plumptre, in ellicott's _o.t. for english readers_ (1884); s. oettli in strack-zockler's _kurzgef. komm. a.t._ vii. (1889); m. lohr (1891) and again _handkommentar zum a.t._ (1893); f. baethgen _ap._ kautzsch, _die heilige schrift d. a.t._ (1894); w. f. adeney, _expositor's bible_ (1895); s. minocchi, _le lamentazioni di geremia_ (rome, 1897); and k. budde, "funf megillot," in _kurzer hd.-comm. zum a. t._ (1898). for textual and literary criticism see also houbigant, _notae criticae_, ii. 477-483 (1777); e. h. rodhe, _num jeremias threnos scripserit quaestiones_ (lundae, 1871); f. montet, _etude sur le livre des lamentations_ (geneva, 1875); g. bickell, _carmina v. t. metrice_, 112-120 (1882), and _wiener zeitschrift fur kunde des morgenlandes_, viii. 101 ff. (1894) (cf. also his _dichtungen der hebraer_, i. 87-108, 1882); merkel, _uber das a.t. buch der klagelieder_ (halle, 1889); j. dyserinck, _theologisch tijdschrift_, xxvi. 359 ff. (1892); s. a. fries, "parallele zwischen thr. iv., v. und der makkabaerzeit,"_z.a.t.w._, xiii. 110 ff. (1893) (chaps. iv. v. maccabean; i.-iii. jeremiah's); and on the other side lohr, _z.a.t.w._ xiv. 51 ff. (1894); id. ib., p. 31 ff., _der sprachgebrauch des buches der klagelieder_; and lohr, "threni iii. und die jeremianische autorschaft des buches der klagelieder," _z.a.t.w._, xxiv. 1 ff. (1904). on the prosody, see (besides the works of bickell and dyserinck) k. budde, "das hebraische klagelied," _z.a.t.w._, ii. 1 ff. (1882), iii. 299 ff. (1883), xi. 234 ff. (1891), xii. 31 ff. 261 ff. (1892); _preussische jahrbucher_, lxxiii. 461 ff. (1893); and c. j. ball, "the metrical structure of qinoth," _p.s.b.a._ (march 1887). (the writer was then unacquainted with budde's previous labours.) the following may also be consulted, noldeke, _die a.t. literatur_, pp. 142-148 (1868); seinecke, _gesch. des volkes israel_, ii. 29 ff. (1884); stade, _gesch._ p. 701, n. 1 (1887); smend in _z.a.t.w._ (1888), p. 62 f.; steinthal, "die klagelieder jer." in _bibel und rel.-philosophie_, 16-33 (1890); driver, _l.o.t._ (1891), p. 428, "the lamentations"; and cheyne's article "lamentations (book)," in _enc. bibl._ iii. (c. j. b.*)