Lam 1:4

“In the early days of the church, all was well. The present elaborate, far-fetched and artificial treatment of theology had not made its way into the schools of divinity, but playing with pebbles that deceive the eye by the quickness of their changes or dancing before an audience with varied and effeminate contortions were looked on as all one with speaking or hearing of God in a way unusual or frivolous. But since the Sextuses and Pyrrhos, and the antithetic style, like a dire and malignant disease, have infected our churches, and babbling is reputed culture, and, as the book of the Acts says of the Athenians, we spend our time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. O, what Jeremiah will bewail our confusion and blind madness; he alone could utter lamentations befitting our misfortunes.The beginning of this madness was Arius (whose name is derived from frenzy). He paid the penalty of his unbridled tongue by his death in a profane spot, brought about by prayer not by disease, when he like Judas burst asunder for his similar treachery to the Word. Then others, catching the infection, organized an art of impiety and, confining Deity to the Unbegotten, expelled from Deity not only the Begotten but also the proceeding one, and honored the Trinity with communion in name alone or even refused to retain this for it. Not so that blessed one who was indeed a man of God and a mighty trumpet of truth: but being aware that to contract the three persons to a numerical unity is heretical and the innovation of Sabellius, who first devised a contraction of Deity; and that to sever the three persons by a distinction of nature is an unnatural mutilation of Deity; he both happily preserved the unity, which belongs to the Godhead, and religiously taught the Trinity, which refers to personality, neither confounding the three persons in the unity nor dividing the substance among the three persons but abiding within the bounds of piety by avoiding excessive inclination or opposition to either side.”

“"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."”

“Zion (i.e., Jerusalem, as the holy city) is laid waste; feasts and rejoicing have disappeared from it. "The ways of Zion" are neither the streets of Jerusalem (Rosenmller), which are called חוּצות, nor the highways or main roads leading to Zion from different directions (Thenius, who erroneously assumes that the temple, which was situated on Moriah, together with its fore-courts, could only be reached through Zion), but the roads or highways leading to Jerusalem. These are "mourning," i.e., in plain language, desolate, deserted, because there are no longer any going up to Jerusalem to observe the feasts. For this same reason the gates of Zion (i.e., the city gates) are also in ruins, because there is no longer any one going out and in through them, and men no longer assemble there. The reason why the priests and the virgins are here conjoined as representatives of the inhabitants of Jerusalem is, that lamentation is made over the cessation of the religious feasts. The virgins are here considered as those who enlivened the national festivals by playing, singing, and dancing: Jer 31:13; Psa 68:26; Jdg 21:19, Jdg 21:21; Exo 15:20. נגות (Niphal of יגה) is used here, as in Zep 2:13, of sorrow over the cessation of the festivals. Following the arbitrary rendering, ἀγόμενοι, of the lxx, Ewald would alter the word in the text into נהוּגות, "carried captive." But there is no necessity for this: he does not observe that this rendering does not harmonize with the parallelism of the clauses, and that נהג means to drive away, but not to lead captive. (Note: See, however, Sa1 20:2, with Keil's own rendering, and Isa 20:4, with Delitzsch's translation. - Tr.) והיא, "and she (Zion) herself" is in bitterness (cf. Rut 1:13, Rut 1:20), i.e., she feels bitter sorrow. In Lam 1:6, Lam 1:7, are mentioned the causes of this grief.”