LAMENNAIS, HUGUES ROBERT DE LANTARA, SIMON MATHURIN
LAMENTATIONS LANTERN
LAMETH, ALEXANDRE VICTOR LANTERN-FLY
LAMETTRIE, JULIEN OFFRAY DE LANTERNS OF THE DEAD
LAMIA LANTHANUM
LAMMAS LANUVIUM
LÄMMERGEYER LANZA, DOMENICO GIUSEPPE MARIA
LAMOIGNON LANZAROTE
LAMONT, JOHANN VON LANZI, LUIGI
LAMORICIÈRE, JUCHAULT DE LAOAG
LA MOTHE LE VAYER, FRANÇOIS DE LAOCOON
LA MOTTE, ANTOINE HOUDAR DE LAODICEA
LAMOUREUX, CHARLES LAODICEA, SYNOD OF
LAMP LAOMEDON
LAMP-BLACK LAON
LAMPEDUSA LAOS (territory)
LAMPERTHEIM LAOS (Thai race)
LAMPETER LÂO-TSZE
LAMPOON LA PAZ (department of Bolivia)
LAMPREY LA PAZ (capital of Bolivia)
LAMPROPHYRES LA PÉROUSE, JEAN-FRANÇOIS DE GALAUP
LAMPSACUS LAPIDARY, and GEM CUTTING
LAMPSTAND LAPILLI
LANARK LAPIS LAZULI
LANARKSHIRE LAPITHAE
LANCASHIRE LA PLACE, JOSUÉ DE
LANCASTER, HOUSE OF LAPLACE, PIERRE SIMON
LANCASTER, HENRY LAPLAND
LANCASTER, SIR JAMES LA PLATA
LANCASTER, JOHN OF GAUNT LAPORTE, ROLAND
LANCASTER, JOSEPH LA PORTE
LANCASTER, THOMAS LAPPA
LANCASTER (England) LAPPARENT, ALBERT COCHON DE
LANCASTER (Ohio, U.S.A.) LAPPENBERG, JOHANN MARTIN
LANCASTER (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.) LAPRADE, PIERRE MARTIN RICHARD DE
LANCE LAPSE
LANCELOT LAPWING
LANCET LAPWORTH, CHARLES
LANCEWOOD LAR
LAN-CHOW-FU LARA
LANCIANO LARAISH
LANCRET, NICOLAS LARAMIE
LAND LARBERT
LANDAU LARCENY
LANDECK LARCH
LANDEN, JOHN LARCHER, PIERRE HENRI
LANDEN (Belgium) LARCIUS, TITUS
LANDER, RICHARD LEMON and JOHN LARD
LANDES (department in France) LARDNER, DIONYSIUS
LANDES (region of France) LARDNER, NATHANIEL
LANDESHUT LAREDO
LANDGRAVE LA RÉOLE
LANDLORD AND TENANT LARES
LANDON, CHARLES PAUL LA RÉVELLIÈRE-LÉPEAUX, MARIE DE
LANDON, LETITIA ELIZABETH LARGENTIÈRE
LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE LARGILLIÈRE, NICOLAS
LANDOUR LARGS
LAND REGISTRATION LARGUS, SCRIBONIUS
LANDSBERG AM LECH LARINO
LANDSBERG-AN-DER-WARTHE LARISSA
LANDSBERG BEI HALLE LARISTAN
LANDSEER, SIR EDWIN HENRY LARIVEY, PIERRE
LAND'S END LARK
LANDSHUT LARKHALL
LANDSKNECHT LARKHANA
LANDSKRONA LARKSPUR
LANDSTURM LARNACA
LANDWEHR LA ROCHE
LANE, EDWARD WILLIAM LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
LANE, GEORGE MARTIN LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, FRANÇOIS DE
LANE, JAMES HENRY LA ROCHEFOUCAULD-LIANCOURT, FRÉDÉRIC
LANESSAN, JEAN MARIE ANTOINE DE LA ROCHEJACQUELEIN, DE
LANFRANC LA ROCHELLE
LANFREY, PIERRE LA ROCHE-SUR-YON
LANG, ANDREW LAROMIGUIÈRE, PIERRE
LANG, KARL HEINRICH LARRA, MARIANO JOSÉ DE
LANGDELL, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS LARSA
LANGDON, JOHN LARTET, EDOUARD
LANGE, ANNE FRANÇOISE ELIZABETH LARVAL FORMS
LANGE, ERNST PHILIPP KARL LARYNGITIS
LANGE, FRIEDRICH ALBERT LA SABLIÈRE, MARGUERITE DE
LANGE, JOHANN PETER LA SALE, ANTOINE DE
LANGEAIS LASALLE, ANTOINE CHEVALIER COLLINET
LANGEN, JOSEPH LA SALLE, RENÉ ROBERT CAVELIER
LANGENBECK, BERNHARD KONRAD VON LA SALLE, ST JEAN BAPTISTE DE
LANGENSALZA LA SALLE (Illinois, U.S.A.)
LANGHAM, SIMON LASAULX, ARNOLD CONSTANTIN FRANZ VON
LANGHOLM LASCAR
LANGHORNE, JOHN LASCARIS, CONSTANTINE
LANGIEWICZ, MARYAN LASCARIS, JOANNES
LANGLAND, WILLIAM LAS CASAS, BARTOLOMÉ DE
LANGLEY, SAMUEL PIERPONT LAS CASES, EMMANUEL AUGUSTIN JOSEPH
LANGLOIS, HIPPOLYTE LASHIO
LANGPORT LASKER, EDUARD
LANGREO LASKI
LANGRES LAS PALMAS
LANGTOFT, PETER LASSALLE, FERDINAND
LANGTON, JOHN LASSEN, CHRISTIAN
LANGTON, STEPHEN LASSEN, EDUARD
LANGTON, WALTER LASSO, ORLANDO
LANGTRY, LILLIE LASSO
LANGUAGE LAST
LANGUEDOC LASUS
LANGUET, HUBERT LAS VEGAS
LANGUR LASWARI
LANG VON WELLENBURG, MATTHÄUS LATACUNGA
LANIER, SIDNEY LA TAILLE, JEAN DE
LANJUINAIS, JEAN DENIS LATAKIA
LANMAN, CHARLES ROCKWELL LATEEN
LANNES, JEAN LA TÈNE
LANNION LATERAN COUNCILS
LANNOY, GUILLEBERT DE LATERITE
LANOLIN LATH
LA NOUE, FRANÇOIS DE LATHE
LANSDOWNE, WILLIAM FITZMAURICE LATHROP, FRANCIS
LANSDOWNE LATIMER, HUGH
LANSING LATINA, VIA
LANSING MAN LATINI, BRUNETTO
LANSQUENET
LAMENNAIS, HUGUES FÉLICITÉ 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 _Réflexions sur l'état de
l'église en France pendant le 18^(ième) siècle 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'église sur l'institution des évêques_
(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 abbé Jules Carron for French
émigrés; 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'indifférence en matière
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 Villèle, was a
regular contributor to the _Conservateur_, but when Villèle became the
chief of the supporters of absolute monarchy, Lamennais withdrew his
support and started two rival organs, _Le Drapeau blanc_ and _Le
Mémorial catholique_. Various other minor works, together with _De la
religion considérée dans ses rapports avec l'ordre civil et politique_
(2 vols., 1825-1826), kept his name before the public.
He retired to La Chênaie and gathered round him a host of brilliant
disciples, including C. de Montalembert, Lacordaire and Maurice de
Guérin, 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 Chênaie 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 Progrès de la révolution
et de la guerre contre l'église_ (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 générale pour la défense de la liberté
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 Chênaie. 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'église et de la société_ (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 à 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 progrès_ was ready for
something like communism. He was named president of the "Société de la
solidarité républicaine," 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 Révolution démocratique et sociale_, which also
succumbed. In the constituent assembly he sat on the left till the
_coupe d'état_ 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 Père 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 complètes 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), _Mélanges philosophiques et politiques_ (1856), _Les
Évangiles_ (1846) and _La Divine Comédie_, 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
inédites de F. Lamennais_, edited by Ange Blaize (2 vols., 1866);
_Correspondance inédite entre Lamennais et le baron de Vitrolles_,
edited by E. D. Forgues (1819-1853); _Confidences de Lamennais,
lettres inédites de 1821 à 1848_, edited by A. du Bois de la
Villerabel (1886); _Lamennais d'après des documents inédits_, by
Alfred Roussel (Rennes, 2 vols., 1892); _Lamennais intime, d'après une
correspondance inédite_, by A. Roussel (Rennes, 1897); _Un Lamennais
inconnu_, edited by A. Laveille (1898); _Lettres de Lamennais à
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.
Brunetière, _Nouveaux essais sur la littérature contemporaine_ (1893);
E. Faguet, _Politiques et moralistes_, ii. (1898); P. Janet, _La
Philosophie de Lamennais_ (1890); P. Mercier, S.J., _Lamennais d'après
sa correspondance et les travaux les plus récents_ (1893); A. Mollien
et F. Duine, _Lamennais, sa vie et ses idées_; _Pages choisies_
(Lyons, 1898); The Hon. W. Gibson, _The Abbé de Lammenais and the
Liberal Catholic Movement in France_ (London, 1896); E. Renan _Essais
de morale et de critique_ (1857); E. Schérer, _Mélanges de critique
religieuse_ (1859); G. E. Spuller, _Lamennais, étude d'histoire et de
politique religieuse_ (1892); Mgr. Ricard, _L'école 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:
Thrênoi], "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 fállen, to ríse no móre--
Maid Israël!
Left lórn upón her lánd--
none raísing hér!"
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
náf 'lu gíbborím_, "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-báni íbri kutáni_ | _Nímru sha çéri_
"Eabani, my friend, my little brother! | Leopard of the Wild!"
and again:--
_Kíki lúskut_ | _Kíki luqúl-ma_
Íbri shá arámmu_ | _Itémi 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:
estereôsen]); 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 skênôma 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.
_gunûn_; _magnûn_, 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 (Nöldeke). 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 Nägelsbach and Löhr); 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 Nägelsbach 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); Nägelsbach, 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:
poésie 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-Zöckler's _Kurzgef. Komm.
A.T._ vii. (1889); M. Löhr (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, "Fünf 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, _Étude sur le livre
des Lamentations_ (Geneva, 1875); G. Bickell, _Carmina V. T. metrice_,
112-120 (1882), and _Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunde des Morgenlandes_,
viii. 101 ff. (1894) (Cf. also his _Dichtungen der Hebräer_, i.
87-108, 1882); Merkel, _Über 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
Makkabäerzeit,"_Z.A.T.W._, xiii. 110 ff. (1893) (chaps. iv. v.
Maccabean; i.-iii. Jeremiah's); and on the other side Löhr, _Z.A.T.W._
xiv. 51 ff. (1894); id. ib., p. 31 ff., _Der Sprachgebrauch des Buches
der Klagelieder_; and Löhr, "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 hebräische Klagelied," _Z.A.T.W._, ii. 1 ff. (1882), iii.
299 ff. (1883), xi. 234 ff. (1891), xii. 31 ff. 261 ff. (1892);
_Preussische Jahrbücher_, 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, Nöldeke, _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.*)
LAMETH, ALEXANDRE THÉODORE VICTOR, COMTE DE (1760-1829), French soldier
and politician, was born in Paris on the 20th of October 1760. He served
in the American War of Independence under Rochambeau, and in 1789 was
sent as deputy to the States General by the nobles of the _bailliage_ of
Péronne. In the Constituent Assembly he formed with Barnave and Adrien
Duport a sort of association called the "Triumvirate," which controlled
a group of about forty deputies forming the advanced left of the
Assembly. He presented a famous report in the Constituent Assembly on
the organization of the army, but is better known by his eloquent speech
on the 28th of February 1791, at the Jacobin Club, against Mirabeau,
whose relations with the court were beginning to be suspected, and who
was a personal enemy of Lameth. However, after the flight of the king to
Varennes, Lameth became reconciled with the court. He served in the army
as _maréchal-de-camp_ under Luckner and Lafayette, but was accused of
treason on the 15th of August 1792, fled the country, and was imprisoned
by the Austrians. After his release he engaged in commerce at Hamburg
with his brother Charles and the duc d'Aiguillon, and did not return to
France until the Consulate. Under the Empire he was made prefect
successively in several departments, and in 1810 was created a baron. In
1814 he attached himself to the Bourbons, and under the Restoration was
appointed prefect of Somme, deputy for Seine-Inférieure and finally
deputy for Seine-et-Oise, in which capacity he was a leader of the
Liberal opposition. He died in Paris on the 18th of March 1829. He was
the author of an important _History of the Constituent Assembly_ (Paris,
2 vols., 1828-1829).
Of his two brothers, THÉODORE LAMETH (1756-1854) served in the American
war, sat in the Legislative Assembly as deputy from the department of
Jura, and became _maréchal-de-camp_; and CHARLES MALO FRANÇOIS LAMETH
(1757-1832), who also served in America, was deputy to the States
General of 1789, but emigrated early in the Revolution, returned to
France under the Consulate, and was appointed governor of Würzburg under
the Empire. Like Alexandre, Charles joined the Bourbons, succeeding
Alexandre as deputy in 1829.
See F. A. Aulard, _Les Orateurs de l'Assemblée Constituante_ (Paris,
1905); also M. Tourneux, _Bibliog. de l'histoire de Paris_ (vol. iv.,
1906, _s.v._ "Lameth").
LAMETTRIE, JULIEN OFFRAY DE (1709-1751), French physician and
philosopher, the earliest of the materialistic writers of the
Illumination, was born at St Malo on the 25th of December 1709. After
studying theology in the Jansenist schools for some years, he suddenly
decided to adopt the profession of medicine. In 1733 he went to Leiden
to study under Boerhaave, and in 1742 returned to Paris, where he
obtained the appointment of surgeon to the guards. During an attack of
fever he made observations on himself with reference to the action of
quickened circulation upon thought, which led him to the conclusion that
psychical phenomena were to be accounted for as the effects of organic
changes in the brain and nervous system. This conclusion he worked out
in his earliest philosophical work, the _Histoire naturelle de l'âme_,
which appeared about 1745. So great was the outcry caused by its
publication that Lamettrie was forced to take refuge in Leiden, where he
developed his doctrines still more boldly and completely, and with great
originality, in _L'Homme machine_ (Eng. trans., London, 1750; ed. with
introd. and notes, J. Assézat, 1865), and _L'Homme plante_, treatises
based upon principles of the most consistently materialistic character.
The ethics of these principles were worked out in _Discours sur le
bonheur_, _La Volupté_, and _L'Art de jouir_, in which the end of life
is found in the pleasures of the senses, and virtue is reduced to
self-love. Atheism is the only means of ensuring the happiness of the
world, which has been rendered impossible by the wars brought about by
theologians. The soul is only the thinking part of the body, and with
the body it passes away. When death comes, the farce is over (_la farce
est jouée_), therefore let us take our pleasure while we can. Lamettrie
has been called "the Aristippus of modern materialism." So strong was
the feeling against him that in 1748 he was compelled to quit Holland
for Berlin, where Frederick the Great not only allowed him to practise
as a physician, but appointed him court reader. He died on the 11th of
November 1751. His collected _Oeuvres philosophiques_ appeared after his
death in several editions, published in London, Berlin and Amsterdam
respectively.
The chief authority for his life is the _Éloge_ written by Frederick
the Great (printed in Assézat's ed. of _Homme machine_). In modern
times Lamettrie has been judged less severely; see F. A. Lange,
_Geschichte des Materialismus_ (Eng. trans. by E. C. Thomas, ii.
1880); Nérée Quépat (i.e. René Paquet), _La Mettrie, sa vie et ses
oeuvres_ (1873, with complete history of his works); J. E. Poritzky,
_J. O. de Lamettrie, Sein Leben und seine Werke_ (1900); F. Picavet,
"La Mettrie et la critique allemande," in _Compte rendu des séances de
l'Acad. des Sciences morales et politiques_, xxxii. (1889), a reply to
German rehabilitations of Lamettrie.
LAMIA, in Greek mythology, queen of Libya. She was beloved by Zeus, and
when Hera robbed her of her children out of jealousy, she killed every
child she could get into her power (Diod. Sic. xx. 41; Schol.
Aristophanes, _Pax_, 757). Hence Lamia came to mean a female bogey or
demon, whose name was used by Greek mothers to frighten their children;
from the Greek she passed into Roman demonology. She was represented
with a woman's face and a serpent's tail. She was also known as a sort
of fiend, the prototype of the modern vampire, who in the form of a
beautiful woman enticed young men to her embraces, in order that she
might feed on their life and heart's blood. In this form she appears in
Goethe's _Die Braut von Corinth_, and Keats's _Lamia_. The name Lamia is
clearly the feminine form of Lamus, king of the Laestrygones (q.v.). At
some early period, or in some districts, Lamus and Lamia (both,
according to some accounts, children of Poseidon) were worshipped as
gods; but the names did not attain general currency. Their history is
remarkably like that of the malignant class of demons in Germanic and
Celtic folk-lore. Both names occur in the geographical nomenclature of
Greece and Asia Minor; and it is probable that the deities belong to
that religion which spread from Asia Minor over Thrace into Greece.
LAMMAS (O. Eng. _hlammaesse_, _hlafmaesse_, from _hlaf_, loaf, and
_maesse_, mass, "loaf-mass"), originally in England the festival of the
wheat harvest celebrated on the 1st of August, O.S. It was one of the
old quarter-days, being equivalent to midsummer, the others being
Martinmas, equivalent to Michaelmas, Candlemas (Christmas) and
Whitsuntide (Easter). Some rents are still payable in England at
Lammastide, and in Scotland it is generally observed, but on the 12th of
August, since the alteration of the calendar in George II.'s reign. Its
name was in allusion to the custom that each worshipper should present
in the church a loaf made of the new wheat as an offering of the
first-fruits.
A relic of the old "open-field" system of agriculture survives in the
so-called "Lammas Lands." These were lands enclosed and held in
severalty during the growing of corn and grass and thrown open to
pasturage during the rest of the year for those who had common rights.
These commoners might be the several owners, the inhabitants of a
parish, freemen of a borough, tenants of a manor, &c. The opening of the
fields by throwing down the fences took place on Lammas Day (12th of
August) for corn-lands and on Old Midsummer Day (6th of July) for grass.
They remained open until the following Lady Day. Thus, in law, "lammas
lands" belong to the several owners in fee-simple subject for half the
year to the rights of pasturage of other people (_Baylis_ v.
_Tyssen-Amherst_, 1877, 6 Ch. D., 50).
See further F. Seebohm, _The English Village Community_; C. I. Elton,
_Commons and Waste Lands_; P. Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_.
LÄMMERGEYER (Ger. _Lämmergeier_, _Lamm_, lamb, and _Geier_, vulture), or
bearded vulture, the _Falco barbatus_ of Linnaeus and the _Gypaetus
barbatus_ of modern ornithologists, one of the grandest birds-of-prey of
the Palaearctic region--inhabiting lofty mountain chains from Portugal
to the borders of China, though within historic times it has been
exterminated in several of its ancient haunts. Its northern range in
Europe does not seem to have extended farther than the southern frontier
of Bavaria, or the neighbourhood of Salzburg;[1] but in Asia it
formerly reached a higher latitude, having been found even so lately as
1830 in the Amur region where, according to G. F. Radde (_Beitr._
_Kenntn._ _Russ._ _Reichs_, xxiii. p. 467), it has now left but its
name. It is not uncommon on many parts of the Himalayas, where it
breeds; and on the mountains of Kumaon and the Punjab, and is the
"golden eagle" of most Anglo-Indians. It is found also in Persia,
Palestine, Crete and Greece, the Italian Alps, Sicily, Sardinia and
Mauritania.
In some external characters the lämmergeyer is intermediate between the
families _Vulturidae_ and _Falconidae_, and the opinion of systematists
has from time to time varied as to its proper position. It is now
generally agreed, however, that it is more closely allied with the
eagles than with the vultures, and the sub-family _Gypaëtinae_ of the
_Falconidae_ has been formed to contain it.
The whole length of the bird is from 43 to 46 in., of which, however,
about 20 are due to the long cuneiform tail, while the pointed wings
measure more than 30 in. from the carpal joint to the tip. The top of
the head is white, bounded by black, which, beginning in stiff bristly
feathers turned forwards over the base of the beak, proceeds on either
side of the face in a well-defined band to the eye, where it bifurcates
into two narrow stripes, of which the upper one passes above and beyond
that feature till just in front of the scalp it suddenly turns upwards
across the head and meets the corresponding stripe from the opposite
side, enclosing the white forehead already mentioned, while the lower
stripe extends beneath the eye about as far backwards and then suddenly
stops. A tuft of black, bristly feathers projects beardlike from the
base of the mandible, and gives the bird one of its commonest epithets
in many languages. The rest of the head, the neck, throat and lower
parts generally are clothed with lanceolate feathers of a pale tawny
colour--sometimes so pale as to be nearly white beneath; while the
scapulars, back and wing-coverts generally, are of a glossy
greyish-black, most of the feathers having a white shaft and a median
tawny line. The quill-feathers, both of the wings and tail, are of a
dark blackish-grey. The irides are of a light orange, and the sclerotic
tunics--equivalent to the "white of the eye" in most animals--which in
few birds are visible, are in this very conspicuous and of a bright
scarlet, giving it an air of great ferocity. In the young of the year
the whole head, neck and throat are clothed in dull black, and most of
the feathers of the mantle and wing-coverts are broadly tipped and
mesially streaked with tawny or lightish-grey.
The lämmergeyer breeds early in the year. The nest is of large size,
built of sticks, lined with soft material and placed on a ledge of
rock--a spot being chosen, and often occupied for many years, which is
nearly always difficult of access. Here in the month of February a
single egg is usually laid. This is more than 3 in. in length by nearly
2½ in breadth, of a pale but lively brownish-orange. The young when in
the nest are clad in down of a dirty white, varied with grey on the head
and neck, and with ochraceous in the iliac region.
There is much discrepancy as to the ordinary food of the lämmergeyer,
some observers maintaining that it lives almost entirely on carrion,
offal and even ordure; but there is no question of its frequently taking
living prey, and it is reasonable to suppose that this bird, like so
many others, is not everywhere uniform in its habits. Its name shows it
to be the reputed enemy of shepherds, and it is in some measure owing to
their hostility that it has been exterminated in so many parts of its
European range. But the lämmergeyer has also a great partiality for
bones, which when small enough it swallows. When they are too large, it
is said to soar with them to a great height and drop them on a rock or
stone that they may be broken into pieces of convenient size. Hence its
name ossifrage,[2] by which the Hebrew _Peres_ is rightly translated in
the Authorized Version of the Bible (Lev. xi. 13; Deut. xiv. 12)--a word
corrupted into osprey, and applied to a bird which has no habit of the
kind.
The lämmergeyer of north-eastern and south Africa is specifically
distinct, and is known as _Gypaetus meridionalis_ or _G. nudipes_. In
habits it resembles the northern bird, from which it differs in little
more than wanting the black stripe below the eye and having the lower
part of the tarsus bare of feathers. It is the "golden eagle" of Bruce's
_Travels_, and has been beautifully figured by Joseph Wolf in E.
Rüppell's _Syst. Übers. der Vögel Nord-Ost-Afrika's_ (Taf. 1).
(A. N.)