The commentaries on Jeremiah and Lamentations were likely written near the end of Thomas Aquinas’s time with Albert the Great in Cologne, before Aquinas left to teach in Paris in 1252. Perhaps even more so than his commentary on Isaiah, these commentaries are “cursory,” succinct and focused on an understanding of the literal meaning of the text. But, as Aquinas himself explains in the prologues to these commentaries, the literal sense of these texts is filled with written wisdom—a divine wisdom that aids us in the attainment of our end of living well and our ultimate end of the glory of immortality. The commentary on Jeremiah also includes collationes, collections of scriptural texts connected with the passage at hand and useful for prayer, study, and preaching.

Notes on text:

The Latin text of Thomas Aquinas's commentaries on Jeremiah and on Lamentations has been adapted from the Parma edition (1863). English translations of Scripture texts are based on the Douay-Rheims version of the Bible, but they have been revised to correspond more closely to the sense of Aquinas's commentaries. The English translation of Thomas Aquinas's commentary on Jeremiah was prepared by Rev. Benjamin Martin. The English translation of Thomas Aquinas's commentary on the Lamentations of Jeremiah was prepared by Mark Foudy.