III. Authorship and Date of the Book. In theme and literary form these poems are so strikingly similar to Jeremiah's later sermons that it was almost inevitable that tradition should attribute them to the great prophet of Judah's decline. This tradition, to which is due the position of the book of Lamentations in the Greek and English Bibles, cannot be traced earlier than the Greek period. The evidence within the poems themselves strongly indicates that they were not written by Jeremiah. It is almost inconceivable that he would subject his poetic genius to the rigid limitations of the acrostic structure. Moreover, he would never have spoken of the weak Zedekiah, whose vacillating policy he condemned, in the terms of high esteem which appear in Lamentations 4:20. These poems also reflect the popular interpretation of the great national calamity, rather than Jeremiah's searching analysis of fundamental causes. A careful study of Lamentations shows that chapters 2 and 4 were probably written by one who was powerfully influenced by Ezekiel's thought. They both follow in their acrostic structure an unusual order of the Hebrew alphabet, differing in this respect from chapters 1 and 3. They have so many close points of contact with each other that it is safe to say that they are both from the same author. They reveal an intimate familiarity with events immediately following the destruction of Jerusalem and were probably written between 580 and 561 B.C., when Jehoiachin was liberated. Chapters 1 and 3 follow the regular order of the Hebrew alphabet and apparently represent the work of a later author or authors. Chapter 1 is full of pathos and religious feeling and is closely parallel in thought to such psalms as 42 and 137. Chapter 3 is a poetic monologue describing the fate and voicing the contrition of the righteous within the Judean community. Chapter 5, on the contrary, is in the three-beat measure and lacks the acrostic structure of the preceding chapters. Its style and point of view are so different from those of the preceding chapters that it must be the work of another author, who probably lived in the Persian period. IV. Its Real Character. The purpose of the book of Lamentations was evidently, (1) to give appropriate expression to the feelings of the Jews who survived the destruction of Jerusalem, 586 B.C.; (2) to drive home the great lessons taught by their past history, and thus to arouse true repentance; and (3) to kindle in turn hopes regarding their future. Through them Jeremiah and Ezekiel live and speak again, but from the point of view of the people. These tragic poems also throw contemporary light upon the horrors of the final siege and capture of Jerusalem and upon the fate of those who survived.