Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah — Homily 7
Greek source: Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah (Ὁμιλίαι εἰς τὸν Ἰερεμίαν), from the public-domain critical text of Erich Klostermann, GCS 6 = Origenes Werke III (Leipzig, 1901); digital text accessed via the First1KGreek project. This English translation is released into the public domain.
[§1] God, who judges "little by little," gives to those being chastised room for repentance, and does not, in punishing at the very moment of sin, bring the full completion of the punishment upon the one who has sinned. For this reason, "judging little by little," he chastises. And an example of this is in Leviticus; for in the curses against those who transgress the Law it is written, after the earlier punishments: "And it shall be, if after these things you do not turn back, says the Lord, I too will add to you seven plagues." And again he recounts another punishment: "And it shall be, if after these things you do not turn back, but walk toward me crookedly, I too will walk with you in crooked wrath." And you will find God measuring out punishments with sparing restraint, since he wishes to lead the one who has sinned to conversion, and does not repay them all at once. Such things, then, so far as the letter goes, had come about concerning the people; and the word, threatening them with what they will suffer, says after those things: "And it shall be in those days, says the Lord your God, I will not strike you unto complete destruction." But whether these things especially reach even to the punishments that are to come † — if not, let the one who is able pass over from the things that befell the people in this life to those punishments as well; for I, being persuaded, would say that just as "they serve a copy and shadow of heavenly things," so it was with a copy and shadow of the true punishments that that people was punished for their own sins, so that every punishment according to the Law and the Prophets which concerns the people contains a shadow of the true punishments.
If, then, for those people no complete destruction came upon them for their sins, but at some point in the end there would be — nor will there ever fail to be, even after the departure, a punishment upon those who have sinned. But the complete destruction came upon Jerusalem when the captivity is that of Nebuchadnezzar. And yet someone will say that not even then was there complete destruction, nor even in the times of the Maccabees. But the complete destruction came upon the people at the coming of my Lord Jesus Christ. For as long as the Savior was not saying to them, "Behold, your house is forsaken to you," it was not forsaken. But when he wept over Jerusalem, saying, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to her, how often have I wished to gather together your children, in the way a hen gathers together her chicks under her wings, and you would not? Behold, your house is left to you desolate," the house was forsaken, "Jerusalem was surrounded by armies," as the house had been forsaken, and "her desolation drew near." Then, after their transgression, salvation came to us. So those people were being chastised, and complete destruction did not reach them until the sojourn of my Lord Jesus.
[§2] But I consider whether such things may also be the case concerning us, and whether certain punishments come about, so that these here have no experience of second punishments but are content with the former, while others come even to the second, though not also to the third, and others will come even to the fourth. For the phrase "I will add seven plagues" indicates some mystery, since one plague comes, and a second, and a third, up to the seven that have been mentioned, upon certain people. But not all are struck with seven plagues; rather, I think some will be struck with six plagues, others five, others four, others three or two, while those most inferior of all in punishments I suppose will be struck with one plague. God, then, knows the things concerning the plagues as well. Therefore it is written here at the beginning of the reading: "And it shall be in those days," those concerning the things spoken of, "I will not make you unto complete destruction." But it is not in those days that complete destruction comes; for there are certain days, when he will make those whom he will make unto complete destruction.
[§3] "And it shall be, when you say, 'For what reason has the Lord our God done to us all these evils?' — and you shall say to them, 'Because you forsook me and served other gods in your land, so shall you serve in a land not your own.'" Let the letter be understood, and it suffices for the present to set forth the reminder from the letter for those able to hear. So then, the sons of Israel had the holy land, the temple, the house of prayer. They ought to have served God. But transgressing the divine commandments, they both practiced idolatry and took up the idols of Damascus, as it is written in the books of Kingdoms, and they took up other idols of the nations into the holy land. Through the idols of the nations which they took up, they made themselves worthy to be cast down into the land of the idols, to end up there where they worshiped the idols. So the word says to them according to the letter: "Because you forsook me and served foreign gods in your land, so shall you serve foreign gods in a land not your own." Everyone who deifies anything serves foreign gods. Do you make a god of foods and drinks? Your god is "the belly." Do you honor silver as a great good, and the wealth here below? Your god and lord is mammon. For Jesus called it lord of the lovers of money, saying: "You cannot serve God and mammon; no one can serve two lords." Therefore the one who honors silver and admires wealth and considers it to be a good, and welcomes the rich as gods, while despising the poor as not having their God — this one deifies silver. If anyone, being in the land of God, the Church, worships foreign gods, deifying the things not worthy to be deified, he will be cast out into a foreign land, and let him worship the gods whom he worshiped within. Let the lover of money be outside, cast out from the Church; let the glutton be outside, having been put out of the Church. These things according to one figurative interpretation, so that I may not now busy myself with what is beyond me — concerning the land, about which the Savior said, "Who will give you what is our own?" — and that, when worship has taken place in someone's land, God so arranged that some should be cast out from his own land and come to the land about which it is written: "Hear, O Israel, why is it that you are in the land of your enemies? You were reckoned together with those going down into Hades. You forsook the fountain of life, the Lord. If you had walked in the way of God, you would have dwelt in peace for time everlasting."
Now, then, we are in a foreign land, and we pray to do the opposite of what the sons of Israel did in the holy land. For they worshiped foreign gods in the holy land; but we, in a foreign land, worship the God who is foreign to the land, foreign to the affairs upon the earth. For the ruler of this age rules here, and God is foreign to his sons. But when I say "foreign," I do not mean this — not that he did not create the world, but that he is foreign to the lord of wickedness, foreign to the present sins. And yet, even wishing to worship the God who is foreign to the affairs of sin in this land of affliction, let us see what we do. Do we not say, "How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land?" But rather: How shall we sing the song of the Lord not in a foreign land? We seek a place for this, of singing the song of the Lord, a place for worshiping the Lord our God in a foreign land. What, then, is the place? I have found it: he came to this land bearing the body that saves, taking up "the body of sin" "in the likeness of the flesh of sin," so that in this place, because of Christ Jesus who has sojourned here and abolished the ruler of this age and abolished sin, I might be able to worship God here, and after this I shall worship in the holy land. For if one who worshiped the idols in the holy land departed into the foreign land, one who has worshiped God in the foreign land will depart to the holy land in Christ Jesus, to whom be the glory and the might unto the ages. Amen.