Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah — Homily 9
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] According to the recorded coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, His sojourn came about bodily in a certain universal way, shining upon the whole world, when "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." For "there was the true Light which enlightens every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Yet one must know that even earlier He sojourned, though not bodily, in each of the saints, and that after this His visible coming He sojourns among us again. And if you wish to receive a demonstration of these things, attend to the passage: "The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: Hear," and what follows. For what is "the word which came from the Lord," whether to Jeremiah or to Isaiah or to Ezekiel or to whomever, other than He who was in the beginning with God? I know of no other word of the Lord than this, concerning which the evangelist has said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
And this too we must know, that it is above all when it is possible to profit from them that the coming of the Word is to each one. For what benefit is it to me if the Word has sojourned in the world, but I do not have Him? On the contrary, even if He has not yet sojourned in the whole world, grant that I have come to be among the prophets—I have the Word. And I would say that Christ came to Moses, to Jeremiah, to Isaiah, to each of the righteous, and that what was said by Him to the disciples, "Behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age," was in fact fulfilled and came to pass even before His coming; for He was with Moses and He was with Isaiah and with each of the saints. How could those men have spoken the word of God if the Word of God had not sojourned in them? These things are especially necessary to be known by us who belong to the Church, who wish the God of the Law and of the Gospel to be the same, and Christ to be the same both then and now unto all ages. But there will be those who sever the Godhead older than the coming of the Savior—so far as their own supposition goes—from the Godhead proclaimed by Jesus Christ. But we know one God both then and now, one Christ both then and now. These things because of "the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying."
What then are we also to hear? "Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." We are men of Judah because of Christ; for it is plain that our Lord "has arisen out of Judah," and if I establish, according to Scripture, that the name of Judah refers to Christ, then the men of Judah will not be the Jews who disbelieve in Christ, but ourselves, as many as believe in Christ. "Judah, may your brothers praise you. Your hands are upon the back of your enemies"—"may they praise you." His brothers did not praise that Judah, the son of Jacob. But this Judah his brothers will praise, since this Judah says, "I will declare your name to my brothers, in the midst of the church I will hymn you." It is not said with reference to that Judah. "Your hands are upon the back of your enemies": where is that Judah found laying his hands upon the back of his enemies? The narrative has recorded nothing of the sort concerning him. But if you understand the coming of the Lord Jesus abolishing the devil, stripping off "the principalities and powers" and making a show of them and triumphing over them in the wood, you see how upon this Judah the prophecy that says this has been fulfilled: "Your hands are upon the back of your enemies." If this is so, and the word now speaks "to the men of Judah," to whom would it be speaking except to those who believe in Christ, called in a certain manner Judah too because of the tribe of Judah?
[§2] "To the men of Judah" the word is spoken, and "to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." This is the church. For the city of God is the church, the Vision of peace; in her is the peace which He brought us, if indeed we are children of peace, and it is multiplied and seen.
"Hear," then, "the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed is the man who will not hear the words of the covenant which I commanded your fathers." Who most of all hears "the words of the covenant which God commanded the fathers"? Is it those who believe in Him, or those who are shown not even to believe Moses by the very fact that they have not believed in the Lord? For the Savior says to those men: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote concerning me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" Therefore those men have not believed in Moses, but we who believe in Christ believe the covenant given through Moses, and it is spoken to us, that we may not become accursed: "Cursed is the man who will not hear the words of the covenant which I commanded the fathers." Those men, then, have this—to be accursed. For they did not hear "the covenant which God commanded the fathers."
"In the day," He says, "when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace." Us too God has led out "of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace," especially according to him who has understood what is written in the Revelation of John, that the place "where their Lord was crucified is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt." For if it "is called spiritually Egypt," and this Egypt is not that Egypt which is spiritually called Egypt, for this one is perceptible to the senses, it is clear that if you understand the Egypt which is spiritually so called and go out from it, you are the one who has gone out "of the land of Egypt and out of the iron furnace," and it is said to you: "Hear my voice and do according to all" these things.
Then there is a promise of God to those who hear, if they do what He has commanded, saying: "And you shall be to me a people, and I will be to you a God." Not everyone who says he is the people of God is the people of God; that people, then, which had promised to be the people of God, heard "you are not my people" in the words "for you are not my people," and it was said to that people "not my people," and again this people was called a people. For "they moved me to jealousy with what is no god"—and He speaks concerning those men—"they provoked me to anger with their idols; and I will move them to jealousy with what is no nation, with a nation without understanding I will provoke them to anger."
[§3] We, then, have become a people to God, and "the righteousness of God is to the people," to the people from the nations. For this people is born all at once, as it is also said in the prophet: "Has a nation been born at once?" And a nation was born at once, when the Savior had come and in one day five thousand believed, and on another day three thousand were added. And it is possible to see a whole people being born by the word of God, and the barren woman, who formerly did not bear, bearing all at once, to whom it is said: "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear, break forth and cry out, you who are not in travail, for many are the children of the desolate one, more than of her who has the husband." The church is desolate—desolate of the law, this one was desolate of God. But that synagogue was said to have a husband, the law.
What then does God promise me? "You shall be to me a people, and I will be to you a God." He is not the God of all, but only of those to whom He grants Himself, just as He granted Himself to that patriarch to whom He said, "I am your God," and again to another, "I will be your God," and concerning others, "I will be their God." When, then, do we attain—I speak of each individual—to God being our God? But if you wish to learn whose God He is and to whom He grants the invocation of Himself, "I," He says, "am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of ⟨Jacob⟩." And the Savior, expounding this very thing, says: "God is not the God of the dead but of the living." Who is the dead? The sinner, who does not have the One who said, "I am the Life," the one who has dead works, the one who has not yet repented from dead works, concerning which the apostle says: "Not again laying a foundation of repentance from dead works." If, then, "God is not the God of the dead but of the living," and we know who is the living one—that it is he who lives his life according to Christ and abides with Him—then, if we wish that God may be ours, let us renounce the works of deadness, that He may fulfill His promise which says: "And I will be to you a God, that I may establish my oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey." For observe that He says: "I will establish my oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey," as though He had not yet given them "the land flowing with milk and honey." For this is not the land which God promised "flowing with milk and honey," but it is that one concerning which the Savior taught, saying: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
[§4] Then to what was said beforehand by the Lord the prophet answers—to the words "Cursed is the man who will not hear the words of this covenant"—and he says: "And I answered and said, So be it, Lord." What is "So be it, Lord"? Cursed is he who will not abide in the words of this covenant. "And the Lord said to me: Read these words in the cities of Judah and outside Jerusalem." And to those outside we read the words of God, calling them to salvation. "Hear the words of this covenant and do them. And they did not do them. And the Lord said to me: A conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem." Are we going to repent over the sins spoken of concerning the men of Judah, knowing that we are men of Judah because of Christ who was prophesied and spoken of? For perhaps, since there are among us certain sinners who act contrary to right reason, for this reason the prophet says: "A conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem." For when there is found, in certain persons who bear the name of the church, a bond of injustice and a bond of sins, so that to them may be applied what is said of the sinner, "and each one is bound tight by the cords of his own sins," God would say: "A conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah." But let no conspiracy be found among us. And how is a conspiracy not found among us, even if until now there is a conspiracy in certain persons? "Loose every bond of injustice, undo the knots of forced dealings, tear apart every unjust contract. Break your bread for the hungry."
"A conspiracy," then, "has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have turned back to the injustices of their fathers of former times." "They have turned back to the injustices"—of whom? He does not say simply "of the fathers." What is the addition? "They have turned back to the injustices of their fathers of former times." We were saying that these things are spoken to us and to those among us who sin. How then have those among us who sin turned back not "to the injustices of the fathers," but "of their fathers of former times"? Perhaps, then, our fathers are twofold, and there is among us the worse kind of fathers; for before we believed we were sons, so to speak, of the devil, as the evangelic word shows, saying: "You are of your father the devil," but when we believed, we became sons of God. When, therefore, we sin, we turn back to the injustices not simply of the fathers, but of the former fathers. And to establish that our fathers are twofold, I will make use of statements from the forty-fourth Psalm which run thus: "Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and the house of your father." He calls Him father, "forget the house of your father"; for as a father He says, "Hear, O daughter." Therefore our fathers are twofold. But "forget the house of your father," the former one. If, having forgotten your former house, you again turn back to the sins, you have done the sins here spoken of.
"They have turned back to the injustices of their fathers of former times." I was saying that the devil too was formerly our father, before God became our father, if indeed even now the devil is not our father; which we will also establish from the catholic epistle of John, in which it is written: "Everyone who commits sin has been begotten of the devil." If "everyone who commits sin has been begotten of the devil," then, as it were, we have been begotten of the devil as many times as we sin. Wretched, then, is this one who is always being begotten of the devil, just as, on the other hand, blessed is he who is always being begotten by God. For I will not say that the righteous man has been begotten by God once, but that he is always being begotten at each good deed, in which God begets the righteous man. If, then, I direct you to the Savior—that the Father did not beget the Son and then release Him from His begetting, but always begets Him—I will establish something similar also in the case of the righteous man. Let us see who our Savior is. "The radiance of glory." The radiance of the glory has not been begotten once and is not being begotten; but insofar as the light is productive of the radiance, to that extent the radiance of the glory of God is begotten. Our Savior is the wisdom of God. And wisdom is "the radiance of eternal light." If, then, the Savior is always begotten, and for this reason He says, "Before all the hills He begets me"—not "before all the hills He has begotten me," but "before all the hills He begets me"—and the Savior is always begotten by the Father, so also you, if you have the spirit of adoption, God always begets you in Him at each deed, at each thought, and being thus begotten you become ever a son of God being begotten in Christ Jesus; to whom is the glory and the might unto the ages of ages. Amen.