Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah — Homily 10
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] If there are oracles of God in the Law and the Prophets, in the Gospels and the Apostles, then whoever is being made a disciple by the oracles of God will need to inscribe God as his teacher; for "he who teaches man knowledge" is God, as it is also written in the Psalms. And the Savior too testifies that no one should be inscribed as a teacher upon the earth, saying, "And do not call anyone teacher upon the earth; for one is your teacher, the Father who is in the heavens." But "the Father who is in the heavens" teaches either by himself, or through Christ, or in the Holy Spirit, or through Paul, let us say, or through Peter, or through some other of the saints — only let the Spirit of God and the Word of God be present and teach. And for what purpose have I said these things? Because the prophet says, "Make it known to me, Lord, and I will know"; for I will not know unless you make it known to me; but if, when you make it known to me, I know, "then I will see their practices" and I will understand what each one does and of what disposition he is.
These are the prophet's words. Then let us see what the Savior says in the prophet: "I, like an innocent lamb led to be sacrificed, did not know. Against me they devised a device, saying, Come and let us cast wood into his bread, and let us wipe him out from the land of the living, and his name shall no more be remembered." As the prophet Isaiah also says, Christ "was led as a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth." There, then, Isaiah speaks about him, but here Christ says about himself, "I, like an innocent lamb led to slaughter to be sacrificed, did not know." He did not say what he did not know. For he has not said, "I did not know evils"; he has not said, "I did not know good things"; nor has he said, "I did not know sin"; but simply, "I did not know." To you, then, he has left it to examine what he did not know. And learn what he did not know from this: "the one who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf"; for to know sin is to sin, just as to know righteousness is to act righteously. Therefore the one who proclaims the things concerning righteousness and does not act righteously has not known righteousness.
[§2] "Against me they devised a device, saying, Come and let us cast wood into his bread." That the Jews crucified him is clear, and we proclaim this with boldness. But how you are to fit this to "they devised a device against me, saying, Come and let us cast wood into his bread" is a work to understand. The bread of Jesus is the word by which we are nourished. Since, therefore, while he was teaching among the people, they wished to add the stumbling-block to his teaching by crucifying him, they said, "Let us cast wood into his bread." For whenever the crucifixion of the teacher is attached to the word of Jesus' teaching, wood has been cast into his bread. Let those men, then, having plotted out of conspiracy, say, "Come and let us cast wood into his bread." But I will say something more paradoxical: the wood cast into his bread has made the bread better. I take an example from the Law of Moses: the wood cast into the bitter water made it sweet. Thus the wood of the passion of Jesus Christ, coming into the word, has made his bread sweeter. Indeed, before the wood came into his bread, when it was only bread and there was no wood in his teaching, "his voice did not go out into all the earth." But since the bread took on power through the wood cast into it, on account of this the word of his teaching has been distributed throughout the whole inhabited world. And then the wood was the symbol of the passion of Jesus, through which the bitter water becomes sweet; for I say that the Law, when it is not understood, is bitter water, but if the wood of Jesus comes and the teaching of my Savior arrives, the Law of Moses, when it is read and understood, is sweetened and becomes most delightful.
They said, then, "Come and let us cast wood into his bread."
[§3] And they also say, "Let us wipe him out from the land of the living, and his name shall no more be remembered." Thus they killed him, as though obliterating his name. But Jesus knows how he dies and for what reason. Therefore he says, "Unless the grain of wheat, falling into the earth, dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit"; so that the death of Jesus becomes an ear of wheat, making what was sown many times multiplied and abundant. So that, if by hypothesis he had not been crucified nor died, the grain of wheat would have remained alone, and many would not have come from it. Attend, then, to his wording, whether he did not mean to say this: "The grain of wheat, unless it falls into the earth and dies, remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." The death of Jesus bore all these as fruit; and if his death bore so many as fruit, how many will the resurrection bear as fruit?
[§4] "Lord of the powers, who judge righteous things, who test the reins and hearts, may I see the vengeance from you upon them." Prophetically he prays these things, to see the vengeance from God upon them; for "Jerusalem is encircled by armies, and its desolation has drawn near," and it has been said to her, "Behold, your house is left to you." "May I see," then, "the vengeance from you upon them, because to you I have revealed my case. Therefore thus says the Lord against the men of Anathoth who seek my life, who say: You shall not prophesy in the name of the Lord, and if you do, you shall die in our hands. Behold, I will visit upon them: their young men shall die by the sword, and their sons and their daughters shall perish by famine. And there shall be no remnant of them, for I will bring evils upon the inhabitants of Anathoth in the year of their visitation." For the sake of a figure the name of Anathoth is here taken up. And the whole Jewish mystery is spoken in it figuratively; for Anathoth is interpreted "Hearkening." Since, then, a hearkening of God was in that people, as also the kingdom of God, and it came to pass concerning the kingdom that "the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation producing its fruits," according to this it also came to pass that "the men of Anathoth," those who are in the Hearkening, "seek the life" — not of Jeremiah (for neither does the history say that men of Anathoth sought the life of Jeremiah. We have the books of Kingdoms; Scripture makes mention there of Jeremiah, yet nothing of the sort is said in them, nor in the books of Chronicles; for we have the very book of the prophet, and the men of Anathoth have said nothing) — but these things are said concerning Christ.
"Those who seek my life, those who say: You shall not prophesy in the name of the Lord." The Jews hindered Jesus from teaching. "And if you do, you shall die in our hands. Behold, I will visit upon them: their young men shall die by the sword, and their sons and their daughters shall perish by famine." They did not then perish by the sword, but after the coming a famine has now come upon them — "not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord"; for no longer is "thus says the Lord Almighty" spoken among them. This is the famine, that prophecy should be no more — and why do I say prophecy? not even teaching. Even if ten thousand times over there are those among them who pass for wise men, there is no longer a word of the Lord among them, since there was fulfilled the saying, "The Lord will take away from Judea and from Jerusalem a mighty man and a mighty woman, a giant and a strong one and a man of war and a judge and a prophet and a diviner and an elder and a captain of fifty and a wonderful counselor and a wise architect and an intelligent hearer." No longer is there among them one able to say, "As a wise architect I have laid a foundation"; the architects have gone over, they have come to the Church, they have laid the foundation, Jesus Christ. Upon this both those after them build.
[§5] "In famine," then, that people have been left abandoned; for "I will bring" upon them "evils, upon the inhabitants of Anathoth in the year of their visitation."
"You are righteous, Lord, that I shall make my defense before you. Yet I will speak judgments to you. Why is it that the way of the ungodly prospers? All those who deal treacherously in treacheries have flourished." We still inquire whether God, who has given the Law and the Prophets, is good, seeing that "the way of the ungodly prospers" and he does not punish the ungodly. "All those who deal treacherously in treacheries have flourished." Those very ones who speak against the Creator, who blaspheme him, "have flourished, they have been planted and rooted, they have begotten children 〈and have produced〉 fruit." How much fruit has Marcion produced by begetting children, how much Basilides, how much Valentinus? For this is what is prophesied concerning the ungodly and said in the words "they have begotten children and produced fruit." "You are near to their mouth, but far from their reins": they name the name of Jesus, but they do not have Jesus; for they do not confess him as they ought. "And you, Lord, know me, you have seen me, you have tested my heart before you; purify them for the day of their slaughter." What shall I do, that I may make these things clear? He calls the punishments a purification of those being punished; for "purify them," he says, "for the day of their slaughter." Through their being slaughtered, purify them; for "whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives."
[§6] "How long shall the land mourn and the grass of the field be dried up from the wickedness of those who dwell in it?" As though of a land that has a soul, here too the prophet discourses, saying that the land mourns because of the wickedness of those who tread upon it. In the case of each one of us, then, the land either mourns or rejoices; for it either mourns "from the wickedness of those who dwell in it," or it rejoices from the virtue of those who dwell in it. In the case of each one of us, then, the very element either rejoices or mourns. And if the land, then perhaps the remaining elements too. I will say likewise both the water and the angel appointed over the water, that I may explain also the land that mourns or does not mourn; for it is not this body, "the land," that mourns "from those who dwell in it," but understand for me that, in addition to the ordering of the whole, a certain angel is appointed over the land, and another appointed over the waters, and another over the air, and a fourth over the fire. Thus ascend for me by reasoning to the whole ordering that is in animals, that is in plants, that is in the heavenly stars. A certain angel is appointed both over the sun, and another over the moon, and another also over the stars; these angels, then, with whom we are — insofar as we are of earth — either rejoice if we act righteously, or mourn over us when we sin. The land mourns, he says, from those who dwell in it. By homonymy he called the angel "land" with the very land itself. For just as "the handmade thing is accursed, both it and the one who made it" — not that the lifeless thing itself is accursed, but that which sits beside the lifeless image and passes under that name is called "handmade" — so also I will say that the angel appointed over land is called "land," and the angel appointed over water is called "water," according to what has been said: "The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and were afraid, the depths were troubled by the multitude of the sound of the waters, the clouds gave a voice, for indeed your arrows pass through."
[§7] "I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my inheritance, I have given my beloved soul into the hands of its enemies." Behold for me the one who exists "in the form of God," being in the heavens; behold his house, above the heavens. And if you wish to see something yet higher (that he is "in the Father"), behold that his house is God. He leaves "the father and the mother," the "Jerusalem above," and comes to the earthly place and says, "I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my inheritance." For that was his inheritance, the regions with the angels, the rank with the holy powers. "I have given my beloved soul into the hands of its enemies." He delivered his soul into the hands of the enemies of the soul, into the hands of the Jews who killed him, into the hands of the rulers gathered together against him, into the hands of kings, when "the kings of the earth stood by and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ."
[§8] "My inheritance became to me as a lion in a thicket." This inheritance of his upon the earth, which he had received as inheritance, turned savage against him, and the inheritance — the Jews — became wild against him "as a lion in a thicket." It is no wonder if then his inheritance became "as a lion in a thicket"; even now there are still lions in the thicket wishing to curse Jesus and blaspheming him and plotting against those who believe in him. "My inheritance," then, "became to me as a lion in a thicket. It uttered its voice against me; therefore I hated it. Is my inheritance to me a hyena's den?" He prophesies concerning this inheritance: has my inheritance perhaps become a hyena's den, a hyena's den — of the most savage beast, the corpse-eater, the one about the tombs, the one that eats the dead bodies? "Is my inheritance to me a hyena's den?"
"Or a cave round about it on every side? Go." Since they have become such, I command you, the angels, to go and gather the beasts and deliver them to the beasts. "Go and gather all the beasts of the field, and let them come to devour it." The beasts of the field have come; they devour that people. See their hearts being devoured by the opposing powers. If Jesus did not spare those, but said, "Go, gather the beasts," how much more will he not spare us? If we do not do the Law of God, the word of the Gospel, he will say again: Go, gather the beasts and deliver it up. But we have boldness to say in our prayers: "Do not deliver to the beasts a soul that confesses to you." Let us confess concerning our transgressions, repenting, and we shall not be delivered to the beasts, but to holy angels who will be nurses, bearing us upon their bosoms, transferring us from this age to the age to come in Christ Jesus, to whom is the power and the glory unto the ages. Amen.