Homilies on Genesis — Homily 7
Latin source: Origen, In Genesim homiliae (Rufinus's Latin translation), from the public-domain critical text of W. A. Baehrens, GCS 29 = Origenes Werke VI (Leipzig, 1920). This English translation is released into the public domain.On the birth of Isaac, and that he was weaned from milk.
[§1] Moses is read to us in the church. Let us beseech the Lord that, according to the word of the Apostle, it may not be that even among us, "when Moses is read, a veil is placed over our heart." For it was read that Abraham begot a son, Isaac, when he was a hundred years old. "And Sarah said," it says, "who will announce to Abraham that Sarah is nursing a boy?" "And then," it says, "Abraham circumcised the boy on the eighth day." Abraham does not celebrate this boy's birthday, but he celebrates the day of his weaning from milk, "and he makes a great feast." What then? Do we suppose that it was the Holy Spirit's purpose to write and narrate histories, how a boy was weaned from milk and a feast was held, how he played and did the other things children do? Or is it rather to be thought that through these things He wishes to lead us to something divine and worthy for the human race to learn from the words of God? Isaac is interpreted as 'laughter' or 'joy'. Who then is he who begets such a son? Surely that one who said of those whom he had begotten through the gospel: "for you are my joy and my crown of boasting." Over sons of this sort, when they have been weaned from milk, there is a feast and great gladness—over those who "no longer need milk, but strong food, who by reason of their capacity to receive it have their senses exercised to discern good or evil." Over such as these, when they are weaned from milk, a great feast is held. But over those a feast cannot be presented nor gladness had, of whom the Apostle says: "I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not yet able, but neither indeed are you able even now. And I could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to carnal, as to little ones in Christ." Let those tell us, who wish the divine scriptures to be understood simply, what this means: "I could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to carnal, as to little ones in Christ; I gave you milk to drink, not meat"? Can these things be taken simply?[§2] But for the meantime let us return to the point from which we digressed. Abraham rejoices "and makes a great feast on the day on which he weaned Isaac his son from milk." After these things Isaac plays, and he plays with Ishmael. Sarah is indignant that the son of the slave-woman plays with the son of the free-woman, and she judges that play to be a ruin, gives counsel to Abraham, and says: "Cast out the slave-woman and her son. For the son of the slave-woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac." How these things ought to be understood, I will not now expound. The Apostle discoursed thus, saying: "Tell me, you who have read the law, have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one of the slave-woman, and one of the free-woman. But he indeed who was of the slave-woman was born according to the flesh; but he who was of the free-woman, through the promise. Which things are allegorical." What then? Was Isaac not "born according to the flesh"? Did Sarah not bear him? Was he not circumcised? This very thing, that he played with Ishmael, did he not play in the flesh? For this is what is marvelous in the Apostle's understanding, that of things which cannot be doubted to have been done according to the flesh, he says that these are "allegorical"; so that we may know what is to be done in the rest, and especially in those things in which the historical narrative seems to indicate nothing worthy of the divine law. Ishmael therefore is born the son of the slave-woman "according to the flesh." But Isaac, who was "the son of the free-woman," is not born "according to the flesh," but "according to the promise." And the Apostle says of them that "Hagar begot into servitude" the carnal people; but Sarah, who was free, begot a people who is not "according to the flesh," but has been called into liberty, with which "liberty Christ freed him." For he himself said: "if the Son shall free you, you shall be truly free." But let us see what the Apostle adds to these things in his exposition: "but as then," he says, "he who was according to the flesh persecuted him who was according to the spirit, so also now." See how the Apostle teaches us that in all things the flesh is opposed to the spirit, whether that carnal people is opposed to this spiritual people, or even among ourselves, if anyone is still carnal, he is opposed to the spiritual. For you too, if you live "according to the flesh" and conduct yourself "according to the flesh," are a son of Hagar and therefore are opposed to those who live "according to the spirit." Or even if we search within ourselves, we find "the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these opposed to one another in turn," and we find "a law in our members warring against the law of our mind and leading us captive in the law of sin." Do you see how great are the battles of the flesh against the spirit? There is still yet another battle, more violent than almost all these, namely that those who understand the law "according to the flesh" are opposed to those who perceive "according to the spirit" and persecute them. Why? Because "the animal man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God. For it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually discerned." And you therefore, if you have in yourself "the fruit of the spirit, which is joy, love, peace, patience," can be Isaac, not "born according to the flesh," but "according to the promise," and you are "the son of the free-woman," if however you too can say according to Paul: "for walking in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh (for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty unto God for the destruction of fortifications), destroying counsels and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God." If you can be such that even that saying of the Apostle may worthily be fitted to you, which says: "but you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if however the Spirit of God dwells in you," you therefore too, if you are such, are not "born according to the flesh," but "according to the spirit through the promise," and you will be an heir of the promises, according to what has been said: "heirs indeed of God, but co-heirs with Christ." You will not be a co-heir of him who "was born according to the flesh," but a co-heir of Christ, because "even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him so."
[§3] And yet, according to the things that are written, I do not see what moved Sarah to order the son of the slave-woman to be expelled. He was playing with her son Isaac. What harm had he done or what injury, if he was playing? As though this ought not to have been even pleasing at that age, that the son of the slave-woman should play with the son of the free-woman. Then next I also wonder at the Apostle, who pronounced this play a persecution, saying: "but as then he who was according to the flesh persecuted him who was according to the spirit, so also now," since indeed no persecution of Ishmael stirred up against Isaac is recorded; unless it be this one play of infancy alone. But let us see what Paul understood in this play and at what Sarah was indignant. Above, expounding spiritually, we placed Sarah in the position of virtue. If therefore the flesh, whose person Ishmael bears, who is born according to the flesh, flatters the spirit, which is Isaac, and deals with him in enticing deceptions, if it allures with delights, softens with pleasures, this sort of play of the flesh with the spirit offends Sarah most of all, who is virtue, and Paul judges enticements of this sort to be a most bitter persecution. And you therefore, O hearer of these things, do not think that persecution alone which occurs when by the fury of the gentiles you are compelled to sacrifice to idols; but if perchance the pleasure of the flesh allures you, if the enticement of lust plays with you, flee these, if you are a son of virtue, as the greatest persecution; for this reason too the Apostle says: "flee fornication." But also if injustice flatters you, so that "receiving the person of the powerful" and bent by favor toward him you bear a judgment that is not right, you ought to understand that under the appearance of play you suffer a flattering persecution from injustice. Indeed, throughout the individual kinds of malice, even if they are soft and delicate and like play, count it a persecution of the spirit, because in all these things virtue is offended.
[§4] There are therefore two sons of Abraham, "one of the slave-woman and one of the free-woman," yet both are sons of Abraham, although both are not also of the free-woman. Therefore he too who is born of the slave-woman does not indeed become heir with the son of the free-woman, yet he receives gifts and is not dismissed empty. He too receives a blessing, but "the son of the free-woman" receives the promise. That one too is made "into a great nation," but this one into a people of adoption. Spiritually therefore all indeed who come through faith to the knowledge of God can be called sons of Abraham; but among these there are some who cleave to God out of love, others out of dread and fear of the judgment to come. Whence also the Apostle John says: "he who fears is not perfect in love; but perfect love casts out fear." That one therefore who "is perfect in love" is both born of Abraham and is "the son of the free-woman." But he who keeps the commandments not with perfect love, but with dread of future punishment and fear of torments, is indeed himself also a son of Abraham, and receives gifts himself too, that is, the reward of his work (because also "he who shall give only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, his reward shall not perish"), yet he is inferior to that one who is perfect not in servile fear, but in the liberty of love. Something of this kind the Apostle also shows, when he says: "as long indeed as the heir is a little one, he differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but he is under guardians and stewards, until the time appointed by the father." A "little one" therefore is he who is nourished with "milk" and "is without share in the word of righteousness" and cannot receive the "solid food" of divine wisdom and the knowledge of the law, who cannot "compare spiritual things with spiritual," who cannot yet say: "but when I became a man, I put away the things that were of a little one." That one therefore "differs nothing from a servant." But if, "leaving the word of the beginning of Christ," he is borne toward perfection and "seeks the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, not the things that are upon the earth" and "contemplates not the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen," nor in the divine scriptures follows "the letter that kills," but "the spirit that gives life": he will be without doubt of those who do not receive "the spirit of servitude again in fear, but the spirit of adoption, in which they cry Abba, Father."
[§5] Let us see meanwhile what Abraham does, after Sarah was indignant. He casts out the slave-woman and her son, but nevertheless gives her a skin of water. For his mother does not have a well of living water, nor could the boy draw water from a well. Isaac has wells, for which he even endures conflicts against the Philistines; but Ishmael drinks water from a skin, but this skin, as a skin, fails, and therefore he thirsts and does not find a well. But you, who are "according to Isaac" a son "of the promise," "drink waters from your own fountains, and let not the waters from your wells flow forth outside, but let your waters run in your streets." But that one, "who was born according to the flesh," drinks water from a skin, and the water itself fails him and fails in many things. The skin is the letter of the law, from which that carnal people drinks, and thence takes understanding; which letter frequently fails him and cannot explain itself; for in many things the historical understanding suffers failure. But the Church drinks from the Evangelical and Apostolic fountains, which never fail, but "run in their streets," because in the breadth of the spiritual interpretation they always abound and flow. It drinks also "from wells," when it draws and searches out whatever deeper things there are from the law. On account of this mystery, I think, our Lord and Savior too said to the Samaritan woman, where, as if he were speaking with Hagar herself, he said: "everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but he who drinks of the water which I give him shall not thirst forever." But she says to the Savior: "give me, Lord, this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw." After these things the Lord says to her: "he who believes," he says, "in me, there shall be made in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life."
[§6] Hagar therefore "was wandering through the desert" with the boy, and the boy was weeping, and Hagar cast him away, saying, "let me not see the death of my son." After these things, when, being cast off, he had been as if about to die and had wept, the angel of the Lord is present to her "and opened Hagar's eyes, and she saw a well of living water." How can these things be referred to the history? For where do we find that Hagar had her eyes closed and that they were opened afterward? Is not the spiritual and mystical understanding in these things clearer than light, that the people who is "according to the flesh" has been cast off, and lies so long in hunger and thirst, enduring "not a hunger of bread nor a thirst of water, but a thirst for the word of God," until the eyes of the synagogue are opened? This is what the Apostle says is a "mystery," namely that "blindness has happened in part in Israel, until the fullness of the gentiles should enter in, and then all Israel should be saved." This then is the blindness in Hagar, who begot "according to the flesh," which remains in her so long, until "the veil of the letter be taken away" by the angel of God and she see "the living water." For now the Jews lie around the well itself, but their eyes are closed and they cannot drink from the well of the law and the prophets. But let us too beware, because frequently we too lie around the well "of living water," that is, around the divine scriptures, and we wander in them. We hold the books and we read, but we do not reach the spiritual sense. And therefore there is need of tears and unceasing prayer, that the Lord may open our eyes, because those blind men too who sat in Jericho, unless they had cried out to the Lord, their eyes would not have been opened. And why do I say, that our eyes may be opened, which are already open? For Jesus came to open the eyes of the blind. Our eyes therefore are open, and from the letter of the law the veil has been taken away. But I fear lest we ourselves close them again with a deeper sleep, while we do not keep watch in the spiritual understanding nor are anxious to shake off sleep from our eyes and contemplate the things that are spiritual, lest, being placed with the carnal people around the water itself, we wander; but rather let us keep watch and say with the prophet: "if I shall give sleep to my eyes, and slumber to my eyelids, or rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob." "To him be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen."