Homilies on Joshua — Homily 2
Latin source: Origen, In Iesu Nave homiliae (Rufinus's Latin translation), from the public-domain critical text of W. A. Baehrens, GCS 30 = Origenes Werke VII (Leipzig, 1921); cross-checked against Migne PG 12. This English translation is released into the public domain.Concerning that which is written: "Moses my servant is dead."
[§1] We must also give an account of the death of Moses; for unless we understand how Moses dies, we shall not be able to perceive how Jesus reigns. If therefore you consider Jerusalem overthrown, the altar abandoned, nowhere sacrifices nor victims nor drink offerings, nowhere priests, nowhere high priests, nowhere the ministries of the Levites: when you see all these things cease, say that "Moses the servant of God is dead." If you see no one "coming three times a year into the sight of the Lord," nor offering gifts in the temple, nor slaying the "Passover," nor "eating unleavened bread," nor offering "firstfruits," nor "consecrating the firstborn," when you see all these things not being celebrated, say that "Moses the servant of God is dead." But when you see the nations entering into the faith, churches being built, altars sprinkled not with the gore of beasts but consecrated with the "precious blood" of Christ, when you see priests and Levites ministering not "the blood of bulls and goats" but the word of God through the grace of the Holy Spirit, then say that Jesus after Moses has taken up and obtained the leadership — not that "Jesus the son of Nave," but Jesus the Son of God. When you see that "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed" and we eat "the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth," when you see the fruits of the good land in the church "thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold," widows, virgins, and martyrs, when you see the seed of Israel multiplied from those who were "born not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God," and when you see "the sons of God who were scattered gathered into one," when you see "the people of God keeping the Sabbath," not keeping leisure from common intercourse, but keeping leisure from the working of sin, when you see all these things, say that "Moses the servant of God is dead" and Jesus the Son of God obtains the leadership. Finally, in a certain little book too — in which, although it is not held in the canon, nevertheless the figure of this mystery is described — it is related that two Moseses were seen: one alive in spirit and another dead in body. In which without doubt this is what was foreshadowed: that if you gaze upon the letter of the law as empty and void of all those things which we have mentioned above, that itself is the Moses dead in body. But if you are able to "remove the veil" of the law and to understand that "the law is spiritual," this is the Moses who lives in spirit.[§2] "And the Lord said," he says, "to Jesus the son of Nave, the minister of Moses: Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise and cross over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land which I give to you." You will perhaps ask how our Lord Jesus the Son of God was also the "minister" of Moses: because "when the fullness of times had come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law." By this therefore, that "he was made under the law," he was made "the minister of Moses." But God says that they are to "cross over into the land," not which Moses gave, but "which I," he says, "give to you." You see therefore that, Moses being dead, God gives the "land" to the people through Jesus. What "land"? That land without doubt of which the Lord says: "blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land as their inheritance."
[§3] "Every place," he says, "whatever you shall ascend upon with the tread of your feet, I will give it to you." What are the places which "we ascend upon with the tread of our feet"? The letter of the law is set upon the ground and lies below. Nowhere therefore does he ascend who follows the letter of the law. But if you are able to ascend from the letter to the spirit and to climb up from the history to a loftier understanding, then you have truly ascended to a high and lofty place, which you will receive from God as an inheritance. For if in those things which are written you understand types and perceive them to be forms of things heavenly, and if in mind and thought you "seek the things which are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God," then you will also receive that place as an inheritance, as our Lord and Savior says: "where I am, there shall my minister also be." If therefore you attain even to "Christ seated at the right hand of God" by faith, life, purity, and virtue, and if with those "treads of your feet" which Jesus washed you walk into that "place," God will give it to you; then you will be made not only "an heir of God," but also "a co-heir of Christ."
[§4] "Just as," he says, "I said to Moses, this wilderness and Antilibanus, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates." God placed the "wilderness" under Jesus, that is, the desert places. What desert places? Of which the prophet says: "rejoice, O thirsting wilderness," and: "many are the children of the desolate one, more than of her who has a husband." And again he did not say Lebanon, but "Antilibanus," which Jesus received from God. Now "Antilibanus" is so called as it were in place of Lebanon. If therefore you see that former people according to the flesh, Israel, who was "the true olive," understand that this itself was the true Lebanon; but when you see that on account of its unbelief "the kingdom is taken away from it and given to a nation producing its fruit," perceive that this people, which is brought into the kingdom in place of that expelled one, is the "Antilibanus," which is "the church of the living God" gathered from the nations through Jesus Christ our Lord, "to whom is glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen!"