Homilies on Joshua — Homily 12
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.On the fact that the wars which Jesus waged ought to be understood spiritually, and that "the people, returning" after the victory "murmured not one word in their tongue."
[§1] If those things which were foreshadowed through Moses concerning the tabernacle or the sacrifices and all that worship are said to be "a type and a shadow of heavenly things," without doubt the wars too which are waged through Jesus, and the slaughter of kings and enemies, must be said to be "a shadow and type of heavenly things" — of those wars, that is, which our Lord Jesus wages with his army and its officers, that is, with the peoples of believers and their leaders, against the devil and his angels. For it is he himself who, in Paul and in the Ephesians, fights "against the principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." And see, ungrateful heretic, how completely the new agrees with the old. To the men of old was promised the kingdom of a holy land, "a land flowing with milk and honey," which land was then held by sinners and by most wicked inhabitants and kings. Jesus came into that land with the army of the Lord and the leaders of Israel; he storms them all, destroys them, takes possession, and by the merit of his victory receives the kingdoms of those whom he conquered. To you, through the Gospels, are promised not the kingdoms of earth, but there are promised "the kingdoms of heaven." But these kingdoms are not empty nor void; they have their own inhabitants, sinners and wicked spirits, apostate angels. There dwell those against whom Paul, sounding forth with the apostolic trumpet, exhorts you to battle; and, just as Jesus there was saying that you would have war against "the Amorites and Perizzites and Hivites and Jebusites," so likewise here too Paul announces to you, saying: "your struggle will not be against flesh and blood" — that is, we shall not fight as the ancients fought, nor are battles to be waged by us on earth against men — "but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world." Now indeed you understand in what places contests of this kind are to be stirred up by you. Or if understanding does not suffice for you unless the very places also be marked out for you with a plain word, hear what follows: "against the spiritual forces," he says, "of wickedness in the heavenly places." You have heard who they are who must be driven out by you from the heavenly places by war and force, that you may be able to receive those places of the kingdom of heaven by the lot of inheritance. But does not the Lord too in the Gospel plainly indicate these things, when he says: "from the days of John the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent seize it"?[§2] Why then do you cease, O heretic, to bring your slander even against our Lord and Savior, who commands that "the kingdom of heaven," which he had promised to those who believe in him, "be seized by violence"? And surely, if violence is to be applied, it is certain that it must be applied to those who are in possession. For "to do violence" is this: to expel the possessor and to seize his possession. Tell me, then, what else is it that you accuse Jesus the successor of Moses of having done? And would that we were worthy for the Lord Jesus to open to us the hall of his wisdom and to lead us within the treasures of his knowledge, and to deign to unlock more fully for us and to open more perfectly those things which now, step by step, we strive as though "through a mirror and in a riddle" to behold in part and to inspect their figures; you would see how it would become clear to us of which especially of these spiritual enemies — of those who now assail the spiritual Israel — that king of "Makkedah" bore the figure, and that one of "Lachish," and that one of "Libnah"; or of what vice or error within your own self, by which the soul is entangled, each single one of these bears the form, whom the people of the Lord, with Jesus as their leader, slew — those, namely, who hear his commandments and keep his precepts, to whom he himself "has granted the power of treading upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy." Let us pray, therefore, that our feet too may be such, so beautiful, so strong, as to be able to "tread" upon the necks of enemies, able so to "tread upon the head of the serpent" that it cannot bite our heel. For whoever fights under Jesus as leader against the opposing powers ought also to merit that which is written of the former warriors: "and there returned," it says, "the whole people to Jesus safe and sound, and not one of the children of Israel murmured a word in his tongue." You see, then, that whoever serves as a soldier under Jesus ought to "return safe and sound" from the battle, and ought nowhere to receive a wound from "the fiery darts of the evil one," to be defiled in no way in his heart, stained in no way in his thought, and to give no place to demonic wounds through anger, through lust, or through any other occasion whatsoever. But that he added, "no one murmured a word in his tongue," this seems to me to be shown thereby: that no one boasted of the victory, no one ascribed to his own strength the fact that he overcame; but knowing that it is Jesus who grants the victory, they themselves "murmur not a word in their tongue." Rightly understanding this, the Apostle would say: "yet not I, but the grace of God which is in me." And I think that this saying of the Lord also looks to the same point, where he says: "but when you have done all these things, say that we are unprofitable servants; what we ought to have done, we have done." For in this too, in like manner, he seems to forbid boasting about affairs prosperously accomplished.
[§3] But Marcion and Valentinus and Basilides and the rest of the heretics with them, while they refuse to understand these things as is worthy of the Holy Spirit, "have turned aside from the faith and entangled themselves in many impieties," putting forward another God as creator and judge of the law and of the world, as though through these things which are written he were teaching a certain cruelty, in that men are commanded to "tread upon the necks" of enemies and to "hang upon a tree" the kings of that land which they violently invade. And would that my Lord Jesus, the Son of God, might grant me this and command me to "trample" with my feet "the spirit of fornication," and to "tread upon" the necks of the spirit of wrath and fury, to "tread upon" the demon of avarice, to "tread upon" boastfulness, to crush with my feet the spirit of pride, and, when I have done these things, to hang the sum of the work accomplished not upon myself, but upon his cross, following Paul who says that through him "the world has been crucified to me," and that which we have already recalled above, where he says: "yet not I, but the grace of God which is in me." But if I shall have merited to do so, I shall be blessed, and there shall be said to me too what Jesus says to the men of old: "act manfully and be strengthened, fear not nor be afraid before their face, for the Lord God has delivered all your enemies into your hands." If we understand these things spiritually and wage wars of this kind spiritually, and drive out all those "spiritual forces of wickedness from the heavenly places," then at last we shall be able to receive from Jesus even their places and kingdoms, which are "the kingdoms of heaven," by the lot of inheritance — our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ granting it, "to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen!"