Homilies on Judges — Homily 9 (Judges 7:2–20 — Gideon's three hundred)
Latin source: Origen's Greek homilies on Judges, surviving only in Rufinus of Aquileia's Latin translation (c. 400), from the reading text of W. A. Baehrens (ed.), Origenes Werke VII (GCS 30, Leipzig, 1921), pp. 464–522. This English translation is released into the public domain.Likewise the rest concerning Gideon and the battle which Gideon waged with the three hundred chosen men.
1. Vast was the multitude that had been gathered against Israel, so great that for its number it was compared to "locusts". "And their camels", it says, "were like the sand which is beyond number upon the shore of the sea". Let us see, then, how so countless a multitude of enemies could be overcome: there went out, it says, thirty-two thousand armed men from the sons of Israel with Gideon to fight against all that multitude. And God gave answer to Gideon, saying: "The multitude that is with you is great". And what if "the multitude is great"? Does not a more numerous army in wars afford safer defenses? By no means, He says, for divine battles are not carried out as human ones are. The work of the divine power is not made illustrious if it is propped up by human supports, because: "a king is not made safe by the greatness of his own power". Therefore, lest perhaps Israel should boast and in its vaunting claim a share of the victory, the Lord says to Gideon: "The people with you are many; I will not deliver Midian into their hands, lest perhaps Israel exult against Me, saying that my own hand has saved me. Therefore speak in the ears of the people, saying: Whoever is timid and fearful of heart, let him return. And there returned from Mount Gilead, out of the people, twenty-two thousand men, and there remained ten thousand". Let us see, then, first, what it means that He says: "timid and fearful of heart"; for two things are named by which human frailty is convicted, that is, the "timid" and the "fearful" of heart. He may seem "timid" who at the first sight trembles at the encounter, yet is not terrified with his whole heart, but can be restored and heartened again. But the fearful man is he who, the vice as it were now taking root, is terrified by thought alone even before he sees the evils, rolling an icy dread through his limbs, so that he is unmanned not so much by the sight of evils as by the very hearing and expectation of them; and therefore He added: "fearful of heart"; for this vice, now in the "heart", remains fixed even in the inner parts of the soul. What then? Do we say that only at that time did Gideon say to the people: "If anyone is timid and fearful of heart", let him depart from the battles, forsake the wars, abandon the contests of brave men? Or does even today the "commander of our army", our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, cry out to His soldiers and say: "If anyone is timid and fearful of heart", let him not come to My wars? For this is what, in other words indeed but in the same sense, He says in the Gospels: "He who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me", and: "He who does not hate his father and his mother, and his brothers and sisters, and moreover even his own soul, is not worthy of Me", and again: "He who does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be My disciple". Does not Christ in these words plainly separate and set apart the "timid and fearful" from His camp? All of you, then, who wish to follow the warfare of Christ, who desire to be in His camp, banish far from you the fear of the mind, banish far the dread of the heart, so that with confidence the soldier of Christ may say: "If camps stand together against me, my heart shall not fear; if battle rise up against me, in this will I hope", and may confidently say: "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I tremble?". But do not let such warfare deter you: it contains nothing difficult in itself, nothing arduous or impossible. Do you wish to know how easy it is to fulfill these things for those who wage war out of faith? In these camps even women too are often accustomed to conquer, because the fighting is done not by the strength of the body but by the power of faith. In what went before, in this very little book of Judges, we read of the triumphs of the woman Deborah, and no unbelieving dread disturbed her womanly mind. And why should I recall that magnificent Judith, most noble of all women? who, when affairs were already almost lost, did not tremble to come to the rescue alone, and alone to expose herself and her own head to the slaying of the utterly monstrous Holofernes, and went forth to war relying not on arms nor on war-horses nor on military supports, but on strength of soul and the confidence of faith; by counsel together with daring she destroyed the enemy; and the liberty of the fatherland, which the men had lost, a woman restored. And why do we unroll for you examples of the ancients from so far off? Before our own eyes we have often seen it done, that women and girls still of tender age have borne for the sake of martyrdom the tyrant's torments, to whom, added to the weakness of their sex, was the frailty of their still youthful life. So then, in those who wage war for the truth, and also those who wage war for God, not bodily but spiritual fortitude is required, because the victory is sought not by iron javelins but by the darts of prayers, and it is faith that furnishes endurance in the contest. Whence also the holy Apostle equips the soldiers of God for wars of this kind with fitting arms, saying: "Stand therefore, clothed with the breastplate of righteousness, and having girt your loins in truth; but take also the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit; and above all take up the shield of faith, in which you may be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked one"; but he also bids that the "feet be shod in the preparation of the Gospel of peace", and that, armed in this manner, they "take up" the standards "of the cross of Christ and follow Him". Yet this too is permitted in the warfare of Christ, that if perchance at some time you feel yourself inferior in strength amid persecutions, and the contest against the cruelty of the tyrant seems to you unequal through the frailty of the body, you may give place to wrath and "flee" from place to place, nor is this reckoned to you as a soldier's offense. For this too is appointed in the laws of Christ, who says: "If they persecute you in this city, flee into another; and if in the other, flee into yet another". For the sum of the matter is not to deny Jesus, whom you have once confessed. For it is certain that he confesses Him who flees for this reason, that he may not deny Him. If anyone, then, is "timid" and "fearful of heart", let him depart from the camp, let him return to his own house, lest he furnish to the rest an example of fear and dread. But do you wish to see of how great a crime the "timid and fearful" man is guilty? In the Apocalypse, where those are enumerated who are to be cast "into the lake of fire", there before all He places the "timid and fearful", and reckons together with them also the "unbelieving and fornicators and poisoners". Thus among enormous and abominable crimes is placed the crime of fear and dread. And these things we have said on account of those who first, as "timid and fearful of heart", are dismissed from the camp.
2. But after these "twenty-two thousand departed", the divine discourse adds still further and "says to Gideon": "Still", it says, "the people are many; bring them down to the water, and there I will test them for you". As I see it, those who were first rejected had not even gone down "into the water", but were still marking themselves out as catechumens, and were so deterred by the vice of dread that they did not even go down to the saving washing: those, then, were rejected in this way. But these second ones come "to the water", that they may be tested there. And how they are tested, let us see: "And the Lord said", it says, "to Gideon: everyone who shall lap the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set him apart; and everyone who shall bend his knees to drink, you shall set him aside. And the number", it says, "of those who lapped the water in their hand or with the tongue was three hundred men, but all the rest bent their knees to drink the water. And the Lord said to Gideon: by these three hundred men who lapped I will save you and deliver Midian into your hand". In almost all the deeds of the ancients vast mysteries are signified, as we see happening also in this passage, because those who go down "to the water", that is, who come to the grace of baptism, ought not to fall down to the earth nor "bend their knees" and yield to the temptations that are to come, but to stand bravely and steadfastly, as the prophet also said: "Lift up the hands that hang down and the loosened knees", and: "Make straight the going of your paths". You have come to the water of baptism; this is the beginning of the contest and of the spiritual battle, from here arises for you the commencement of the fight against the devil. If you are the more slack, if you can easily be made to bend, how will you fight, how will you stand against the wiles of the devil? Therefore the Apostle also cries out: "Stand therefore, and do not again cling to the yoke of bondage", and again he says: "Stand in the Lord", and a third time he says: "For we now live, if you stand in the Lord". That one, then, is approved, that one is chosen, who, after coming to the waters of baptism, knows not how to be bent toward earthly and bodily necessities, who does not indulge the vices nor is laid prostrate through thirst for sin. But as for its saying that they "lapped the water with the hand or the tongue", this seems to me written not without a certain significance of a mystery, namely that the soldiers of Christ ought to work with hand and tongue, that is, by deed and by word, because "he who teaches and does, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven". And that Scripture also set down the likeness of a dog lapping — this animal seems to me to be named in this place for the reason that above all other animals it is said to keep love for its own master, and neither by time nor by injuries is its affection reported to be blotted out in it. Three hundred only, then, who prefigured the image of this mystery, these are the chosen, these the approved, these consecrated to victory, who by the very mystery of the number could prevail over the adversaries. For they are three hundred, who multiply a hundred by three and bear the number of the perfect Trinity, under which number the whole army of Christ is reckoned. Among whom let us wish that we too may deserve to be enrolled. Yet how do these fight? "Pitchers", it says, they carry, "and lamps and horn trumpets in their hands", and thus, it says, they come against those countless multitudes of the enemy, among whom were "camels like the sand of the sea". And when they had come to the battle, "with the horn trumpets", it says, "they sounded". And they let go the "pitchers" from their hands, and "they were shattered". But then, snatching up the lamps, they rush upon the adversaries, and at the same time crash out with the trumpets. See how the chosen soldiers of God fight with lamps. For thus had Christ armed them, saying: "Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning", and again: "So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven". With such lamps kindled, then, it befits the soldiers of Christ to fight, shining with the light of their works and with the splendor of their deeds. But what are the "horn trumpets" on which "they blow the trumpet"? He who speaks of heavenly things, who discourses of spiritual things, who reveals the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven", he sounds the "trumpet"; he speaks of the "trumpet" who speaks of great and greatest things, who lays open the knowledge of Christ to human ears. But why is the "trumpet" also called "of horn"? Because it is also said of the holy one: "his horn shall be exalted in glory". Whence also each man's "trumpet" is called "of horn" in this, that he discourses the manifold knowledge of Christ and the mysteries of His cross, which is signified in the horn. Warring, then, with this "trumpet", and fighting with this, we overcome the strangers and turn the enemies to flight, even if "their multitude be like locusts". For to "locusts" is compared the multitude of demons, who have a seat neither in heaven nor on the earth. Let there go before us also in this battle the light of works, the power of knowledge, the preaching of the divine word. Let us too fight, singing together in "hymns and psalms and spiritual songs" and "crying out to God", that we may deserve to obtain from Him the victory in Christ Jesus our Lord, "to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen!".