Homilies on Leviticus — Homily 2 (Lev. 4 — the sin offerings (for priest, congregation, people); the peace offerings (Lev. 3))
Latin source: Origen's Greek homilies on Leviticus, surviving only in Rufinus of Aquileia's Latin translation (c. 403–405), from the reading text of W. A. Baehrens (ed.), Origenes Werke VI (GCS 29, Leipzig, 1920), pp. 280–507. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the ritual of the sacrifices, that is, on the offerings and the peace (salutary) offerings and those for sins; and how "the high priest offers for his own sin" and for the sin of the Synagogue, or for a soul which "from the people of the land has sinned unwillingly".
1. The earlier discussion on the openings of Leviticus taught us the law of the sacrifices, which are called offerings: namely, that "if a man should offer an offering" from animals "he should offer it", that is, "from oxen or sheep, or even goats"; "but if from birds, he should present a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons". "But if a soul should offer an offering, it should offer fine flour from the oven, that is, unleavened loaves of fine flour, or fine flour sprinkled with oil from the pan, or even from the griddle". "But if he should offer a sacrifice of first fruits, of the first produce, so that the fine flour be fresh, that is, new — he wills too that it be roasted with fire, that it be broken in the middle, lest it be too finely ground, because they are first fruits — and that it be well cleansed". "Oil too and frankincense are to be placed upon it, and so it is to be offered". But if anyone should offer "a peace (salutary) offering", he is commanded to offer "from oxen", or even "from sheep" or "goats"; and apart from these no other kind of sacrifice is admitted among the peace offerings. For "on account of sins not voluntary" it is in general the "soul" that is commanded to offer, but after this the text proceeds through diverse and various persons; and it is commanded that, "if indeed it be the high priest who has transgressed and offers a sacrifice for sin, he should offer a bull-calf" as a whole burnt offering, but not by that same rite by which he offered the one for an offering. For of this one he shall place upon the altar of the whole burnt offerings "the fat and the two kidneys with their fat, and the fat that covers the inner parts", only these. "Of its blood" too, "dipping his finger, he sprinkles seven times before the Lord, and anoints from it the horns of the altar of incense. But the rest of the flesh, with the hide and the entrails and the dung, he commands to be burned with fire outside the camp, in a clean place". It must indeed be observed that in the sin of the high priest the lawgiver did not add that he had sinned through ignorance or unwillingly. For ignorance could not befall one who has been advanced in order that he might teach the rest. But if there be a sin "of the whole synagogue", the synagogue is none the less commanded to offer "a bull-calf" as a whole burnt offering. But in the sin of the synagogue it is said: "if it should be ignorant, and the matter be hidden from the eyes of the synagogue, and it should do one of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done"; from which it is clear that "the whole synagogue" too can transgress through ignorance. And this the Lord also confirms in the gospels, when he says: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do". "But if it be a ruler" who offers the offering for sin, he is commanded to offer "a goat from the she-goats" — not a whole burnt offering, but only that "the priest place of its blood upon the altar and offer all its fat on the altar", while the rest remains for the priests to eat, "the blood only being poured out at the base of the altar". "But if it be one soul", he says, "that offers for sin, let it offer a female goat"; that is, by the same rite by which we said above the goat was immolated. "But if his hand should not be able to afford a goat or a lamb", he says, "he shall offer a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons". "But if he should not find even this, he is bidden to offer the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour, without oil and without frankincense". These several matters were indeed read out to us in the previous lesson; but the explanation of them, since we were shut out by time, was passed over. Concerning this I think it not absurd now to remind in a few words those who are studious, and those too who recall the past lessons, although we are pressed toward the matters that have just now been read.
2. And first I should like to see what this distinction is: that of one it says that "a man" offers, of another that "a soul" offers, of another "the high priest", of another "the synagogue", of another "one soul from the people of the land". And I think indeed that "a man" is to be understood as one who, made "to the image and likeness" of God, lives rationally. This man, then, offers to God an offering — a "bull-calf", when he has overcome the pride of the flesh; a "sheep", when he has corrected the irrational and foolish motions; a "kid", when he has conquered wantonness. He offers too "a pair of turtledoves", when he has not been alone, but has joined his mind to the Word of God as to a true spouse, just as this kind of bird is said to keep a single and chaste marriage. He offers too "two young pigeons", when he too has understood the mystery in which "the eyes of the bride" are said to be "like doves" "by the fulnesses of the waters" "and her neck like a turtledove's". These, then, are the offerings of the man, according to what we have expounded above. But the offerings of the soul it describes as far inferior. This soul has neither a "bull-calf" nor a "sheep" nor a "kid" to offer to God; but it does not even find "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons". It has only "fine flour"; from it, it "offers unleavened loaves from the oven", from it a work made "in the pan" or "mixed with oil on the griddle". Whence it seems to me that the one here called "a soul" is to be understood as that man whom Paul names "the animal (natural) man"; who, even if he is not pressed by sins nor headlong toward vices, nevertheless does not have anything spiritual in him, anything that might figuratively be reckoned the flesh of the Word of God. For thus Paul the Apostle himself says of him that: "the animal (natural) 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. But the spiritual man examines all things". This one, then, who is named "a soul", cannot offer all things, because he cannot examine all things; but he offers only "fine flour and unleavened loaves", that is, this common life — placed, for example, in agriculture or in seafaring or in some of the uses of common life; yet even he too offers an offering to God, although he is said "to offer" only "fine flour" merely "sprinkled with oil". For every soul needs the oil of the divine mercy, nor can anyone escape the present life unless the oil of the heavenly compassion be present to him. In the second place, the oblation "of the first fruits", that is, of the beginnings of the produce, is commanded. And this, if you remember well, the law commands to be done on the day of Pentecost. In which a "shadow" plainly was given to them, but for us the truth was reserved. For on the day of Pentecost, when the sacrifice of prayers had been offered, the Church received the first fruits of the coming "Holy Spirit" of the Apostles. And truly these were fresh, because it was new; whence they were even said to be "filled with new wine". "Roasted with fire". For fiery tongues settled upon each one. "And broken in the middle". For they were broken in the middle, when the letter was separated from the spirit. "And well cleansed". For the presence of the Holy Spirit cleanses all filth, granting remission of sins. The oil of mercy too is poured into this sacrifice, and the frankincense of sweetness, through which we are made "the good odor of Christ". After this it speaks of the peace (salutary) offerings, which are offered from animals, that is, from "oxen" or "goats and sheep"; and nothing beyond these is admitted for immolation — not even the birds, which above had been admitted among the offerings to be offered. For this one, who offers the peace offerings, is without doubt already conscious of his own salvation; and therefore he who has arrived at salvation must of necessity offer things that are great and perfect. For thus the Apostle too says: "solid food, however, is for the perfect". Thereupon the order of the sacrifices is directed to the offering of victims for sins, in which it is said a second time: "the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: whatever soul shall sin before the Lord unwillingly". Rightly does it say "soul" of the one whom it describes as sinning; for it would not have called it spirit, of which it would say that it would sin; but neither would it call this one a man, in whom, with sin intervening, the "image of God" in no way stands firm. It is not, then, the spirit that sins; for "the fruit of the spirit" — as the Apostle describes — "is love, joy, peace, patience", and the rest like these, which are also called "the fruits of life". Finally, elsewhere too he says: "he who sows in the flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption; and he who sows in the spirit shall from the spirit reap eternal life". Since, then, there is one who sows and another in whom it is sown, and it is sown either "in the flesh", when one sins, so that "corruption" be reaped, or "in the spirit", when one lives according to God, so that "eternal life" be reaped — it is established that it is the soul which sows either "in the flesh" or "in the spirit", and that it is the soul which can either rush into sin or be turned back from sin. For the body is its follower to whatever it may choose; and the spirit is its guide to virtue, if it be willing to follow it.
3. But these things have been said in general; now, however, they are divided by kinds. "If the high priest", it says, "who has been anointed, should sin, so as to make the people sin, he shall offer for his own sin a bull-calf from the oxen, without blemish, to the Lord". Both terror and mercy are displayed together in the divine laws. Is nothing, then, after all, safe — not even the high priest? And what high priest? The very one who has been anointed, the very one who kindles the divine altars with the sacred fires, who immolates offerings and peace offerings to God; who intervenes as a certain mediating re-propitiator between God and men — not even he, I say, remains immune from the contagion of sin. But see the mercy of God, and know it more fully from Paul's teaching. For he himself, writing to the Hebrews, says: "for every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men to offer victims to God", and a little later he says: "the law appoints as priests men having weakness", so that they may be able to offer, as for their own weakness, so also for the weakness of the people. You see, then, the dispensation of the divine wisdom. It appointed as priests, not those who could in no way sin — otherwise they would not be men — but those who ought indeed to imitate him "who did no sin", yet "to offer victims first for their own, and then also for the people's transgressions". But what especially is to be admired in a priest of this kind? Not that he should not sin — which cannot be — but that he should acknowledge and understand his own sin. For he never amends who does not think that he has sinned. And at the same time, because he too can more easily pardon those who sin who is himself stung by the consciousness of some weakness of his own. But what is the oblation of the priest "for sin"? "A bull-calf", it says, "for a whole burnt offering". We find in the second place that a "bull-calf" is offered by the high priest "for a whole burnt offering", once for an offering, once "for sin". But the one that is offered for an offering is consumed "upon the altar" of the whole burnt offering. But the one that is offered "for sin" is commanded to be burned "outside the camp, with the hide and the entrails and the dung, in a clean place", only the fat and the kidneys being offered on the altar. Although to divide and distinguish these several matters is both beyond our powers and beyond your hearing, nevertheless we shall attempt to seek out for you some occasions for understanding and to bring them into the open. See, then, whether perhaps Jesus, whom Paul says "made peace" through his blood "not only for the things that are on earth, but also for the things that are in the heavens", is himself this bull-calf, who "in the heavens" indeed was offered not "for sin" but for an offering, but "on the earth", where sin "reigned from Adam until Moses", was offered "for sin". And this is to have suffered "outside the camp" — outside those, I think, the camps which Jacob had seen, the heavenly camps of the angels of God, of which it is written in Genesis: "and Jacob, looking up, saw the camps of God in array, and the angels of God met him, and Jacob said, when he saw them: these are the camps of God". Outside those heavenly camps, then, is this whole earthly place in which we dwell, in which Christ suffered in the flesh. But as for its saying that it is burned "with the dung and the entrails", see whether perhaps, by comparison with the heavenly bodies, this body of human nature is figuratively called dung. For it is earth and taken from earth. But that basket of dung too, which is put at the roots of the fig tree to be cut down, what else does it show but the mystery of the dispensation assumed in a body? Nor yet are the entrails said to be lacking to him. For although he bore the lowly "form of a servant", nevertheless "the fulness of the divinity dwelt in him". Although these things have been discussed boldly, nevertheless the hearing of the faithful ought always to be nourished toward greater things. The same things too are to be understood of the bull-calf of the synagogue.
4. But in the moral sense this high priest can be seen as that faculty of piety and religion which within us performs, as it were, a certain priesthood, through the prayers and supplications that we pour out to God. If this transgress in anything, it forthwith "makes sin" the whole people of good acts that is within us. For we do nothing of a right work when the guiding sense of good works has declined into what is depraved; and therefore for the amending of this, not any victim whatever, but the sacrifice of "the fatted calf" itself is required. Likewise too the fault of the synagogue — that is, the amending of all the virtues that are within us — is repaired not otherwise than by the mortification of Christ. "But if a ruler", it says, "should sin, he shall offer a goat from the she-goats". This ruler can be seen as the power of reason which is within us. And if this should sin in us, and we should do something foolish, that sentence of the Savior is to be greatly feared by us, which says: "you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its savor, it is good for nothing, except to be cast out and trodden underfoot by men". This one too, then, has his own victim. But "one soul", it says, "if it should sin, shall likewise offer a female goat", according to that substitution of victims which we mentioned above. But perhaps the hearers of the church may say: it was dealt with almost better among the ancients than with us, when, sacrifices being offered by diverse rites, pardon was granted to those who sinned. Among us there is only one pardon of sins, which is given at the beginning through the grace of the laver; after this no mercy is granted to the one who sins, nor any pardon. It befits indeed a Christian, "for whom Christ died", to be of stricter discipline. For them sheep, goats, oxen were slaughtered, and birds, and fine flour was sprinkled; for you the Son of God was slaughtered, and does it delight you to sin again? And yet, lest these things lift up your spirit not so much toward virtue as cast it down toward despair, you have heard how many are the sacrifices for sins in the law; hear now how many are the remissions of sins in the gospels. There is that first one, by which we are baptized "unto the remission of sins". The second remission is in the suffering of martyrdom. The third is that which is given through almsgiving; for the Savior says: "but nevertheless give the things that you have, and behold, all things are clean to you". The fourth remission of sins comes to us through this, that we too remit sins to our brothers; for thus the Lord and Savior himself says that: "if you remit to your brothers from the heart their sins, your Father too will remit to you your sins. But if you do not remit to your brothers from the heart, neither will your Father remit to you", and just as he taught us to say in the prayer: "remit to us our debts, as we too remit to our debtors". The fifth remission of sins is when "someone turns a sinner from the error of his way". For thus the divine Scripture says that "he who causes a sinner to be turned from the error of his way saves a soul from death, and covers a multitude of sins". A sixth remission too comes about through the abundance of love, as the Lord himself also says: "Amen, I say to you, her many sins are remitted to her, because she loved much", and the Apostle says: "because love covers a multitude of sins". There is still a seventh also, though hard and laborious — the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner washes "his bed with tears" and his "tears" become to him "bread day and night", when he is not ashamed to make known his sin to the priest of the Lord and to seek the remedy, according to him who says: "I said: I will declare against myself my injustice to the Lord, and you remitted the impiety of my heart". In which is fulfilled also that which the Apostle James says: "but if anyone is sick, let him call the elders of the church, and let them lay hands on him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and if he be in sins, they will be remitted to him". And you therefore, when you come to the grace of baptism, have offered "a bull-calf", because you are baptized "into the death of Christ". But when you are led to martyrdom, you have offered "a goat", because you have slaughtered the devil, the author of sin. And when you have given alms and, with careful piety, have paid out toward the needy the affection of mercy, you have laden the sacred altar with fat kids. For if you "remit from the heart the sin to your brother" and, laying aside the swelling of anger, have gathered again within you a mild and simple mind, be confident that you have immolated a ram or offered a lamb in sacrifice. Furthermore, if, instructed by the divine readings, "meditating like a dove" and keeping vigil "in the law" of the Lord "day and night", you turn a sinner from his error and, his wickedness cast off, recall him to the simplicity of the dove, and by making him cleave to the saints cause him to imitate the fellowship of the turtledove, you have offered to the Lord "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons". But if that "love" which is "greater" than hope and faith should abound in your heart, so that you "love your neighbor" not only "as yourself", but as he showed who said: "no one has greater love than this, that he lay down his soul for his friends", know that you have offered loaves of fine flour "kneaded in the oil" of love, without any "leaven of malice and wickedness, in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth". But if you are in the bitterness of your weeping, worn out with grief, tears, and lamentation, if you have mortified your flesh and made it dry with fasts and much abstinence, and have said that "my bones are burned up like a frying-pan", then you have offered "the sacrifice of fine flour from the pan or from the griddle"; and in this way you will be found to offer more truly and more perfectly, according to the gospel, the sacrifices which Israel can no longer offer according to the law.
5. But let us see what is also to be thought concerning the things that have just now been read: "but if", it says, "one soul should sin unwillingly from the people of the land, by doing one of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done, and should transgress, and the sin which it sinned should become known to it, it shall bring its gift: it shall bring a female goat from the kids, without blemish, for the sin which it sinned". And after this it recounted the whole rite of the sacrifice, according to what we expounded above. Concerning the soul which, made under sin, it says offers, how it is to be thought, we have explained in the foregoing as far as we could; but what it added in this place, saying "a soul, if it should sin from the people of the land", does not seem to me idle. For who would doubt that the things which the law says are said to souls or to a people that are on the earth? What need, then, was there that to what it said, "one soul, if it should sin", it should add: "from the people of the land"? But it must be seen whether perhaps, for distinction from another people, which "is not of the land", this soul which "should sin" is said to be "of the people of the land". For this saying cannot suit him who said: "but our citizenship is in the heavens, whence too we await the Savior, the Lord Jesus". How, then, could I rightly call "of the people of the land" that soul which has nothing in common with the land, but is wholly in the heavens and dwells there, "where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God", whither too it "desires" to return "and to be with Christ: for it is much better; but to remain in the flesh he judges necessary for our sake"? This soul, then, which sins, is "of the people of the land", "doing one of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done". For a long time a certain astonishment held me stunned in this saying; for I do not see it said consistently that "a soul has sinned and done one of the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done". For if it is a commandment of the Lord, how ought it not to be done, since surely the commandments of the Lord are given precisely for this, that they be done? And how is the soul here said to have sinned which "did one of the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done"? And perhaps to some it will seem an error of expression made by the translators; but to me, inquiring more curiously, it has been found that all the translators rendered it alike, and therefore not an error of expression, but a sense of deeper understanding, is to be sought. As far, then, as it can occur to us, this seems to me the resolution. Certain commandments of the Lord were given that they should be done, certain that they should not be done. But as for those which ought to be done, human necessity demanded that there should be brought forth, inserted among them, those which ought not to be done. For example — to bring forth an illustration from these very sacrifices which we now have in hand — a lamb is commanded to be immolated at the Passover, not because God truly required the victim of a lamb year by year, but because it signified that "that Lamb which takes away the sin of the world" ought to be immolated. This, then, he willed to be done, that he did not will. For thus he says through Isaiah: "what to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I am full; the whole burnt offerings of rams and the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and of goats I do not will". You have heard how he does not will "the victim of rams nor the fat of lambs"? Yet he gave the commandment as to how the victim either of bulls or of lambs ought to be offered. But he who understands the law spiritually seeks to offer these things spiritually. But if anyone offers according to the appearance of the carnal commandment, this is "one soul from the people of the land, which sinned unwillingly by doing one of all the commandments of the Lord which shall not be done, and transgressed", and therefore it adds in what follows: "and when the sin which it sinned shall have become known to it, it shall bring its offering before the Lord". For the soul ought to offer an offering when "it has become known to it" that God does not seek a carnal sacrifice, because "a sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit". "Its sin becomes known" to it, then, when it has learned from the Lord who says: "I prefer mercy to sacrifice", and when it has come to know how to immolate "the sacrifice of praise" in the church and to render "to the Most High its vows", through Christ our Lord, "to whom be praise and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen!"