Homilies on Leviticus — Homily 15 (Lev. 25 — the Jubilee; the sale and redemption of houses)
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 sale and redemption of houses.
1. We see three distinct laws concerning the sale and redemption of houses given through Moses in Leviticus. Let us first treat their content according to the historical sense, so that afterward we may be able to ascend also to the spiritual sense. Some houses are "in walled cities", others "in villages or fields that have no walls". He says, then, that "if anyone sell a house in a walled city, let him have the opportunity of redeeming it for a full year, but after the year no power of recovering it is granted". "For it shall be", he says, "the settled possession of the buyer, if he who sold it has not been able to free it within the year". The second law is that "if the house which has been sold be in a village that has no wall, but a village to which a field lies adjacent, it shall be lawful for the seller both after the year and whenever he is able, to restore the price and recover the house which he had sold". The third law is that "if perchance the house be a Levite's or a priest's, wherever such a house shall be, whether in a walled city or in a village that has no wall, it shall always and at every time be lawful, that whenever the Levite or the priest is able, he may redeem his house"; nor do the divine ordinances ever permit a priestly or Levitical possession to be confirmed to another who is not of the same order. These, then, are the laws which that former people used, even according to this very thing which is set forth through the history, providing quite religiously and piously for the priestly or Levitical orders.
2. But let us rather quickly refer these things to ourselves, to whom the law of Christ, if we follow it, permits us to have neither possessions on earth nor houses in cities. And why do I speak of houses? It does not grant us to possess even several tunics, nor much money: for "having", he says, "food and clothing, let us be content with these". How then shall we observe the laws given concerning houses, whether set "within a walled city" or "in villages that have no walls"? We find in other places of Scripture that the divine word names a house with a certain greater mystery, as when it speaks of Jacob and sets it down as if for his praise: "for Jacob", it says, "was a simple man, dwelling in a house". And again I find it written concerning the midwives of the Hebrews: "and because", it says, "the midwives feared God, they made themselves houses". We see, then, that for the midwives the cause of making houses was the fear of God, while for Jacob simplicity and innocence gave the cause that he "dwelt in a house". Finally Esau, because he was evil, it is not written of him that he dwelt in a house, nor is it written of any other who did not have the fear of God that he built himself a house. What, then, this "house" is, and what kind of building it is, the Apostle Paul expounds more openly, when he says: "we have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens". This, then, is the "house" which no one can build unless he fear God. This is the "house" which no one can construct or inhabit save in simplicity of mind and purity of heart. But since it is wont to happen that even one who has built well and has constructed for himself a heavenly house by acting well and living well and believing rightly, may incur the debt of some sin and be compelled by a most cruel usurer to sell it and to pour out his labors into another, the piety and clemency of the lawgiver comes to meet him, so that within a fixed time it may be redeemed. "If however your hand shall find", he says, "the price which you may restore". What kind of "price"? Gathered, without doubt, by the tears of repentance and found by the hands, that is, by the labor of good work. But that "year" can be understood which the Lord came to call "the acceptable year", in which he might release the broken into remission and grant salvation to those confessing their sins. But as to what he says, "a house in a walled city", rightly, as I judge, the "house" which is said to be "in heaven" is understood "in a walled city". For the wall of houses of this kind is the very firmament of heaven. But such a house only a rare few can have, those perhaps "who, walking upon the earth, have their conversation in the heavens" and of whom the Apostle says: "you are God's building". But the rest have houses "in villages that have no wall", yet there lies adjacent to them a fruitful field—those perhaps who prepare for themselves a dwelling "in the land of the living" and in that land which the Lord promises to "the meek", saying: "blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth by inheritance". These houses, then, if perchance some lapse should occur, as we expounded above, there is "always" the possibility of recovering—so that, to speak by way of example, if some mortal fault should find us, one that consists not in a mortal crime, not in blasphemy of the faith, which is girded by the wall of ecclesiastical and apostolic teaching, but rather in a fault of speech or of conduct; this is to have "sold the house" which is in the field or "in a village that has no wall". This sale, then, and a fault of this kind can always be repaired, nor is it ever forbidden you to bear repentance for things committed of this kind. For in graver crimes place for repentance is granted only once; but these common faults, which we frequently incur, always admit of repentance and are redeemed without intermission.
3. "But if this house be a priest's", he says, "or a Levite's, wherever it be, whether in a city or in a field, it always has redemption". In this place I seek the priestly sense and the Levitical understanding. For the hearer of these things ought not, if it can be, to be inferior to that very one who wrote and sanctioned these things. What is it, then, that the priest and the Levite "always" and wherever it be "has redemption" of his house? According to the spiritual understanding a priest is called a mind consecrated to God, and he is named a Levite who unceasingly stands beside God and ministers to his will. Perfection, therefore, in understanding and work, in faith and deeds, is to be taken as the priest and the Levite. And so, if it should ever happen to this perfect mind to sell the "house which it has not made with hands, eternal in the heavens", and to give it into the hands of another—as befell once the great patriarch David, when "from his roof" he "looked upon" the wife of Uriah the Hittite—straightway he redeems it, straightway he repairs it; for straightway he says: "I have sinned". Nay rather, we ought to look at something still more sublime in this sense: how the house of priests and Levites, that is, of perfect minds, always has its sins redeemed and is always purged. If ever we read the divine scriptures and review in them certain faults of the holy fathers, if according to the sentence of the Apostle Paul we say that "all these things happened to them in figure, but they were written for our admonition", in this way "their house is always redeemed", because for their faults purgation and satisfaction is always applied by the teachers who show from the divine scriptures that these were forms and images of things to come, not by which the sins of the saints were reproved, but by which it was shown that sinners and the impious are enrolled into the portion and fellowship of the saints. Never, then, is the priestly possession separated from the priest; even if it be taken away for a time, even if it be sold, it is "always redeemed", "always" repaired, as if he should say, "charity", which is "perfect", "endures all things, hopes all things, bears all things, charity never falls". So, then, also the possession and house of the saints "never falls", is never taken away, is never separated from their right. For how can a house be separated from priests which has been built "upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, in which Christ Jesus himself is the cornerstone"? But that this house can sometimes be sold, that is, that a building of this kind may fall into sin, hear how the Apostle Paul speaks concerning such: "as a wise architect I laid the foundation", he says, "another builds upon it, but let each one see how he builds upon it. For no one can lay another foundation besides that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. But if anyone builds upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble". You see, then, that there can be "built upon the foundation of Christ wood, hay, stubble", that is, works of sin; and whoever "builds" these has without doubt "sold his house" to the worst buyer, the devil, from whom each of those who sin obtains the price of sin, the satisfaction of his desire. If perchance anyone should incur this—which God forbid—let him quickly redeem it, quickly repair it, while there is time for repairing, while there is place for repentance, praying in common that we be not defrauded of the habitation of the eternal house, but be held worthy "to be received into the eternal tabernacles", through Christ our Lord, "to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen!".