Homilies on Luke — Homily 14 (Luke 2:21–24)
Latin source: Origen's Greek homilies on Luke, surviving only in Jerome's Latin translation (c. 391), from the reading text of M. Rauer (ed.), Origenes Werke IX (GCS 35, Leipzig, 1930). This English translation is released into the public domain.Concerning what is written: "And when the days of his circumcision were fulfilled," up to the place where it says: "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons".
In "that he died," Christ "died to sin"; not because he himself had sinned — "for he did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth" — but he died so that we, who were dead, might, by his dying "to sins," by no means live "to sin" and to vices. Whence it is written: "If we have died together with him, we shall also live together with him"; therefore, just as "we died together" then, when he died, and rose together with him when he rose again, so were we circumcised with him and, after the circumcision, cleansed by the solemn purification. Whence we now have no need whatsoever of carnal circumcision. And that you may know that he was circumcised for our sake, hear Paul preaching most plainly: "in whom," he says, "dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are filled in him, who is the head of all principality and power; in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, buried together with him in baptism, in whom also you rose together with him through the faith of the working of God, who raised him from the dead". Therefore both his death and his resurrection and his circumcision were done for us.
"When," it says, "the days for circumcising the child were fulfilled, his name was called Jesus, which had been called by the angel before he was conceived". The name of Jesus, glorious and most worthy of all adoration and worship, "the name which is above every name," was not fitting to be pronounced first by human beings, nor to be brought forth by them into the world, but by some more excellent and greater nature. Whence the evangelist pointedly added, saying: "and his name was called Jesus, which had been called by the angel before he was conceived in the womb".
Then there follows: "when the days of their purification were fulfilled, according to the law of Moses, they brought him to Jerusalem". On account of the purification, he says, "of them". Of whom, "of them"? If it had been written: on account of her purification, that is, of Mary, who had given birth, no question would arise, and we would boldly say that Mary, who was human, had need of purification after childbirth. But now, in that it says: "the days of their purification", it seems to signify not one, but another or several. Did Jesus, then, have need of purification and was he unclean, or defiled with some filth? Perhaps I seem to speak rashly, but I am moved by the authority of the Scriptures. See what is written in Job: "no one is clean from filth, not even if his life should be of a single day". He did not say: "no one is clean from sin," but: "no one is clean from filth". For filth and sins do not signify the same thing; and that you may know that filth means one thing and sin another, Isaiah teaches most plainly, saying: "the Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will cleanse the blood from their midst, by the spirit of judgment the filth and by the spirit of burning the blood". Every soul that has been clothed with a human body has its own "filth". And that you may know that Jesus too was made filthy by his own will, because for our salvation he had assumed a human body, listen to the prophet Zechariah saying: "Jesus was clothed with filthy garments". And this indeed makes against those who deny that our Lord had a human body, but say it was woven of heavenly and spiritual things. For if his body was of heavenly things and, as they falsely assert, of the stars and some other more sublime and spiritual nature, let them answer why a spiritual body could be filthy, or how they interpret what we have set down: "Jesus was clothed with filthy garments". But if they are compelled by necessity to accept that a filthy garment is understood as a spiritual body, they must consequently say that what is set down in the promises has been fulfilled, that is: "an animal body is sown, a spiritual body rises," and that we rise polluted and filthy — which even to think is a sacrilege, especially when one knows it is written: "it is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it will rise in glory; it is sown in weakness, it will rise in strength; an animal body is sown, a spiritual body will rise". It was necessary, therefore, that for our Lord and Savior, who had been "clothed with filthy garments" and had assumed an earthly body, there should be offered those things which by the law were accustomed to purge filth. What is frequently asked among the brethren I take up again, prompted by the occasion of this passage. Little children are baptized "for the remission of sins". Of what "sins"? Or at what time did they sin? Or how can that reasoning of the washing hold in the case of little children, except according to that sense of which we spoke a little before: "no one is clean from filth, not even if his life should be of a single day upon the earth"? And because through the sacrament of baptism the "filth" of birth is laid aside, therefore little children too are baptized: for "unless one be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven".
"When," it says, "the days of their purification were fulfilled". The "days" are fulfilled also mystically. For a soul is not purified immediately, as soon as it is born, nor can it attain perfect purity in its very origin; but just as it is written in the law: "If she bears a male, the mother shall sit seven days in unclean blood, and then thirty-three days in pure blood, and at the last both she and the infant shall sit in most pure blood", so, because the law is spiritual and "has a shadow of the good things to come", we can understand that true purification comes to us after a time. I think that even after the resurrection from the dead we shall have need of a sacrament that washes and purges us — for no one will be able to rise without filth —, and that no soul can be found which is at once free from all vices. Whence in the regeneration of baptism a sacrament is received, so that, just as Jesus according to the dispensation of the flesh was purified by an offering, so we too may be purified by spiritual regeneration. "They brought him according to the law of Moses to Jerusalem, to present him before the sight of the Lord". Where are those who deny the God of the law, who say that it was not this God, but another different from Christ, who was proclaimed in the Gospel: "God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law"? Are we then to suppose that the good God made his Son under the law of the Creator and under the right of an enemy, a right which he himself had not given? Rather, he was made under the law for this reason, "that he might redeem those who were under the law", and subject them to another law, concerning which it was read a while ago: "Attend, my people, to my law", and the rest. "They brought him" therefore "that they might present him before the sight of the Lord". Fulfilling the precepts of what Scripture? Surely of this one: "as it is written," he says, "in the law of Moses, that every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord", and: "three times a year every male shall appear in the sight of the Lord God". The males which were holy from the fact that they had opened their mother's womb were offered before the altar of the Lord: "every male," it says, "that opens the womb", sounds something sacred. For whatever male you may say has been poured forth from the womb, he does not open his mother's womb as the Lord Jesus does, because in all women it is not the birth of the infant, but the intercourse of the man, that unlocks the womb. But the womb of the Lord's mother was unlocked at that time at which the birth also was brought forth, because before the birth of Christ no male at all touched that holy womb, to be venerated with all reverence. I dare to say something further: that even in what is written, "The Spirit of God shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you", was the beginning of the seed and of the conception, and that without the unlocking of the womb the new offspring grew in the womb. Whence the Savior himself speaks: "but I am a worm and not a man, the reproach of men and the outcast of the people". He saw in his mother's womb the uncleanness of bodies; walled about on this side and that by her inward parts, he endured the confinements of earthly dregs; whence he likens himself to a worm and says: "I am a worm and not a man". For man is wont to be born of male and female, but I was born not of male and female, according to the rite and nature of men, but after the pattern of the "worm", whose seed is not from elsewhere, but whose origin is in the very bodies, and from the very bodies, in which it grows together. For this reason, because "every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord", he was brought "to Jerusalem", that he might appear before the sight of God, and on account of that which follows: "that a gift might be given for him, according to what is written in the law of the Lord: a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons". We see a pair of turtledoves and two young pigeons offered for the Savior. I even think those birds blessed, which were offered for the birth of the Lord; and just as I marvel at Balaam's ass and heap up her happiness, because she was worthy not only to see the angel of God, but also, with her mouth unlocked, to break forth into human speech, so much more do I proclaim and exalt these birds, that they were offered for our Lord and Savior before the altar. "That they might offer for him a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons". Perhaps I may seem to bring in something novel, but something too little worthy of the majesty of the matter. Just as the generation of the Savior was new, not of man and woman, but of a virgin alone only, so also this "pair of turtledoves and two young pigeons" were not such as we behold with the eyes of the flesh, but such as the Holy Spirit is, who "descended in the form of a dove and came" upon the Savior, when he was baptized in the Jordan. Such too was the "pair of turtledoves": those birds were not, like these, such as flit through the air, but something divine and, for human contemplation, more august, appeared under the form of a dove and a turtledove, so that he who was being born for the whole world and was to suffer might be cleansed before the Lord not with such victims as all men use, but, as his whole dispensation was new, so he might have new victims also, according to the will of Almighty God in Christ Jesus: to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.