Homilies on Luke — Homily 16 (Luke 2:33–34)
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: "His father and mother were marveling over these things, which were said of him", up to the place where he says: "behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel".
"And", he says, "his father and mother were marveling over these things, which were said of him". Let us gather together into one the things that were said and written about Jesus at his birth, and then we shall be able to know that each single one is worthy of wonder. For which reason both the father was marveling — for so Joseph too was called, because he was a foster-father — the mother also was marveling over all the things "which were said of him". What then are the things that rumor had spread abroad concerning the little child Jesus? "There were shepherds in that region, keeping watch and observing the night-watches over their flock." At the very hour of Jesus' birth an angel came and said to them: "I announce to you great joy: go, and you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling-cloths and laid in a manger". The angel had not yet finished his words, and behold, "a multitude of the heavenly host" began to praise and bless God. When the shepherds, trembling, had beheld this, and "the angel had departed from them, they said to one another: Let us go to Bethlehem and see this deed which the Lord has shown us". They came and found the little child. Both they and the parents marveled over these things which had been done. And of Simeon it is written that he increased the report and was even a great part of the miracle. For he held the child in his arms and said: "Now, Lord, you dismiss your servant in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation". The summit and, so to speak, the crown of the things that were noised abroad concerning Jesus, at which both his father and mother marveled, was the word of Simeon. For it did not suffice him to hold the little child and to speak out the things that were written concerning himself, but he "blessed" his father and his mother, and prophesied about the infant himself also, saying: "Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted. A sword shall pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed". What does this mean which he says: "behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel"? To this I have found something similar written in the Gospel according to John: "for judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may be made blind". Therefore, just as he came for judgment, that "those who do not see" of the nations "might see", and those who saw before, of Israel, "might be made blind", so he came "for the fall and rising of many". For at the coming of the Lord the Savior, those who had stood before fell down, and those who had fallen rose up. This is one interpretation of that which was said: "behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel". But there is also something deeper to be understood against those especially who bark against the Creator, and, gathering together from here and there out of the Old Testament testimonies which they do not understand, "deceive the hearts of the simple". For they say: behold, the God of the Law and the Prophets, see what sort he is. "I", he says, "will kill, and I will make alive; I will strike, and I will heal, and there is none who can deliver out of my hands". They hear: "I will kill", and they do not hear: "I will make alive"; they hear: "I will strike", and they disdain to hear: "and I will heal". On occasions of this kind they slander the Creator. Therefore, before I interpret what sense there is in: "I will kill and make alive, I will strike and heal", I will set against them a testimony of the Gospel and will say against the heretics — for there are countless heresies which receive the Gospel according to Luke —: If the Creator is bloodthirsty and only a judge and cruel because he says: "I will kill and make alive, I will strike and heal", it is most manifest that Jesus too is his son; for the same things are written of him: "behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel", not "for the rising" only, but also "for the fall". If it is evil to kill, let it be evil also to come "for the fall". What will they answer? Will they either withdraw from his worship, or will they seek some interpretation and flee to figurative readings, so that his coming "for the fall" may sound of kindness rather than of severity? And how will it be just, when something of this sort is found in the Gospel, to flee to allegories and new understandings, but when it is found in the Old Testament, at once to accuse and to accept no explanation, however probable it may be? But even this which follows: "for judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may be made blind", however much they seek to expound it, they will not be able to fulfill. But I, who desire to be of the Church and to be named and to bear a name not from any heresiarch, but from the appellation of Christ, and to have a name that is blessed upon the earth, and long to be and to be called a Christian both in work and in thought, seek an equal principle both in the old and in the new law. God speaks: "I will kill"; I am glad that God kills. For when the old man is in me and I still live as a man, I long that God may kill in me the old man and make me alive from the dead. For, he says, "the first man was of the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly". According to this sense that also is understood: "for judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may be made blind". We all have in ourselves both sight and blindness. Adam both saw and did not see. Eve too, before her eyes were opened, is described as having seen: "the woman saw", it says, "the tree, that it was good for eating and most delightful to the eyes for seeing: and taking of the fruit of the tree she ate, and gave to her husband, and they ate". Therefore they were not blind, but saw. Then it follows: "and their eyes were opened". Therefore they had been blind and did not see, whose eyes were afterward opened; but those who had seen well before, after they transgressed the commandment of the Lord, began to see badly, and afterward, as the offense crept in, they lost the sight of obedience. Thus I understand also that which God says: "Who made the mute and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? Was it not I, the Lord God?" There is an eye of the body, with which we behold these earthly things, an eye according to the sense of the flesh, of which the Scripture says: "walking vainly, puffed up by the sense of the flesh". To this we have another, contrary and better, that savors of divine things; and because it was blind in us, Jesus came to make it see, that those who did not see might see, and those who saw might be made blind. According to this sense, then, is that also to be understood which we now have in hand: "behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel". I have something in me that stands badly and raises itself up in the pride of sin: let this fall, let this be pulled down; and if it falls, that which had before fallen down will, rising, stand. My "inner man" once lay struck down, and the outer stood erect. Before I believed in Jesus, the good in me lay down, the evil stood. After he came, then what was evil in me fell down, and that was fulfilled: "always carrying about the dying of Jesus in the body", and that: "put to death your members upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, luxury, idolatry, sorceries", and the rest. The fall of all these has been made useful. And of this fall it is said: "Wherever the corpse shall be, there the eagles will be gathered". For a corpse (cadaver) has received its name from falling (a casu). Good is this fall, to which Jesus first comes, and he cannot bring about the rising unless the fall has gone before. Let him come first to destroy what was evil in me, so that, when that is destroyed and put to death, there may rise up in me and be made alive that which is good, so that in it may follow the kingdom of heaven: to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.