Homilies on Luke — Homily 22 (Luke 3:5–8)
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: "Every valley shall be filled", up to the place where he says: "God is able from these stones to raise up sons of Abraham".
Let us see what things are foretold at the coming of Christ, among which first it is written concerning John: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths". And what follows pertains properly to the Lord the Savior. For "every valley" was not "filled" by John, but by the Lord the Savior. Let each one consider himself, what he was before he believed, and then he will observe that he was a lowly valley, a headlong valley plunged into the depths. But when the Lord Jesus came and sent the Holy Spirit as his vicar, "every valley" was "filled". And it was "filled" with good works and with the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Love does not permit a valley to remain in you, for, if you have peace and patience and goodness, not only will you cease to be a "valley", but you will even begin to be a "mountain" of God. We see this happening and being fulfilled daily among the Gentiles: "every valley shall be filled", as also concerning the people of Israel, who has been brought down from on high: "every mountain and hill shall be brought low". That people was once a "mountain" and a "hill", which has been brought down and destroyed. "By their transgression salvation has been given to the Gentiles, to provoke them to emulation". But if you should also say that the hostile powers, which were raised up against mortals, are the mountains and hills that have been brought down, you will not err. For in order that valleys of this kind may be filled, the hostile powers, the mountains and hills, must be brought low. But let us also contemplate whether this too, which was prophesied at the coming of Christ, has been fulfilled. For there follows: "and all the crooked shall be made straight". Each one of us was crooked—if indeed he was, and does not continue so to this very day—and through the coming of Christ, which has taken place unto our soul, whatever things were "crooked" have been "made straight". For what does it profit you, if Christ once came in the flesh, unless he has also come to your soul? Let us pray that his coming may be made to us daily, and that we may be able to say: "But I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me". For if Christ lives in Paul and does not live in me, what will it profit me? But when he has come also to me and I have had enjoyment of him, just as Paul had enjoyment of him, then I too shall speak like Paul: "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me". Let us therefore consider also the other things that are foretold at the coming of Christ. Nothing was rougher than you: look at your former impulses, look at your anger and your other vices—if indeed they have ceased to be what they were—and you will understand that nothing was rougher than you and, to speak more pointedly, that nothing was more uneven. Your manner of life was uneven, and your speech, and your works were uneven. Therefore my Lord Jesus came and leveled your roughnesses and turned whatever was disordered "into level ways", so that there might be made in you a journeying without stumbling, and light and most pure, and that God the Father might walk in you, and that Christ the Lord might make his dwelling with you and say: "I and my Father will come and make our dwelling with him". There follows: "and all flesh shall see the salvation of God". You were once "flesh", and you who were once "flesh"—nay, to speak more wondrously, while you are still in the flesh—you see "the salvation of God". But what it may mean, that it is said "all flesh", in that none is excepted who does not see "the salvation of God", I leave to be understood by those who know how to search out the mysteries and veins of the Scriptures. But this too must be attended to, that John speaks "to the peoples going out" to baptism. If anyone wishes to be baptized, let him go out; for one remaining in his former state and not leaving his ways and his custom by no means comes rightly to baptism. And that you may understand what it is to go out to baptism, receive the testimony and hearken to the words in which God speaks to Abraham: "go out from your land" and the rest. And so, as the crowds were going out to the washing—not having gone out, but only striving to go out—John speaks the things that follow. For if they had already gone out, he would never have said to them: "brood of vipers". Whatever things, therefore, he speaks to them, he speaks also to you, O catechumens, male and female, who are preparing to come to baptism. Consider whether perhaps it may be said also to you: "brood of vipers"; for if you too have some likeness to the vipers of sense and to the invisible serpents, to you too it will be said: "brood of vipers". But also that which follows, unless you have driven out the wickedness and the venom of serpents from your heart, will be said to you: "who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come?" Great wrath hangs over this age; the whole world is to suffer the wrath of God. So great a vastness of heaven and breadth of earth and choirs of stars, the splendor of the sun and the nocturnal comforts of the moon, the "wrath" of God will overthrow; for all these things shall pass away because of the sins of men. And formerly, indeed, the "wrath" of God came upon one earth only, "because all flesh had abandoned its way upon the earth"; but now the "wrath" of God is to come both upon heaven and upon earth: "the heavens shall pass away, but you shall remain"—it is said to God—"and all shall grow old like a garment". See of what kind and how great the "wrath" is, which is about to consume the whole world and will punish those who are worthy of punishment, and will find material in which to exercise itself. Each one of us, from that which he has done, has prepared material for wrath: "for according to your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God", it is said to the Romans. Then there follows: "Who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance". And to you, who come to baptism, it is said: "bring forth fruits worthy of repentance". Do you wish to know what are the fruits worthy of repentance? "Love is the fruit of the spirit, joy is the fruit of the spirit, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control" and the rest of this kind. If we have all these things, we have brought forth "fruits worthy of repentance". Again it is said to those who came to John's baptism: "and do not begin to say within yourselves: we have Abraham as father; for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up sons of Abraham". John, the last of the prophets, prophesies the casting out of the former people and the calling of the Gentiles. For to those who gloried in Abraham he says: "and do not begin to say within yourselves: we have Abraham as father". And again he speaks concerning the Gentiles: "for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up sons of Abraham". From what stones? He was certainly not pointing to irrational and bodily stones, but to insensible men, once hard, who, because they worshiped stones or wood, had that fulfilled in them which was sung in the psalm concerning such men: "let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them". Truly those who make idols and trust in them are like their gods: they have been turned, without sense and without any reason, into stones and wood. For although they see so great an order of created things, their beauty, their function, so great a beauty of the world, they are unwilling to understand the creator from the created things, nor do they consider that there is some providence over so great a dispensation, some governor; but they are blind, seeing the world only with those eyes with which irrational beasts of burden and wild animals see. For they do not perceive that there is present, in these things which they see governed by reason, some reason. These things are said because John had said: "God is able from these stones to raise up sons of Abraham". Let us therefore also beseech God that, even if we were at some time stones, we may be turned into "sons of Abraham" in place of those sons who have been cast out and who have lost the promise and the adoption by their own fault. I will yet set down one testimony concerning stones, since indeed in the canticle of Exodus it is written: "let them be turned into stones, until your people pass over, O Lord, until this your people pass over, whom you have possessed". And so God is asked that for a little while the Gentiles be turned into stones—for the Greek word sounds this more pointedly, "ἀπολιθούντωσαν" (let them be petrified)—"until the people" of the Jews "pass over". There is no doubt that, after those have passed over, the Gentiles will cease to be stony and, in place of a hard heart, will receive in Christ a human and rational nature: to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.