Homilies on Luke — Homily 25 (Luke 3:15)
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 the suspicion which the people had about John, "lest perhaps he himself were the Christ".
Even love has its danger, if it exceed due measure. For whoever loves someone ought to consider the nature and the reasons for loving, and not to love him more than he deserves. For if love should overstep its measure and limit, both the one who loves and the one who is loved will be in sin. That this may become clearer, let us set forth an example. The people marveled at John and loved him, and it was truly a wonder deserving that more honor be paid to him than to the rest of men, since he had lived otherwise than all mortals. We are none of us content with simple food, but we take delight in a variety of dishes; a single kind of wine does not suffice us to drink, and we purchase wines of various flavors; but John always fed on "locusts", always on "wild honey", and was content with simple and meager food, lest his body should grow fat with richer viands and be weighed down with dainty banquets. For our bodies are of such a nature that they are burdened by superfluous food, and when the body has been burdened, the soul too is weighed down, which, being diffused throughout the whole body, lies subject to its passions. Wherefore it is rightly enjoined upon those who are able to observe it: "It is good not to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything by which your brother is made to stumble". The life of John, therefore, was wonderful and much different from the manner of life of other men. He had no purse, no servant, not even a cheap hut. He dwelt in the desert, not only up to "the day of his showing forth to Israel", but also at that time when he preached repentance to the people, he was in the wilderness of Judea and was watered by plain water, so that in his drink also he was different from the rest. We who dwell in cities, who are in the midst of peoples, seek finer garments and foods and dwellings; but he, who dwelt in the wilderness—see with what clothing he was clad: "from camels' hair" he had made himself a tunic, and he was girded with "a leather belt". All things, therefore, in him were new, and because of the unlikeness of his life all who saw him marveled at him, and, marveling, most zealously honored him, above all because he baptized the penitent "unto the remission of sins". For which reasons they indeed loved him most justly, but they did not keep due measure in their love: for they were thinking, "lest perhaps he himself were the Christ". Guarding against such disordered and irrational love, the apostle Paul spoke of himself: "But I fear lest anyone should think of me above that which he sees or hears from me; and lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me", and so on. Fearing this, lest he himself also fall into it, he was unwilling to disclose about himself all that he knew, lest anyone should suppose him to be more than he perceived, and, exceeding the measure of honor, should say what had been said of John, namely that "he himself was the Christ". This indeed some have said even of Dositheus, the heresiarch of the Samaritans, and others also of Judas the Galilean. In short, certain men rushed into such audacity of love that they invented certain new and unheard-of monstrosities concerning Paul. For some say that what is written, "to sit at the right hand of the Savior and at the left", is said of Paul and of Marcion—that Paul sits "at the right hand", and Marcion sits "at the left". Others, moreover, reading, "I will send you an advocate, the Spirit of truth", are unwilling to understand a third person distinct from the Father and the Son, and a divine and sublime nature, but rather the apostle Paul. Do not all these seem to you to have loved more than is fitting, and, while they marvel at the excellence of each one, to have lost the measure of love? This indeed we too suffer in the church; for very many, while they love us more than we deserve, boast these things and speak, praising our sermons and doctrine in a way that our conscience does not accept. Others, on the contrary, slandering our treatises, accuse us of holding views which we know we have never held. But neither these, who love more, nor those, who hate, hold to the rule of truth, and the ones lie through love, the others through hatred. Whence it is fitting to put reins upon love also, and to permit it only so much liberty of roaming as will not let it plunge over precipices. It is written in Ecclesiastes: "Be not overly just, nor think things greater than yourself, lest perhaps you be struck senseless". Following this example, I can say something similar: do not love a man "with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength"; do not love an angel "with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with your whole strength", but keep this precept, according to the word of the Savior, for God alone. For "you shall love", he says, "the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength". Let someone answer me and say: The Savior commanded, "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength, and your neighbor as yourself". I wish to love Christ also: teach me, then, how I am to love him. For if I love him "with my whole heart and with my whole soul and with my whole strength", I act against the precept, in that I would so love another besides the one God. But if I love him less than the almighty Father, I fear lest I be found impious and profane toward the "firstborn of all creation". Teach me and show me the reasoning, how, walking midway between the two, I ought to love Christ. Do you wish to know with what love Christ is to be loved? Listen briefly! Love the Lord your God in Christ, and do not think that you can have a different love toward the Father and toward the Son. Love God and Christ together; love the Father in the Son, the Son in the Father, "with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength". But if anyone inquires and says: prove from the scriptures what you assert, let him hear the apostle Paul, who had a reasonable love, saying: "For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior": to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.