Homilies on Luke — Homily 26 (Luke 3:17)
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: "whose winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will cleanse his threshing floor", up to the place where he says: "and he will gather the wheat into his granary".
"God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth". Our God too "is a consuming fire". God, therefore, is called by two names: both "spirit" and "fire": spirit for the righteous, fire for sinners. But the angels also are called spirits and fire: "he who makes", it says, "his angels spirits and his ministers a burning fire"; to the holy ones they are spirits, but to those who deserve punishments they supply fire and burning. According to which sense our Lord and Savior too, since he is "spirit", "came to send fire upon the earth"; "spirit" according to that which is written: "but when you have turned to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away", and: "the Lord is a spirit". But "he came to send fire" not upon heaven, but "upon the earth", as he himself shows when he says: "I came to send fire upon the earth, and what do I wish but that it already blaze?" For if "you have turned to the Lord", who is "spirit", Christ will be "spirit" to you and "he did not come to send fire upon the earth". But if you are not turned to him, but have earth and its fruits, "he came to send fire upon" your "earth". Something like this is also written concerning God: "a fire is kindled in my fury", not as far as heaven, but "as far as hell beneath", and "it shall devour" not heaven, but "the earth and its produce". To what end have I recalled these things? Because the baptism too, with which Jesus baptizes, is "in the Holy Spirit" and "in fire". I remember the things I spoke recently, nor has the earlier explanation escaped me, but I wish to bring in something new as well. If you are holy, you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit; if a sinner, you will be plunged into fire; and one and the same baptism will be turned, for the unworthy and for sinners, into condemnation and fire, but to those who are holy and turn to the Lord with their whole faith, the grace and salvation of the Holy Spirit is to be granted. He, therefore, who is said to baptize "in the Holy Spirit and in fire", has "a winnowing fork in his hand and he will cleanse his threshing floor; and he will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire". I wish to find the reason why our Lord has a "winnowing fork", and by what wind blowing the light chaff is snatched hither and thither, while the heavy wheat is carried down into one place; for neither can the wheat and the chaff be separated without wind. I consider that temptations are to be understood in place of the wind, which out of the mingled heap of believers show some to be chaff, others to be wheat. For when your soul has been overcome by some temptation, the temptation does not turn you into chaff, but, since you were chaff — namely light and unbelieving — the temptation reveals you to be what you were hiding. On the contrary, however, when you bravely endure trials, the temptation does not make you faithful and patient, but it brings out into the open the virtue of patience and fortitude which was in you, but was hidden. "For do you think", says the Lord, "that I spoke to you otherwise than that you might appear righteous?" And elsewhere: "I afflicted you and beset you with want, that the things which were in your heart might be made manifest". In this manner too the storm does not make a building stand firm upon the sand, but, if you wish to build, upon "the rock"; and when the storm has arisen, that which is founded "upon the rock" it will not overthrow, but that which sways "upon the sand" it proves at once to have been not well founded. Wherefore, before the storm arises, before the blasts of the winds rise up, before the rivers swell, while all things are still silent, let us turn all our zeal to the foundations of our buildings, let us build our house with the varied and firm stones of the precepts of God, so that, when persecution rages and a dreadful whirlwind rises up against Christians, we may show that we have a building "upon the rock", Christ Jesus. But if anyone — far be it from us — should deny him, let that one know that he did not deny Christ at that time when he seemed to have denied, but that he had the seeds and the roots of denying already long before, and that then was recognized what he had, and it was brought out into the open. Let us therefore pray to the Lord that we may be a firm building, which no storm may overturn, "founded upon the rock", our Lord Jesus Christ: to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.