Homilies on Luke — Homily 28 (Luke 3:23–38)
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.On the genealogy of the Savior, and that different authorities for it are put forward in Matthew and in Luke.
Our Lord and Savior, who was far better than Melchizedek, whose lineage Scripture has not disclosed, is now described as having been born according to the order of the fathers; and although his divinity is not subject to any human beginning, for your sake, who were born in the flesh, he willed to be born. And yet the order of his birth is not narrated in the same way by the evangelists, a matter which has greatly troubled some people. For Matthew, beginning to weave the sequence of that birth from Abraham, arrives at the point of saying: "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way", and he describes not the one who was baptized, but the one who came into the world; whereas Luke, in setting forth his birth, does not lead down from higher to lower, but, when he had first spoken of him as baptized, ascends all the way to God himself. Nor are the persons the same in his genealogy when he is said to descend and when he is said to ascend. For the one who makes him descend from the heavens introduces women too, and not just any women, but sinful ones, and women whom Scripture had censured; but the one who narrates him as baptized makes mention of no woman. In Matthew, therefore, as we have said, there is named Tamar, who by deceit lay with her father-in-law, and Ruth the Moabite, not of the stock of Israel, and Rahab, whose origin I cannot know, and the wife of Uriah, who violated her husband's bed. For because our Lord and Savior had come for this purpose, that he might take up the sins of men, and God "made him who had done no sin to be sin for us", therefore, descending into the world, he assumed the person of sinful and vicious men, and willed to be born of the line of Solomon, whose sins are recorded, and of Rehoboam, whose transgressions are related, and of the rest, many of whom did "evil in the sight of the Lord". But when he ascends from the washing and is described as born a second time, he is born not through Solomon, but through Nathan, who rebuked his father over the death of Uriah and the birth of Solomon. But in Matthew the term "begetting" is always added; here, however, it is entirely passed over in silence. For there it is written: "Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, Jacob begot Judah and his brothers, Judah begot Perez and Zerah of Tamar", and right up to the end "begot" is always attached. But in Luke, where Jesus ascends from the washing, he is called "son", "as was supposed, of Joseph"; and in so long a series of names, except for the fact that he "was supposed to be the son of Joseph", the term "begetting" is nowhere written down. In Matthew it is not written: "he was beginning"; but here, because he was about to ascend from baptism, "he was beginning" is read, Scripture relating: "and this same Jesus was beginning". For when he was baptized and took up the mystery of the second birth, so that you too might destroy your former nativity and be born in the second regeneration, then he is said "to have begun". And just as the people of the Jews, when they were in Egypt, did not have a beginning of months, but when they had gone out of Egypt, then it is said to them: "this month, the beginning of months, shall be the first for you among the months of the year", so he who is not yet baptized is not narrated "to have begun". For let us not suppose that it was added in vain to that which is said, "this same was Jesus", what follows: "beginning". But this also, which he says, "about thirty years old", must be considered. "Joseph was thirty years old" when he was released from his chains and, having interpreted the dream of Pharaoh, was made ruler of Egypt, and in the time of plenty gathered wheat, so that in the time of famine he might have what he could distribute. I think that the thirty years of Joseph went before, as a type of the thirty years of the Savior. For this Joseph gathered not such wheat as that Joseph in Egypt, but true and heavenly wheat, so that, the wheat having been gathered in the time of plenty, he might have what he could distribute when famine had been sent into Egypt, "not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of God". And so he gathers from the prophets, from the law, from the apostles the words of abundance, so that when now no more books are written, nor is any new instrument composed, nor are apostles sent, then he may distribute those things which had been brought together by Jesus into the storehouses of the apostles — that is, into their souls and the souls of all the saints — and may nourish Egypt, imperiled by famine, and especially his brothers, of whom it is written: "I will declare your name to my brothers, in the midst of the church I will sing to you". Other men too have words of patience and words of justice and the words of the remaining virtues; this is the wheat which Joseph distributed to the Egyptians. But the grain which he gives to his brothers, that is, to his disciples, is another kind, from the land of Goshen, from that land which looks toward the east: the wheat of the Gospel, the wheat of the apostles. From this wheat we ought to make loaves, yet in such a way that they are not mixed with "the old leaven", and that we may have new bread milled from the wheat and flour of the Scriptures in Christ Jesus: to whom is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.