Homilies on Luke — Homily 32 (Luke 4:14–21)
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: "Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit", up to the place where it says: "and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon him".
First indeed: "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert for forty days". When he was being tempted by the devil, and because he was still to contend against him, once and again "Spirit" is set down without any addition. But when he had overcome by his fighting the three temptations which Scripture records, see what is placed concerning the Spirit pointedly and carefully. "Jesus", it says, "returned in the power of the Spirit". "Power" is added, because he had trampled upon the dragon and had conquered the tempter in close combat. "Jesus" therefore "returned in the power of the Spirit into the land of Galilee, and the report went out concerning him through all the surrounding region. And he himself taught in their synagogues and was glorified by all". When you read: "he taught in their synagogues and was glorified by all", beware lest you judge those men alone blessed and think yourself deprived of the teaching. If the things that are written are true, not only then in the assemblies of the Jews, but also today in this assembly the Lord speaks: and not only in this one, but also in another gathering and in the whole world Jesus teaches, seeking instruments through which he may teach. Pray that he may find me too composed and fit for singing! For just as almighty God seeks prophets at that time when mortals have need of prophecy, and finds, for example, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, so Jesus seeks instruments through which he may teach his word, or instruct the peoples in the synagogues, and "be glorified by all". Now Jesus is "glorified by all" more than at that time, when he was known only in a single province. Then "he came into Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and having entered according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day, he stood up to read; and the book of the prophet Isaiah was given to him; and unrolling the book he found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; wherefore he has anointed me". Not by chance did he unroll the book and find the chapter prophesying about himself as the reading, but this too was of the providence of God. For just as it is written: "A sparrow does not fall into the snare without the will of the Father", and because "the hairs of the head" of the apostles "are all numbered", so perhaps this also — that the book of Isaiah especially was found, and the reading not another, but this one, which spoke the mystery of Christ: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; wherefore he has anointed me" — for it is Christ who recounts these things — is not to be thought to have happened as it pleased and by chance, but by the providence and disposition of God. Let us therefore contemplate what those things are which he spoke in the prophet and afterward sounds forth about himself in the synagogue. "He sent me", it says, "to evangelize the poor". The "poor" signifies the nations; for these were "poor", possessing nothing at all, not God, not the law, not the prophets, not justice and the remaining virtues. For which cause God sent him to announce to the poor: "to preach release to the captives". Captives we were, whom for so many years Satan had bound, holding us captive and subject to himself. Jesus came "to preach release to the captives and to the blind, that they might see"; for indeed by the word and preaching of his teaching the blind see. Let the preaching therefore be understood ἀπὸ κοινοῦ (in common), not only over the captives, but also over the blind. "To send forth the broken into liberty". What was ever so broken and crushed as man, who was released and healed by Jesus? "To preach the acceptable year of the Lord". According to the simple understanding they say that the Savior preached the Gospel in Judea for one year, and that this is what is said: "to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of retribution", unless perhaps the divine word signifies something of a mystery in the preaching of the year of the Lord. For there are to be other days, not such as we now discern in the world, and other months, and a different order of the Kalends. Just therefore as those are other, so also the year of the Lord to come is pleasing. But all these things have been foretold, that after sight from blindness, after liberty from chains, after health from diverse wounds, we may come to the "acceptable year of the Lord". But when Jesus had read these things, rolling up "the book he gave it to the minister and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were attending upon him". And now, if you will, in this synagogue and gathering your eyes can attend upon the Savior. For when you have directed the principal gaze of your heart to wisdom and truth and to contemplating the Only-begotten of God, your eyes behold Jesus. Blessed congregation, of which Scripture testifies that "the eyes of all were attending upon him"! How I would wish that this gathering should have a like testimony, that the eyes of all — both of catechumens and of the faithful, both of women and of men and of infants — not the eyes of the body, but of the soul, should look upon Jesus! For when you shall have looked back to him, from his light and his gaze your faces will be brighter, and you will be able to say: "the light of your countenance is signed upon us, O Lord": to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.