Homilies on Numbers — Homily 17
Latin source: Origen, In Numeros homiliae (Rufinus's Latin translation), from the public-domain critical text of W. A. Baehrens, GCS 30 = Origenes Werke VII (Leipzig, 1921). This English translation is released into the public domain.[§1] We now have in hand the third prophecy of those which the Word of God brought forth through Balaam, so that concerning it too we may discuss some things, as the Lord shall grant. For that unhappy Balak, supposing that what had been lacking to Balaam for cursing by divine leave was the favorable position of the place rather than the will, and judging it more advantageous if he changed the place, says, "Come and I will lead you to another place, if it please God, and you shall curse it from there." And Balak took Balaam himself to the top of Mount Peor, which looks out over the desert. Those indeed whom God calls, He sets upon the top of Mount Sinai; but this Balak, who is contrary to God, sets Balaam on the top of Mount Peor. Now Peor is interpreted "delight"; upon the top, therefore, of delight and lust this Balak sets men. For he is a lover of pleasure rather than of God, and therefore he places them on the summit and top of pleasure, that he may shut them out from God; for Balak is interpreted "one who shuts out" and "devouring." And so for this reason too Peor looks toward the wilderness, that is, toward those affairs which are wilderness and desert to God. And Balaam said to Balak, "Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven calves and seven rams." And Balak did as Balaam had told him, and he offered a calf and a ram upon the altar. The saying of the Apostle is indeed plain, when he says, "For the things which the nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God"; but the prophet likewise says, "They sacrificed to demons and not to God." Yet since the law of God also gives commandment concerning sacrifices and hands down the rite of sacrificing to the sons of Israel, perhaps it may be asked why these things, though they seem dedicated to demons, are also commanded to be offered to God. And there will indeed be a simple and ready answer: that just as in other matters we have shown that the giving of the bill of divorce was not of the will of God — who did not wish that which He had joined to be separated — but Moses wrote these things properly for the hardness of the heart of the Jews, so also concerning this it can be seen that God, as He says through another prophet, "does not eat the flesh of bulls nor drink the blood of goats," and likewise as it is written elsewhere, "For I gave no command there concerning sacrifices and victims in the day when I led you out of the land of Egypt," but that Moses commanded these things to them for the hardness of their heart, on account of the wicked custom with which they had been imbued in Egypt, so that those who could not abstain from sacrificing might at least sacrifice to God and not to demons. Yet it must be considered whether perhaps there is also some more hidden and more secret reason for sacrificing to God. Perhaps, I say, the sacrifices which are offered to God are made for the destruction of those sacrifices which are immolated to demons, so that, because through the latter souls are wounded, through the former they may be healed. Just as those also confirm who possess skill in medicine; for they report that the poisons of serpents are nonetheless driven off by medicines compounded from serpents. So then, too, the venom of the demonic sacrifices is driven off through the sacrifices offered to God, just as the death of Jesus does not permit the death of sin to hold dominion over believers. And indeed, while the time allowed it, sacrifices were set against sacrifices; but when there came the perfect victim and the spotless lamb, who would take away the sin of the whole world, those sacrifices which were offered one by one to God now seemed superfluous, since by one victim all worship of demons was driven away. But this Balaam, whether according to the purpose of his heart, which he had not amended, or according to that figure by which we said that he holds the person of the teachers and Pharisees of the unbelieving people, still sets up victims anew and orders sacrifices to be prepared. For in these things all their hope is borne by those whose heart does not receive the faith of Christ.
[§2] But what follows? "And Balaam," it says, "seeing that it was good in the sight of the Lord to bless Israel, did not go according to his custom to meet the omens, but turned his face to the wilderness. And Balaam, lifting up his eyes, beheld Israel encamped by tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him. And taking up his parable he said." It might perhaps be asked from what source Balaam saw that it was good in the sight of the Lord to bless Israel, and one will suppose that he understood it from the sacrifices which he had offered. For when he saw that no demon was present, that no contrary power dared to stand by his victims, that all the ministers of wickedness whom he was accustomed to employ for cursing had been shut out, he could from these things have understood that it was good in the sight of the Lord to bless Israel. Yet I understand rather this: that that people, which is now empty, and those teachers, who not believing in Christ hold the people fast in emptiness, will one day see — that is, in the last days when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and all Israel begins to come to faith in Christ. Those, I say, who now having eyes do not see, will then see. For they will lift up their eyes to loftier and spiritual meanings, and they will see and understand that it is good in the sight of the Lord to bless the spiritual Israel. For they will see him arranged by tribes and by houses and by families, and each one in his own order attaining the glory of the resurrection, and taking up their parable they will understand the things that are written in parables, which now, because of the veil that is placed over their heart, they neither see nor understand. Finally, "he did not go," it says, "according to his custom to meet the omens"; for he will not, according to his accustomed manner, be carried away by foolish and empty notions in considering the will of God in dumb animals and cattle, like those who gather auguries from such things, but he too will recognize that God has no care for oxen, and likewise none for sheep or for birds or for other animals, but that if anything about these has been written, he will understand it to have been written for the sake of human beings.
[§3] But let us now see what things Balaam declares in the third prophecy. "Balaam the son of Beor has spoken," he says, "the man who truly sees has spoken, he has spoken who hears the words of the Mighty One, who saw the vision of God in sleep, his eyes uncovered." It is truly astonishing how Balaam is held worthy of such great praise, who, having taken up his parable, pronounces these things about himself. For how Balaam should be a man who truly sees—he who devoted himself to divination and auguries, who also pursued magic, as we showed above—is very astonishing, unless perhaps, on account of what was said above, namely that the Spirit of God came to be in him and that the word of God was placed in his mouth, these such great proclamations are thought to have been written concerning him. For neither Moses nor any other of the prophets will easily be found exalted with such great praises. Hence these things seem to me rather to fit that people at the time when, now converted to the Lord, it laid aside the veil which was over its heart—"and the Lord is a Spirit." Therefore, finally, he says: "his eyes uncovered," as of eyes that until now had been closed and now, through the Spirit of God which has come upon him, with the veil removed, are uncovered. Now, then, is when he truly sees and truly hears the words of the Mighty One and sees the vision of God in sleep—that is, those things which were designated at their appointed times in sleep to the prophet Daniel, he will see fulfilled; and those visions which were brought to him in sleep he sees, that is, he understands and recognizes, with his eyes uncovered. For he will be made like those who were saying: "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." Yet I would wish to inquire what those eyes of his are which are said to be uncovered: lest perhaps they be the very ones which in other passages of Scripture, as we read in certain copies, are called "the eyes of the earth," and that which Paul calls the sense of the flesh, when he says of a certain man: "vainly puffed up by the sense of his flesh." Concerning these eyes I believe the serpent also spoke to Eve: "For God knew that on whatever day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened"; and a little after: "and they ate," he says, "and the eyes of both were opened." For unless there were differences of eyes, and some were those which are opened through transgression, and others those with which Adam and Eve were seeing before these were opened, Scripture would surely never—while those eyes of theirs which were laid open from transgression were not yet opened—say: "And the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and pleasing to the eyes for seeing and beautiful to contemplate, and taking of the tree she ate; and she gave to her husband with her, and they ate. And the eyes of both were opened." For how, if the eyes of both were not yet opened, did the woman see that the tree was good for eating, and that it was pleasing to the eyes for seeing? with which eyes also it is said to have been beautiful to contemplate? But I, hearing the voice of my Lord Jesus Christ and understanding the power of his goodness, thus take note of that which he says: "I came into this world for judgment, that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind"—that in sinners those eyes which are better do not see, but these which are called the sense of the flesh and which were opened by the counsel of the serpent. It is therefore a magnificent work of our Savior the Lord, that those who do not see with the better eyes the things that are good, but with those which were laid open by the counsel of the serpent behold the things that are evil, should become blind, and that those who have been blinded in those eyes which the serpent's persuasion opened should see the good things of the Lord with these eyes which Jesus our Savior came to open. For unless the sight of evils be first closed, the beholding of good things will not be laid open. So therefore I also take that saying of the good God which he spoke: "Who made the seeing and the blind?"—seeing indeed according to Christ, but blind according to the counsel of the serpent. Now we have called these things to mind so that it might shine forth more evidently which are the eyes that are closed and which are the eyes that are uncovered; at the same time so that from these there might also be understood that which is written in the prophet: "Seeing you shall see and shall not see," that we may know with which eyes they see and with which, seeing, they do not see. It is apparent, therefore, that this Balaam too, because his eyes had been uncovered, says of himself: "the man who truly sees," and says: "he has spoken who hears the words of the Mighty One." For in the same order in which some eyes are closed and others opened, so also some ears are understood to be closed and others to be opened. But if anyone should wish to take these things as said also according to the history, he can say that in this, that "Balaam saw that it was good in the sight of the Lord to bless Israel," his uncovered eyes are shown and that he was made a man who truly sees; for he saw true things which were to come concerning Israel or Jacob. He will say too that he heard the words of the Mighty One in this, when God came to him and said to him in sleep: "The word which I shall give in your mouth, this observe that you may speak"; and this will be the vision of God, which I saw in sleep. And through these things he will assert that his eyes were uncovered, and that he was able to see what he saw. These things indeed concerning those which in his preface Balaam seemed to prophesy about himself.
[§4] Now let us already see what things he says in what follows: "How good," he says, "are your houses, O Jacob, your tents, O Israel! Like shady groves, like gardens beside rivers, and like the tents which the Lord has pitched, like cedars beside the waters." When he calls the houses of Jacob good, I do not think that he is praising their earthly dwellings; for nothing of such a kind among them, beyond the other nations, is recorded. But let us see whether perhaps, since the people was divided by tribes, and each single tribe was apportioned by clans, and again the clans by kindreds, and the kindreds by the houses of families, and again the houses of families were numbered by the number of names and by heads—that is, everyone who was from twenty years and above, a male able to go forth to war—it is these houses that Balaam, beholding them in the spirit, magnifies and extols. But the meaning is not to be contemplated in these things by the letter alone, since indeed what Balaam speaks he speaks having taken up his parable. In parables, therefore, let us too hear what is said. For if you consider those divisions and orders of the peoples which will exist in the resurrection among the people of the true Israel, when each one shall rise in his own order, if you are able to behold those tribes and clans and kindreds in which there is not so much the kinship of flesh and blood as of mind and soul, then you will understand how good are the houses of Jacob and how good the tents of Israel. But if you should also inquire into the difference between houses and tents, and the diversity between Jacob and Israel, concerning this too some such distinction is to be maintained. A house is a thing founded and stable and enclosed by fixed boundaries; but tents are certain dwellings of those who are always on the way and always walking and have not found the end of their journey. Therefore Jacob is to be understood in the persons of those who are perfect in acts and in work; but Israel are to be understood those who bear a zeal toward wisdom and knowledge. Since, then, the exercises of works and deeds are closed by a fixed end—for the perfection of works is not without an end—when someone has fulfilled all that he ought to do and has come to the end of the perfection of works, that very perfection of works will be said to be his good houses. But of those who apply themselves to wisdom and knowledge, since there is no end—for what will be the limit of God's wisdom? where, the more one has drawn near, the more profound the things he will find, and the more one has searched, the more he will find them ineffable and incomprehensible; for incomprehensible and inestimable is the wisdom of God—for that reason, of those who walk the way of God's wisdom he does not praise houses, for they have not arrived at an end, but he admires tents, in which they always walk and always advance, and the more they advance, the more the way of advancing is enlarged for them and stretches out into the immeasurable; and therefore, beholding through the spirit these very advances of theirs, he names them the tents of Israel. And truly, if anyone has taken up some advances in knowledge and has drawn some experience in such things, he knows assuredly that, when he has come to some contemplation and recognition of spiritual mysteries, there the soul tarries as if in a certain tent. But when out of the things he has found he searches out yet others and advances to other understandings, then, as if his tent had been raised, he stretches toward the higher things and there sets the seat of his soul, fixed by the stability of his senses; and thence again out of these very things he finds other spiritual senses, which without doubt the consequence of the former senses has laid open; and thus, always extending himself to the things before, he seems to march by certain tents. For there is never a time when a soul kindled by the little fire of knowledge can be idle and at rest, but it is always called forth from good things to better and again from better things to higher. This way, then, of God's wisdom he has described graciously enough and with much elegance, saying: "like shady groves, and like gardens beside rivers, and like the tents which the Lord has pitched, like cedars beside the waters." For those who walk this way walk through shady groves; for the groves that give them shade are the whole company of the just and the choir of the holy prophets. For under the shade of the meanings which they find written among these, their souls are refreshed, and, as it were walking through the shade of the groves, they are delighted in their teachings. These men also find gardens beside rivers, like and akin to that garden in which is the tree of life. And by the rivers we can understand either the Gospel and apostolic Scriptures, or even the aids of the angels and heavenly powers toward souls of this kind; for they are watered and flooded by them and are nourished unto all knowledge and recognition of heavenly things—although our Savior too is a river, who "gladdens the city of God," and the Holy Spirit is not only himself a river, but also, for those to whom he has been given, "rivers proceed from their belly"; and God the Father says: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water," from which fountain, namely, those rivers proceed. Flooded, therefore, with these rivers, the tents of Israel become tents such as those which the Lord has pitched. But perhaps it may move the attentive hearer that the present discourse mentions two kinds, as it were, of tents. For he says: "How good are your houses, O Jacob, your tents, O Israel! like shady groves, and like gardens beside rivers," and again he compares tents to tents and says: "and like the tents which the Lord has pitched." Therefore, after those we brought forward above, another exposition too can be received, so that we may say that the houses of Jacob are the law and the tents of Israel are the prophets. For he praises not Jacob himself, but his houses, nor Israel himself, but his tents; and he praises them then, when his eyes have been uncovered. For as long as a veil is placed over the reading of the law and the prophets, the tents are not seen to be good nor the houses praiseworthy. But when the veil has been taken away and the law has begun to be understood as spiritual, and the prophets likewise, then good and wonderful are the houses of Jacob; and then the tents of Israel will be admirable, when, the letter which kills being removed, you have begun to perceive from them the life-giving spirit. It can still be understood in yet another way, so that the bodies and souls of this believing and perfect people, which has been gathered by Christ from among the nations, seem to be praised together, and the house of Jacob is said of the bodies, just as also in a certain little book it is read that Jacob is the house of Israel—that is, that his body is called Jacob and his soul Israel. In like manner, therefore, the bodies also of all the perfect are said to be praiseworthy houses. For the body is a praiseworthy Jacob, when it is adorned with continence and chastity, and sometimes also with martyrdom. But the tents can be referred to perfect souls, to which the name Israel too fits, from seeing God. But these tents are, he says, "like shady groves, and like gardens beside rivers, and like the tents which the Lord has pitched." Therefore he shows that there are other tents which the Lord has pitched, to which the tents of Israel are like. It befits me to go forth outside this world, in order that I may see what are the tents which the Lord has pitched—those, no doubt, which he showed to Moses, when he was building the tabernacle in the desert, saying to him: "See," he says, "that you make all things according to the type which was shown you on the mountain." Therefore, in imitation of these tents which the Lord pitched, Israel ought to make tents, and each one of us to prepare and construct his own tent. Hence it seems to me not to have happened by chance that Peter indeed and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee were found fishermen by trade, but Paul a tentmaker by trade. And since those, called from the trade of catching fish, are changed and become fishers of men, the Lord saying: "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men," there is no doubt that Paul too, since he also was called an Apostle through my Lord Jesus Christ, was changed by a similar transformation of his trade, so that, just as they from fishers of fish were made fishers of men, so this man too was transferred from making earthly tents to constructing heavenly tents. For he constructs heavenly tents, teaching each one the way of salvation and showing the road of the blessed mansions in the heavens. Paul makes tents when, from Jerusalem round about as far as Illyricum, he fills up the Gospel of God by constructing churches; and in this manner he too makes tents after the likeness of the heavenly tents which God showed to Moses on the mountain. But each one of us also, if indeed he has gone forth out of Egypt and dwells in the desert, ought to dwell in a tent and to keep the festal day in tents. For just as commemoration is made of the going out of Egypt through the Passover and the unleavened bread, so also memory is made of the sojourn in the desert through tents; for in tents our fathers dwelt in the desert. And from what should these tents be made, except from the words of the law and the prophets, from the discourses of the Psalms and of all that is contained in the law? For when out of the things that have been written the soul advances, and always indeed, forgetting the things that are behind, stretches itself to the things that are before, and, progressing from a lower place, grows and advances to the higher, from the increase of virtues and from the very changing of its advances it will deservedly be said to dwell in tents. But see whether the tents which God has pitched are not also those which the Savior mentions in the Gospel, saying: "Make yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity, so that, when you fail, they may receive you into eternal tents." And they are said to be pitched by God, as those which are not carried about by every wind of doctrine. But these tents are still also "like cedars beside the waters." He does not here call cedars those in which a blameworthy loftiness is marked, but the cedars of God, which receive the branches of that vine which was transplanted from Egypt, and in which rests that fruit "whose shade covered the mountains." If you have understood how great a rest the way of wisdom has, how much grace and how much sweetness, do not disregard it, do not neglect it, but set out upon this way and do not shudder at the solitude of the wilderness. For as you dwell in tents of this kind, the heavenly manna too will meet you, and you will eat the bread of angels. Only begin, and let not the solitude of the desert, as we have said, terrify you. Soon into your company the angels also will come, whom I judge to be indicated under the appearance of the cedars.
[§5] But now let us see what he also prophesies concerning Christ. For it is he of whom he says: "There shall come forth a man from his seed, and he shall have dominion over many nations; and his kingdom shall be exalted above Gog, and his kingdom shall grow. God led him out of Egypt, as the glory of a unicorn is his." It is Christ, therefore, who came forth from the seed of Israel according to the flesh, who, how he has dominion over the nations, needs no exposition, especially for one who reads what was said to him by the Father: "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and for your possession the ends of the earth." But what is it that he says: "his kingdom shall be exalted above Gog"? Gog is interpreted "above the roofs," and in this passage it is not set down for the name of some nation, as is thought, but, as in some other places, the Hebrew word itself has been left uninterpreted, and on this account it seems to be said as though of some nation. The consequence of the discourse, therefore, is this: "and his kingdom shall be exalted above the roofs, and his kingdom shall grow." To be exalted above the roofs is said of the perfection of believers, but to grow refers to the multitudes. In those, therefore, who are perfect, the kingdom of Christ is exalted above the roofs—that is, above even those who are in the higher places and dwell in the upper regions. For perhaps there are some even among the heavenly beings, beyond whom these who are in the kingdom of Christ advance more and are exalted more highly. And therefore, I believe, the Savior himself too was saying: "Let him who is on the roof not come down to take anything out of the house," admonishing that those who have come to the lofty perfection should not again come down to the low and abject things of this world, which is now called a house. But that too which he says: "What you have heard in the ear, preach upon the roofs," looks nonetheless to this. So, then, above Gog his kingdom is exalted, and his kingdom grows. For it grows while the churches are multiplied and the number of the faithful is increased; and the kingdom of Christ grows to such a degree, until the Father "put all his enemies under his feet," and moreover destroy "the last enemy, death."
[§6] After these things it is further written concerning Christ that: "God led him out of Egypt," which seems to be fulfilled in that place where, after the death of Herod, he is called back from Egypt, and the Gospel indicates it, saying: "Out of Egypt I called my son." This saying seems to some to have been taken from this passage and inserted into the Gospels, but to others to be from the prophet Hosea. Yet it can also be understood according to allegory, that, after he came to the Egypt of this world, the Father led him out and took him up to himself, so that he might make a way for those who were to ascend out of the Egypt of this world to God. "And the glory of a unicorn is his." For Christ, casting down all the kingdoms of the demons, founded his one kingdom in glory, as of a true unicorn. For that horn is often named for a kingdom we have taught. "He shall eat," he says, speaking still of the same one, "the nations of his enemies, and shall gnaw out their marrow." The nations, he says, which his enemies possessed, he himself shall eat, the power of the enemy having been destroyed, and shall gnaw out their marrow, when he thins out from them all gross and carnal understanding and converts it to spiritual intelligence. And that grossness is held blameworthy in the Scriptures, that which is written will be the sign: "The heart of this people has been made gross," and elsewhere: "He was filled, and grew gross, and the beloved kicked back." He shall eat the nations, therefore, and he has for food those who believe in him, just as he himself also says in the Gospel: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me." Whose will indeed was this, that the nations should be converted to the faith. But if, as we taught above, grossness is held blameworthy, on the contrary fineness is to be held praiseworthy, since the "spirit of wisdom" too, which is called intelligible and holy and only-begotten and manifold, is likewise reported to be subtle. "And with his darts he shall shoot the enemy." His darts are his words, by which he either conquered the devil or overcomes and transfixes even now all his enemies and those who contradict him; for everyone who sins is his enemy, while he sins. But if he hears the words of God and, recognizing his sins, is transfixed by them and pierced with compunction and turns to repentance, having been bored through by the word of truth, he too will be said to have been transfixed by his darts. But after these things he also mentions the very dispensation of the passion and says: "Lying down he rested like a lion and like the whelp of a lion; who shall rouse him up?" He rested like a lion when, placed upon the cross, he stripped off the principalities and powers and triumphed over them on the wood of the cross; but like the whelp of a lion, when he rises from the sleep of death. And that he is compared at once to a lion and to the whelp of a lion can still be understood also on this account, that in those who are perfect he is named a lion, but in those who are beginners and untrained, the whelp of a lion. But as to his saying: "Who shall raise him up?"—this is because at one time he is said to be raised up by the Father, and at another he himself says that he will raise up the temple of his body after three days; and rightly in this the disposition, as it were, of one asking is indicated. "Those who bless you are blessed, and those who curse you are cursed." It is certain that those who bless Christ are blessed and taken up into the communion of the Father's blessing; but those who curse him are cursed. For if you look to that people which curses Christ, it is found, even lamentably, to be cursed. For what else could befall those who curse wisdom, who curse truth, who curse life, except that they should lie banished and exiled from all these good things? For all these things are Christ; and he who curses Christ, as one cursing all these, is condemned to perpetual malediction. Yet I think that not only he curses Christ who utters against him a cursing word, but also he who under the name of Christian acts wickedly and lives basely and, by his dishonest words or deeds, makes his name to be blasphemed among the nations; just as, on the contrary, not he who blesses the Lord with words alone is to be thought to bless, but he who by his deeds and life and manners makes the name of the Lord to be blessed by all. And in these it will be more fully accomplished, that which the third prophecy of Balaam designates, that those who bless Christ shall be blessed and those who curse him shall be cursed. Wherefore let us in every way take heed lest through our works and acts the name of Christ be blasphemed, but rather let us so act that we may deserve to be partakers of his blessings. To him be blessing and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.