Homilies on the Psalms — Homily 6 — Psalm 36 (LXX; MT 37), Homily IV: vv. 23–29
Greek source: Origen's homilies on the Psalms, preserved in a single manuscript (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. graec. 314, 12th century), from the reading text of L. Perrone et al. (eds.), Die neuen Psalmenhomilien. Eine kritische Edition des Codex Monacensis Graecus 314, Origenes Werke XIII (GCS NF 19; Berlin, 2015), pp. 157–172. Psalms are numbered as in the Septuagint. Rufinus's Latin translation of this homily is Homilies on Psalms 36–38, Homily 4. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the 36th Psalm, Homily 4
1. "From the Lord", he says, "the steps of a man are directed". The word "steps" (διαβήματα) is not usual among those who speak good Greek, nor among ordinary people, nor among those reputed to have made a precise study of diction. Yet the translators set it down alike, putting only one word equivalent to the expression, because they wished to serve a Hebrew etymology and to make the reader of Scripture attend to what is signified by the noun "steps". And not only here have we found the word "steps", but in this very psalm he says it once more, where "the mouth of the righteous will meditate wisdom, and his tongue will speak judgment", "the law of his God is in his heart; and his steps will not be tripped up". And we have found the word also in the seventy-second psalm, which runs thus: "How good is God to Israel, to the upright in heart!" "But as for me, my feet were almost shaken, my steps were well-nigh poured out". Now if "my steps" comes from the verb to cross over (διαβῆναι), then the sense too has come about, the same formation of the word, standing differently in Exodus, when Moses saw the flame of the fire and the angel and the bush that was not burned up. For he said: "Having crossed over, then, I shall see what this great sight is". I took a starting point for understanding the passage as far as I am able from having read the explanation of one who said what "Having crossed over, then, I shall see what this great sight is" means. Explaining the passage, he said that the great sight cannot be seen by one who stands among the things of this life. Rather, the mind must cross over and pass beyond worldly things and come to be in the better condition and in the contemplation of intelligible things, so that it may be able to perceive the great sight.
This, then, is what that man said about the passage; but we, wishing to praise a wise man and to add to him, see things like these in the passage. Each of those who journey toward virtue first makes progress, and only then arrives at it. In making progress, then, he is always crossing over, "stretching forward to what lies ahead and forgetting what lies behind". And in crossing over he as it were passes beyond the former outpouring of wickedness, and, passing beyond certain sins and no longer being in them, "stretching forward to what lies ahead", he comes to be among lesser – for I will grant to the argument that there are also lesser evils – he comes to be among lesser and diminished evils. And this is crossing over according to the word of God, until, crossing over, he has crossed over wickedness and the things that come from wickedness; then, according to Exodus, he will see "the great sight". For no one who is still in wickedness and has not crossed over it will be able to perceive the great sight. And what could the great sight be but God, who is seen with a pure heart? And what could the great sight be but the Wisdom and the Word of God, his Christ, whom no one can know unless the Father reveals him to that person? And what could the great sight be but the Holy Spirit?
But perhaps it is because there are several great sights that it is written in Exodus: "Having crossed over, then, I shall see this great sight". For "I shall see this great sight" is said to distinguish it from other great sights. And what was that great sight which the one who had crossed over beheld, but an angel? Consider the one who has understood the nature of an angel and grasped how everything recorded is said about the angels, and moreover the words "who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flaming fire". The one who has perceived the reason for the bush and perceived the angel who appeared in a flame of fire upon the bush saw one particular sight, less than the greater sights which Moses would see later. For Moses saw this as a great sight, but he did not stop at this great sight. Read, then, the whole of Exodus and see that he beholds a second great sight, perhaps greater than the first; and again he beholds a third sight, until he comes to the greatest of the sights, entering into the darkness where God was. For if the angel who appeared in a fire of flame is a great sight, how is it not an even greater sight when he entered into the darkness where God was? And if you wish to behold a sight yet greater than this, see the promise: Moses alone will draw near to God, but the rest will not draw near. This was the greater sight.
Again, in the case of Moses, if you wish, gather from Scripture the sights of Moses and you will see still greater ones. "If I have found", he says, "favor before you, show yourself to me", after many great sights, "that I may see you knowingly". And there God says to him: "I place you in a cleft of the rock" – "and the rock was Christ" – so that he might see through a narrow cleft, since he was yet to behold many things, having been trained beforehand by what he beheld through the cleft; "and you will see my back parts"; "but my face will not be seen by you". You will find other great sights in Numbers too, and again sights of Moses in Deuteronomy. But why am I examining these things about "having crossed over" and not already coming to "the steps of a man are directed"? For it is these that the explanation now has before it. Each step, then, often makes one behold some sight. For God rewards with a sight the one who has crossed over each vice; therefore it is wonderfully said: "Having desired wisdom, keep the commandments, and the Lord will furnish it to you".
Many, then, are the steps: cross over fornication, cross over adultery. And if you are more blessed, you will cross over anger too, you will cross over grief too, you will cross over the desire for money too. But so long as you do not cross over these things but remain in them, you will see no great sight, being blinded and hindered by the very fact of not crossing over. We have, then, other feet that cross over intelligibly, so that, crossing over by treading upon the way that says, "I am the way", we may arrive at God. Many, then, are the steps of heaven, and these "steps" are "directed" by the Lord. For it is not enough for the man who wishes to cross over by his own free choice, unless the Lord directs the steps. For it happens at times that one who wishes to cross over does cross over, yet not in a straight line; instead he goes sideways and crosses over crookedly.
If you see those in worldly philosophy who fall away from the truth, though they have understood much, do not hesitate to say that they do cross over and have come to be in steps, yet not in steps that are directed but in steps that have been made to slant; for they turn aside to the right and to the left. If you see those in the heresies who wish to cross over the simplicity of ordinary believers and are not content with bare faith, but understand something deeper, yet not something true, observe that these too have come to be in steps. Yet their steps are not directed by the Lord; rather, if one must dare to say it, their steps are made slanting by the devil and become slanted. But we, if indeed we want both, both to cross over and to have our steps made straight, and to press on, let us press on to crossing over, and while carrying out the crossing over, let us pray that our steps may be directed by the Lord.
2. Here, then, he says: "From the Lord the steps of a man are directed, and he will desire his way"; "when he falls he will not be dashed down". In what follows, however, it is no longer said simply of a man, as here: "From the Lord the steps of a man are directed". It is said instead of the righteous man, who has something more than any ordinary man. For "the mouth of the righteous will meditate wisdom, and his tongue will speak judgment"; it is no longer of a man but now of the righteous that it says: "the law of his God is in his heart, and his steps will not be tripped up". There the steps of the man will be directed; here the righteous man's "steps will not be tripped up", "because the Lord supports his hands". And in the other psalm, the seventy-second, I mean: "But as for me, my feet were almost shaken, my steps were well-nigh poured out". Supposing that this too is to be taken in such a way, consider, then, someone climbing and making progress in climbing, then slipping and going down and losing the progress of his ascent: do not hesitate to say "the steps have been poured out." For just as wine or oil or anything else of that kind is poured out in another way, so the steps of one who has already made progress in crossing over are poured out when he looks behind him.
If you wish further to hear, not only from a rather common example but also from Scripture, who it is whose steps are poured out, hear this. The wife of Lot was crossing over, and crossing over she was going out from Sodom in order to journey to the mountain to which she had been ordered to go up. But she acted against the commandment of God, who said: "Do not look around to what is behind, nor stop in all the surrounding country; save yourself to the mountain, lest you be taken along with them". So she turned to what was behind, and her "steps were poured out", and she perished; for she remained a pillar of salt. If you want a second example too of the way in which the steps of some are poured out, hear the Savior saying: "No one who has put his hand to the plough and turned to what is behind is fit for the kingdom of God". For someone put his hand to the plough and, having put it there, ploughed and went forward. He ought to have been watching the furrows so as to keep the plough straight, but he turned to what was behind and "poured out his steps"; he poured out the good he seemed to have done at the plough.
Come also to another narrative, a difficult one, so that you may know how the steps of some are poured out. A great people went out of the land of Egypt and was crossing over through the Red Sea, and they had progress as they crossed the Red Sea; but some fell in the desert, pouring out their steps, more or fewer. For those who had progressed further along the way, by having progressed further and yet having sinned, poured out their many steps, while those who had progressed less poured out their few steps. And you too may hear at some time of someone who has made progress in chastity for three years, in self-control for five years, in confession of the word for ten years, and then learn after this that such a one has been overcome, having committed fornication or some other sin. Do not hesitate to say that he has poured out his steps. Think of a helmsman who is steering the vessel and has already passed many stades: overcome by a contrary wind and unable to face it, he goes back before the force of the wind and has poured out the steps of his ship. In the same way you too, while stretching forward to what lies ahead, if you turn to what is behind, if you sin, pour out your steps. And so that you may fear to pour out your steps, hear the Lord in Ezekiel saying: "A righteous man, if he turns away from his righteousnesses, all his righteousnesses that he did will not be remembered". For his steps have been poured out. We pray, then, Lord, that our steps too may be directed, and that our steps may not be tripped up, and that having crossed over we may see the great sights in proportion to our crossing.
When the steps of the man are directed by the Lord, then "he will desire his way". The wording is ambiguous. Either the Lord desires the way of the one who is directed in his steps and accepts it, not desiring the way of the impious nor the way of those who walk slantwise and cross over not in a straight line. Or else he himself, whose steps are directed by the Lord, desires the way of the Lord, having tasted, as his steps were directed, the sweetness of the way in which he was directed by the Lord; and "he will desire his way. When he falls, he will not be dashed down". He did not say of the righteous man: "when he falls". The discourse is about a man who is not yet righteous but is able to fall: "when", then, "he falls he will not be dashed down". We wish to set forth the difference between one who falls and is dashed down, and one who has fallen and is not dashed down. Let us take the example from those who wrestle in the contests and fall, and are either dashed down after falling or dashed down as they fall. Those who wrestle in the contests sometimes have fallen the first time and have won the three; since a contest is not about one bout, you might say of such a man, in bodily terms, that he has fallen but has not been dashed down, for he has won after falling. If you have understood the example, move on in thought to what follows. Suppose you see a man who has been overcome, and who after being overcome has not given himself over to licentiousness, to the practice of every uncleanness and greed, but has risen up, remembering Scripture: "Does the one who falls not rise up, or the one who turns away not turn back?" Woe to those who turn away with a shameless turning away, says the Lord. If, then, you see someone rising up after falling, and in rising recovering himself and taking to heart the shame of his fall, acting rightly after falling and living well, say of such a one that the words "when he falls, he will not be dashed down" are true of him. But suppose you see someone who has given up after falling and says: "I have fallen, I am lost, my sins are in me, I no longer have hope of salvation," and you see such a one become an apostate from God. This man has both fallen and been dashed down.
It is good, then, for an athlete to be unthrown, and good for an athlete to be – if I may name it thus from the examples – ungrippable, unshovable. But if you cannot even become such an athlete but have fallen, do not be dashed down; rise up instead. For those are mourned who have fallen and who, after sinning, have grown callous and given themselves over to every sin; but those who are not such, since they have hope, are not so much mourned by the righteous. Therefore the Apostle says: "And I shall mourn" some "of those who sinned before", not simply, but see the addition: "and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and licentiousness which they practiced". It is good, then, to be found among blameless and spotless athletes; but if not, then among those who have been beaten, not always, but who have won afterward. And in the case of athletes too – since Scripture has used these examples – one can say that someone was beaten among the boys and has won among the beardless youths, was beaten among the beardless youths and has been crowned among the men. And the Apostle says: "No one is crowned unless he competes lawfully", and "So I box, not as one beating the air", to become another such as Jacob was, who said: "God who nourishes me from my youth".
It is good to become such a one as never to fall; but if you have indeed fallen among the boys, compete in the class of the beardless and win in it. And if you have fallen in that, the lashes for the boy who was beaten and the lashes for the beardless youth who was defeated are enough for you. Take up the crowns for the man. Many and varied things, then, happen to a Christian too in the matter of wrestling bouts. "Our wrestling is not", you see, "against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places". Among so many antagonists one must excel and one must win. Whose will this be, what man's, what blessed and holy and sacred man's? It will be Daniel's, who prophesied from boyhood, who from boyhood convicted the elders and was honored by God with the privileges of seniority. This belongs to a sacred and divine and blessed man, such as was Jacob, who while still in the womb grasped the heel of his brother Esau. But even if you cannot become such a one, become an athlete by stages.
All this is on account of "when he falls he will not be dashed down, because the Lord supports his hand". So that the steps of a man may cross over from the Lord and be directed, and so that when he falls he may not be dashed down, he needs the Lord again. For when do we not need the Lord? This is why "he will not be dashed down, because the Lord supports his hand". The wording is ambiguous. Either the Lord gives support upon his own hand, not allowing it to be dashed down; or he supports the hand of the one who is wrestling and already about to be dashed down, so that he may not come down entirely on his face and end up lying wholly on the ground.
3. "I was younger, and indeed I grew old, and I have not seen a righteous man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread; all day long the righteous man shows mercy and lends, and his seed will be for a blessing". The one who takes the beginning of the scripture simply thinks that these words are said casually by David. On this view he had grown old and passed through his youth, and was saying: "I am an old man now; but I was once younger, and yet in so long a time 'I have not seen a righteous man forsaken'" and the rest. But we know that the inner man too has ages analogous to the ages of the body. We know that there is a child within, and an infant, a younger man and a youth, an elder and an old man. And we see that Abraham was an elder (πρεσβύτερος) not so much because of his bodily age as because in his inner man he had done away with the things of the infant, and had crossed over in his steps through the things of the youth. At any rate, before Abraham those who were longer-lived than he are not called elders; he was the first to be styled an elder, on account of virtue. So too we pray to be styled presbyters on account of virtue and of our disposition, and not on account of the rank in which we have been ranked. For unless the one who can hear, as Abraham did, that he is an elder nourished in a good old age is within us, it is not possible for us to be styled presbyters before God.
Since, then, we know that in the inner man there is the age of a child, of a youth, of an old man, we say for this reason that the perfect man speaks such things as the Apostle Paul taught when he said: "When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant, I thought as an infant, I reasoned as an infant; when I became a man, I have done away with the things of the infant". I do not hear the Apostle saying these things simply about bodily age. When he first believed, he was a newborn rational babe, longing at the beginning for guileless milk; he understood the Scriptures as an infant, thought of the gospel as an infant, and reasoned as an infant about the explanations of the Scriptures. Then, advancing in age as an imitator of Christ, who advanced in "wisdom" together "and in age and in grace before God and men", he has done away with "the things of the infant", no longer reasoning what he reasoned when he was an infant. For this reason he says: "When I became a man, I have done away with the things of the infant".
Understand something of this sort for me also about David when he says: "I was younger", as if he were saying: "I was an infant in my inner man, and indeed I grew old." If he had not grown old, he could not have prophesied; for to prophesy belongs to an old man. For if you ever see a younger man prophesying, do not hesitate to say that this man was an elder in his inner man and for this reason prophesied. When, at any rate, Jeremiah heard: "Before I formed you in the womb I know you, and before you came forth from the womb I have sanctified you, I have appointed you a prophet to the nations", the younger man then answered and says: "I do not know how to speak, because I am younger". But he who granted him to be not younger but an elder in the inner man says: "Do not say: I am younger". If these things are not understood thus, what sense does "Do not say: I am younger" have? He was younger in age; his body was a little child's. Do not say what is true, that you are younger in body – but the Lord knows what he says and that he has given his words into his mouth "to uproot and to raze and to destroy and to build and to plant". As though this word, being in his soul, did not allow it to be the soul of a younger man, he says for this reason: "Do not say: I am younger".
David too, then, as we have explained, was younger; but he was no longer younger when he prophesied and when he spoke these words that were deemed worthy of holy record. Therefore he says: "I was younger, and indeed I grew old" – if I grew old, I was once younger – "and I have not seen a righteous man forsaken". If you hear it bodily, it is a lie, for many righteous men have been forsaken; but if spiritually, it is true. For example, suppose you think that being forsaken comes about through poverty, that being forsaken comes about in weakness of body, that being forsaken comes about in being persecuted and wandering about in desolate places. Then the righteous have been forsaken, for "they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, wandering in desolate places and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth". But they were not forsaken. Being prophets, they "went about in sheepskins", yet they were not forsaken; for even if they were in a solitude of men, yet there was a multitude of angels with them. When Elisha was in a solitude of men, yet, having escaped the solitude of men, he was with an army of angels. At any rate, it is written: "O Lord, open the eyes of the lad" here "and let him see" that "those with us are more than those with them". And he sees "the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire".
The righteous man, then, is never alone; but I will say something still more paradoxical: the perfect man is not with one angel or a second, but with whole armies. And if you need an abundance of examples, consider Jacob. So long as he was with his father and mother together with Esau, not yet having fled from him, he was not yet with an army of holy angels. But when he came into solitude and went out alone to Mesopotamia, he slept, and on rising said that this place is called Camps. And there he who seemed to be alone, as far as men were concerned, saw not a camp but holy camps. This, for me, is why "I have not seen a righteous man forsaken": he is not left behind, since he is among spiritual things. And though I have need among bodily things, I suffer no loss in being forsaken; I have spiritual things. When I am forsaken bodily, I am permitted to say those apostolic boasts: "Up to this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and are homeless and labor", "working with our own hands". And when I am forsaken bodily, I am permitted to say: "Being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure, being defamed we entreat". But since I am not forsaken, "I am well pleased in weaknesses, in insults and necessities, in persecutions and distresses, for Christ's sake".
There are, then, two forsakings: the one bodily, which harms us not at all; the other the forsaking of the soul, which is ruinous. The richer, then, we are in righteous works, the more we are helped not to be forsaken. Therefore it is also said: "I have not seen a righteous man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread". Again, if you hear "his seed" of bodily offspring, the seed of the righteous man often seeks bread. Ishmael, at any rate, at the time when he was with his mother, who had run away from Sarah, also thirsted. And Esau came from the field fainting, so that he even sold his birthright for one dish of lentil stew. But the apostles too, as I have cited, boast in hunger and thirst and nakedness. You must, then, understand "I have not seen a righteous man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread" in a manner worthy of spiritual Scriptures.
The seed of the righteous man, then, would be his disciple, who has received the seeds of salvation. For example, suppose you pray for me that I may become righteous and receive grace, word and wisdom more abundantly every day, and a word of knowledge, and then in this way the word, entering like a seed into the soul of you who hear, forms you as Christ is formed in you. Then you become the seed of the word of the righteous man. "A righteous man", then, "I have not seen forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread". For the seed of the righteous man certainly does not seek bread, because through the righteous whose seed it received it has the power of divine bread. And if the objector speaks of those who seem to hear Paul the righteous man, or Peter, and yet sin, it will be said to you that the sinners were not seed of the righteous man. Just as the sinners were not seed of Abraham, for which reason it is said: "If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham", so those who seemed to hear but did not hear were not seed of Paul; they only seemed to, casting the word of Paul out of their soul. So neither was Judas a child of Christ, since "after the morsel Satan entered into him", and before Satan the devil put it into his heart to betray the teacher. We have, then, the solution of the objection too: "I have not seen", then, "a righteous man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread".
† Next a certain wording † the seed can also be. Here this will seem to have a forced explanation; in what follows it will have an explanation, but what has been given no longer has a similar force of explanation and would seem to be forced. One person, then, will say that seed is used in two senses in the same psalm, while another will try to show that the forced explanations are not forced. It is said, indeed, also in what follows: "And the seed of the impious will be utterly destroyed". And it is clear that it is not the bodily seed of the impious that will be utterly destroyed; rather, that seed even appears before the Lord as a righteous man and, prophesying, says: "May he curse it who curses that day, he who is about to subdue the great sea monster". But will the word of the righteous ever be utterly destroyed, according to that explanation: "nor his seed seeking bread"? The word has no need of food, for it always has in itself what nourishes it.
4. "All day long the righteous man shows mercy and lends": all day long the righteous man shows mercy, all day long he lends, he has leisure for nothing else but lending. Out of an abundance of money he lends from dawn until evening. But it does not mean this, that if someone is righteous and has opened a bank, having money, he lends it. And this is said in Deuteronomy and in Exodus, for I think it is stated in both books: "He will lend to many nations", "but you will not borrow". But the meaning is clear. Suppose I have the approved money and am always gathering more money from the treasures and from the treasuries of God, from the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge. Suppose I have the five talents become ten and the two become four, always having more approved money in my soul. Then, showing mercy all day long, all day long I lend now to so many, but without being righteous. For this reason pray that I may become righteous and, having become righteous, may lend you monies of righteousness, stamped by righteousness itself, so that they may be righteous monies. But perhaps it is as one can say in the case of monies, and not monies: unjust monies are those that have been wickedly acquired from groans, from injustice, from grief, from theft and greed, but righteous monies are those that come from one's own righteous farming, from grieving no one. So too in the case of silver and of power, the power in words, one can say that some are righteous monies, such as were the monies of Paul the Apostle, while others are unjust monies, such as were those of Valentinus and Basilides. For indeed those men did not have monies; and if they had monies, their monies were unjust. Pray, then, that our coins may be stamped by righteousness, and once stamped may become such that you too may borrow without danger and we may not hear that you ought to have put the money into the bank.
5. "I was younger", then, "and indeed I grew old, and I have not seen a righteous man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread; all day long he shows mercy and lends". Above it is said: "The sinner borrows and will not repay", but here the righteous man "all day long shows mercy and lends". See the diametrical opposition. The one, I mean the sinner, not only borrows but also, having borrowed, does not pay back. The other lends, not only once or twice here and there, but also "all day long" of the time of his life "the righteous man shows mercy and lends, and his seed will be for a blessing".
6. "Turn aside", then, "from evil", as you learn these things, "and do good and dwell for the age". Do not dwell for five days nor for ten nor for years taken in number; let your dwelling be eternal. And this you will do if you look not to "the things that are seen but things not seen", since "the things that are seen are temporary, but the things not seen are eternal".
7. "For the Lord loves judgment and will not forsake his holy one": how does the Lord love judgment? God loves nothing that is without judgment. Do nothing, then, without judgment, but listen to the one who says: "Do all things with counsel" and judgment.
8. "With counsel", because the Lord "also will not forsake his holy ones": "they will be guarded for the age", since "they dwell for the age". For this reason they will be guarded for the age. For their guarding, in which they will be guarded at present, takes place for the sake of the age to come. But perhaps there is also some mystery in the passage. If you understand the whole age, it is impossible for a man who has been deemed worthy of that age to fall during the whole age. But whether anything can happen when that age has been fulfilled, we shall know about such a matter. Only, "the seed of the impious will be utterly destroyed", and "the righteous will inherit the land" which the meek inherit, the land "good and broad", "and they will dwell for the age of the age upon it". Not only for the age, but also for the age of the age, since what is rendered to the righteous is great indeed. For in return for a righteous man's years he receives not an age in place of days, but even an age of an age. And I say that if he intensifies his virtue and his love for humankind, he will attain to glorifying God to the ages of ages. Amen.