Homilies on the Psalms — Homily 7 — Psalm 67 (LXX; MT 68), Homily I: vv. 2–4
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. 173–199. Psalms are numbered as in the Septuagint. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the 67th Psalm, Homily 1
1. He is a disciple of the one who said: "Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart", he who has said so much about himself so modestly and has attached to us the greater things which are not his. As a disciple of that one, having practised meekness, he has spoken as one "lowly in heart". For he knows that everyone "who humbles himself will be exalted". But I have heard what was said not as things already true, but as the fathers heard: Jacob heard the blessing of Isaac, and the twelve patriarchs the blessings of Jacob. For those blessings did not yet belong to the fathers, but were prophesied as things to come. So then, as you pray that we may make progress in the church, what was said about us by the pope will also be a prophecy, a prophecy rather than things already present in us. For I know that they have not yet come about.
Since I am persuaded that every word apart from the presence of Christ in the speaker is empty and from the earth, and that it is impossible for a heavenly word to come among us without God the Father who sends it, I have chosen for this reason one of the psalms that were read, one that contains a prayer, and I would pray according to it before the explanation of the psalm that is set before us and has been read. And I would like all of you to pray with me and say this about me, while I say it about myself: "O God, attend to my help; Lord, make haste to help me; let those who seek my soul be put to shame and confounded; let them be turned back and put to shame; let those who formerly wished me evil be turned back". Let this be not at some future time, but let them be "at once put to shame, those who say to me", wishing to gloat over the evils that befall, evils which they pray may come upon us: "Good, good!"
Let these things happen to them. But for you I pray that such a word may be given that you exult and are glad. So I would say: let them exult and be glad in you today, through Christ speaking in me: "Let all who seek you exult and be glad, and let them say continually: Let the Lord be magnified". Let them say "be magnified", so that the Lord may be magnified in the word given to me, and so that the Lord may also be magnified in deeds, both in us and in all of you.
And let "those who love your salvation" say this. For I am conscious in myself that I am poor, that I am needy: "O God, help me; you are my helper and my deliverer; Lord, do not delay". I urge you to join in prayer, so that he who promised and said, "While you are still speaking, I will say: Behold, I am here", may say, while I am still speaking these things, by his power and presence as well: "Behold, I am here". And the sign that he is speaking will be this, since by the fruits you will recognize not only men but also a word: whether a word is indeed given that explains "Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered, and let those who hate him flee from his face; as smoke vanishes, let them vanish; as wax melts before the face of fire, so may sinners perish from the face of God, and let the righteous be glad, let them exult before God, let them delight in gladness".
2. First, one must know that it is the custom of Scripture in many places to use imperatives (προστακτικοῖς) instead of optatives (εὐκτικῶν). This will be found in many places, but it suffices now to cite from the Gospel that when our Savior teaches us to pray, he does not teach us to give commands to God. He teaches us to express wishes in imperative forms. For it is said, he says: "Our Father who are in the heavens, let your name be hallowed; let your kingdom come; let your will be done", instead of "may your name be hallowed (ἁγιασθείη), may your kingdom come (ἔλθοι), may your will be done (γένοιτο)".
If, then, these words too are spoken in imperative forms, let us hear them as optatives. For no one gives commands to God, nor does anyone say "Let God arise" about him as a command. Rather, he prays and says: "May God arise, and may his enemies be scattered, and may those who hate him flee from his face; as smoke vanishes, may they vanish; as wax melts before the face of fire, so may they perish." But here he has already used the optative, plainly and clearly: "So", at any rate, "may perish", he says, "the sinners from the face of God, and let the righteous be glad", instead of "may they be glad (εὐφρανθείησαν)"; "let them exult before God", instead of "may they exult (ἀγαλλιάσαιντο)"; "let them delight in gladness", instead of "may they delight (τερφθείησαν)".
But someone bolder than I might say that these things can also be said as true imperatives. For masters have received a command from Christ, who speaks in Paul, "to grant their slaves what is just and equal", and the good master grants equality to his slaves. What, then, is absurd in this: that one who is commanded by God and receives commands, being confident because he has kept the commands, should in praying, with a certain boldness, command God in turn, as it were? He will support such a view from other texts written about these things and will say: "I ask certain things of the Lord our God, trusting him who said: 'Everyone who asks receives'." Thus, just as we ask of God, so God himself is also recorded (as appears even at first sight and in the more common sense) as not keeping the dignity of God but asking certain things of us. For, if I may so name it, God humbles himself, as it were, in asking of us what he is written to ask. And what does he ask? Hear it from this: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his commandments, and to love him and to serve the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul?" As, then, he asks of us, so we too ask of him, receiving boldness to command him, if we keep his commands.
For commanding God is not a greater thing than becoming his heir. Commanding God is not a greater thing than becoming a joint heir with his Christ. Commanding God is not a greater thing than that so great a Son of God should have come to be in the midst of men, not as one who reclines at table but as one who is set to serve, one who ministers. Commanding God is not a greater thing than that the Son of God should strip, lay aside his garments, take a towel, gird himself, put water into a basin, and wash the feet of the disciples. But it belongs to the one who is washed and who has understood that he is cleansed by being washed: expecting that he receives a share from him by being washed, he also speaks to him in the imperative. This is not because we are worthy to command, but because great is the love for humanity and the kindness of God toward us. For let us hear this too: "Beloved, if the heart does not condemn, we have boldness toward God, and whatever we ask we receive from him", as John says in the epistle. Only, then, let the heart not condemn, but let the conscience have boldness toward God.
And so that we may be persuaded still more about the boldness which God wishes man to have toward him, I will cite what is perhaps greater than commanding God: that the judge is to be judged with me. Therefore a man says: "that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged (σε)", which those who did not understand have made into "when I am judged (με)". And what will such people do with the other texts, where it is written: "The Lord himself will come into judgment with the elders of the people and with its rulers?" But if this does not yet clearly show you that the judge is, as it were, judged with you, hear this: "Come and let us be tried (ἐλεγχθῶμεν), says the Lord". The Lord has permitted you to speak to him with boldness, having placed himself in such a position as a trial seems to be. He permits it even if you imagine that you can convict him of having been remiss in his providence toward you, and you say such things with boldness. For this is shown by "Come and let us be tried, says the Lord". And it is consistent with "the spirit of adoption", and with "you are no longer a slave, but a son". Your Father is God, and your brother is the Lord, who says: "I will declare your name to your brothers", or rather "to my brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing hymns to you". What is strange, then, if a son who has boldness toward the Father and does not put to shame the spirit of adoption, when commanded by the Father, should in turn command the Father, making requests about what he wishes?
So much on account of "Let God arise".
3. For we must inquire when God rises and when he sleeps. The divine Scriptures, in their common sense, say such things about him, but one must understand how these things are written. About his sleeping, someone says in the Psalms, praying: "Arise, why do you sleep, Lord? Why do you turn away your face? Do you forget our poverty and our affliction?" About his sitting: "You who sit upon the cherubim, appear, before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh". About God's standing, he himself says to Moses: "But you, stand here with me". And about his walking, it is written in Genesis that after the transgression Adam heard "the Lord God walking in paradise in the evening".
But in regard to these things you must know that God, as far as he himself is concerned, is unchangeable and unalterable, and is always the same and in the same way. Therefore we say about the creatures, "The heavens will perish", but about him, "But you remain". And again, about the things he has made: "And all will grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you will roll them up, and like a garment they will be changed"; but to God, who never grows old but always remains new: "But you are the same, and your years will not fail". And I believe him too when he says through the prophet: "I am your God and I have not been altered". As far as he himself is concerned, then, the God of the universe is unchangeable, unalterable and immutable. But because of you, man, he is said to undergo changes, as it were, becoming to each one what it is fitting for him to become to each.
Paul, then, as a man, became to each one, through love and love for humanity, whatever the one receiving the benefit needed, and he is recorded as saying: "I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those under the law as under the law, that I might win those under the law; to the lawless as lawless, not being lawless toward God but under the law of Christ, that I might win the lawless; to the weak as weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all, that I might by all means save some". But whose imitator is Paul when he does these things? I dare to say it: Christ's, who became weak to the weak, that he might win the weak. And "the weakness of God is stronger than men". For not only is the weakness of Christ, which was crucified out of weakness, stronger than men; but the Apostle, as one who has authority to speak the truth and who had said that "the weakness of God is stronger than men", dared to say something quite reckless and hazardous with regard to hearers who do not know how to listen. For he says: "The foolishness of God is wiser than men".
Therefore, in truth there is no "weakness of God", but because of our weakness, what is called the "weakness of God" frees us from all human weakness. So too, in truth there is no "foolishness of God", but because of "the foolish things of the world", which "God chose", it is said: "The foolishness of God is wiser than men". So, then, in truth God is unchangeable and unalterable. But for our sake, at times he is said to sit, sitting for someone, such as the one being judged. For God forbid that he should stand for the one being judged! For "books were opened and the court sat", and he sits when he judges. But for the holy and blessed man, to whom "He who believes in me is not judged" applies, he does not sit but stands. Therefore the one who stands says to the one who is already worthy to stand with God: "But you, stand here with me". At other times, for the bishop who is unworthy of God's providence and grace, "he who does not slumber, who does not sleep when he guards Israel" sleeps. And if that man, for whom God sleeps, repents, it is said: "The Lord awoke like one sleeping, like a mighty man reeling from wine". And so he also rises.
So much on account of "Let God arise".
4. Let us also look at "let his enemies be scattered". There are two general gatherings (συναγωγαί), one of the devil and one of God, and it is impossible for both these gatherings to be gathered at the same time. For when the gathering of the devil is gathered, whether you understand by it a gathering of the opposing powers or of the heterodox, of whom it is said: "I hated the church of evildoers".
Here, indeed, a word about the gathering necessarily comes up. Those who neglect the gathering, who do not listen to him who says, "He who does not gather with me scatters me", who do not listen to "not forsaking the gathering, as is the custom of some", do not commit only one sin, namely that they scatter by not gathering and not assembling for the common prayers. They also commit another, greater sin. For each of those who do not gather, as far as in him lies, gathers the gathering of the evildoers. Just so, each of those who gather, as far as in him lies (gathering, that is, as Christ teaches when he says "He who does not gather with me", for one must gather with him), each, then, of those who are gathered in this way scatters the gathering of the evil one. And over those who are gathered in this way God does not sleep, but rises. Therefore he says: "Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered".
But one of the hearers will say: You have spoken of two gatherings, but what is written is not about gatherings; it is about God. Yes, and rightly the opening begins from God. For in order that a holy gathering may come about, God must rise, since when God has risen, the gathering of sinners is dissolved and the gathering of the righteous is gathered. See how, just as the things concerning sinners are stated, in the same manner it is also said concerning the righteous, after the things they must suffer have had to befall the sinners when God has risen. For it is written: "And let the righteous be glad, and let them exult before God, let them delight in gladness". For each one is not glad privately; the gladness of all the saints is common. For of all "those who believed, the heart and the soul was one".
Let these things, then, be referred in a more general way to the God of the universe, and let "Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered" be explained of him according to the first explanation.
5. I know that my Savior and Lord is God, for "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". Since I know this, I say that "Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered" might especially be read of him, since in the Hebrew the first article (ὁ) is not present. For before the Savior suffered, "the kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ". But after his resurrection those who had been gathered together were scattered and fled "from his face". And "as vanishes" the "smoke", so they vanish, and "as wax melts before the face of fire", so these will perish, who are conquered first by the death of Christ and secondly also by his resurrection and his life.
But one of the hearers will say, especially if he is sharp and able "to search all things, even the depths of God": Does our Savior, then, being God, rise from the dead? Then God too died, and death can contain God. Does he himself not teach outright that what died was a man? At any rate, he says to those who were plotting against him: "But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth which I heard from the Father". For he knew that he was present as something human, and that what they sought to destroy was not the truth, nor the life, nor the resurrection. The resurrection does not admit death; the only-begotten of God is the resurrection, and the resurrection is immortal. And to say that life dies carries a contradiction on its face. For the Lord says: "I am the life". How, then, do you say that "Let God arise" applies to the Savior? For if God rises, see: contrary to what the text intends, one must speak, and contradict Scripture, and say that if God rises, God has died. Can we, then, receiving the presence of the word from the Father himself, resolve the difficulty that has been raised and the question?
For let us attend carefully to what is said about the resurrection by the blessed Paul: that "what is sown in corruption is not raised in corruption but in incorruption; what is sown in dishonor is not raised in dishonor but also in glory"; and in addition to these, "what is sown in weakness is not raised in weakness, but in power". And what else is this than "what is sown natural (ψυχικόν) is not raised natural, but spiritual"? What is surprising, then, if what dies was a man, since man is capable of death, while what rises, corresponding to the natural being raised spiritual, was no longer a man but God? For were he again a man on rising (since a man dies, being a mortal living being), then, having died, he will again be mortal. But if he will not be mortal and instead remains immortal (for "death no longer has dominion" over him), it is clear that, being immortal, he is no longer a man; it is God who rises.
And why do I say these things about the Savior? For these things await you too, who believe in God, who have received Christ Jesus: as a man you die, but you are raised a god. And if after being raised you no longer die, neither do you fall any more, nor are you reproved then as you are reproved now. If you are a sinner, it is said to you now: "I said, you are gods and all sons of the Most High, but you die like men and fall like one of the rulers". But then it will no longer be said to you in reproof: "But you die like men". For you remain a god, and it will be said to you: "I said: you are gods and all sons of the Most High". And what follows will still apply to you. For you do not die, nor do you fall; you stand with him, the God who ever stands. Our Savior, then, rises: the man having died, but God being raised.
6. "His enemies are scattered", those who were formerly gathered "together against the Lord and against his Christ". And up to the second, and up to the present, Christ stands up together with each one of those who rise. "We were buried with" Christ "through baptism", and we rose with him. And when Christ rises with the one who has died to sin (when Christ, I say, rises with him), his enemies, who were formerly gathered by themselves, are scattered and no longer come together, for they are scattered. And he who then said, "Come, let us go down and confuse their tongue there", comes down now as well. Coming to you, if you rise from the dead, he will say: "Let us confuse, let us scatter the enemies of him who has accepted dying to the world, of him who has received rising with God."
The enemies of God have already been scattered twice: by the first, universal resurrection of Christ, and by the resurrection of the Savior in each one, when "we walk in newness of life". I will also state a third interpretation, for the Word has permitted us to give a third interpretation as well, commanding through Solomon that the writings of God be written down threefold. He says: "And you, write them down threefold in counsel and knowledge, so as to answer words of truth to those who put questions to you". So I now know another resurrection of the body of Christ. "But you are the body of Christ and members in part", and the head (certain of the blessed) cannot say to the feet (other men): I have no need of you. But see the many members of Christ, as it is said. I see this body, all who have fallen asleep, rising in one moment "at the voice of an archangel and at the trumpet of God", so that one might then say that the church has risen, the mouth of Christ and his body, and that Christ has risen, being about to be in the whole body as he then was in that body. For thus there will no longer be, according to the pledge of our Father, the resurrection of him alone. Instead there will be, according to the perfection of the gift, when the perfect comes, the resurrection all at once of the whole body of Christ from the dead. And then he comes in the resurrection, and Christ will be in his whole body, not in part. And when Christ thus rises as God in the whole body as it rises, then his enemies are scattered completely. Then, having come into punishment, the enemies will vanish like smoke; they will vanish "as smoke vanishes".
7. And this too is fulfilled: "As wax melts before the face of fire, so will sinners perish from the face of God, and let the righteous be glad". I do not think that the discourse leaves the three interpretations that have been given orphaned of a single explanation concerning the smoke and the wax. For the sinners have been called smoke. Where there is fire and where there is light, there is smoke, being a by-product of fire and a by-product of light. I find the fire in "He who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire", for an angel also appeared to Moses in a fire of flame. I also seek the light, and I believe my Lord when he says: "You are the light of the world". And perhaps the angels themselves are fire when they punish. But when they minister the things of blessedness and salvation, they are rather light, the light of those who hear "You are the light of the world". And do not wonder if the angels are both, when even the God of the universe himself is said to be both light and fire. For to sinners our God is fire, and he consumes all wickedness; but to the righteous God is no longer fire but light. For "God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all".
God, therefore, is light and fire, and it has been shown that the angels too are fire and light. And how are the righteous light and fire? It is said in the Gospel that Christ is the true light; I will show that he is also fire. For the Savior himself says: "Fire I came", he says, "to cast upon the earth, and what do I wish, if it is already kindled?" And the righteous are imitators of Christ. Christ has need of fire as well, to destroy earthly things. Therefore, being good, he prays to kindle this fire. Would that this fire might come, the fire about which the Savior prayed, saying: "Would that it were already kindled upon me!" Then this fire would go out and burn all the thorns, and burn them completely. For it does not know how to set fire also to threshing floors and ears of grain or fields.
We have, then, the light and the fire, which smoke follows. For the impious and sinners are a by-product of the righteous; they did not become such according to the primary design. For the primary design wished them too to be light; it wanted them, as the discourse has shown, to be fire. Since they fled from being light and did not wish to become fire, for this reason they have become smoke: "as smoke vanishes, let them vanish".
8. Something similar must be said about the wax. For the primary work of bees is honey, and Solomon says: "Go to the bee and learn how industrious it is". And "four things are wiser than the wise": the ants and the locust, the bee and "the rock-badgers, a people not strong". The bee, therefore, makes honey as its primary work, and wax is a by-product of the primary honey.
But, the hearer says to me, I want to understand how the bee makes honey and how the formation of the comb follows as a by-product. Our Savior and Lord is the essēn (as some have called it) of all the bees that are the prophets and of all the bees that are the apostles: the king of the bees, who leads the making of the honey. And under the leadership of the king-bee Moses, the bee Isaiah and Jeremiah and the rest of the prophets, the bees, made honey, this being the primary work for the king-bee and the bees. The righteous among those who heard the law and the prophets were the honey, while the sinners among those who heard have become wax. And if you come to the coming of Christ, and see the apostolic bees, and consider the gospel writings, and see the sojourn and teaching of Christ, do not hesitate to say that he made the church honey. But as a by-product of the production of so great and so wonderful a honey there came the wax: the wax of the heresies, and the wax of those who are among the righteous.
And if Christ had not come, there would be neither honey nor wax, that is, the heresies and the sinners among us, who will say: "In your name we ate, and in your name we drank, and in your name we cast out demons". But he will say to them: "'Depart from me, never' in fact 'did I know you'; for I never knew that wax, the accident that came about with the honey. But, 'as smoke vanishes, let them vanish; as wax melts before the face of fire, so may sinners perish from the face of God, and let the righteous be glad'".
Moreover, just as I say concerning Christ, so too have the creatures come to be in the case of the God of the universe. He made the primary things, while the things that followed upon them came to be from wickedness, like wax and smoke. Cain is smoke, and Abel light; Shem is fire, and Ham and Canaan smoke; Shem is honey, and Japheth light. Therefore they are blessed, having become light by the light of Noah, and by his honey and his sweetness. But since sinners vanish like smoke and melt like wax, for this reason "Cursed be Canaan; a household servant shall he be to his brothers". Whoever wishes that the sinners had not come to be is in effect saying that the righteous had not come to be.
9. "Let flee", then, "those who hate" the God who has risen, "from his face". For as long as they oppose God and resist him, they have not yet fled from the face of God; but when they are conquered by the divinity of God, they flee from his face. And what happens to those who flee from the face of God is analogous to what is written about Cain, who, after completing his sins, "went out from the face of God". And since "the face of the Lord is upon those who do evil, to destroy their memory from the earth", for this reason those who do evil flee from the face of God. And if they flee, "as smoke vanishes, they vanish, and as wax melts before the face of fire, so may they perish from the face of God".
When these things have happened to those who hate God and to his enemies, the righteous are glad. For before the impious die, they do not receive back their sins, nor do the righteous receive their gladness. For when the sinners vanish like smoke and melt like wax, insofar as they are sinners, the righteous are glad not only for themselves but also over the smoke that vanishes and over the wax that has melted. For they see that good has been done by the vanishing of the smoke and by the melting away of the wax. Perhaps the Savior too saw something of this kind being done by the fire, namely that wax is to be melted away so that only honey may be left, and so said: "Fire I came to cast upon the earth, and would that it had already been lit!"
It seems to me opportune in this discourse to remove, by reason, an unlearned assumption of the brothers, who sometimes say foolish things about sins. For they think that it is possible for one who remains a sinner to be saved, and that God gives sentence concerning the one who is foul-smelling because of his sins that he will be saved. They do not see the impossibility of the thing. For these people, as far as in them lies, say that God can also throw the rotten and blameworthy fish that have fallen into the net in with the good fish. They do not see that this is not even reasonable: that the net should not be cleaned, that the good should not be picked out pure, that the things opposed to the good should not be kept unmixed with them.
Such people seem to want the chaff too to be shut up in the granary. For what difference is there between throwing the worthless fish in with the good and shutting up the chaff in the granary, or the smoke not vanishing but being saved with the light? Then, where there is salvation there would again be smoke and wickedness, and where the honey is there would again be wax, which is not eaten and is not sweet. For sweet is the conduct of the righteous man, and the word of God makes all things in him sweet. Therefore he says: "How sweet are your oracles to my throat". His conduct is sweet, but the deeds of the sinner are bitter. And if they are bitter and for this reason embitter the righteous Lord, it is clear that, conversely, the deeds of the righteous sweeten the Righteous One. Hence the righteous man prays for this concerning his own words, saying: "May my discourse be pleasing to him".
10. After these things have happened to the sinners, then, "let the righteous be glad", he says. Let us become righteous, so that we may be glad. And do not think that this, becoming righteous, is simple and plain. For Christ, the righteousness, "became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption". It is not possible, then, to be righteous without partaking of Christ. And if anyone supposes that someone outside the faith is righteous, he will accept one of two things: either that the Gentile too partakes of Christ, or that, if he does not partake of Christ, he is not righteous. Which, then, does he wish to accept? That the Gentile partakes of Christ? But this is incongruous. For the ordinary person says: may it be granted to me and to everyone who believes in Christ to partake of Christ, so that it may be said of me: "We have become partakers of Christ". The Gentile, then, is not considered to partake of Christ; and if he does not partake of Christ, he does not have a righteousness free of falsehood. For in contrast to a false righteousness it is said in the Proverbs according to the Seventy: "to understand true righteousness and to direct judgment". For if there were not a righteousness that seems to be such but is not true, it would not be said: "to understand true righteousness". For just as there is a true light distinct from the one that is not true, so there is a truer righteousness distinct from the one that is not true.
"The righteous", then, those who partake of the righteousness of Christ, "let them be glad and exult". And "let them exult" is not enough. For "let them exult" alone is not good unless it receives the addition, which is necessary. And what is this? "Let them exult before God". Exulting before God, therefore, is a blessing. And so, together with "exulting before God", it is possible to delight in gladness. Then indeed we shall delight, if we come together into one. For "behold", "what is good and what is delightful but for them to dwell among the brothers"? This "dwelling" comes about in the house of the Father. For then there will properly be "dwelling", since now there is no "dwelling". The present habitations are, for now, tents, and I journey until I come to the house of God "with the voice of exultation", the house of those who keep festival. And if I come to the house, I shall delight in the house of God. Therefore it is said: "One thing I asked of the Lord, this I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may behold the delight of the Lord and visit his holy temple", in Christ Jesus, to whom be the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen.