Homilies on the Psalms — Homily 11 — Psalm 73 (LXX; MT 74), Homily III: vv. 15–23
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. 252–268. Psalms are numbered as in the Septuagint. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the 73rd Psalm, Homily 3
1. We, for our part, not knowing "what we should pray for as we ought", need help and "the supply of the Spirit" even at the time of prayer, so that "we may pray with the spirit, and may pray also with the mind". But the holy prophets had gone so far in praying, and had made such progress in prayer, that they prophesied in it. And here, at any rate, a hidden prophecy has been spoken in the prayer: "You broke open a spring and torrents; you dried up rivers". By this it is shown in what way a spring came to those from the Gentiles, and drought came upon Israel. One can see the prophecy about both peoples on these matters more clearly in the hundred and sixth psalm, I think. There it is written that "God made the desert into pools of water, and a waterless land into outlets of waters; he made a fruitful land into brine, because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it".
We must therefore consider what the spring is that God broke open, and who the torrents are that he gathered together. The spring is my Lord Jesus Christ, from whom we drink. And "torrents overflowed" from that very spring. For the holy and wonderful apostles were torrents that overflowed, just as in the seventy-seventh psalm many torrents overflowed from the rock that flowed with waters. So Christ came from heaven as a spring and gave many torrents, the apostles. And to this day he gives torrents, if he finds souls that emulate the apostolic life; for through them flow both torrents and rivers of water springing up into eternal life.
We must also consider more clearly what befell that people about whom it is written: "You dried up the rivers of Etham". This verse is not found in the copies of the Seventy, but we found it in the Hebrew and among the others. Not knowing what "the rivers of Etham you dried up" means, we read in one of the translators "ancient rivers", and in others "and ancient rivers" and "firm" and "vigorous" and "mighty": the rivers that flowed in the prophets. This is not to say that the prophets themselves were dried up (far be it from us to say this blasphemous thing), but that the prophets of the Jews ceased, and there are no longer prophets among them.
2. After the prophetic prayer, God is again hymned in the prayer, as the prophet says: "Yours is the day and yours is the night". And who would not say that this too is clear? I say that according to the wording it is perfectly clear. For no other is the creator of day and night than he who said: "Let there be light", and called the light day. And no other is the maker of night than he who said: "I am he who prepared light and made darkness", and who "gave the darkness the name night". According to the wording, then, the words "Yours is the day and yours is the night" seem to be simple.
And although I could pass over it and spare myself trouble in searching out what is written, I am trying to examine these things more thoughtfully. It appears in the Scriptures that certain days are said to be the Lord's, which they called "convocations", as though not all days were days of the Lord, but only some. Such a thing causes offense, although we remedy the offense both from the wording I cited, which presents it clearly, and from the discussion about human beings. What I mean will become clear in this way. Who would not say to God, if he is one of the simpler sort, "Yours are human beings," of whatever kind they may be, whether sinners or righteous? But Scripture does not mean this, for the knowledge of God knows only righteous human beings. Even Moses was scarcely styled "man of God", and only at the end. And Elijah said: "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty" (he was speaking to the captain of fifty sent by that lawless king). According to the simpler sort, then, every day is God's and all human beings are God's, but in truth not all are worthy to be God's, and only the righteous are God's, according to "The Lord knew those who are his". In the same way, even if according to the simpler sort every day is God's and every night is God's, yet by precise reasoning I would say that only in the righteous is there a day of God, and only in the noble and good is there a night of God. For days and nights, and the day according to the Scriptures, have in feasts "a shadow of the good things to come".
The one, then, in whom "the sun of righteousness" has risen and made for him a day of the Lord, the one to whom the secret and hidden oracles of wisdom are present, according to what was said: "He made darkness his hiding place", to him the night of God is present. About this night, and about those who have it, it is written: "In the nights lift up your hands to the holy places and bless the Lord". Moreover, the texts that say: "For behold, a day comes" and "Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord" show that not every day is a day of the Lord. The reasoning is like the teaching about human beings. All human beings are God's creations, even if they are most impious; but through sin they have disowned themselves from God and been allotted to the devil.
So too in us: if the sun of righteousness rises, it has made a day of Christ. But if it is not he, and Satan instead, who disguises himself "as an angel of light", makes a day, its light is quenched. Solomon speaks about both these lights in Proverbs: "The light for the righteous is unquenchable always, but the light of the impious is quenched". So the righteous man rightly says about himself and the day and night within him: "Yours is the day and yours is the night". The same holds for "You established radiance and sun". God has established these, the radiance and the sun, and above all the sun that I called the sun of righteousness.
3. The Father established the radiance too, a teaching radiance, other than the sun that was named. God established it; and what would this be but the Holy Spirit? So according to tropology "You established radiance and sun" refers to Christ and to the Holy Spirit. But as far as the letter goes, one might ask what it means that radiance and sun are established by God, and that the radiance is other than the sun. Since, then, I am inquiring into the letter, I take up the letter of Genesis and explain that radiance is one thing and sun another: "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the water. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light". Behold, I have the radiance. Then on the fourth day: "Let there be luminaries in the firmament of heaven". And a little later: "And he made the great luminary for the rule of the day". So according to this, as far as the letter goes, it is said: "You established radiance and sun". This light, then, is greater than the sun; it is the firstborn of this creation and came into being before the sun.
And what would this light be that made light for the world? God, who said: "I am the light of the world". God established this too. But when there is light, the blind man does not enjoy it, nor does the one who is in darkness and the shadow of death, nor does the one who shuts his eyes enjoy the light. Just so, this radiance, greater than this sun, has risen for the world, but the blind do not see it. "And who is blind but my servants"? They did not see so great a light; Jesus Christ himself, the light of the world, escaped their notice when he came to dwell among us. He did not, however, escape the notice of those from the Gentiles: "For to those sitting in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned on them". And do this first, "do it quickly, land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, and the rest who inhabit the coast, people sitting in darkness, behold a great light". Great, then, is this light that God established for us, of which it is also written in the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be that has come to be. In him was life, and the life was the light of men".
4. Next comes "You established all the boundaries of the earth". Again, as far as the letter goes, this is clear: "When the Most High divided the nations, the sons of Adam whom he scattered, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God. And Jacob became the Lord's portion, Israel the measured lot of his inheritance". For the earth, too, has been arranged by God to be inhabited not by chance. So these parts of the earth belong to the Egyptians and are the boundaries of Pharaoh, and those parts of the earth belong to Judea and are the boundaries of Israel. So it is with the remaining nations too. "When", indeed, "the Most High divided the nations, as he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God". And referring the word to those boundaries, as far as the letter goes, the prophet says: "You established all the boundaries of the earth".
But if we must also rise higher in our discourse, know that we are all going to be restored to our proper boundaries. These are established by our actions, in proportion to our life. So just as "the law has a shadow of the good things to come", so too the words "When the Most High divided the nations" may have a shadow of the good things to come. For another distribution of lots is going to take place, of a new covenant and a new earth, when, according to the prophet Isaiah, there will be "the new heaven and the new earth". On this earth God set boundaries of the nations in proportion to each one's life and according to the number of the angels of God. In the same way, in the new creation God will set boundaries of the nations in proportion to each one's life. Within those boundaries one will be assigned to the excellent and better parts of that earth, another to the second and lesser parts, another to the third, and another to the last.
Here, then, it is written: "You established all the boundaries of the earth". But I rise higher in my discourse, and I dare to say, "You established all the boundaries of heaven." For just as among the stars he established the boundaries of heaven, so that these stars are toward the north, others toward the south, and others on what is called the zodiac, and further, this star is close to the Bear itself and that one a little farther off; in the same way, those who inherit the kingdom are to receive boundaries in heaven which God has established.
And so that you may be further persuaded from the Scriptures that, if you become worthy of the kingdom of heaven, you will receive some boundaries in heaven from the stars just mentioned, pass on to the account of the resurrection, which is likened to the stars: "One", it says, "is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, another the glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory", "so also is the resurrection of the dead". As God set boundaries in heaven for these stars, in the same way, if you become "the light of the world", and it truly comes to pass that you are "as the stars of heaven in multitude", God will set boundaries for you, not on earth but in heaven. And why do I say in heaven? I dare to say that the boundaries of the righteous will be above heaven, in all the heavens. For "the heavens", it says, "declare the glory of God", and the one who follows Jesus can ascend into all the heavens. Of Jesus it is written: "We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God". He said to the disciple: "'Where I am going now, you cannot follow me now', but you will follow afterwards." For if you will follow afterwards, and he has passed through the heavens, then clearly Peter, "against whom the gates of Hades do not prevail", will follow him as he passes through the heavens.
5. After these words comes: "Summer and spring, you formed them". Again, as far as the letter goes, God made not only summer but the whole year, according to what is written: "You will bless the crown of the year of your goodness". But here Scripture kept silent about the two seasons, winter and autumn or fall, and named summer and spring. So we must understand, as we were saying, that the one who flees the winter of the soul and seeks to have spring and summer within himself knows that God makes the spring in the soul and makes the summer in the soul. If you wish to understand the spring in the soul, pass over, I beg you, from the bodily Passover, which takes place in the season of spring, and look, I beg you, at the Passover of which the Apostle speaks: "Our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed". We know that by this Passover a spring has been made by God, as when the bridegroom calls the bride, the soul, and says: "The winter has passed, it has gone away of itself, the flowers have appeared on the earth". And he all but cries aloud: "And spring, you" made.
About summer, too, I want to persuade you from Scripture. The summer (θέρος) in the soul shares its name with the harvest (θερισμός) that takes place in summer, and it comes about from God in the righteous. For the one who went out to sow cast the seed where he cast it, and some of it "fell into the good ground and, having grown, produced fruit a hundredfold". Does it not, then, produce a hundredfold, and must not this harvest be reaped? This summer, then, takes place within, and there comes to pass the saying: "But coming they will come with exultation, carrying their sheaves". And if the Savior speaks in the Gospel of the time of the harvest, we must see that he knows a harvest that is the consummation of the age, but also knows another harvest, when I gather the sheaves that have been perfected, no longer grass but become sevenfold fruit, so that I too may produce more for my ruling faculty, so that I may cleanse the chaff from the wheat and fill the place of the blessed storehouses, of which the law says among the blessings: "Blessed are your storehouses and your leftovers".
6. "Remember this": this formation, this creation, this prayer that I prayed! He has spoken elliptically and did not say what "this" refers to, leaving it to us to supply what is missing, without danger, according to the sequence of the thought. "An enemy reproached the Lord". The one who says to the righteous man: "Where is your God", seems to reproach the righteous man, but in truth he reproaches the Lord. And I will dare to say it: the one who reproaches the righteous man reproaches the Lord. Do not think that I am daring to go outside Scripture. For you feed the righteous man, and yet the Savior says: "I was hungry and you gave me to eat." And you give the righteous man drink, and yet the Savior says: "I was thirsty and you gave me drink." And someone clothes the righteous man, as each of you has resolved to clothe him as far as he can, and yet the Savior says to those who clothed him: "I was naked and you clothed me". So then the one who reproaches the righteous man reproaches the Lord. And I would say that this will be said to the one who reproached: "You reproached this man; you reproached me," and "You reviled this man; in an Israelite you reviled me." Just as the murderer and the adulterer are stoned, so according to the law one who reviles a man is stoned; he is stoned as an adulterer, as one who has murdered. But the Lord appears to me and will say: "It is not this man you reviled, but me, his God, you reviled." For whoever reviles the true Israelite speaks ill of God. "Therefore do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with males, not thieves, not drunkards, not revilers, not robbers will inherit the kingdom of God".
And so that you may be still more persuaded that if you revile your neighbor you have reviled Christ, I will establish this too from the sacred writings. If someone outrages an image of the emperor made of wood or wax, he is condemned as having outraged the emperor himself, since he did outrage to his image. So with you too: whomever you outrage or revile, if he has already taken up what is according to the image of the Creator, it is his image that you outraged and reviled. Therefore we must beware of speaking ill of our neighbor and reproaching him, or of doing him any evil whatever. For Christ takes to himself everything you do to your neighbor, whether good or bad. So much on account of "An enemy reproached the Lord".
7. "And a foolish people provoked your name". When the enemy, the devil, had reproached my Lord, at the time when the Lord came willingly to the dispensation of the cross on behalf of those for whom he suffered, "the foolish people provoked the name" of the Lord, saying: "Away, away with such a one from the earth", "crucify, crucify him". Therefore, since "a foolish people provoked the name" of the Lord, "the daughter of Zion was left like a tent in a vineyard, and like a hut for guarding fruit in a cucumber field, like a besieged city". See to it, then, that none of us also becomes like the foolish people that provokes the name of the Lord.
Then he prays again, and indeed teaches us to pray, saying: "Do not hand over to the beasts a soul that confesses to you". For this reason many of the martyrs were handed over to beasts in their martyrdom. I myself know blessed and holy men in my own times who were devoured by beasts for Christ's sake and endured. May I have my portion with them! But how could this come to me? Is the prophet, then, praying about perceptible beasts when he says: "Do not hand over to the beasts a soul that confesses to you"? Plainly those who confessed and gave thanks were thrown to beasts for that very reason. But perhaps there are some other beasts, such as, I mean, the one of whom it is said: "Our adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour". And that a lion "and a leopard kept watch over" their impieties is said in Jeremiah. For it is not a lion and a leopard that kept watch over the impieties of Israel; this perceptible, four-footed lion and the leopard do not watch over the sins of Israel. Indeed, no leopard is found in Judea at all. But the prophet, knowing spiritually the different kinds of opposing powers, said that "a lion and a leopard had kept watch over the impieties of Israel." And again, he called a certain opposing power a wolf. And since the crowns of the martyrs come from the Gospels, I want to show how the Savior plainly spoke of beasts that are not visible but invisible. He makes a promise to his own disciples, saying: "Behold, I give you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you". Did he, then, give authority to tread on serpents of this kind? Is someone noble and faithful? Let him tread on these serpents, above all a viper or a basilisk, or let him tread on any of the other dangerous beasts and scorpions. Christ does not grant us such things. But if we see the dragon, the ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, and how he is crushed under the feet of God's elect, and if we see what was examined earlier in this psalm: "You crushed the heads of the dragons upon the water", then we shall see how the prophet prays about invisible beasts when he says: "Do not hand over, O Lord, to the beasts a soul that confesses to you". For he tears the soul of sinners away from beasts. At the same time I want to persuade the hearer from the wording itself that this clarification is not forced, but is handed down according to the intention of the Scriptures. For it does not say: "Do not hand over to the beasts flesh that confesses to you," but "a soul that confesses to you". And it is clear that these beasts do not eat souls but flesh; so other beasts eat souls. How often has the lion seized your feet and dragged you, wishing to draw you outside the church? How often has the lion caught hold of the lobe of the ear through some enticing teaching and words foreign to the church? But the good shepherd came, who lays down his life for the sheep, and "as when the shepherd snatches from the mouth of the lion two legs or the lobe of an ear", he snatched your feet from the invisible beast and the lobe of your ear from its mouth.
8. So when the prophet says: "Do not hand over to the beasts a soul that confesses to you", he is praying for our souls. And if we confess when we sin, it is so that we may not be handed over to beasts because of our sins; it is so that because of the confession we may no longer be handed over to them (for if it went by our sins, we were worthy to be handed over to beasts). For why is it not said, "'Do not hand over to the beasts the soul' of the temperate or the righteous," but "a soul that confesses to you"? What he means is this: "Some have sinned, who were even worthy to be handed over to beasts. Do not act, then, according to their sins, since they confess to you." If anyone among you has sinned and wishes not to be handed over to the beasts, let him confess: "Confess to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy is forever". The one who confesses must confess first of all to God. But if he has not despaired that there are also physicians in the church, by whom, once he has shown them his wounds, he will be healed, let him not hesitate to lay his sins before them and to uncover the shame of his afflicted soul to physicians: physicians, that is, who are good bishops, good and chosen presbyters, well able to heal the one who confesses.
And to show that it is not I who teach these things, but Scripture that intends them, hear the one who says: "My sin I made known". To whom, but to God, whom he knows? "And my sin I did not hide". And to whom can it be revealed but to Christ? "I declare my lawlessness to the Lord". Therefore we must declare it to the Lord. For tell your lawless deeds first, that you may be justified; do not simply tell them, but be the first to tell them. Do not wait for another accuser. Forestall your accusers, not human beings only, but also the great accuser himself, the devil. If you accuse yourself first, that accuser will be muzzled and you will be justified. As for the one who is his own accuser, Scripture has already made him righteous, even if the things for which he accuses himself are unjust deeds, and has said that he became righteous, in the words "The righteous man is his own accuser in his opening speech". Yet someone might ask: if he is his own accuser, and he really sinned, then clearly he would be a sinner; how, then, can the one who accuses himself be righteous? But we must say that he has changed and become, as it were, another man, the accuser of the sinner that he formerly was.
Among the other wonders that I have seen in the other churches, I have also seen this, and I will set it before you as well. Some of those who sin, having no human accuser and not being known for the things in which they sinned, pray and lay their sins before the bishop. And he, as a physician, weeps, and does not divulge or bring into public the sin of the one who has sinned. Instead, as a good father, having lamented the one who confesses, he applies rational plasters and spiritual poultices. He heals his son and turns him back according to God, so that, healed in due time and having laid aside his wounds, he may be able not to let the people perish (through having a fistulous sore hidden, because he does not confess the sin). For a fistula remains within. Therefore I exhort all of you who hear: if any are conscious of sins in themselves, and especially a sin of fornication or one of the grievous ones, let them not keep silent about it, even if it seems to be healing; for the fistula, as I said before, remains within. Instead, offer yourselves to the cutting word, so that the hidden things, such as lie stored up within, may be laid open and healing may be applied to you. Then you will be able to have your present wound close into a scar, and once it has scarred over, having been sanctified and having truly confessed to God, you will be saved. These things have been said not as a digression but as a necessary examination; for it was necessary to clarify "Do not hand over to the beasts a soul that confesses to you".
9. "Do not forget the souls of your needy to the end". Not all the needy are God's, but there are some who are God's needy. Being devoted to God, they are worthy also of the blessing from the Savior, who says: "Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God". For he did not say "theirs" (αὐτῶν) but "yours" (ὑμετέρα), pointing to the poor who were present.
"Look upon your covenant". For in the covenant he laid down these things, including that he would be merciful to the sins of those who confess. Look, then, upon these things. For it stands in the curses: "If I scourge them and they persist in their sins, it is clear that 'I will add seven plagues'; but if they do not persist in their sins, it is clear that the wounds are healed." The leper is cleansed seven days outside the camp, and at the appointed time he is restored to his own camp, because "the darkened of the earth were filled with houses of lawlessness". The wording has something obscure in itself, so we must see who "the darkened of the earth" are and what "the houses of lawlessness" are.
All who are deprived of him who said "I am the light of the world" are darkened. But of the darkened, those who are still human beings and are on earth are "darkened of the earth". The sinners outside bodies (I mean demons and evil spirits and the souls of the unjust and the beings under the earth) are darkened too, but not of the earth; rather, if one must dare to say it, they are darkened of the regions under the earth. And perhaps some are also darkened of the air, of which the Apostle says: "in which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit now at work in the sons of disobedience". But let it be granted that the darkened of the regions under the earth, or the darkened of the air, or even those darkened of the spiritual forces of wickedness, have been filled with whatever they were filled with. Since the discourse is addressed to human beings, the question now is to speak about the darkened of the earth.
If someone does not have Christ, he is darkened of the earth. And these darkened of the earth build houses for themselves by their lawless deeds, and they remain in their houses. "Filled", indeed, "were the darkened of the earth with houses of lawlessness". Each of us, for example, builds houses of lawlessness for himself by sinning, so that there is a house of fornication and a house of avarice and a house of vainglory; for each of our sins and lawless acts there would be a house in us, built by lawlessness. So the darkened of the earth have not one house but many. For the prophecy says: "The darkened of the earth were filled, they were filled with houses of lawlessness". Thus, on the contrary, the enlightened of the earth were filled at the same time with houses of ordinances, commandments and statutes. And it is a blessed thing, once we have become enlightened of the earth, to build in ourselves houses of righteous deeds, after the houses of lawlessness have been pulled down by the Word. He digs down and destroys and tears down, so that he may build and plant houses of law and righteousness in the place of the dug-down houses of lawlessness.
10. "Let not the humbled and shamed one be turned away". Upon whom shall I look, says the Lord, but upon the meek and quiet, and the one who is constantly occupied with my words? We know, having read it, that he looks also upon the lowly, and "Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart". This lowly one, then, who humbles himself according to the discipleship of Christ, "let him not be turned away shamed"; let him instead be led forward to glory. For everyone "who humbles himself will be exalted".
"The poor and needy will praise your name". This may be taken of bodily things: these who are despised in life are the poor, and the needy who are scorned are righteous, and saints will praise the name of the Lord. Or if one wishes to understand it of spiritual things: many poor and needy became rich, and those who were once needy and poor praised the name of the Lord.
"Arise, O God, judge your cause". To whom does he pray this? To the God of the universe? No. But since the Savior accepted death on my behalf, for this reason the prophecy says to him: "Arise, O God, judge your cause". For if he had not died and risen, it would not have been possible for him to judge the cause of human beings, as the Apostle shows when he says: "For this reason Christ died and rose, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living".
"Remember your reproaches, those from the fool all day long". He did not say "the reproaches with which they reproach us", but "your reproaches". For those who reproach us reproach you.
"Do not forget the voice of your enemies". Whatever the enemies say in their arrogance, let it come into your remembrance, so that their wickedness may be pulled down.
"The arrogance of those who hate you went up continually". The arrogant are lifted up; arrogance is never humbled, but goes up and is always exalted. Since, then, arrogance is exalted and went up continually, you, O God, pull down their arrogance to the end; in Christ Jesus, to whom be the glory and the might to the ages. Amen.