Homilies on the Psalms — Homily 16 — Psalm 76 (LXX; MT 77), Homily III: vv. 17–18
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. 326–340. Psalms are numbered as in the Septuagint. This English translation is released into the public domain.Homily 3 of the 76th Psalm, Extempore
1. What sort, then, are these waters which see God, when human beings attain this end only with much toil, according to the Scripture that says: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"? For these waters seem either to be comparable to the pure in heart who will see God, or perhaps even to be superior to human beings who are pure in heart. For if the waters that see God are certain blessed and divine powers, these must necessarily be superior to human beings. And this indeed seems to be suggested in the hundred and forty-eighth psalm, where all Israel is commanded to hymn God. For it says: "Praise" God, "you heavens of heavens, and let the water that is above the heavens praise the name of the Lord".
How much must I toil to ascend to the first heaven, how great must I become to be deemed worthy of the second! I must be comparable to Paul to ascend to the third, and even if I become like Paul, I do not yet reach the next heaven; but these waters that, according to the prophet, praise God are "above the heavens". Are these waters, then, said to see continually, because they are above all the heavens, not the face of the Father who is in the heavens but God? For "the", indeed, "angels continually see the face of the Father who is in the heavens". And do not these waters, of which the word says "The waters saw you, O God", continually contemplate God himself? At the same time, let him who is able to compare spiritual things with spiritual examine this. Is it by chance that the word has said of the angels who are yoked to human beings, not that they see God, but that they see "the face of the Father who is in the heavens", whereas of these waters it says "they saw you", and not "the waters saw your face, O God"?
"The waters saw you and were afraid". At the beginning of the creation of the world I see the Spirit of God, as the prophet says, borne "above the water" in the ordering of all things, and I see darkness not "above the water" (for the Spirit of God was there) but "above the abyss", where the darkness is. And I too, entreating God with much prayer, am moved to ask about what is in these passages — since the firmament also comes into being on account of waters, so that some might remain higher and others remain lower — whether perhaps it is not about perceptible waters, but about more divine powers that remain below the firmament. Of these, some were the abyss above which darkness was (for indeed we wrestle "against the world-rulers of this darkness"), while the water above which the Spirit of God was were superior powers. At the very moment, then, when the world was being created, these were, I know not how, one, not yet distinguished. But the creation of the world separated the superior things, to which the Spirit of God was akin, from the inferior ones, to which is yoked the darkness said to be upon "the face of the abyss".
That these things in Genesis are not said casually is shown also by the wording here, which says: "The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and were afraid, they were troubled". It no longer says simply "waters" but "abysses", "a multitude of the sound of waters". Do you see there the difference between water and abyss? Over the water was the Spirit of God, but over the abyss darkness. Here the waters see God and are not troubled; the abyss does not see God but is troubled. For the abyss, above which darkness was, is always in instability and tumult. For this reason the demons also "beseech the Lord that he not command them to depart into the abyss", and they say to him: "What have we to do with you, Son of God? Have you come to torment us before the time?" But these things belong to the more divine sense concerning the waters of the abyss.
2. But let us not pass over the letter in itself either. Let us see whether the wording that says "The waters saw you and were afraid, the abysses were troubled, a multitude of the sound of waters" can have some meaning. It occurs to me to say that all things are ensouled, and nothing in the world is empty of soul; but all things are ensouled in different bodies. Heaven is ensouled; therefore Scripture speaks to it as to a living being: "Attend, O heaven, and I will speak", and "Hear, O heaven". The earth is ensouled: "the words from my mouth, and give ear, O earth". Then, if heaven is ensouled and the earth too is ensouled, are seas and rivers not ensouled, or are these also ensouled? And let us see, indeed, that "the sea saw and fled, the Jordan was turned back". And in saying that the word converses with them as with ensouled things, I am now pleading on behalf of the wording and standing by the letter alone. I wish to show that we often fail to notice that even the wording, taken according to the letter, holds divine mysteries not known to just anyone.
I ask, then, whether some power has put on the body of the sea, and another power has put on the body of the river Jordan, and another power that of another river, say the Gihon, and so on for all of them. And perhaps the more curious among the Greeks also imagined some such things and so sacrifice to rivers as to gods. They have not fallen away from the truth entirely, but in part. For if they sacrifice to them as to gods, they sin; but if they imagine that there is some power concerned with those things, they do not sin. For there are powers, which they call nymphs, and they say that some are over the springs, and they will have it that a power presides over every place.
Someone might say that if the sea and each of the rivers were ensouled, it would take a long discussion to inquire into it and show that these too are ensouled; but at any rate all things have been ordered by a holy power. And there are angels entrusted with administering the affairs of the sea, and other angels are entrusted with administering, some the affairs of this river, others those of some other river, and so too angels administer the affairs of the air. At times more divine angels administer the affairs of the air, when the air is not diseased and does not become pestilential. But at times some other power has taken over the administration of the air, surely because of the sins of human beings. When an inferior power has taken over the air, the air is altered and a pestilential condition arises, so that whoever breathes that air, corrupted by a pestilence-making power, is famished and falls sick. If, then, all things in the world are administered by powers that preside over all things and have been apportioned among them, what is absurd in the administrators being named homonymously with the things administered? Why should the powers over the waters not be called waters, the powers over the sea be called seas, and likewise the powers over the abyss abysses?
For the Spirit in Isaiah will bear me witness that those who govern places are named homonymously with the places and regions, when it says: "Hades below was embittered on meeting you". Do you see that Hades is a place of souls, of which it is written, "Let the sinners be turned back into Hades", and that there is also a Hades, a living being, homonymous with that place which is named Hades? If, then, it is said of the sea that "it saw and fled", the power that governs the affairs of the sea and made a way for the people of God was named homonymously with the sea. If, then, it is said, "The Jordan turned back", the power entrusted with governing the river is named Jordan, homonymously with the river Jordan.
Often, when reading the psalm that says "Praise God in the heavens, praise him in the highest, praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his powers", I used to inquire into it. Then it continues: "Praise the Lord from the earth, dragons and all abysses; fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy wind, that do his word; the mountains and all the hills, fruitful trees and all cedars". So as I read I inquired what these things mean. Seeing how incongruous the wording was, I readily took refuge in tropology. But later I considered by myself whether perhaps the administering powers are named homonymously with the things administered, so that those appointed over the dragons are called dragons; for over each kind of living being some governing power presides. For reasons God knows, one power has been deemed worthy not to be entrusted with any of the higher things but to administer dragons. Another power has been deemed worthy, as it were, to farm together with human beings, so as to administer the trees of the field. The one farms in the sense in which the word is used of the farmer, of any human being; the other in the sense understood of the angel, or the several angels, who govern such things. Perhaps, then, there too, by "Praise the Lord from the earth, dragons and all abysses, fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy wind, that do his word", the one appointed over fire and the one appointed over hail are signified.
That the sea too is rebuked by the Lord as a living being, either because it is itself a living being or because it is an appointed power, is clear from "And Jesus rebuked the sea, he rebuked the winds also". No one rebukes a soulless thing; but clearly he rebuked it and spoke as Lord of the whole creation: "Be silent, be muzzled". And the sea was silent and there was a calm. If I too become a genuine man of God, I can, in Christ Jesus who speaks in me, rebuke creation, so as to say to the sun: "Stand still over Gibeon". For truly, "What is an honored seed? The seed of man". The seed of man has received great power from God, and to the degree that it is honored, it is a god, if it pays heed. But if not, it is dishonored to the same degree, having misused itself after being enrolled for God.
3. The verse "The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and were afraid" has, then, been examined in various ways. For all things fear God. Unless God holds us together, we perish, even if we have virtue. "When", indeed, "you", he says, "turn away your face, they will be troubled". For this reason we need God's help not only when we sin; I dare to say that when we are perfected we need more help. Why? Because once perfected, we are plotted against by more hostile operations. Since, then, the powers are more numerous, we need more alliance, lest we fall because of our perfection and there befall us: "How has the morning star, which rises at dawn, fallen from heaven?" Many holy things have fallen; for the mysteries of the Scriptures show such things, for example: "You walked blameless in all your ways, until injustice was found in you". Let us all, then, fear God, both the imperfect and those who have been perfected.
But one of the hearers will say: "Perfect love casts out fear". It is difficult to explain what concerns fear, especially since the discourse has just shown that it is necessary to fear God. For perhaps, even if love casts out fear, it does not cast it out entirely, but only one kind of it. For I know that fear too is named in different ways in Scripture: "He who fears has not been perfected". But once the homonymy is understood, it will make us see that fear too is spoken of homonymously. There is, then, a fear with which one must always fear, and there is a fear of which John says: "He who fears has not been perfected". This fear has punishment, and one who has been perfected by love must no longer fear with it.
"The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and were afraid; the abysses were troubled, a multitude of the sound of waters". For "narrow and hard-pressed is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it". And the people of God are "the fewest of all the nations" that are upon the earth. In Noah's ark too, the higher one goes, the narrower the upper parts become and the fewer they hold. But where the troubled things of the abyss are, there 'multitude' is named: "the abysses were troubled, a multitude of the sound of water". Over the waters that see God there is no sound and no indistinct voice, but a certain stability and quiet, the waters that contemplate him only fearing. But over the abyss: "the abysses were troubled, a multitude of the sound of water". You see that among the troubled things there is sound, not a clear voice, nor a distinct one, nor an articulate one.
"The clouds gave forth a voice, for indeed your arrows pass through". Again, if we want tropology, we have often spoken of it, especially on account of "I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it". And upon whom, if not upon "the vineyard, the house of Israel"? The truth of God also reaches "to the clouds", and surely not to the bodily clouds; rather, there are certain righteous people who are lifted up from the earth in their bodies and have become clouds. Such was Moses, saying: "Attend, O heaven, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words from my mouth; let my utterance be awaited as rain". Then, would a cloud of bodily and soulless rain itself say, "'Let it be awaited as rain', my word too"? So, since Moses was a cloud, he said: "Let my utterance be awaited as rain, and let my words come down as dew". And since he was a cloud, he said: "as a shower upon the grass, and as snowfall upon the herbage, for I have called on the name of the Lord".
4. Such were all the chosen prophets and the wonderful apostles. And since rivers of water went forth from their belly unto eternal life, they spoke as those who had rivers and gladdened the city of God. For "the rushing streams of the river gladden the city of God". Since, then, the word here said, "The clouds gave forth a voice", it was not difficult to interpret it tropologically. But someone will want to see, in keeping with what was given for "The waters saw you and were afraid" and what follows, whether something concerning the clouds too may escape us.
Perhaps, then, just as there are powers over seas, over rivers, over the earth, over plants and over the generation of living beings, so there are powers also over the clouds. Some would then have been appointed over the thunders, over the lightnings and over the rains, while God commands and orders rains to fall on this city and not to fall on another city. This accords with what is said in the prophet, or even with the letter: "And I will rain upon one city, but upon one city I will not rain". "A voice", then, "the clouds gave forth": thunders are nothing other than the voices of clouds, as has been observed in winter storms. So no one has ever heard thunder or seen lightning when the air was clear. "The clouds gave forth a voice", while the angels entrusted with these things administered the distribution.
And perhaps, even if some benefit that comes about in the world through the voice of the clouds' thunder is ineffable, it is at any rate perceptible that thunders produce certain foods for human beings, so that whenever thunders occur, certain plants spring up on the earth and are found. It is also perceptible that many human beings come to reverence for the divine from the voice of the thunders. Are demons, then, not turned back, or sometimes hindered from their baser activity, by the thunders crashing against one another? And what of this: are not the angels of the devil sometimes hindered by the thunders, the very voice of the thunders impeding their wicked activities?
Not all of us human beings know what happens, nor what the reason is for each thing that occurs; but the wisdom of God is unsearchable and untraceable. For who will trace out the abyss and wisdom? Therefore I exhort myself and you who are listening not to rush, from not understanding, into taking offense whenever you do not see the cause. Why plagues, why famine, why war, why does any of the things that occur happen, why untimely deaths, why diseases and evil misfortunes from the beginning of life until its end? For in all things the saints call all these the judgments of God, even if they do not understand the reason why the judgments of God are not shown to be just.
5. "A voice", then, "the clouds gave forth, for indeed your arrows pass through". That Christ is an arrow of God, he himself teaches us in the prophet, saying: "He made me as a chosen arrow and hid me in his quiver, and said to me: It is a great thing for you to be called my servant", and so on. It is clear that, since Christ is an arrow of God, and a chosen arrow, it is likely by analogy that there are other arrows too. For a chosen arrow cannot be conceived if that arrow alone is an arrow. But if Christ is a chosen arrow of God because there are other arrows, this arrow is chosen in comparison with those arrows. What, then, might the other arrows be? Perhaps holy powers, which God shoots upon the earth as from the bow that he has. And perhaps certain holy human beings are also arrows: for example, the prophets. The words of the righteous, too, wound their hearers and, as it were, reach into them, because they too have some of the power of arrows.
"The arrows" of God, then, "pass through", those of the same kind as Christ. Do you wish to see how sometimes, even without any human being, someone is wounded by some spiritual arrow, a chosen arrow, the arrow from God? Look, I pray, at those who come to the word as catechumens: sometimes, in a certain way, with no human being teaching them to become Christians, as though pricked in soul and wounded by some arrow in the ruling faculty, they show forth their becoming Christian, their praying and their learning about the words. For these "arrows" of God "pass through". And let us pray that the arrows may so pass through that we may have many brethren and the church of God may increase!
I think that there are also arrows of another kind. A hand is spoken of, as in "Stretch out your hand and touch all that he has; surely he will bless you to your face", and by Job himself: "For it is the hand of the Lord that has touched me". However these things were said by him, just as there is such a hand, there can also be certain arrows of his aimed at those unworthy of blessedness, which inflict punishment and requite according to the sins committed. I take these to be signified in "the arrows of the mighty one, sharpened, with the coals of the desert"; for there the arrows do nothing other than punish those worthy of punishment. And when these arrows enter the soul, they sometimes penetrate even to the body, and sometimes they trouble and derange the soul itself. For "I will strike you", he says, "with apoplexy, with blindness, with derangement of understanding, and you shall grope at noonday as one gropes along a wall".
Many "arrows" of God, then, "pass through". Some wound us for the better — O that I too might be wounded, so as to say: "I am wounded with love"! — while others wound for punishment. Therefore let us entreat the God of the universe that we may become worthy to be wounded by his wonderful and chosen arrows, and above all by our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, to whom belong the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen.
Extempore Piece on the 76th Psalm, Homily 3