Homilies on the Psalms — Homily 17 — Psalm 76 (LXX; MT 77), Homily IV: vv. 19–21
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. 341–350. Psalms are numbered as in the Septuagint. This English translation is released into the public domain.Of the 76th Psalm, Homily 4
1. Human nature is sluggish, and God wishes to rouse it in various ways and, as it were, to wake it from sleep. Through the eyes he wishes it to see the world, and, having seen the world and the ordering on earth, to marvel at the Maker from the order of the universe. Through hearing he found a device by which, through hearing as well, he might rouse what has been made toward the one who made it. What device did God find and make? He fashioned thunder, so that through the thunder he might rouse the sleeping soul and wake it up, so that it would ask who it is that made the thunders and who produces such great sounds in the universe. But we wretched ones stop looking at the world and the things in it and busy ourselves instead with human arts, and we look with more pleasure at whatever the arts make for deception than at the world. And whatever the musical arts drag along, enervating the soul, and carry into idolatry, that we welcome. We ought instead to contemplate God's work before our eyes and marvel at the Maker. Through hearing we ought to be reminded, whenever we hear thunder, of a heavenly voice, with God reminding us from above, out of heaven, to hear a voice stronger and greater than every voice of the things on earth.
I say that through the other perceptible things too, which are lesser than sight and hearing, God's art urges us on to see the Creator. For he has made things to taste that are, as it were, ready at hand and spontaneous, without human art. He did this so that the sense, meeting them, may again inquire into the natural sweetness of this plant, the astringency of that one, and such-and-such a quality of another, and so that human nature, having inquired, may marvel at the one who brought us into so varied and so fine a banquet. And in the case of smell too one can see that God has made certain natural things that attract the sense of smell of their own accord, as one can observe in plants and flowers. And through touch too he rouses us, making the air now hot, now cold.
We ought, then, if God has devised these same arts in the senses in order to urge us on to piety, to inquire whether in what is better (I mean what surpasses the senses) he has made a power. This would be so that it may judge the things of the senses, understanding the perceptible things, and pass from the things of the world to the one who made the world. For God "no one among men has seen, nor can see". Yet what is in us beyond the human (and this is the mind) sees God, if it is pure. For "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God".
And for this reason most people do not apprehend God, since they have the eye of the soul impure. And of us too, the many: the more we cleanse the eye of the soul, the mind, removing the passions from it, the more clearly we apprehend God. But the more our mind is hindered by wickedness, by love of this life, by cares and anxieties, and the eye is pricked by the evils of this life, the more it is hindered from apprehending God purely. And yet God, through his love for humankind, was pleased to grant to one who does not understand the realities that he be saved by believing. These things are rather many, even if they come by way of digression. But the discourse took its starting point from "the voice of your thunder in the wheel", for it was necessary first to say a few things about perceptible thunder too.
2. But how shall we explain that perceptible thunder happens "in the wheel"? Someone will say that it is impossible, and that one cannot uphold the wording that says: "the voice of your thunder in the wheel". But as far as possible, where it is allowed, we wish to uphold the wording too before the anagogy, and so we understand something like the following about the passage. Let us consider the nature of thunder and in what manner it arises: a kind of successive noise arises from the movement of clouds colliding with one another. If we consider this, we shall say that the image of "the voice of your thunder in the wheel" has been taken not inappropriately. And let us seek, on account of the thunder, a wheel as far as the perceptible is concerned, not a bodily one, nor one according to shape, but according to the reality. We should understand, as it were, a kind of rolling of sound that occurs along with the thunder at the time of the thunder. But if you want to grasp the perceptible in another way too, before I go up to the intelligible, go up with me to Ezekiel. See there the God of the universe driving the chariot and seated upon the so-called Cherubim, which are four-faced: the form of a lion and of a calf and of an eagle and of a man is in the Cherubim. And the Cherubim are winged and full of eyes through and through, for "within and without they are full of eyes". And concerning the Cherubim there will be a time, if God grants it, to give an explanation in the treatment promised concerning the Cherubim.
And what is said about wheels, when there is also "a wheel in a wheel"? God was, as it were, driving a chariot on the Cherubim, and in this chariot there are both living creatures and wheels. So I seek those wheels, and especially since they are wheels according to what is written, "as if a wheel in a wheel". Seeking, I find that the movement of the universe runs in a circle, as Solomon too says in Ecclesiastes: "Circling round and round the spirit goes", "and upon its circles the spirit returns". The movement of the universe, then, runs in a circle, as is clear to those who observe the phenomena. And there is in the universe a twofold general motion: one from east to west, the other from west to east. The one from east to west is that of the universe. The one from west to east is that of each of the so-called seven planets, among which are the sun and the moon. And in this sense it might be said in Ezekiel "that there is 'a wheel in the wheel'": a wheel within the one that encompasses it, according to the sphere that is conceived, or the second wheel according to the motion of the spheres that among the Greeks are thus called wandering.
"The voice", then, "of the thunder in the wheel". For in accordance with the revolution of the universe and the motion of the world, whenever the sun comes into these or those signs of the zodiac and enters into sympathy with one of the stars and with the heavens, it produces thunder for the earth each time. Just as an eclipse of the sun and an eclipse of the moon are foretold, and also rains and weather-signs and thunders and things like them, accordingly the voice of perceptible thunder occurs "in the wheel", as Ezekiel says, according to the motion and the movement of the universe.
3. But let us not stop here; rather, let us ascend in our discourse to another thunder as well. I know that John the apostle and his brother James were sons not of perceptible thunder but of some intelligible thunder. Knowing this thunder, the one who gave them their name called them "Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder". Hence, since John was a son of thunder, he wrote in his own Revelation that he had heard seven thunders, made up of one thunder and six others, the brothers of his own thunder. And "whatever", he says, "the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write, and a voice came to me: Do not write them".
Therefore there are certain powers which teach the saints the mighty voice of God. And perhaps, if someone carefully examines those seven thunders which John heard, he will run no risk in saying that the seven thunders he heard were wisdom and understanding, counsel and strength, knowledge and piety, and fear. For these were the seven thunders which blessed John heard. If, then, these are the thunders, and if it is said that "the voice of thunder" is "in a wheel", the voice of thunder would be the voice of wisdom, for this is one of the thunders.
Hear, then, how it is "in the wheel". The saint is not angular (οὐ γεγωνίωται), nor does he have any crookedness in him; rather, he has imitated heaven, since he has "the image of the heavenly one". And just as heaven is not angular but round and spherical, and the spirit too is not angular (for "circling round and round the spirit goes, and upon its circles the spirit returns"), in the same way the saint too is not angular but is a wheel. He imitates the spirit that "goes in circles of circles", and he imitates heaven too, since he has "the image of the heavenly one" in him. And in such a one, who has nothing bent in him but imitates heaven, the voice becomes the voice of wisdom, so that in this sense it is said: "the voice of your thunder in the wheel".
And to show still more that the saint is not angular, I will also use the letter of the Gospel. There the Savior, wishing to censure the prayer of the hypocrites, said: they stand praying at the corners (γωνίαις) of the streets. For every sinner, if he prays, prays in the corners, where the straight line is broken, and not along the road of his own soul that leads straight. But the saint is not like this. He has a prayer that moves like heaven, rising and always moving in a circular course, as heaven moves. I have said these things because of "the voice of your thunder in the wheel".
But if anyone can see things more powerful than these, since the Holy Spirit is rich in revealing things deep and great and untraceable, one should listen to that person rather than to these words, if those things are found to surpass these.
I will add further that when God, the Father of the universe, bore witness to the Lord Christ Jesus and said: "I have both glorified and will glorify again", those standing by heard the voice differently, some as thunder, others as an angel speaking. For some "said that it had thundered; others, An angel has spoken to him". Therefore the voice of God is heard by one person as thunder, while by another it is heard not as God's voice but as an angel's.
4. So too "your lightnings shone upon the world". Let the perceptible lightnings too turn us to God, who thunders and sends lightning. For these too have something marvelous: their flashes, appearing all at once, shine upon the world, so that the darkness of night is dispelled. For not only the sun dispels darkness, but lightning too. But if we must again ascend in our discourse, I do not hesitate to speak a word akin to what has been said about thunder and lightning. Just as the blessed and mighty-voiced apostles and teachers of the word according to the Gospel, being wheels after a kind of pattern, receive the voice of thunder, so they also flash lightning. And their "light before men" shines, and one can see lightnings of their thoughts and lightnings of their deeds. And what is marvelous if the righteous do so? The Savior himself likened himself to lightning, saying: "For just as lightning comes forth from the region under heaven and shines to the region under heaven, so will be the coming of the Son of Man".
My enemy too was once lightning, just as he was once the morning star. That he was the morning star is shown by the words: "How has the morning star that rises at dawn fallen from heaven?" And that he was also lightning Jesus himself taught us, saying: "I beheld Satan fallen like lightning from heaven". He has fallen, then, though he too was once lightning. The one who learns these things will turn himself to attend to himself, so that he may never fall from heaven. Rather, having laid hold of those places by being modest, by hymning God, and by perceiving that he always has need of God, he may be able to remain always in God. For whenever someone imagines that he has no need of God, wherever he may be (if indeed such a thing can happen), it will be shown to him by God that he has need of God. Having suffered, he will know that he was in the good things in which he seemed to be not so much by his own doing as by God who helped him.
5. "The earth was shaken and became trembling": earth was shaken, earth became trembling. For "the earth became trembling" not because something else was shaken, but because thunder happened in the wheel. When the lightnings shine upon the world, the earth is shaken and becomes trembling. Now this happened also at the coming of our Savior. For because of his wondrous voice and because of the lightning of his works "the earth was shaken and became trembling". And it happens always. As often as a flash of the true light comes from the intelligible light, and thunder comes by a word of mighty voice, our earth is shaken. That is, the earthly and bodily things depart and, as it were, pass into a more divine condition. So, an earthquake having occurred, the members on earth of each one of us may be put to death, and, always "carrying about in the body the dying" of the cross, we may be able to make room for the life of Jesus to be manifested already in our body.
"Your way is in the sea". What is the way of God that is in the sea? The way of God in the sea is he who said: "I am the way". The way of God is the Word of God. The paradox, then, is that above it was said to be in the holy one ("for your way is in the holy one"), but here he says it is in the sea: both in the holy one and in the sea. If you are holy, Christ is in you, the way is in you. And since, John says, "he was in the world", being in "the great sea, the spacious one", where there are "small living creatures along with great ones", where there is "the dragon which you formed to sport with him", in this sea too there is a way, since he is the Son of God. For if the way of God were not in the sea, you would not be able to walk and be saved while journeying without God's Word, the true way. Nor would Peter, enacting a kind of mystery of those who tread upon the waves of the aforementioned sea, have been able to step onto the sea and walk. But since there is a way in the sea, and Christ was a way in the sea, for this reason he also became a rock by the way that is in the sea. "In the sea", then, "is your way". Blessed, then, is it to seek the way while still in the sea.
"And your paths are in many waters". Even if the many waters flood, the paths of godliness are not confounded. For much water will not be able "to quench love, and rivers will not overwhelm it". And if you wish, we shall also present both in a hidden sense, "your way is in the sea" and "your paths are in many waters". Come, let us first use the narrative concerning the Red Sea, that a way came to be for the people of God in the sea. For hear this too: "for you gave a way even in the sea and a path in the waves". Second, let us also see the river Jordan, in what manner it too is traversed by the people through Joshua; and it is traversed also by Elijah and by Elisha. For "the paths of God are also in the many waters". And if you wish to see in another way too how the paths of God are in the many waters, look, I pray you, at the righteous man, from whose belly rivers will flow "of water springing up to eternal life". Then you will see, in those many waters and in the spring and in the river, a path of God's salvation.
It is as though we had a path in what has been said, for his "paths are in many waters". Yet on top of all these, "your footsteps", he says, "will not be known". From here, I think, the Apostle took it when he said: "How unsearchable are his judgments and untraceable his ways!" For however much a man may wish to discover in order to grasp the footsteps of God, he will not be able to trace out everything. For instance, what does God will for the infinite age, or what did he plan from the infinite age? The head, the beginning of God's dispensations, is hidden by the Seraphim, and the feet, the ends of the things to come, are hidden too. For, as a certain proclamation was made to him: "what the former things are", he says, "tell, and we shall know that you are gods; declare the last things, and we shall know whence you are". We do not know, then, when the last things are, when the former things are. Yet, being rash, we wish to trace out the untraceable and to grasp the ancient things, to grasp the final things. This alone I know: being a man, I have hope of a blessed life, like the righteous before me. And this one can learn from the sacred writings, if I am able to hear Scripture; but "the footsteps" of God "will not be known". And even if the footsteps of God are not known, nonetheless God shows his ways, though his footsteps are not known. He himself guides his saints through the footsteps that are not known, as it is written: "You guided your people like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron".
Then, indeed, he guided his people like sheep, a people who had no footprints, along a trackless way, so that it is said: "You traveled through the wilderness, that vast and great and fearful one". But now God guides us not through Moses nor through Aaron, but by a way better than the one the people traveled then. For our Lord is better than Moses and surpasses Aaron too, as much as the son is better than the servant, as much as the true high priest is better than the high priest who was a type. If, then, we too, journeying toward God, wish to grasp the way (or how one might understand his ways) and to journey to God, let us entreat the God of the universe to send us his holy Word to guide us to the perfection that is with him, to whom belong the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen.
On the 76th Psalm, Homily 4