Homilies on the Psalms — Homily 25 — Psalm 77 (LXX; MT 78), Homily VIII: vv. 52–64
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. 449–464. Psalms are numbered as in the Septuagint. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the 77th Psalm, Homily 8
1. Since it is written: "When the Most High was dividing the nations, as he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the sons of Israel", or "of the angels of God", "and his people Jacob became the Lord's portion, Israel the allotment of his inheritance", I used to ask myself when "the Most High was dividing the nations" and "scattered the sons of Adam", and when "his people Jacob became the Lord's portion" and "Israel the allotment of his inheritance". Long ago I supposed that this had happened at the confusion which is recorded to have occurred at the building of the tower. But when I examined it later, I found that "his people Jacob became the Lord's portion" could not be referred to that time, before the birth of Jacob. Nor could "Israel became the allotment of his inheritance" have happened when Jacob had not yet been renamed Israel. So, examining it more carefully, I would say that "when the Most High was dividing the nations" took place when the people went out of the land of Egypt. For it was then that Jacob was first called the people of God and "Israel the allotment of his inheritance". And it is likely that the distribution of lots took place then and that the boundaries of the earth were built then, so that each of the angels might obtain some boundary by lot.
2. Then, therefore, the Lord "took away" from the midst "his people like sheep, and he led them up like a flock in the desert, and he guided them in hope, and they were not afraid, and the sea covered their enemies". The prophetic word in Isaiah also persuaded me of this, saying: "I gave as your exchange Egypt and Ethiopia, and Syene". That is, God gave the exchange on behalf of the people, when "he sent among them the dog-fly, and it devoured them, and the frog, and it destroyed them; and he gave their fruit to the blight, and their labors to the locust"; when "he killed their vine with hail, and their sycamores with the frost"; when "he delivered their cattle to hail and their substance to fire"; when "he sent among them the wrath of his anger, anger and wrath and affliction through evil angels"; when "he struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, the firstfruits of their labors in the tents of Ham".
Hence it is after the plagues of the Egyptians that it is said: "he took away his people like sheep". I search Scripture as far as I am able, wishing to obey my Lord when he says: "Search the Scriptures". So I used to ask myself whether it was by chance that the people of God was first named sheep taken away by God, and secondly no longer sheep but by then a flock. When they are named sheep, God "took away his people like sheep"; but when they are named a flock, "he led them like a flock in the desert". And in my inquiry I found that there is an order here: first his people are taken away like sheep, and afterwards they are led up like a flock in the desert. And so also, being guided, they are guided in hope, and for this reason they are not afraid, because their enemies have been covered by the sea.
For consider with me the people when they were formerly in the land of Egypt. See that at that time, when they were in the land of Egypt, scattered through it chiefly on account of the straw as they gathered it, they were not yet a flock, not yet a herd; they were scattered in the land of Egypt. When therefore God gathers them by his own dispensation, then he takes his own people away from the Egyptians like sheep. Then, when he gathers them and makes them one, they are called no longer only sheep but also a flock; for having united them, he guided his people like a flock. That is why "he led them up like a flock in the desert": first they are taken away, and then secondly they are also led up. For they could not undergo being carried upward and journeying toward higher things while they were still in the land of Egypt. Therefore they are first lifted out of the land of Egypt, and after this they are led up.
And do not think that these things happened to the people of that time but do not always happen. For God takes his people away like sheep from the land of Egypt, that is, from the whole world. Then he leads up the one who understands and partakes of what is said, through the way of life that carries upward and through the lofty knowledge of things. And having taken them away and led them up, God makes a flock, so that all the sheep of Christ may become one flock, as there is one shepherd. And so long as we gather together in the same place, we keep the mystery of the flock; but when we neglect the assemblies, we imitate the sheep that skip off and take themselves away from the flock. And see how great a good it is that those who have believed, and do not forsake the assembling together as is the habit of some, are one flock, so that there follows: "and he guided them in hope, and they were not afraid".
When they are a flock, they are not afraid; when they are sheep, they are guided by God. But when someone leaves the flock and is scattered, then the enemies seize him, then the foes take him, then the beasts lying in wait have power against those who have been scattered. For this reason, even if someone wishes to draw us away from the flock on any pretext whatever, let us keep together in the same place. For "a brother helped by a brother is like a strong and lofty city, and he is strong like a barred royal palace". Consider these stones of the building. When they are brought together and stand together, they make a house, but if they are scattered, they are scattered stones. In the same way we are a house of God when we are of one mind and come together in the same place: together we are "a spiritual house", "a holy priesthood", offering "spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God".
3. I want to persuade you from Scripture too how great a good concord is, how great a thing it is that we be a flock and not be scattered. As long as that people was one and had not been scattered, neither did the Assyrian take it, nor did they go away captive to Babylon. Therefore the adversary wished to scatter the people and to make it deserving of captivity to the Assyrians and deserving of the deportation to Babylon. So he first contrived that a schism should occur, and he brought it about that, once the concord of the people had been scattered, the enemies could take them because they were not united. If, then, we too wish not to be plotted against by the adversary powers, let us not forsake the assembly.
And remember these things above all, you who do not gather together during the rest of the time, but have left the flock and are separating yourselves from the flock. There are times when I know of people weeping, and rightly weeping, who are excommunicated for one Sunday, and if for two, grieving still more; you who are negligent have excommunicated yourselves for a whole year. How great a sin must be committed for someone to be excommunicated from the church for a whole year! And just as it is said: "Out of your mouth I will judge you, faithless servant" — for now it might be said to those who neglect the assemblies — so it will be said: "By what you have done I will judge you. You have made yourself one excluded from the assembly of the church, coming out scarcely once a year; be excluded from the assembly by your own judgment. For in the very thing in which you judge the other, you judge yourself unworthy of the church by being slothful and negligent." The Jews were ordered by God's dispensation to assemble without fail, on the pretext of the sabbath and the pretext of rest from work, so that they might hear the words of God, so that they might be reminded and not make their work an excuse. But you, since no yoke of burden was laid upon you but you were left free, have for this reason despised it. And do you not also come together in the same place, honoring the day of the resurrection of our Lord, so that bone of Christ may be gathered to bone and joint to joint, and the skin of Christ and the veins and the sinews, and at last the hairs too? Or do you not know that "you are the body of Christ"? And it is necessary that this "body of Christ" be gathered, so that Christ may not say about us: "all my bones have been scattered". For he was saying this not about bodily bones, for they were not scattered, but about the assemblies that are neglected, because the members of Christ are scattered.
These things have been said both with respect to the reading set before us and on account of the more negligent, that "he led them up like a flock in the desert, and he guided them in hope".
4. For when you become a flock, God guides you "in hope". For God does not guide one by one; God guides the flock together: "and God guided them in hope, and they were not afraid". I do not say that God never guides one by one. For when at some time the whole people sins and one righteous man is left, God guides him, though he is one, in place of a flock. Such was Elijah, who said: "The sons of Israel have forsaken you, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars. And I alone have been left". And since he was left alone and remained in godliness, for this reason he who guides the whole flock guided the one, reckoning him to be a flock. You too, then, if you are a flock, will not be afraid; "for he guided them in hope, and they were not afraid".
We learn from shepherds, who know these things too, that when wolves attack the flock they cannot attack it while it is gathered together. Instead they watch for where a sheep strays off to graze and where it has gone out from the flock, and they lay their plots against that one. The more sensible of the sheep, therefore, do not stand apart from one another, but take their shelter and manage their pasturing with one another, so as not to be plotted against. In the same way you too, always be with the church and do not stand apart from the shepherd, so that the shepherd too may be with you: "so that they may become", he says, "one flock, one shepherd". And if you are such a one and do not stand apart from the flock, "the sea covers your enemies". For a bodily sea covered the bodily enemies of those of that time; but the intelligible sea covers your invisible enemies, so that, drowned in the sea, they may have no power against you. For the true Jacob will sink our lawless deeds and cast them down "into the depths of the sea".
The enemies, then, who wrought the captivity will be covered, together with the sins, by the intelligible sea, so that after this you may receive these promises, which say: "and he brought them into the mountain of his sanctuary". That people he brought then into a mountain, since they were performing things in figure, "into the mountain of sanctuary", a bodily one. But you he brings into the mountain of sanctuary about which the Apostle says: "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, a festal gathering". That is truly God's "mountain of the sanctuary", "this mountain which his right hand acquired". It is likely that this was shown bodily by the prophet in Zion, but now this mountain is shown to the mind that sees, as an intelligible mountain. Just as the showing of a body takes place to the eyes of the body, so to the eyes of the soul the showing takes place intelligibly. So this is not said as an empty fancy to a mind that sees the substance and reality of the intelligible.
5. "And he cast out nations from before them, and he allotted them their lot with a cord of allotment". Then he cast out nations from before them: Canaanites and Hittites and Amorites and the rest. But now nations are cast out from before us, not bodily Canaanites, nor some material and visible Hittites and the rest. But if you understand "the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places", these he casts out of the heavenly places. He does this so that you may inherit the kingdom of heaven once the nations that are in the heavenly places have been cast out from before you, and so that you may be allotted your lot with a cord, such as the Savior made; for "having made a whip out of cords, he cast all out of the temple". He weaves this whip out of cords and first cleanses you, casting out of you the things that make the house of the Father a house of trade, the things that make the house of prayer a den of robbers. Then after this he uses the cord of allotment, and each of us will be allotted a lot according to proportion. The things read in Joshua son of Nun about the allotment of the tribes were a symbol of this.
6. "And he made to dwell in the tents" of the Canaanites and Hittites "the tribes of Israel". So God makes the tribes of the true, noble-born and spiritual Israel dwell in the tents of those who are cast out of the heavenly places. Then these verses recount the sins of those who were benefited, which often occur among us too; for "they tempted and embittered God the Most High, and did not keep his testimonies". Which of us is pure of tempting the Lord and of not keeping his testimonies?
"And they turned away and broke covenant, just as their fathers also, and they were turned into a crooked bow". When we sin, we have turned away from God and do not keep the covenants which he made with us; we imitate our fathers, and we too become like our fathers. "And they were turned", he says, as it were "into a crooked bow". Just as a bow that is crooked by nature is no longer a straight bow, in the same way, if we sin, we become crooked like a bow. And when we become crooked like a bow, the devil uses us and shoots his arrows through us. For when you see a sinner become a minister of another's sinning, imagine nothing else about him than that he has been turned and become like a crooked bow and comes into the hands of the adversary. And through that crooked bow the devil shoots and sets on fire, strikes and wounds, provoking to sin whomever he finds to wound.
You will understand what is said from an example such as this. Marcion, for instance, tempted God the Most High, did not keep his testimonies, turned away from God, set aside his covenants, and was turned into a crooked bow. Then the devil used him as his own bow and loosed the arrows through his mouth. He harmed all who received the arrows and did not beat them off with the shield of right faith. So Basilides is another bow, Valentinus another bow. And do not think that those men and the ones who resemble them are the only crooked bows. If you see someone who is called a churchman but is a stumbling block to the brethren, so that through him souls are harmed and through him they fall away from the faith, know that such a one serves the devil as a crooked bow. For the devil uses him as a bow and stretches its intelligible string, this bow — having stretched the stumbling block, I mean — and looses the fiery arrows.
So too the eye of a harlot is a snare for a sinner. And the harlot becomes a crooked bow, "when honey drips from the lips of a harlot woman, who for a season makes smooth your throat". Then a fiery arrow is loosed through that crooked bow, the harlot, I mean, and the fornicator is wounded. And if another provokes me to anger, he is a crooked bow made by the devil, so that he may wound with the arrow of anger. And if another sins a sin that calls one to grief, that minister of grief to me is a crooked bow. For not in vain has Scripture likened sinners to a crooked bow. Therefore let us take heed to ourselves, lest the devil, wishing to wound others, use us as a crooked bow that is fit to come into his hand. For, "behold", "the sinners have bent the bow, they have made ready arrows for the quiver".
7. Both men and the adversary powers "have made ready arrows for the quiver", and those who were turned into a crooked bow "provoked him to anger on their hills". These things again fit the heresies; for "they provoked to anger God on the hills". It is as though they gathered certain heights and an appearance of lofty discourses that promise mysteries of godliness: thus "they provoked to anger" the true God "on the hills", and "with their carved images they moved him to jealousy". As there are perceptible carved images, so there are also intelligible ones. For the understanding may sit and devise, forming idols and making for itself, as it were, phantasms about things that do not exist. When it does, what else must one think than that such a soul is accursed, since it acts against what is written, which says: "Accursed is whoever shall make a carved or molten image, work of a craftsman's hands, and shall set it in secret; and all the people shall say: So be it". All, then, who fashion things that do not exist, and as it were carve useless carvings for themselves and put colors on what they fashion, move God to jealousy with their carved images.
For I am persuaded that there are two kinds of idolatry. The one is perceptible and belongs to the visible idol; about it I think a believer has need of the commandment that one must not worship idols. For once we have departed from such idols and condemned them, we shall never fall back into them so as to think again that these are gods. The other kind of idolatry is when the soul makes idols and paints pictures of things that do not exist, and having painted them, as it were adorns what it has conceived with gold, that is, with fine speech, and with silver. "For I gave them", he says, "silver and gold; but they made silver and gold things for Baal". But "God heard and disregarded": if he hears of these things being done, he does not look upon the one who does them but overlooks him.
"And he utterly set Israel at nought": the one who does these things and has fallen away after being called to the Israelite hearth he "set at nought". "And he rejected the tent of Shiloh": either he rejected the tent in which he formerly dwelt among men, which in the bodily sense is the "tent of Shiloh", or he rejected it as he later rejected Jerusalem. And now too, suppose we abandon the true tent, which God pitched, not man, and make some other tent and, as it were, fabrications. Then the Lord will reject the "tent of Shiloh, the tabernacle where he dwelt among men, and he delivered their strength into captivity".
8. If we sin, he delivers our strength into captivity, and we come under those who take captive — not men. Would that men were taking us captive, and not adverse powers! What can men who take me captive do to me? Do they enslave me? Even as a slave I can be a Christian and keep the laws of God. But if the devil takes me captive, he enslaves me with a fearful slavery. What slavery, if not the one of which the Savior says: "Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin"? That slavery is the fearful one, and about that slavery it is fitting to say: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again for fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, in which we cry: Abba, the Father". I am not unaware that "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery" also has another explanation, which we have explained at another time. "He delivered", then, "their strength into captivity". If you wish not to become a captive, nor to have your strength delivered into captivity, do not stand apart from the church; be together in the same place, ordering yourself by the prayers.
9. "And their beauty into the hands of enemies". The soul of man has great beauty, and if you wish to see its beauty, see how it was created in the beginning: "Let us make man according to our image". You see the beauty: the soul of man is "called according to the image and according to the likeness" of God, for it hopes to receive the likeness. Many have become lovers of this beauty, just as many become lovers of a woman's beauty. And when there are lovers, the chaste woman does not give in, but the harlot and the licentious woman is taken, by her licentiousness, either through some pleasure or through some gain. In the same way every human soul, by its own reason and by its original creation, is a beautiful creature. But not every soul uses its beauty alike; there is one that uses it badly.
And I think Solomon is saying this in the Proverbs when he declares: "As an earring in a pig's snout, so is beauty to an evil-minded woman". To an evil-minded woman the beauty of the soul is an evil, for this soul gives herself up after her lovers and goes after them. Who are the lovers? The adverse spiritual beings are the lovers, and they are recorded in Ezekiel as well. "The principalities" are lovers, and "the authorities"; "the world-rulers of this darkness" are lovers; "the spiritual hosts of wickedness" are lovers. So when they have fallen in love and do not obtain the beloved, they become enemies of the beloved, and instead of wishing to deceive her they become enemies. And it is said not to all men but to the righteous: "Our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness".
You will find these mysteries set down enigmatically in the prophets, and especially in Ezekiel. For there God threatened, so far as appearance goes — and this appearance, I think, is true: he announces that "your lovers will make war on you". These things are said to that Jerusalem: "and he shut up his people to the sword and disregarded his inheritance". When we sin, "he shuts up to the sword". What sword? The sword of the one who makes war. For there is a sword by which those who sin are wounded.
"And he disregarded his inheritance. Fire devoured their young men". If you see a soul set on fire, whether of a young man in the intelligible sense or of a young man in the bodily sense, do not hesitate to say that, as for "the young men" of Israel, "fire devoured" them. And if you see a young man in love with a harlot and already seized by desire for a woman, do not hesitate to say of such a one that these are the young men of whom Scripture says: "Fire devoured their young men". Of the same kind is "their virgins were not praised". For so it must be read, as it stands in all the other versions, in the Hebrew too, and in a few reliable copies: "their virgins were not praised" (οὐκ ἐπῃνέθησαν). For it is a reproach to the virgin when she is not praiseworthy. Virginity ought to be a praiseworthy thing because of modesty, because of dignity, because of beauty not of the body but of the soul.
"Their priests fell by the sword". The word is speaking to us, if we are not sober. For we who have been entrusted with the priesthood, if we sin — about us Scripture says: "their priests fell by the sword". Then, if we see that the widows of the church too are not adorned with a good way of life, it will be said about them as well: "and their widows will not be wept for". Therefore the judge is roused against these things, so that, respecting no one's person, he may punish all who sin, in whatever matter, according to their desert.
Let us know this, however: when the nobler soul, which has been entrusted with greater things, sins, it will not be punished in the same way as the soul entrusted with less. A priest's daughter has committed fornication: the one is stoned, the other is burned by fire. For inasmuch as she sinned while being nobler, since she sinned against greater things, she has a greater and more abundant punishment. These things turn out otherwise than they do in this world. For the noble and the base-born commit the same sins, and the worldly law, which respects persons, honors the noble because of his nobility, whereas for his sin he is punished more severely. But he who respects no one's person examines the mighty mightily. For he knows that "the least are pardonable in mercy". But we who have come to this great and sacred calling, let us beseech that we may not "trample underfoot the Son of God, nor count common the blood of the covenant in which we were sanctified", nor outrage so great a mystery, but rather adorn it, so that we may become "the light of the world", and of the earth as well, in Christ Jesus, to whom belong the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen.
On the 77th Psalm, Homily 8