Homilies on the Psalms — Homily 27 — Psalm 80 (LXX; MT 81), Homily I: vv. 1–8
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. 479–495. Psalms are numbered as in the Septuagint. This English translation is released into the public domain.On the 80th Psalm, Homily 1
1. The prayers made in the Holy Spirit are wholly fulfilled, and while the one praying is "still speaking", God stands by and says: "Behold, I am here". So then, in the psalm before this one, the prophetic Spirit prayed prophetically and in the Holy Spirit concerning the vine, and said: "O God of hosts, turn now, look down from heaven and see and visit this vine, and restore it and prepare it, which your right hand planted". Then, as soon as he prayed, God looked upon the vine. Having seen it, he visited it, he restored it; it bore its fruits, the fruits come to the winepresses. For this reason a psalm is written next after the prayer concerning the vine: "the one for the winepresses". And if, according to what was said by the Savior, who says: "I am the true vine, you are the branches, my Father is the husbandman", if we are branches grown together with Jesus Christ and united to him, cultivated by the Father and God of the universe, pruned so that we may bear more fruit, it is necessary to hope that our fruits too will come to the heavenly winepresses: the ripe clusters, the good works, the fruits of the Spirit. Then the psalms "for the winepresses", not of one winepress but of several, may be spoken over us too and over our fruits.
Just as in husbandry there are different kinds of fruit of the vine, and there are fruits of such a kind, let us say, as to make a black grape and a black wine of this sort, and fruits that make white wine, and fruits of another kind that make sweet wine, and another sharing in a different quality, so, if you consider the manifold church of God and its different ways of life (I do not mean the blameworthy ones but the praiseworthy), you will find differing abundances and, as it were, praiseworthy characters: in the practical life, in the contemplative, in teaching, in visitation, in sharing, in the love of purity. These fruits, then, must not be mixed together. For just as it happens there among the husbandmen, and each vine and each kind of cluster comes to the winepress separately, in the same way, if you understand the spiritual winepresses, you will see how "each will rise in his own order", and, in proportion to his own merits and noble deeds, will go off to this or that winepress. And perhaps, just as there is one wine fit for masters and another suited to slaves, and of the masters' wine one is royal and another not such but inferior, so too among the many fruits of the church one might be found who, because of "the spirit of slavery" that leads "to fear", has not yet made room for "the spirit of adoption", bearing fruit that is, as it were, servile but still drinkable; and another bearing fruit, through the spirit of adoption, not servile but free, made for the great supper which the master of the house gives in honor of the day of his son's wedding.
What is "for the winepresses" is also "for the end"; for the vine is still being cultivated and still yields its fruits. For I make bold to say: just as in the saying "where the harvest is, it is the consummation of the age", so too the vintage of the vine is the "consummation of the age". So much for the title.
Since in the songs of the winepress what is proclaimed must be cheerful, inasmuch as those who gather the grapes and bring in the wine "that gladdens the heart of man" are rejoicing, for this reason what is in the psalm, as in a winepress song, is most sweet and wonderful. This is so not only here but also in the other winepress psalms, I mean the eighth psalm and the eighty-third. For those too are full of gladness, for example: "O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth, for your magnificence has been lifted up above the heavens; out of the mouth of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise", and what follows. And again in the eighty-third, which is itself also "for the winepresses", the things proclaimed are words of gladness: for "how beloved", he says, "are your dwellings, O Lord of hosts; my soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord".
2. So here too, consider what sort of things are always said in the songs of the winepress: "Exult unto God our helper". For as long as the fruit is still on the vine, I am anxious and do not yet exult. For I do not know whether some scorching heat might be able to burn up the vine and wither it, or some other mishap occur, so that it is said: "what the caterpillar left, the locust has eaten; what the locust left, the blight has eaten", and the vine is in danger before the vintage. But when the time for gathering the grapes arrives and the clusters are carried to the heavenly winepresses by the angels who carry them, it is said: "Exult unto God our helper". And since there are differences among exultations, and the surpassing exultation is when one is exulting unto God (τῷ θεῷ), "exult" being analogous to "rejoicing in (ἐν) God", for this reason he says not simply "exult" but "exult unto God". And it is a blessed thing to refer all one's movements to God. If then your fruits are coming to the winepresses, hear the "Exult unto God our helper". But if you have sinned and need repentance and conversion, do not exult but grieve. For concerning that grief I would say: "Grieve 'unto God' your 'helper'", "for grief according to God works repentance unto salvation not to be regretted".
And do all things "unto God"! For it is possible also not to do them "unto God". Do you love? Love "unto God". For if you love anything else besides divine things, you do not love "unto God". For example, if you love money, you do not love "unto God". If you love a little glory, you do not love "unto God". If you cherish your children in a fleshly way and with fleshly affections, you do not love "unto God". But if you love your children like that blessed mother of the seven, according to what is written in the Maccabees, you love your children unto God. So too it is possible to love one's husband "unto God", and also to love one's husband but not to love him "unto God". So too it is possible to farm "unto God", to be long-suffering "unto God", and to have these things in God.
These things are on account of the "Exult in God our helper". For it was necessary to say in what way one must both exult "unto God" and do all things "unto God". "Being helped by God," he says, "I have borne the fruits, and being helped by God I shall also bring the fruits in to the holy winepresses. Do not forget God, then, inasmuch as he has become your helper."
3. Therefore, "Exult unto God", he says, "our helper". Whatever you may say, it is less than the graces of God toward you, and you are likely to be at a loss for words that would render to God what is worthy of him in thanksgiving. For this reason I want you to "jubilate to the God of Jacob", that is, with the wordless voice of a heart that cries out, that goes beyond what can be signified, that is at a loss for words and, through this lack of words, utters things unspeakable and ineffable, so that in this way you may be able to "jubilate to the God of Jacob".
Do you want to see how great a thing jubilation is, if it is done unto God? Consider: "Blessed", he says, "is the people that knows jubilation". If then no one is called blessed for any ordinary thing, it is necessary also to gain the knowledge of jubilation. And perhaps, if you go up beyond what can be spoken, if you climb above the things proclaimed, the things voiced through the mouth, if you go up beyond the audible voice and are able to hymn God with the mind alone, a mind at a loss to lay its own movements upon the word, because the word within you cannot bear the unspeakable and divine things of the mind, to whom do you jubilate, if not to the God of your patriarch Jacob? And for this reason, I think, you jubilate "to the God of Jacob", since you too have become Jacob and a supplanter. And you supplanted him: first you took hold of the heel, then after this you received the birthright, and third you receive the blessing. When, then, these three things come about in you, you too jubilate as a son of Jacob and an imitator of Jacob the supplanter.
4. Let us see what follows: what does the prophetic word command us through the Holy Spirit? "Take a psalm and give a timbrel, a pleasant psaltery with a lyre". The word gives me one thing but demands three of me: it gives me a "psalm", and demands from me first a "timbrel", second a "pleasant psaltery", then "with a lyre". We must, then, understand the "timbrel" and prepare it, so that when we take the "psalm", and the word says to us: "Take a psalm and give a timbrel", we may give a "timbrel", and in thus giving a "timbrel" may give also the "psaltery", and not simply that, but the "pleasant" one. For perhaps there is a "psaltery" that is not "pleasant", and a "pleasant psaltery" joined to the "lyre". For it is written: "a pleasant psaltery with a lyre".
"Do not tropologize and do not allegorize," they say, "but keep to the wording"! Shall we then prepare a "timbrel" such as those who are strangers to the faith have? And what can we do, men who have never learned from childhood either to play the lyre or to play the psaltery? Can we play this instrument as those do who have learned these things from childhood, so as to prepare a "pleasant psaltery" and "lyres", since, according to them, this is what the word means by "Take a psalm"? No, let us take a psalm and prepare these things, having understood what the things said mean.
When, then, the grace of God grants me to speak of God, so that from this speaking of God I am able to understand God and to know him and to exalt his name and to magnify him, it gives me a psalm. And it is a gift of Christ to reveal the Father and to give the psalm about our God, of Christ who said: "No one has known the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son reveals". And if anyone has known the Father, and, being at leisure according to the "Be at leisure and know that I am God", has known God, he has received the psalm. But if you receive a psalm, you too must render what it demands. You are composed of three things, spirit and soul and body, and the word demands of you a complete sanctification, that you may be sanctified whole in spirit and soul and body, according to what was said by the Apostle in the letter To the Thessalonians. Perhaps, then, you must understand the "timbrel" as referring to the body, the "psaltery" to the spirit, and the "lyre" to the soul.
Why is the timbrel the body? Because the timbrel too has wood and a skin that has been made dead, and you too must put to death on the cross your "members that are on the earth". And in the hundred and fiftieth psalm we are taught to praise God in manifold ways, and there too it is said: "Praise him with timbrel and dance". And the one who praises God with the timbrel is the one who has put to death his "members that are on the earth". Hear the names of these members, if you wish: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness. When these are put to death in you, and put to death through the cross of Christ, and your flesh is put to death, having gone up onto the sign, so that you can say: "If we died together, we shall also live together", when you do these things, you have made a timbrel. For as long as your flesh and the mind of the flesh are alive, your flesh has not been put to death, and you cannot hymn God.
I think that the order is well stated here: "give a timbrel" first, then "a pleasant psaltery with a lyre"; first the timbrel, and after this "a pleasant psaltery with a lyre". For first we must be occupied in putting to death "the members that are on earth", and in killing the sin in us, so that sin may no longer be able to be active. Then, when sin has been conquered and put to death, and we are able to give the timbrel, then we shall be able to make a harmony of the spirit with the soul, or, to name it after the Apostle, of the spirit with the mind. Then I may say: "I will sing psalms with the spirit, and I will sing psalms also with the mind", and may give the spirit as the "psaltery", and either the soul or the mind as the "lyre". And I give both, to be yoked together after the timbrel: "a pleasant psaltery with a lyre". And if I say spirit, I mean the spirit of man, about which Paul says: "For no one knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him".
5. The wording recapitulates: it has given me a "psalm", it demands of me a "timbrel" and a "pleasant psaltery with a lyre", and after these it commands me to sound the trumpet and to take up a loud voice. For it is said that, of every voice that men produce among men, through whatever instruments it may be, the trumpet is the greatest. And the musicians say that in music there is no sound greater than that of the trumpet. Therefore it is employed to rouse the spirit of soldiers and to make those who fight on behalf of their cities into champions. And the law of Moses employs trumpets for two purposes: for the camps of Israel to set out and so that they may make war at their signal, and for the feasts of the Lord, as is written in Numbers. And so we too are commanded to sound the trumpet with a loud voice: "Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good tidings to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem; lift it up, do not fear". And in the last psalm: "Praise him with the sound of the trumpet". Who can sound forth God "with the sound of the trumpet"? Who, if not Paul, can sound forth "with the sound of the trumpet"? For he had a loud voice, and so did any other of the saints who willed it.
Do you want to see how great this spiritual trumpet is, even if the lovers of the letter do not want it? The angels too use trumpets: "For the trumpet will sound and the dead will rise incorruptible in Christ", and "for the Lord himself, with a command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven". When we hear these things, then, do we suppose that there are coppersmiths in heaven, or some who make trumpets for the angels, so that the blessed angels may sound the trumpet and the dead rise through the sound of the trumpet? Or are the great and divine doctrines and the loudness of their voice signified by the sound of the trumpet? And if angels sound the trumpet indistinctly, will no one go out to war?
For this reason let us pray that, if we have a trumpet, we may not give an uncertain sound, but may make all things clear with the trumpet, as far as is possible. The Apocalypse of John is full of many trumpets. "An angel sounded the trumpet", and such and such happened; then a second, and such and such happened. And one can see a multitude of heavenly and divine trumpets, which the angels of God sound. And the law has a shadow and a pattern of the heavenly things, and it speaks there of the trumpets mentioned before. If so, lift the trumpets up, reading more plainly, to those in John, or in any other scripture you have, and in Paul: to the heavenly, angelic trumpets and their loud voice.
6. But when are we to "sound the trumpet"? "At the new moon". "Sound the trumpet", he says, "at the new moon with the trumpet". And when? "On the notable day", he says, "of our feast". At the new moon there occurs a conjunction of the moon and the sun, and the moon and the sun come to be on the same vertical line. If this is the new moon, see for me the moon illumined by the sun: the church. See for me the sun of righteousness: my Lord Christ Jesus. When, then, the church of Christ comes together, the new moon has taken place, of which the law of Moses has the shadow. "Let", indeed, "no one", he says, "judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast or a new moon or sabbaths; which are a shadow of the things to come". Therefore the account of the new moon also has "a shadow of the things to come"; but of what "things to come"? Hear: there is a new moon there again, and full moons there again. But there the new moons do not come from this sun, for, according to what is written, this sun "will be set free from the slavery of corruption", nor from this moon; rather the new moon comes from the sun, Christ, and from the church. Then, therefore, we are able to sound the trumpet, and then we are able to use the loud voice of the divine mysteries.
Who, then, is worthy to reach that "new moon" and "the notable day" of our feast, so that the trumpets may above all be employed? (Instead of "on the notable day of our feast" (εὐσήμῳ ἡμέρᾳ), the other versions have "at the full moon" (ἐν πανσελήνῳ), and someone also made it "at the mid-month" (ἐν ἡμιμηνίῳ).) For at each of the two there is both a conjunction of the moon with the sun, and a time when the moon appears bright, wholly illumined by the sun, even to those on earth. For it is illumined also at the conjunction, but not so that its illumination is known; at the full moon, however, it is both illumined and its illumination is known. When, then, my church too shines, and I, having come to be upon it, am able to receive the light of the sun of righteousness in a way made known to the rest, even to those who are not of the church, then the full moon comes about, the true and heavenly feast.
And then it will be necessary to sound the trumpet "on the notable day of our feast", and to do these things for this reason, "because it is an ordinance for Israel and a judgment for the God of Jacob". All these things are "ordinances for Israel", for the one who sees God: to "take a psalm", to "give a timbrel" and what follows, and to do the things mentioned before. And it is a "judgment", judged by the God of Jacob: "He set it as a testimony in Joseph". This ordinance "he set in Joseph as a testimony". What is the testimony, and for whom? Not for the patriarch Joseph, but for the one descended from Joseph, the one from Ephraim, Jeroboam, who split the people. For him, then, these oracles become a testimony. And he has often been interpreted by us as referring to the heterodox, who split off from the church; so for him the oracles and ordinances of God become a testimony.
7. Then after these things a mystery is spoken concerning the whole people, not written in Exodus, but boldly ventured by the Spirit in the prophet. For it is said: "When he went out of the land of Egypt, he heard a language which he did not know". When Israel was in Egypt, he says, he did not hear Hebrew; but when he came out of Egypt, "a language which he did not know", for he did not know Hebrew, "he heard". And this too is an unspeakable mystery. For understand, I pray, that Hebrew is the speech that proclaims the things beyond (τὰ περατικά), the things above the world, since a Hebrew is interpreted as "one who crosses over" (περατικός), and "in Hebrew" (Ἑβραϊστί) as it were "in the tongue of the beyond" (περατιστί).
When, then, we learn about the things beyond bodies, about the things beyond the world, when we discourse on those things spiritually, we are speaking Hebrew. And when do we speak Hebrew spiritually, if not when we go out of the land of Egypt? As long as we are among bodily things and do not go out of Egypt but work at the clay and the straw, we cannot hear the language "which he did not know". And if any of those present is still in Egypt in his understanding, even if he hears words about the things beyond, even if he hears loftier words, he does not hear them, he does not understand; only the one who has gone out of Egypt does. The one who has learned to leave bodily things behind and to be wholly in heavenly things, the one who has his treasure in heavenly things, he has gone out of the land of Egypt, and he hears "a language which he did not know" when he was in Egypt. "The natural", indeed, "man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned".
8. "He removed his back from burdens". When you leave behind Egyptian and bodily affairs, then the angels take care to "remove" your "back from burdens". For heavy loads lie upon you from sin, and as long as you are in Egypt, very heavy burdens lie upon your back. But when you go out of the land of Egypt and leave bodily things behind and now reckon on heavenly things and look to celestial things, then the angels who serve the word of God will take care to "remove" your "back from burdens", so that he may lighten your back. And you will be able to lay aside the heavy yoke of Nebuchadnezzar and to take up the light yoke of Christ.
"He removed his back from burdens, his hands served in the basket". Israel, when he is in Egypt, "serves in the basket", carrying clay, gathering straw. But if he goes out of the land of Egypt, his hands no longer "serve in the basket"; he will be able to become such as to gather the loaves of Jesus left over by those who had eaten, and with the apostles to put them away "in the basket". So the hands that once had "served in the basket" in Egypt may later receive from what was left over, which was more, and which came to be in the basket.
At the same time, who, reading these things also according to the Gospel, would not inquire how a great crowd was in the desert listening to the Teacher, and no bread was found except five loaves only, with one little boy, and a few small fishes? And how, where bread was not found, were twelve baskets filled there? But let him who has ears hear these things in a manner worthy of the word. Let him seek to become worthy first to recline and to eat of the loaves that have not yet been left over. For there are some loaves left over, which are given to the apostles. Having striven to become worthy of the first loaves, he may then go up to those that were left over and found in the baskets.
"In affliction you called upon me": God answers the same one and says: "In affliction you called upon me and I delivered you". When we are in the very midst of temptation, then let us pray, for then prayer is heard. For example, the body of a dead son lies there, or of a husband or wife or father or mother or friend: do not cease from prayer then, when you are afflicted; rise and pray! Show God that you have preferred prayer to mourning, to grief, to weeping, so that God may say to you: "In affliction you called upon me and I delivered you". But if anything else has befallen you over which you are afflicted, such as sicknesses, thefts, senseless false testimonies, and whatever else befalls human nature, then above all pray, so that you may hear: "In affliction you called upon me and I delivered you".
"I heard you in the secret place of the storm". What kinship has "In affliction you called upon me and I delivered you" with "I heard you in the secret place of the storm"? Hear how they are akin. We know that, bodily speaking, the "storm" is a violent and wintry wind, which often both overturns houses and uproots trees. For a "storm" is a fearful thing. When, then, a grievous temptation befalls us, a "storm", as it were, comes upon us, and the "storm" is the spirit entrusted at that time with tempting us. But where there is a "storm", there the helper is hidden, and he is hidden in the "storm". And when the "storm" of a great temptation comes, call upon the Lord, and he will say to you: "'I heard you in the secret place of the storm'; since I was 'in', indeed, 'the secret place of the storm' and present to the temptation, to prevent it from tempting you to your harm, 'I heard you'". "Faithful", indeed, "is God, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way out, so that you may be able to bear it".
While these things are happening, there is added further: "I tested you at the water of contradiction". Then he gave the people "water of contradiction" out of a rock, over which Moses said: "Hear me, you disobedient; shall we bring water out of the rock?" And now too there is the "water of contradiction" among men. This is not my own interpretation but that of one far superior to me: for "the rock" was "Christ", and "they drank from the spiritual rock that followed". For just as that was "water of contradiction" according to the narrative, so here too there is "water of contradiction".
But hear how Christ is "water of contradiction". If you see the heresies concerning him, if you see the disagreement, one saying one thing about him, another understanding him otherwise, each understanding something of his own, you will see that this is "water of contradiction", this is water "for the fall and the rising", this is water "so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind". For those who believe, this is "a cornerstone, chosen, precious"; for those who disbelieve, "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense". We are tested, then, at the "water of contradiction". How are we tested at the "water of contradiction"? "There must be heresies among you, so that those who are approved may become manifest". For if there were not many differing in opinion, we churchmen would not be shown to be approved, as men not deceived by ingenious argument, by plausibility, by the misapplication of the texts, by those who expound the Scriptures badly. And for this reason we are tested in the heresies. Being churchmen, let us pray to inherit the holy things of God in Christ Jesus, to whom belong the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen.
On the 80th Psalm, Homily 1