Origen: Homilies on Judges
Overview
In his General Audience of May 2, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI praised Origen for his “primordial role” in the history of lectio divina, the prayerful reading of Scripture. He explained that Origen approaches Scripture reading not as “mere study” but as the pathway to knowing Christ and “falling in love with him.” Origen’s nine extant homilies on Judges exemplify this approach.
In them, Origen calls his audience to participate in a loving relationship with Christ through interaction with Scripture. Delivered sometime between 238 and 248, these homilies expound on themes extracted from Judges 2–7. Some of the homilies focus generally on God’s redemption of Israel through judges after each cycle of sin, enslavement, and repentance, while others stress that victory belongs to God alone through events such as the defeat of the Midianites by Gideon’s meager army of 300 men, Gideon’s test with the fleece, and the murder of the Philistine general Sisera by the woman Jael. The homilies brim with hope in Christ’s ultimate victory over sin and death, a hope that is specific to the individual believer but accessible only within the Church.
Origen applies his allegorical method of Scriptural interpretation to these passages, sometimes drawing faith-enriching meaning from the literal (somatic) sense as well as from one or both of the two figurative (psychic and pneumatic) senses. Using both allegory and typology, Origen shows his audience God’s abundant mercy and grace, the power of Scripture to assist in the battle against sin and the promotion of virtue, and the church leader’s duty to walk his flock through the transforming terrain of Scripture toward likeness to and union with Christ.
Largely because of early controversies over Origen’s legacy, these homilies are extant only in Rufinus’s fourth-century Latin translation, but his ability to capture Origen’s meaning and spirit is well documented. This is the first-ever English translation of Origen’s homilies on Judges.
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For more of the church fathers, check out the Fathers of the Church: Fathers of the Ante-Nicene Era (23 vols.).
Top Highlights
“Accordingly, therefore, in the days of the unjust and wicked King Ahaz [Uzziah],10 Isaiah could not see a vision. He could not ‘see the Lord of Hosts sitting upon the throne, high and lifted up.’11 But from the moment that vile king died, whose ‘days’ were ‘evil,’12 then the prophet was able to see a vision of God.” (Page 40)
“Therefore, if someone is ‘fearful’ and ‘full of dread at heart,’ he should depart from the military camp, he should return to his home,34 lest he furnish an example of fear and dread to the rest. Moreover, do you wish to see how great a crime ‘fear and dread’ is? In the Apocalypse where those are enumerated who are to be put ‘into the swamp of fire,’ there in front of everyone he places ‘the persons fearful and full of dread’ with those whom he counts as ‘unfaithful persons and fornicators and enchanters.’35 In this way, the crime of fear and dread is placed among the vast and abominable crimes.” (Page 115)
“For, in the beginning, instruction concerning the profound and more hidden mysteries is not to be taught immediately to the pupils, but the correction of morals, the amendment of discipline, and the first elements of religious life and simple faith are taught to them. That is the ‘milk’ of the Church; these first elements are for ‘the young children’ just beginning [in the faith].” (Page 82)
“Othniel is a figure or type of the ‘savior angels’91 whom God sends to us when we need divine powers to fight off evil forces.” (Page 29)
“What does it profit me if on account of good desires, good faith, and good works by another he is nourished and restored, but because of evil thoughts and impious desires by me and in my heart, because of wicked desires, he is, in a certain manner, suffocated and killed?” (Page 53)
- Title: Origen: Homilies on Judges
- Author: Origen
- Series: The Fathers of the Church
- Volume: 119
- Publisher: Catholic University of America
- Print Publication Date: 2010
- Logos Release Date: 2014
- Pages: 152
- Era: era:ante-nicene
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. O.T. Judges › Sermons; Sermons, Latin › Translations into English
- Resource ID: LLS:HOMILIESJUDGES
- Resource Type: text.monograph.sermons
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T20:00:30Z
Origen of Alexandria (ca. 182–ca. 251) was a Christian scholar and presbyter in the third century. He is thought to have been born at Alexandria, and died at Caesarea.