Tractates on the Books of Holy Scripture (Tractatus Origenis) 13.1–14.3

All that inspired men sang with foreseeing minds, or that the Jews established by their decrees and laws, as well as severe and weighty censures, histories of civil and foreign wars, and also the Lord's institutions and the discipline of morals, those who were called scribes stored away with the greatest diligence, sealed in the sacred writings, to preserve their memory forever. Our Lord praised their great zeal, their incredible memory, and their splendid office with magnificent commendation, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like [a householder] who wisely brings out old things and new." But you, on whom the same Lord laid the office of a greater service than that of the scribes, saying, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven," must certainly act more urgently than those who were called scribes, so that through the Lord we may be more excellent servants of righteousness. For they had written the histories of events according to the fleshly course of the deeds; but we show that the force and spiritual meaning of all the deeds pertained to the figure of the New Testament. For the ancient law, as the apostle teaches, was a shadow of good things to come and an image of the truth. So all that was then done in figure and image has now been fulfilled in truth and meaning. Listen, then, to the reading, and observe carefully what it indicates. "There was," it says, "from Zorah, of the tribe of Dan, a very famous man, and his name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and bore no children. And the angel appeared to her and said to her: 'Behold, you who are barren and have not borne will conceive in the womb and bear a son. And now take care not to drink wine or strong drink, and not to eat anything unclean,'" and so on. This barren woman, who bore no children, signified the Synagogue, which was barren in virtues but fruitful in vices. When she had been visited by God so as to conceive a son in Egypt, that is, a new people, and had conceived, as I said, in that womb of Egypt from the seed of the patriarchs, so as to bring forth a kind of offspring into the land of promise, then she received these precepts: let her not drink wine or strong drink. There is no doubt that wine has a double meaning. For in one place wine is set down for gladdening the heart of man, in another for fury and madness; in one place for the Lord's passion, in another for the severity of judgment. Indeed David says: "Wine gladdens the heart of man." On the other hand the apostle: "Do not get drunk with wine, in which is debauchery." And well the prophet: "Their wine," he says, "is from the vine of Sodom," and "The cup of unmixed wine," he says, "is full of mixture, and he has tipped it from one to the other; yet its dregs are not emptied: all the sinners of the earth will drink." So, when she is commanded not to drink wine, she is certainly warned to abstain from all debauchery, fury, and drunkenness, lest the mind, drunk with madness, go beyond its powers and, as if out of its senses, not know the meaning of its life, and finally, weighed down with the work of sin, be held as already dead and as it were buried.

"And you shall not drink strong drink," it says. What do we take strong drink to be, if not the pleasure of the flesh? In this place he calls strong drink the alluring pleasure of the body and, as some think, the sweetest pleasure of the soul. "But you shall not eat anything unclean," it says. He does not say this of foods, nor of wine and strong drink, in which the Jews boast that they alone are clean and think all others defiled, since it is written: "Food does not commend us to God," and the Lord says: "What enters your mouth does not defile you, but what comes out." But that is unclean which is forbidden to be eaten, so that she should do nothing impure, nothing unclean, nothing polluted. The angel announced these things to her, it says, in the field. Why does the angel address this woman in the field, and not in the city or in the house? Especially in the field, because it signified that this woman, the Synagogue, was going to abandon the city of the divine law and the house of faith, that is, the congregation, council, and assembly of the holy patriarchs and all the prophets, since she would receive neither the divine right nor the heavenly ordinances. And so, driven out of the city, that is, out of the dwellings of the saints, she was already then seen in typical prefiguration as wholly desolate in the field of the world and brought into captivity. "But the angel of the Lord came again," it says, "to the woman sitting in the field, and Manoah her husband was not with her." By the husband he names he means the law, which the woman, the Synagogue, received as a husband. The blessed apostle Paul proves this, saying: "The law," he says, "rules a person as long as he lives; and the woman who is under a husband is bound to the law while her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the husband." And again: "So," he says, "dearest brothers, you too have been put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, who rose from the dead." Through this comparison, then, he shows that the husband must be understood as the law and the woman as the Synagogue, which, living until the resurrection of Christ and freed from the law of the husband, that is, from the power of the Old Testament, thereafter becomes his who rose from the dead. And so he says here, "Her husband was [not] with her," because she was still living set under the law. "But the angel himself," it says, "standing, spoke to her as she sat." What, then, does it mean that the woman sat and the angel stood? Not that she was doing or arranging anything; but it indicated that she was languishing in stupor and sloth and distrustful of the divine promises; at the same time it showed the ruin of her standing, since she was to fall back into earthly contagions; but it showed that those who announced her, namely the patriarchs and prophets and the Lord himself, would always stand, that is, would persevere in their standing. And so the angel stands, that is, the lawgiver and messenger of truth; the woman sits, so that her ruin, languor, and sloth might be noted, since she did not have feet, the apostles and prophets, on which to stand, and had rightly lost the upright and steady form of her standing.

"But he offered," it says, "a sacrifice, a kid of the goats." He did not say a lamb, nor a calf. For if he had said a lamb or a calf, he would have indicated innocence in the lamb and skill in the calf. But "he offered," it says, "a kid of the goats," so as to show already then the sin of his conscience by the offering of a fruitless sacrifice. For you remember that Moses said that whoever had sinned should offer a kid of the goats for his sin; and the Lord in the Gospel says, "I will set the righteous like sheep at the right hand, the sinners like goats at the left," so as to indicate the merit of a holy life by the mere standing and innocence of the animal. "But he offered this sacrifice on a rock." For what else did sins deserve than hardness of heart? For the rock is set in one place for firmness, in another for the hardness of the Synagogue. For though Christ is called the rock, as the apostle says, "They drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ," yet this rock is the foundation of faith; on the other hand the Lord himself shows that the rock is hardness of heart when he says in the Gospel: "The sower went out to sow, and some seeds fell on the rock"; these, when the sun rose, dried up in their very stalk, because, sown on the earth, they had neither a place to fix their root deeper nor moisture to be nourished. And so by the rock on which he offered the sacrifice he shows the hardness of heart of that same Synagogue, just as it received the law on tablets of stone. Hence the blessed Stephen too, the first martyr after Christ, called them hard of heart in his passion. "But after all this," it says, "she conceived and bore a son and called his name Samson." Samson is a Hebrew name which is interpreted in the Latin language as "moth." O wretched womb of the Synagogue, which brought forth a moth, that is, such a people as would corrupt, tear, and violate like a moth the garment of all modesty, honor, shame, and faith, and would tear apart even the institutions of the evil and Christ present! This Samson, then, bore in himself the general figure of the whole Jewish people: so he is shown to have done something of evil and something of good. For part of that people was barbarous, unbelieving, violent; and a certain part was devout and religious, which bore fruits worthy of repentance and attained faith in Christ: from there, indeed, the apostles; from there, as it is written, three thousand on one day and five thousand on another believed in Christ. But come now, let us see what Samson did as a type of Israel. "He took for himself as wife," it says, "a foreign, barbarian woman." So too that people, in whose likeness Samson was born, was joined as to a foreign woman, that is, a sacrilegious idolatress, as it is written: "They committed adultery," he says, "after foreign gods." For what is so barbarous, so monstrous, so inhuman, as that, forsaking the living God, they should offer to images and stones the blood of cattle and sometimes of their own sons and daughters? "But that woman," it says, "pleased his eyes." Attend to the sense of this word, dearest brothers. "She pleased," it says, "his eyes": it did not say she pleased his judgment, his scrutiny, his reason, but his deceitful eyes, which think good the things that are seen in the world: a kingdom, wealth, beauty of form, honors, the greatest weight of gold and silver. So the pleasure of wantonness pleased his eyes, luxury pleased them; it pleased his eyes, which often deceive and are deceived, to which nature gave such quick motion so that they might quickly shut out rushing desire. So what pleased him was not what God would approve, nor what would please his parents, but what deceitful eyes beheld. So too Adam and Eve were deceived, because the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil seemed to their eyes good to look at and excellent to eat; and, discerning by it, they at once confessed their nakedness, and received the sentence of death for the guilt of the crime. O wretched soul, whose heart desires, through the eyes, hidden things that are impious and harmful! ... and to pass over more, because I must discuss more necessary things.

This Samson, then, who was born, when he had passed the years of childhood and gathered all the strength of his powers, listen carefully, I ask, to what he did as a type of the Jews. "And it happened," it says, "when he went down to Timnah, behold, a lion's whelp roaring to meet him. And Samson turned aside," it says, "into the vineyard, and killed it, and tore it apart like a kid of the goats." See, most holy brothers, see, I say, the order of the matter, see the meaning, see the arrangement of so great a dispensation, because it was to fulfill in Christ the order in words, the meaning in deeds, the dispensation in figures; and notice with how much care and distinction these things are told. As Samson, it says, went along the way, a roaring lion's whelp met him. We have often said that Samson bore the image of the people of Israel, and that his strength must be understood as the powers of the rulers and priests, and also of the scribes and Pharisees. So, when the rulers of that people believed they were walking along the way of the law in their fleshly strength, which then flourished in the world, behold, a roaring lion's whelp met them. But who is this lion's whelp, if not the Son of God, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, of whom the patriarch Jacob said: "You slept like a lion, you rose like a lion's whelp"? He is called a lion because the nature of the Father is in the Son, and he is called a lion's whelp so that he may be believed to be not the Father himself but the Son. Of him the apostle John in the Apocalypse hears through the voice of an angel: "Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered," because this lion, or lion's whelp, was to be born according to the flesh from the tribe of Judah and the race of David. He calls him a lion to show significantly his kingdom and the power by which he conquered death and the devil. This lion's whelp, then, that is, the Lord God, the Son of God and our Savior, when the chief priests heard him roaring in the vineyard of the people of Israel, that is, preaching the kingdom of God and the coming judgment to the whole people, at once they were filled with anger and indignation. There is no doubt that the vineyard is the people. The blessed David proves this when he says, "You brought a vine out of Egypt"; and certainly he had brought a people, not a vine, out of Egypt. Isaiah too indicates it more clearly, saying: "For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel." Then, therefore, the power and license of the rulers and scribes turned aside from the way of the law and of discipline, when they heard the lion's whelp, that is, Christ preaching to the people. But what is turning aside from the way, if not bending away from the straight path of righteousness to a fall? It turned aside, then, to the worse part and fell into the vineyard, that is, it stirred up seditions and factions among the people. For this was the plan of the scribes or priests, to kill the lion, Christ. It is known to all that this lion or lion's whelp, that is, the man whom the Son of God had put on from the tribe of Judah, was killed in the vineyard of the people of Israel. "But he tore it apart," it says, "like a kid of the goats." Why did he not say like a lamb, but named a kid in particular? I have shown your charity that the kid bears the figure of sinners, as the Lord says: "I will set the righteous like sheep, the sinners and unrighteous like goats." And so he tore apart this lion's whelp like a kid, because he was reckoned among sinners and the unrighteous, as it is written: "Cursed is the man who hangs on a tree." Hence the apostle too says: "He was made a curse for us," so that believers might receive the blessing. But he was reckoned cursed, he says, so that he might consecrate us, freed from the curse through the cross, by the grace of his blessing. So he was reckoned among sinners in order to purge our sins. But he himself, as it is written of him, "committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth."

But listen carefully, I ask, to what was done after the lion was killed. "Returning," it says, "he came again to the body of the lion, and behold," it says, "a swarm of bees in the mouth and body of the lion, and honey was overflowing; and he put it in his mouth and walked along eating." "But returning," it says, "to the body of the lion he found bees." What is "returning"? As if correcting himself again toward better things. And afterwards he came to the burial of the Lord's body, that is, of the lion, so as to believe. For many of that persecuting people, converted after the Lord's passion and doing penance, believed through the apostles. But when he had come to believe, he found bees in the lion's mouth. What do these bees signify, if not the apostles and the other brothers abiding in Christ, all of whom the fervor of the same hope animated together, through whom many swarms of believing peoples sprang up? "And honey," it says, "was overflowing." What else can we understand by honey than the sweet preaching of the Lord and the sweetness of the gospel teaching? "Taste and see that the Lord is sweet," and "Your words," he says, "are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth." For this honey is sweeter than that of Hymettus, pleasanter than that of Hybla, more pleasing than myrrh-oil: the honey which the swarms of believing peoples gathered from the preaching of the divine mouth, from the many flowers of the readings, and brought together all of it in the mouth and body of Christ our Lord, so that, since all things had been preached in him, all might be fulfilled through him. "A honeycomb," it says, "in the lion's mouth." What is the honeycomb, if not the image of the heavenly kingdom, in which he said there are many dwellings with his Father? But what did they find stored in those dwellings of the honeycomb, wonderfully built? "Honey," it says, "was overflowing." What else do we take honey to be than the Lord's sweetness and the pleasantness of his word? By it we are fed, by it we live. Let us always have it in our mouth and heart, so that we may fatten the soul with heavenly things.

"And the Lord said to Gideon: 'With the three hundred men whom you saw lapping water I will save you, and I will give the camp of Midian into your hands.'" I am not unaware, dearest brothers, that I could incur the charge of rashness in venturing to preach on the arrangement of so great a mystery. For if we discuss lofty things humbly and great things thinly, not only is our inexperience laughable but our boldness punishable. For whoever wishes to interpret what the ancient law sanctioned or what the mouths of the most devout prophets sang otherwise than the spiritual meaning requires cannot escape the hazard of danger. But I, dearest brothers, relying not so much on confidence in my own study or ability as on the grace of divine inspiration, attempt to preach on this. "And the Lord," it says, "said to Gideon: 'With the three hundred I will save you, and I will give the camp of Midian into your hands.'" What is this, dearest brothers, that out of thirty-two thousand armed men only three hundred are approved as fit and brave? I could show in two words what this small number signifies: "For many are called, but few are chosen," and "If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant will be saved." But we must now show what the reason for this merit signifies: why precisely three hundred are chosen, through whom innumerable enemies would be utterly laid waste. Among the Greeks three hundred is signified by the letter tau. This letter, since it has one stroke upright like the tree of the passion and another across its head like an extended yardarm, certainly shows the clear sign of the cross. And so Gideon, who had put on the figure of our Lord Jesus Christ, conquered his enemies with this number. Indeed Moses, with hands stretched out, showed the sign of the cross in order to conquer Amalek. "But rise," it says, "and go down into the enemies' camp." Truly and rightly did he say this, because in his great power and might the Lord rose to ascend the cross and thence to triumph over and conquer all the powers of the world, as the apostle said of him: "Stripping himself of the flesh, he openly triumphed over the powers through the cross." And since the enemies' camp was in a valley, which valley indicated the site of the underworld, where ..., we have shown above that the three hundred are marked in the image of the cross, so that he might destroy and annihilate the innumerable number of enemies, that is, the legions of demons. But what moves me is that he says: "If you are afraid to go down, your servant too will go down into the camp." What strength, what power had the servant, trusting in whom Gideon was ordered to go down into the enemies' camp? Gideon's fear significantly shows that fear of the Lord's passion which the Lord himself, coming to his passion, spoke of: "Alas, why is my soul sorrowful even to death! Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me." But he repeats: "Not as I will, but as you will." What is this? The fear was not of God but of the man he had taken up. And so he confessed fear deliberately, to prove that he had truly put on a man, who would fear death. See how many marks of his flesh were impressed: when he thirsts, when he hungers, when he is wearied, when he weeps and is sorrowful, finally when he dies! And yet there are many heretics who deny that he put on human flesh, but say he was a phantom. What would people do if these signs had not been given beforehand? And so he said, "if it is possible," let the cup of the passion pass, to prove that he had truly put on a man, to whom according to nature death would seem fearful. For God, who is life, could not fear death, he whom death itself feared. But who is this servant of whom it is said, "Your servant too will go down into the camp"? I understand this servant to be none other than John the Baptist, the forerunner, that is, and harbinger of the Lord's coming. For as he was sent ahead in the world to prepare the ways of the Lord and make straight the paths of our God, so too he was to run ahead into the enemies' camp, that is, to the underworld, to announce the coming of Christ to the dead there also. For it was necessary that after his passion he should also descend to the underworld, and rescue the souls of the patriarchs, which were held captive there by the enemies, that is, by the spirits of darkness, and bring them back with him, as victor, into paradise. Indeed, when John was held in Herod's prison, he sends word to the Lord thus: "Are you he who is to come, or do we wait for another?" He spoke of his coming to the underworld, where he himself was going to run ahead. For he knew that he had already come into the world, and had already pointed him out to the people, saying: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world." And so he says it since he was certainly to announce his coming in the underworld too, so that, sent ahead by the Lord's authority and not by his own presumption, he might indicate his coming.

But he added further: "And Midian," it says, "and Amalek and all the opponents were like locusts, and their camels were without number." Midian here foreshadowed the image of the devil, and Amalek that of death, who had set their seats and camp in the valley, that is, in the underworld. "But all," it says, "the opponents were like locusts." Wonderfully he compared to locusts all the opponents, that is, the powers of this air, of which the blessed apostle says: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of this darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." For these powers, like locusts flying in the air of this world, devour and consume by their savagery the crop of good character, that is, the fruitful fasts of men and their nature rich in righteousness, as if it were a harvest. The camels, of which he says there was no number, are the princes of the demons themselves, crooked, huge, and twisted, in whom no heart judges rightly, who, burning with the flames of madness, grind their teeth with gnashing to sharpen more fiercely the fury of their malice. But he added further: "And Gideon entered the camp, and behold, a man was telling his neighbor a dream and said: 'I dreamed, and behold, a barley loaf was rolling in a kneading trough into the camp of Midian, and it came to the tent of Midian and struck it, and it fell and overturned.'" That kneading trough, then, in which the loaf was rolling that struck, scattered, and destroyed the enemies' camp, what else did it signify than the bosom or womb of the Virgin Mary, in which Christ, the bread of life, made under the law, born of a woman, was rolling, since our Lord had come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it? Hence it came about that from five barley loaves he fed five thousand men. This bread, then, was made of our body, as the apostle says, under the law, of a woman. It came and struck the camp of the enemies, that is, it crushed by the power of its majesty all the might of the devil and all the soldiery of Satan. Then Gideon divides those three hundred men by hundreds. He does not divide them so as to make parts, but to establish threefold beginnings, because the image of the cross, by which the three hundred are figured in the letter tau, had to consist in the distribution of the Trinity. For no one conquers except one who has believed in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit with equal power and undifferentiated strength. See by what mystery of warfare Gideon conquered his enemies, by which we too who believe in Christ are accustomed to triumph over all the wickedness of the opposing power. As for his saying that these three hundred men were chosen lapping water like dogs, the reason is that the Gentiles before they believe are compared to dogs, as the Lord himself said of the Gentile, that is, Canaanite, woman: "It is not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs." And she answered: "Even the dogs gather what falls from their masters' table." Hence it is plain that dogs clearly indicate the figure of the Gentiles. And since from the Gentiles were to come those who would believe in Christ, God the Son of God, and would win victory over the enemies, that is, the unclean spirits, through the sign of the cross, he therefore commands that those be chosen whom he had seen lapping water like dogs, to show that believers from the Gentiles would rather win the victory through the sign of the cross.

But there is still another mystery which Gideon used in this battle. When he divided the hundreds of men into three companies, "he gave them," it says, "trumpets into their hands, and empty jars, and torches in the middle of the jars. And they blew," it says, "the trumpets, and broke the jars they had, and each took in his left hand the torches and in his right hand the trumpets with which they blew, and they shouted: 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.'" O most mighty war, O wonderful battle and victory to be proclaimed, that three hundred men, who marked the sign of the cross by their number, should utterly defeat an innumerable number of enemies with trumpets, torches, and broken jars! So too Abraham conquered five barbarian kings with their armies with three hundred and eighteen servants born in his house, and rescued and brought back all the property they had plundered, and also his brother's son Lot, whom they were leading captive. This number of servants, set at three hundred, clearly outlined, as has often been said, the sign of the cross. In the eighteen I will show the name of Jesus by evident reasoning. For eighteen among the Greeks is signified by iota and eta, letters with which the name of Jesus is written. But now let us see what these empty jars, what the trumpets, what the torches indicate. Among the Greeks hydriae are called water vessels. These jars bore the figure of our flesh, which was made from the mud of the earth and prepared for the water of baptism. That our bodies are compared to earthen vessels the apostle Paul proves when he says: "Having the treasure in earthen vessels." "But they were empty," it says. For they had not yet drawn the water of baptism, and so they were called empty. But perhaps someone may say: "If those jars signified our bodies, why were they broken?" No one doubts, brothers, that no Christian can win victory over his enemies unless he first breaks within his fleshly works by the power of the Spirit. And so he says: "And they broke," it says, "the jars they had, and each took in his left hand the torches and in his right the trumpets." But the broken jars must be followed out more fully. See, the prophet Jeremiah says: "And the Lord led me into the potter's house where he was making vessels. A vessel fell," he says, "from the wheel and was broken"; and he melted it again in water so that a better vessel might be formed anew. The clay, then, is what the hand of the divine potter had pressed from the mud of the earth into the form of the human body and fashioned in the image of God. Because this had been contaminated with vices through Adam, defiled with the filth of crimes, and shattered by the tree of transgression, since it had not yet been fired by the fiery Spirit in the furnace of the Church, it was therefore broken, and again tempered like clay in the water of baptism, so that the Lord, the craftsman, whom he calls the potter, might make the soul, changed in the pool of washing and then placed on the wheel of the Gospel, turned by frequent motions of profession, then compacted by pledges and bound by the bonds of discipline, and fired by the heat of the Holy Spirit, fit and able to receive heavenly grace. Nor is it surprising that in the service of the old man the jars were broken, since in the war of persecution we cannot conquer our enemy the devil otherwise than by breaking our bodies in martyrdom by various tortures and finally by death itself. As for their taking up torches and trumpets, this too is true, dearest brothers: when we crush fleshly vices, or, as I said, break our bodies by death itself in persecution for the name of Christ, then we take up the torches of martyrdom and the glowing firebrands of faith, with which, in the night of this world, we show to those wandering, blinded by the darkness of ignorance, the light of truth, or run to meet the Lord, the bridegroom, as he comes, so that we may more easily enter the bridal chamber according to the Gospel. And the trumpets, the praises of the divine works, we use either to train the soldiers of Christ by sounding the signal, or, roaring with a hoarse war-cry, to rouse the stubborn and sleeping of the earth.