Tractates on the Books of Holy Scripture (Tractatus Origenis) 9.1–10.5

"The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 'Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: This month shall be for you the beginning of months, the first among the months of the year.'" All things established by divine counsel and judgment have their beginnings, from which they arose and started; they have causes on account of which they had to be signified; they are not without reason, but have fixed orders of times, so that they are not thrown into confusion by indiscriminate mixing. So the mystery of the Passover, dearest brothers, which is now celebrated in the passion of the Lord's body, was not sudden or unforeseen. For whatever is new and splendid and magnificent was shown beforehand in likeness through the ancient law, so that faith in the deed might be the more commended by the past signification. Hence, if you are willing to attend to our Lord's passion through the image of the likeness shown long ago, you will find that this lamb, which was sacrificed at the Passover, was a figure of Christ, who struck Egypt and set Israel free. Indeed Jeremiah, the most accepted of the prophets, calls our God and Savior this lamb when he says: "I, like a spotless lamb without malice, was led to death"; and his companion Isaiah says: "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer, so he did not open his mouth. In humiliation his judgment was taken away; who will tell his generation?" O what kind of lamb is this, whose birth the Scripture says cannot be told? "A sheep," it says, "a male, a year old, mature it shall be; from the sheep and the goats you shall take it. And it shall be kept for you until the fourteenth day of this month, and the whole multitude of the congregation of the sons of Israel shall kill it toward evening." Here is a very great and almost inextricable question: that such a lamb should be sought as has been begotten of sheep and goats, since a common offspring of animals that do not agree in mating is hardly possible. So if such a lamb as is written for the Passover cannot be found, how can the Passover be kept when such a lamb is lacking to be sacrificed at the Passover? And we have already proved that this lamb bore the image of our God and Savior, who is called a lamb not only because of his innocence but also because of his wool, since he would clothe the bodies of the human race, [stripped] by transgression, with the garment of immortality. "From the sheep," it says, "and the goats you shall take it": we must take "from the sheep and the goats" as the Savior himself taught in the Gospel: "I will set," he says, "the righteous like sheep at the right hand, but the sinners like goats at the left." And since the short span of the hours will not let us bring forward many examples, the account must be given in brief of how this lamb is born from sheep and goats.

Ruth, then, was a Moabite, of a sinful nation, which blessed Moses had excluded, saying: "Moabites and Ammonites shall not enter the assembly of God until the tenth generation"; but Boaz was an Israelite, a righteous man of the line of the patriarchs, of the tribe of Judah. He, as the Scripture testifies, after the tenth generation took as wife the Moabite named Ruth, and from him is born Obed, from Obed Jesse, from Jesse David, and from David, according to the order of generations, holy Mary is born, from whom Christ took flesh, having, namely, a twofold origin of that flesh: from the goats, the sinners of the Moabite nation, from whom we showed that Ruth, mother of Obed, came; and from the sheep of the patriarchs, from whom Boaz his father was, a righteous man, of the race of Abraham, of the tribe of Judah. Hence this spotless lamb, that is, Christ our Lord, is called the lion of the tribe of Judah: for "the lion of the tribe of Judah," it says, "the root of David, has conquered." And Isaiah: "A rod," he says, "shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall go up from his root": this is Jesse, the father of David, from whose root, that is, race, the rod, that is, Mary, arose, from whom the flower, Christ, went up. Indeed blessed Moses too, knowing this mystery of Christ's birth, said that this lamb was to be sacrificed from the sheep and the goats, because, if the Lord had put on a human body only from Israel, which the law calls sheep, and not from the Gentiles of sinners, whom it likens to goats, the Gentiles would not have been found worthy to believe in Christ or be saved, because they would not have the pledge of their flesh in the body of Christ. But now the Gentiles are saved in Christ because they were found worthy to have the pledge of their redemption, from the origin of Ruth, in the body of Christ. And so the only such lamb as was sought for the Passover, from the sheep and the goats, was found to be Christ, who is slain no more than once, so that the true Passover of the Lord may be celebrated. "It is the Lord's Passover," it says; it did not say "the people's," so that, since the Passover took its name from the passion, it might be called the Lord's Passover, because not the people but the Lord was sacrificed in the figure of the lamb. Indeed blessed Paul the apostle says: "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed." But I confess, dearest brothers, that I wonder that, in saying "sheep" (ovis, feminine), he named it male. For no one calls a sheep male; but here he says: "The sheep shall be for you mature, male, a year old, from the lambs and the goats." When he names a sheep, he indicates the flesh of Christ, which the apostle defined as the Church, saying, "the flesh of Christ, which is the Church," from which all of us who believe in Christ have been begotten, whose offspring are called saints. He says "male" in order to show that that flesh is not feminine but manly, that is, of a mature man, because there is not male and female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus. And so such a spotless lamb is chosen, so that the simplicity and innocence of Christ may be shown under the figure of this lamb; a male is sought, so that his unconquered strength may be proved; it is called a year old, because from the time he was baptized in the Jordan by John, when John said, "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world," Christ suffered when the time of his preaching was completed and fulfilled, as David foretold of this: "You will bless the crown of the year of your kindness." It is also mature, because, as the apostle says, "all the fullness of the divinity dwells in him bodily"; in the first month, because he who had come to take away the sins of the world had to suffer at the time in which the beginnings of the world took place, calling the end back to the origin, so that all that had perished in Adam might be restored in Christ. For whoever means to overthrow something attacks the very birth of its nature, and cuts off the hope of renewed vigor by killing the root completely. And so the world was overcome by the Lord's passion at the very time of its birth, so that it might be broken together with the seed of all evils, as the Lord himself says to his apostles in the Gospel: "Rejoice and exult, for I have overcome the world."

"But you shall eat unleavened bread," it says, "with bitter herbs," because it was going to be bitter for the Jews themselves that they would kill their Lord and the prince of life, whose living death, so to speak, raised the dead. Bitter for them, certainly, that they came by night as if against a robber; bitter the nails with which they fixed him; bitter the unleavened bread always to be eaten by them; bitter the words they shouted, "His blood be on us and on our children"; bitter Judas Iscariot, whom they hired for a fee; bitter the thorns with which they crowned his head in mockery; bitter the hands with which they shed the Lord's blood. Therefore he commanded that this be eaten with bitter herbs, because everything they were going to do in the passion of the lamb, that is, of Christ, would be bitter for them. And since, as the apostle says, the cross of Christ is folly to those who are perishing but to those who are to be saved it is the power of God, and the fragrance of Christ is to some a fragrance of life to life, to others a fragrance of death to death, therefore, as it was bitter for them to persecute the Son of God, so the drink of gall and vinegar expiated the bitternesses of our sins. And as the thresholds of the house are smeared with the lamb's blood, so that the angel who laid Egypt waste might be kept from the houses marked with the lamb's blood, so too we cannot otherwise escape the disasters of this world and enter the kingdom of God except through the sign of the blood of the Lord's passion. For the blood of Christ is salvation to believers, punishment to unbelievers. For Egypt was in the likeness of this world, Pharaoh of the devil. The people of Israel bore our type. So, as that people was freed from Egypt through the sacrifice of the lamb, through the mystery of the Passover, so we too who believe in him are freed from the captivity of this world and from the tyranny of Pharaoh, that is, the devil. And as Pharaoh, who was pursuing the sons of the Israelites, perished overwhelmed in the water in which the people was freed, so now too in the same water of baptism in which we are freed, Pharaoh, that is, the devil, perishes ... in shipwreck. "But you shall eat it roasted with fire." For the word of God is always fiery. "And let nothing of it be left over," because there is nothing in Christ that can be rejected; "its bones shall not be broken," because the strength of Christ is unconquered; "but if anything is left over, it shall be consumed with fire," that is, if a man cannot grasp something of Christ, let it be reserved to the Holy Spirit, because Scripture testifies that the Holy Spirit came upon believers like fire. "So," it says, "you shall eat the head and the feet and the inner parts." The meaning here is threefold, but for speed it must be explained concisely: the head is the beginning, the inner parts the middle, and the feet the things to come; the learned and instructed understand these things. For the head of Christ is the Father; the inner parts are the divine Word himself, who has made known the bosom of the Father; and the Spirit, the Paraclete, had the apostles as feet, through whom he ran announcing the truth. "So," it says, "you shall eat: you shall have your loins girded, and let there be sandals on your feet," so that we may walk in faith with firm step and steady devotion. "Let there be a staff in your hands," so that it might show the firmest pillar of the cross,

with which we are supported. "And you shall eat unleavened bread," it says, "and whoever eats what is leavened shall die the death." Did it seem just that whoever ate what was leavened should die the death? Surely, if leaven polluted a man, it should have been forbidden not only at the Passover but at all times, since God commands his servants to remain clean and purged not only on the day of the Passover but at all times. But since we have said that the Passover took its name from the passion, this indicated that whoever believed in the Lord's passion and was found worthy to receive the Passover of the sacred body must now cast away from his mind the leaven of malice and wickedness, as the blessed apostle says: "Cast out the old leaven, so that you may be a new lump, in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." Therefore, dearest brothers, this Passover of the Lord, prefigured through the law, urged by the threat that whoever did not keep it should die the death, foretold by the prophetic voice, awaited through the hope of the ancients, fulfilled through the apostolic preaching, received through the faith of the Gospel, consecrated through the blood of Christ, ordained for the future resurrection: who would not receive it with all reverence and devout awe, since the Scripture says, "It is the Lord's Passover," that is, the Lord's passion? By this passion the world was redeemed, the devil laid low, Christ's triumph made glorious. This, I say, is the venerable and saving mystery of the Passover, by which Christ, the sun of righteousness, killed the law of death and, by rising again, showed us a new day brighter than the heat of the sun, at which cruel hell shuddered, at which, as Christ rose, heaven opened. Whoever, then, celebrates the mystery of so great a gift with lawful observance is a sharer with the apostles, a companion of the prophets; he fulfills the law, keeps the faith of the Gospel, honors Christ, magnifies God the Father, extends his hope toward everlasting salvation, gains a glorious account for himself. For he keeps the ordinance laid down by God the Father himself, which he willed and commanded to be kept in Christ,

"And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 'Speak to Aaron and say to him: Any man who offers, according to all his promise and according to all his choice, a sacrifice of salvation to the Lord.'" I know, dearest brothers, that I have often treated this book of Leviticus and have explained to your charity, as I could and, I think, as I ought, its difficult and almost inextricable questions. But the reading that has just been read also has so many questions, such tangled obscurities, that the edge of the mind can hardly plunge into the secrets of the matters, can hardly gaze on and look into the depths of the words and notice the subtleties of the sayings: so wrapped is each thing in the coverings of allegory, so darkened by the cloud of riddles, that they can hardly be understood and explained. Yet, relying not on my own ability but on confidence in the divine promise, in which he says, "Ask and you will receive, for to everyone who asks it will be given, and to him who knocks it will be opened, and he who seeks will find," and "There is nothing hidden that will not be made known, and nothing covered that will not be revealed," I venture through the Lord to preach on this very reading, so that what seems stored away in a more secret recess may be opened into the light of knowledge, and openly ... unless a sacrifice of praise has been offered to God. For each one, as he has or is able, as far as the mind of believers is sufficient, ought to offer the gift of his devotion. And so it says: "Any man who offers the sacrifice of his vow to the Lord." Not that God needs sacrifices of this kind, since all things are his and he is wholly full and perfect, as it is written: "What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord? I am full; I do not want burnt offerings of rams and the fat of bulls and goats"; but so that man, through obedience to the law, may make God favorable to himself and by God's favor be freed from the enemy. Indeed Job too offered sacrifices to the Lord according to the number of his sons, so that they might be cleansed from sin. But now God does not seek such sacrifices as were then offered bloodily from the bringing of cattle; rather he desires our mind and conduct, and a heart humbled in the fear of God, as it is written: "A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise." For there is a sacrifice that is offered in the devotion of martyrdom, as it is written: "And when they have killed you, they will offer a sacrifice to God." There is the sacrifice of virginity, when someone has vowed himself to serve God wholly in body and spirit. There is also the sacrifice of almsgiving, when each one, with a willing mind, gives to the poor as he has, as it is written: "Give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you." There is also the sacrifice of continence, because God loves the chaste. There is also the saving sacrifice ..., because "Blessed," it says, "are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." There is also the sacrifice of the fear of God and of good faith. Indeed the blessed apostle Paul called the conduct of the saints a living sacrifice pleasing to God, saying: "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice pleasing to God, your reasonable service." And the most holy Barnabas: "Through him," he says, "we offer to God a sacrifice of praise, of lips confessing his name." So, then, we offer our bodies as a sacrifice pleasing to God when we serve God in all holiness and chastity, innocence, faith, and religion. Indeed we are also called the temple of God, as the apostle says: "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you." For in this temple we present to God pure sacrifices, clean libations of good conduct, a sacrifice pleasing to God as an odor of sweetness, as the apostle says: "We are the good odor of Christ." We have said that martyrdom is a living sacrifice pleasing to God, and that virginity too is a clean sacrifice. Continence is a reasonable service, and prayer from a pure heart is acceptable to God. Indeed the prayers of the saints are offered to the Lord like incense by the hand of an angel, as can be recognized in the Apocalypse. And it speaks of a living sacrifice

because the good conduct of the saints does not have in itself the appearance of death, that is, the mark of sin, as the apostle says, "The sting of death is sin," and "Through sin death came." For in this way he presents a living sacrifice to God who, living his life without sin, has lost the appearance of death. But if anyone says that he has offered his virginity to God as a sacrifice and is not a virgin, he cannot deceive God; or if anyone who has professed continence lives incontinently, or, giving alms, defrauds others, so as to turn into the joy of some what he seems to have made others mourn for, this is the act of a deceiver rather than of a believer, to bestow not one's own but another's: these are appearances of death. And so such conduct, which by living badly has taken into itself the works of death, cannot be called a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice, then, is love from a pure heart and an unfeigned conscience. A living sacrifice is faith without stain. A living sacrifice is a tongue without deceit. A living sacrifice is almsgiving without fraud. A living sacrifice is an eye without offense. A living sacrifice is a religious life, a pure faith, a sincere soul. And so the Scripture has named our reasonable service, that is, holy conduct, a living sacrifice pleasing to God. But since the figurative law commanded what was to be done spiritually to be observed first, for a time, in a fleshly way, so that spiritual things might be shown in place of fleshly ones, heavenly in place of earthly, invisible in place of visible, we must therefore go back over the kinds of cattle I have named. "You shall not offer," it says, "a blind victim." This is true, dearest brothers, because a blind mind, since it neither sees God nor does his works, cannot offer a sacrifice to the Lord. For there are many who want to please men for the present: they curse the works of sin, yet do the same things they blame in others, having their heart blinded, not knowing that in judging another they condemn themselves by doing the same things. And so these are called blind and are rightly rejected from God's sacrifice. But he added further: "Torn away," it says, "or having its tongue cut off." Torn away is he who, though he has believed in Christ and through the sacrament of baptism has cleaved to the Lord's body, as the apostle says, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ," nevertheless, if he is greedy for avarice, which is the root of all evils, greedy for worldly offices, greedy for vices and public powers, living luxuriously without regard for religion, he is rightly said to be torn away from Christ by his bad conduct; and not only torn away but also, as is written in this place, he is called crushed; for it says: "neither torn away nor crushed." For one who has rolled back from religion to the world is crushed on the earth, as he savors earthly things and broods over earthly acts; he has fallen from heaven to earth, and so is crushed and battered. And so, just as an animal torn away by force or by theft, crushed and battered, could not then be offered in sacrifice, so too the conduct of those who have been torn away from Christ by the vice of the world or the iniquity of the devil, crushed on the earth and battered by fleshly vices, cannot be counted in the sacrifice of God.

But he added further: "And having its tongue cut off." He has his tongue cut off who does not confess and proclaim his God, who does not meditate on the divine law, as it is written of the blessed man: "And on his law he will meditate day and night." Certainly he above all has his tongue cut off who in time of persecution, fearing the stench of prison or tortures or finally death itself, does not confess and praise his God. And so such people, who are said to have their tongue cut off because they do not confess their God, are rejected from the divine sacrifice. "Nor worm-ridden." Worm-ridden is said of one whose bodily members are overrun by the fault of an itch. These worms, then, are unclean spirits, which often insert themselves into the bodies of men and stir up the itch of lust and of various desires; they also send in the itch of avarice, the itch of unchastity, and the itch of all fleshly greed, and do not let the body or soul remain quiet in holiness and goodness, but corrupt everything and bring it to the rottenness of adultery. And so these worms, that is, unclean spirits, tempters and corrupters of souls and bodies, were first cast out by the salt of the heavenly word, so that they might restore the body, salted with the salt of divine wisdom, to its due holiness, as the Lord said to his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth," so that the flesh of man might no longer be worm-ridden earth, but wise salt killing the worm of sin. "Nor having," it says, "field mange." We must observe more carefully what field mange is. The Lord in his parables set down that the field is the world, saying: "Lord, you sowed good seed in your field; where then do these weeds come from?" and afterwards, in the explanation of the parable: "The field," he says, "is the world"; and again: "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field," so that by the field he might indicate the world, and by the treasure the law, in which Christ is hidden. Since, then, it has now been proved that the field must be understood as the world, we must see what this field mange is. No one doubts, dearest brothers, that mange is customarily named for sin, as is the darnel that the enemy sowed in that same field. But let us see why he called it field mange: "Nor," it says, "having field mange." For the sin of the flesh is born in the world. So when he names field mange, he marks the sins of the Gentiles, that is, idolatry, incest, adultery, murder, lying with males, and effeminate men, who exceed every measure of sinning and infect not a part of the body but the whole body. Therefore, beloved, he named these worldly and most shameful vices of the flesh field mange, that is, worldly, so that, just as a mangy animal is barred from sacrifice, so too any man of the Church's body who has these crimes is rejected from the sacrifice of God. For such contagions often insinuate themselves into the bodies of Christians. And so, as I said, they are rejected from the Lord's sacrifice.

But he added further: "Nor having ringworm." Ringworm is one thing, field mange another. We have already said that field mange is the sins of the Gentiles, who exceed the measure of sinning. Ringworm is the gathering of heretics, which often plunges itself into the body of the Church. For as ringworm makes a round and moist circle, so heretics make gatherings both unlawful and round: that is, always learning and never arriving at the knowledge of the truth, they turn in endless questions. Hence the blessed apostle Paul forbids endless questions and genealogies without end. This, then, is the round gathering of heretics which he calls ringworm, which always turns in questions and has no end of resisting. For every circle does not know where it ends, because it always turns, and where it has ended, it begins. Though it is on the body, it is not the body but a blemish on the body. Hence the blessed apostle John says of such heretics: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us." So, when the divine Scripture rejects a victim that has ringworm, it certainly curses the teaching of heretics. "Nor," it says, "shall you offer in sacrifice a victim having its ear cut off." What do you think, brothers, a victim with its ear cut off must be understood to mean, if not the man who has ears to hear the word of God but does not do what is commanded? Hence the blessed apostle too accuses these two kinds of people, one that does not believe the Gospel, the other that does not obey. So this one too has ears to hear so as to believe, but has no will to do, and so his ear is said to be cut off, not one that never existed but one that seems cut away. These are those who hear the Gospel of Christ, but cut off their very hearing when they scorn doing what is commanded. Hence the blessed apostle Paul says that not the hearers of the law but the doers are justified before God. And by this it must now be plain to you that, when the figurative law rejects from God's sacrifice a victim with its ear cut off, it is not the condition of the animal that it rejects but the life of those who cut off their own hearing by not doing what has been commanded. "Nor," it says, "shall you offer a victim having its tail cut off." The tail is a kind of protection for animals, with which they drive off flies and gadflies and everything hostile. But in comparing these things (since the sacred law was speaking not of cattle but of men, as the blessed apostle also explains, "God has no care for oxen, but he said this for us"), so in this place too it was speaking not of an animal's tail but of a man's conduct. What should we understand by the flies and gadflies driven off by the tail, if not all the demons and wandering spirits of this air, which often harass not only the bodies but also the souls of believers? Hence the blessed apostle Paul mentions these flies and gadflies, that is, the wandering and flying spirits of this air, when he says: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of this world of darkness." So all the demons that harass the bodies or souls of believers must be driven off by the tail of religion. For what is the tail if not the grace of faith? For as the tail is at the end of the body, so in the last times the grace of spiritual faith has been given. And as flies and gadflies are driven off by the tail, so by the spiritual grace that has been granted to believers in the last times all these wandering demons flying through the air of this

world are driven off from the bodies and souls of the faithful. Not without reason, then, was the conduct of men shown by the comparison with cattle: for just as an animal whose tail is cut off cannot drive off what attacks it, so too a man who has lost the spiritual chrism received through faith in the last times can in no way be a sacrifice, but will be exposed to unclean and wandering spirits. And he added: "Nor castrated," it says, that is, with testicles cut off, "nor with them torn out; you shall not offer these to the Lord." Those are said to have their testicles cut off who, though they are males in body, give the use of their body in the place of women. And so, when he rejects such a victim, he condemns men re-formed into women; he casts out those who lie with males. Hence the apostle excludes such men from the kingdom of God, saying: "Neither the effeminate nor those who lie with males will see the kingdom of God." Nor, he says, is that gift to be offered which has been taken from a stranger. The stranger is he who is outside the faith and alien to the godly discipline, that is, the devil, as the Lord too says of Antichrist: "When another comes, him you will receive." And so he says "another," that is, an alien. And so, when he forbids the offering of a victim received from a stranger, that is, an alien, he rejects the man who, taking up the works of malice from the foreigner, that is, the devil, carries out an alien will. For what kind of sacrifice to God can such a man be, who does not do the things of God? And this is what Scripture says, that what is received from the hand of a foreigner must not be offered to God. But it is enough to have treated these things thus far.