30. Of What John Learned from Jesus when Mary Visited Elisabeth in the Hill Country.

“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him.” (Joh_1:29) The mother of Jesus had formerly, as soon as she conceived, stayed with the mother of John, also at that time with child, and the Former then communicated to the Formed with some exactness His own image, and caused him to be conformed to His glory. And from this outward similarity it came that with those who did not distinguish between the image itself and that which was according to the image, John was thought to be Christ (Luk_3:14) and Jesus was supposed (Mat_14:2) to be John risen from the dead. So now Jesus, after the testimonies of John to Him which we have examined, is Himself seen by the Baptist coming to him. It is to be noticed that on the former occasion, when the voice of Mary’s salutation came to the ears of Elisabeth, the babe John leaped in the womb of his mother, who then received the Holy Spirit, as it were, from the ground. For it came to pass, we read, (Luk_1:41, Luk_1:42) “when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry and said,” etc. On this occasion, similarly, John sees Jesus coming to him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” For with regard to matters of great moment one is first instructed by hearing and afterwards one sees them with one’s own eyes. That John was helped to the shape he was to wear by the Lord who, still in the process of formation and in His mother’s womb, approached Elisabeth, will be clear to any one who has grasped our proof that John is a voice but that Jesus is the Word, for when Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit at the salutation of Mary there was a great voice in her, as the words themselves bear; for they say, “And she spake out with a loud voice.” Elisabeth, it is plain, did this, “and she spake.” For the voice of Mary’s salutation coming to the ears of Elisabeth filled John with itself; hence John leaps, and his mother becomes, as it were, the mouth of her son and a prophetess, crying out with a loud voice and saying, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” Now we see clearly how it was with Mary’s hasty journey to the hill country, and her entrance into the house of Zacharias, and the greeting with which she salutes Elisabeth; it was that she might communicate some of the power she derived from Him she had conceived, to John, yet in his mother’s womb, and that John too might communicate to his mother some of the prophetic grace which had come to him, that all these things were done. And most rightly was it in the hill country that these transactions took place, since no great thing can be entertained by those who are low and may be thence called valleys. Here, then, after the testimonies of John, – the first, when he cried and spoke about His deity; the second, addressed to the priests and levites who were sent by the Jews from Jerusalem; and the third, in answer to the sharper questions of those from the Pharisees, – Jesus is seen by the witness-bearer coming to him while he is still advancing and growing better. This advance and improvement is symbolically indicated in the phrase, “On the morrow.” For Jesus came in the consequent illumination, as it were, and on the day after what had preceded, not only known as standing in the midst even of those who knew Him not, but now plainly seen advancing to him who had formerly made such declarations about Him. On the first day the testimonies take place, and on the second Jesus comes to John. On the third John, standing with two of his disciples and looking upon Jesus as He walked, said, “Behold the Lamb of God,” thus urging those who were there to follow the Son of God. On the fourth day, too, He was minded to go forth into Galilee, and He who came forth to seek that which Was lost finds Philip and says to him, “Follow Me.” And on that day, after the fourth, which is the sixth from the beginning of those we have enumerated, the marriage takes place in Cana of Galilee, which we shall have to consider when we get to the passage. Note this, too, that Mary being the greater comes to Elisabeth, who is the less, and the Son of God comes to the Baptist; which should encourage us to render help without delay to those who are in a lower position, and to cultivate for ourselves a moderate station. 

 

31. Of the Conversation Between John and Jesus at the Baptism, Recorded by Matthew Only.

John the disciple does not tell us where the Saviour comes from to John the Baptist, but we learn this from Matthew, who writes: (Mat_3:13) “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan to John, to be baptized of him.” And Mark adds the place in Galilee; he says, (Mar_1:9) “And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in Jordan.” Luke does not mention the place Jesus came from, but on the other hand he tells us what we do not learn from the others, that immediately after the baptism, as He was coming up, heaven was opened to Him, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove. Again, it is Matthew alone who tells us of John’s preventing the Lord, saying to the Saviour, “I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?” None of the others added this after Matthew, so that they might not be saying just the same as he. And what the Lord rejoined, “Suffer it now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,” this also Matthew alone recorded.

 

32. John Calls Jesus a “Lamb.” Why Does He Name This Animal Specially? of the Typology of The Sacrifices, Generally.

“And he sayeth, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (Joh_1:29) There were five animals which were brought to the altar, three that walk and two that fly; and it seems to be worth asking why John calls the Saviour a lamb and not any of these other creatures, and why, when each of the animals that walk is offered of three kinds he used for the sheep-kind the term “lamb.” The five animals are as follows: the bullock, the sheep, the goat, the turtle-dove, the pigeon. And of the walking animals these are the three kinds – bullock, ox, calf; ram, sheep, lamb; he-goat, goat, kid. Of the flying animals, of pigeons we only hear of two young ones; of turtle doves only of a pair. He, then, who would accurately understand the spiritual rationale of the sacrifices must enquire of what heavenly things these were the pattern and the shadow, and also for what end the sacrifice of each victim is prescribed, and he must specially collect the points connected with the lamb. Now that the principle of the sacrifice must be apprehended with reference to certain heavenly mysteries, appears from the words of the Apostle, who somewhere (Heb_8:5, Heb_9:23) says, “Who serve a pattern and shadow of heavenly things,” and again, “It was necessary that the patterns of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.” Now to find out all the particulars of these and to state in its relation to them that sacrifice of the spiritual law which took place in Jesus Christ (a truth greater than human nature can comprehend) – to do this belongs to no other than the perfect man, (Heb_5:14) who, by reason of use, has his senses exercised to discern good and evil, and who is able to say, from a truth-loving disposition, (1Co_2:6) “We speak wisdom among them that are perfect.” Of these things truly and things like these, we can say, (Exo_29:38-44) “Which none of the rulers of this world knew.”

 

33. A Lamb Was Offered at the Morning and Evening Sacrifice. Significance of This.

Now we find the lamb offered in the continual daily sacrifice. Thus it is written, (Exo_29:38-44) “This is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually, for a continual sacrifice. The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning, and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even, and a tenth part of fine flour mingled with beaten oil, the fourth part of a hin; and for a drink-offering the fourth part of a bin of wine to the first lamb. And the other lamb thou shalt offer in the evening, according to the first sacrifice and according to its drink-offering. Thou shalt offer a sweet savour, an offering to the Lord, a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of tent of witness before the Lord, where I will make myself known to thee, to speak unto thee. And I will appoint thee for the children of Israel, and I will be sanctified in my glory, and with sanctification I will sanctify the tent of witness.” But what other continual sacrifice can there be to the man of reason in the world of mind, but the Word growing to maturity, the Word who is symbolically called a lamb and who is offered as soon as the soul receives illumination. This would be the continual sacrifice of the morning, and it is offered again when the sojourn of the mind with divine things comes to an end. For it cannot maintain for ever its intercourse with higher things, seeing that the soul is appointed to be yoked together with the body which is of earth and heavy.

 

34. The Morning and Evening Sacrifices of the Saint in His Life of Thought.

But if any one asks what the saint is to do in the time between morning and evening, let him follow what takes place in the cultus and infer from it the principle he asks for. In that case the priests begin their offerings with the continual sacrifice, and before they come to the continuous one of the evening they offer the other sacrifices which the law prescribes, as, for example, that for transgression, or that for involuntary offences, or that connected with a prayer for salvation, or that of jealousy, or that of the Sabbath, or of the new moon, and so on, which it would take too long to mention. So we, beginning our oblation with the discourse of that type which is Christ, can go on to discourse about many other most useful things. And drawing to a close still in the things of Christ, we come, as it were, to evening and night, when we arrive at the bodily features of His manifestation.

 

35. Jesus Is a Lamb in Respect of His Human Nature.

If we enquire further into the significance of Jesus being pointed out by John, when he says, “This is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,” we may take our stand at the dispensation of the bodily advent of the Son of God in human life, and in that case we shall conceive the lamb to be no other than the man. For the man “was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb, dumb before his shearers,” (Isa_53:7) saying, “I was as like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter.” (Jer_11:19) Hence, too, in the Apocalypse (Rev_5:6) a lamb is seen, standing as if slain. This slain lamb has been made, according to certain hidden reasons, a purification of the whole world, for which, according to the Father’s love to man, He submitted to death, purchasing us back by His own blood from him who had got us into his power, sold under sin. And He who led this lamb to the slaughter was God in man, the great High-Priest, as he shows by the words: (Joh_10:18) “No one taketh My life away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”

 

36. Of the Death of the Martyrs Considered as a Sacrifice, and in What Way It Operates to the Benefit of Others.

Akin to this sacrifice are the others of which the sacrifices of the law are symbols, and another kind of sacrifice also appears to me to be of the same nature; namely, the shedding of the blood of the noble martyrs, whom the disciple John saw, for this is not without significance, standing beside the heavenly altar. “Who is wise, (Hos_14:9) and he shall understand these things, prudent, and he shall know them?” It is a matter of higher speculation to consider even slightly the rationale of those sacrifices which cleanse those for whom they are offered. Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter should receive attention; it was by vowing it that he conquered the children of Ammon, and the victim approved his vow, for when her father said, (Jdg_11:35) “I have opened my mouth unto the Lord against thee,” she answered, “If thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord against me, do that which thou hast vowed.” The story suggests that the being must be a very cruel one to whom such sacrifices are offered for the salvation of men; and we require some breadth of mind and some ability to solve the difficulties raised against Providence, to be able to account for such things and to see that they are mysteries and exceed our human nature. Then we shall say, (Wisdom of Solomon 17:1) “Great are the judgments of God, and hard to be described; for this cause untutored souls have gone astray.” Among the Gentiles, too, it is recorded that many a one, when pestilential disease broke out in his country, offered himself a victim for the public good. That this was the case the faithful Clement assumes,53 on the faith of the narratives, to whom Paul bears witness when he says, (Phi_4:3) “With Clement also, and the others, my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life.” If there is anything in these narratives that appears incongruous to one who is minded to carp at mysteries revealed to few, the same difficulty attaches to the office that was laid on the martyrs, for it was God’s will that we should rather endure all the dreadful reproaches connected with confessing Him as God, than escape for a short time from such sufferings which men count evil by allowing ourselves by our words to conform to the will of the enemies of the truth. We are, therefore, led to believe that the powers of evil do suffer defeat by the death of the holy martyrs; as if their patience, their confession, even unto death, and their zeal for piety blunted the edge of the onset of evil powers against the sufferer, and their might being thus dulled and exhausted, many others of those whom they had conquered raised their heads and were set free from the weight with which the evil powers formerly oppressed and injured them. And even the martyrs themselves are no longer involved in suffering, even though those agents which formerly wrought ill to others are not exhausted; for he who has offered such a sacrifice overcomes the power which opposed him, as I may show by an illustration which is suited to this subject. He who destroys a poisonous animal, or lulls it to sleep with charms, or by any means deprives it of its venom, he does good to many who would otherwise have suffered from that animal had it not been destroyed, or charmed, or emptied of its venom. Moreover, if one of those who were formerly bitten should come to know of this, and should be cured of his malady and look upon the death of that which injured him, or tread on it, or touch it when dead, or taste a part of it, then he, who was formerly a sufferer, would owe cure and benefit to the destroyer of the poisonous animal. In some such way must we suppose the death of the most holy martyrs to operate, many receiving benefit from it by an influence we cannot describe.

 

37. Of the Effects of the Death of Christ, of His Triumph After It, and of the Removal by His Death of the Sins of Men.

We have lingered over this subject of the martyrs and over the record of those who died on account of pestilence, because this lets us see the excellence of Him who was led as a sheep to the slaughter and was dumb as a lamb before the shearer. For if there is any point in these stories of the Greeks, and if what we have said of the martyrs is well rounded, – the Apostles, too, were for the same reason the filth of the world and the offscouring of all things, (1Co_4:13) – what and how great things must be said of the Lamb of God, who was sacrificed for this very reason, that He might take away the sin not of a few but of the whole world, for the sake of which also He suffered? If any one sin, we read, (1Jo_2:1, 1Jo_2:2) “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for those of the whole world,” since He is the Saviour of all men, (1Ti_4:10) especially of them that believe, who (Col_2:14, Col_2:15) blotted out the written bond that was against us by His own blood, and took it out of the way, so that not even a trace, not even of our blotted-out sins, might still be found, and nailed it to His cross; who having put off from Himself the principalities and powers, made a show of them openly, triumphing over them by His cross. And we are taught to rejoice when we suffer afflictions in the world, knowing the ground of our rejoicing to be this, that the world has been conquered and has manifestly been subjected to its conqueror. Hence all the nations, released from their former rulers, serve Him, because He (Psa_72:12) saved the poor from his tyrant by His own passion, and the needy who had no helper. This Saviour, then, having humbled the calumniator by humbling Himself, abides with the visible sun before His illustrious church, tropically called the moon, from generation to generation. And having by His passion destroyed His enemies, He who is strong in battle and a mighty Lord (Psa_24:8) required after His mighty deeds a purification which could only be given Him by His Father alone; and this is why He forbids Mary to touch Him, saying, (Joh_20:17) “Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father; bat go and tell My disciples, I go to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.” And when He comes, loaded with victory and with trophies, with His body which has risen from the dead, – for what other meaning can we see in the words, “I am not yet ascended to My Father,” and “I go unto My Father,” – then there are certain powers which say, Who is this that cometh from Edom, red garments from Bosor; this that is beautiful? (Isa_63:1) Then those who escort Him say to those that are upon the heavenly gates, (Psa_24:7, Psa_24:9) “Lift up your gates, ye rulers, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.” But they ask again, seeing as it were His right hand red with blood and His whole person covered with the marks of His valour, “Why are Thy garments red, and Thy clothes like the treading of the full winefat when it is trodden?” And to this He answers, “I have crushed them.” For this cause He had need to wash “His robe in wine, and His garment in the blood of the grape.” (Gen_49:11) For when He had taken up our infirmities and carried our diseases, and had borne the sin of the whole world, and had conferred blessings on so many, then, perhaps, He received that baptism which is greater than any that could ever be conceived among men, and of which I think He speaks when He says, (Luk_12:50) “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?” I enquire here with boldness and I challenge the ideas put forward by most writers. They say that the greatest baptism, beyond which no greater can be conceived, is His passion. But if this be so, why should He say to Mary after it, “Touch Me not”? He should rather have offered Himself to her touch, when by His passion He had received His perfect baptism. But if it was the case, as we said before, that after all His deeds of valour done against His enemies, He had need to wash “His robe in wine, His garment in the blood of the grape,” then He was on His way up to the husbandman of the true vine, the Father, so that having washed there and after having gone up on high, He might lead captivity captive and come down bearing manifold gifts – the tongues, as of fire, which were divided to the Apostles, and the holy angels which are to be present with them in each action and to deliver them. For before these economies they were not yet cleansed and angels could not dwell with them, for they too perhaps do not desire to be with those who have not prepared themselves nor been cleansed by Jesus. For it was of Jesus’ benignity alone that He ate and drank with publicans and sinners, and suffered the penitent woman who was a sinner to wash His feet with her tears, and went down even to death for the ungodly, counting it not robbery to be equal with God, and emptied Himself, assuming the form of a servant. And in accomplishing all this He fulfils rather the will of the Father who gave Him up for sinners than His own. For the Father is good, but the Saviour is the image of His goodness; and doing good to the world in all things, since God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, which formerly for its wickedness was all enemy to Him, He accomplishes His good deeds in order and succession, and does not all at once take all His enemies for His footstool. For the Father says to Him, to the Lord of us all, (Psa_110:1) “Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy enemies the footstool of Thy feet.” And this goes on till the last enemy, Death, is overcome by Him.

And if we consider what is meant by this subjection to Christ and find an explanation of this mainly from the saying, (1Co_15:26) “When all things shall have been put under Him, then shall the Son Himself be subjected to Him who put all things under Him,” then we shall see how the conception agrees with the goodness of the God of all, since it is that of the Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world. Not all men’s sin, however, is taken away by the Lamb of God, not the sin of those who do not grieve and suffer affliction till it be taken away. For thorns are not only fixed but deeply rooted in the hand of every one who is intoxicated by wickedness and has parted with sobriety, as it is said in the Proverbs, (Pro_26:9) “Thorns grow in the hand of the drunkard,” and what pain they must cause him who has admitted such growth in the substance of his soul, it is hard even to tell. Who has allowed wickedness to establish itself so deeply in his soul as to be a ground full of thorns, he must be cut down by the quick and powerful word of God, which is sharper than a two-edged sword, and which is more caustic than any fire. To such a soul that fire must be sent which finds out thorns, and by its divine virtue stands where they are and does not also burn up the threshing-floors or standing corn. But of the Lamb which takes away the sin of the world and begins to do so by His own death there are several ways, some of which are capable of being clearly understood by most, but others are concealed from most, and are known to those only who are worthy of divine wisdom. Why should we count up all the ways by which we come to believe among men? That is a thing which every one living in the body is able to see for himself. And in the ways in which we believe in these also, sin is taken away; by afflictions and evil spirits and dangerous diseases and grievous sicknesses. And who knows what follows after this? So much as we have said was not unnecessary – we could not neglect the thought which is so clearly connected with that of the words, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world,” and had therefore to attend somewhat closely to this part of our subject. This has brought us to see that God convicts some by His wrath and chastens them by His anger, since His love to men is so great that He will not leave any without conviction and chastening; so that we should do what in us lies to be spared such conviction and such chastening by the sorest trials.

 

38. The World, of Which the Sin Is Taken Away, Is Said to Be the Church. Reasons for Not Agreeing with This Opinion.

The reader will do well to consider what was said above and illustrated from various quarters on the question what is meant in Scripture by the word “world”; and I think it proper to repeat this. I am aware that a certain scholar understands by the world the Church alone, since the Church is the adornment of the world,54 and is said to be the light of the world. “You,” he says, (Mat_5:14) “are the light of the world.” Now, the adornment of the world is the Church, Christ being her adornment, who is the first light of the world. We must consider if Christ is said to be the light of the same world as His disciples. When Christ is the light of the world, perhaps it is meant that He is the light of the Church, but when His disciples are the light of the world, perhaps they are the light of others who call on the Lord, others in addition to the Church, as Paul says on this point in the beginning of his first Epistle to the Corinthians, where he writes, “To the Church of God, with all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Should any one consider that the Church is called the light of the world, meaning thereby of the rest of the race of men, including unbelievers, this may be true if the assertion is taken prophetically and theologically; but if it is to be taken of the present, we remind him that the light of a thing illuminates that thing, and would ask him to show how the remainder of the race is illuminated by the Church’s presence in the world. If those who hold the view in question cannot show this, then let them consider if our interpretation is not a sound one, that the light is the Church, and the world those others who call on the Name. The words which follow the above in Matthew will point out to the careful enquirer the proper interpretation. “You,” it is said, “are the salt of the earth,” the rest of mankind being conceived as the earth, and believers are their salt; it is because they believe that the earth is preserved. For the end will come if the salt loses its savour, and ceases to salt and preserve the earth, since it is clear that if iniquity is multiplied and love waxes cold upon the earth, (Mat_14:12) as the Saviour Himself uttered an expression of doubt as to those who would witness His coming, saying, (Luk_18:8) “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith upon the earth?” then the end of the age will come. Supposing, then, the Church to be called the world, since the Saviour’s light shines on it – we have to ask in connection with the text, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” whether the world here is to be taken intellectually of the Church, and the taking away of sin is limited to the Church. In that case what are we to make of the saying of the same disciple with regard to the Saviour, as the propitiation for sin? “If any man sin,” we read, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world?” Paul’s dictum appears to me to be to the same effect, when he says, (1Ti_4:10) “Who is the Saviour of all men, especially of the faithful.” Again, Heracleon, dealing with our passage, declares, without any proof or any citation of witnesses to that effect, that the words, “Lamb of God,” are spoken by John as a prophet, but the words, “who taketh away the sin of the world,” by John as more than a prophet. The former expression he considers to be used of His body, but the latter of Him who was in that body, because the lamb is an imperfect member of the genus sheep; the same being true of the body as compared with the dweller in it. Had he meant to attribute perfection to the body he would have spoken of a ram as about to be sacrificed. After the careful discussions given above, I do not think it necessary to enter into repetitions on this passage, or to controvert Heracleon’s careless utterances. One point only may be noted, that as the world was scarcely able to contain Him who had emptied Himself, it required a lamb and not a ram, that its sin might be taken away. 

 

 

FOOTNOTES

 

53 I Clement, 55. κοσμος means both “ornament” and “world”

Commentaries of Origen (Cont.)

Tenth Book.

1. Jesus Comes to Capernaum. Statements of the Four Evangelists Regarding This.

“After this (Joh_2:12-25) He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and there they abode not many days. And the passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and He found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting, and He made a sort of scourge of cords, and cast them all out of the temple, and the sheep and the oxen, and He poured out the small money of the changers and overthrew their tables, and to those that sold the doves He said, Take these things hence; make not My Father’s house a house of merchandize. Then His disciples remembered that it was written, that the zeal of thy house shall eat me up. The Jews therefore answered and said unto Him, What sign showest Thou unto us, that Thou doest such things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore answered, Forty-six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But He spoke of the temple of His body. When therefore He rose from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus said. Now when He was at Jerusalem at the passover at the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He did. But Jesus Himself did not trust Himself to them, for that He knew all men, and because He had no need that any should bear witness concerning man. For He Himself knew what was in man.”

The numbers which are recorded in the book of that name54 obtained a place in Scripture in accordance with some principle which determines their proportion to each thing. We ought therefore to enquire whether the book of Moses which is called Numbers teaches us, should we be able to trace it out, in some special way, the principle with regard to this matter. This remark I make to you at the outset of my tenth book, for in many passages of Scripture I have observed the number ten to have a peculiar privilege, and you may consider carefully whether the hope is justified that this volume will bring you from God some special benefit. That this may prove to be the case, we will seek to yield ourselves as fully as we can to God, who loves to bestow His choicest gifts. The book begins at the words: “After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples, and there they abode not many days.” The other three Evangelists say that the Lord, after His conflict with the devil, departed into Galilee. Matthew and Luke represent that he was first at Nazara,55 and then left them and came and dwelt in Capernaum. Matthew and Mark also state a certain reason why He departed thither, namely, that He had heard that John was cast into prison. The words are as follows: Matthew says, (Mat_4:11-15, Mat_4:17) “Then the devil leaveth Him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto Him. But when He heard that John was delivered up, He departed into Galilee, and leaving Nazareth He came and dwelt at Capernaum on the seashore in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali;” and after the quotation from Isaiah: “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Mark has the following: (Mar_1:13, Mar_1:14, Mar_1:21) “And He was in the desert forty days and forty nights tempted by Satan, and He was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto Him. But after John was delivered up Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God, that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe in the Gospel.” Then after the narrative about Andrew and Peter and James and John, Mark writes: “And He entered into Capernaum, and straightway on the Sabbath He was teaching in the synagogue.” Luke has, (Luk_4:13-16) “And having finished the temptation the devil departed from Him for a season. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and a fame went out concerning Him into all the region round about, and He taught in their synagogues being glorified of all. And He came to Nazara, where He had been brought up, and He entered as His custom was into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.” Then Luke (Luk_4:21 sqq) gives what He said at Nazara, and how those in the synagogue were enraged at Him and cast Him out of the city and brought Him to the brow of the hill on which their cities were built, to cast Him down headlong, and how going through the midst of them the Lord went His way; and with this he connects the statement, “And He came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and He was teaching them on the Sabbath day.”

 

2. The Discrepancy Between John and the First Three Gospels at This Part of the Narrative, Literally Read, the Narratives Cannot Be Harmonized: They Must Be Interpreted Spiritually.

The truth of these matters must lie in that which is seen by the mind. If the discrepancy between the Gospels is not solved, we must give up our trust in the Gospels, as being true and written by a divine spirit, or as records worthy of credence, for both these characters are held to belong to these works. Those who accept the four Gospels, and who do not consider that their apparent discrepancy is to be solved anagogically by mystical interpretation, will have to clear up the difficulty, raised above, about the forty days of the temptation, a period for which no room can be found in any way in John’s narrative; and they will also have to tell us when it was that the Lord came to Capernaum. If it was after the six days of the period of His baptism, the sixth being that of the marriage at Cans of Galilee, then it is clear that the temptation never took place, and that He never was at Nazara, and that John was not yet delivered up. Now, after Capernaum, where He abode not many days, the passover of the Jews was at hand, and He went up to Jerusalem, where He cast the sheep and oxen out of the temple, and poured out the small change of the bankers. In Jerusalem, too, it appears that Nicodemus, the ruler and Pharisee, first came to Him by night, and heard what we may read in the Gospel. “After these things, (Joh_3:23-26) Jesus came, and His disciples, into the land of Judaea, and there He tarried with them and baptized, at the same time at which John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there were many waters there, and they came and were baptized; for John was not yet cast into prison.” On this occasion, too, there was a questioning on the part of John’s disciples with the Jews about purification, and they came to John, saying of the Saviour. “Behold, He baptizeth, and all come to Him.” They had heard words from the Baptist, the exact tenor of which it is better to take from Scripture itself. Now, if we ask when Christ was first in Capernaum, our respondents, if they follow the words of Matthew, and of the other two, will say, After the temptation, when, “leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea.” But how can they show both the statements to be true, that of Matthew and Mark, that it was because He heard that John was delivered up that He departed into Galilee, and that of John, (Joh_3:24) found there, after a number of other transactions, subsequent to His stay at Capernaum, after His going to Jerusalem, and His journey from there to Judaea, that John was not yet cast into prison, but was baptizing in Aenon near Salim? There are many other points on which the careful student of the Gospels will find that their narratives do not agree; and these we shall place before the reader, according to our power, as they occur. The student, staggered at the consideration of these things, will either renounce the attempt to find all the Gospels true, and not venturing to conclude that all our information about our Lord is untrustworthy, will choose at random one of them to be his guide; or he will accept the four, and will consider that their truth is not to be sought for in the outward and material letter.

 

3. What We Are to Think of the Discrepancies Between the Different Gospels.

We must, however, try to obtain some notion of the intention of the Evangelists in such matters, and we direct ourselves to this. Suppose there are several men who, by the spirit, see God, and know His words addressed to His saints, and His presence which He vouchsafes to them, appearing to them at chosen times for their advancement. There are several such men, and they are in different places, and the benefits they receive from above vary in shape and character. And let these men report, each of them separately, what he sees in spirit about God and His words, and His appearances to His saints, so that one of them speaks of God’s appearances and words and acts to one righteous man in such a place, and another about other oracles and great works of the Lord, and a third of something else than what the former two have dealt with. And let there be a fourth, doing with regard to some particular matter something of the same kind as these three. And let the four agree with each other about something the Spirit has suggested to them all, and let them also make brief reports of other matters besides that one; then their narratives will fall out something on this wise: God appeared to such a one at such a time and in such a place, and did to him thus and thus; as if He had appeared to him in such a form, and had led him by the hand to such a place, and then done to him thus and thus. The second will report that God appeared at the very time of the foresaid occurrences, in a certain town, to a person who is named, a second person, and in a place far removed from that of the former account, and he will report a different set of words spoken at the same time to this second person. And let the same be supposed to be the case with the third and with the fourth. And let them, as we said, agree, these witnesses who report true things about God, and about His benefits conferred on certain men, let them agree with each other in some of the narratives they report. He, then, who takes the writings of these men for history, or for a representation of real things by a historical image, and who supposes God to be within certain limits in space, and to be unable to present to several persons in different places several visions of Himself at the same time, or to be making several speeches at the same moment, he will deem it impossible that our four writers are all speaking truth. To him it is impossible that God, who is in certain limits in space, could at the same set time be saying one thing to one man and another to another, and that He should be doing a thing and the opposite thing as well, and, to put it bluntly, that He should be both sitting and standing, should one of the writers represent Him as standing at the time, and making a certain speech in such a place to such a man, while a second writer speaks of Him as sitting.

 

4. Scripture Contains Many Contradictions, and Many Statements Which Are Not Literally True, But Must Be Read Spiritually and Mystically.

In the case I have supposed where the historians desire to teach us by an image what they have seen in their mind, their meaning would be found, if the four were wise, to exhibit no disagreement; and we must understand that with the four Evangelists it is not otherwise. They made full use for their purpose of things done by Jesus in the exercise of His wonderful and extraordinary power; they use in the same way His sayings, and in some places they tack on to their writing, with language apparently implying things of sense, things made manifest to them in a purely intellectual way. I do not condemn them if they even sometimes dealt freely with things which to the eye of history happened differently, and changed them so as to subserve the mystical aims they had in view; so as to speak of a thing which happened in a certain place, as if it had happened in another, or of what took place at a certain time, as if it had taken place at another time, and to introduce into what was spoken in a certain way some changes of their own. They proposed to speak the truth where it was possible both materially and spiritually, and where this was not possible it was their intention to prefer the spiritual to the material. The spiritual truth was often preserved, as one might say, in the material falsehood. As, for example, we might judge of the story of Jacob and Esau. Gen_27:1-46 Jacob says to Isaac, “I am Esau thy firstborn son,” and spiritually he spoke the truth, for he already partook of the rights of the first-born, which were perishing in his brother, and clothing himself with the goatskins he assumed the outward semblance of Esau, and was Esau all but the voice praising God, so that Esau might afterward find a place to receive a blessing. For if Jacob had not been blessed as Esau, neither would Esau perhaps have been able to receive a blessing of his own. And Jesus too is many things, according to the conceptions of Him, of which it is quite likely that the Evangelists took up different notions; while yet they were in agreement with each other in the different things they wrote. Statements which are verbally contrary to each other, are made about our Lord, namely, that He was descended from David and that He was not descended from David. The statement is true, “He was descended from David,” as the Apostle says, (Rom_1:3) “born of the seed of David according to the flesh,” if we apply this to the bodily part of Him; but the self-same statement is untrue if we understand His being born of the seed of David of His diviner power; for He was declared to be the Son of God with power. And for this reason too, perhaps, the sacred prophecies speak of Him now as a servant, and now as a Son. They call Him a servant on account of the form of a servant which he wore, and because He was of the seed of David, but they call Him the Son of God according to His character as first-born. Thus it is true to call Him man and to call Him not man; man, because He was capable of death; not man, on account of His being diviner than man. Marcion, I suppose, took sound words in a wrong sense, when he rejected His birth from Mary, and declared that as to His divine nature He was not born of Mary, and hence made bold to delete from the Gospel the passages which have this effect. And a like fate seems to have overtaken those who make away with His humanity and receive His deity alone; and also those opposites of these who cancel His deity and confess Him as a man to be a holy man, and the most righteous of all men. And those who hold the doctrine of Dokesis, not remembering that He humbled Himself even unto death (Phi_2:8) and became obedient even to the cross, but only imagining in Him the absence of suffering, the superiority to all such accidents, they do what they can to deprive us of the man who is more just than all men, and are left with a figure which cannot save them, for as by one man came death, so also by one man is the justification of life. We could not have received such benefit as we have from the Logos had He not assumed the man, had He remained such as He was from the beginning with God the Father, and had He not taken up man, the first man of all, the man more precious than all others, purer than all others and capable of receiving Him. But after that man we also shall be able to receive Him, to receive Him so great and of such nature as He was, if we prepare a place in proportion to Him in our soul. So much I have said of the apparent discrepancies in the Gospels, and of my desire to have them treated in the way of spiritual interpretation.

 

5. Paul also Makes Contradictory Statements About Himself, and Acts in Opposite Ways at Different Times.

On the same passage one may also make use of such an example as that of Paul, who at one place Rom_7:14 says that he is carnal, sold under sin, and thus was not able to judge anything, while in another place he is the spiritual man who is able to judge all things and himself to be judged by no man. Of the carnal one are the words, “Not what I would that do I practise, but what I hate that do I.” And he too who was caught up to the third heaven and heard unspeakable words (2Co_12:3, 2Co_12:4, 2Co_12:5) is a different Paul from him who says. Of such an one I will glory, but of myself I will not glory. If he becomes (1Co_9:20-22) to the Jews as a Jew that he may gain the Jews, and to those under the law as under the law that he may gain those under the law, and to them that are without law as without law, not being without law to God, but under law to Christ, that he may gain those without law, and if to the weak he becomes weak that he may gain the weak, it is clear that these statements must be examined each by itself, that he becomes a Jew, and that sometimes he is under the law and at another time without law, and that sometimes he is weak. Where, for example, he says something by way of permission (1Co_7:6) and not by commandment, there we may recognize that he is weak; for who, he says, (2Co_11:29) is weak, and I am not weak? When he shaves his head and makes an offering, (Act_21:24, Act_21:26) or when he circumcises Timothy, (Act_16:3) he is a Jew; but when he says to the Athenians, (Act_17:23) “I found an altar with the inscription, To the unknown God. That, then, which ye worship not knowing it, that declare I unto you,” and, “As also some of your own poets have said, For we also are His offspring,” then he becomes to those without the law as without the law, adjuring the least religious of men to espouse religion, and turning to his own purpose the saying of the poet, “From Love do we begin; his race are we.”56 And instances might perhaps be found where, to men not Jews and yet under the law, he is under the law.

 

6. Different Accounts of the Call of Peter, and of the Imprisonment of the Baptist. The Meaning of “Capernaum.” 

These examples may be serviceable to illustrate statements not only about the Saviour, but about the disciples too, for here also there is some discrepancy of statement. For there is a difference in thought perhaps between Simon who is found by his own brother Andrew, and who is addressed “Thou shalt be called Cephas,” (Joh_1:41) and him who is seen by Jesus when walking by the sea of Galilee, (Mat_4:18; Mar_1:16) along with his brother, and addressed conjointly with that brother, “Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” There was some fitness in the fact that the writer who goes more to the root of the matter and tells of the Word becoming flesh, and hence does not record the human generation of the Word who was in the beginning with God, should not tell us of Simon’s being found at the seashore and called away from there, but of his being found by his brother who had been staying with Jesus at the tenth hour, and of his receiving the name Cephas in connection with his being thus found out. If he was seen by Jesus when walking by the sea of Galilee, it would scarcely be on a later occasion that he was addressed, “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My church.” With John again the Pharisees know Jesus to be baptizing with His disciples, (Joh_4:1, Joh_4:2) adding this to His other great activities; but the Jesus of the three does not baptize at all. John the Baptist, too, with the Evangelist of the same name, goes on a long time without being cast into prison. With Matthew, on the contrary, he is put in prison almost at the time of the temptation of Jesus, and this is the occasion of Jesus retiring to Galilee, to avoid being put in prison. But in John there is nothing at alI about John’s being put in prison. Who is so wise and so able as to learn all the things that are recorded about Jesus in the four Evangelists, and both to understand each incident by itself, and have a connected view of all His sojournings and words and acts at each place? As for the passage presently before us, it gives in the order of events that on the sixth day the Saviour, after the business of the marriage at Cana of Galilee, went down with His mother and His brothers and His disciples to Capernaum, which means “field of consolation.” For after the feasting and the wine it was fitting that the Saviour should come to the field of consolation with His mother and His disciples, to console those whom He was training for disciples and the soul which had conceived Him by the Holy Ghost, with the fruits which were to stand in that full field.

 

7. Why His Brothers Are Not Called to the Wedding; and Why He Abides at Capernaum Not Many Days.

But we must ask why His brothers are not called to the wedding: they were not there, for it is not said they were; but they go down to Capernaum with Him and His mother and His disciples. We must also examine why on this occasion they do not “go in to” Capernaum, nor “go up to,” but “go down to” it. Consider if we must not understand by His brothers here the powers which went down along with Him, not called to the wedding according to the explanations given above, since it is in lower and humbler places than those who are called disciples of Christ, and in another way, that these brothers receive assistance. For if His mother is called, then there are some bearing fruit, and even to these the Lord goes down with the servants and disciples of the Word, to help such persons, His mother also being with Him. Those indeed who are called Capernaum appear not to be able to allow Jesus and those who went down with Him to make a longer stay with them: hence they remain with them not many days. For the lower field of consolation does not admit the illumination of many doctrines, but is only capable of a few. To get a clear view of the difference between those who receive Jesus for longer and for shorter time, we may compare with this, “They abode there not many days,” the words recorded in Matthew as spoken by Christ when risen from the dead to His disciples who were being sent out to teach all nations, (Mat_18:20) “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” To those who are to know all that human nature can know while it still is here, is said with emphasis, “I am with you;” and as the rise of each new day upon the field of contemplation brings more days before the eyes of the blessed, therefore He says, “All the days till the end of the world.” As for those in Capernaum, on the contrary, to whom they go down as to the more needy, not only Jesus, but also His mother and His brothers and His disciples “abode there not many days.”

 

8. How Christ Abides with Believers to the End of the Age, and Whether He Abides with Them After That Consummation.

Some may very likely and not unreasonably ask, whether, when all the days of this age are over, there will no longer be any one to say, “Lo, I am with you,” with those, namely, who received Him till the fulfilment of the age, for the “until” seems to indicate a certain limit of time. To this we must say that the phrase, “I am with you,” is not the same as “I am in you.” We might say more properly that the Saviour was not in His disciples but with them, so long as they had not arrived in their minds at the consummation of the age. But when they see to be at hand, as far as their effort is concerned, the consummation of the world which is crucified to them, then Jesus will be no longer with them, but in them, and they will say, “It is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me,” (Gal_2:20) and “If ye seek a proof of Christ that speaketh in me.” (2Co_13:3) In saying this we are keeping for our part also to the ordinary interpretation which makes the “always” the time down to the consummation of the age, and are not asking more than is attainable to human nature as it is here. That interpretation may be adhered to and justice yet be done to the “I.” He who is with His disciples who are sent out to teach all the nations, until the consummation, may be He who emptied Himself and took the form of a servant, and yet afterwards may be another in point of state; afterwards He may be such as He was before He emptied Himself, until all His enemies are made by His Father the footstool of His feet; and after this, when the Son has delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father, it may be the Father who says to them, “Behold, I am with you.” But whether it is “all the days” up to that time, or simply “all the days,” or not “all days” but “every day,” any one may consider that likes. Our plan does not allow us at present to digress so far.

 

9. Heracleon Says That Jesus Is Not Stated to Have Done Anything at Capernaum. But in the Other Gospels He Does Many Things There.

But Heracleon, dealing with the words, “After this He went down to Capernaum,” declares that they indicate the introduction of another transaction, and that the word “went down” is not without significance. “Capernaum,” he says, “means these farthest-out parts of the world, these districts of matter, into which He descended, and because the place was not suitable, he says, He is not reported either to have done anything or said anything in it.” Now if the Lord had not been reported in the other Gospels either as having done or said anything at Capernaum, we might perhaps have hesitated whether this view ought or ought not to be received. But that is far from being the case. Matthew says our Lord left Nazareth and came and dwelt at Capernaum on the seaside, and that from that time He began to preach, saying, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And Mark, starting in his narrative (Mar_1:14-27) from the temptation by the devil, relates that after John was cast into prison, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of God, and after the call of the four fishermen to the Apostleship, “they enter into Capernaum; and straightway on the Sabbath day He taught in the synagogue, and they were astonished at His doctrine.” And Mark records an action of Jesus also which took place at Capernaum, for he goes on to say, “In their synagogue there was a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, Ah! what have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art Thou come to destroy us? We know Thee who Thou art, the Son of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him; and the unclean spirit, tearing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. And they were all amazed.” And at Capernaum Simon’s mother-in-law is cured of her fever. And Mark adds that when evening was come all those were cured who were sick and who were possessed with demons. Luke’s report is very like Mark’s about Capernaum. (Mar_4:31-41) He says, “And He came to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and He was teaching them on the Sabbath day, and they were astonished at His teachings, for His word was with power. And in the synagogue there was a man having a spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, Ah! what have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? Hast Thou come to destroy us? I know Thee who Thou art, the holy one of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him. Then the demon having thrown him down in the midst, went out of him, doing him no harm.” And then Luke reports how the Lord rose up from the synagogue and went into the house of Simon, and rebuked the fever in his mother-in-law, and cured her of her disease; and after this cure, “when the sun was setting,” he says, “all, as many as had persons sick with divers diseases, brought them to Him, and He laid his hands on each one of them and cured them. And demons also went out from many, crying and saying, Thou art the Son of God, and He rebuked them and suffered them not to speak because they knew that He was the Christ.” We have presented all these statements as to the Saviour’s sayings and doings at Capernaum in order to refute Heracleon’s interpretation of our passage, “Hence He is not said to have done or to have spoken anything there.” He must either give two meanings to Capernaum, and show us his reasons for them, or if he cannot do this he must give up saying that the Saviour visited any place to no purpose. We, for our part, should we come to passages where even a comparison of the other Gospels fails to show that Jesus’ visit to this place or that was not accompanied by any results, will seek with the divine assistance to make it clear that His coming was not in vain.

 

10. Significance of Capernaum.

Matthew for his part adds, (Mat_8:5 sqq) that when the Lord had entered into Capernaum the centurion came to him, saying, “My boy is lying in my house sick of the palsy, grievously tormented,” and after telling the Lord some more about him, received the reply, “Go, and as thou hast believed, so be it unto thee.” And Matthew then gives us the story of Peter’s mother-in-law, in close agreement with the other two. I conceive it to be a creditable piece of work and becoming to one who is anxious to hear about Christ, to collect from the four Gospels all that is related about Capernaum, and the discourses spoken, and the works done there, and how many visits the Lord paid to the place, and how, at one time, He is said to have gone down to it, and at another to have entered into it, and where He came from when He did so. If we compare all these points together, we shall not go astray in the meaning we ascribe to Capernaum. On the one hand, the sick are healed, and other works of power are done there, and on the other, the preaching, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, begins there, and this appears to be a sign, as we showed when entering on this subject, of some more needy place of consolation, made so perhaps by Jesus, who comforted men by what He taught and by what He did there, in that place of consolation. For we know that the names of places agree in their meaning with the things connected with Jesus; as Gergesa, where the citizens of these parts besought Him to depart out of their coasts, means, “The dwelling of the casters-out.” And this, also, we have noticed about Capernaum, that not only did the preaching, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” begin there, but that according to the three Evangelists Jesus performed there His first miracles. None of the three, however, added to the first wonders which he records as done in Capernaum, that note attached by John the disciple to the first work of Jesus, “This beginning of His signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee.” For that which was done in Capernaum was not the beginning of the signs, since the leading sign of the Son of God was good cheer, and in the light of human experience it is also the most representative of Him. For the Word of God does not show forth His own beauty so much in healing the sick, as in His tendering the temperate draught to make glad those who are in good health and are able to join in the banquet.

 

11. Why the Passover Is Said to Be That of the “Jews.” Its Institution: and the Distinction Between “Feasts of the Lord” and Feasts Not So Spoken of.

“And the passover of the Jews was at hand.” (Joh_2:13) Inquiring into the accuracy of the most wise John on this passage, I put myself the question, What is indicated by the addition “of the Jews”? Of what other nation was the passover a festival? Would it not have been enough to say, “And the passover was at hand”? It may, however, be the case that the human passover is one thing when kept by men not as Scripture intended, and that the divine passover is another thing, the true passover, observed in spirit and truth by those who worship God in spirit and in truth; and then the distinction indicated in the text may be that between the divine passover and that said to be of the Jews. We should attend to the passover law and observe what the Lord says of it when it is first mentioned in Scripture. (Exo_12:1-3) “And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month is to you the beginning of months, it is the first for you among the months of the year. Speak thou to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this mouth shall every man take a sheep, according to the houses of your families;” then after some directions in which the word passover does not occur again, he adds, (Exo_12:11) “Thus shall ye eat it, your loins girt and your shoes on your feet, and your staves in your hands, and ye shall eat it with haste. It is the passover of the Lord.” He does not say, “It is your passover.” And a little further on He names the festival again in the same way, (Exo_12:26) “And it shall come to pass, when your sons say to you, What is this service? And ye shall say to them, It is the sacrifice, the passover of the Lord, how He guarded the houses of the children of Israel.” And again, a little further on, “And the Lord spake to Moses and Aaron, saying, This is the law of the passover. No alien shall eat of it.” And again in a little, (Exo_12:43-48) “But if a proselyte come to you, and keep the passover of the Lord, every male of him shall be circumcised.” Observe that in the law we never find it said, “Your passover;” but in all the passages quoted the phrase occurs once without any adjunct, while we have three times “The passover of the Lord.” To make sure that there is such a distinction between the passover of the Lord and the passover of the Jews, we may consider the way in which Isaiah speaks of the matter: (Isa_1:13) “Your new moons and your Sabbaths and your great day I cannot bear; your fast and your holiday and your new moons and your feasts my soul hateth.” The Lord does not call them His own, these observances of sinners they are hated of His soul, if such there be; neither the new moons, nor the Sabbaths, nor the great day, nor the fast, nor the festivals. And in the legislation about the Sabbath in Exodus, we read, (Exo_16:23) “And Moses said unto them, This is the word which the Lord spake, The Sabbath is a holy rest unto the Lord.” And a little further on, “And Moses said, Eat ye; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord.” And in Numbers, (Num_28:1) before the sacrifices which are offered at each festival, as if all the festivals came under the law of the continuous and daily sacrifice, we find it written, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, Announce to the children of Israel, and thus shall thou say unto them, My gifts, My offerings, My fruits for a smell of sweet savour, ye shall observe to offer unto Me at My festivals. And thou shall say unto them, These are the offerings which ye shall offer unto the Lord.” The festival set forth in Scripture He calls His own, not those of the people receiving the law, He speaks of His gifts, His offerings. A similar way of speaking is that in Exodus with regard to the people; it is said by God to be His own people, when it does not sin; but in the section about the calf He abjures it and calls it the people of Moses. (Exo_18:21-23) On the one hand, “Thou shalt say to Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness. But if thou wilt not let My people go, behold, I will send against thee and against thy servants, and against thy people and against thy houses, the dog-fly; and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of the dog-fly, and on the land on which they are, against it will I send them. And I will glorify on that day the land of Gesem, on which My people are; on it there shall be no dog-fly, that thou mayest know that I am the Lord, the Lord of all the earth. And I will make a distinction between My people and thy people.” To Moses, on the other hand, He says, (Exo_32:7) “Go, descend quickly, for thy people hath transgressed, which thou leddest out of the land of Egypt.” As, then, the people when it does not sin is the people of God, but when it sins is no longer spoken of as His, thus, also, the feasts when they are hated by the Lord’s soul are said to be feasts of sinners, but when the law is given regarding them, they are called feasts of the Lord. Now of these feasts passover is one, which in the passage before us is said to be that not of the Lord, but of the Jews. In another passage, too, (Lev_23:2) we find it said, “These are the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall call chosen, holy.” From the mouth of the Lord Himself, then, we see that there is no gainsaying our statement on this point. Some one, no doubt, will ask about the words of the Apostle, where he writes to the Corinthians: (1Co_5:7) “For our Passover also was sacrified for us, namely, Christ;” he does not say, “The Passover of the Lord was sacrificed, even Christ.” To this we must say, either that the Apostle simply calls the passover our passover because it was sacrificed for us, or that every sacrifice which is really the Lord’s, and the passover is one of these, awaits its consummation not in this age nor upon earth, but in the coming age and in heaven when the kingdom of heaven appears. As for those feasts, one of the twelve prophets says, (Hos_9:5) “What will ye do in the days of assembly, and in the days of the feast of the Lord?” But Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews: (Heb_12:22, Heb_12:23) “But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to ten thousands of angels, the assembly and church of the firstborn, who are written in heaven.” And in the Epistle to the Colossians: (Col_2:16) “Let no one judge you in meat and in drink, or in respect of a feast-day or a new moon, or a sabbath-day; which are a shadow of the things to come.” 

 

12. Of the Heavenly Festivals, of Which Those on Earth Are Typical.

Now in what manner, in those heavenly things of which the shadow was present to the Jews on earth, those will celebrate festivals who have first been trained by tutors and governors under the true law, until the fulness of the thee should come, namely, above, when we shall be able to receive into ourselves the perfect measure of the Son of God, this it is the work of that wisdom to make plain which has been hidden in a mystery; and it also may show to our thought how the laws about meats are symbols of those things which will there nourish and strengthen our soul. But it is vain to think that one desiring to work out in his fancy the great sea of such ideas, even if he wished to show how local worship is still a pattern and shadow of heavenly things, and that the sacrifices and the sheep are full of meaning, that he should advance further than the Apostle, who seeks indeed to lift our minds above earthly views of the law, but who does not show us to any extent how these things are to be. Even if we look at the festivals, of which passover is one, from the point of view of the age to come, we have still to ask how it is that our passover is now sacrificed, namely, Christ, and not only so, but is to be sacrificed hereafter.

 

13. Spiritual Meaning of the Passover.

A few points may be added in connection with the doctrines now under consideration, though it would require a special discussion in many volumes to treat of all the mystical statements about the law, and specially of those connected with the festivals, and more particularly still with the passover. The passover of the Jews consists of a sheep which is sacrificed, each taking a sheep according to his father’s house; and the passover is accompanied by the slaughter of thousands of rams and goats, in proportion to the number of the houses of the people. But our Passover is sacrificed for us, namely, Christ. Another feature of the Jewish festival is unleavened bread; all leaven is made to disappear out of their houses; but “we keep the feast (1Co_5:8) not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Whether there be any passover and any feast of leaven beyond the two we have mentioned, is a point we must examine more carefully, since these serve for a pattern and a shadow of the heavenly ones we spoke of, and not only such things as food and drink and new moons and sabbaths, but the festivals also, are a shadow of the things to come. In the first place, when the Apostle says, “Our passover is sacrificed, Christ,” one may feel with regard to this such doubts as these. If the sheep with the Jews is a type of the sacrifice of Christ, then one should have been offered and not a multitude, as Christ is one; or if many sheep were offered it is to follow out the type, as if many Christs were sacrificed. But not to dwell on this, we may ask how the sheep, which was the victim, contains an image of Christ, when the sheep was sacrificed by men who were observing the law, but Christ was put to death by transgressors of the law, and what application can be found in Christ of the direction, (Exo_12:8) “They shall eat the flesh this night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread on bitter herbs shall they eat,” and “Eat not of it raw, nor sodden with water, but roast with fire; the head with the feet and the entrails; ye shall not set any of it apart till the morning, and a bone thereof ye shall not break. But that which is left thereof till the morning ye shall burn.” The sentence, “A bone of it ye shall not break,” John appears to have made use of in his Gospel, as applying to the transactions connected with Christ, and connecting with them the occasion spoken of in the law when those eating the sheep are bidden not to break a bone of it. He writes as follows: (Joh_19:32) “The soldiers therefore came and brake the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with him; but when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they brake not His legs, but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and straightway there came out blood and water. And he that hath seen hath borne witness and his witness is true, and he knoweth that he sayeth truth that ye also may believe. And these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “A bone of Him ye shall not break.” There are a myriad other points besides this in the Apostle’s language which would call for inquiry, both about the passover and the unleavened bread, but they would have to be dealt with, as we said above, in a special work of great length. At present we can only give an epitome of them as they bear on the text presently before us, and aim at a short solution of the principal problem. We call to mind the words, “This is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world,” for it is said of the passover, (Exo_12:5) “Ye shall take it of the lambs or of the goats.” The Evangelist here agrees with Paul, and both are involved in the difficulties we spoke of above. But on the other hand we have to say that if the Word became flesh, and the Lord says, (Joh_6:53) “Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him,” — then the flesh thus spoken of is that of the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world; and this is the blood, some of which was to be put on the two side posts of the door, and on the lintels in the houses, in which we eat the passover. Of the flesh of this Lamb it is necessary that we should eat in the thee of the world, which is night, and the flesh is to be roast with fire, and eaten with unleavened bread; for the Word of God is not flesh and flesh only. He says, in fact, Himself, (Joh_6:48-50) “I am the bread of life,” and “This is the bread of life which came down from heaven, that a man should eat of it, and not die. I am the bread of life that came down from heaven; if a man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.” We must not overlook, however, that by a loose use of words, any food is called bread, as we read in Moses in Deuteronomy, (Deu_9:9) “Forty days He ate no bread and drank no water,” instead of, He took no food, either wet or dry. I am led to this observation by John’s saying, “And the bread which I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world.” Again, we eat the flesh of the Lamb, with bitter herbs, and unleavened bread, when we repent of our sins and grieve with the sorrow which is according to God, a repentance which operates for our salvation, and is not to be repented of; or when, on account of our trials, we turn to the speculations which are found to be those of truth, and are nourished by them. We are not, however, to eat the flesh of the Lamb raw, as those do who are slaves of the letter, like irrational animals, and those who are enraged at men truly reasonable, because they desire to understand spiritual things; truly, they share the nature of savage beasts. But we must strive to convert the rawness of Scripture into well-cooked food, not letting what is written grow flabby and wet and thin, as those do who have itching ears, (2Ti_4:3, 2Ti_4:4) and turn away their ears from the truth; their methods tend to a loose and flabby conduct of life. But let us be of a fervent spirit and keep hold of the fiery words given to us of God, such as Jeremiah received from Him who spoke to him, (Jer_5:14) “Behold, I have made My words in thy mouth like fire,” and let us see that the flesh of the Lamb be well cooked, so that those who partake of it may say, as Christ speaks in us, “Our heart burned by the way, as He opened to us the Scriptures.” (Luk_24:32) Further, if it is our duty to enquire into such a point as the roasting of the flesh of the Lamb with fire, we must not forget the parallel of what Jeremiah suffered on account of the words of God, as he says: (Jer_20:9) “And it was as a glowing fire, burning in my bones, and I am without any strength, and I cannot bear it.” But, in this eating, we must begin at the head, that is to say, at the principal and the most essential doctrines about heavenly things, and we must end at the feet, the last branches of learning which enquire as to the final nature in things, or about more material things, or about things under the earth, or about wicked spirits and unclean demons. For it may be that the account of these things is not obvious, like themselves, but is laid away among the mysteries of Scripture, so that it may be called, tropically, the feet of the Lamb. Nor must we fail to deal with the entrails, which are within and hidden from us; we must approach the whole of Scripture as one body, we must not lacerate nor break through the strong and well-knit connections which exist in the harmony of its whole composition, as those do who lacerate, so far as they can, the unity of the Spirit that is in all the Scriptures. But this aforesaid prophecy of the Lamb is to be our nourishment only during the night of this dark life of ours; what comes after this life is, as it were, the dawn of day, and why should we leave over till then the food which can only be useful to us now? But when the night is passed, and the day which succeeds it is at hand, then we shall have bread to eat which has nothing to do with the leavened bread of the older and lower state of things, but is unleavened, and that will serve our turn until that which comes after the unleavened bread is given us, the manna, which is food for angels rather than men. Every one of us, then, may sacrifice his lamb in every house of our fathers; and while one breaks the law, not sacrificing the lamb at all, another may keep the commandment entirely, offering his sacrifice, and cooking it aright, and not breaking a bone of it. This, then, in brief, is the interpretation of the Passover sacrificed for us, which is Christ, in accordance with the view taken of it by the Apostles, and with the Lamb in the Gospel. For we ought not to suppose that historical things are types of historical things, and material things of material, but that material things are typical of spiritual things, and historical things of intellectual. It is not necessary that our discourse should now ascend to that third passover which is to be celebrated with myriads of angels in the most perfect and most blessed exodus; we have already spoken of these things to a greater extent than the passage demands.

 

FOOTNOTES

54 The text is doubtful here, but the above seems to be the meaning.

55 Nazara is with Origen a neuter plural

56 Aratus phenom. 5

Commentaries of Origen (Cont.)

Tenth Book. (Cont.)

14. In the First Three Gospels the Passover Is Spoken of Only At the Close of the Ministry; in John at the Beginning. Remarks on This. Heracleon on the Passover.

We must not, however, fail to enquire into the statement that the passover of the Jews was at hand, when the Lord was at Capernaum with His mother and His brothers and His disciples. In the Gospel according to Matthew, (Mat_4:11 sqq) after being left by the devil, and after the angels came and ministered to Him, when He heard that John was delivered up He withdrew into Galilee, and leaving Nazara He came and dwelt in Capernaum. Then He began to preach, and chose the four fishermen for His Apostles, and taught in the synagogues of the whole of Galilee and healed those who were brought to Him. Then He goes up into the mountain and speaks the beatitudes and what follows them; and after finishing that instruction He comes down from the mountain and enters Capernaum a second time. (Mat_8:1-34) Then He embarked in a ship and crossed over to the other side to the country of the Gergesenes. On their beseeching Him to depart out of their coasts He embarked (Mat_8:23) in a ship and crossed over and came to His own city. Then He wrought certain cures and went about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues; after this most of the events of the Gospels take place, before Matthew indicates the approach of the time of passover. (Mat_26:2) With the other Evangelists also, after the stay at Capernaum it is long till we come to any mention of the passover; which may confirm in their opinion those who take the view about Capernaum which was set forth above. That stay, in the neighbourhood of the passover of the Jews, is set in a brighter light by that nearness, both because it was better in itself, and still more because at the passover of the Jews there are found in the temple those who sell oxen and sheep and doves. This adds emphasis to the statement that the passover was not that of the Lord but that of the Jews; the Father’s house was made, in the eyes of those who did not hallow it, a house of merchandise, and the passover of the Lord became for those who took a low and material view of it a Jewish passover. A fitter occasion than the present will occur for enquiring as to the thee of the passover, which took place about the spring equinox, and for any other enquiry which may arise in connection with it. As for Heracleon, he says, “This is the great festival; for it was a type of the passion of the Saviour; not only was the lamb put to death, the eating of it afforded relaxation, the killing it pointed to what of the passion of the Saviour was in this world, and the eating it to the rest at the marriage.” We have given his words, that it may be seen with what a want of caution and how loosely he proceeds, and with what an absence of constructive skill even on such a theme as this; and how little regard in consequence is to be paid to him.

 

15. Discrepancy of the Gospel Narratives Connected with the Cleansing of the Temple.

“And Jesus went up to Jerusalem. (Joh_2:13-17) And He found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money sitting; and He made a scourge of cords, and cast out of the temple the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the small coin of the changers, and overturned their tables, and to those who sold the doves He said, Take these things hence; make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise. Then His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thy house shall eat me up.” It is to be noted that John makes this transaction of Jesus with those He found selling oxen and sheep and doves in the temple His second work; while the other Evangelists narrate a similar incident almost at the end and in connection with the story of the passion. Matthew has it thus: (Mat_21:10-13) “At Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem the whole city was stirred, saying, Who is this? And the multitudes said, This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth of Galilee. And Jesus went into the temple and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sold doves. And He says to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.” Mark has the following: “And they came to Jerusalem. And having entered into the temple He began to cast out those that sold and bought in the temple, and the tables of the money-changers He overthrew and the seats of them that sold doves. And He suffered not that any should carry a vessel through the temple; and He taught and said unto them, Is it not written that My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And Luke: (Luk_19:41, Luk_19:42) “And when he came near, He beheld the city and wept over it, saying that, if thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things that belong to peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, when they shall surround thee and shut thee in on every side, and shall dash thee to the ground and thy children, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the thee of thy visitation. And He entered into the temple and began to cast out those that sold, saying to them, It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of robbers.” It is further to be observed that what is recorded by the three as having taken place in connection with the Lord’s going up to Jerusalem; when He did these things in the temple, is narrated in a very similar manner by John as taking place long after this, after another visit to Jerusalem different from this one. We must consider the statements, and in the first place that of Matthew, where we read: (Mat_21:1) “When He drew nigh to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage over against the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying unto them, Go ye into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall fine an ass tied and a colt with her; loose them and bring them to Me. And if any man say unto you, What are you doing? you shall say, The Lord hath need of them, and straightway he will send them. But this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy king cometh, meek and seated upon an ass and upon the colt of an ass. And the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them; they brought the ass and the foal, and they placed on them their garments, and He sat thereon. And the most part of the multitude spread their garments on the road, but the multitudes that went before Him, and they that followed, cried, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” After this comes, “And when He had entered into Jerusalem the whole city was stirred,” which we cited above. Then we have Mark’s account: (Mar_11:1-12) “And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, to the Mount of Olives, He sends two of His disciples and says to them, Go ye into the village over against you. And straightway as ye enter into it ye shall find a colt tied, on which no man hath ever sat, loose it and bring it. And if any one say to you, Why do ye this? say, Because the Lord hath need of him, and straightway he will send him back hither. And they went and found the colt tied at the door outside on the road, and they loose him. And some of them that stood there said to them, What do ye, loosing the colt? And they said to them as Jesus told them, and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast on it their garments. But others cut down branches from the field and spread them in the way. And they that went before and they that followed cried, Hosanna, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; blessed be the kingdom that cometh, of our father David! Hosanna in the highest! And He went into Jerusalem to the temple, and looked round about on all things, and as it was already evening, He went out to Bethany with the twelve. And on the morrow when they were come forth from Bethany He was hungry.” Then, after the affair of the withered fig tree, “They came to Jerusalem. And He went into the temple and began to cast out them that sold.” Luke narrates as follows: (Luk_19:29) “And it came to pass, when He drew near to Bethphage and Bethany at the mount that is called the Mount of Olives, He sent two of his disciples, saying, Go ye into the village over against you, in which when ye enter, ye shall find a colt tied, on which no man ever hath sate; loose him and bring him. And if any man asks you, Why do ye loose him? Ye shall say thus, The Lord hath need of him. And the disciples went and found as He said to them. And when they were loosing the colt its owners said to them, Why loose ye the colt? and they said, Because the Lord hath need of him. And they brought him to Jesus, and they threw their garments on the colt, and set Jesus thereon. And as He went, they strewed their garments in the way. And when He was drawing near, being now at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works which they had seen, saying, Blessed is the King in the name of the Lord; peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees from the multitude said unto Him, Master, rebuke Thy disciples. And He answered and said, I say unto you, If these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out. And when He drew near He beheld the city and wept over it,” and so on, as we cited above. John, on the contrary, after giving an account nearly identical with this, as far as, “And Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep,” gives a second account of an ascent of the Lord to Jerusalem, and then goes on to tell of the supper in Bethany six days before the passover, at which Martha served and Lazarus was at table. “On the morrow, (Joh_12:12-15) a great multitude that had come to the feast, having heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet Him; and they cried, Hosanna, blessed be the King of Israel in the name of the Lord. And Jesus, having found a young ass, sat thereon, as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold thy King cometh, sitting on the foal of an ass.” I have written out long sections from the Gospels, but I have thought it necessary to do so, in order to exhibit the discrepancy at this part of our Gospel. Three of the Gospels place these incidents, which we supposed to be the same as those narrated by John, in connection with one visit of the Lord to Jerusalem. While John, on the other hand, places them in connection with two visits which are widely separated from each other and between which were various journeys of the Lord to other places. I conceive it to be impossible for those who admit nothing more than the history in their interpretation to show that these discrepant statements are in harmony with each other. If any one considers that we have not given a sound exposition, let him write a reasoned rejoinder to this declaration of ours.

 

16. The Story of the Purging of the Temple Spiritualized. Taken Literally, It Presents Some Very Difficult and Unlikely Features.

We shall, however, expound according to the strength that is given to us the reasons which move us to recognize here a harmony; and in doing so we entreat Him who gives to every one that asks and strives acutely to enquire, and we knock that by the keys of higher knowledge the hidden things of Scripture may be opened to us. And first, let us fix our attention on the words of John, beginning, “And Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” (Joh_2:13) Now Jerusalem, as the Lord Himself teaches in the Gospel according to Matthew, (Mat_5:35) “is the city of the great King.” It does not lie in a depression, or in a low situation, but is built on a high mountain, and there are mountains round about it, (Psa_125:2) and the participation of it is to the same place, (Psa_122:2-4) and thither the tribes of the Lord went up, a testimony for Israel. But that city also is called Jerusalem, to which none of those upon the earth ascends, nor goes in; but every soul that possesses by nature some elevation and some acuteness to perceive the things of the mind is a citizen of that city. And it is possible even for a dweller in Jerusalem to be in sin for it is possible for even the acutest minds to sin, should they not turn round quickly after their sin, when they have lost their power of mind and are on the point not only of dwelling in one of those strange cities of Judaea, but even of being inscribed as its citizens. Jesus goes up to Jerusalem, after bringing help to those in Cans of Galilee, and then going down to Capernaum, that He may do in Jerusalem the things which are written. He found in the temple, certainly, which is said to be the house of the Father of the Saviour, that is, in the church or in the preaching of the ecclesiastical and sound word, some who were making His Father’s house a house of merchandise. And at all times Jesus finds some of this sort in the temple. For in that which is called the church, which is the house of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, (1Ti_3:15) when are there not some money-changers sitting who need the strokes of the scourge Jesus made of small cords, and dealers in small coin who require to have their money poured out and their tables overturned? When are there not those who are inclined to merchandise, but need to be held to the plough and the oxen, that having put their hand to it and not turning round to the things behind them, they may be fit for the kingdom of God? When are there not those who prefer the mammon of unrighteousness to the sheep which give them the material for their true adornment? And there are always many who look down on what is sincere and pure and unmixed with any bitterness or gall, and who, for the sake of miserable gain, betray the care of those tropically called doves. When, therefore, the Saviour finds in the temple, the house of His Father, those who are selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting, He drives them out, using the scourge of small cords which He has made, along with the sheep and oxen of their trade, and pours out their stock of coin, as not deserving to be kept together, so little is it worth. He also overturns the tables in the souls of such as love money, saying even to those who sell doves, “Take these things hence,” that they may no longer traffic in the house of God. But I believe that in these words He indicated also a deeper truth, and that we may regard these occurrences as a symbol of the fact that the service of that temple was not any longer to be carried on by the priests in the way of material sacrifices, and that the thee was coming when the law could no longer be observed, however much the Jews according to the flesh desired it. For when Jesus casts out the oxen and sheep, and orders the doves to be taken away, it was because oxen and sheep and doves were not much longer to be sacrificed there in accordance with Jewish practices. And possibly the coins which bore the stamp of material things and not of God were poured out by way of type; because the law which appears so venerable, with its letter that kills, was, now that Jesus had come and had used His scourge to the people, to be dissolved and poured out, the sacred office episcopate being transferred to those from the Gentiles who believed, and the kingdom of God being taken away from the Jews (Mat_21:43) and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of it. But it may also be the case that the natural temple is the soul skilled in reason, which, because of its inborn reason, is higher than the body; to which Jesus ascends from Capernaum, the lower-lying place of less dignity, and in which, before Jesus’ discipline is applied to it, are found tendencies which are earthly and senseless and dangerous, and things which have the name but not the reality of beauty, and which are driven away by Jesus with His word plaited out of doctrines of demonstration and of rebuke, to the end that His Father’s house may no longer be a house of merchandize but may receive, for its own salvation and that of others, that service of God which is performed in accordance with heavenly and spiritual laws. The ox is symbolic of earthly things, for he is a husbandman. The sheep, of senseless and brutal things, because it is more servile than most of the creatures without reason. Of empty and unstable thoughts, the dove. Of things that are thought good but are not, the small change. If any one objects to this interpretation of the passage and says that it is only pure animals that are mentioned in it, we must say that the passage would otherwise have an unlikely air. The occurrence is necessarily related according to the possibilities of the story. It could not have been narrated that a herd of any other animals than pure ones had found access to the temple, nor could any have been sold there but those used for sacrifice. The Evangelist makes use of the known practice of the merchants at the times of the Jewish feasts; they did bring in such animals to the outer court; this practice, with a real occurrence He knew of, were His materials. Any one, however, who cares to do so may enquire whether it is in agreement with the position held by Jesus in this world, since He was reputed to be the Son of a carpenter, to venture upon such an act as to drive out a crowd of merchants from the temple? They had come up to the feast to sell to a great number of the people, the sheep, several myriads in number, which they were to sacrifice according to their fathers’ houses, To the richer Jews they had oxen to sell, and there were doves for those who had vowed such animals, and many no doubt bought these with a view to their good cheer at the festival. And did not Jesus do an unwarrantable thing when He poured out the money of the money-changers, which was their own, and overthrew their tables? And who that received a blow from the scourge of small cords at the hands of One held in but slight esteem, was driven out of the temple, would not have attacked Him and raised a cry and avenged himself with his own hand, especially when there was such a multitude present who might all feel themselves insulted by Jesus in the same way? To think, moreover, of the Son of God taking the small cords in His hands and plaiting a scourge out of them for this driving out from the temple, does it not bespeak audacity and temerity and even some measure of lawlessness? One refuge remains for the writer who wishes to defend these things and is minded to treat the occurrence as real history, namely, to appeal to the divine nature of Jesus, who was able to quench, when He desired to do so, the rising anger of His foes, by divine grace to get the better of myriads, and to scatter the devices of tumultuous men; for “the Lord scatters the counsels of the nations (Psa_33:10) and brings to naught devices of the peoples, but the counsel of the Lord abideth for ever.” Thus the occurrence in our passage, if it really took place, was not second in point of the power it exhibits to any even of the most marvellous works Christ wrought, and claimed no less by its divine character the faith of the beholders. One may show it to be a greater work than that done at Cana of Galilee in the turning of water into wine; for in that case it was only soulless matter that was changed, but here it was the soul and will of thousands of men. It is, however, to be observed that at the marriage the mother of Jesus is said to be there, and Jesus to have been invited and His disciples, but that no one but Jesus is said to have descended to Capernaum. His disciples, however, appear afterwards as present with Him; they remembered that “the zeal of thine house shall devour me.” And perhaps Jesus was in each of the disciples as He ascended to Jerusalem, whence it is not said, Jesus went up to “Jerusalem and His disciples,” but He went down to Capernaum, “He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples.”

 

17. Matthew’s Story of the Entry into Jerusalem. Difficulties Involved in It for Those Who Take It Literally.

We have now to take into consideration the statements of the other Gospels on the expulsion from the temple of those who made it a house of merchandise. Take in the first place what we find in Matthew. On the Lord’s entering Jerusalem, he says, (Mat_21:10) “All the city was stirred, saying, Who is this?” But before this he has the story of the ass and the foal which were taken by command of the Lord and found by the two disciples whom he sent from Bethphage into the village over against them. These two disciples loose the ass which was tied, and they have orders, if any one says anything to them, to answer that “the Lord has need of them; and immediately he will send them.” By these incidents Matthew declares that the prophecy was fulfilled which says, “Behold, the King cometh, meek and sitting on an ass and a colt the foal of an ass,” which we find in Zechariah. (Zec_9:9) When, then, the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them, they brought the ass and the colt, and placed on them, he says, their own garments, and the Lord sat upon them, clearly on the ass and the colt. Then “the most part of the multitude spread their garments in the way, and others cut down branches from the trees and strewed them in the way, and the multitudes that went before and that followed cried, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” Hence it was that when He entered Jerusalem, the whole city was moved, saying, Who is this? “and the multitudes said,” those obviously who went before Him and who followed Him, to those who were asking who He was, “This is the prophet Jesus of Nazareth of Galilee. And Jesus entered into the temple and cast out all those that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sold doves: and He saith unto them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer; but ye make it a den of robbers.” Let us ask those who consider that Matthew had nothing but the history in his mind when he wrote his Gospel, what necessity there was for two of the disciples to be sent to the village over against Bethphage, to find an ass tied and its colt with it and to loose them and bring them? And how did it deserve to be recorded that He sat upon the ass and the foal and entered into the city? And how does Zechariah prophesy about Christ when he says, (Zec_9:9) “Rejoice greatly, thou daughter of Zion, proclaim it, thou daughter of Jerusalem. Behold thy king cometh unto thee, just is He and bringing salvation, meek and sitting on an ass and a young foal”? If it be the case that this prophecy predicts simply the material incident described by the Evangelists, how can those who stand on the letter maintain that this is so with regard to the following part also of the prophecy, which runs: “And He shall destroy chariots from Ephraim and horse from Jerusalem, and the bow of the warrior shall be destroyed, and a multitude and peace from the Gentiles, and He shall rule over the waters as far as the sea, and the rivers to the ends of the earth,” etc. It is to be noted, too, that Matthew does not give the words as they are found in the prophet, for instead of “Rejoice greatly, thou daughter of Zion, proclaim it, thou daughter of Jerusalem,” he makes it, “Tell ye the daughter of Zion.” He curtails the prophetic utterance by omitting the words, “Just is He and bringing salvation,” then he gives, “meek and sitting,” as in the original, but instead of “on an ass and a young colt,” he gives, “on an ass and a colt the foal of an ass.” The Jews, examining into the application of the prophecy to what is recorded about Jesus, press us in a way we cannot overlook with the enquiry how Jesus destroyed chariots out of Ephraim and horse from Jerusalem, and how He destroyed the bow of the enemy and did the other deeds mentioned in the passage. So much with regard to the prophecy. Our literal interpreters, however, if there is nothing worthy of the appearance of the Son of God in the ass and the foal, may perhaps point to the length of the road for an explanation. But, in the first place, fifteen stades are not a great distance and afford no reasonable explanation of the matter, and, in the second place, they would have to tell us how two beasts of burden were needed for so short a journey; “He sat,” it is said, “on them.” And then the words: “If any man say aught unto you, say ye that the Lord hath need of them, and straightway he will send them.” It does not appear to me to be worthy of the greatness of the Son’s divinity to say that such a nature as His confessed that it had need of an ass to be loosed from its bonds and of a foal to come with it; for everything the Son of God has need of should be great and worthy of His goodness. And then the very great multitude strewing their garments in the way, while Jesus allows them to do so and does not rebuke them, as is clear from the words used in another passage, (Luk_19:40) “If these should hold their peace, the stones will cry out.” I do not know if it does not indicate a certain degree of stupidity on the part of the writer to take delight in such things, if nothing more is meant by them than what lies on the surface. And the branches being cut down from the trees and strewn on the road where the asses go by, surely they are rather a hindrance to Him who is the centre of the throng than a well-devised reception of Him. The difficulties which met us on the part of those who were cast out of the temple by Jesus meet us here in a still greater degree. In the Gospel of John He casts out those who bought, but Matthew says that He cast out those who sold and those who bought in the temple. And the buyers would naturally be more numerous than the sellers. We have to consider if the casting out of buyers and sellers in the temple was not out of keeping with the reputation of one who was thought to be the Son of a carpenter, unless, as we said before, it was by a divine power that He subjected them. The words addressed to them, too, are harsher in the other Evangelists than in John. For John says that Jesus said to them, “Make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise,” while in the others they are rebuked for making the house of prayer a den of robbers. Now the house of His Father did not admit of being turned into a den of robbers, though by the acts of sinful men it was brought to be a house of merchandise. It was not only the house of prayer, but in fact the house of God, and by force of human neglect it harboured robbers, and was turned not only into their house but their den – a thing which no skill, either of architecture or of reason, could make it.

 

18.The Ass and the Colt Are the Old and the New Testament. Spiritual Meaning of the Various Features of the Story. Differences Between John’s Narrative and That of the Other Evangelists.

Now to see into the real truth of these matters is the part of that true intelligence which is given to those who can say, (1Co_2:16) “But we have the mind of Christ that we may see those things which are freely given to us of God; “and doubtless it is beyond our powers. For neither is the ruling principle in our soul free from agitation, nor are our eyes such as those of the fair bride of Christ should be, of which the bridegroom says, (Son_1:15) “Thy eyes are doves,” signifying, perhaps, in a riddle, the observant power which dwells in the spiritual, because the Holy Spirit came like a dove to our Lord and to the lord in every one. Such as we are, however, we will not delay, but will feel about the words of life which have been spoken to us and strive to lay hold of that power in them which flows to him who touches them in faith. Now Jesus is the word of God which goes into the soul that is called Jerusalem, riding on the ass freed by the disciples from its bonds. That is to say, on the simple language of the Old Testament, interpreted by the two disciples who loose it: in the first place him who applies what is written to the service of the soul and shows the allegorical sense of it with reference to her, and in the second place him who brings to light by the things which lie in shadow the good and true things of the future. But He also rides on the young colt, the New Testament; for in both alike we find the word of truth which purifies us and drives away all those thoughts in us which incline to selling and buying. But He does not come alone to Jerusalem, the soul, nor only with a few companions; for many things have to enter into us before the word of God which makes us perfect, and as many things have to come after Him, all, however, hymning and glorifying Him and placing under Him their ornaments and vestures, so that the beasts He rides on may not touch the ground, when He who descended out of heaven is seated on them. But that His bearers, the old and the new words of Scripture, may be raised yet higher above the ground, branches have to be cut down from the trees that they may tread on reasonable expositions. But the multitudes which go before and follow Him may also signify the angelic ministrations, some of which prepare the way for Him in our souls, and help in their adorning, while some come after His presence in us, of which we have often spoken, so that we need not now adduce testimonies about it. And perhaps it is not without reason that I have likened to an ass the surrounding voices which conduct the Word Himself to the soul; for it is a beast of burden, and many are the burdens, heavy the loads, which are brought into view from the text, especially of the Old Testament, as he can clearly see who observes what is done in this connection on the part of the Jews. But the foal is not a beast of burden in the same way as the ass. For though every lead of the latter be heavy to those who have not in themselves the upbearing and most lightening power of the Spirit, yet the new word is less heavy than the old. I know some who interpret the tied-up ass as being believers from the circumcision, who are freed from many bonds by those who are truly and spiritually instructed in the word; and the foal they take to be those from the Gentiles, who before they receive the word of Jesus are free from any control and subject to no yoke in their unbridled and pleasure-loving existence. The writers I am speaking of do not say who those are that go before and who those follow after; but there would be no absurdity in saying that those who went before were like Moses and the prophets, and those who followed after the holy Apostles. To what Jerusalem all these go in it is now our business to enquire, and what is the house which has many sellers and buyers to be driven out by the Son of God. And perhaps the Jerusalem above to which the Lord is to ascend driving like a charioteer those of the circumcision and the believers of the Gentiles, while prophets and Apostles go before Him and follow after Him or is it the angels who minister to Him, for they too may be meant by those who go before and those who follow, perhaps it is that city which before He ascended to it contained the so-called (Eph_6:12) “spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places,” or the Canaanites and Hittites and Amorites and the other enemies of the people of god, and in a word, the foreigners. For in that region, too, it was possible for the prophecy to be fulfilled which says, (Isa_1:7) “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire, your land, strangers devour it in your presence.” For these are they who defile and turn into a den of robbers, that is, of themselves the heavenly house of the Father, the holy Jerusalem, the house of prayer; having spurious money, and giving pence and small change, cheap worthless coinage, to all who come to them. These are they who, contending with the souls, take from them what is most precious, robbing them of their better part to return to them what is worth nothing. But the disciples go and find the ass tied and loose it, for it cannot have Jesus on account of the covering that is laid upon it by the law. (2Co_3:14) And the colt is found with it, both having been lost till Jesus came; I mean, namely, those of the circumcision and those of the Gentiles who afterwards believed. But how these are sent back again after Jesus has ascended to Jerusalem seated upon them, it is somewhat dangerous to say; for there is something mystical about it, in connection with the change of saints into angels. After that change they will be sent back, in the age succeeding this one, like the ministering spirits, (Heb_1:11) who are sent to do service for the sake of them who will thereby inherit salvation. But if the ass and the foal are the old and the new Scriptures, on which the Word of God rides, it is easy to see how, after the Word has appeared in them, they are sent back and do not wait after the Word has entered Jerusalem among those who have cast out all the thoughts of selling and buying. I consider, too, that it is not without significance that the place where the ass was found tied, and the foal, was a village, and a village without a name. For in comparison with the great world in heaven, the whole earth is a village where the ass is found tied and the colt, and it is simply called “the village” without any other designation being added to it. From Beth-phage Matthew says the disciples are sent out who are to fetch the ass and the colt; and Bethphage is a priestly place, the name of which means “House of Jaw-bones.” So much we have said, as our power allowed, on the text of Matthew, reserving for a further opportunity, when we may be permitted to take up the Gospel of Matthew by itself, a more complete and accurate discussion of his statements. Mark and Luke say that the two disciples, acting on their Master’s instructions, found a foal tied, on which no one had ever sat, and that they loosed it and brought it to the Lord. Mark adds that they found the foal tied at the door, outside on the road. But who is outside? Those of the Gentiles who were strangers1 from the covenants, and aliens to the promise of God; they are on the road, not resting under a roof or a house, bound by their own sins, and to be loosed by the twofold knowledge spoken of above, of the friends of Jesus. And the bonds with which the foal was tied, and the sins committed against the wholesome law and reproved by it, – for it is the gate of life, – in respect of it, I say, they were not inside but outside the door, for perhaps inside the door there cannot be any such bond of wickedness. But there were some persons standing beside the tied-up foal, as Mark says; those, I suppose, who had tied it; as Luke records, it was the masters of the foal who said to the disciples, Why loose ye the foal? For those lords who subjected and bound the sinner are illegal masters and cannot look the true master in the face when he frees the foal from its bonds. Thus when the disciples say, “The Lord hath need of him,” these wicked masters have nothing to say in reply. The disciples then bring the foal to Jesus naked, and put their own dress on it, so that the Lord may sit on the disciples’ garments which are on it, at His ease. What is said further will not, in the light of Matthew’s statements, present any difficulty; how (Mar_11:15) “They come to Jerusalem, and entering into the temple He began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple,” or how (Luk_19:41) “When He drew nigh and beheld the city He wept over it; and entering into the temple He began to cast out them that sold.” For in some of those who have the temple in themselves He casts out all that sell and buy in the temple; but in others who do not quite obey the word of God, He only makes a beginning of casting out the sellers and buyers. There is a third class also besides these, in which He began to cast out the sellers only, and not also the buyers. With John, on the contrary, they are all cast out by the scourge woven of small cords, along with the sheep and the oxen. It should be carefully considered whether it is possible that the changes of the things described and the discrepancies found in them can be satisfactorily solved by the anagogic method. Each of the Evangelists ascribes to the Word different modes of action, which produce in souls of different tempers not the same effects but yet similar ones. The discrepancy we noticed in respect of Jesus’ journeys to Jerusalem, which the Gospel now in hand reports quite differently from the other three, as we have expounded their words, cannot be made good in any other way. John gives statements which are similar to those of the other three but not the same; instead of branches cut from the trees or stubble brought from the fields and strewed on the road he says they took branches of palm trees. He says that much people had come to the feast, and that these went out to meet Him, crying, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,” and “Blessed is the King of Israel.” He also says that it was Jesus Himself who found the young ass on which Christ sat, and the phrase, young ass, doubtless conveys some additional meaning, as the small animal afforded a benefit not of men, nor through men, but through Jesus Christ. John moreover does not, any more than the others, reproduce the prophetic words exactly; instead of them he gives us “Fear not, O daughter of Zion; behold thy King cometh sitting” instead of “mounted” “on the foal of all ass” for “on an ass and a young foal”. The words “Fear not, daughter of Zion,” are not in the prophet at all. But as the prophetic utterance has been applied by all in this way, let us see if there was not a necessity that the daughter of Zion should rejoice greatly and that the greater than she, the daughter of Jerusalem, should not only rejoice greatly but should also proclaim it when her king was coming to her, just and bringing salvation, and meek, having mounted an ass and a young colt. Whoever, then, receives Him will no longer be afraid of those who are armed with the specious discourses of the heterodox, those chariots of Ephraim said to be destroyed by the Lord, (Zec_9:10) nor the horse, the vain thing for safety, (Psa_33:17) that is the mad desire which has accustomed itself to the things of sense and which is injurious to many of those who desire to dwell in Jerusalem and to attend to the sound word. It is also fitting to rejoice at the destruction by Him who rides on the ass and the young foal of every hostile dart, since the fiery darts of the enemy are no longer to prevail over him who has received Jesus to his own temple. And there will also be a multitude from the Gentiles with peace (Zec_9:9, Zec_9:10) at the Saviour’s coming to Jerusalem, when He rules over the waters that He may bruise the head of the dragon on the water, (Psa_74:13) and we shall tread upon the waves of the sea and to the mouths of all the rivers on the earth. Mark, however, writing about the foal, (Mar_11:2) reports the Lord to have said, “On which never man sat;” and he seems to me to hint at the circumstance that those who afterwards believed had never submitted to the Word before Jesus’ coming to them. For of men, perhaps, no one had ever sate on the foal, but of hearts or of powers alien to the Word some had sate on it, since in the prophet Isaiah the wealth of opposing powers is said to be borne on asses and camels. (Isa_30:6) “In the distress and the affliction,” he writes, “the lion and the lion’s whelp, whence also the offspring of flying asps, who carried their riches on asses and camels.” The question occurs again, for those who have no mind but for the bare words, if according to their view the words, “on which never man sat,” are not quite meaningless. For who but a man ever sits on a foal? So much of our views.

 

19. Various Views of Heracleon on Purging of the Temple.

Let us see what Heracleon makes of this. He says that the ascent to Jerusalem signifies the Lord’s going up from material things to the spiritual place, which is a likeness of Jerusalem. And he considers that the words are, “He found in the temple,” and not “in the sanctuary,”57 because the Lord is not to be understood as instrumental in that call only, which takes place where the spirit is not. He considers the temple to be the Holy of Holies, into which none but the High-Priest enters, and there I believe he says that the spiritual go; while the court of the temple, where the levites also enter, is a symbol of these psychical ones who are saved, but outside the Pleroma. Then those who are found in the temple selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money-changers sitting, he took to represent those who attribute nothing to grace, but regard the entrance of strangers to the temple as a matter of merchandise and gain, and who minister the sacrifices for the worship of God, with a view to their own gain and love of money. And the scourge which Jesus made of small cords and did not receive from another, he expounds in a way of his own, saying that the scourge is an image of the power and energy of the Holy Spirit, driving out by His breath those who are bad. And he declares that the scourge and the linen and the napkin and other things of such a kind are symbolic of the power and energy of the Holy Spirit. Then he assumes what is not written, as that the scourge was tied to a piece of wood, and this wood he takes to be a type of the cross; on this wood the gamblers, merchants, and all evil was nailed up and done away. In searching into the act of Jesus, and discussing the composition of the scourge out of two substances, he romances in an extraordinary way; He did not make it, he says, of dead leather. He wished to make the Church no longer a den of robbers, but the house of His Father. We must here say what is most necessary on the divinity, as referred to in Heracleon’s text. If Jesus calls the temple at Jerusalem the house of His Father, and that temple was made in honour of Him who made heaven and earth, why are we not at once told that He is the Son of no one else than the Maker of heaven and earth, that He is the Son of God? To this house of the Father of Jesus, as being the house of prayer, the Apostles of Christ also, as we find in their “Acts,” are told (Act_5:20) by the angel to go and to stand there and preach all the words of this life. But they came to the house of prayer, through the Beautiful Gate, to pray there, a thing they would not have done had they not known Him to be the same with the God worshipped by those who had dedicated that temple. Hence, too, they say, those who obeyed God rather than men, Peter and the Apostles, “The God (Act_5:29, Act_5:30) of our Fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, hanging Him on a tree;” for they know that by no other God was Jesus raised from the dead but the God of the fathers, whom Jesus also extols as the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who are not dead but living. How, too, could the disciples, if the house was not that of the same God with the God of Christ, have remembered the saying in the sixty-ninth Psalm, “The zeal of thy house shall devour Me;” for thus it is found in the prophet, and not “hath devoured Me.” Now Christ is zealous principally for that house of God which is in each of us; He does not wish that it should be a house of merchandise, nor that the house of prayer should be a den of robbers; for He is the Son of a jealous God. We ought to give a liberal intepretation to such utterances of Scripture; they speak of human things, but in the way of metaphor, to show that God desires that nothing foreign should be mixed up with His will in the soul of all men, indeed, but principally of those who are minded to accept the message of our most divine faith. But we must remember that the sixty-ninth Psalm, which contains the words, “The zeal of thy house shall devour me,” and a little further on, “They gave Me gall for My drink and for My thirst they gave Me vinegar,” both texts being recorded in the Gospels, that that Psalm is spoken in the person of the Christ, and nowhere shows any change of person. It shows a great want of observation on Heracleon’s part that he considers the words, “The zeal of thy house shall devour Me,” to be spoken in the person of those powers which were cast out and destroyed by the Saviour; he fails to see the connection of the prophecy in the Psalm. For if these words are understood as spoken by the expelled and destroyed powers, it follows that he must take the words, “They gave Me vinegar to drink,” which are a part of the same psalm, to be also spoken by those powers. What misled him was probably that he could not understand how the “shall devour Me” could be spoken by Christ, since He did not appreciate the way in which anthropopathic statements are applied to God and to Christ.

FOOTNOTES

57 ἐν τῶ ἱεπῶ, not τῶ ναῶ. The latter is Neader’s correction for τον ανο, “the things above.” Heracleon’s point is that the ιερον, the Holy of Holies, represents the spiritual realm; and the Jesus entered it as being, as well as the ναος, in need of His saving work.

Commentaries of Origen (Cont.)

Tenth Book. (Cont.)

20.The Temple Which Christ Says He Will Raise up Is the Church. How the Dry Bones Will Be Made to Live Again.

“The Jews then answered and said unto Him, What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things? (Joh_2:18, Joh_2:19) Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Those of the body, and those who incline to material things, seem to me to be meant by the Jews, who, after Jesus has driven out those who make God’s house a house of merchandise, are angry at Him for treating these matters in such a way, and demand a sign, a sign which will show that the Word, whom they do not receive, has a right to do such things. The Saviour joins on to His statement about the temple a statement which is really one with the former, about His own body, and to the question, What sign doest Thou, seeing that Thou doest such things? answers, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” He could have exhibited a thousand other signs, but to the question, “Seeing that Thou doest such things,” He could not answer anything else; He fittingly gave the answer about the sign connected with the temple, and not about signs unconnected with the temple. Now, both of these two things, the temple and the body of Jesus, appear to me, in one interpretation at least, to be types of the Church, and to signify that it is built of living stones, (1Pe_2:5) a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, built (Eph_2:20) on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the head corner-stone; and it is, therefore, called a temple. Now, from the text, (1Co_12:27) “Ye are the body of Christ, and members each in his part,” we see that even though the harmonious fitting of the stones of the temple appear to be dissolved and scattered, as it is written in the twenty-second Psalm (Psa_22:14) that all the bones of Christ are, by the plots made against it in persecutions and afflictions, on the part of those who war against the unity of the temple in persecutions, yet the temple will be raised again, and the body will rise again on the third day after the day of evil which threatens it, (2Pe_3:3, 2Pe_3:10, 2Pe_3:13) and the day of consummation which follows. For the third day will rise on the new heaven and the new earth, when these bones, the whole house of Israel, (Eze_37:11) will rise in the great Lord’s day, death having been overcome. And thus the resurrection of the Saviour from the passion of the cross contains the mystery of the resurrection of the whole body of Christ. But as that material body of Jesus was sacrificed for Christ, and was buried, and was afterwards raised, so the whole body of Christ’s saints is crucified along with Him, and now lives no longer; for each of them, like Paul, glories (Gal_6:14) in nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which He is crucified to the world, and the world to Him. Not only, therefore, is it crucified with Christ, and crucified to the world; it is also buried with Christ, for we were buried with Christ, Paul says. (Rom_6:4) And then he says, as if enjoying some earnest of the resurrection, “We rose with Him,”58 because He walks in a certain newness of life, though not yet risen in that blessed and perfect resurrection which is hoped for. Either, then, he is now crucified, and afterwards is buried, or he is now buried and taken down from the cross, and, being now buried, is to rise at some future time. But to most of us the mystery of the resurrection is a great one, and difficult of contemplation; it is spoken of in many other passages of Scripture, and is specially announced in the following passage of Ezekiel: (Eze_37:1-4) “And the hand of the Lord was upon me, and He led me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me in the midst of the plain, and it was full of human bones. And He led me round about them in a circle, and behold there were very many on the face of the plain, and behold they were very dry. And He said to me, Son of man, shall these bones live? And I said, Lord, Lord, Thou knowest. And He said to me, Prophesy to these bones, and thou shall say to them, Hear the word of the Lord, ye dry bones;” and a little further on, “And the Lord spake to me, saying, Son of man, these bones are the house of Israel. And they say, Our bones are become dry, our hope is lost, we have breathed our last.” For what bones are these which are addressed, “Hear ye the word of the Lord,” as if they heard the word of the Lord? They belong to the house of Israel, or to the body of Christ, of which the Lord says, (Psa_22:13) “All My bones are scattered,” although the bones of His body were not scattered, and not even one of them was broken. But when the resurrection itself takes place of the true and more perfect body of Christ, then those who are now the members of Christ, for they will then be dry bones, will be brought together, bone to bone, and fitting to fitting for none of those who are destitute of fitting ἁρμονία will come to the perfect man, to the measure (Eph_4:13) of the stature of the fulness of the body of Christ. And then the many members (1Co_12:12 sq) will be the one body, all of them, though many, becoming members of one body. But it belongs to God alone to make the distinction of foot and hand and eye and hearing and smelling, which in one sense fill up the head, but in another the feet and the rest of the members, and the weaker and humbler ones, the more and the less honourable. God will temper the body together, and then, rather than now, He will give to that which lacks the more abundant honour, that there may be, by no means, any schism in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another, and, if any member be well off, all the members may share in its good things, or if any member be glorified, all the members may rejoice with it.

 

21. That the Son Was Raised up by the Father. The Charge Brought Against Jesus at His Trial Was Based on the Incident Now Before Us.

What I have said is not alien to the passage now engaging us, dealing as it does with the temple and those cast out from it, of which the Saviour says, “The zeal of thy house shall devour Me;” and with the Jews who asked that a sign should be showed them, and the Saviour’s answer to them, in which He combines the discourse on the temple with that on His own body, and says, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” For from this temple, which is the body of Christ, everything that is irrational and savours of merchandise must be driven away, that it may no longer be a house of merchandise. And this temple must be destroyed by those who plot against the Word of God, and after its destruction be raised again on that third day which we discussed above; when the disciples also will remember what He, the Word, said before the temple of God was destroyed, and will believe, not only their knowledge but their faith also being then made perfect, and that by the word which Jesus spoke. And every one who is of this nature, Jesus purifying him, (Joh_15:3) puts away things that are irrational and things that savour of selling, to be destroyed on account of the zeal of the Logos that is in Him. But they are destroyed to be raised again by Jesus, not on the third day, if we attend to the exact words before us, but “in three days.” For the rising again of the temple takes place on the first day after it has been destroyed and on the second day, and its resurrection is accomplished in all the three days. Hence a resurrection both has been and is to be, if indeed we were buried with Christ, and rose with Him. And since the word, “We rose with Him,” does not cover the whole of the resurrection, “in Christ shall all be made alive, (1Co_15:22-24) but every one in his own order, Christ the first fruits, then they that are Christ’s at His coming, and then the end.” It belongs to the resurrection that one should be on the first day in the paradise of God, (Luk_23:43) and it belongs to the resurrection when Jesus appears and says, “Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father,” (Joh_20:17) but the perfection of the resurrection was when He came to the Father. Now there are some who fall into confusion on this head of the Father and the Son, and we must devote a few words to them. They quote the text, (1Co_15:15) “Yea, and we are found false witnesses for God, because we testified against God that He raised up Christ, whom He raised not up,” and other similar texts which show the raiser-up to be another person than He who was raised up; and the text, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” as if it resulted from these that the Son did not differ in number from the Father, but that both were one, not only in point of substance but in point of subject, and that the Father and the Son were said to be different in some of their aspects but not in their hypostases. Against such views we must in the first place adduce the leading texts which prove the Son to be another than the Father, and that the Son must of necessity be the son of a Father, and the Father, the father of a Son. Then we may very properly refer to Christ’s declaration that He cannot do anything but what He sees the Father doing and saying, (Joh_5:19) because whatever the Father does that the Son also does in like manner, and that He had raised the dead, i.e., the body, the Father granting Him this, who must be said to have been the principal agent in raising up Christ from the dead. But Heracleon says, “In three days,” instead of “On the third day,” not having examined the point and yet having noted the words “in three”, that the resurrection is brought about in three days. But he also calls the third the spiritual day, in which they consider the resurrection of the Church to be indicated. It follows from this that the first day is to be called the “earthly” day, and the second the psychical, the resurrection of the Church not having taken place on them. Now the statements of the false witnesses, recorded in the Gospel according to Matthew and Mark (Mat_26:61; Mar_14:58) towards the end of the Gospel, and the accusation they brought against our Lord Jesus Christ, appear to have reference to this utterance of His, “Destroy this temple, and I will build it up in three days.” For He was speaking of the temple of His body, but they supposed His words to refer to the temple of stone, and so they said when accusing Him, “This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it up in three days,” or, as Mark has it, “We heard Him say, that I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build up another temple not made with hands.” Here the high-priest stood up and said to Him, “Answerest Thou nothing? What do these witness against Thee? But Jesus held His peace.” Or, as Mark says, “And the high-priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus saying, Answerest Thou nothing? What do these witness against Thee? But He held His peace and answered nothing.” These words must, I think, necessarily have reference to the text now before us.

 

22. The Temple of Solomon Did Not Take Forty-Six Years to Build. With Regard to That of Ezra We Cannot Tell How Long It Took. Significance of the Number Forty-Six.

The Jews therefore said, “Forty and six years was this temple in building, (Joh_2:20) and wilt thou raise it up in three days?” How the Jews said that the temple had been forty-six years building, we cannot tell, if we adhere to the history. For it is written in the third Book of Kings, (1Ki_5:18) that they prepared the stones and the wood three years, and in the fourth year, in the second month, (1Ki_6:1) when Solomon was king over Israel, the king commanded, and they brought great precious stones for the foundation of the house, and unhewn stones. And the sons of Solomon and the sons of Hiram hewed the stones and laid them in the fourth year, and they founded the house of the Lord in the month Nisan and the second month: in the tenth year in the month Baal, which was the eighth month, the house was finished according to the whole count and the whole plan of it. Thus comparing the time of its completion with the period of building, the building of it occupies less than eleven years. How, then, do the Jews come to say that the temple was forty-six years in building? One might, indeed, do violence to the words and make out the period of forty-six years at all costs, by counting from the time when David, after planning about the building of the temple, said to Nathan the prophet, (2Sa_7:2) “Behold I dwell in a house of cedar, and the ark of God dwelleth in the midst of the tent,” for though it is true that he was prevented, as being a man of blood, (1Ch_22:8, 1Ch_27:3) from carrying out the building, he seems to have busied himself in collecting materials for it. In the first Book of Chronicles, (1Ch_29:1-5) certainly, David the king says to all the congregation, “Solomon my son, whom the Lord hath chosen, is young and tender, and the work is great, because he is not to build for man but for the Lord God. According to my whole power I have prepared for the house of my God, gold, silver, brass, and iron, wood, stones of Soom, and stones for filling up, and precious stones of many kinds, and all sorts of precious wood, and a large quantity of Pariah marble. And besides this, for the pleasure I have taken in the house of my God, the gold and the silver I possess, lo, I have given it for the house of my Lord, to the full; from such supplies59 I prepared for the house of the saints, three thousand talents of gold from Suphir, and seven thousand talents of stamped silver, that the houses of God may be overlaid with them by the hands of artifiers.” For David reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem; (1Ki_2:11) so that if it could be shown that the beginning of the preparations for the temple and of David’s collecting the necessary material, was in the fifth year of his reign, then, with some forcing, the statement about forty-six years might stand. But some one else will say that the temple spoken of was not that built by Solomon, for that it was destroyed at the period of the captivity, but the temple built at the time of Ezra, (Ezr_6:1) with regard to which the forty-six years can be shown to be quite accurate. But in this Maccabean period things were very unsettled with regard to the people and the temple, and I do not know if the temple was really built in that number of years. Heracleon pays no attention to the history, but says that in that he was forty-six years preparing the temple, Solomon was an image of the Saviour. The number six he connects with matter, that is, the image, and the number forty, which he says is the tetrad, not admitting of combination, he connects with the inspiration and the seed in the inspiration. Consider if the forty cannot be taken as due to the four elements of the world arranged in the building of the temple at the points at issue,60 and the six to the fact that man was created on the sixth day.

 

23. The Temple Spoken of by Christ Is the Church. Application to the Church of the Statements Regarding the Building of Solomon’s Temple, and the Numbers Stated in That Narrative.

“But He spake of the temple of His body. (Joh_2:21) When, therefore, He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.” This refers to the statement that the body of the Son is His temple. It may be asked whether this is to be taken in its plain sense, or whether we should try to connect each statement that is recorded about the temple, with the view we take about the body of Jesus, whether the body which He received from the Virgin, or that body of Christ which the Church is said to be, as we are said by the Apostle (1Co_12:27) to be all members of His body. One may, on the one hand, suppose it to be hopeless to get everything that is said about the temple properly connected with the body, in whatever sense the body be taken, and one may have recourse to a simpler explanation, and say that the body in either of these senses is called the temple, because as the temple had the glory of God dwelling in it, so He who was the image and glory of God, the first-born of every creature, could rightly be called, in respect of His body or the Church, the temple containing the image. We, for our part, see it to be a hard task to expound every particular of what is said about the temple in the third Book of Kings, and far beyond our powers of language, and we defer it in the meantime, as a thing beyond the scale of the present work. We also have a strong conviction that in such matters, which transcend human nature, it must be the work of divine wisdom to make plain the meaning of inspired Scripture, of that wisdom which is hidden in a mystery, which none of the rulers of this world knew. We are well aware, too, that we need the assistance of that excellent Spirit of wisdom, in order to understand such matters, as they should be understood by ministers of sacred things; and in this connection we will attempt to describe, as shortly as we may, our view of what belongs to this subject. The body is the Church, and we learn from Peter (1Pe_2:5) that it is a house of God, built of living stones, a spiritual house for a holy priesthood. Thus the son of David, who builds this house, is a type of Christ. He builds it when his wars are at an end, (1Ki_5:3-5) and a period of profound peace has arrived; he builds the temple for the glory of God in the Jerusalem on earth, so that worship may no longer be celebrated in a moveable erection like the tabernacle. Let us seek to find in the Church the truth of each statement made about the temple. If all Christ’s enemies are made the footstool of His feet, (1Co_15:25) and Death, the last enemy, is destroyed, then there will be the most perfect peace. Christ will be Solomon, which means “Peaceful,” (1Ch_22:9) and the prophecy will find its fulfilment in Him, which says, (Psa_120:7) “With those who hated peace I was peaceful.” And then each of the living stones will be, according to the work of his life here, a stone of that temple, one, at the foundation, an apostle or a prophet, bearing those placed upon him, and another, after those in the foundation, and supported by the Apostles, will himself, with the Apostles, help to bear those in more need. One will be a stone of the inmost parts, where the ark is, and the cherubim, slid the mercy-seat; another will be on the outer wall, and another even outside the outer wall of the levites and priests, a stone of the altar of whole burnt offerings. And the management and service of these things will be entrusted to holy powers, angels of God, being, respectively, lordships, thrones, dominions, or powers; and there will be others subject to these, typified by three thousand six hundred (1Ki_5:15-18) chief officers, who were appointed over the works of Solomon, and the seventy thousand of those who bore burdens, and the eighty thousand stone-cutters in the mountain, who wrought in the work, and prepared the stones and the wood. It is to be remarked that those reported as bearing burdens are related to the Hebdomad. The quarrymen and stone-cutters, who make the stones fitted for the temple, have some kinship to the ogdoad. And the officers, who are six hundred in number, are connected with the perfect number six multiplied into itself. The preparation of the stones, as they are taken out and fitted for the building, extends over three years; this appears to me to point solely to the time of the eternal interval which is akin to the triad. This will come to pass when peace is consummated after the number of years of the transaction of the matters connected with the exodus from Egypt, namely, three hundred and forty, and of what took place in Egypt four hundred and thirty years after the covenant made by God with Abraham. Thus, from Abraham to the beginning of the building of the temple, there are two sabbatic numbers, the 700 and the 70; and at that time, too, our King Christ will command the seventy thousand burden-bearers not to take any chance stones for the foundation of the temple, but great stones, precious, unhewn, that they may be hewn, not by any chance workmen, but by the sons of Solomon; for so we find it written in the third Book of Kings. Then, too, on account of the profound peace, Hiram, king of Tyre, cooperates in the building of the temple, and gives his own sons to the sons of Solomon, to hew, in company with them, the great and precious stones for the holy place, which, in the fourth year, are placed in the foundation of the house of the Lord. But in an ogdoad of years the house is finished in the eighth month of the eighth year after its foundation.

 

24. The Account of the Building of Solomon’s Temple Contains Serious Difficulties and Is to Be Interpreted Spiritually.

For the sake of those, however, who consider that nothing further than the narrative itself is meant to be indicated in these words, it may not be unfitting to introduce at this point some considerations which they can scarcely withstand, to show that the words ought to be regarded as those of the Spirit, and that the mind of the Spirit should be sought for in them. Did the sons of the kings really spend their time in hewing the great and precious stones, and practise a craft so little in keeping with royal birth And the number of the burden-bearers and of the stone-cutters and of the officers, the duration, too, of the period of preparing the stones and marking them, is all this recorded as it really was? The holy house, too, was got ready in peace and was to be built for God without hammer or axe or any iron tool, that there might be no disturbance in the house of God. And again I would ask those who are in bondage to the letter how it is possible that there should be eighty thousand stone-cutters and that the house of God should be built out of hard white stones without the noise of hammer or axe or any iron tool being heard in His house while the building was going on? Is it not living stones that are hewn without any noise or tumult somewhere outside the temple, so that they are brought ready prepared to the place which awaits them in the building? And there is some sort of an ascent about the temple of God, not with angles, but with bends of straight lines. For it is written, (1Ki_6:8) “And there was a winding staircase to the middle, and from the middle to the third floor;” for the staircase in the house of God had to be spiral, thus imitating in its ascent the circle, which is the most perfect figure. But that this house might be secure five ties are built in it. (1Ki_6:10) as fair as possible, a cubit high, that on looking up one might see it to be suggested how we rise from sensible things to the so-called divine perceptions, and so be brought to perceive those things which are seen only by the mind. But the place of the happier stones appears to be that called Dabir, (1Ki_6:16, 1Ki_6:19), the “oracle” where the ark of the covenant of the Lord was, and, as I may say, the handwriting of God, the tables written with His own finger. And the whole house is overlaid with gold; “the whole house,” we read, (1Ki_6:21) “he overlaid with gold until all the house was finished.” But there were two cherubim in Dabir, a word which the translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek failed to render satisfactorily. Some, failing to do justice to the language, render it the temple; but it is more sacred than the temple. Now everything about the house was made golden, for a sign that the mind which is quite made perfect estimates accurately the things perceived by the intellect. But it is not given to all to approach and know them; and hence the veil of the court is erected, since to most of the priests and levites the things in the inmost part of the temple are not revealed.

 

25. Further Spiritualizing of Solomon’s Temple-Building.

It is worth while to enquire how, on the one hand, Solomon the king is said to have built the temple, and on the other the master-builder whom Solomon sent and fetched, (1Ki_7:13) “Hiram of Tyre, the son of a woman who was a widow; and he was of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass, and filled with wisdom and understanding, to work all works in brass; and he was brought in to King Solomon and wrought all his works.” Here I ask whether Solomon can be taken for the first-born of all creation, (Col_1:15) and Hiram for the man whom he assumed, from the constraint of men – for the word Tyrians means “constrainers” – the man who derived his birth from nature, and being filled with all manner of art and wisdom and understanding, was brought in to cooperate with the first-born of all creation, and to build the temple. In this temple there are also windows, (1Ki_6:4) placed obliquely and out of sight, so that the illumination of the divine light may enter for salvation, and – why should I go into particulars? – that the body of Christ, the Church, may be found having the plan of the spiritual house and temple of God. As I said before, we require that wisdom which is hidden in a mystery, and which he alone can apprehend who is able to say, “But we have the mind of Christ,” – we require that wisdom to interpret spiritually each detail of what is said in accordance with the will of Him who caused it to be written. To enter into these details is not in accordance with our present subject. What has been said may suffice to let us understand how “He spake about the temple of His body.”

 

26.The Promises Addressed to Jerusalem in the Prophets Refer to the Church, and Are Still to Be Fulfilled.

After all this it is proper to ask whether what is narrated as having taken place about the temple has ever taken place or ever will take place about the spiritual house. The argument may seem to pinch in whichever way we take it. If we say that it is possible that something like what is told about the temple may take place with regard to the spiritual house, or has already taken place in it, then those who hear us will, with difficulty, be brought to admit that a change can take place in such good things as these, firstly, because they do not wish it, and secondly, because of the incongruity of thinking that such things admit of change. If, on the other hand, We seek to maintain the unchangeableness of the good things once given to the saints, then we cannot apply to them what we find in the history, and we shall seem to be doing what those of the heresies do, who fail to maintain the unity of the narrative of Scripture from beginning to end. If we are not to take the view proper to old wives or Jews, of the promises recorded in the prophets, and especially in Isaiah, if, that is to say, we are to look for their fulfilment in connection with the Jerusalem on earth, then, as certain remarkable things connected with the building of the temple and the restoration of the people from the captivity are spoken of as happening after the captivity and the destruction of the temple, we must say that we are now the temple and the people which was carried captive, but is to come up again to Judaea and Jerusalem, and to be built with the precious stones of Jerusalem. But I cannot tell if it be possible that, at the revolution of long periods of time, things of the same nature should take place again, but in a worse way. The prophecies of Isaiah which we mentioned are the following: (Isa_54:11-14) “Behold I prepare for thy stone carbuncle and for thy foundation sapphire; and I will make thy battlements jasper, and thy gates stones of crystal, and thy outer wall choice stones; and all thy sons shall be taught of the Lord, and in great peace shall thy children be, and in righteousness shall thou be built.” And a little further on, to the same Jerusalem: (Isa_9:13-20) “And the glory of Lebanon shall come to thee with cypress, and pine, and cedar, along with those who will glorify My holy place. And the sons of them that humbled thee and insulted thee shall come to thee in fear; and thou shalt be called the city of the Lord, Sion of holy Israel, because thou weft desolate and hated, and there was none to help thee. And I will make thee an eternal delight, a joy of generations of generations. And thou shall suck the milk of the Gentiles and shall eat the riches of kings, and thou shall know that I am the Lord that saveth thee and the God of Israel that chooseth thee. And instead of brass I will bring thee gold, and instead of iron I will bring thee silver, and for wood I will bring thee brass, and for stones iron. And I will establish thy rulers in peace and thy overseers in righteousness. And wickedness shall no more be heard in thy land, nor affliction and distress in thy borders, but thy walls shall be called salvation and thy gates sculpture. And the sun shall no longer be to thee for light by day, nor shall the rising of the moon give light to thee by night, but Christ shall be to thee an everlasting light and thy God thy glory. For thy sun shall no more go down, and thy moon shall not fail, for thy Lord shall be to thee an everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be fulfilled.” These prophecies clearly refer to the age still to come, and they are addressed to the children of Israel in their captivity, to whom He was sent and came, who said, “I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Mat_15:24) Such things, though they are captives, they are to receive in their Own land; and proselytes also are to come to them at that time through Christ, and are to fly to them, according to the saying, (Isa_54:15) “Behold, proselytes shall come to thee through Me, and shall flee to thee for refuge.” And if all this is to take place with the captives, then it is plain that they must be about their temple, and that they must go up there again to be built up, having become the most precious of stones. For we find with John in his Apocalyse, (Rev_3:12) the promise made to him that overcomes, that he will be a pillar in the temple of God, and will go no more out. All this I have said with a view to our obtaining a cursory view at least of the matters pertaining to the temple, and the house of God, and the Church and Jerusalem, which we cannot now take up systematically. Those, however, who, in their reading of the prophets, do not shrink from the labour of seeking after their spiritual meaning, must enquire into these matters with the greatest particularity, and must take account of every possibility. So her of “the temple of His body.”

 

27. Of the Belief the Disciples Afterwards Attained in the Words of Jesus.

“When He was raised from the dead. (Joh_2:22) His disciples remembered that He spake this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.” This tells us that after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead His disciples saw that what He had said about the temple had a higher application to His passion and His resurrection; they remembered that the words, “In three days I will raise it up,” pointed to the resurrection; “And they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.” We are not told that they believed the Scripture or the word which Jesus said, before. For faith in its full sense is the act of him who accepts with his whole soul what is professed at baptism. As for the higher sense, as we have already spoken of the resurrection from the dead of the whole body of the Lord, we have now to note that the disciples were put in mind by the fulfilment of the Scripture which when they were in life they had not fully understood; its meaning was now brought under their eyes and made quite clear to them, and they knew of what heavenly things it was the pattern and shadow. Then they believed the Scripture who formerly did not believe it, and believed the word of Jesus which, as the speaker means to convey, they had not believed before the resurrection. For how can any one be said in the full sense to believe the Scripture when he does not see in it the mind of the Holy Spirit, which God would have us to believe rather than the literal meaning? From this point of view we must say that none of those who walk according to the flesh believe the spiritual things of the law, of the very beginnings of which they have no conception. But, they say, those are more blessed who have not seen and yet believe, than those who have seen and have believed, and for this they quote the saying to Thomas at the end of the Gospel of John, (Joh_20:29) “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” But it is not said here that those who have not seen and yet have believed are more blessed than those who have seen and believed. According to their view those after the Apostles are more blessed than the Apostles; than which nothing can be more foolish. He who is to be blessed must see in his mind the things which he believes, and must be able with the Apostles to hear the words spoken to him, “Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear,” (Mat_13:16) and “Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things which ye hear, and have not heard them.” Yet he may be content who only receives the inferior beatitude, which says: (Joh_20:29) “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.” But how much more blessed are those eyes which Jesus calls blessed for the things which they have seen, than those which have not attained to such a vision; Simeon is content to take into his arms the salvation of God, and after seeing it, he says, (Luk_2:29, Luk_2:30) “Now, O Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.” We must strive, therefore, as Solomon says, to open our eyes that we may be satisfied with bread; “Open thine eyes,” he says, “and be satisfied with bread.” What I have said on the text, “They believe the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said unto them,” may lead us to understand, after discussing the subject of faith, that the perfection of our faith will be given us at the great resurrection from the dead of the whole body of Jesus which is His Holy Church. For what is said about knowledge, “Now I know in part,” (1Co_13:12) that, I think, may be said in the same way of every other good; and one of these others is faith. “Now I believe in part,” we may say, “but when that which is perfect is come, then the faith which is in part will be done away.” As with knowledge, so with faith, that which is through sight is far better, if I may say so, than that which is through a glass and in an enigma.

 

28. The Difference Between Believing in the Name of Jesus and Believing in Jesus Himself.

“Now, when He was in Jerusalem at the passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He did. But He, Jesus, did not trust Himself to them, because He knew all men and because He needed not that any should testify of man, for he Himself knew what was in man.” (Joh_2:23-25) One might ask how Jesus did not Himself believe in those of whom we are told that they believed. To this we must say it was not those who believed in Him that Jesus did not trust, but those who believed in His name; for believing in His name is It different thing from believing in Him. He who will not be judged because of his faith is exempted from the judgment, not for believing in His name, but for believing in Him; for the Lord says, (Joh_3:18) “He that believeth in Me is not judged,” not, “He who believes in My name is not judged;” the latter believes, and hence he is not worthy to be condemned already, but he is inferior to the other who believes in Him. Hence it is that Jesus does not trust Himself to him who believes in His name. We must, therefore, cleave to Him rather than to His name, test after we have done wonders in His name, we should hear these words addressed to us which He will speak to those who boast of His name alone. (Mat_7:21-23) With the Apostle Paul (Phi_4:13) let us seek joyfully to say, “I can do all things in Christ Jesus strengthening me.” We have also to notice that in a former passage (Joh_2:13) the Evangelist calls the passover that of the Jews, while here he does not say that Jesus was at the passover of the Jews, but at the passover at Jerusalem; and in the former case when the passover is called that of the Jews, it is not said to be a feast; but here Jesus is recorded to have been at the feast; when at Jerusalem He was at the passover during the feast, and many believed, even though only in His name. We ought to notice certainly that “many” are said to believe, not in Him, but in His name. Now, those who believe in Him are those who walk in the straight and narrow way, (Mat_7:14) which leads to life, and which is found by few. It may well be, however, that many of those who believe in His name will sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, the Father’s house, in which are many mansions. And it is to be noted that the many who believe in His name do not believe in the same way as Andrew does, and Peter, and Nathanael, and Philip. These believe the testimony of John when he says, “Behold the Lamb of God,” or they believe in Christ as found by Andrew, or Jesus saying to Philip, “Follow Me,” or Philip saying, “We have found Him of whom Moses and the prophets did write, Jesus the Son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Those, on the other hand, of whom we now speak, “believed in His name, beholding His signs which He did.” And as they believe the signs and not in Him but in His name, Jesus “did not trust Himself to them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, because He knew what is in every man.”

 

29. About What Beings Jesus Needed Testimony.

The words, “He needed not that any should testify of man,” may fitly be used to show that the Son of God is able of Himself to see the truth about each man and is in no need of such testimony as any other could supply. The words, however, “He had no need that any should testify of man,” are not equivalent to “He had no need of testimony about any being.” If we take the word “man” to include every being who is according to the image of God, or every reasonable creature, then He will have no need that any should testify to Him of any reasonable being whatever, since He Himself, by the power given Him by the Father, knows them all. But if the term “man” be restricted to mortal animated reasonable beings, then it might be said, on the one hand, that He had need of testimony respecting the beings above man, and while His knowledge was adequate with regard to man it did not extend to those other beings. On the other hand, however, it might be said that He who humbled Himself had no need that any should testify to Him concerning man, but that He had such need in respect of beings higher than men.

 

30. How Jesus Knew the Powers, Better or Worse, Which Reside in Man.

It may also be asked what signs those many saw Him do who believed on Him, for it is not recorded that He did any signs at Jerusalem, though some may have been done which are not recorded. One may, however, consider if what He did may be called signs, when He made a scourge of small cords, and cast them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables. As for those who suppose that it was only about men that He had no need of witnesses, it has to be said that the Evangelist attributes to Him two things, that He knew all beings, and that He had no need that any one should testify of man. If He knew all beings, then He knew not only men but the beings above men, all beings who are without such bodies as ours; and He knew what was in man, since He was greater than those who reproved and judged by prophesying, and who brought to the light the secret things of the hearts of those whom the Spirit suggested to them to be thus dealt with. The words, “He knew what was in man,” could also be taken as referring to the powers, better or worse, which work in men. For if any one gives place to the devil, Satan enters into him; thus did Judas give place, and thus did the devil put it in his heart to betray Jesus, and “after the sop,” therefore, “the devil entered into him.” (Joh_13:2-27) But if any one gives place to God, he becomes blessed; for blessed is the man whose help is from God, and the ascent is in his heart from God. (Psa_84:5) Thou knowest what is in man, Thou who knowest all things, O Son of God. And now that our tenth book has come to be large enough we will here pause in our theme.

 

 

FOOTNOTES

 

58 These words do not occur in Rom_6:4.

59 LXX. reads :besides what;” neither reading yields a good sense.

60 Reading ὴγωνσμένοις. Another suggested reading is γωνιωμένοις, which might give the sense “at the corners.” Neither is satisfactory.

Commentaries of Origen (Cont.)

Introduction

According to Eusebius (H. E. vi. 36) the Commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew were written about the same time as the Contra Celsum, when Origen was over sixty years of age, and may therefore be probably assigned to the period 246-248. This statement is confirmed by internal evidence. In the portion here translated, books x.-xiv., he passes by the verses Mat_18:12, Mat_18:13, and refers for the exposition of them to his Homilies on Luke book xiii. 29. Elsewhere, he refers his readers for a fuller discussion on certain points to his Commentaries on John (book xvi. 20), and on Romans (book xvii. 32). Of the twenty-five books into which the work was divided, the first nine, with the exception of two fragments, are lost; books x.-xvii, covering the portion from Mat_13:36 to Mat_22:33, are extant in the Greek, and the greater part of the remaining books survives in a Latin version, which is co-extensive with the Greek from book xii. 9 to book xvii. 36, and contains further the exposition from Mat_22:34 to Mat_27:66. The passages in Cramer’s Galena do not seem to be taken from the Commentaries. Of the numerous quotations from Matthew only one Mat_21:35 can be definitely traced to this section of the writings of Origen; and as this differs greatly from our present text, and is moreover purely narrative, it is probably taken like the others either from the Scholia (cammaticum interpretations genus), or from the Homilies to which reference is made by Jerome (Prol. in Matt. I. iv.). The majority of them may be ascribed to the Scholia.

In addition to the mss. already referred to (p. 292) the old Latin version is often useful for determining the text, though it contains some interpolations and has many omissions. The omissions (cf. book xiii. 28, book xiv. I, 3, book xiv. 19-22) are not due to any dogmatic bias, but have been made by the translator or some subsequent transcriber on the ground that the passages were uninteresting or unimportant. The version is otherwise for the most part literal, and has in some cases preserved the correct reading, though it often fails just when it would have been of most service. For an estimate of the work and method of Origen as an exegete, see pp. 291-294; and for a fuller statement on some of the points here touched upon, see Westcott’s article on Origen in Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Biography (vol. iv.). 

 

From the First Book of the Commentary on Matthew1

Concerning the four Gospels which alone are uncontroverted in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first; and that he composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for the converts from Judaism. The second written was that according to Mark, who wrote it according to the instruction of Peter, who, in his General Epistle, acknowledged him as a son, saying, “The church that is in Babylon, elect together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Mark my son.” (1Pe_5:13) And third, was that according to Luke, the Gospel commended by2 Paul, which he composed for the converts from the Gentiles. Last of all, that according to John. 

 

From the Second Book of the Commentary on the Gospel According to Matthew

Book II.3

The Unity and Harmony of Scripture

“Blessed are the peacemakers. …” (Mat_5:9) To the man who is a peacemaker in either sense there is in the Divine oracles nothing crooked or perverse, for they are all plain to those who understand. (Pro_8:8, Pro_8:9) And because to such an one there is nothing crooked or perverse, he sees therefore abundance of peace (Psa_72:7) in all the Scriptures, even in those which seem to be at conflict, and in contradiction with one another. And likewise he becomes a third peacemaker as he demonstrates that that which appears to others to be a conflict in the Scriptures is no conflict, and exhibits their concord and peace, whether of the Old Scriptures with the New, or of the Law with the Prophets, or of the Gospels with the Apostolic Scriptures, or of the Apostolic Scriptures with each other. For, also, according to the Preacher, all the Scriptures are “words of the wise like goads, and as nails firmly fixed which were given by agreement from one shepherd;” (Ecc_12:11) and there is nothing superfluous in them. But the Word is the one Shepherd of things rational which may have an appearance of discord to those who have not ears to hear, but are truly at perfect concord. For as the different chords of the psalter or the lyre, each of which gives forth a certain sound of its own which seems unlike the sound of another chord, are thought by a man who is not musical and ignorant of the principle of musical harmony, to be inharmonious, because of the dissimilarity of the sounds, so those who are not skilled in hearing the harmony of God in the sacred Scriptures think that the Old is not in harmony with the New, or the Prophets with the Law, or the Gospels with one another, or the Apostle with the Gospel, or with himself, or with the other Apostles. But he who comes instructed in the music of God, being a man wise in word and deed, and, on this account, like another David — which is, by interpretation, skilful with the hand — will bring out the sound of the music of God, having learned from this at the right time to strike the chords, now the chords of the Law, now the Gospel chords in harmony with them, and again the Prophetic chords, and, when reason demands it, the Apostolic chords which are in harmony with the Prophetic, and likewise the Apostolic with those of the Gospels. For he knows that all the Scripture is the one perfect and harmonised1 instrument of God, which from different sounds gives forth one saving voice to those willing to learn, which stops and restrains every working of an evil spirit, just as the music of David laid to rest the evil spirit in Saul, which also was choking him. (1Sa_16:14) You see, then, that he is in the third place a peacemaker, who sees in accordance with the Scripture the peace of it all, and implants this peace in those who rightly seek and make nice distinctions in a genuine spirit. 

 

 

FOOTNOTES

 

1 This fragment is found in Eusebius, H. E., vi. 25.

2 Or, who is recommended by Paul.

3 This fragment, which is preferred in the Philocalia, c. vi., is all that is extant of Book II.

Commentaries of Origen (Cont.)

Book X.

1. The Parable of the Tares: the House of Jesus.

“Then He left the multitudes and went into His house, and His disciples came unto Him saying, Declare to us the parable of the tares of the field” (Mat_13:36) When Jesus then is with the multitudes, He is not in His house, for the multitudes are outside of the house, and it is an act which springs from His love of men to leave the house and to go away to those who are not able to come to Him. Now, having discoursed sufficiently to the multitudes in parables, He sends them away and goes to His own house, where His disciples, who did not abide with those whom He had sent away, come to Him. And as many as are more genuine hearers of Jesus first follow Him, then having inquired about His abode, are permitted to see it, and, having come, see and abide with Him, all for that day, and perhaps some of them even longer. And, in my opinion, such things are indicated in the Gospel according to John in these words, “On the morrow again John was standing and two of his disciples. (Joh_1:35) And in order to explain the fact that of those who were permitted to go with Jesus and see His abode, the one who was more eminent becomes also an Apostle, these words are added: “One of the two that heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.” (Joh_1:40) And if then, unlike the multitudes whom He sends away, we wish to hear Jesus and go to the house and receive something better than the multitudes, let us become friends of Jesus, so that as His disciples we may come to Him when He goes into the house, and having come may inquire about the explanation of the parable, whether of the tares of the field, or of any other. And in order that it may be more accurately understood what is represented by the house of Jesus, let some one collect from the Gospels whatsoever things are spoken about the house of Jesus, and what things were spoken or done by Him in it; for all the passages collected together will convince any one who applies himself to this reading that the letters of the Gospel are not absolutely simple as some suppose, but have become simple to the simple by a divine concession;4 but for those who have the will and the power to hear them more acutely there are concealed things wise and worthy of the Word of God.

 

2. Exposition of the Parable.

“After these things He answered and said to them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man.” (Mat_13:37) Though we have already, in previous sections, according to our ability discussed these matters, none the less shall we now say what is in harmony with them, even if there is reasonable ground for another explanation. And consider now, if in addition to what we have already recounted, you can otherwise take the good seed to be the children of the kingdom, because whatsoever good things are sown in the human soul, these are the offspring of the kingdom of God and have been sown by God the Word who was in the beginning with God, (Joh_1:2) so that wholesome words about anything are children of the kingdom. But while men are asleep who do not act according to the command of Jesus, “Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation,” (Mat_26:41) the devil on the watch sows what are called tares – that is, evil opinions – over and among what are called by some natural conceptions, even the good seeds which are from the Word. And according to this the whole world might be called a field, and not the Church of God only, for in the whole world the Son of man sowed the good seed, but the wicked one tares, – that is, evil words, – which, springing from wickedness, are children of the evil one. And at the end of things, which is called “the consummation of the age,”5 there will of necessity be a harvest, in order that the angels of God who have been appointed for this work may gather up the bad opinions that have grown upon the soul, and overturning them may give them over to fire which is said to burn, that they may be consumed. And so the angels and servants of the Word will gather from all the kingdom of Christ all things that cause a stumbling-block to souls and reasonings that create iniquity, which they will scatter and cast into the burning furnace of fire. Then those who become conscious that they have received the seeds of the evil one in themselves, because of their having been asleep, shall wail and, as it were, be angry against themselves; for this is the “gnashing of teeth.” (Mat_13:42) Wherefore, also, in the Psalms it is said, “They gnashed upon me with their teeth.” (Psa_35:16) Then above all “shall the righteous shine,” no longer differently as at the first, but all “as one sun in the kingdom of their Father.” (Mat_13:43) Then, as if to indicate that there was indeed a hidden meaning, perhaps, in all that is concerned with the explanation of the parable, perhaps most of all in the saying, “Then shall the righteous shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” the Saviour adds, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” (Mat_13:43) thereby teaching those who think that in the exposition, the parable has been set forth with such perfect clearness that it can be understood by the vulgar,6 that even the things connected with the interpretation of the parable stand in need of explanation.

 

3. The Shining of the Righteous. Its Interpretation.

But as we said above in reference to the words, “Then shall the righteous shine as the sun,” that the righteous will shine not differently as formerly, but as one sun, we will, of necessity, set forth what appears to us on the point. Daniel, knowing that the intelligent are the light of the world, and that the multitudes of the righteous differ in glory, seems to have said this, “And the intelligent shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and from among the multitudes of the righteous as the stars for ever and ever.” (Dan_12:3) And in the passage, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory: so also is the resurrection of the dead,” (1Co_15:41, 1Co_15:42) the Apostle says the same thing as Daniel, taking this thought from his prophecy. Some one may inquire how some speak about the difference of light among the righteous, while the Saviour on the contrary says, “They shall shine as one sun.” I think, then, that at the beginning of the blessedness enjoyed by those who are being saved because those who are not such are not yet purified, the difference connected with the light of the saved takes place: but when, as we have indicated, he gathers from the whole kingdom of Christ all things that make men stumble, and the reasonings that work iniquity are cast into the furnace of fire, and the worse elements utterly consumed, and, when this takes place, those who received the words which are the children of the evil one come to self-consciousness, then shall the righteous having become one light of the sun shine in the kingdom of their Father. For whom will they shine? For those below them who will enjoy their light, after the analogy of the sun which now shines for those upon the earth? For, of course, they will not shine for themselves. But perhaps the saying,” Let your light shine before men,” (Mat_5:16) can be written “upon the table of the heart,”7 according to what is said by Solomon, in a threefold way; so that even now the light of the disciples of Jesus shines before the rest of men, and after death before the resurrection, and after the resurrection “until all shall attain unto a full-grown man,” (Eph_4:13) and all become one sun. Then shall they shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

 

4. Concerning the Parable of the Treasure Hidden in the Field. The Parable Distinguished From the Similitude.

 “Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid.” (Mat_13:44) The former parables He spoke to the multitudes; but this and the two which follow it, which are not parables but similitudes in relation to the kingdom of heaven, He seems to have spoken to the disciples when in the house. In regard to this and the next two, let him who “gives heed to reading” (1Ti_4:13) inquire whether they are parables at all. In the case of the latter the Scripture does not hesitate to attach in each case the name of parable; but in the present case it has not done so; and that naturally. For if He spoke to the multitudes in parables, and “spake all these things in parables, and without a parable spake nothing to them,” (Mat_13:34) but on going to the house He discourses not to the multitudes but to the disciples who came to Him there, manifestly the things spoken in the house were not parables: for, to them that are without, even to those to whom “it is not given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” (Mat_13:11) He speaks in parables. Some one will then say, If they are not really parables, what are they? Shall we then say in keeping with the diction of the Scripture that they are similitudes comparisons? Now a similitude differs from a parable; for it is written in Mark, “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or in what parable shall we set it forth?” (Mar_4:30) From this it is plain that there is a difference between a similitude and a parable. The similitude seems to be generic, and the parable specific. And perhaps also as the similitude, which is the highest genus of the parable, contains the parable as one of its species, so it contains that particular form of similitude which has the same name as the genus. This is the case with other words as those skilled in the giving of many names have observed; who say that “impulse”8 is the highest genus of many species, as, for example, of “disinclination”9 and “inclination.” and say that, in the case of the species which has the same name as the genus, “inclination” is taken in opposition to and in distinction from “disinclination.”

 

5. The Field and the Treasure Interpreted.

And here we must inquire separately as to the field, and separately as to the treasure hidden in it, and in what way the man who has found this hidden treasure goes away with joy and sells all that he has in order to buy that field; and we must also inquire – what are the things which he sells. The field, indeed, seems to me according to these things to be the Scripture, which was planted with what is manifest in the words of the history, and the law, and the prophets, and the rest of the thoughts; for great and varied is the planting of the words in the whole Scripture; but the treasure hidden in the field is the thoughts concealed and lying under that which is manifest, “of wisdom hidden in a mystery,” “even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.” (Col_2:3) But another might say that the field is that which is verily full, which the Lord blessed, the Christ of God; but the treasure hidden in it is the things said to have been “hidden in Christ” by Paul, who says about Christ, “in whom are the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.” The heavenly things, therefore, even the kingdom of heaven, as in a figure it is written in the Scriptures – which are the kingdom of heaven, or Christ – Himself the king of the ages, are the kingdom of heaven which is likened to a treasure hidden in the field.

 

6. The Exposition Continued.

And at this point you will inquire, whether the kingdom of heaven is likened only to the treasure hidden in the field, so that we are to think of the field as different from the kingdom, or is likened to the whole of this treasure hidden in the field, so that the kingdom of heaven contains according to the similitude both the field and the treasure hidden in the field. Now a man who comes to the field, whether to the Scriptures or to the Christ who is constituted both from things manifest and from things hidden, finds the hidden treasure of wisdom whether in Christ or in the Scriptures. For, going round to visit the field and searching the Scriptures and seeking to understand the Christ, he finds the treasure in it; and, having found it, he hides it, thinking that it is not without danger to reveal to everybody the secret meanings of the Scriptures, or the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ. And, having hidden it, he goes away, working and devising how he shall buy the field, or the Scriptures, that he may make them his own possession, receiving from the people of God the oracles of God with which the Jews were first entrusted. (Rom_3:2) And when the man taught by Christ has bought the field, the kingdom of God which, according to another parable, is a vineyard, “is taken from them and is given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof,” (Mat_21:43) – to him who in faith has bought the field, as the fruit of his having sold all that he had, and no longer keeping by him anything that was formerly his; for they were a source of evil to him. And you will give the same application, if the field containing the hidden treasure be Christ, for those who give up all things and follow Him, have, as it were in another way, sold their possessions, in order that, by having sold and surrendered them, and having received in their place from God – their helper – a noble resolution, they may purchase, at great cost worthy of the field, the field containing the treasure hidden in itself.

 

7. The Parable of the Pearl of Great Price. The Formation and Difference of Pearls.

“Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls.” (Mat_13:45) There are many merchants engaged in many forms of merchandise, but not to any one of these is the kingdom of heaven like, but only to him who is seeking goodly pearls, and has found one equal in value to many, a very costly pearl which he has bought in place of many. I consider it reasonable, then, to make some inquiry into the nature of the pearl.10 Be careful however to note, that Christ did not say, “He sold all the pearls that he had,” for he sold not only those which one seeking goodly pearls had bought, but also everything which he had, in order to buy that goodly pearl. We find then in those who write on the subject of stones, with regard to the nature of the pearl, that some pearls are found by land, and some in the sea. The land pearls are produced among the Indians only, being fitted for signet-rings and collets and necklaces; and the sea pearls, which are superior, are found among the same Indians, the best being produced in the Red Sea. The next best pearls are those taken from the sea at Britain; and those of the third quality, which are inferior not only to the first but to the second, are those found at Bosporus off Scythia. Concerning the Indian pearl these things further are said. They are found in mussels, like in nature to very large spiral snail-shells; and these are described as in troops making the sea their pasture-ground, as if under the guidance of some leader, conspicuous in colour and size, and different from those under him, so that he has an analogous position to what is called the queen of the bees. And likewise, in regard to the fishing for the best – that is, those in India – the following is told. The natives surround with nets a large circle of the shore, and dive down, exerting themselves to seize that one of them all which is the leader; for they say that, when this one is captured, the catching of the troop subject to it costs no trouble, as not one of those in the troop remains stationary, but as if bound by a thong follows the leader of the troop. It is said also that the formation of the pearls in India requires periods of time, the creature undergoing many changes and alterations until it is perfected. And it is further reported that the shell – I mean, the shell of the animal which bears the pearl – opens and gapes, as it were, and being opened receives into itself the dew of heaven; when it is filled with dew pure and untroubled, it becomes illumined and brings forth a large and well-formed pearl; but if at any time it receives dew darkened, or uneven, or in winter, it conceives a pearl cloudy and disfigured with spots. And this we also find that if it be intercepted by lightning when it is on the way towards the completion of the stone with which it is pregnant, it closes, and, as it were in terror, scatters and pours forth its offspring, so as to form what are called “physemata.” And sometimes, as if premature, they are born small, and are somewhat cloudy though well-formed. As compared with the others the Indian pearl has these features. It is white in colour, like to silver in transparency, and shines through as with a radiance somewhat greenish yellow, and as a rule is round in form; it is also of tender skin, and more delicate than it is the nature of a stone to be; so it is delightful to behold, worthy to be celebrated among the more notable, as he who wrote on the subject of stones used to say. And this is also a mark of the best pearl, to be rounded off on the outer surface, very white in colour, very translucent, and very large in size. So much about the Indian pearl. But that found in Britain, they say, is of a golden tinge, but somewhat cloudy, and duller in sparkle. And that which is formal in the strait of Bosporus is darker than that of Britain, and livid, and perfectly dim, soft and small. And that which is produced in the strait of Bosporus is not found in the “pinna” which is the pearl-bearing species of shells, but in what are called mussels; and their habitat – I mean those at Bosporus – is in the marshes. There is also said to be a fourth class of pearls in Acarnania in the “pinnae” of oysters. These are not greatly sought after, but are irregular in form, and perfectly dark and foul in colour; and there are others also different from these in the same Acarnania which are cast away on every ground.

 

8. The Parable Interpreted Is the Light of These Views.

Now, having collected these things out of dissertations about stones, I say that the Saviour with a knowledge of the difference of pearls, of which some are in kind goodly and others worthless, said, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls;” (Mat_13:45) for, if some of the pearls had not been worthless, it would not have been said, “to a man seeking goodly pearls.” Now among the words of all kinds which profess to announce truth, and among those who report them, he seeks pearls. And let the prophets be, so to speak, the mussels which conceive the dew of heaven, and become pregnant with the word of truth from heaven, the goodly pearls which, according to the phrase here set forth, the merchantman seeks. And the leader of the pearls, on the finding of which the rest are found with it, is the very costly pearl, the Christ of God, the Word which is superior to the precious letters and thoughts in the law and the prophets, on the finding of which also all the rest are easily taken. And the Saviour holds converse with all the disciples, as merchant-men who are not only seeking the goodly pearls but who have found them and possess them, when He says, “Cast not your pearls before swine.” (Mat_7:6) Now it is manifest that these things were said to the disciples from that which is prefixed to His words, “And seeing the multitudes He went up into the mountain, and when He had sat down His disciples came unto Him;” (Mat_5:1) for, in the course of those words, He said, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine.” (Mat_7:6) Perhaps, then, he is not a disciple of Christ, who does not possess pearls or the very costly pearl, the pearls, I mean, which are goodly; not the cloudy, nor the darkened, such as the words of the heterodox, which are brought forth not at the sunrise, but at the sunset or in the north, if it is necessary to take also into the comparison those things on account of which we found a difference in the pearls which are produced in different places. And perhaps the muddy words and the heresies which are bound up with works of the flesh, are the darkened pearls, and those which are produced in the marshes, not goodly pearls.

 

9. Christ the Pearl of Great Price.

Now you will connect with the man seeking goodly pearls the saying, “Seek and ye shall find,” (Mat_7:7) and this – “Every one that seeketh findeth.” (Mat_7:8) For what seek ye? Or what does every one that seeketh find? I venture to answer, pearls and the pearl which he possesses, who has given up all things, and counted them as loss; “for which,” says Paul, “I have counted all things but loss that I may win Christ;” (Phi_3:8) by “all things” meaning the goodly pearls, “that I may win Christ,” the one very precious pearl. Precious, then, is a lamp to men in darkness, and there is need of a lamp until the sun rise; and precious also is the glory in the face of Moses, and of the prophets also, I think, and a beautiful sight, by which we are introduced so as to be able to see the glory of Christ, to which the Father bears witness, saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.” (Mat_3:17) But “that which hath been made glorious hath not been made glorious in this respect by reason of the glory that surpasseth;” (2Co_3:10) and there is need to us first of the glory which admits of being done, away, for the sake of the glory which surpasseth; as there is need of the knowledge which is in part, which will be done away when that which is perfect comes. (1Co_13:9, 1Co_13:10) Every soul, therefore, which comes to childhood, and is on the way to full growth, until the fulness of time is at hand, needs a tutor and stewards and guardians, in order that, after all these things, he who formerly differed nothing from a bond-servant, though he is lord of all, (Gal_4:1, Gal_4:2) may receive, when freed from a tutor and stewards and guardians, the patrimony corresponding to the very costly pearl, and to that which is perfect, which on its coming does away with that which is in part, when one is able to receive “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ,” (Phi_3:8) having been previously exercised, so to speak, in those forms of knowledge which are surpassed by the knowledge of Christ. But the multitude, not perceiving the beauty of the many pearls of the law, and all the knowledge, “in part,” though it be, of the prophets, suppose that they can, without a clear exposition and apprehension of these, find in whole11 the one precious pearl, and behold “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ,” in comparison with which all things that came before such and so great knowledge, although they were not refuse in their own nature, appear to be refuse. This refuse is perhaps the “dung” thrown down beside the fig tree by the keeper of the vineyard, which is the cause of its bearing fruit. (Luk_13:8)

 

10. The Pearl of the Gospel in Relation to the Old Testament.

“To everything then is its season, and a time for everything under heaven,” (Ecc_3:1) a time to gather the goodly pearls, and a time after their gathering to find the one precious pearl, when it is fitting for a mall to go away and sell all that he has in order that he may buy that pearl. For as every man who is going to be wise in the words of truth must first be taught the rudiments, and further pass through the elementary instruction, and appreciate it highly but not abide in it, as one who, having honoured it at the beginning but passed over towards perfection, is grateful for the introduction because it was useful at the first; so the perfect apprehension of the law and the prophets is an elementary discipline for the perfect apprehension of the Gospel, and all the meaning in the words and deeds of Christ.

 

11. The Parable of the Drag-Net.

“Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea.” (Mat_13:47) As in the case of images and statues, the likenesses are not likenesses in every respect of those things in relation to which they are made; but, for example, the image painted with wax on the plane surface of wood has the likeness of the surface along with the colour, but does not further preserve the hollows and prominences, but only their outward appearance; and in the moulding of statues an endeavour is made to preserve the likeness in respect of the hollows and the prominences, but not in respect of the colour; and, if the cast be formed of wax, it endeavours to preserve both, I mean both the colour and also the hollows and the prominences, but is not indeed an image of the things in the respect of depth; so conceive with me also that, in the case of the similitudes in the Gospel, when the kingdom of heaven is likened unto anything, the comparison does not extend to all the features of that to which the kingdom is compared, but only to those features which are required by the argument in hand. And here, accordingly, the kingdom of heaven is “like unto a net that was cast into the sea,” not as supposed by some,12 who represent that by this word the different natures of those who have come into the net, to-wit, the evil and the righteous, are treated of, as if it is to be thought that, because of the phrase “which gathered of every kind,” there are many different natures of the righteous and likewise also of the evil; for to such an interpretation all the Scriptures are opposed, which emphasise the freedom of the will, and censure those who sin and approve those who do right; or otherwise blame could not rightly attach to those of the kinds that were such by nature, nor praise to those of a better kind. For the reason why fishes are good or bad lies not in the souls of the fishes, but is based on that which the Word said with knowledge, “Let the waters bring forth creeping things with living souls,” (Gen_1:20) when, also. “God made great sea-monsters and every soul of creeping creatures which the waters brought forth according to their kinds.” (Gen_1:21) There, accordingly, “The waters brought forth every soul of creeping animals according to their kinds,” the cause not being in it; but here we are responsible for our being good kinds and worthy of what are called “vessels,” or bad and worthy of being cast outside. For it is not the nature in us which is the cause of the evil, but it is the voluntary choice which worketh evil; and so our nature is not the cause of righteousness, as if it were incapable of admitting unrighteousness, but it is the principle which we have admitted that makes men righteous; for also you never see the kinds of things in the water changing from the bad kinds of fishes into the good, or from the better kind to the worse; but you can always behold the righteous or evil among men either coming from wickedness to virtue, or returning from progress towards virtue to the flood of wickedness. Wherefore also in Ezekiel, concerning the man who turns away from unrighteousness to the keeping of the divine commandments, it is thus written: “But if the wicked man turn away from all his wickednesses which he hath done,” etc., down to the words, “that he turn from his wicked way and live;” (Eze_18:2-23) but concerning the man who returns from the advance towards virtue unto the flood of wickedness it is said, “But in the case of the righteous man turning away from his righteousness and committing iniquity,” etc., down to the words, “in his sins which he hath sinned in them shall he die.” (Eze_18:24) Let those who, from the parable of the drag-net, introduce the doctrine of different natures, tell us in regard to the wicked man who afterwards turned aside from all the wickednesses which he committed and keeps all the commandments of God, and does that which is righteous and merciful, of what nature was he when he was wicked? Clearly not of a nature to be praised. If verily of a nature to be censured, of what kind of nature can he reasonably be described, when he turns away from all his sins which he did? For if he were of the bad class of natures, because of his former deeds, how did he change to that which was better? Or if because of his subsequent deeds you would say that he was of the good class, how being good by nature did he become wicked? And you will also meet with a like dilemma in regard to the righteous man turning away from his righteousness and committing unrighteousness in all manner of sins. For before he turned away from righteousness, being occupied with righteous deeds he was not of a bad nature, for a bad nature could not be in righteousness, since a bad tree – that is wickedness – cannot produce good fruits, – the fruits that spring from virtue. Again, on the other hand, if he had been of a good and unchangeable nature he would not have turned away from the good after being called righteous, so as to commit unrighteousness in all his sins which he committed.

 

12. The Divine Scriptures Compared to a Net.

Now, these things being said, we must hold that “the kingdom of heaven is likened to a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind,” (Mat_13:47) in order to set forth the varied character of the principles of action among men, which are as different as possible from each other, so that the expression “gathered from every kind” embraces both those worthy of praise and those worthy of blame in respect of their proclivities towards the forms of virtues or of vices. And the kingdom of heaven is likened unto the variegated texture of a net, with reference to the Old and the New Scripture which is woven of thoughts of all kinds and greatly varied. As in the case of the fishes that fall into the net, some are found in one part of the net and some in another part, and each at the part at which it was caught, so in the case of those who have come into the net of the Scriptures you would find some caught in the prophetic net; for example, of Isaiah, according to this expression, or of Jeremiah or of Daniel; and others in the net of the law, and others in the Gospel net, and some in the apostolic net; for when one is first captured by the Word or seems to be captured, he is taken from some part of the whole net. And it is nothing strange if some of the fishes caught are encompassed by the whole texture of the net in the Scriptures, and are pressed in on every side and caught, so that they are unable to escape but are, as it were, absolutely enslaved, and not permitted to escape from the net. And this net has been cast into the sea – the wave – tossed life of men in every part of the world, and which swims in the bitter affairs of life. And before our Saviour Jesus Christ this net was not wholly filled; for the net of the law and the prophets had to be completed by Him who says, “Think not that I came to destroy the law and the prophets, I came not to destroy but to fulfil.” (Mat_5:17) And the texture of the net has been completed in the Gospels, and in the words of Christ through the Apostles. On this account, therefore, “the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind.” And, apart from what has been said, the expression, “gathered from every kind,” may show forth the calling of the Gentiles from every race. And those who attended to the net which was cast into the sea are Jesus Christ, the master of the net, and “the angels who came and ministered unto Him,” (Mat_4:11) who do not draw up the net from the sea, nor carry it to the shore beyond the sea, – namely, to things beyond this life, unless the net be filled full, that is, unless the “fulness of the Gentiles” has come into it. But when it has come, then they draw it up from things here below, and carry it to what is figuratively called the shore, where it will be the work of those who have drawn it up, both to sit by the shore, and there to settle themselves, in order that they may place each of the good in the net into its own order, according to what are here called “vessels,” but cast without and away those that are of an opposite character and are called bad. By “without” is meant the furnace of fire as the Saviour interpreted, saying, “So shall it be at the consummation of the age. The angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the righteous and shall cast them into the furnace of fire.” (Mat_13:49, Mat_13:50) Only it must be observed, that we are already taught by the parable of the tares and the similitude set forth, that the angels are to be entrusted with the power to distinguish and separate the evil from the righteous; for it is said above, “The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mat_13:42) But here it is said, “The angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the righteous and shall cast them into the furnace of fire.”

 

13. Relation of Men to Angels.

From this it does not follow, as some suppose, that the men who are saved in Christ are superior even to the holy angels; for how can those who are cast by the holy angels into vessels be compared with those who cast them into vessels, seeing that they have been put under the authority of the angels? While we say this, we are not ignorant that the men who will be saved in Christ surpass some angels – namely, those who have not been entrusted with this office – but not all of them. For we read, “Which things angels desire to look into,” (1Pe_1:12) where it is not said “all” angels. And we know also this – “We shall judge angels” (1Co_6:3) where it is not said “all” angels. Now since these things are written about the net and about those in the net, we say that he who desires that, before the consummation of the age, and before the coming of the angels to sever the wicked from among the righteous, there should be no evil persons “of every kind” in the net, seems not to have understood the Scripture, and to desire the impossible. Wherefore let us not be surprised if, before the severing of the wicked from among the righteous by the angels who are sent forth for this purpose, we see our gatherings also filled with wicked persons. And would that those who will be cast into the furnace of fire may not be greater in number than the righteous! But since we said in the beginning, that the parables and similitudes are not to be accepted in respect of all the things to which they are likened or compared, but only in respect of some things, we must further establish from the things to be said, that in the case of the fishes, so far as their life is concerned, an evil thing happens to them when they are found in the net. For they are deprived of the life which is theirs by nature, and whether they are cast into vessels or cast away, they suffer nothing more than the loss of the life as it is in fishes; but, in the case of those to whom the parable refers, the evil thing is to be in the sea and not to come into the net, in order to be cast along with the good into vessels. And in like manner the bad fishes are cast without and thrown away; but the bad in the similitude before us are cast into “the furnace of fire,” that what is said in Ezekiel about the furnace of fire may also overtake them – “And the Word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man behold the house of Israel is become to me all mixed with brass and iron,” etc., down to the words, “And ye shall know that I the Lord have poured My fury upon you.” (Eze_18:17-22)

 

14. The Disciples as Scribes.

“Have ye understood all these things? They say, Yea.” (Mat_13:51) Christ Jesus, who knows the things in the hearts of men, (Joh_2:25) as John also taught concerning Him in the Gospel, puts the question not as one ignorant, but having once for all taken upon Him the nature of man, He uses also all the characteristics of a man of which “asking” is one. And there is nothing to be wondered at in the Saviour doing this, since indeed the God of the universe, bearing with the manners of men as a man beareth with the manners of his son, makes inquiry, as – “Adam, where art thou?” (Gen_3:9) and, “Where is Abel thy brother?” (Gen_4:9) But some one with a forced interpretation will say here that the words “have understood” are not to be taken interrogatively but affirmatively; and he will say that the disciples bearing testimony to His affirmation, say, “Yea.” Only, whether he is putting a question or making an affirmation, it is necessarily said not “these things” only, – which is demonstrative, – not “all things” only, but “all these things.” And here He seems to represent the disciples as having been scribes before the kingdom of heaven; (Mat_13:52) but to this is opposed what is said in the Acts of the Apostles thus, “Now when they beheld the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled, and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.” (Act_4:13) Some one may inquire in regard to these things – if they were scribes, how are they spoken of in the Acts as unlearned and ignorant men? Or if they were unlearned and ignorant men, how are they very plainly called scribes by the Saviour? And it might be answered to these inquiries that, as a matter of fact, not all the disciples but only Peter and John are described in the Acts as unlearned and ignorant, but that there were more disciples in regard to whom, because they understood all things, it is said, “Every scribe,” etc. Or it might be said that every one who has been instructed in the teaching according to the letter of the law is called a scribe, so that those who were unlearned and ignorant and led captive by the letter of the law are spoken of as scribes in a particular sense. And it is very specially the characteristic of ignorant men, who are unskilled in figurative interpretation and do not understand what is concerned with the mystical13 exposition of the Scriptures, but believe the bare letter, and, vindicate it, that they call themselves scribes. And so one will interpret the words, “Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” (Mat_23:13) as having been said to every one that knows nothing but the letter. Here you will inquire if the scribe of the Gospel be as the scribe of the law, and if the former deals with the Gospel, as the latter with the law, reading and hearing and telling “those things which contain an allegory,” (Gal_4:24) so as, while preserving the historic truth of the events, to understand the unerring principle of mystic interpretation applied to things spiritual, so that the things learned may not be “spiritual things whose characteristic is wickedness,” (Eph_6:12) but may be entirely opposite to such, namely, spiritual things whose characteristic is goodness. And one is a scribe “made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven” in the simpler sense, when he comes from Judaism and receives the teaching of Jesus Christ as defined by the Church; but he is a scribe in a deeper sense, when having received elementary knowledge through the letter of the Scriptures he ascends to things spiritual, which are called the kingdom of the heavens. And according as each thought is attained, and grasped abstractly14 and proved by example and absolute demonstration, can one understand the kingom of heaven, so that he who abounds in knowledge free from error is in the kingdom of the multitude of what are here represented as “heavens.” So, too, you will allegorise the word, “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens is at hand,” (Mat_3:2) as meaning that the scribes – that is, those who rest satisfied in the bare letter – may repent of this method of interpretation and be instructed in the spiritual teaching which is called the kingdom of the heavens through Jesus Christ the living Word. Wherefore, also, so far as Jesus Christ, “who was in the beginning with God, God the word,” (Joh_1:1, Joh_1:2) has not His home in a soul, the kingdom of heaven is not in it, but when any one becomes nigh to admission of the Word, to him the kingdom of heaven is nigh. But if the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are the same thing in reality,15 if not in idea, manifestly to those to whom it is said, “The kingdom of God is within you,” (Luk_17:21) to them also it might be said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you;” and most of all because of the repentance from the letter unto the spirit; since “When one turn to the Lord, the veil over the letter is taken away. But the Lord is the Spirit.” (2Co_3:16, 2Co_3:17) And he who is truly a householder is both free and rich; rich because from the office of the scribe he has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven, in every word of the Old Testament, and in all knowledge concerning the new teaching of Christ Jesus, and has this riches laid up in his own treasure-house – in heaven, in which he stores his treasure as one who has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven, – where neither moth doth consume, nor thieves break through. (Mat_6:20) And in regard to him, who, as we have said, lays up treasure in heaven, we may truly lay down that not one moth of the passions can touch his spiritual and heavenly possessions. “A moth of the passions,” I said, taking the suggestion from the “Proverbs” in which it is written, “a worm in wood, so pain woundeth the heart of man.” (Pro_25:20) For pain is a worm and a moth, which wounds the heart which has not its treasures in heaven and spiritual things, for if a man has his treasure in these – “for where the treasure is, there will the heart be also,” (Mat_6:21) – he has his heart in heaven, and on account of it he says, “Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.” (Psa_27:3) And so neither can thieves in regard to whom the Saviour said, “All that came before Me are thieves and robbers,” (Joh_10:8) break through those things which are treasured up in heaven, and through the heart which is in heaven and therefore says, “He raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ,” (Eph_2:6) and, “Our citizenship is in heaven.” (Phi_3:20)

 

15. The Householder and His Treasury.

Now since “every scribe who has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder who bringeth forth out of his treasury things new and old,” (Mat_13:52) it clearly follows, by “conversion of the proposition,” as it is called, that every one who does not bring forth out of his treasury things new and old, is not a scribe who has been made a disciple unto the kingdom of heaven. We must endeavour, therefore, in every way to gather in our heart, “by giving heed to reading, to exhortation, to teaching,” (1Ti_4:13) and by “meditating in the law of the Lord day and night,” (Psa_1:2) not only the new oracles of the Gospels and of the Apostles and their Revelation, but also the old things in the law “which has the shadow of the good things to come,” (Heb_10:1) and in the prophets who prophesied in accordance with them. And these things will be gathered together, when we also read and know, and remembering them, compare at a fitting time things spiritual with spiritual, not comparing things that cannot be compared with one another, but things which admit of comparison, and which have a certain likeness of diction signifying the same thing, and of thoughts and of opinions, so that by the mouth of two or three or more witnesses (Mat_18:16) from the Scripture, we may establish and confirm every word of God. By means of them also we must refute those who, as far as in them lies, cleave in twain the God head and cut off the New from the Old,16 so that they are far removed from likeness to the householder who brings forth out of his treasury things new and old. And since he who is likened to any one is different from the one to whom he is likened, the scribe “who is made a disciple unto the kingdom of heaven” will be the one who is likened, but different from him is the householder “who brings out of his treasury things new and old.” But he who is likened to him, as in imitation of him, wishes to do that which is like. Perhaps, then, the man who is a householder is Jesus Himself, who brings forth out of His treasury, according to the time of the teaching, things new, things spiritual, which also are always being renewed by Him in the “inner man” of the righteous, who are themselves always being renewed day by day, (2Co_4:16) and old things, things “written and engraven on stones,” (2Co_3:7) and in the stony hearts of the old man, so that by comparison of the letter and by exhibition of the spirit He may enrich the scribe who is made a disciple unto the kingdom of heaven, and make him like unto Himself; until the disciple shall be as the Master, imitating first the imitator of Christ, and after him Christ Himself, according to that which is said by Paul, “Be ye imitators of me even as I also of Christ.” (1Co_11:1) And likewise, Jesus the householder may in the simpler sense bring forth out of His treasury things new, – that is, the evangelic teaching – and things old, – that is, the comparison of the sayings which are taken from the law and the prophets, of which we may find examples in the Gospels. And with regard to these things new and old, we must attend also to the spiritual law which says in Leviticus, “And ye shall eat old things, and the old things of the old, and ye shall bring forth the old from before the new; and I will set my tabernacle among you.” (Lev_26:10, Lev_26:11) For we eat with blessing the old things, – the prophetic words, – and the old things of the old things, – the words of the law; and, when the new and evangelical words came, living according to the Gospel we bring forth the old things of the letter from before the new, and He sets His tabernacle in us, fulfilling the promise which He spoke, “I will dwell among them and walk in them.” (Lev_26:12; 2Co_6:16)

 

 

FOOTNOTES

 

4 Or, by a dispensation.

5 Mat_13:39. Or, reading ὅς καλεῖται for ὁ, and at the end of things, there will be of necessity be a harvest, which is called the consummation of the age.

6 Or, little details.

7 Pro_7:3. Or, on the breadth of the heart.

8 ὸρμή; also, inclination.

9 ἀφομὴ.

10 Cf. Pilny, Nat. Hist. ix. 54, etc.

11 Or, absolutely.

12 Valentinus and his followers.

13 Or, anagogical.

14 Or, in an exalted sense.

15 Or, substance.

16 Marcion and his school.

Commentaries of Origen (Cont.)

Book X. (Cont.)

16. Parables in Relation to Similitudes, Jesus in His Own Country.

“And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, He departed thence. And coming into His own country.” (Mat_13:53, Mat_13:54) Since we inquired above whether the things spoken to the multitude were parables, and those spoken to the disciples were similitudes, and set forth observations bearing on this in my judgment not contemptible, you must know that the sentence which is subjoined, “And it came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables, He departed thence,” will appear to be in opposition to all these arguments, as applying not only to the parables, but also to the similitudes as we have expounded. We inquire therefore whether all these things are to be rejected, or whether we must speak of two kinds of parables, those spoken to the multitudes, and those announced to the disciples; or whether we are to think of the name of parable as equivocal; or whether the saying, “And it came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables,” is to be referred only to the parables above, which come before the similitudes. For, because of the saying, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to the rest in parables,” (Mat_13:11) it was not possible to say to the disciples, inasmuch as they were not of those without, that the Saviour spoke to them in parables. And it follows from this, that the saying, “And it came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables, He departed thence,” is to be referred to the parables spoken above, or that the name parable is equivocal, or that there are two kinds of parables, or that these which we have named similitudes were not parables at all. And observe that it was outside of His own country He speaks the parables “which, when He had finished, He departed thence; and coming into His own country He taught them in their synagogue.” And Mark says, “And He came into His own country and His disciples follow Him.” (Mar_6:1) We must therefore inquire whether, by the expression, “His own country,” is meant Nazareth or Bethlehem, — Nazareth, because of the saying, “He shall be called a Nazarene,” (Mat_2:23) or Bethlehem, since in it He was born. And further I reflect whether the Evangelists could have said, “coming to Bethlehem,” or, “coming to Nazareth.” They have not done so, but have named it “His country,” because of something being declared in a mystic sense in the passage about His country, — namely, the whole of Judaea, — in which He was dishonoured according to the saying, “A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country.” (Mat_13:57) And if anyone thinks of Jesus Christ, “a stumbling-block to the Jews,” (1Co_1:23) among whom He is persecuted even until now, but proclaimed among the Gentiles and believed in, — for His word has run over the whole world, — he will see that in His own country Jesus had no honour, but that among those who were “strangers from the covenants,” (Eph_2:12) the Gentiles, He is held in honour. But what things He taught and spake in their synagogue the Evangelists have not recorded, but only that they were so great and of such a nature that all were astonished. And probably the things spoken were too high to be written down. Only be it noted, He taught in their synagogue, not separating from it, nor disregarding it.

 

17. The Brethren of Jesus.

And the saying, “Whence hath this man this wisdom,” (Mat_13:54) indicates clearly that there was a great and surpassing wisdom in the words of Jesus worthy of the saying, “And lo, a greater than Solomon is here.” (Mat_12:42) And He was wont to do greater miracles than those wrought through Elijah and Elisha, and at a still earlier date through Moses and Joshua the son of Nun. And they spoke, wondering, not knowing that He was the son of a virgin, or not believing it even if it was told to them, but supposing that He was the son of Joseph the carpenter, “is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Mat_13:55) And depreciating the whole of what appeared to be His nearest kindred, they said, “Is not His mother called Mary? And His brethren, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?” (Mat_13:55, Mat_13:56) They thought, then, that He was the son of Joseph and Mary. But some say, basing it on a tradition in the Gospel according to Peter,17 as it is entitled, or “The Book of James,”18 that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honour of Mary in virginity to the end, so that that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word which said, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee,” (Luk_1:35) might not know intercourse with a man after that the Holy Ghost came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the first-fruit among men of the purity which consists in chastity, and Mary among women; for it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the first-fruit of virginity. And James is he whom Paul says in the Epistle to the Galatians that he saw, “But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.” (Gal_1:19) And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise, that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the Antiquities of the Jews in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ.19 And the wonderful thing is, that, though he did not accept Jesus as Christ, he yet gave testimony that the righteousness of James was so great; and he says that the people thought that they had suffered these things because of James. And Jude, who wrote a letter of few lines, it is true, but filled with the healthful words of heavenly grace, said in the preface, “Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James.” (Jud_1:1) With regard to Joseph and Simon we have nothing to tell; but the saying, “And His sisters are they not all with us.” (Mat_13:56) seems to me to signify something of this nature — they mind our things, not those of Jesus, and have no unusual portion of surpassing wisdom as Jesus has. And perhaps by these things is indicated a new doubt concerning Him, that Jesus was not a man but something diviner, inasmuch as He was, as they supposed, the son of Joseph and Mary, and the brother of four, and of the others — the women — as well, and yet had nothing like to any one of His kindred, and had not from education and teaching come to such a height of wisdom and power. For they also say elsewhere, “How knoweth this man letters having never learned?” (Joh_7:15) which is similar to what is here said. Only, though they say these things and are so perplexed and astonished, they did not believe, but were offended in Him; as if they had been mastered in the eyes of their mind by the powers which, in the time of the passion, He was about to lead in triumph on the cross.

 

18. Prophets in Their Country.

“But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country.” (Mat_13:57) We must inquire whether the expression has the same force when applied universally to every prophet as if each one of the prophets was dishonoured in his own country only, but not as if every one who was dishonoured was dishonoured in his country; or, because of the expression being singular, these things were said about one. If, then, these words are spoken about one, these things which have been said suffice, if we refer that which is written to the Saviour. But if it is general, it is not historically true; for Elijah did not suffer dishonour in Tishbeth of Gilead, nor Elisha in Abetmeholah, nor Samuel in Ramathaim, nor Jeremiah in Anathoth. But, figuratively interpreted, it is absolutely true; for we must think of Judaea as their country, and that famous Israel as their kindred, and perhaps of the body as the house. For all suffered dishonour in Judaea from the Israel which is according to the flesh, while they were yet in the body, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, as having been spoken in censure to the people, “Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute, who showed before of the coming of the Righteous one?” (Act_7:52) And by Paul in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians like things are said: “For ye brethren became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus, for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen even as they did of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drave out us, and please not God, and are contrary to all men.” (1Th_2:14, 1Th_2:15) A prophet, then, is not without honour among the Gentiles; for either they do not know him at all, or, having learned and received him as a prophet, they honour him. And such are those who are of the Church. Prophets suffer dishonour, first, when they are persecuted, according to historical fact, by the people, and, secondly, when their prophecy is not believed by the people. For if they had believed Moses and the prophets they would have believed Christ, who showed that when men believed Moses and the prophets, belief in Christ logically followed, and that when men did not believe Christ they did not believe Moses. (Joh_5:46) Moreover, as by the transgression of the law he who sins is said to dishonour God, so by not believing in that which is prophesied the prophet is dishonoured by the man who disbelieves the prophecies. And so far as the literal truth is concerned, it is useful to recount what things Jeremiah suffered among the people in relation to which he said, “And I said, I will not speak, nor will I call upon the name of the Lord.” (Jer_20:9) And again, elsewhere, “I was continually being mocked.” (Jer_20:7) And how great sufferings he endured from the then king of Israel are written in his prophecy. And it is also written that some of the people often came to stone Moses to death; for his fatherland was not the stones of any place, but the people who followed him, among whom also he was dishonoured. And Isaiah is reported to have been sawn asunder by the people; and if any one does not accept the statement because of its being found in the Apocryphal Isaiah,20 let him believe what is written thus in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted;” (Heb_11:37) for the expression, “They were sawn asunder,” refers to Isaiah, just as the words, “They were slain with the sword,” refer to Zacharias, who was slain “between the sanctuary and the altar,”21 as the Saviour taught, bearing testimony, as I think, to a Scripture, though not extant in the common and widely circulated books, but perhaps in apocryphal books. And they, too, were dishonoured in their own country among the Jews who went about “in sheep-skins, in goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted,” and so on; (Heb_11:37) “For all that will to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (2Ti_3:12) And probably because Paul knew this, “That a prophet has no honour in his own country,” though he preached the Word in many places he did not preach it in Tarsus. And the Apostles on this account left Israel and did that which had been enjoined on them by the Saviour, “Make disciples of all the nations,” (Mat_28:19) and, “Ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Act_1:8) For they did that which had been commanded them in Judaea and Jerusalem; but, since a prophet has no honour in his own country, when the Jews did not receive the Word, they went away to the Gentiles. Consider, too, if, because of the fact that the saying, “I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh, and they shall prophesy,” (Joe_2:28) has been fulfilled in the churches from the Gentiles, you can say that those formerly of the world and who by believing became no longer of the world, having received the Holy Spirit in their own country — that is, the world — and prophesying, have not honour, but are dishonoured. Wherefore blessed are they who suffer the same things as the prophets, according to what was said by the Saviour, “For in the same manner did their fathers unto the prophets.” (Luk_6:23) Now if any one who attends carefully to these things be hated and attacked, because of his living with rigorous austerity, and his reproof of sinners, as a man who is persecuted and reproached for the sake of righteousness, he will not only not be grieved, but will rejoice and be exceeding glad, being assured that, because of these things, he has great reward in heaven from Him who likened him to the prophets on the ground of his having suffered the same things. Therefore, he who zealously imitates the prophetic life, and attains to the spirit which was in them, must be dishonoured in the world, and in the eyes of sinners, to whom the life of the righteous man is a burden.

 

19. Relation of Faith and Unbelief to the Supernatural Powers of Jesus.

Following this you may see, “He did not there many mighty works because of their unbelief.” (Mat_13:58) We are taught by these things that powers were found in those who believed, since “to every one that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance,” (Mat_13:12) but among unbelievers not only did the powers not work, but as Mark wrote, “They could not work.” (Mat_17:19, Mat_17:20) For attend to the words, “He could not there do any mighty works,” for it is not said, “He would not,” but “He could not;” as if there came to the power when working co-operation from the faith of him on whom the power was working, but this co-operation was hindered in its exercise by unbelief. See, then, that to those who said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said, “Because of your little faith.” (Mat_14:31) And to Peter, when he began to sink, it was said, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” (Luk_8:45, Luk_8:46) But, moreover, she who had the issue of blood, who did not ask for the cure, but only reasoned that if she were to touch the hem of His garment she would be healed, was healed on the spot. And the Saviour, acknowledging the method of healing, says, “Who touched Me? For I perceived that power went forth from Me.” (Mat_17:20) And perhaps, as in the case of material things there exists in some things a natural attraction towards some other thing, as in the magnet for iron, and in what is called naphtha for fire, so there is an attraction in such faith towards the divine power, according to what is said, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove.” (Mat_13:58) And Matthew and Mark, wishing to set forth the excellency of the divine power, that it has power even in unbelief, but not so great power as it has in the faith of those who are being benefited, seem to me to have said with accuracy, not that He did not “any” mighty works because of their unbelief, but that He did not “many” there. (Mar_6:5) And Mark also does not say, that He could not do any mighty work there, and stop at that point, but added, “Save that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and healed them,” (Mar_6:5) the power in Him thus overcoming the unbelief. Now it seems to me that, as in the case of material things, tillage is not sufficient in itself for the gathering in of the fruits, unless the air cooperates to this end, nay, rather, He who forms the air with whatever quality He wills and makes it whatever He wills; nor the air apart from tillage, but rather He who by His providence has enacted that the things which spring up from the earth could not spring up apart from tillage; for this He has done once for all in the law, “Let the earth put forth grass sowing seed after its kind and after its likeness;” (Gen_1:11) so also neither do the operations of the powers, apart from the faith of those who are being healed, exhibit the absolute work of healing, nor faith, however great it may be, apart from the divine power. And that which is written about wisdom, you may apply also to faith, and to the virtues specifically, so as to make a precept of this kind, “If any one be perfect in wisdom among the sons of men, and the power that comes from Thee be wanting, he will be reckoned as nothing;” (Wisdom of Solomon 9:6) or, “If any one be perfect in self-control, so far as is possible for the sons of men, and the control that is from Thee be wanting, he will be reckoned as nothing;” or, “If any one be perfect in righteousness, and in the rest of virtues, and the righteousness and the rest of the virtues that are from Thee be wanting to him, he will be reckoned as nothing.” Wherefore, “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength,” (Jer_9:23) for that which is fit matter for glorying is not ours, but is the gift of God; the wisdom is from Him, and the strength is from Him; and so with the rest.

 

20. Different Conceptions of John the Baptist.

“At that season Herod the tetrarch heard the report concerning Jesus and said unto his own servants, This is John the Baptist.” (Mat_14:1) In Mark (Mar_6:14) it is the same, and also in Luke. (Luk_9:7) The Jews had different opinions, some false, such as the Sadducees held about the resurrection of the dead, that they do not rise, and in regard to angels that they do not exist, but that those things which were written about them were only to be interpreted figuratively, but had no reality in point of fact; and some true opinions, such as were taught by the Pharisees about the resurrection of the dead that they rise. We must therefore here inquire, whether the opinion regarding the soul, mistakenly held by Herod and some from among the people, was somewhat like this — that John, who a little before had been slain by him, had risen from the dead after he had been beheaded, and was the same person under a different name, and being now called Jesus was possessed of the same powers which formerly wrought in John. For what credibility is there in the idea that One, who was so widely known to the whole people, and whose name was noised abroad in the whole of Judaea, whom they declared to be the son of the carpenter and Mary, and to have such and such for brothers and sisters, was thought to be not different from22 John whose father was Zacharias, and whose mother was Elisabeth, who were themselves not undistinguished among the people? But it is probable that the fact of his being the Son of Zacharias was not unknown to the people, who thought with regard to John that he was truly a prophet, and were so numerous that the Pharisees, in order to avoid the appearance of saying that which was displeasing to the people, were afraid to answer the question, “Was his baptism from heaven or from men?” (Mat_21:25) And perhaps, also, to some of them had come the knowledge of the incident of the vision which was seen in the temple, when Gabriel appeared to Zacharias. What credibility, forsooth, has the erroneous opinion, whether of Herod or of some of the people, that John and Jesus were not two persons, but that it was one and the same person John who rose from the dead after that he had been beheaded and was called Jesus? some one might say, however, that Herod and some of those of the people held the false dogma of the transmigration of souls into bodies, in consequence of which they thought that the former John had appeared again by a fresh birth, and had come from the dead into life as Jesus. But the time between the birth of John and the birth of Jesus, which was not more than six months, does not permit this false opinion to be considered credible. And perhaps rather some such idea as this was in the mind of Herod, that the powers which wrought in John had passed over to Jesus, in consequence of which He was thought by the people to be John the Baptist. And one might use the following line of argument. Just as because of the spirit and the power of Elijah, and not because of his soul, it is said about John, “This is Elijah which is to come,” (Mat_11:14) the spirit in Elijah and the power in him having gone over to John — so Herod thought that the powers in John wrought in his case works of baptism and teaching, — for John did not one miracle, (Joh_10:41) but in Jesus miraculous portents. It may be said that something of this kind was the thought of those who said that Elijah had appeared in Jesus, or that one of the old prophets had risen. Luk_9:8 But the opinion of those who said that Jesus was “a prophet even as one of the prophets,” (Mar_6:15) has no bearing on the question. False, then, is the saying concerning Jesus, whether that recorded to have been the view of Herod, or that spoken by others. Only, the saying, “That John went before in the spirit and power of Elijah,” (Luk_1:17) which corresponds to the thoughts which they were now cherishing concerning John and Jesus, seems to me more credible. But since we learned, in the first place, that when the Saviour after the temptation heard that John was given up, He retreated into Galilee, and in the second place, that when John was in prison and heard the things about Jesus he sent two of his disciples and said to Him, “Art thou He that cometh, or look we for another?” (Mat_11:2, Mat_11:3) and in the third place, generally that Herod said about Jesus, “It is John the Baptist, he is risen from the dead,” (Mat_14:2) but we have not previously learned from any quarter the manner in which the Baptist was killed, therefore Matthew has now recorded it, and Mark almost like unto him; but Luke passed over in silence the greater part of the narrative as it is found in them.”23

 

21. Herod and the Baptist.

The narrative of Matthew is as follows, — “for Herod had laid hold on John and bound him in the prison.” (Mat_14:3) In reference to these things, it seems to me, that as the law and the prophets were until John, (Luk_16:16) after whom the grace of prophecy ceased from among the Jews; so the authority of those who had rule among the people, which included the power to kill those whom they thought worthy of death, existed until John; and when the last of the prophets was unlawfully killed by Herod, the king of the Jews was deprived of the power of putting to death; for, if Herod had not been deprived of it, Pilate would not have condemned Jesus to death; but for this Herod would have sufficed along with the council of the chief priests and elders of the people, met for the purpose. And then I think was fulfilled that which was spoken as follows by Jacob to Judah: “A ruler shall not depart from Judah, nor a leader from Israel, until that come which is laid up in store, and he is the expectation of the Gentiles.” (Gen_49:10) And perhaps also the Jews were deprived of this power, the Providence of God arranging for the spread of the teaching of Christ among the people, so that even if this were hindered by the Jews, the opposition might not go so far as the slaying of believers, which seemed to be according to law. “But Herod laid hold on John and bound him in prison and put him away,” (Mat_14:3) by this act signifying that, so far as it depended on his power and on the wickedness of the people, he bound and imprisoned the prophetic word, and prevented him from continuing to abide a herald the truth in freedom as formerly. But this Herod did for the sake of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. For John said unto him, “It is not lawful for thee to have her.” (Mat_14:3, Mat_14:4) Now this Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and of Trachonitis. Some, then, suppose that, when Philip died leaving a daughter, Herodias, Herod married his brother’s wife, though the law permitted marriage only when there were no children. But, as we find nowhere clear evidence that Philip was dead, we conclude that a yet greater transgression was done by Herod, namely, that he had induced his brother’s wife to revolt from her husband while he was still living.

 

22. The Dancing of Herodias. The Keeping of Oaths.

Wherefore John, endued with prophetic boldness and not terrified at the royal dignity of Herod, nor through fear of death keeping silence in regard to so flagrant a sin, filled with a divine spirit said to Herod, “It is not lawful for thee to have her; for it is not lawful for thee to have the wife of thy brother.” For Herod having laid hold on John bound him and put him in prison, not daring to slay him outright and to take away the prophetic word from the people; but the wife of the king of Trachonitis — which is a kind of evil opinion and wicked teaching — gave birth to a daughter of the same name, whose movements, seemingly harmonious, pleasing Herod, who was fond of matters connected with birthdays, came the cause of there being no longer a prophetic head among the people. And up to this point I think that the movements of the people of the Jews, which seem to be according to the law, were nothing else than the movements of the daughter of Herodias but the dancing of Herodias was opposed to that holy dancing with which those who have not danced will be reproached when they hear the words. “We piped unto you, and ye did not dance.” (Mat_11:17; Luk_7:32) And on birthdays, when the lawless word reigns over them, they dance so that their movements please that word. Some one of those before us has observed what is written in Genesis about the birthday of Pharaoh, and has told that the worthless man who loves things connected with birth keeps birthday festivals; and we, taking this suggestion from him, find in no Scripture that a birthday was kept by a righteous man. For Herod was more unjust than that famous Pharaoh; for by the latter on his birthday feast a chief baker is killed; (Gen_40:20) but by the former, John, “than whom no one greater hath risen among those born of women,” (Mat_11:11) in regard to whom the Saviour says, “But for what purpose did ye go out? To see a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.” (Luk_7:26) But thanks be unto God, that, even if the grace of prophecy was taken from the people, a grace greater than all that was poured forth among the Gentiles by our Saviour Jesus Christ, who became “free among the dead;” (Psa_88:6) for “though He were crucified through weakness, yet He liveth through the power of God.” (2Co_13:4) Consider also the word in which pure and impure meats are inquired into; but prophecy is despised when it is brought forward in a charger instead of meat. But the Jews have not the head of prophecy, inasmuch as they disown the crown of all prophecy, Christ Jesus; and the prophet is beheaded, because of an oath in a case where the duty was rather to break the oath than to keep the oath; for the charge of rashness in taking an oath and of breaking it because of the rashness is not the same in guilt as the death of a prophet. And not on this account alone is he beheaded, but because “of those who sat at meat with him,” who preferred that the prophet should be killed rather than live. And they recline at the same table and also feast along with the evil word which reigns over the Jews, who make merry over his birth. At times you may make a graceful application of the passage to those who swear rashly and wish to hold fast oaths which are taken with a view to unlawful deeds, by saying that not every keeping of oaths is seemly, just as the keeping of the oath of Herod was not. And mark, further, that not openly but secretly and in prison does Herod put John to death. For even the present word of the Jews does not openly deny the prophecies, but virtually and in secret denies them, and is convicted of disbelieving them. For as “if they believed Moses they would have believed Jesus,” (Joh_5:46) so if they had believed the prophets they would have received Him who had been the subject of prophecy.

But disbelieving Him they also disbelieve them, and cut off and confine in prison the prophetic word, and hold it dead and divided, and in no way wholesome, since they do not understand it. But we have the whole Jesus, the prophecy concerning Him being fulfilled which said, “A bone shall not be broken.” (Exo_12:46; Joh_19:36)

 

23. The Withdrawal of Jesus.

And the disciples of John having come bury his remains, and “they went and told Jesus.” (Mat_14:12) And He withdrew to a desert place, — that is, the Gentiles — and after the killing of the prophet multitudes followed Him from the cities everywhere; seeing which to be great He had compassion on them, and healed their sick; and afterwards with the loaves which were blessed and multiplied from a few loaves He feeds those who followed Him. “Now when Jesus heard it He withdrew thence in a boat to a desert place apart.” (Mat_14:13) The letter teaches us to withdraw as far as it is in our power from those who persecute us, and from expected conspiracies through words; for this would be to act according to prudence; and, when one can keep outside of critical positions, to go to meet them is rash and headstrong. For who would still hesitate about avoiding such things, when not only did Jesus retreat in view of what happened to John, but also taught and said, “If they persecute you in this city, flee ye into the other”? (Mat_10:23) When a temptation comes which is not in our power to avoid, we must endure it with exceeding nobleness and courage; but, when it is in our power to avoid it, not to do so is rash. But since after the letter we must also investigate the place according to the mystical meaning, we must say that, when prophecy was plotted against among the Jews and destroyed, because of their giving honour to matters of birthdays, and in respect of their reception of vain movements which, though conceived by the ruler of the wicked and those who feast along with him to be regular and pleasing to them, were irregular and out of tune, if truth be umpire, then Jesus withdraws from the place in which prophecy was attacked and condemned; and He withdraws to the place which had been barren of God among the Gentiles, in order that the Word of God, when the kingdom was taken from the Jews and “given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof,” (Mat_21:43) might be among the Gentiles; and, on account of it, “the children of the desolate one,” who had not been instructed either in the law or the prophets, “might be more than of her who has the husband,” (Isa_54:1; Gal_4:27) that is, the law. When, then, the word was of old among the Jews, it was not so among them as it is among the Gentiles; wherefore it is said that, “in a boat,” — that is, in the body — He went to the desert place apart, when He heard about the killing of the prophet. And, having come into the desert place apart, He was in it, because that the Word dwelt apart, and His teaching was contrary to the customs and usages which obtained among the Gentiles. And the crowds among the Gentiles, when they heard that Jesus had come to stay in their desert, and that He was apart, as we have already reported, followed Him from their own cities, because each had left the superstitious customs of his fathers and come to the law of Christ. And by land they followed Him, and not in a boat, inasmuch as not with the body but with the soul only, and with the resolution to which they had been persuaded by the Word, they followed the Image of God. And to them Jesus comes out, as they were not able to go to Him, in order that, having gone to those who were without, He might lead within those who were without. And great is the crowd without to whom the Word of God goes out, and, having poured out upon it the light of His “visitation,” beholds it; and, seeing that they were rather deserving of being pitied, because they were in such circumstances, as a lover of men He who was impassible suffered the emotion of pity, and not only had pity but healed their sick, who had sicknesses diverse and of every kind arising from their wickedness.

 

24. The Diverse Forms of Spiritual Sickness.

And, if you wish to see of what nature are the sicknesses of the soul, contemplate with me the lovers of money, and the lovers of ambition, and the lovers of boys, and if any be fond of women; for these also beholding among the crowds and taking compassion upon them, He healed. For not every sin is to be considered a sickness, but that which has settled down in the whole soul. For so you may see the lovers of money wholly intent on money and upon preserving and gathering it, the lovers of ambition wholly intent on a little glory, for they gape for praise from the masses and the vulgar; and analogously you will understand in the case of the rest which we have named, and if there be any other like to them. Since, then, when expounding the words, “He healed their sick,” (Mat_14:14) we said that not every sin is a sickness, it is fitting to discuss from the Scripture the difference of these. The Apostle indeed says, writing to the Corinthians who had diverse sicknesses, “For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.” (1Co_11:30) Hear Him in these words, knitting a band and making it plaited of different sins, according as some are weak, and others sickly more than weak, and others, in comparison with both, are asleep. For some, because of impotence of soul, having a tendency to slip into any sin whatever, although they may not be wholly in the grasp of any form of sin, as the sickly are, are only weak; but others who, instead of loving God “with all their soul and all their heart and all their mind,” love money, or a little glory, or wife, or children, are suffering from something worse than weakness, and are sickly. And those who sleep are those who, when they ought to be taking heed and watching with the soul, are not doing this, but by reason of great want of attention are nodding in resolution and are drowsy in their reflections, such as “in their dreamings defile the flesh, and set at naught that which is highest in authority, and rail at dignities.” (Jud_1:8) And these, because they are asleep, live in an atmosphere of vain and dream-like fancies concerning realities, not admitting the things which are actually true, but deceived by what appears in their vain imaginations, in regard to whom it is said in Isaiah, “Like as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking, but when he has risen up is still thirsty, and his soul has cherished a vain hope, so shall be the wealth of all the nations as many as have warred in Jerusalem.”24 If, then, we have seemed to make a digression in recounting the difference between the weak and the sickly and those that sleep, because of that which the Apostle said in the letter to the Corinthians which we have expounded, we have made the digression in our desire to represent what is meant to be understood by the saying, “And He healed their sick.” (Mat_14:14)

 

25. Healing Precedes Participation in the Loaves of Jesus.

After this the word says, “And when even was come, His disciples came to Him, saying, The place is desert and the time is already past; send, therefore, the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.” (Mat_14:15) And first observe that when about to give to the disciples the loaves of blessing, that they might set them before the multitudes, He healed the sick, in order that, having been restored to health, they might participate in the loaves of blessing; for while they are yet sickly, they are not able to receive the loaves of the blessing of Jesus. But if any one, when he ought to listen to the precept, “But let each prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread,” etc., (1Co_11:28) does not obey these words, but in haphazard fashion participates in the bread of the Lord and His cup, he becomes weak or sickly, or even — if I may use the expression — on account of being stupefied by the power of the bread, asleep.

 

 

FOOTNOTES

 

17 The Gospel of Peter, of which a fragment was recovered in 1886 and published in 1892.

18 Protevangelium Jacobi, c. 9

19 Jos. Ant. xviii. 4.

20 Probably the Ascensio Isaiae. Cf. Orig. Ep. ad Afric. c. 9.

21 Mat_23:35. Cf. Orig. Ep. ad Afric. c. 9.

22 Or, none other than.

23 The question of John’s relation to Jesus and of the supposed transcorporation, is more fully discussed by Origen in his Commentary on John, book vi. 7, p. 353, sqq.

24 Isa_29:8 LXX., which has “against Mount Zion,” where Origen has “in Jerusalem”.

Commentaries of Origen (Cont.)

Book XI.

1. Introduction to the Feeding of the Five Thousand.

“And when even was come His disciples came to Him,” (Mat_14:15) that is, at the consummation of the age in regard to which we may fitly say what is found in the Epistle of John, “It is the last hour.” (1Jo_2:18) They, not yet understanding what the Word was about to do, say to Him, “The place is desert,” (Mat_14:15) seeing the desert condition of the masses in respect of God and the Law and the Word; but they say to Him, “The time is past,” (Mat_14:15) as if the fitting season of the law and prophets had passed. Perhaps they spoke this saying, in reference to the word of Jesus, that because of the beheading of John both the law and the prophets who were until John had ceased. (Luk_16:16) “The time is past,” therefore they say, and no food is at hand, because the season of it is no longer present, that those who have followed Thee in the desert may serve the law and the prophets. And, further, the disciples say, “Send them away,” (Mat_14:15) that each one may buy food, if he cannot from the cities, at least from the villages, – places more ignoble. Such things the disciples said, because, after the letter of the law had been abrogated and prophecies had ceased, they despaired of unexpected and new food being found for the multitudes. But see what Jesus answers to the disciples though He does not cry out and plainly say it: “You suppose that, if the great multitude go away from Me in need of food, they will find it in villages rather than with Me, and among bodies of men, not of citizens but of villagers, rather than by abiding with Me. But I declare unto you, that in regard to that of which you suppose they are in need they are not in need, for they have no need to go away; but in regard to that of which you think they have no need – that is, of Me – as if I could not feed them, of this contrary to your expectation they have need. Since, then, I have trained you, and made you fit to give rational food to them who are in need of it, give ye to the crowds who have followed Me to eat; for ye have the power, which ye have received from Me, of giving the multitudes to eat; and if ye had attended to this, ye would have understood that I am far more able to feed them, and ye would not have said, ‘Send the multitudes away that they may go and buy food for themselves.’” (Mat_14:15)

 

2. Exposition of the Details of the Miracle.

Jesus, then, because of the power which He gave to the disciples, even the power of nourishing others, said, Give ye them to eat. Mat_14:16 But not denying that they can give loaves, but thinking that there were much too few and not sufficient to feed those who followed Jesus, and not considering that when Jesus takes each loaf – the Word – He extends it as far as He wills, and makes it suffice for all whomsoever He desires to nourish, the disciples say, We have here but five loaves and two fishes. (Mat_14:17) Perhaps by the five loaves they meant to make a veiled reference to the sensible words of the Scriptures, corresponding in number on this account to the five senses, but by the two fishes either to the word expressed25 and the word conceived,26 which are a relish, so to speak, to the sensible things contained in the Scriptures; or, perhaps, to the word which had come to them about the Father and the Son. Wherefore also after His resurrection He ate of a broiled fish, (Luk_24:42, Luk_24:43) having taken a part from the disciples, and having received that theology about the Father which they were in part able to declare to Him. Such is the contribution we have been able to give to the exposition of the word about the five loaves and the two fishes; and probably those, who are better able than we to gather together the five loaves and the two fishes among themselves, would be able to give a fuller and better interpretation of their meaning. It must be observed, however, that while in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, (Mat_14:17; Mar_6:38; Luk_9:13) the disciples say that they have the five loaves and the two fishes, without indicating whether they were wheaten or of barley, John alone says, that the loaves were barley loaves. (Joh_6:9) Wherefore, perhaps, in the Gospel of John the disciples do not acknowledge that the loaves are with them, but say in John, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fishes.” (Joh_6:9) And so long as these five loaves and two fishes were not carried by the disciples of Jesus, they did not increase or multiply, nor were they able to nourish more; but, when the Saviour took them, and in the first placed looked up to heaven, with the rays of His eyes, as it were, drawing down from it power which was to be mingled with the loaves and the fishes which were about to feed the five thousand; and after this blessed the five loaves and the two fishes, increasing and multiplying them by the word and the blessing; and in the third place dividing and breaking He gave to the disciples that they might set them before the multitudes, then the loaves and the fishes were sufficient, so that all ate and were satisfied, and some portions of the loaves which had been blessed they were unable to eat. For so much remained over to the multitudes, which was not according to the capacity of the multitudes but of the disciples who were able to take up that which remained over of the broken pieces, and to place it in baskets filled with that which remained over, which were in number so many as the tribes of Israel. Concerning Joseph, then, it is written in the Psalms, “His hands served in the basket,” (Psa_81:7) but about the disciples of Jesus that they took up that which remained over of the broken pieces twelve baskets, twelve baskets, I take it, not half-full but filled. And there are, I think, up to the present time, and will be until the consummation of the age with the disciples of Jesus, who are superior to the multitudes, the twelve baskets, filled with the broken pieces of living bread which the multitudes cannot eat. Now those who ate of the five loaves which existed before the twelve baskets that remained over, were kindred in nature to the number five; for those who ate had reached the stage of sensible things, since also they were nourished by Him who looked up to heaven and blessed and brake them, and were not boys nor women, but men. For there are, I think, even in sensible foods differences, so that some of them belong to those who “have put away childish things,” (1Co_13:11) and some to those who are still babes and carnal in Christ.

 

3. The Exposition of Details Continued. The Sitting Down on the Grass. The Division into Companies.

We have spoken these things because of the words, “They that did eat were five thousand men, beside children and women,” (Mat_14:21) which is an ambiguous expression; for either those who ate were five thousand men, and among those who ate there was no child or woman; or the men only were five thousand, the children and the women not being reckoned. Some, then, as we have said by anticipation, have so understood the passage that neither children nor women were present, when the increase and multiplication of the five loaves and the two fishes took place. Bat some one might say that, while many ate and according to their desert and capacity participated in the loaves of blessing, some worthy to be numbered, corresponding to the men of twenty years old who are numbered in the Book of Numbers, (Num_1:3) were Israelitish men, but others who were not worthy of such account and numbering were children and women. Moreover, interpret with me allegorically the children in accordance with the passage, “I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ;” (1Co_3:1) and the women in accordance with the saying, “I wish to present you all as a pure virgin to Christ;” (2Co_11:2) and the men according to the saying, “When I am become a man I have put away childish things.” (1Co_13:11) Let us not pass by without exposition the words, “He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass, and He look the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, He blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes. And they did all eat.” (Mat_14:19-20) For what is meant by the words, “And He commanded all the multitudes to sit down on the grass?” And what are we to understand in the passage worthy of the command of Jesus? Now, I think that He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass because of what is said in Isaiah, “All flesh is grass;” (Isa_40:6) that is to say, He commanded them to put the flesh under, and to keep in subjection “the mind of the flesh,” (Rom_8:6) that so any one might be able to partake of the loaves which Jesus blesses. Then since there are different orders of those who need the food which Jesus supplies and all are not nourished by equal words, on this account I think that Mark has written, “And He commanded them that they should all sit down by companies upon the green grass; and they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties;” (Mar_6:39-40) but Luke, “And He said unto His disciples, Make them sit down in companies about fifty each.” (Luk_9:14) For it was necessary that those who were to find rest in the food of Jesus should either be in the order of the hundred – the sacred number – which is consecrated to God, because of the unit, in it or in the order of the fifty – the number which embraces the remission of sins, in accordance with the mystery of the Jubilee which took place every fifty years, and of the feast at Pentecost. And I think that the twelve baskets were in the possession of the disciples to whom it was said “Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Mat_19:28) And as the throne of him who judges the tribe of Reuben might be said to be a mystery, and the throne of him who judges the tribe of Simeon, and another of him who judges the tribe of Judah, and so on with the others; so there might be a basket of the food of Reuben, and another of Simeon, and another of Levi. But it is not in accordance with our present discourse now to digress so far from the subject in hand as to collect what is said about the twelve tribes, and separately what is said about each of them, and to say what each tribe of Israel may signify.

 

4. The Multitudes and the Disciples Contrasted.

“And straightway He constrained the disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before Him unto the other side, till He should send the multitudes away.” (Mat_14:22) It should be observed how often in the same passages is mentioned the word, “the multitudes,” and another word, “the disciples,” so that by observing and bringing together the passages about this matter it may be seen that the aim of the Evangelists was to represent by means of the Gospel history the differences of those who come to Jesus; of whom some are the multitudes and are not called disciples, and others are the disciples who are better than the multitudes. It is sufficient, however, for the present, for us to set forth a few sayings, so that any one who is moved by them may do the like with the whole of the Gospels. It is written then – as if the multitudes were below, but the disciples were able to come to Jesus when He went up into the mountain, where the multitudes were not able to be – as follows: “And seeing the multitudes He went up into the mountain, and when He had sat down His disciples came unto Him; and He opened His mouth and taught them saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit,” etc. (Mat_5:1-3) And again in another place, as the multitudes stood in need of healing, it is said, “Many multitudes followed Him and He healed them.” (Mat_12:15) We do not find any healing recorded of the disciples; since if any one is already a disciple of Jesus he is whole, and being well he needs Jesus not as a physician but in respect of His other powers. Again in another place, when He was speaking to the multitudes, His mother and His brethren stood without, seeking to speak to Him; this was made known to Him by some one to whom He answered, stretching forth His hand not towards the multitudes but towards the disciples, and said, “Behold My mother and My brethren.” (Mat_12:46-49) and bearing testimony to the disciples as doing the will of the Father which is in heaven, He added, “He is My brother and sister and mother.” (Mat_12:50) And again in another place it is written, “All the multitude stood on the beach and He spake to them many things in parables.” (Mat_13:2, Mat_13:3) Then after the parable of the Sowing, it was no longer the multitudes but the disciples who came and said to Him, not “Why speakest thou to us in parables,” but, “Why speakest thou to them in parables.” (Mat_13:10) Then also He answered and said, not to the multitudes but to the disciples, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to the rest in parables.” (Mat_13:11) Accordingly; of those who come to the name I of Jesus some, who know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, would be called disciples; but those to whom such a privilege is not given would be called multitudes, who would be spoken of as inferior to the disciples. For observe carefully that He said to the disciples, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” but about the multitudes, “To them it is not given.” (Mat_13:11) And in another place He dismisses the multitudes indeed, and goes into the house, (Mat_13:36) but He does not dismiss the disciples; and there came to Him into His house, not the multitudes but His disciples, saying, “Declare to us the parable of the tares of the field.” (Mat_13:36) Moreover, also, in another place when Jesus heard the things concerning John and withdrew in a boat to a desert place apart, the multitudes followed Him; when He came forth and saw a great multitude He had compassion on them and healed their sick – the sick of the multitudes, not of the disciples. (Mat_14:13, Mat_14:14) “And when even was come there came to Him,” not the multitudes, but the disciples, as being different from the multitudes, saying, “Send the multitudes away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.” (Mat_14:15) And, further, when Jesus took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven He blessed and brake the loaves, He gave not to the multitudes but to the disciples, (Mat_14:19) that the disciples might give to the multitudes who were not able to take from Him, but received with difficulty at the hands of the disciples the loaves of the blessing of Jesus, and did not eat even all these; for the multitudes were filled and left that which remained over in twelve baskets which were full.

 

5. The Disciples in Conflict. Jesus Walks upon the Waters.

The reason why we have taken up this subject is the passage under discussion which tells that Jesus separated the disciples from the multitudes, and constrained them to enter into the boat and to go before Him unto the other side until He Himself should send the multitudes away; (Mat_14:22) for the multitudes were not able to go away to the other side, as they were not in the mystic sense Hebrews, which are by interpretation, “dwelling on the other side.” But this was the work of the disciples of Jesus – I mean to go away to the other side, and to pass beyond things seen and material, as temporal, and to go on to things unseen and eternal. To be dismissed by Jesus was a sufficient act of kindness bestowed on the multitudes by Jesus; for just because they were multitudes they were not able to go away to the other side; and this kind of dismissal no one has the power to effect save Jesus only, and it is not possible for any one to be dismissed unless he has first eaten of the loaves which Jesus blesses. Nor is it possible for any one to eat of the loaves of blessing of Jesus unless he has done as Jesus commanded and sat down upon the grass as we have told. Nor again was it possible for the multitudes to do this unless they had followed Jesus from their own cities, when He withdrew into a desert place apart. And at first, when He was asked by the disciples to send away the multitudes, He did not send them away until He had fed them with the loaves of blessing; but now He sends them away, having first constrained the disciples to enter into the boat; and He sends them away, while they were somewhere below, – for the desert was below, – but He Himself went up into the mountain to pray. (Mat_14:23) And you must observe this, that immediately after the five thousand had been fed, Jesus constrained the disciples to embark into the boat, and to go before Him unto the other side. Only, the disciples were not able to go before Jesus to the other side; but, when they had got as far as the middle of the sea, and the boat was distressed “because the wind was contrary to them,” (Mat_14:24) they were afraid when about the fourth watch of the night Jesus came to them. And if Jesus had not gone up into the boat neither would the wind which was contrary to the disciples who were sailing have ceased, nor would those who were sailing have gone across and come to the other side. And, perhaps, wishing to teach them by experience that it was not possible apart from Him to go to the other side He constrained them to enter into the boat and go before Him to the other side; but, when they were not able to advance farther than the middle of the sea, He appeared to them, and did what is written, (Mat_14:25) and showed that he who arrives at the other side reaches it because Jesus sails along with him. But what is the boat into which Jesus constrained the disciples to enter? Is it perhaps the conflict of temptations and difficulties into which any one is constrained by the Word, and goes unwillingly, as it were, when the Saviour wishes to train by exercise the disciples in this boat which is distressed by the waves and the contrary wind? But since Mark has made a slight change in the reading, and for “Straightway He constrained the disciples to enter lute the boat and to go before Him to the other side,” has written, “And straightway He constrained His disciples to enter into the boat and to go before Him unto the other side unto Bethsaida,” (Mar_6:45) we must attend to the word, “He constrained,” when first we have seen to the slight variation in Mark who indicates something more definite by the addition of the pronoun; for the same thing is not expressed by the words, straightway “He constrained the disciples.” Something more than “the” disciples simply is written in Mark, namely, “His” disciples. Perhaps, therefore, to attend to the expression, the disciples who found it hard to tear themselves away from Jesus, and could not be separated from Him by any ordinary cause, wished to be present with Him; but He having judged that they should make trial of the waves and of the contrary wind, which would not have been contrary if they had been with Jesus, put on them the necessity of being separated from Him and entering into the boat. The Saviour then compels the disciples to enter into the boat of temptations and to go before Him to the other side, and through victory over them to go beyond critical difficulties; but when they had come into the midst of the sea, and of the waves in the temptations, and of the contrary winds which prevented them from going away to the other side, they were not able, struggling as they were without Jesus, to overcome the waves and the contrary wind and reach the other side. Wherefore the Word, taking compassion upon them who had done all that was in their power to reach the other side, came to them walking upon the sea, which for Him had no waves or wind that was able to oppose if He so willed; for it is not written, “He came to them walking upon the waves,” but, “upon the waters;” (Mat_14:25) Just as Peter, who at first when Jesus said to him, “Come,” went down from the boat and walked not upon “the waves,” but upon “the waters” (Mat_14:29) to come to Jesus; but when he doubted he saw that the wind was strong, which was not strong to him who laid aside his little faith and his doubting. But, when Jesus went up with Peter into the boat, the wind ceased, as it had no power to energise against the boat when Jesus had gone up into it.

 

6. Interpretation of the Details in the Narrative. Application Thereof to All Disciples.

And then the disciples “having crossed over came to the land Gennesaret,” (Mat_14:34) of which word, if we knew the interpretation, we might gain some assistance in the exposition of the present passage. And observe, since God is faithful, and will not suffer the multitudes to be tempted above that they are able, cf. (1Co_10:13) in what way the Son of God constrained the disciples to enter into the boat, as being stronger and able to get as far as the middle of the sea, and to endure the trials by the waves, until they became worthy of divine assistance, and saw Jesus and heard Him when He had gone up, and to cross over and come to the land Gennesaret; but as for the multitudes who, because they were weaker, did not make trial of the boat and the waves and the contrary wind, them He sent away, and went up into the mountain apart to pray. (Mat_14:22-23) To pray for whom? Was it perhaps to pray for the multitudes that, when they were dismissed after the loaves of blessing, they might do nothing opposed to their dismissal by Jesus? And for the disciples that, when they were constrained by Him to enter into the boat and to go before Him unto the other side, they might suffer nothing in the sea nor from the contrary wind? And I would say with confidence, that, because of the prayer of Jesus to the Father for the disciples, they suffered nothing when sea and wave and contrary wind were striving against them. The simpler disciple, then, may be satisfied with the bare narrative; but let us remember, if ever we fall into distressful temptations, that Jesus has constrained us to enter into their boat, wishing us to go before Him unto the other side; for it is not possible for us to reach the other side, unless we have endured the temptations of waves and contrary wind. Then when we see many difficulties besetting us, and with moderate struggle we have swum through them to some extent, let us consider that our boat is in the midst of the sea, distressed at that time by the waves which wish us to make shipwreck concerning faith or some one of the virtues; but when we see the spirit of the evil one striving against us, let us conceive that then the wind is contrary to us. When then in such suffering we have spent three watches of the night – that is, of the darkness which is in the temptations – striving nobly with all our might and watching ourselves so as not to make shipwreck concerning the faith or some one of the virtues, – the first watch against the father of darkness and wickedness, the second watch against his son “who opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or thing that is worshipped,” (1Th_2:4) and the third watch against the spirit27 that is opposed to the Holy Spirit, then we believe that when the fourth watch impendeth, when “the night is far spent, and the day is at hand,” (Rom_13:12) the Son of God will come to us, that He may prepare the sea for us, walking upon it. And when we see the Word appearing unto us we shall indeed be troubled before we clearly understand that it is the Saviour who has come to us, supposing that we are still beholding an apparition, and for fear shall cry out; but He Himself straightway will speak to us saying, “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.” (Mat_14:27) And if, warmly moved by His “Be of good cheer,” any Peter be found among us, who is on his way to perfection but has not yet become perfect, having gone down from the boat, as if coming out of that temptation in which he was distressed, he will indeed walk at first, wishing to come to Jesus upon the waters; but being as yet of little faith, and as yet doubting, will see that the wind is strong and will be afraid and begin to sink; but he will not sink because he will call upon Jesus with loud voice, and will say to Him, “Lord, save me;” (Mat_14:30) then immediately while such a Peter is yet speaking and saying, “Lord save me,” the Word will stretch forth His hand, holding out assistance to such an one, and will take hold of him when he is beginning to sink, and will reproach him for his little faith and doubting. (Mat_14:31) Only, observe that He did not say, “O thou without faith,” but, “O thou of little faith,” and that it was said, “Wherefore didst thou doubt.” as he had still a measure of faith, but also had a tendency towards that which was opposed to faith.

 

7. The Healing of the Sick on the Other Side. The Method of Healing.

But after this both Jesus and Peter will go up into the boat, and the wind will cease; and those in the boat, perceiving the great dangers from which they have been saved, will worship Him, saying, not simply, “Thou art the Son of God,” as also the two demoniacs said, but, “Of a truth, Thou art the Son of God.” (Mat_14:33) This the disciples in the boat say, for I do not think that others than the disciples said so. And when we have undergone all these experiences, having crossed over, we shall come to the land where Jesus commanded us to go before Him. And perhaps, also, some secret and occult mystery with reference to some who were saved by Jesus is indicated by the words, “And when the men of that place knew Him,” – plainly of the place on the other side, – “they sent into all that region round about,” – round about the other side, not on the other side itself, but round about it, – “and they brought unto Him all that were sick.” (Mat_14:35) And here observe that they brought unto Him not only many that were sick, but all in that region round about; and the sick who were brought to Him besought Him that they might touch if it were only the border of His garment, (Mat_14:36) beseeching this grace from Him, since they were not like “the woman who had an issue of blood twelve years, and who came behind Him and touched the border of His garment, saying within herself, If I do but touch His garment, I shall be made whole.” (Mat_9:20-21) For observe in what is said about the border of His garment, on account of what the flowing of her blood ceased at once. But those from the country round the land of Gennesaret, to which Jesus and His disciples crossed over and came, did not come of themselves to Jesus, but were brought by those who had sent the tidings, inasmuch as they were not able because of their extreme weakness to come of themselves. Nor did they merely touch the garment, like the woman who had an issue of blood, but they touched after that they had besought Him. Only, of these, “as many as touched were made whole.” (Mat_14:36) And whether there be any difference between the “They were made whole,”28 which is said in their case, and the “being saved,”29 – for it was said to the woman with the issue of blood, “Thy faith hath saved thee,” (Mat_9:22) you may yourself consider.

 

8. Concerning the Pharisees and Scribes Who Came and Inquired, Why Do Thy Disciples Transgress The Tradition of the Elders?

“Then there came to Him from Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes, saying, Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread.” (Mat_15:1, Mat_15:2) He who observes at what time the Pharisees and scribes came from Jerusalem to Jesus, saying, “Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the eiders,” etc., will perceive that Matthew of necessity wrote not simply that Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to the Saviour to inquire of Him the matters before us, but put it thus, “Then come to Him from Jerusalem.” What time, therefore, are we to understand by “then”? At the time when Jesus and His disciples crossed over and came in the boat to the land of Gennesaret, when the wind ceased from the time that Jesus entered into the boat, and when “the men of that place knowing Him sent into all that region round about, and brought unto Him all that were sick, and besought Him that they might touch if it were only the border of His garment, and as many as touched were made whole.” (Mat_14:35, Mat_14:36) At that time came to Him from Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes, not struck with admiration at the power which was in Jesus, which healed those who only touched even the border of His garment, but in a censorious spirit, accusing the disciples before their Teacher, not concerning the transgression of a commandment of God, but of a single tradition of the Jewish elders. And it is probable that this very charge of these censorious persons is a proof of the piety of the disciples of Jesus, who gave to the Pharisees and scribes no opportunity of censure with reference to the transgression of the commandments of God, as they would not have brought the charge of transgression against the disciples, as transgressing the commandment of the elders, if they had had it in their power to censure those whom they accused, and to show that they were transgressing a commandment of God. But do not suppose that these things go to establish the necessity of keeping the law of Moses according to the letter, because the disciples of Jesus up to that time kept it; for not before He suffered did He “redeem us from the curse of the law,” (Gal_3:13) who in suffering for men “became a curse for us.” But just as fittingly Paul became a Jew to the Jews that he might gain Jews, (1Co_9:20) what strange thing is it that the Apostles, whose way of life was passed among the Jews, even though they understood the spiritual things in the law, should have used a spirit of accommodation, as Paul also did when he circumcised Timothy, (Gal_2:3) and offered sacrifice in accordance with a certain legal vow, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles? (Act_21:26; Act_18:18) Only, again, they appear fond of bringing accusations, as they have no charge to bring against the disciples of Jesus with reference to a commandment of God, but only with reference to one tradition of the elders. And especially does this love of accusation become manifest in this, that they bring the charge in presence of those very persons who had been healed from their sickness; in appearance against the disciples, but in reality purposing to slander their Teacher, as it was a tradition of the elders that the washing of hands was a thing essential to piety. For they thought that the hands of those who did not wash before eating bread were defiled and unclean, but that the hands of those who had washed them with water became pure and holy, not in a figurative sense, in due relation to the law of Moses according to the letter. But let us, not according to the tradition of the elders among the Jews, but according to sound reason, endeavour to purify our own actions and so to wash the hands of our souls, when we are about to eat the three loaves which we ask from Jesus, who wishes to be our friend; (cf. Luk_11:5) for with hands that are defiled and unwashed and impure, we ought not to partake of the loaves.

 

9. Explanation of “Corban.”

Jesus, however, does not accuse them with reference to a tradition of the Jewish elders, but with regard to two most imperative commandments of God, the one of which was the fifth in the decalogue, being as follows: “Honour thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, and that thy days may be long on the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee;” (Exo_20:12) and the other was written thus in Leviticus, “If a man speak evil of his father or his mother, let him die the death; he has spoken evil of his father or mother, he shall be guilty.” (Lev_20:9) But when we wish to examine the very letter of the words as given by Matthew, “He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death,” (Mat_15:4) consider whether it was taken from the place where it was written, “Whoso striketh his father or mother, let him die the death; and he that speaketh evil of father or mother let him die the death.” (Exo_21:13; Lev_11:13) For such are the exact words taken from the Law with regard to the two commandments; but Matthew has quoted them in part and in an abridged form, and not in the very words. But what the nature of the charge is which the Saviour brings against the Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem, when He says that they transgress the commandment of God because of their tradition we must consider. And God said, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” (Exo_20:12) teaching that the child should pay the honour which is due to his parents. Of this honour to parents one part was to share with them the necessaries of life, such as food and clothing, and if there was any other thing in which it was possible for them to show favour towards their own parents. But the Pharisees and scribes promulgated in opposition to the law a tradition which is found rather obscurely in the Gospel, and which we ourselves would not have thought of, unless one of the Hebrews had given to us the following facts relating to the passage. Sometimes, he says, when money-lenders fell in with stubborn debtors who were able but not willing to pay their debts, they consecrated what was due to the account of the poor, for whom money was cast into the treasury by each of those who wished to give a portion of their goods to the poor according to their ability. They, therefore, said sometimes to their debtors in their own tongue, “That which you owe to me is Corban,” – that is, a gift – “for I have consecrated it to the poor, to the account of piety towards God.” Then the debtor, as no longer in debt to men but to God and to piety towards God, was shut up, as it were, even though unwilling, to payment of the debt, no longer to the money-lender, but now to God for the account of the poor, in name of the money-lender. What then the money-lender did to the debtor, that sometimes some sons did to their parents and said to them, “That wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me, father or mother, know that you will receive this from Corban,” (Mat_15:4) from the account of the poor who are consecrated to God. Then the parents, hearing that that which should have been given to them was Corban, – consecrated to God, – no longer wished to take it from their sons, even though they were in extreme need of the necessaries of life. The elders, then, declared to the people a tradition of this kind, “Whosoever said to his father or mother, that which should be given to any of them is Corban and a gift, that man was no longer a debtor to his father or mother in respect of giving to them the necessaries of life.” The Saviour censures this tradition, as not being sound but opposed to the commandment of God. For if God says, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” but the tradition said, he is not bound to honour his father or mother by a gift, who has consecrated to God, as Corban, that which would have been given to his parents, manifestly the commandment of God concerning the honour due to parents was made void by the tradition of the Pharisees and scribes which said, that he was no longer bound to honour his father or mother, who had, once for all, consecrated to God that which the parents would have received. And the Pharisees, as lovers of money, in order that under pretext of the poor they might receive even that which would have been given to the parents of any one, gave such teaching. And the Gospel testifies to their love of money, saying, “But the Pharisees who were lovers of money heard these things and they scoffed at Him.” (Luk_16:14) If, then, any one of those who are called elders among us, or of those who are in any way rulers of the people, profess to give to the poor under the name of the commonweal, rather than to be of those who give to their kindred if they should chance to be in need of the necessaries of life, and those who give cannot do both, this man might with justice be called a brother of those Pharisees who made void the word of God through their own tradition, and were accused by the Saviour as hypocrites. And as a very powerful deterrent to any one from being anxious to take from the account of the poor, and from thinking that “the piety of others is a way of gain,” (1Ti_6:5) we have not only these things, but also that which is recorded about the traitor Judas, who in appearance championed the cause of the poor, and said with indignation, “This ointment might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor,” (Mar_14:5; Joh_12:5) but in reality “was a thief, and having the bag took away what was put therein.” (Joh_12:6) If, then, any one in our time who has the bag of the Church speaks likes Judas on behalf of the poor, but takes away what is put therein, let there be assigned to him the portion along with Judas who did these things; on account of which things eating like a gangrene into his soul, the devil cast it into his heart to betray the Saviour; and, when he had received the “fiery dart,” (Eph_6:16) with reference to this end, the devil afterwards himself entered into his soul and took full possession of him. And perhaps, when the Apostle says, “The love of money is a root of all evils,” (1Ti_6:10) he says it because of Judas’ love of money, which was a root of all the evils that were committed against Jesus.

 

10.The Traditions of the Elders in Collision with Divine Law.

But let us return to the subject before us, in which the Saviour abridged and expounded two commandments from the law, the one from the decalogue from Exodus, and the other from Leviticus, or the other from some one of the books of the Pentateuch. Then since we have explained in what way they made void the word of God which said, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” by saying, “Thou shalt not honour thy father or thy mother,” whosoever shall say to his father or mother, “It is a gift that wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me,” some one may inquire whether the words, “He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death,” (Mat_15:4) are not extraneous. For, granted that he does not honour his father and mother, who consecrates to what is called Corban that which would have been given in honour of father and mother, in what way, therefore, does the tradition of the Pharisees make void the word which said, “He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death.? But, perhaps, when any one said to his father or his mother, “It is a gift, that wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me,” (Mat_15:5) he, as it were, casts abuse on his father or mother as if he were calling his parents sacrilegious, in taking that which was consecrated to Corban from him who had consecrated it to Corban. The Jews then punish their sons30 according to the law, as speaking evil of father or mother, when they say to their father or mother, “It is a gift, that wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me,” but you by one of your traditions make void two commandments of God. And then you are not ashamed to accuse My disciples who transgress no commandment; for they walk “in all His commandments and ordinances blamelessly,” (cf. Luk_1:6) but transgress a tradition of the elders, so as not to transgress a commandment of God. And if you had held this aim before you, you would have kept the commandment about the honour due to father and mother, and that which said, “He that speaketh evil of father and mother, let him die the death;” but the tradition of the elders which is opposed to these commandments you would not have kept.

 

11. Exposition of the Prophecy of Isaiah Quoted by Jesus.

And, after this, wishing to refute completely from the words of the prophets all these traditions of the elders among the Jews, He brought before them a saying, from Isaiah, which in the exact words is as follows: “And the Lord said, This people draws nigh to Me with their mouth,” etc.; (Isa_29:13) and, as we said before, Matthew has not written out the prophetical saying in the very words. And, if it be necessary because of its use in the Gospel to interpret it according to our ability, we will take in addition the preceding passage which is, in my judgment, noted with advantage by us for the exposition of that passage in the Gospel which was taken from the prophet. The passage in Isaiah from the beginning is thus. “Be ye faint, and be maddened: be ye drunken, but not with strong drink nor with wine: for the Lord hath given you to drink of the spirit of stupor, and He will close their eyes, both of their prophets, and of their rulers who see things secret. And all these sayings shall be to you as the words of the book, which has been sealed, which if they give to a man who knows letters, saying, Read this, he shall answer, I cannot read, for it is sealed. And this book will be given into the hands of a man who does not know letters, and one will say to him, Read this, and he will say, I know not letters. And the Lord said, This people is nigh to Me,” etc., down to the words, “Woe unto them that form counsel in secret, and their works shall be in darkness.” (Isa_29:9-15) Taking up then the passage before us in the Gospel, I have put some of the verses which come before it, and some which follow it, in order to show in what way the Word threatens to close the eyes of those of the people who are astonished and drunken, and have been made to drink of the spirit of deep sleep. And it threatens also to close the eyes of their prophets and their rulers who profess to see things secret, – which things, I think, took place after the advent of the Saviour among that people; for all the words of the whole of the Scriptures, and of Isaiah also, have become to them as the words of a sealed book. Now the expression “sealed” is used of a book closed in virtue of its obscurity and not open in virtue of its lucidity, which is equally obscure to those who are not able to read it at all because they do not know letters, and to those who profess to know letters but do not understand the meaning in the things which have been written. Well, then, does he add to this, that when the people, fainting because of their sins and being in a state of madness rage against Him through those sins wherewith they shall be drunken against Him with the spirit of stupor, which shall be given to them to drink by the Lord when He closes their eyes, as unworthy to see, and the eyes of their prophets and of their rulers who profess to see the hidden things of the mysteries in the Divine Scriptures; and, when their eyes are closed, then shall the prophetic words be sealed to them and hidden, as has been the case with those who do not believe in Jesus as the Christ. And when the prophetic sayings have become as the words of a sealed book, not only to those who do not know letters but to those who profess to know, then the Lord said, that the people of the Jews draw nigh to God with their mouth only, and He says that they honour Him with their lips, because their heart by reason of their unbelief in Jesus is far from the Lord. And now, especially, from the time at which they denied our Saviour, it might be said about them by God, “But in vain do they worship Me;” (Mat_15:9) for they no longer teach the precepts of God but of men, and doctrines which are human and no longer of the Spirit of wisdom. Wherefore, when these things happen to them, God has removed the people of the Jews, and has caused to perish the wisdom of the wise men among them; for there is no longer wisdom among them, just as there is no prophecy; but God has utterly destroyed the prudence of the prudent and concealed it, (Isa_29:14) and no longer is it splendid and conspicuous. Wherefore, although they may seem to form some counsel in a deep fashion, because they do it not through the Lord they are called miserable; and even though they profess to tell some secrets of the Divine counsel they lie, since their works are not works of light, but of darkness and night. (Isa_29:15) I have thought it right briefly to set forth the prophecy, and to a certain extent elucidate its meaning, seeing that Matthew made mention of it.

And Mark also made mention of it, from whom we may usefully set down the following words in the place, with reference to the transgression of the elders who held that it was necessary to wash hands when the Jews ate bread, “For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands diligently, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market-place except they wash themselves they eat not. And there are some other things which they have received to hold, washings of cups and pots and brazen vessels and couches.” (Mar_7:3-4)

 

 

FOOTNOTES

 

25 λὸγος προφορικός.

26 λὸγος ἐνδιάθετος.

27 The conception of Origen seems to be that opposed to the Divine Trinity there is an evil trinity. Cf. book xii. 20.

28 διεσώθεσαν.

29 σωθῆαι.

30 Or, you, if we read ὐμᾶς.

Commentaries of Origen (Cont.)

Book XI. (Cont.)

12. Things Clean and Unclean According to the Law and the Gospel.

“And He called to Him the multitude and said unto them, Hear and understand,” etc. (Mat_15:10) We are clearly taught in these words by the Saviour that, when we read in Leviticus and Deuteronomy the precepts about meat clean and unclean, for the transgression of which we are accused by the material Jews and by the Ebionites who differ little from them, we are not to think that the scope of the Scripture is found in any superficial understanding of them. For if “not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man, but that which proceedeth out of the mouth,” (Mat_15:11) and especially when, according to Mark, the Saviour said these things “making all meats clean,” (Mar_7:19) manifestly we are not defiled when we eat those things which the Jews who desire to be in bondage to the letter of the law declare to be unclean, but we are then defiled when, whereas our lips ought to be bound with perception and we ought “to make for them what we call a balance and weight,” (Ecclesiasticus 28:25) we speak offhand and discuss matters we ought not, from which there comes to us the spring of sins. And it is indeed becoming to the law of God to forbid those things which arise from wickedness, and to enjoin those things which tend to virtue, but as for things which are in their own nature indifferent to leave them in their own place, as they may, according to our choice and the reason which is in us, be done ill if we sin in them, but if rightly directed by us be done well. And any one who has carefully thought on these matters will see that, even in those things which are thought to be good, it is possible for a man to sin who has taken them up in an evil way and under the impulse of passion, and that these things called impure may be considered pure, if used by us in accordance with reason. As, then, when the Jew sins his circumcision shall be reckoned for uncircumcision, but when one of the Gentiles acts uprightly his uncircumcision shall be reckoned for circumcision, (Rom_2:25-26) so those things which are thought to be pure shall be reckoned for impure in the case of him who does not use them fittingly, nor when one ought, nor as far as he ought, nor for what reason he ought. But as for the things which are called impure, “All things become pure to the pure,” for, “To them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, since both their minds and their conscience are defiled.” (Tit_1:15) And when these are defiled, they make all things whatsoever they touch defiled; as again on the contrary the pure mind and the pure conscience make all things pure, even though they may seem to be impure; for not from intemperance, nor from love of pleasure, nor with doubting which draws a man both ways, do the righteous use meats or drinks, mindful of the precept, “Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever other thing ye do, do all to the glory of God.” (1Co_10:31) And if it be necessary to delineate the foods which are unclean according to the Gospel, we will say that they are such as are supplied by covetousness, and are the result of base love of gain, and are taken up from love of pleasure, and from deifying the belly which is treated with honour, when it, with its appetites, and not reason, rules our souls. But as for us who know that some things are used by demons, or if we do not know, but suspect, and are in doubt about it, if we use such things, we have used them not to the glory of God, nor in the name of Christ; for not only does the suspicion that things have been sacrificed to idols condemn him who eats, but even the doubt concerning this; for “he that doubteth,” according to the Apostle, “is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith; and whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” (Rom_14:23) He then eats in faith who believes that that which is eaten has not been sacrificed in the temples of idols, and that it is not strangled nor blood; (cf. Act_15:20) but he eats not of faith who is in doubt about any of these things. And the man who knowing that they have been sacrificed to demons nevertheless uses them, becomes a communicant with demons, while at the same time, his imagination is polluted with reference to demons participating in the sacrifice. And the Apostle, however, knowing that it is not the nature of meats which is the cause of injury to him who uses them or of advantage to him who refrains from their use, but opinions and the reason which is in them, said, “But meat commendeth us not to God, for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we eat not are we the worse.” (1Co_8:8) And since he knew that those who have a loftier conception of what things are pure and what impure according to the law, turning aside from the distinction about the use of things pure and impure, and superstition, I think, in respect of things being different, become indifferent to the use of meats,31 and on this account are condemned by the Jews as transgressors of law, he said therefore, somewhere, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink,” etc., (Col_2:16) teaching us that the things according to the letter are a shadow, but that the true thoughts of the law which are stored up in them are the good things to come, in which one may find what are the pure spiritual meats of the soul, and what are the impure foods in false and contradictory words which injure the man who is nourished in them, “For the law had a shadow of the good things to come.” (Heb_10:1)

 

13. The Offence of the Pharisees.

And as in many cases we have to consider the astonishment of the Jews at the words of the Saviour, because they were spoken with authority, so also in regard to the words in this place. Having called the multitudes therefore, He said unto them, “Hear and understand,” (Mat_15:10) etc. And He said this, the Pharisees being offended at this saying, as, because of their evil opinions and their worthless interpretation of the law, they were not the plant of his own Father in heaven, and on this account were being rooted up; (Mat_15:13) for they were rooted up as they did not receive the true vine, which was cultivated by the Father, even Jesus Christ. (Joh_15:1) For how could they be a plant of His Father who were offended at the words of Jesus, words which turn men away from the precept, “Handle not, nor taste, nor touch, – all which things were to perish in the using – after the precepts and doctrines of men,” (Col_2:22, Col_2:23) but induce the intelligent hearer of them to seek in regard to them the things which are above and not the things upon the earth as the Jews do? (Col_3:2) And since, because of their evil opinions, the Pharisees were not the plant of His Father in heaven, on this account, as about such as were incorrigible, He says to the disciple, “Let them alone;” (Mat_15:14)“Let them alone,” He said for this reason, that as they were blind they ought to become conscious of their blindness and seek guides; but they, being unconscious of their own blindness, profess to guide the blind, not reckoning that they would fall into a pit, about which it is written in the Psalms, “He hath made a pit, and digged it, and will fall into the ditch which he hath marie.” (Psa_7:15) Again, elsewhere it is written, “And seeing the multitudes, He went up into the mountain, and when He had sat down His disciples came unto Him;” (Mat_5:1) but here He stretches forth His hand to the multitude, calling them unto Him, and turning their thoughts away from the literal interpretation of the questions in the law, when He in the first place said to them, who did not yet understand what they heard, “Hear and understand,” and thereafter as in parables said to them, “Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man, but that which proceedeth out of the mouth.” (Mat_15:10-11)

 

14.Why the Pharisees Were Not a Plant of God. Teaching of Origen on the “Bread of the Lord.”

After this, it is worth while to look at the phrase which has been assailed in a sophistical way by those who say32 that the God of the law and the God of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not the same; for they say that the heavenly Father of Jesus Christ is not the husbandman of those who think that they worship God according to the law of Moses. Jesus Himself said that the Pharisees, who were worshipping the God who created the world and the law, were not a plant which His heavenly Father had planted, and that for this reason it was being rooted up. (Mat_15:13) But you might also say this, that even if it were the Father of Jesus who “brought in and planted the people,” when it came out of Egypt, “to the mountain of His own inheritance, to the place which He had prepared for Himself to dwell in,” (Exo_15:7) yet Jesus would have said, in regard to the Pharisees, “Every plant which My heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up.” Now, to this we will say, that as many as on account of their perverse interpretation of the things in the law were not a plant of His Father in heaven, were blinded in their minds, as not believing the truth, but taking pleasure in unrighteousness, (2Th_2:12) by him who is deified by the sons of this world, and on this account is called by Paul the god of this world. (2Co_4:4) And do not suppose that Paul said that he was truly God; for just as the belly, though it is not the god of those who prize pleasure too highly, being lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, is said by Paul to be their god, (Phi_3:19) so the prince of this world, in regard to whom the Saviour says, “Now has the prince of this world been judged,” (Joh_16:11) though he is not God, is said to be the god of those who do not wish to receive the spirit of adoption, in order that they may become sons of that world, and sons of the resurrection from the dead, (cf. Luk_20:36) and who, on this account, abide in the sonship of this world. I have deemed it necessary to introduce these matters, even though they may have been spoken by way of digression, because of the saying, “They are blind guides of the blind.” (Mat_15:14) Who are such? The Pharisees, whose minds the god of this world hath blinded as they are unbelieving, because they have not believed in Jesus Christ; and he hath blinded them so that the “light of the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ should not dawn upon them.” (2Co_4:4) But not only must we avoid being guided by those blind ones who are conscious that they are in need of guides, because they have not yet received the power of vision of themselves; but even in the case of all who profess to guide us in sound doctrine, we must hear with care, and apply a sound judgment to what is said, lest being guided according to the ignorance of those who are blind, and do not see the things that concern sound doctrine, we ourselves may appear to be blind because we do not see the sense of the Scriptures, so that both he who guides and he who is guided will fall into the ditch of which we have Spoken before. Next to this, it is written in what way Peter answered and said to the Saviour, as if he had not understood the saying, “Not that which cometh into the mouth defileth the man, but that which goeth out of the mouth,” “Declare unto us the parable.” (Mat_15:11) To which the Saviour says, “Are ye also, even yet, without understanding?” (Mat_15:16) As if He had said, “Having been so long time with Me, do ye not yet understand the meaning of what is said, and do ye not perceive that for this reason that which goeth into his month does not defile the man, because it passeth into the belly, and going out from it is cast into the draught?” (Mat_15:17) It was not in respect of the law in which they appeared to believe, that the Pharisees were not a plant of the Father of Jesus, but in respect of their perverse interpretation of the law and the things written in it. For since there are two things to be understood in regard to the law, the ministration of death which was engraven in letters (cf. 2Co_3:7) and which had no kinship with the spirit, and the ministration of life which is understood in the spiritual law, those who were able with a sincere heart to say, “We know that the law is spiritual,” (Rom_7:14) and therefore “the law is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good,” (Rom_7:12) were the plant which the heavenly Father planted; but those who were not such, but guarded with care the letter which killeth only, were not a plant of God but of him who hardened their heart, and put a veil over it, which veil had power over them so long as they did not turn to the Lord; “for if any one should turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away, and the Lord is the Spirit.” (2Co_3:16, 2Co_3:17) Now some one when dealing with the passage might say, that just as “not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man,” (Mat_15:11) of even though it may be thought by the Jews to be defiled, so not that which entereth into the mouth sanctifieth the man, even though what is called the bread of the Lord may be thought by the simpler disciples to sanctify. And the saying is I think, not to be despised, and on this account, demands clear exposition, which seems to me to be thus; as it is not the meat but the conscience of him who eats with doubt which defiles him that eateth, for “he that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith,” (Rom_14:23) and as nothing is pure to him who is defiled and unbelieving, not in itself, but because of his defilement and unbelief, so that which is sanctified through the word of God and prayer (cf. 1Ti_4:5) does not, in its own nature, sanctify him who uses it, for, if this were so, it would sanctify even him who eats unworthily of the bread of the Lord, and no one on account of this food would become weak or sickly or asleep for something of this kind Paul represented in saying, “For this cause many among you are weak and sickly and not a few sleep.” (1Co_11:30) And in the case of the bread of the Lord, accordingly, there is advantage to him who uses it, when with undefiled mind and pure conscience he partakes of the bread. And so neither by not eating, I mean by the very fact that we do not eat of the bread which has been sanctified by the word of God and prayer, are we deprived of any good thing, nor by eating are we the better by any good thing; for the cause of our lacking is wickedness and sins, and the cause of our abounding is righteousness and right actions; so that such is the meaning of what is said by Paul, “For neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we eat not are we the worse.” (1Co_8:8) Now, if “everything that entereth into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the drought,” (Mat_15:17) even the meat which has been sanctified through the word of God and prayer, in accordance with the fact that it is material, goes into the belly and is cast out into the draught, but in respect of the prayer which comes upon it, according to the proportion of the faith, becomes a benefit and is a means of clear vision to the mind which looks to that which is beneficial, and it is not the material of the bread but the word which is said over it which is of advantage to him who eats it not unworthily of the Lord. And these things indeed are said of the typical and symbolical body. But many things might be said about the Word Himself who became flesh, (Joh_1:14) and true meat of which he that eateth shall assuredly live for ever, no worthless person being able to eat it; for if it were possible for one who continues worthless to eat of Him who became flesh, who was the Word and the living bread, it would not have been written, that “every one who eats of this bread shall live for ever.” (Joh_6:51)

 

15. Eating with Unwashed Heart Defiles the Man.

Next to this let us see how the things which proceed out and defile the man do not defile the man because of their proceeding out of the mouth, but have the cause of their defilement in the heart, when there come forth out of it, before those things which proceed through the mouth, evil thoughts, of which the species are – murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, railings. (Mat_15:18, Mat_15:19) For these are the things which defile the man, when they come forth out of the heart, and going out from it proceed through the mouth; so that, if they did not come out of the heart, but were retained there somewhere about the heart, and were not allowed to be spoken through the mouth, they would very quickly disappear, and a man would be no more defiled. The spring and source, then, of every sin are evil thoughts; for, unless these gained the mastery, neither murders nor adulteries nor any other such thing would exist. Therefore, each man must keep his own heart with all watchfulness; (Pro_4:23) for when the Lord comes in the day of judgment. “He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts,” (1Co_4:5) “all the thoughts of men meanwhile accusing or else excusing them,” (Rom_2:15)“when their own devices have beset them about.” (Hos_7:2) But of such a nature are the evil thoughts that sometimes they make worthy of censure even those things which seem good, and which, so far as the judgment of the masses is concerned, are worthy of praise. Accordingly, if we do alms before men, having in our thoughts the design of appearing to men philanthropic, and of being honoured because of philanthropy, we receive the reward from men; (Mat_6:1, Mat_6:2) and, universally, everything that is done with the consciousness in the doer that he will be glorified by men, has no reward from Him who beholds in secret, and renders the reward to those who are pure, in secret. So, too, therefore, is it with apparent purity if it is influenced by considerations of vain glory or love of gain; and the teaching which is thought to be the teaching of the Church, if it becomes servile through the word of flattery, either when it is made the excuse for covetousness, or when any one seeks glory from men because of his teaching, is not reckoned to be the teaching of those “who have been set by God in the Church: first, apostles; secondly, prophets; and thirdly, teachers.” (1Co_12:28) And you will say the like in the case of him who seeks the office of a bishop for the sake of glory with men, or of flattery from men, or for the sake of the gain received from those who, coming over to the word, give in the name of piety; for a bishop of this kind at any rate does not “desire a good work,” (1Ti_3:2) nor can he be without reproach, nor temperate, nor soberminded, as he is intoxicated with glory and intemperately satiated with it. And the same also you will say about the elders and deacons. And if we seem to some to have made a digression in speaking of these things, consider if it were not necessary that they should be said, because that evil thoughts are the spring of all sins, and can pollute even those actions which, if they were done apart from evil thoughts, would have justified the man who did them. We have thus investigated according to our ability what are the things which defile; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man; but if we must say it with boldness, with unwashed heart to eat anything whatsoever which is the natural food of our reason, defileth the man.

 

16. Concerning the Canaanitish Woman. Meaning of the “Borders of Tyre and Sidon.”

“And Jesus went out thence and withdrew into the parts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold a Canaanitish woman.” (Mat_15:21, Mat_15:22) Whence the “thence”? Was it from the land of Gennesaret, concerning which it was said before, “And when they had crossed over they came into the land of Gennesaret?” (Mat_14:34) But He withdrew, perhaps because the Pharisees were offended when they heard that “not that which entereth in, but that which proceedeth out, defileth the man;” (Mat_15:11) and that, because of their being suspected of plotting against Him, it is said, “He withdrew,” is manifest from the passage, “And when He heard that John was delivered up He withdrew into Galilee.” (Mat_4:12) Perhaps also on this account, when describing the things in this place, Mark says that “He rose up and went into the borders of Tyre, and having entered into the house wished no man to know it.” (Mar_7:24) It is probable that He sought to avoid the Pharisees who were offended at His teaching, waiting for the time for His suffering, which was more fitting and rightly appointed. But some one might say that Tyre and Sidon are used for the Gentiles; accordingly when He withdrew from Israel He came into the parts of the Gentiles. Among the Hebrews, then, Tyre is called Sor, and it is interpreted “anguish.” Sidon, which is also the Hebrew name, is rendered “hunters.” And among the Gentiles likewise the hunters are the evil powers, and among them is great distress, the distress, namely, which exists in wickedness and passions. When Jesus, then, went out from Gennesaret He withdrew indeed from Israel and came, not to Tyre and Sidon, but into “the parts” of Tyre and Sidon, with the result that those of the Gentiles now believe in part; so that if He had visited the whole of Tyre and Sidon, no unbeliever would have been left in it. Now, according to Mark, “Jesus rose up and went into the borders of Tyre,” (Mar_7:24) – that is, the distress of the Gentiles, – in order that they also from these borders who believe can be saved, when they come out of them; for attend to this: “And behold a Canaanitish woman came out from these borders and cried saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David, my daughter is terribly vexed with a demon.” (Mat_15:22) And I think that if she had not come out from those borders she would not have been able to cry to Jesus with the great faith to which testimony was borne; and according to the proportion of faith one comes out from the borders among the Gentiles, which “when the Most High divided the nations He set up according to the number of the sons of Israel,” (Deu_32:8) and prevented their further advance. Here, then, certain borders are spoken of as the borders of Tyre and Sidon, but in Exodus the borders of Pharaoh, (Exo_8:2) in which, they say, were formed the plagues against the Egyptians. And we must suppose that each of us when he sins is in the borders of Tyre or Sidon or of Pharaoh and Egypt, or some one of those which are outside the allotted inheritance of God; but when he changes from wickedness to virtue he goes out from the borders of evil, and comes to the borders of the portion of God, there being among these also a difference which will be manifest to those who are able to understand the things that concern the division and the inheritance of Israel, in harmony with the spiritual law. And attend also to the meeting, so to speak, which took place between Jesus and the Canaanitish woman; for He comes as to the parts of Tyre and Sidon, and she comes out of those parts, and cried, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David.” (Mat_15:22) Now the woman was Canaanitish, which is rendered, prepared for humiliation. The righteous, indeed, are prepared for the kingdom of heaven and for the exaltation in the kingdom of God; (cf. Mat_25:34) but sinners are prepared for the humiliation of the wickedness which is in them, and of the deeds which flow from it and prepare them for it, and of the sin which reigns in their mortal body. Only, the Canaanitish woman came out of those borders and went forth from the state of being prepared for humiliation, crying and saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David.”

 

17. Exposition of the Details in the Narrative.

Now bring together from the Gospels those who call Him Son of David, as she, and the blind men in Jericho; (Mat_20:30) and who call Him Son of God, and that without the addition “truly” like the demoniacs who say, “What have we to do with Thee, Thou Son of God;” (Mat_8:29) and who call Him so with the addition “truly,” like those in the boat who worshipped Him saying, “Truly Thou art the Son of God.” (Mat_14:33) For the bringing together of these passages will, I think, be useful to you with a view to seeing the difference of those who come to Jesus; some indeed come as to Him “who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh;” (Rom_1:3) but others come to Him who “was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness;” (Rom_1:4) and of these some with the “truly,” and some without it. Further, observe, that the Canaanitish woman besought Him not about a son, whom she does not seem to have brought forth at all, but about a daughter who was terribly vexed with a demon; but another mother receives back alive her son who was being carried forth dead. (Luk_7:12) And again the ruler of the synagogue makes supplication for a daughter twelve years old, as being dead, (Mat_9:18) but the nobleman about a son as being still sick, and at the point of death. (Joh_4:46) The daughter, accordingly, who was distressed by a demon, and the dead son sprang from two mothers; and the dead daughter, and the son who was sick unto death, sprang from two fathers, of whom the one was a ruler of the synagogue, and the other was a nobleman. And I am persuaded these things contain reasons concerning the verse kinds of souls which Jesus vivifies and heals. And all the cures that He works among the people, especially those recorded by the Evangelists, took place at that time, that those who would not otherwise have believed unless they saw signs and wonders might believe; (Joh_4:48) for the things aforetime were symbols of the things that are ever being accomplished by the power of Jesus; for there is no time when each of the things which are written is not done by the power of Jesus according to the desert of each. The Canaanitish woman, therefore, because of her race was not worthy even to receive an answer from Jesus, who acknowledged that He had not been sent by the Father for any other thing than to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, (Mat_15:24) – a lost race of souls possessed of clear vision; but, because of her resolution and of having worshipped Jesus as Son of God, she obtains an answer, which reproaches her with baseness of birth and exhibits the measure of her worthiness, namely, that she was worthy of crumbs as the little dogs, but not of the loaves. But when she with intensified resolution, accepting the saying of Jesus, puts forth the claim to obtain crumbs even as a little dog, and acknowledges that the masters are of a nobler race, then she gets a second answer, which bears testimony to her faith as great, and a promise that it shall be done unto her as she wills. (Mat_15:28) And corresponding, I think, “to the Jerusalem above, which is free, the mother” (Gal_4:26) of Paul and those like to him, must we conceive of the Canaanitish woman, the mother of her who was terribly distressed with a demon, who was the symbol of the mother of such a soul. And consider whether it is not according to sound reason that there are also many fathers and many mothers corresponding to the fathers of Abraham to whom the patriarch went away, (Gen_15:15) and to Jerusalem the “mother,” as Paul says, concerning himself and those like to him. And it is probable that she of whom the Canaanitish woman was a symbol came out of the borders of Tyre and Sidon, of which the places on earth were types, and came to the Saviour and besought Him and even now beseeches Him saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David, my daughter is terribly vexed with a demon.” (Mat_15:22) Then also to those without and to the disciples when necessary He answers and says, “I was not sent;” (Mat_15:24) teaching us that there are some lost souls pre-eminently intellectual and clear of vision, figuratively called sheep of the house of Israel; which things, I think, the simpler who are of opinion that they are spoken in regard to the Israel which is after the flesh will of necessity admit, namely, that our Saviour was sent by the Father to no others than to those lost Jews. But we, who can truthfully boast that “if we have once known Christ after the flesh, but now no longer do we know Him so,” (2Co_5:16) are assured that it is pre-eminently the work of the Word to save the more intelligent, for these are more akin to Him than those who are duller. But since the lost sheep of the house of Israel, with the exception of “the remnant according to the election of grace,” (Rom_11:5) disbelieved the Word, on this account “God chose the foolish things of the world,” (1Co_1:27) namely, that which was not Israel, nor clear of vision, that He might put to shame the wise ones of Israel; and He called “the things which are not,” (1Co_1:28) handing over to them an intelligent nation who were able to admit “the foolishness of the preaching,” (1Co_1:21) and of His good pleasure saved those who believe in this, that He might refute “the things which are,” having perfected praise for Himself, “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,” (Psa_8:2) when they became hostile to truth. Now, the Canaanitish woman, having come, worshipped Jesus as God, saying, “Lord, help me,” but He answered and said, “It is not possible to take the children’s bread and cast it to the little dogs.” (Mat_15:25, Mat_15:26) But some one might inquire also into the meaning of this saying, since, – inasmuch as there was a measure of loaves such that both the children and the dogs of the household could not eat loaves, unless the dogs ate other loaves than those which were well made, – it was not possible according to right reason for the well-made loaf of the children to be given as food to the little dogs. But no such thing appears in the case of the power of Jesus, for of this it was possible both for the children and those called little dogs to partake. Consider, then, whether perhaps with reference to the saying, “It is not possible to take the bread of children,” we ought to say that, “He who emptied Himself and took upon Him the form of a servant,” (Phi_2:7) brought a measure of power such as the world was capable of receiving, of which power also He was conscious that a certain quantity went forth from Him as is plain from the words, “Some one did touch Me, for I perceived that power had gone forth from Me.” (Luk_8:46) From this measure of power, then, He dispensed, giving a larger portion to those who were pre-eminent and who were called sons, but a smaller portion to those who were not such, as to the little dogs. But though these things were so, nevertheless where there was great faith, to her, who because of her base birth in Canaanitish land was a little dog, He gave as to a child the bread of the children. And perhaps, also, of the words of Jesus there are some loaves which it is possible to give to the more rational, as to children only; and other words, as it were, crumbs from the great house and table of the well-born and the masters, which may be used by some souls, like the dogs. And according to the law of Moses it is written about certain things, “Ye shall cast them to the dogs,” (Exo_22:31) and it was a matter of care to the Holy Spirit to give instruction about certain foods that they should be left to the dogs. Let others, then, who are strangers to the doctrine of the Church, assume that souls pass from the bodies of men into the bodies of dogs, according to their varying degree of wickedness; but we, who do not find this at all in the divine Scripture, say that the more rational condition changes into one more irrational, undergoing this affection in consequence of great slothfulness and negligence. But, also, in the same way, a will which was more irrational, because of its neglect of reason, sometimes turns and becomes rational, so that that which at one time was a dog, loving to eat of the crumbs that fell from the table of its masters, comes into the condition of a son. For virtue contributes greatly to the making of one a son of God, but wickedness, and mad fury in wanton discourses and shamelessness, contribute to the giving of a man the name of dog according to the word of the Scripture. (2Sa_16:9) And the like you will also understand in the case of the other names which are applied to animals without reason. Only, he who is reproached as a dog and yet is not indignant at being called unworthy of the bread of children and with all forbearance repeats the saying of that Canaanitish woman, “Yea, Lord, for even the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ (Mat_15:27) table,” will obtain the very gentle answer of Jesus saying to him, “Great is thy faith,” – when he has received so great faith – and saying, “Be it done unto thee even as thou wilt,” (Mat_15:28) so that he himself may be healed, and if he has produced any fruit which stands in need of healing, that this, too, may be cured.

 

18. Concerning the Multitudes Who Were Healed. Comparison of the Mountain Where Jesus Sat to the Church.

“And Jesus departed thence,” – manifestly, from what has been said before, from the parts of Tyre and Sidon, – “and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee.” (Mat_15:29) which is commonly called the Lake of Gennesaret, and again went up into the mountain where He went up and sat. We may say, then, that into this mountain where Jesus sits, not only the sound in health go up, but along with the sound, those also who were suffering from various disorders. And, perhaps, this mountain to which Jesus went up and sat is that which is more commonly called the Church, which has been set up through the word of God over the rest of the world and the men upon it; whither go not the disciples only, leaving the multitudes as in the case of the beatitudes, but great multitudes who were not accused themselves of being deaf or suffering from any affection, but who had such along with themselves. For you may see, along with the multitudes who come to this mountain where the Son of God sits, some who have become deaf to the things promised, and others blind in soul and not looking at the true light, and others who are lame and not able to walk according to reason, and others who are maimed and not able to work according to reason. Those, accordingly, who are suffering in soul from such things, though they go up along with the multitudes into the mountain where Jesus was, so long as they are outside of the feet of Jesus, are not healed by Him; but when, as men suffering from such disorders, they are cast by the multitude at His feet, (Mat_15:30) and at the extremities of the body of Christ, not being worthy to obtain such things so far as they themselves are concerned, they are then healed by Him. And when you see in the congregation of what is more commonly called the church the catechumens cast behind those who are at the extreme end of it, and as it were at the feet of the body of Jesus – the church – coming to it with their own deafness and blindness and lameness and crookedness, and in time cured according to the Word, you would not err in saying that such having gone up with the multitudes of the church to the mountain where Jesus was, are cast at His feet and are healed; so that the multitude of the church is astonished at beholding transformations which have taken place from so great evils to that which is better, so that it might say, those who were formerly dumb afterwards speak the word of God, and the lame walk, the prophecy of Isaiah being fulfilled, not only in things bodily but in things spiritual, which said, “Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of him that hath an impediment in his speech be plain.” (Isa_35:6) And there, unless the expression, “the lame man shall leap as an hart,” is to be taken as accidental, we will say that those formerly lame, and who now through the power of Jesus leap as an hart are not without design compared to a hart, which is a clean animal, and hostile to serpents and cannot at all be injured by their poison. But also, in respect of the fact that the dumb are seen speaking is the prophecy fulfilled which said, “And the tongue of him that hath an impediment shall be plain,” or rather that which said, “Hear ye deaf;” but the blind see according to the prophecy following, “Hear ye deaf, and ye blind look up that ye may see.” (Isa_42:18) Now the blind see, when they see the world and from the exceeding great beauty of the things created they contemplate the Creator corresponding in greatness and beauty to them; and when they see clearly “the invisible things of God Himself from the creation of the world, which are perceived through the things that are made;” (Rom_1:20) that is, they see and understand with care and clearness. Now the multitudes seeing these things, glorified the God of Israel, (Mat_15:31) and glorify Him in the persuasion that it is the same God, who is the Father of Him who healed those previously mentioned, and the God of Israel. For He is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. (Rom_3:29) Let us then cause to go up along with ourselves to the mountain where Jesus sits – His church – those who wish to go up to it along with us, the deaf, the blind, the lame, the maimed and many others, and let us cast them at the feet of Jesus that He may heal them, so that the multitudes are astonished at their healing; for it is not the disciples who are described as wondering at such things, although at that time they were present with Jesus, as is manifest from the words, “And Jesus called unto Him His disciples and said, I have compassion on the multitudes,” (Mat_15:32) etc.; and perhaps if you attend carefully to the words, “There came unto Him great multitudes,” (Mat_15:30) you would find that the disciples at that time did not come to Him, but had begun long ago to follow Him and followed Him into the mountain. But there came unto Him those who were inferior to the disciples, and were then for the first time approaching Him, who had not the same experience as those who had gone up with them. Observe, moreover, in the Gospel who are described as having followed Jesus, and who as having come to Him, and who as having been brought to Him, and the division between those who go before and of those who follow; and of those who came, who came to Him in the house, and who when He was elsewhere. For by observation, and by comparing things spiritual with spiritual, you would find many things worthy of the accurate wisdom in the Gospels.

 

19. Concerning the Seven Loaves. The Narrative of the Feeding of the Four Thousand Compared with That of the Five Thousand.

“And Jesus called unto Him His disciples and said.” (Mat_15:32) Above in the similar history to this about the loaves, before the loaves are spoken of, “Jesus came forth and saw a great multitude and had compassion upon them and healed their sick. And when even was come the disciples came to Him saying, The place is desert and the time is already past, send them away,” (Mat_14:15) etc. But now after the healing of the deaf and the rest, He takes compassion on the multitude which had continued with Him now three days and had nothing to eat. And there the disciples make request concerning the five thousand; (Mat_14:15) but here He speaks of His own accord about the four thousand. (Mat_15:32) Those, too, are fed when it was evening after they had spent a day with Him; but these, who are testified to have continued with Him three days, partake of the loaves lest they might faint by the way. And there the disciples say to Him when He was not inquiring, that they had only five loaves and two fishes; but here to Him making inquiry, they give answer about the seven loaves and the few small fishes. And there He commands the multitudes to sit down or lie upon the grass; for Luke also wrote, “Make them sit down,” (Luk_9:14) and Mark says, “He commanded them all to sit down;” (Mar_6:30) but here He does not command but proclaims33 to the multitude to sit down. Again, there, the three Evangelists say in the very same words that “He took the five loaves and the two fishes and looking up to heaven He blessed;” (Mat_14:19; Mar_6:41; Luk_9:16) but here, as Matthew and Mark have written, “Jesus gave thanks and brake;” (Mat_15:36; Mar_8:6) there, they recline upon the grass, but here they sit down upon the ground. You will moreover investigate in the accounts in the different places the variation found in John, who wrote in regard to that transaction that Jesus said, “Make the men sit down,” (Joh_6:10) and that, having given thanks, He gave of the loaves to them that were set down, but he did not mention this miracle at all.34 Attending, then, to the difference of those things which are written in the various places in regard to the loaves, I think that these belong to a different order from those; wherefore these are fed in a mountain, and those in a desert place; and these after they had continued three days with Jesus, but those one day, on the evening of which they were fed. And further, unless it be the same thing for Jesus to do a thing of Himself and to act after having heard from the disciples, consider if those to whom Jesus shows kindness are not superior when He fed them on the spot with a view to showing them kindness. And, if according to John, (Joh_6:13) they were barley loaves of which the twelve baskets remained over, but nothing of this kind is said about these, how are not these superior to the former? And the sick of those He healed, (Mat_14:14) but here He heals these, along with the multitudes, who were not sick but blind, and lame, and deaf, and maimed; wherefore also in regard to these the four thousand marvel, (Mat_15:31) but in regard to the sick no such thing is said. And these I think who ate of the seven loaves for which thanks were given, are superior to those who ate of the five which were blessed; and these who ate the few little fishes to those who ate of the two, and perhaps also these who sat down upon the ground to those who sat down on the grass.

And those from fewer loaves leave twelve baskets, but these from a greater number leave seven baskets, inasmuch, as they were able to receive more. And perhaps these tread upon all earthly things and sit down upon them, but those upon the grass – upon their flesh only – for “all flesh is grass.” (Isa_40:6) Consider also after this, that Jesus does not wish to send them away fasting lest they faint on the way, as being without the loaves of Jesus, and while they were still on the way – the way to their own concerns – might suffer injury. Take note also of the cases where Jesus is recorded to have sent any one away, that you may see the difference of those who were sent away by Him after being fed, and those who had been sent away otherwise; and, as a pattern of one who was sent away otherwise, take “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.”35 But further the disciples who are always with Jesus are not sent away by Him; but the multitudes after they have eaten are sent away. Likewise, again, the disciples who conceive nothing great about the Canaanitish woman say, “Send her away, for she crieth after us;” (Mat_15:23) but the Saviour does not at all appear to send her away; for saying unto her, “O woman, great is thy faith, be it done to thee even as thou wilt,” (Mat_15:28) He healed her daughter from that hour: it is not however written that He sent her away. So far at the present time have we been able to investigate and see into the passage before us.

 

 

FOOTNOTES

 

31 The text is uncertain.

32 Maricon and his followers.

33 ὀυ κελεύει ἁλλὰπαραγγέλλει.

34 Or, did not mention the occasion of this.

35 Luk_13:12, Literally ‘thou art sent away.’

Commentaries of Origen (Cont.)

Book XII. (Cont.)

14. In What Sense the “Keys” Are Given to Peter, and Every Peter. Limitations of This Power.

And after this let us see in what sense it is said to Peter, and to every Peter, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” (Mat_16:19) And, in the first place, I think that the saying, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” is spoken in consistency with the words, “The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” (Mat_16:18) For he is worthy to receive from the same Word the keys of the kingdom of heaven, who is fortified against the gates of Hades so that they do not prevail against him, receiving, as it were, for a prize, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, because the gates of Hades had no power against him, that he might open for himself the gates that were closed to those who had been conquered by the gates of Hades. And he enters in, as a temperate man, through an opened gate – the gate of temperance – by the key which opens temperance; and, as a righteous man, by another gate – the gate of righteousness – which is opened by the key of righteousness; and so with the rest of the virtues. For I think that for every virtue of knowledge certain mysteries of wisdom corresponding to the species of the virtue are opened up to him who has lived according to virtue; the Saviour giving to those who are not mastered by the gates of Hades as many keys as there are virtues, which open gates equal in number, which correspond to each virtue according to the revelation of the mysteries. And perhaps, also, each virtue is a kingdom of heaven, and all together are a kingdom of the heavens; so that according to this he is already in the kingdom of the heavens who lives according to the virtues, so that according to this the saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” (Mat_3:2; Mat_4:7) is to be referred, not to the time, but to deeds and dispositions; for Christ, who is all virtue, has come, and speaks, and on account of this the kingdom of God is within His disciples, and not here or there. (Luk_17:21) But consider how great power the rock has upon which the church is built by Christ, and how great power every one has who says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” so that the judgments of this man abide sure, as if God were judging in him, that in the very act of judging the gates of Hades shall not prevail against him. But when one judges unrighteously, and does not bind upon earth according to the Word of God, nor loose upon earth according to His will, the gates of Hades prevail against him; but, in the case of any one against whom the gates of Hades do not prevail, this man judges righteously. Wherefore he has the keys of the kingdom of heaven, opening to those who have been loosed on earth that they may be also loosed in heaven, and free; and shutting to those who by his just judgment have been bound on earth that they also may be bound in heaven, and condemned. But when those who maintain the function of the episcopate make use of this word as Peter, and, having received the keys of the kingdom of heaven from the Saviour, teach that things bound by them, that is to say, condemned, are also bound in heaven, and that those which have obtained remission by them are also loosed in heaven, we must say that they speak wholesomely if they have the way of life on account of which it was said to that Peter, “Thou art Peter;” (Mat_16:18) and if they are such that upon them the church is built by Christ, and to them with good reason this could be referred; and the gates of Hades ought not to prevail against him when he wishes to bind and loose. But if he is tightly bound with the cords of his sins, (Pro_5:22) to no purpose does he bind and loose. And perhaps you can say that in the heavens which are in the wise man – that, is the virtues, – the bad man is bound; and again in these the virtuous man is loosed, and has received an indemnity for the sins which he committed before his virtue. But, as the man, who has not the cords of sins nor iniquities compared to a “long rope or to the strap of the yoke of a heifer,” (Isa_5:18) not even God could bind, in like manner, no Peter, whoever he may be; and if any one who is not a Peter, and does not possess the things here spoken of, imagines as a Peter that he will so bind on earth that the things bound are bound in heaven, and will so loose on earth that the things loosed are loosed in heaven, he is puffed up, not understanding the meaning of the Scriptures, and, being puffed up, has fallen into the ruin of the devil. (1Ti_3:10)

 

15. Relation of the Former Commission Given by Jesus to the Disciples, to His Present Injunction of Silence. Belief and Knowledge Contrasted.

“Then enjoined He His disciples that they should tell no man that He was the Christ.” (Mat_16:20) It is written above that Jesus sent forth these twelve saying unto them, “Go not into any way of the Gentiles,” (Mat_10:5) and the other words which are recorded to have been said to them when He sent them to the apostleship. Did He then wish them when they were already discharging the function of Apostles to proclaim that He was the Christ? For, if He wished it, it is fitting to inquire why He now at all commands the disciples that they should not say that He was the Christ? Or if He did not wish it, how can the things concerning the apostleship be safely maintained? And these things also one may inquire at this place, – whether, when He sent away the Twelve, He did not send them away with the understanding that He was the Christ? But if the Twelve had such understanding, manifestly Peter had it also; how, then, is he now pronounced blessed? For the expression here plainly indicates that now for the first time Peter confessed that Christ was the Son of the living God, Matthew then, according to some of the manuscripts, has written, “Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no man that He was the Christ,” but (Mat_16:20) Mark says, “He charged them that they should tell no man of Him;” (Mar_8:30) and Luke, “He charged them and commanded them to tell this to no man.” (Luk_9:21) But what is the “this”? Was it that also according to him, Peter answered and said to the question, “Who say ye that I am.” – “The Christ, the Son of the living God?” (Mat_16:15, Mat_16:16) You must know, however, that some manuscripts of the Gospel according to Matthew have, “He charged.” (Mat_16:20) The difficulty thus started seems to me a very real difficulty; but let a solution which cannot be impugned be sought out, and let the finder of it bring it forward before all, if it be more credible than that which shall be advanced by us as a fairly temperate view.45 Consider, then, if you can say, that the belief that Jesus is the Christ is inferior to the knowledge of that which is believed. And perhaps also there is a difference in the knowledge of Jesus as the Christ, as every one who knows does not know Him alike. From the words in John, “If ye abide in My word, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” (Joh_8:31, Joh_8:32) it is plain that belief without knowledge is inferior to knowing; but that there is a difference in the knowledge of Jesus as the Christ, as all who know Him do not know Him equally, is a fact self-evident to any one who gives even a very little consideration to the matter. For who would not acknowledge, for example, that Timothy, though he knew that Jesus was the Christ, had not been enlightened to such an extent in the knowledge of Him as the Apostle had been enlightened? And who would not also admit this – that though many, speaking the truth, say about God, “He has given to me a true knowledge of things that are,” yet they will not say this with equal insight and apprehension of the things known, nor as knowing the same number of things? But it is not only in respect of the difference of knowing that those who know do not know alike, bat also according to that which is the source of the knowledge; so that according to this he who knows the Son by the revelation of the Father, (Mat_16:16) as Peter is testified to have known, has the highest beatitude. Now, if these views of ours are sound, you will consider whether the Twelve formerly believed but did not know; but, after believing, they gained also the rudiments of knowledge and knew a few things about Him; and afterwards they continued to advance in knowledge so that they were able to receive the knowledge from the Father who reveals the Son; in which position Peter was, when he was pronounced blessed; for also he is pronounced blessed not merely because he said, “Thou art the Christ,” but with the addition, “the Son of the living God.” Accordingly Mark and Luke who have recorded that Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ,” but have not given the addition found in Matthew, have not recorded that he was declared blessed for what had been said, nor the blessing which followed the declaration of blessedness, “Thou art Peter,” (Mat_16:18) etc.

 

16. Gradual Growth in Knowledge of the Disciples

But now we must first investigate the fact that they were declaring other things about Him as being great and wonderful, but did not yet proclaim that He was the Christ, lest the Saviour may not appear to take away from them the authority to announce that He was the Christ, which He had formerly bestowed upon them. And perhaps some one will support an argument of this kind, saying that on their introduction into the school of Christ the Jews were taught by the disciples glorious things about Jesus, so that in due season there might be built upon these as a foundation the things about Jesus being the Christ; and perhaps many of the things which were said to them were said to all who virtually believed; for not to the Apostles alone did the saying apply, “Before governors and kings also shall ye be brought for My sake for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles;” (Mat_10:18) and perhaps also not to the Apostles absolutely, but to all who were about to believe the word, “And brother shall deliver up brother to death,” (Mat_10:21 etc.); but, “Whosoever shall confess Me,” (Mat_10:32 etc.), is said not specially to the Apostles, but also to all believers. According to this, then, through that which was said to the Apostles an outline was given beforehand of the teaching which would afterwards come to be of service both to them and to every teacher.

 

17. Reasons for That Gradual Knowledge.

And likewise he who holds that the fact that He was Christ had been formerly proclaimed by the Apostles when they heard the saying, “What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light, and what ye hear in the ear proclaim on the housetops,” (Mat_10:27) will say, that He wished first to give catechetical instruction as it were to those of the Apostles who were to hear the name of Christ, then to permit this, so to speak, to be digested in the minds of the hearers, that, after there had been a period of silence in the proclamation of something of this kind about Him, at a more seasonable time there might be built up upon the former rudiments “Christ Jesus crucified and raised from the dead,” which at the beginning not even the Apostles knew; for it is written in the passage now under consideration, “From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples that He must go unto Jerusalem” (Mat_16:21) and suffer this and that. But if now, for the first time, the Apostles learn from Jesus the things that were about to happen unto Him, namely, that the elders will plot against Him, and that He will be killed, and that after these things, on the third day, He will rise from the dead, – what necessity is there for supposing that those who had been taught by the Apostles concerning Jesus knew them before, or that although Christ was announced to them He was announced to them by way of an introduction which did not clearly elucidate the things concerning Him? For our Saviour wished, when He enjoined the disciples to tell no man that He was the Christ, to reserve the more perfect teaching about Him to a more fitting time, when to those who had seen Him crucified, the disciples who had seen Him crucified and risen could testify the things relating to His resurrection. For it was the Apostles, who were always with Him and had seen all the wonderful things which He did, and who bore testimony to His words that they were words of eternal life, (Joh_6:68) were offended on the night on which He was betrayed, – what do you suppose would have been the feelings of those who had formerly learned that He was the Christ? To spare them, I think, He gave this command.

 

18. Jesus Was at First Proclaimed by the Twelve as a Worker and a Teacher Only.

But he who holds that the things spoken to the Twelve refer to the times subsequent to this, and that the Apostles had not as yet announced to their hearers that He was the Christ, will say that He wished the conception of the Christ which was involved in the name of Jesus to be reserved for that preaching which was more perfect, and which brought salvation, such as Paul knew of when he said to the Corinthians, “I determined not to know anything among yon save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1Co_2:2) Wherefore, formerly they proclaimed Jesus as the doer of certain things, and the teacher of certain things; but now when Peter confesses that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God, as He did not wish it to be proclaimed already that He was the Christ, in order that He might be proclaimed at a more suitable time, and that as crucified, He commands His disciples that they should tell no man that He was the Christ. And that this was His meaning, when He forbade proclamation to be made that He was the Christ, is in a measure established by the words, “From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders,” and what is annexed; (Mat_16:21) for then, at the fitting time, He proclaims, so to speak, to the disciples who knew that Jesus was Christ, the Son of the living God, the Father having revealed it to them, that instead of believing in Jesus Christ who had been crucified, they were to believe in Jesus Christ who was about to be crucified. But also, instead of believing in Christ Jesus and Him risen from the dead, He teaches them to believe in Christ Jesus and Him about to be risen from the dead. But since “having put off from Himself the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over in the cross,” (Col_2:15) if any one is ashamed of the cross of Christ, he is ashamed of the dispensation on account of which these powers were triumphed over; and it is fitting that he, who both believes and knows these things, should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which, when Christ was crucified, the principalities – among which, I think, was also the prince of this world (Gal_6:14) – were made a show of and triumphed over before the believing world. Wherefore, when His suffering was at hand he said, “Now the prince of this world has been judged,” (Joh_16:11) and, “Now shall the prince of this world be cast out,” and, “I, if I be lifted from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself;” (Joh_12:31, Joh_12:32) as he no longer had sufficient power to prevent those going to Jesus who were being drawn by Him.

 

19. Importance of the Proclamation of Jesus as the Crucified.

It is necessary, therefore, to the proclamation of Jesus as Christ, that He should be proclaimed as crucified; and the proclamation that Jesus was the Christ does not seem to me so defective when any of His other miracles is passed over in silence, as when the fact of His crucifixion is passed over. Wherefore, reserving the more perfect proclamation of the things concerning Him by the Apostles, He commanded His disciples that they should tell no man that He was the Christ; and He prepared them to say that He was the Christ crucified and risen from the dead, “when He began “not only to say, nor even to advance to the point of teaching merely, but “to show” (Mat_16:21) to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, etc.; for attend to the expression “show”; because just as sensible things are said to be shown so the things spoken by Him to His disciples are said to be shown by Jesus. And I do not think that each of the things seen was shown to those who saw Him suffering many things in body from the elders of the people, with such clearness as was the rational demonstration about Him to the disciples.

 

20. Why Jesus Had to Go to Jerusalem.

“Then began He to show;” (Mat_16:21) and probably afterwards when they were able to receive it He shewed more clearly, no longer beginning to show as to those who were learning the introduction, but already also advancing in the showing; and if it is reasonable to conceive that Jesus altogether completed what He began, then, some time, He altogether completed that which He began to show to His disciples about the necessity of His suffering the things which are written. For, when any one apprehends from the Word the perfect knowledge of these things, then it must be said that, from a rational exhibition the mind seeing the things which are shown, the exhibition becomes complete for him who has the will and the power to contemplate these things, and does contemplate them. But since “it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem,” (Luk_13:33) – a perishing which corresponds to the words, “He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.” (Mat_10:39) – on this account it was necessary for Him to go to Jerusalem, that having suffered many things in that Jerusalem, He might make “the first-fruits” (1Co_15:20) of the resurrection from the dead in the Jerusalem above, doing away with and breaking up the city upon the earth with all the worship which was maintained in it. For so long as Christ “had not been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of them that are asleep,” (1Co_15:20) and those who become conformed to His death and resurrection had not yet been raised along with Him, the city of God was sought for below, and the temple, and the purifications, and the rest; but when this took place, no longer were the things below sought for, but the things above; and, in order that these might be set up, it was necessary that He should go unto the Jerusalem below, and there suffer many things from the elders in it, and the chief priests and scribes of the people, in order that He might be glorified by the heavenly elders who could receive his bounties, and by diviner high-priests who are ordained under the one High-Priest, and that He might be glorified by the scribes of the people who are occupied with letters “not written with ink” (2Co_3:3) but made clear by the Spirit of the living God, and might be killed in the Jerusalem below, and having risen from the dead might reign in Mount Zion, and the city of the living God – the heavenly Jerusalem. (Heb_12:22) But on the third day He rose from the dead.46 in order that having delivered them from the wicked one, and his son,47 in whom was falsehood and unrighteousness and war and everything opposed to that which Christ is, and also from the profane spirit who transforms himself into the Holy Spirit, He might gain for those who had been delivered the right to be baptized in spirit and soul and body, into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, which represent the three days eternally present at the same time to those who by means of them are sons of light.

 

21. The Rebuke of Peter and the Answer of Jesus.

“And Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him, saying, God be propitious to Thee. Lord, this shall never be unto thee.” (Mat_16:22) To whom He said, “Get thee behind Me, Satan; thou art a stumbling-block unto Me; for thou mindest not the things of God but the things of men.” (Mat_16:23) Since Jesus had begun to show unto His disciples that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things, Peter up to this point learned the beginnings of those things which were shown.48 But since he thought that the sufferings were unworthy of Christ the Son of the living God, and below the dignity of the Father who had revealed to him so great things about Christ, – for the things that concerned His coming suffering had not been revealed to him, – on this account he took Him, and as one forgetful of the honour due to the Christ, and that the Son of the living God neither does nor says anything worthy of rebuke, he began to rebuke Him; and as to one who needed propitiation, – for he did not yet know that “God had set Him forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood,” (Rom_3:25) he said, “God be propitious to thee, O Lord.” (Mat_16:22) Approving his purpose, indeed, but rebuking his ignorance, because of the purpose being right. He says to him, “Get thee behind Me,” (Mat_16:23) as to one who, by reason of the things of which he was ignorant and spake not rightly, had abandoned the following of Jesus; but because of his ignorance, as to one who had something antagonistic to the things of God, He said, “Satan,” which in the Hebrew means “adversary.” But, if Peter had not spoken from ignorance, nor rebuked the Son of the living God, saying unto Him, “God be propitious to thee, Lord, this shall never be unto Thee,” Christ would not have said to him, “Get thee behind Me,” as to one who had given up being behind Him and following Him; nor would He have said as to one who had spoken things adverse to what He had said, “Satan.” But now Satan prevailed over him who had followed Jesus and was going behind Him, to turn aside from following Him and from being behind the Son of God, and to make him, by reason of the words which he spoke in ignorance, worthy of being called “Satan” and a stumbling-block to the Son of God, and “as not minding the things of God but the things of men.” But that Peter was formerly behind the Son of God, before he committed this sin, is manifest from the words, “Come ye behind Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mat_4:19)

 

22. Importance of the Expressions “Behind” and “Turned.”

But you will compare together His saying to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” (Mat_16:23) with that said to the devil who said to Him, “All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me”, (Mat_4:9) “get thee hence,” (Mat_4:10) without the addition, “behind Me;” for to be behind Jesus is a good tiling. Wherefore it was said, “Come ye behind Me and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mat_4:19) And to the same effect is the saying, “He that doth not take his cross and follow behind Me is not worthy of Me.” (Mat_10:38) And as a general principle observe the expression “behind”; because it is a good thing when any one goes behind the Lord God and is behind the Christ; but it is the opposite when any one casts the words of God behind him, or when he transgresses the commandment which says, “Do not walk behind thy lusts.” (Ecclesiasticus 18:30) And Elijah also, in the third Book of Kings, says to the people, “How long halt ye on both your knees? If God is the Lord, go behind Him, but if Baal is the Lord, go behind him.” (1Ki_18:21) And Jesus says this to Peter when He “turned,” and He does so by way of conferring a favour. And if therefore you will collect more illustrations of the “having turned,” and especially those which are ascribed to Jesus, and compare them with one another, you would find that the expression is not superfluous. But it is sufficient at present to bring forward this from the Gospel according to John, “Jesus turned and beheld them – ” clearly, Peter and Andrew – “following, and saith unto them, What seek ye?” (Joh_1:38) For observe that, when He “turned,” it is for the advantage of those to whom He turned.

 

23. Peter as a Stumbling-Block to Jesus.

Next we must inquire how He said to Peter, “Thou art a stumbling-block unto Me,” (Mat_16:23) especially when David says, “Great peace have they that love Thy law, and there is no stumbling-block to them.” (Psa_119:165) For some one will say, if this is said in the prophet, because of the steadfastness of those who have love, and are incapable of being offended, for “love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, love never faileth,” (1Co_13:7, 1Co_13:8) how did the Lord Himself, “who upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all that be bowed down,” (Psa_145:14) say to Peter, “Thou art a stumbling-block unto Me”? But it must be said that not only the Saviour, but also he who is perfected in love, cannot be offended. But, so far as it depends on himself, he who says or does such things is a stumbling-block even to him who will not be offended; unless perhaps Jesus calls the disciple who sinned a stumbling-block even to Himself, as much more than Paul He would have said from love, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I burn not?” (2Co_11:29) In harmony with which we may put, “Who is made to stumble, and I am not made to stumble?” But if Peter, at that time because of the saying. “God be propitious to Thee, Lord, this shall not be unto Thee,” (Mat_16:22) was called a stumbling-block by Jesus, as not minding the things of God in what he said but the things of men, what is to be said about all those who profess to be made disciples of Jesus, but do not mind the things of God, and do not look to things unseen and eternal, but mind the things of man, and look to things seen and temporal, (2Co_4:18) but that such still more would be stigmatized by Jesus as a stumbling-block to Him, and because stumbling-blocks to Him, as stumbling-blocks to His brethren also? As in regard to them He says, “I was thirsty and ye gave Me no drink,” (Mat_25:42) etc., so also He might say, “When I was running ye caused Me to stumble.” Let us not therefore suppose that it is a trivial sin to mind the things of men, since we ought in everything to mind the things of God. And it will be appropriate also to say this to every one that has fallen away from the doctrines of God and the words of the church and a true mind; as, for example, to him who minds as true the teaching of Basilides, or Valentinus, or Marcion, or any one of those who teach the things of men as the things of God.

 

24. Self-Denial and Cross-Bearing.

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, If any man wills to follow after Me,” etc. (Mat_16:24) He shows by these words that, to will to come after Jesus and to follow Him, springs from no ordinary manly courage, and that no one who has not denied himself can come after Jesus. And the man denies himself who wipes out by a striking revolution his own former life which had been spent in wickedness; as by way of illustration he who was once licentious denies his licentious self, having become self-controlled even abidingly. But it is probable that some one may put the objection, whether as he denied himself so he also confesses himself, when he denied himself, the unjust, and confesses himself, the righteous one. But, if Christ is righteousness, he who has received righteousness confesses not himself but Christ; so also he who has found wisdom, by the very possession of wisdom, confesses Christ. And such a one indeed as, “with the heart believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth maketh confession unto salvation,” (Rom_10:10) and bears testimony to the works of Christ, as making confession by all these things of Christ before men, will be confessed by Him before His Father in heaven. (Mat_10:32) So also he who has not denied himself but denied the Christ will experience the saying, “I also will deny him.” (Mat_10:33) On this account let every thought and every purpose and every word and every action become a denial of ourselves, but a testimony about Christ and in Christ; for I am persuaded that every action of the perfect man is a testimony to Christ Jesus, and that abstinence from every sin is a denial of self, leading him after Christ. And such an one is crucified with Christ, and taking up his own cross follows Him who for our sakes bears His own cross, according to that which is said in John: “They took Jesus therefore and put it on Him,” etc., down to the words, “Where they crucified Him.” (Joh_19:17, Joh_19:18) But the Jesus according to John, so to speak, bears the cross for Himself, and bearing it went out; but the Jesus according to Matthew and Mark and Luke, does not bear it for Himself, for Simon of Cyrene bears it. (Mat_27:32; Mar_15:21; Luk_23:26) And perhaps this man refers to us, who because of Jesus take up the cross of Jesus, but Jesus Himself takes it upon Himself; for there are, as it were, two conceptions of the cross, the one which Simon of Cyrene bears, and the other which Jesus Himself bears for Himself.

 

25. Reference to the Saying of Paul About Crucifixion with Christ

Moreover in regard to the saying, “Let him deny himself,” (Mat_16:24) the following saying of Paul who denied himself seems appropriate, “Yet I live, and yet no longer I but Christ liveth in me;” (Gal_2:20) for the expression, “I live, yet no longer I,” was the voice of one denying himself, as of one who had laid aside his own life and taken on himself the Christ, in order that He might live in him as Righteousness, and as Wisdom, and as Sanctification, and as our Peace, (1Co_1:30; Eph_2:14) and as the Power of God, who worketh all things in him. But further also, attend to this, that while there are many forms of dying, the Son of God was crucified, being hanged on a tree, in order that all who die unto sin may die to it, in no other way than by the way of the cross. Wherefore they will say, “I have been crucified with Christ,” and, “Far be it from me to glory save in the cross of the Lord, through which the world has been crucified unto me and I unto the world.” (Gal_2:20; Gal_6:14) For perhaps also each of those who have been crucified with Christ puts off from himself the principalities and the powers, and makes a show of them and triumphs over them in the cross; (Col_2:15) or rather, Christ does these things in them.

 

26. The Less of Life; and the Saving of It.

“For whosoever would save his own life shall lose it.” (Mat_16:25) The first expression is ambiguous; for it may be understood. in one way thus. If any one as being a lover of life, and thinking that the present life is good, tends carefully his own life with a view to living in the flesh, being afraid to die, as through death going to lose it, this man, by the very willing to save in this way his own life will lose it, placing it outside of the borders of blessedness. But if any one despising the present life because of my word, which has persuaded him to strive in regard to eternal life even unto death for truth, loses his own life, surrendering it for the sake of piety to that which is commonly called death, this man, as for my sake he has lost his life, will save it rather, and keep it in possession. And according to a second way we might interpret the saying as follows. If any one, who has grasped what salvation really is, wishes to procure the salvation of his own life, let this man having taken farewell of this life, and denied himself and taken up his own cross, and following me, lose his own life to the world; for having lost it for my sake and for the sake of all my teaching, he will gain the end of loss of this kind – salvation. 

 

27. Life Lost to the World is Saved.

But at the same time also observe that at the beginning it is said, “Whosoever wills,” but afterwards, “Whoso shall lose.” (Mat_26:25) If we then wish it to be saved let us lose it to the world, as those who have been crucified with Christ and have for our glorying that which is in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world is to be crucified unto us and we unto the world, (Gal_6:14) that we may gain our end, even the salvation of our lives, which begins from the time when we lose it for the sake of the word. But if we think that the salvation of our life is a blessed thing, with reference to the salvation which is in God and the blessednesses with Him, then any loss of life ought to be a good thing, and, for the sake of Christ must prove to be the prelude to the blessed salvation. It seems to me, therefore, following the analogy of self-denial, according to what has been said, that each ought to lose his own life. Let each one therefore lose his own sinning life, that having lost that which is sinful, he may receive that which is saved by right actions; but a man will in no way be profited if he shall gain the whole world. Now he gains the world, I think, to whom the world is not crucified; and to whom the world is not crucified, to that man shall be the loss of his own life. But when two things are put before us, either by gaining one’s life to forfeit the world, or by gaining the world to forfeit one’s life, much more desirable is the choice, that we should forfeit the world and gain our life by losing it on account of Christ.

 

28. The Exchange for One’s Life.

But the saying, “What shall a man give in exchange for his own life,” (Mat_16:26) if spoken by way of interrogation, will seem to be able to indicate that an exchange for his own life is given by the man who after his sins has given up his whole substance, that his property may feed the poor, as if he were going by that to obtain salvation; but, if spoken affirmatively, I think, to indicate that there is not anything in man by the giving of which in exchange for his own life which has been overcome by death, he will ransom it out of its hand. A man, therefore, could not give anything as an exchange for his own life, but God gave an exchange for the life of us all, “the precious blood of Christ Jesus,” (1Pe_1:19) according as “we were bought with a price,” (1Co_6:20)“having been redeemed, not with corruptible things as silver or gold, but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,” even of Christ. (1Pe_1:18, 1Pe_1:19) And in Isaiah it is said to Israel. “I gave Ethiopia in exchange for thee, and Egypt and Syene for thee; from what time thou hast become honourable before Me thou wast glorified.” (Isa_43:3, Isa_43:4) For the exchange, for example, of the first-born of Israel was the first-born of the Egyptians, and the exchange for Israel was the Egyptians who died in the last plagues that came upon Egypt, and in the drowning which took place after the plagues. But, from these things, let him who is able inquire whether the exchange of the true Israel given by God, “who redeems Israel from all his transgressions,” (Psa_130:8) is the true Ethiopia, and, so to speak, spiritual Egypt, and Syene of Egypt; and to inquire with more boldness, perhaps Syene is the exchange for Jerusalem, and Egypt for Judaea, and Ethiopia for those who fear, who are different from Israel, and the house of Levi, and the house of Aaron.

 

29. The Coming of the Son of Man in Glory.

“For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His own Father with His angels.” (Mat_16:27) Now, indeed, the Son of man has not come in His glory; “for we saw Him, and He had no form nor beauty; but His form was dishonoured and defective compared with the sons of men; He was a man in affliction and toil, and acquainted with the enduring of sickness, because His face was turned away, He was dishonoured and not esteemed.” (Isa_53:2, Isa_53:3) And it was necessary that He should come in such form that He might bear our sins (Isa_53:4) and suffer pain for us; for it did not become Him in glory to bear our sins and suffer pain for us. But He also comes in glory, having prepared49 the disciples through that epiphany of His which has no form nor beauty; and, having become as they that they might become as He, “conformed to the image of His glory,” (Rom_8:29) since He formerly became conformed to “the body of our humiliation,” (Phi_3:21) when He “emptied Himself and took upon Him the form of a servant,” (Phi_2:7) He is restored to the image of God and also makes them conformed unto it. 

 

30. The Word Appears in Different Forms. The Time of His Coming in Glory.

But if you will understand the differences of the Word which by “the foolishness of preaching” (1Co_1:21) is proclaimed to those who believe, and spoken in wisdom to them that are perfect, you will see in what way the Word has the form of a slave to those who are learning the rudiments, so that they say, “We saw Him and He had no form or beauty.” (Isa_53:2) But to the perfect He comes “in the glory of His own Father,” (Mat_16:27) who might say, “and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (Joh_1:14) For indeed to the perfect appears the glory of the Word, and the only-begotten of God His Father, and the fulness of grace and likewise of truth, which that man cannot perceive who requires the “foolishness of the preaching,” in order to believe. But “the Son of man shall come in the glory of His own Father” not alone, but “with His own angels.” And if you can conceive of all those who are fellow-helpers in the glory of the Word, and in the revelation of the Wisdom which is Christ, coming along with Him, you will see in what way the Son of man comes in the glory of His own Father with His own angels. And consider whether you cad in this connection say that the prophets who formerly suffered in virtue of their word having “no form or beauty” had an analogous position to the Word who had “no form or beauty.” And, as the Son of man comes in the glory of His own Father, so the angels, who are the words in the prophets, are present with Him preserving the measure of their own glory. But when the Word comes in such form with His own angels, He will give to each a part of His own glory and of the brightness of His own angels, according to the action of each. But we say these things not rejecting even the second coming of the Son of God understood in its simpler form. But when shall these things happen? Shall it be when that apostolic oracle is fulfilled which says, “For we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things dope in the body, according to what he has done, whether it be good or bad?” (2Co_5:20) But if He will render to each according to his deed, not the good deed only, nor the evil apart from the good, it is manifest that He will render to each according to every evil, and according to every good, deed. But I suppose – in this also following the Apostle, but comparing also the sayings of Ezekiel, in which the sins of him who is a perfect convert are wiped out, and the former uprightness of him who has utterly fallen away is not held of account – that in the case of him who is perfected, and has altogether laid aside wickedness, the sins are wiped out, but that, in the case of him who has altogether revolted from piety, if anything good was formerly done by him, it is not taken into account. (Eze_18:21-24) But to us, who occupy a middle position between the perfect man and the apostate, when we stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, (2Co_5:10) there is rendered what we have done, whether good or bad; for we have not been so pure that our evil deeds are not at all imputed unto us, nor have we fallen away to such an extent that our better actions are forgotten.

 

31. The Simpler Interpretation of the Promise About Not Tasting of Death.

“Verily I say unto you there be some of them that stand here that shall not taste of death.” (Mat_16:28) Some refer these things to the going up – six days after, or, as Luke says, (Luk_9:28) eight days – of the three disciples into the high mountain with Jesus apart; and those who adopt this interpretation say that Peter and the remaining two did not taste of death before they saw the Son of man coining in His own kingdom and in His own glory. For when they saw Jesus transfigured before them so that “His face shone,” etc., “they saw the kingdom of God coming with power.” (Mar_9:1) For even as some spear-bearers stand around a king, so Moses and Elijah appeared to those who had gone up into the mountains, talking with Jesus. But it is worth while considering whether the sitting on the right hand and on the left band of the Saviour in His kingdom refers to them, so that the words, “But for whom it is prepared,” were (Mat_20:23) spoken because of them. Now this interpretation about the three Apostles not tasting of death until they have seen Jesus transfigured, is adapted to those who are designated by Peter as “new-born babes longing for the reasonable milk which is without guile,” (1Pe_2:2) to whom Paul says, “I have fed you with milk, not with meat,” (1Co_3:2 etc.) Now, too, every interpretation of a text which is able to build up those who cannot receive greater truths might reasonably be called milk, flowing from the holy ground of the Scriptures, which flows with milk and honey. But he who has been weaned, like Isaac, (Gen_21:8) worthy of the good cheer and reception which Abraham gave at the weaning of his son, would seek here and in every Scripture food which is different, I think, from that which is meat, indeed, but is not solid food, and from what are figuratively called herbs, which are food to one who has been weaned and is not yet strong but weak, according to the saying, “He that is weak eateth herbs.” (Rom_14:2) In like manner also he who has been weaned, like Samuel, and dedicated by his mother to God, (1Sa_1:23, 1Sa_1:24) – she was Hannah, which is, by interpretation, grace, – would be also a son of grace, seeking, like one nurtured in the temple, flesh of God, the holy food of those who are at once perfect and priests.

 

32. Standing by the Saviour.

The reflections in regard to the passage before us that occur to us at the present time are these: Some were standing where Jesus was, having the footsteps of the soul firmly planted with Jesus, and the standing of their feet was akin to the standing of which Moses said in the passage, “And I stood on the mountain forty days and forty nights,” (Deu_10:10) who was deemed worthy to have it said to him by God who asked him to stand by Him, “But stand thou here with Me.” (Deu_5:31) Those who really stand by Jesus – that is, by the Word of God – do not all stand equally; for among those who stand by Jesus are differences from each other. Wherefore, not all who stand by the Saviour, but some of them as standing better, do not taste of death until they shall have seen the Word who dwelt with men, and on that account called Son of man, coming in His own kingdom; for Jesus does not always come in His own kingdom when He comes, since to the newly initiated He is such that they might say, beholding the Word Himself not glorious nor great, but inferior to many among them, “We saw Him, and He had no form or beauty, but His form was dishonoured, defective compared with all the sons of men.” (Isa_53:2, Isa_53:3) And these things will be said by those who beheld His glory in connection with their own former times, when at first the Word as understood in the synagogue had no form nor beauty to them. To the Word, therefore, who has assumed most manifestly the power above all words, there belongs a royal dignity which is visible to some of those who stand by Jesus, when they have been able to follow Him as He goes before them and ascends to the lofty mountain of His own manifestation. And of this honour some of those who stand by Jesus are deemed worthy if they be either a Peter against whom the gates of Hades do not prevail, or the sons of thunder, (Mar_3:17) and are begotten of the mighty voice of God who thunders and cries aloud from heaven great things to those who have ears and are wise. Such at least do not taste death.

 

 

FOOTNOTES

 

45 Or, which he may regard as mediocre.

46 Or, putting a comma after Jerusalem, but that on the third day He might rise.

47 See xi. c. 6, p. 434.

48 These three sentences are supplied from the old Latin version, as at this point there is a hiatus in the mss.

49 Reading προευτρεπισός, as the Vetus Inter.