Homilies on Judges

Sources chrétiennes #389

by Origen

In his General Audience of May 2, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI praised Origen for his "primordial role" in the history of lectio divina, the prayerful reading of Scripture. He explained that Origen approaches Scripture reading not as "mere study" but as the pathway to knowing Christ and "falling in love with him." Origen's nine extant homilies on Judges exemplify this approach.

In them, Origen calls his audience to participate in a loving relationship with Christ through interaction with Scripture. Delivered sometime between 238 and 248, these homilies expound on themes extracted from Judges 2-7. Some of the homilies focus generally on God's redemption of Israel through judges after each cycle of sin, enslavement, and repentance, while others stress that victory belongs to God alone through events such as the defeat of the Midianites by Gideon's meager army of 300 men, Gideon's test with the fleece, and the murder of the Philistine general Sisera by the woman Jael. The homilies brim with hope in Christ's ultimate victory over sin and death, a hope that is specific to the individual believer but accessible only within the Church.

Origen applies his allegorical method of Scriptural interpretation to these passages, sometimes drawing faith-enriching meaning from the literal (somatic) sense as well as from one or both of the two figurative (psychic and pneumatic) senses. Using both allegory and typology, Origen shows his audience God's abundant mercy and grace, the power of Scripture to assist in the battle against sin and the promotion of virtue, and the church leader's duty to walk his flock through the transforming terrain of Scripture toward likeness to and union with Christ.

Largely because of early controversies over Origen's legacy, these homilies are extant only in Rufinus's fourth-century Latin translation, but his ability to capture Origen's meaning and spirit is well documented. This is the first-ever English translation of Origen's homilies on Judges.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR:

Elizabeth Ann Dively Lauro studied the history of Christianity at the University of Virginia and Yale Divinity School before receiving her doctorate from the University of Notre Dame. She has taught numerous courses at Loyola Marymount University, and presently serves on the Theological Commission for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles while raising her family in Southern California. She is the author of The Soul and Spirit of Scripture within Origen's Exegesis as well as a variety of articles on Origen's theology and exegesis.

Genres: Theology

138 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2009

About the author

Origen of Alexandria (c. 184 – c. 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Alexandria. He was a prolific writer who wrote roughly 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and biblical hermeneutics, homiletics, and spirituality. He was one of the most influential figures in early Christian theology, apologetics, and asceticism. He has been described as "the greatest genius the early church ever produced".

Reviews

[Aid · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first work of Origen's which I've read and I enjoyed it more than I expected. His spiritual reading of the text, while often very strange, was actually quite helpful in applying the historical events of Judges to my own life.

There were various things that I disagreed with such as his view that whenever we sinned God would abandon us to demons, just as he abandoned Israel to their neighbors, to take one example.

My favourite passage was this one:

"But what does it profit me if, coming to prayer, I “should bend the knees” of my body “to God” and yet I “should bend the knees” of my heart to the Devil? For if “I shall not have stood
firm against the tricks of the Devil,” I “have bent my knees” to the Devil. And if I shall not have “stood” firmly “against” anger, I “have bent my knees” to anger.” And, similarly, if I shall
not have firmly resisted lust, then I “have bent the knees” of my heart to lust. And in the case of every one of these single things that are contrary to God, I will seem to do this, just as those also
did who “worshiped the Baals and abandoned the God of their fathers,” who led them out of the land of Egypt,” unless “I shall have stood” firmly and bravely. So then, let us not think that, because we seem not to worship images, these things therefore do not pertain also to any of us. What each man worships in preference to the rest, what he admires and loves above all other things, this is God to him."

[Adam Carnehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work is a good entry point for apprehending Origin's exegetical method. In nine homilies Origin puts the three levels of scriptural interpretation to good use with the sometimes bizarre and always entertaining stories from Judges. For Origen, a biblical text has a body (literal sense), soul (moral sense), and spirit (allegorical sense). The somatic (bodily) sense reveals to the reader the truths of God's acts in history to save his people, as well as giving the reader guiding, moral principles. The psychic sense is related to spiritual warfare; evil and holiness are vying for control of each person, and the Scriptures reveal how to fight the demons and increase in virtue. The pneumatic (spiritual) sense is primarily Christological, showing where Christ is prefigured in a text. Medievals would expand the three levels to four, and redefine them a bit as literal (or historical), tropological (moral), allegorical (typological), and anagogical (mystical). Origen's third sense encompasses typology, which for him is virtually indistinguishable from allegory; put very simply, the stories of the Old Testament always must reveal something about Christ or the Church. Christ is the telos of the Scriptures and the Author is the Spirit. Christological insights from the Old Testament are almost always "mystical" or "spiritual" for Origen, and he directs his most creative and beautiful allegorical interpretations to the spiritually adept.

Origen probably delivered these homilies to an audience in Palestine while he was an older man, and he probably was preaching a year or so before the Decian Persecution. The audience was most likely a mixture of catechumens and mature Christians. These homilies only exist in the Latin translations by Rufinus.

I found the most beautiful and scintillating homily to be the eighth, on Gideon and the fleece. Origen makes a stunning number of connections between the fleece and Israel, the dew and the water Christ used to wash his disciples' feet. "Therefore, I also wish now 'to wash the feet' of my brothers, 'to wash the feet' of my co-disciples. And for that reason I take the water that I draw from the fountains of Israel, yes indeed, which 'I press out' of the Israelite 'fleece.' For I now press out the water from the 'fleece' of the book of Judges, and at another time water from the 'fleece' of the book of Kings, and water from the 'fleece' of Isaiah or Jeremiah, and 'I put' it 'into the basin' of my soul, taking the meaning into my heart" (109).

I also loved his interpretation of Judges 7:6 in the ninth homily. Why did God chose only those men who had lapped water "as a dog?" Well, the answer is two-fold, so says Origen: by drinking with the hand and the tongue, the significance of good works and holy speech is signified, and, no other beast is as loyal to its master as the dog. So, too, must disciples be loyal to their Master as they serve their neighbor with their hands and speak his Good News with their tongues.

Elizabeth Ann Dively Lauro is to be commended for her accurate translation and scholarly yet unobtrusive footnotes.