Origen of Alexandria

Understand these skins in terms of evil and virtue in order to envision how every skin is filled with wine. But if it is necessary to see the effects of evil and of virtue—punishments due to the evil, blessings and promises due to virtue—let us set down from the sacred Scriptures how the punishments and the promises are discussed as wine: “Take the cup of this undiluted wine, and give to all of the nations to which I have sent you to drink”—he says this to Jeremiah, and he adds to it—“and they will drink and vomit and go mad and fall.” Hence he has called the punishments here “undiluted wine,” which those deserving of “undiluted wine drink,” that is, an “undiluted” punishment. But there are others who drink a punishment that is not undiluted but that has been diluted. For “in the hand of the Lord is a cup filled with a mixture of undiluted wine, and he poured it from this into this. Though its lees were not emptied out, all of the sinners of the earth drink.” If you also wish to know the “cup of blessing” that the righteous drink, the text from Wisdom then also suffices, in which it says, “Drink the wine that I diluted for you.” But see with me the Savior on the Passover who goes up into “a large upper room furnished and ornamented” and who feasts with the disciples and gives to them a cup, about which it is not written that he diluted. For Jesus, who cheers up the disciples with undiluted wine, cheers them up and says to them, “Take, drink, this is my blood, which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink in memory of me,” and, “Truly I say to you, I shall not drink again of this until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God.” You see the promise that is the cup of the new covenant. You see the punishments as the cup of the undiluted wine, and another form of punishment as the cup that has been diluted so that in each person what he drinks is diluted according to the amount the worthwhile action mingles with the futile action. Notice that those who are strangers in every way to the worship of God and who do not commit themselves but live as it happens drink the undiluted wine—to which we apply the text from Jeremiah—while those who are not in every way apostates and sinners but are still unworthy of the cup of the new covenant, these people sometimes do better, sometimes the opposite acts, and drink wine of an undiluted mixture.

It will serve us to remember that what is called the Word came to certain persons, as “the word of the Lord which came to Hosea, the son of Beeri,” and “the word which came to Isaiah, the son of Amoz, concerning Judah and concerning Jerusalem,” and “the word that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.” We must inquire how this Word came to Hosea, and how it came also to Isaiah the son of Amoz, and again to Jeremiah concerning the drought. The comparison may enable us to find out how the Word was with God. We will generalize by simply looking at what the prophets said, as if that were the Word of the Lord or the Word that came to them. May it not be … that … the Son, the Word, of whom we are now theologizing, came to Hosea, sent to him by the Father, historically, that is to say, to the son of Beeri, the prophet Hosea.… Similarly the Word comes also to Isaiah, teaching the things that are coming on Judea and Jerusalem in the last days. So also it comes to Jeremiah lifted up by a divine elation.… Thus to find out what is meant by the phrase “the Word was with God,” we have adduced the words used about the prophets, how he came to Hosea, to Isaiah, to Jeremiah.… We have to add that in his coming to the prophets he illuminates the prophets with the light of knowledge, causing them to see things that had been before them but that they had not understood until then.

He who was caught by the fishers of Jesus and who comes up from the sea, he also dies, but he dies to the world. He dies to sin, and after having died to the world and to sin, he is made to live by the Word of God and receives another life. If you could apprehend hypothetically when the soul of the fish changed, after coming out from the fishly body, it became something better than the fish.… Having come up from the sea, falling into the nets of the disciples of Jesus, after you come out, you change the soul. You are no longer a fish that struggles in the salty waves of the sea, but your soul immediately changes and transforms itself and becomes better and more godly than what it was formerly. But that it does transform itself and change, hear Paul, who says, “And we all with unveiled face, reflecting the glory of God, are being transformed to the same image from glory into glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” And this transformed fish that was caught by the fishers of Jesus, after it has abandoned the way of life in the sea, makes his way in the mountains so that he no longer needs the fishers who brought him.

God, who does not repent, is said to repent according to the Scripture.… Concerning the repentance of God, we are demanded to defend ourselves. To repent seems to be culpable and unworthy not only of God but also of the wise person. For I cannot conceive of a wise person repenting. Rather, when a person repents, supposing the customary use of the word, he repents for not having decided to be good. But God, who knows in advance what happens in the future, is unable not to have decided to be good and to repent for this. How, then, has the Scripture brought forth this phrase that says, “I will repent”?… Whenever the Scriptures speak theologically about God in relation to himself and do not involve his plan for human matters, they say that he is “not as a human.” … But whenever the divine plan involves human matters, it carries the human intellect and manners and way of speaking. If we are talking with a two-year-old child, we speak inarticulately because of the child.… Something of this sort also seems to me the case with God, whenever he manages the race of humankind and especially those still infants.… If any of us should hear those who talk to children, will he say that this old person has become senseless, this man has forgotten his beard, the age of a person? Or is it granted that out of consideration when he converses with the child he does not speak in an elderly or adult language but in a childlike language?

The apostle also knows vessels of wrath “made for destruction so that he might make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy.” God has divided all people into these two vessels, those of wrath, those of mercy, those like Pharaoh and the Egyptians, those like Paul and those who have believed. But what is the treasury of the Lord in which are the vessels of wrath? Perhaps it is the church, in which such often go unnoticed. But there will be a time when he opens the church. For now they have been shut up, and the vessels of wrath share space with the vessels of mercy, and the chaff are with the wheat. In one net are the worthless and the chosen fish. The Lord opens up his treasury in the time of the judgment, when the vessels of wrath are thrown out. He who is a vessel of mercy may reasonably say, “They have gone out from us, for they were not from us.” Outside the treasury the vessels who sin are not yet the vessels of wrath, but inferior. For they are servants who did not know the will of their Lord and did not do it. So they are vessels who are simply kept for other purposes.

Perhaps then, as a father wishes to deceive a son in his own interest while he is still a boy, since he cannot be helped any other way unless the boy is deceived, as a healer makes it his business to deceive the patient who cannot be cured unless he receives words of deceit, so it is also for the God of the universe, since what is prescribed has to help the human race. Let the healer say to the patient, “It is necessary that you have surgery, you must be cauterized, but you must suffer severely,” and that patient would not continue. But sometimes he says another thing, and he hides that surgery, the cutting knife, under the sponge, and again he conceals, as I shall call it, under the honey, the nature of the bitter and annoying drug, wanting not to mislead but to heal the one who is cured. With such remedies the whole divine Scripture is filled, and some of what is concealed is pleasant, but some of what is concealed is bitter. If you see a father who threatens as if he hates the son, and who says to the son frightful things and who does not show affection but who conceals love for the son, one knows that he wants to deceive the child. For it is not fitting for the son to be assured of the love of the father, the goodwill of his devotion. For he will be set free and will not be disciplined. That is why he hides the sweetness of the affection and exhibits the bitterness of deceit.By analogy to the father and the healer, such is something of what God does. There are certain bitter things with which he cures the most righteous and wise. For it is necessary to punish every sinner for his sins. “Do not be misled, God is not mocked,” “neither the immoral nor the adulterer nor homosexual nor thief nor drunkard nor reviler nor robber will inherit the kingdom of God.” If this was understood and viewed carefully by those who cannot see the surgical knife beneath the sponge, by those who are unable to understand the bitter medicine beneath the honey, a person would become faint-hearted. For who among us has not been conscious of himself drinking without purpose and getting drunk? Who among us is pure from theft and from the desire to take what is necessary, not as one ought? But see what the Word says, “Do not be misled, for these persons will not inherit the kingdom of God.” It is necessary that the mystery in this passage be concealed, so that most people may not become faint-hearted lest when learning the facts they may expect the final departure not as a rest but as a punishment.… For I know that if I leave, it is necessary that my “wood” be burned in me, and I have reviler wood, and I have the wood of drunkenness, the wood of theft and many other woods built up in my building. You know that all of these things escape the notice of many of those who have believed, and it is good it escapes the notice. And each of us thinks, since he has not been an idolater, since he has not been immoral—would that we were pure in such areas—that after he has been set free from this life, he will be saved. We do not see that “all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive either good or evil according to what he has done in the body.”

How then does the prophet say, “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived”? Can God deceive? I am at a loss how I can accommodate the word. For if through God and his Word I do see something in it, what will be said requires suitable accommodation.…It suffices to express a single useful example for what has been presented. When guiding children, we speak to children; and we do not speak to them as we do to mature people, but we speak to them as children who need training, and we deceive children when we frighten children in order that it may halt the lack of education in youth. And we frighten children when we speak through words of deceit on account of what is basic to their infancy, in order that through the deceit we may cause them to be afraid and to resort to teachers both to declare and to do what is applicable for the progress of children.
We are all children to God, and we need the discipline of children. Because of this, God, since he cares about us, deceives us, even if we do not perceive the deceit beforehand, lest as those who have gone beyond the infant we may no longer be trained through deceit but through acts. In one way the child is led into fear, in another way into progressing in age and crossing beyond the age of childhood.

We must understand that the deceit of God is of another kind from our deceit with which we deceive.… God does not tyrannize but rules, and when he rules, he does not coerce but encourages, and he wishes that those under him yield themselves willingly to his direction so that the good of someone may not be according to compulsion but according to his free will.… In sum, God seeks a way, in a manner of speaking, whereby one would want to do with free will what God wishes. The tradition then also was saying to me something like this: He wants to send Jeremiah who prophesies to all of the nations and before all of the nations to the people, but since the prophecies have had something quite gloomy—for they imparted punishments with which each according to his deserts will be punished—and he knew the choice of the prophet, who does not want to prophesy to the people Israel what is bad, for this reason he arranged to say, “Take this cup, and make all the nations to whom I commissioned you drink.” God then ordered Jeremiah to take the cup, but when he urged him in taking the cup of unmixed wine, he says, “And I commission you to all of the nations with this cup of unmixed wine.” But after Jeremiah heard that he was sent to all of the nations as one who supplied them a cup of anger, a cup of punishments, since he did not guess that also Israel was about to drink from the cup of punishment, since he was deceived, he took the cup from which all of the nations drink. After he took the cup, he heard, “And cause Jerusalem to drink first.” Since then it seemed to be one way and happened to him in another, for this reason he then said, “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived.”

So since the healer sometimes keeps hidden the surgical knife under the tender and soft sponge, and also the father conceals the affection through the appearance of threat, and the deceits—some of which take away the tumors and varicose veins and whatever else weakens the condition of the body … something then such as this is what the prophet has understood that God does in mystery, and he says, when he sees in what ways he was deceived for good reason by God, “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived.” It brought him to so great a grace that he prayed and said to God, “Deceive me, if this is beneficial.” For the deceit from God is one thing, the deceit from the Serpent another. See what the woman says to God, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate,” and the deceit from the serpent caused Adam and his woman to leave the paradise of God. But the deceit that happened to the prophet, who said, “You have deceived me, and I was deceived,” brought him to a very great grace of prophecy, by increasing in him power, by bringing him maturity and by being able to serve the will of the word of God without fearing people.Thus, when we also consider these things, for the present and for the future, let us also pray to be deceived by God, and let not the serpent deceive us.

That people then were sick. There were all kinds of diseases among those who had the name of the people of God. God sent to them the prophets as healers. One of the healers was Jeremiah. He reproved the sinners, since he wanted those who do evil to return. Yet, though needing to hear what was said, they accused the prophet, and they accused before judges similar to themselves. And always the prophet was judged by those who, with respect to his prophecy, had been cured but were not cured because of their own disobedience. It is due to them that he says, "And I said, 'I will no longer speak nor name the name of the Lord.' But it happened as a burning fire flaming in my bones, and I am weakened on all sides, and I cannot bear it." He said, seeing himself as one who always is judged, abused, accused and falsely testified against, "Woe is me, mother. What kind of man did you bear me?" He was not speaking as a man who judges but as one who is judged, and not as one who disputes but one who is disputed over all of the earth. Since those who are sick do not hear him when he advises for their good and well being, he says, "I have not helped."