Origen of Alexandria

As long as a people serves God, they are not "delivered into the hands of plunderers." But when they "abandon the Lord" and begin to serve their own passions, then it is said of them that "God gave them over to shameful passions" and, again, "He gave them over to a reprobate mind, that they would do unsuitable things." Why? Because, he says, "they were filled with every iniquity, wickedness, fornication, greed" and all other evils. It was because "they served and worshiped Baal and Ashtaroth" that "God delivered them into the hands of plunderers and handed them over to their enemies." This, as I have often said before, the Jews read as though it were merely a record of past events. We, however, "for whose sake this was written," it is said, ought to know that if we sin against the Lord and against our own souls by indulging the desires of the flesh as though we were worshiping our God, we also betray ourselves and concede our apostolic authority into the hands of Zebulun. Listen, then, to [Paul] speaking about one who sins: "I delivered this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved." You can see, therefore, that it was not only through his apostles that God "delivered" sinners "over to their enemies," but even now, through those who govern the church and have the power not only of releasing but also of binding, sinners "are delivered for the destruction of the flesh" when they are separated from the body of Christ for their crimes.

Let’s observe how Ehud, whose name means “praise,” discharged his leadership. History teaches us, in its writings about King Eglon, how this most wise Ehud with particular skill and, if I may say, cunning but praiseworthy deception, would kill the tyrant Eglon, whose name means “round” or “circular.” It was necessary, then, to have the quality of judges of our people as was this Ehud, whose name means “praise,” so to cut through all his rolling motion and circuit of evil ways and to destroy the king of the Moabites. But Moabite is translated as “flow” or “effusion.” Who can the ruler or leader of this flowing and dissolute people be seen or understood to be, therefore, other than the word of that philosophy which adjudges pleasure to be the highest good, a philosophy which the word of the gospel, which has been compared to a sword, killed and destroyed? And this prophetic word would become enclosed within their belly and lowest stomach by means of the “ambidextrous” judge’s arguments, to extinguish the Moabites by assertion of the truth, enclosing also every sense of perverse doctrine and dull understanding “which extols itself and rises against the spiritual knowledge of Christ,” so that by acting thus and by doing battle with the word of God, each judge of the church may also become a praising Ehud, about whom the Lord would say, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few, so I will set you over many.”

What, therefore, does the web of all this mystical history show us? The woman Jael, that foreigner about whom Deborah's prophecy said that victory would be had "through the hand of a woman," symbolizes the church, which was assembled from foreign nations. But Jael's name means "ascent," for truly there is no route whereby one may ascend into heaven except "through the church of the manifold wisdom of God." She, therefore, while ascending from the corporeal to the spiritual and from the earthly to the heavenly, killed Sisera, who, as we have already said above, symbolizes the man of carnal or animal vices, for Sisera's name means "vision of a horse," concerning which Scripture teaches: "Do not become like horses and mules, in which there is no understanding." She killed him with a stake, then, which is to say that she overthrew him by the power and cunning of the wood of the cross. Nor is it without reason that the stake is described as having pierced his jaws, for that mouth which spoke of carnal things and that doctrine which preferred the glory of the flesh, deceiving and persuading the human race, by secular wisdom and by the idolatry of comfort, to live for selfish delights and pleasure, that very mouth, I say, is pierced and penetrated by the wood of the cross, in as much as the "broad and easy way" of pleasure which is preached by philosophy has been exposed by Christ, who showed that the "way of our salvation is narrow and difficult." [Thus], Jael the church sent Sisera the king of vices to his everlasting sleep covered with skins, that is, lulled to sleep by the mortification of his members.

The “land was at rest” as long as sin was at rest. But the land is said to be disturbed, meaning those who inhabit the land, when the souls of the people began to move and to dislocate in sin. This is why the text was written this way: “The land was at rest for forty years. And the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years. And Midian ruled over Israel.” As long as there was justice in the land, therefore, that is, in those who inhabited the land, the land is said to be at rest. But when iniquity arose and “they did evil in the sight of the Lord,” then the Lord is said to have delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years. Nor are the Midianites said to have ruled over the people of the Lord as long as they observed the commandments of the Lord. But when they began to neglect the divine mandates, the hand of their enemy became stronger and more powerful against them. Yet, whereas their bodily enemies arose and strengthened against them when the first people failed, against us, on the other hand, who are called the spiritual Israel, a spiritual enemy will arise and the hand of demons will be strengthened when we neglect the commandments of God and hold the precepts of Christ in contempt, and we will be delivered to our own enemies when we forsake God’s grace.

But now let’s see why, in the first sign, “dew fell upon the fleece, whereas the ground was dry,” and in the second sign, “dew fell upon the ground, while the fleece remained dry,” an indication which Gideon accepted as a pledge that the Lord would save Israel through his hand. The rationale for this mystery is to be seen in what I remember from one of our preceding books, which characterized the people of Israel as a “fleece,” with the surrounding ground being the Gentiles, while the dew that fell “upon the fleece” was the word of God written for this people alone. For only to Israel did the dew of the divine law arrive, whereas all the surrounding nations remained dry, none of them being infused with the moisture of divine locution. In the second sign, however, where he asked that the dew fall on the ground and that the fleece remain dry, a completely different rationale can be observed. We should see this entire people, who were gathered together from nations around the world, now having within themselves the divine dew; see them infused with the dew of Moses, irrigated by the word of the prophets; see them green from evangelical and apostolic water. The fleece, however, that is, the Jewish people, suffers aridity and dryness in the word of God, according to which it is written: “The children of Israel will be for a long time without king, without prince, without prophet; they will have no altar, no victim, no sacrifice.” You can see how they remain arid, how they are stricken with drought of the word of God.… Even the seventy-first psalm, as I have often discussed with them, moves me to this conclusion because, when it describes the advent of Christ, it foretells his coming as rain on a fleece and as showers on the earth. Here in Judges a fleece is mentioned and in the psalm, also, “fleece” is the word chosen. For he will “descend like rain,” it says, “on a fleece.” He descends, therefore, on that fleece of the people of circumcision and “like showers upon the earth,” meaning that our Lord Jesus Christ descends on the remainder of the earth, dripping upon us and bringing the “dew of heaven” to us Gentiles also, that we too may drink who were on the previously arid surrounding land.

The remaining sacrifices, of which those relating to the law are a symbol, are akin to this sacrifice. But in addition, the other sacrifices akin to this sacrifice seem to me to be the shedding of the blood of the noble martyrs. It was not in vain that the disciple John saw them standing beside the heavenly altar. "But who is wise, that he shall understand these things? Or intelligent, and he shall know them?"3Now comprehend, even if to a limited extent, the more spiritual sense of such sacrifices which cleanse those for whom they are offered; one must understand the sense of the sacrifice of the daughter of Jephthah who was offered as a burnt offering because of the vow of him who conquered the children of Ammon. She who was offered as a burnt offering consented to this vow, for, when her father said, "I have opened my mouth to the Lord against you," she said to him, "And if you have opened your mouth to the Lord against me, perform your vow."
Such accounts give an appearance of great cruelty to God to whom such sacrifices are offered for humanity's salvation. We need a generous and perceptive spirit in order to refute the reproaches made against providence and, at the same time, to make a defense of all the sacrifices insofar as they are rather mysterious and beyond human nature.

“There is none good but one, God the Father.” This word they declare is peculiar to the Father of Christ, who, however, is different from the God who is creator of all things, to which creator he gave no appellation of goodness. Let us see now if, in the Old Testament, the God of the prophets and the Creator and Legislator of the word is not called good. What are the expressions that occur in the psalms? “How good is God to Israel, to the upright in heart!” and, “Let Israel now say that he is good, that his mercy endures for ever,” the language in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.” As therefore God is frequently called good in the Old Testament, so also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is styled just in the Gospels. Finally, in the Gospel according to John, our Lord, when praying to the Father, says, “O just Father, the world has not known you.” And lest perhaps they should say that it was owing to his having assumed human flesh that he called the Creator of the world Father and styled him just, they are excluded from such a refuge by the words that immediately follow, “The world has not known you.” But, according to them, the world is ignorant of the good God alone. For the world unquestionably recognizes its Creator, the Lord saying that the world loves what is its own. Clearly, then, he whom they consider to be the good God is called just in the Gospels. Anyone may at leisure gather together a greater number of proofs, consisting of those passages, where in the New Testament the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is called just, and in the Old also, where the Creator of heaven and earth is called good; so that the heretics, being convicted by numerous testimonies, may perhaps some time be put to the blush.

Celsus then extracts from the gospel the precept, “To him who strikes you once, you shall offer yourself to be struck again,” although without giving any passage from the Old Testament that he considers opposed to it. On the one hand, we know that “it was said to them in old time, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” and on the other, we have read, “I say to you, Whoever shall strike you on the one cheek, turn to him the other also.” But as there is reason to believe that Celsus produces the objections that he has heard from those who wish to make a difference between the God of the gospel and the God of the law, we must say in reply, that this precept, “Whoever shall strike you on the one cheek, turn to him the other,” is not unknown in the older Scriptures. For thus, in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, it is said, “It is good for a person that he bear the yoke in his youth: he sits alone and keeps silence, because he has borne it on him. He gives his cheek to him that strikes him; he is filled full with reproach.” There is no discrepancy, then, between the God of the gospel and the God of the law, even when we take literally the precept regarding the blow on the face. So, then, we infer that neither “Jesus nor Moses has taught falsely.” The Father in sending Jesus did not “forget the commands that he had given to Moses”: he did not “change his mind, condemn his own laws and send by his messenger counter instructions.”

Celsus in the next place, as if he were able to tell certain secrets regarding the origin of evils but chose rather to keep silence and say only what was suitable to the multitude, continues as follows: “It is sufficient to say to the multitude regarding the origin of evils, that they do not proceed from God but cleave to matter and dwell among mortal things.” It is true, certainly, that evils do not proceed from God; for according to Jeremiah, one of our prophets, it is certain that “out of the mouth of the most High proceeds not evil and good.” But to maintain that matter, dwelling among mortal things, is the cause of evils, is in our opinion not true. For it is the mind of each individual that is the cause of the evil that arises in him, and this is evil (in the abstract); while the actions that proceed from it are wicked, and there is, to speak with accuracy, nothing else in our view that is evil. I am aware, however, that this topic requires very elaborate treatment, which (by the grace of God enlightening the mind) may be successfully attempted by one who is deemed by God worthy to attain the necessary knowledge on this subject.

When Celsus adds, “We must therefore believe that people are entrusted to certain beings who are the keepers of this prison house,” our answer is that the souls of those who are called by Jeremiah “prisoners of the earth,” when eager in the pursuit of virtue, are even in this life delivered from the bondage of evil; for Jesus declared this, as was foretold long before his advent by the prophet Isaiah, when he said that “the prisoners would go forth, and those who were in darkness would show themselves.” And Jesus, as Isaiah also foretold of him, arose as “a light to them that sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,” so that we may therefore say, “Let us break their bands asunder and cast their cords from us.” If Celsus, and those who like him are opposed to us, had been able to sound the depths of the Gospel narratives, they would not have counseled us to put our confidence in those beings whom they call “the keepers of the prison house.” It is written in the Gospel that a woman was bowed together and could not lift up herself. And when Jesus beheld her and perceived from what cause she was bowed together, he said, “Ought not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound, lo, these eighteen years, to be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?” And how many others are still bowed down and bound by Satan, who hinders them from looking up and who would have us to look down also! And no one can raise them up, except the Word that came by Jesus Christ and that inspired the prophets: And Jesus came to release those who were under the dominion of the devil; and, speaking of him, he said with that depth of meaning that characterized his words, “Now is the prince of this world judged.” We are, then, indulging in no baseless calumnies against demons but are condemning their agency on earth as destructive to humankind, and we show that, under cover of oracles and bodily cures and such other means, they are seeking to separate from God the soul that has descended to this “body of humiliation, and those who feel this humiliation exclaim, “O wretched being that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

He who sits on the white horse is called Faithful, not because of the faith he cherishes but of that which he inspires, because he is worthy of faith. Now the Lord Jehovah, according to Moses, is faithful and true. He is true also in respect of his relation to shadow, type and image; for such is the Word who is in the opened heaven, for he is not on earth as he is in heaven; on earth he is made flesh and speaks through shadow, type and image. The multitude, therefore, of those who are reputed to believe are disciples of the shadow of the Word, not of the true Word of God who is in the opened heaven. Therefore Jeremiah says, “The Spirit of our face is Christ the Lord, of whom we said, In his shadow shall we live among the nations.” Thus the Word of God who is called faithful is also called true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war, since he has received from God the faculty of judging in very righteousness and very judgment and of apportioning its due to every existing creature. For none of those who have some portion of righteousness and of the faculty of judgment can receive on his soul such copies and impressions of righteousness and judgment as to come short in no point of absolute righteousness and absolute justice, just as no painter of a picture can communicate to the representation all the qualities of the original. This, I conceive, is the reason why David says, “Before you shall no living being be justified.” He does not say, no human, or no angel, but no living being, since even if any being partakes of life and has altogether put off mortality, not even then can it be justified in comparison with you who are, as it were, life itself. Nor is it possible that one who partakes of life and is therefore called living should become life itself, or that one who partakes of righteousness and, therefore, is called righteous should become equal to righteousness itself.Now it is the function of the Word of God, not only to judge in righteousness but also to make war in righteousness, that by making war on his enemies by reason and righteousness, so that what is irrational and wicked is destroyed, he may dwell in the soul of one who, for his salvation, so to speak, has become captive to Christ and may justify that soul and cast out from it all adversaries. We shall, however, obtain a better view of this war that the Word carries on if we remember that he is an ambassador for the truth, while there is another who pretends to be the Word and is not, and one who calls itself the truth and is not, but a lie. Then the Word, arming himself against the lie, slays it with the breath of his mouth and brings it to naught by the manifestation of his coming.