Origen's opening homily on Jeremiah, reading the prophet's call (Jer 1) as both literal history of warning-before-judgment and a figure of Christ.
Homily on Jeremiah 1 is the first sermon in Origen's surviving cycle of homilies on the book of Jeremiah, delivered to a congregation and preserved (in the Greek fragments and Jerome's Latin) as part of the earliest extant systematic Christian preaching on that prophet. Origen opens with a general principle about God's character: God is quick to do good but slow to punish, and never condemns in silence but always sends warning first, so that repentance remains possible. He illustrates this from Nineveh, from Sodom and Lot, and then turns to the historical notice that frames Jeremiah's book -- that the prophet spoke from the thirteenth year of Josiah until the Babylonian captivity -- reading it as proof that God kept sending warning through the very reign that ended in exile.
The homily's center is a close reading of God's words to Jeremiah at his call: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you... I have set you today over nations and kingdoms, to root out and to tear down, to build and to plant." Origen works through which of these phrases can be applied to Christ and which cannot -- "I do not know how to speak, for I am too young" resists a straightforward christological reading, and he wrestles with the problem rather than forcing an easy allegory, eventually arguing that Christ's professed "not knowing" is itself a mark of transcendence (comparing it to "I never knew you" spoken to the wicked in the Gospels). He also treats the call's language of uprooting and planting nations and kingdoms as chiefly about the soul: kingdoms and nations of sin -- fornication, greed, slander -- that God's word tears down before it can plant anything better.
The homily matters as a primary document of Origen's exegetical method in practice: moving from a plain historical note in the biblical text, to a moral lesson for the hearers (captivity awaits those who sin, as it awaited Jerusalem), to a christological test-case handled with real argumentative caution, and finally to an allegorical reading of nations and kingdoms as the vices within an individual soul. It shows the preacher, not just the theorist, at work on a text verse by verse before a live congregation.
“God is ready at hand for doing good, but slow to punish those who deserve punishment.”
— Homily on Jeremiah 1 · read this chapter →
“God condemned Jerusalem for her sins, and they had been judged to be abandoned to captivity.”
— Homily on Jeremiah 1 · read this chapter →
“How then can we refer these things to the Savior? Bring forward as witness the Old Testament: "for before the child knows good or evil, he refuses what is evil so as to choose the good."”
— Homily on Jeremiah 1 · read this chapter →
“Do not think, then, that Jeremiah has received some grim gift from God, because he is appointed "over nations and over kingdoms, to root out."”
— Homily on Jeremiah 1 · read this chapter →
“What Jeremiah suffered has been recorded: he was cast into a pit of mud, and remained there "eating one loaf of bread a day" and drinking only water”
— Homily on Jeremiah 1 · read this chapter →
It is the opening sermon in Origen's cycle on Jeremiah, working through the prophet's call narrative in Jeremiah 1 -- his sanctification before birth, his commission to be set 'over nations and kingdoms, to root out and to tear down, to build and to plant.' Origen reads it first as history showing God's patience with Jerusalem before its fall, then tests how much of it applies to Christ, then allegorizes the nations and kingdoms as sins within the soul.
Partly, and he says so explicitly. Phrases like being sanctified from the womb and sent 'to all to whom I shall send you' fit Christ, but 'I do not know how to speak, for I am too young' does not fit easily -- Origen wrestles with this line rather than forcing it, eventually arguing Christ's 'not knowing' human speech reflects his transcendence over merely human language.
He reinterprets the language figuratively: the 'nations and kingdoms' Jeremiah is set over are not literal empires but the many sins in a soul -- kingdoms of fornication, greed, slander -- which God's word must uproot and tear down before better things can be planted in their place.
Isaiah confessed unclean lips and was purified by a seraph touching his mouth with a coal from the altar, since he was a sinner in that limited sense. Jeremiah, sanctified from the womb and never guilty of such sin, was instead touched directly by the hand of the Lord -- a mark, Origen argues, of his exceptional purity.
He uses them as proof that God never condemns without warning: Nineveh was warned through Jonah and given three days, and the angels at Sodom gave Lot's household a chance to flee, establishing the principle that Jeremiah's long prophetic career was likewise God's extended warning to Jerusalem before the Babylonian captivity.
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