Origen's allegorical sermon on Jeremiah's linen loincloth (Jer 13) and the fall of Jerusalem, read as figures of sin, clergy accountability, and the church replacing Israel.
This homily is one of Origen's surviving sermons on the book of Jeremiah, delivered to a congregation and moving associatively through several linked scriptural passages rather than a single continuous argument. It opens by asking who speaks the line "because of me all the earth was utterly laid waste," identifying the voice as Christ, and reading Jerusalem's devastation both historically (the killing of the prophets and finally of "the Christ of God") and morally, as the waste laid on the sinful "earth" within a person when the fleshly works die off under Christ's teaching, described as a sword rather than a peace.
From there Origen turns to clerical accountability, using "their allotted portions will not profit them" to warn that ordination itself saves no one -- presbyters, deacons, and the bishop bear graduated degrees of responsibility, and Jesus' parable of the faithful and unfaithful steward is invoked to press the point. A section on boasting follows, contrasting worldly boasts (wealth, birth, clothing, houses, even wisdom) with Paul's paradoxical boasting in weakness, imprisonment, beatings, and shipwreck.
The homily's centerpiece is an extended allegorical reading of Jeremiah 13's sign-act: the prophet buries a linen loincloth at the Euphrates until it rots. Origen treats the loincloth as Israel and Judah, worn by God and then discarded for sin, and detours into a striking exegesis of Ezekiel's vision of a fiery-and-amber divine body to explain why the "lower" parts of God are associated with begetting and fire while the "upper" parts are the more precious amber. He closes by explaining linen's processing from black flax to bright cloth as a figure for the soul's purification, and declares that God, having cast off the loincloth of the old people, has woven himself a new one -- the church gathered from the nations -- with the warning that it too can be discarded if it fails to cling to the Lord.
“But when they had filled up "the measure of their fathers" and added to their having killed the prophets and persecuted the righteous”
— Homily on Jeremiah 11 · read this chapter →
“What do you think, that I came to cast peace upon the earth? I did not come”
— Homily on Jeremiah 11 · read this chapter →
“many presbyters too will perish, and many laypeople too will be shown blessed”
— Homily on Jeremiah 11 · read this chapter →
“Most gladly, then, will I boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell upon me”
— Homily on Jeremiah 11 · read this chapter →
“We are black at the beginning of believing, and that is why at the beginning of the Song of Songs it is said: "I am black and beautiful."”
— Homily on Jeremiah 11 · read this chapter →
It is a sermon that moves through several passages of Jeremiah, reading Jerusalem's destruction as a figure for the death of sinful desires in the believer, warning clergy that rank does not guarantee salvation, contrasting worthy and unworthy boasting, and giving an extended allegorical reading of Jeremiah's buried linen loincloth as Israel discarded and the church newly woven in its place.
Origen identifies the linen loincloth that Jeremiah buries and later finds rotted at the Euphrates with Israel and Judah, whom God had worn close like a garment; when the people sinned, God discarded them as the prophet discards the ruined loincloth, and then wove himself a new loincloth, the church gathered from the nations.
He reads Ezekiel's description of God as fire below the waist and amber above it as teaching that the parts of the divine body associated with begetting need the purification of fire, while the upper, non-generative parts are likened to amber, described as more precious even than gold.
Citing "their allotted portions will not profit them," Origen insists that holding a clerical position -- presbyter, deacon, or bishop -- does not by itself save anyone, and that greater rank brings greater accountability, illustrated through Jesus' parable of the faithful and unfaithful steward.
He rejects boasting in wealth, noble birth, fine clothing, houses, and even wisdom, holding these up as things to be ashamed of, and instead commends Paul's boasting in the cross of Christ and in his own weaknesses, imprisonments, and beatings.
Yes -- he closes the homily warning that just as God discarded the first people for their unfaithfulness, the church, gathered from the nations as God's new loincloth, is not spared automatically either and must remain worthy of clinging to God.
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