Origen's sermon on Jeremiah 13, reading the 'wineskins filled with wine' oracle and the 'dark mountains' passage as allegories of moral character, divine punishment, and hidden versus open hearing of Scripture.
Homily on Jeremiah 12 is one of Origen's surviving preached sermons on the book of Jeremiah, delivered to a congregation that included catechumens and clergy. It works through two passages: first, the oracle in which God tells Jeremiah to warn the people that 'every wineskin will be filled with wine,' and second, a later oracle commanding the people to 'hear and give ear' and 'give glory to the Lord our God before it grows dark... before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains.' Origen refuses to let either text sit at the literal level, since taken literally the wineskin saying is simply false (some skins hold oil, not wine).
His allegorical solution treats every human being as a 'wineskin' filled with the wine appropriate to their character - the bitter wine of Sodom and Gomorrah for the wicked, the wine wisdom mixes in her bowl for the virtuous. He extends this into an extended meditation on the 'cup' imagery elsewhere in Jeremiah and the Gospels, distinguishing the unmixed cup of pure punishment, the mixed cup given to those who are partly good and partly sinful, and the cup of the new covenant that Jesus gives at the Last Supper. From there he defends divine severity against Marcionite-style objections (the charge that a God who says 'I will not spare, nor pity' cannot be good), using the analogies of a judge who cannot pardon a popular murderer and a physician who must cut and cauterize despite the patient's pain - punishment serves the community, not only the individual.
The homily's second half turns to 'dark mountains' and 'shining mountains' (identified with holy angels, prophets, and apostles versus the devil and demonic powers), and closes with a sustained contrast between hearing Scripture 'openly' - the way Origen says contemporary Jews keep the Sabbath, Passover, and Day of Atonement without perceiving their fulfillment in Christ - and hearing it 'hiddenly,' the spiritual reading that recognizes Christ as the true Passover lamb and Yom Kippur atonement. It matters as a compact display of Origen's homiletic method: moving verse by verse from an implausible literal sense to a moral and then a christological register, while using the sermon to warn his own congregation, not just outsiders, that their 'flock' too can be shattered by lawlessness and cooling love.
“There are, at any rate, wineskins filled with oil or some other liquid substance”
— Homily on Jeremiah 12 · read this chapter →
“so that the punishment may be either more diluted for you, or sharper and more burdensome”
— Homily on Jeremiah 12 · read this chapter →
“If he is pitied, he will return to the same deeds; but if he is not pitied, he himself will die, while the community will be made better”
— Homily on Jeremiah 12 · read this chapter →
“The self-controlled person glorifies God; the one who lives licentiously dishonors God”
— Homily on Jeremiah 12 · read this chapter →
“the flock of the Lord has been shattered”
— Homily on Jeremiah 12 · read this chapter →
It is a preached sermon working through two Jeremiah oracles - the 'every wineskin will be filled with wine' saying and the 'dark mountains' warning - reading both allegorically as teachings about moral character, divine punishment, and how Scripture should be heard. Origen treats human beings as wineskins filled with either good or bad 'wine' according to their virtue or vice.
He answers critics ('those from the heresies') who cite Jeremiah's 'I will not spare, nor pity' as evidence the God of the Old Testament is not good. Origen argues a judge who spares a popular murderer harms the community, and a physician who spares the pain of cutting or cauterizing lets the disease spread - so divine severity serves the many, not cruelty toward the one.
He distinguishes hearing the law and prophets 'openly,' as he says contemporary Jews do when they keep Passover, unleavened bread, the Sabbath, and Yom Kippur literally, from hearing them 'hiddenly' - recognizing, for example, that Christ is the true Passover sacrificed and the true atonement 'concerning our sins... and also concerning the whole world.'
Origen identifies the 'shining mountains' as God's holy angels, Moses, the prophets, and the apostles, and the 'dark mountains' as the devil, the demonic 'rulers of this age,' and even the demon in the boy the disciples failed to cast out. People 'stumble' when they come to associate with the dark mountains rather than the shining ones.
Yes. He cites Proverbs - 'when a pestilent man is scourged, the fool becomes more shrewd' - to argue that observing others punished teaches bystanders wisdom, just as 'the transgression of Israel proved beneficial for the salvation of the gentiles.'
Origen cites Jesus giving his disciples the cup at the Passover meal as an 'unmixed' cup of blessing - 'this is my blood, which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins' - contrasting it with the unmixed cup of pure wrath in Jeremiah and the mixed cup of partial punishment for those who are partly virtuous, partly sinful.
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