Origen's allegorical sermon reading Jeremiah 17's partridge as the devil, and the chapter's laments as the soul's choice between Christ and the world.
Homily on Jeremiah 17 is one of Origen's surviving Greek sermons on the book of Jeremiah, delivered to a congregation and preserved through Rufinus's textual tradition (with several lacunae in the manuscript). It takes up Jeremiah 17:11, "The partridge called out, it gathered what it did not bear," and works through the natural history of the partridge - reputed in antiquity to be malicious, unclean, and deceitful, luring hunters away from its nest - before arguing that despite the impiety of comparing anything to the Savior, the verse actually describes the devil, who steals and claims for himself creatures he did not make.
From there Origen moves through the rest of the chapter verse by verse: the partridge who "gathered what it did not bear" becomes an image of heretics - Valentinus, Marcion, Basilides - who deceive the simple among believers and gather converts that belong properly to Christ. The theme of abandonment ("in the middle of its days they will abandon it") is turned into a meditation on sin as abandoning Christ, since to sin against righteousness, holiness, peace, or wisdom is to abandon the one who is each of those things. The homily also treats the contrast between names written in heaven and names written on earth, and closes with an extended reading of Jeremiah's prayer "Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed," applying it to the sick soul's need of the one true physician.
The sermon matters as a concrete example of Origen's homiletic method: taking a strange or seemingly unworthy scriptural image (an unclean bird) and finding in it, verse by verse, a coherent moral and christological reading addressed directly to a congregation weighing worldly comfort against following Jesus. It also preserves, in passing, a rare heresiological aside naming specific Gnostic teachers as instances of the partridge's "calling out."
“The partridge called out, it gathered what it did not bear, making its wealth not with judgment; in the middle of its days they will abandon it, and at its end it will be a fool.”
— Homily on Jeremiah 17 · read this chapter →
“The partridge called out through Valentinus, the partridge called out through Marcion, it called out through Basilides, through all the heterodox; for none of them was able to say the voice of Jesus”
— Homily on Jeremiah 17 · read this chapter →
“For committing injustice he abandons righteousness, and becoming profane he abandons sanctification, and making war he abandons peace, and coming under the enemy's power he abandons redemption”
— Homily on Jeremiah 17 · read this chapter →
“Anyone who wants to be healed of the sickness of his soul can say with confidence, "Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed."”
— Homily on Jeremiah 17 · read this chapter →
“Let each of us desire the day of the resurrection of the saints, not that day about which it is written: "Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord; for it is darkness and not light."”
— Homily on Jeremiah 17 · read this chapter →
It is a sermon on Jeremiah 17, focused on the verse about a partridge that 'gathered what it did not bear.' Origen argues the partridge represents the devil, who steals converts that rightly belong to Christ, and he extends the chapter's language of abandonment into a broader teaching on sin and repentance.
Jeremiah 17:11 compares an unjust person to a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay. Origen first surveys what ancient natural history says about partridges - that they are malicious, unclean, and deceive hunters to protect their nests - then applies that image to the devil's deception of believers.
He names Valentinus, Marcion, and Basilides as voices through which the 'partridge called out,' deceiving simple believers, in contrast to the genuine voice of Jesus heard in Paul and Peter.
Origen reads Jeremiah's language of people 'abandoning' God as a description of specific sins: committing injustice abandons righteousness, becoming profane abandons sanctification, making war abandons peace, and being outside wisdom abandons wisdom itself, since Christ is each of these things.
Commenting on Jeremiah's prayer 'Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed,' Origen says this can only rightly be said to Christ, the true physician, contrasting him with the woman with the flow of blood who spent everything on doctors who could not cure her.
No - the manuscript has several lacunae (missing passages), including one significant gap during Origen's discussion of the serpent's cleverness, which the translation marks explicitly rather than papering over.
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