Origen's sermon on Jeremiah's potter's-house vision, reading the clay-vs-fired-earthenware images as figures for moral correctability, Israel and the church, and God's accommodating 'human' speech.
This homily takes as its text Jeremiah 18, where the prophet is told to go down to the potter's house and watch a vessel spoiled in the potter's hand be reshaped into another. Origen opens by distinguishing two vessel-images running through Jeremiah: the clay vessel, which can be broken and remade because it is still soft, and the already-fired earthenware jar, which once shattered has no remedy. He reads this as a picture of moral life: as long as we live, we are still 'clay' in the potter's hands, correctable even after falling into vice, but once the fire of death or judgment hardens us, no further remaking is possible.
From there Origen moves to the passage's parable of two nations - one under threat of destruction, one under promise of building and planting - and identifies them as Israel, judged and scattered after rejecting the 'chief physician,' and the church gathered from the nations, itself warned that it too can be cut off if it proves unfruitful. He works through the axe laid to the root of the trees, the barren fig tree, and the image of being grafted onto 'the mountain,' which he identifies with Christ rather than any literal geography.
The homily's most sustained argument concerns divine 'repentance': how can Scripture say God changes his mind about a nation's fate without making him either a poor counselor or a liar? Origen resolves this by treating such language as accommodation - God speaking to human beings the way an adult lisps to a small child, adopting threats, anger, and uncertainty ('perhaps they will listen') not because he is ignorant of the future but in order to safeguard human free will and provoke real repentance. He extends this into a meditation on the 'three waters' of Jeremiah 18:14 (the rock, the snow of Lebanon, and wind-driven water), allegorized as thirst for God the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and closes examining what it means to 'burn incense in vain' - prayer offered without a rightly ordered heart, exemplified by Judas.
“There are two visions read in succession in Jeremiah, of which the first concerns the clay vessel in the potter's hand, which admits of correction after being broken (for it can be reshaped), while the other vision concerns the earthenware jar, which once shattered has no remedy.”
— Homily on Jeremiah 18 · read this chapter →
“For this reason, as long as we are here, being as it were in the potter's hand, even if the vessel falls from his hands, it still admits of remedy and of being remade.”
— Homily on Jeremiah 18 · read this chapter →
“The first nation to come into being was Israel; the second, from the coming of Christ, is this nation.”
— Homily on Jeremiah 18 · read this chapter →
“For I cannot conceive of a wise man repenting; rather, one who repents, so far as the ordinary use of the word goes, repents because he did not counsel well. But God, being one who foreknows the future, cannot fail to counsel well, and therefore cannot repent.”
— Homily on Jeremiah 18 · read this chapter →
“He does not pretend, then, to know what is to come concerning you, so that he might preserve your free will by not having anticipated it or foreknown it beforehand”
— Homily on Jeremiah 18 · read this chapter →
It is a sermon on Jeremiah 18:1-17, the potter's-house vision, where a spoiled clay vessel is reshaped in the potter's hands. Origen reads the still-soft clay versus fired, unmendable earthenware as a figure for whether repentance is still possible, then works through the chapter's oracle about a nation threatened and a nation promised, applying both to Israel and the church.
Origen argues that a truly wise, foreknowing God cannot literally change his mind, so scriptural language of God 'repenting' of threats or promises is an accommodation to human understanding, like an adult using baby talk with an infant. Its purpose is to preserve human free will and provoke genuine repentance, not to describe real divine uncertainty.
Origen identifies the nation under threat of being uprooted as Israel, judged and scattered for rejecting and killing 'the chief physician' (Christ), and the nation under promise of building and planting as the church drawn from the nations - which he warns is likewise capable of falling away if unfruitful.
For Origen the clay vessel represents a person still living: capable of being broken by vice yet still remade because the clay has not yet been hardened by fire. Once fired into earthenware - a figure for death or final judgment - breakage becomes irreversible.
The rock's breasts, the snow of Lebanon, and wind-driven water are allegorized by Origen as three simultaneous objects of spiritual thirst - God the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit - arguing that thirsting for only one or two, as he claims Jews and heretics do, leaves a person unable to truly drink from any.
Yes. Discussing prayer offered 'in vain,' Origen cites the line 'let his prayer become sin' as applying to Judas, presenting him as the extreme case of incense burned without a rightly ordered heart.
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