Origen's homily on Luke's shepherds at Bethlehem, read allegorically as guardian angels assigned to nations, cities, and individual souls.
This is the twelfth of Origen's homilies on the Gospel of Luke, preached to his congregation in third-century Caesarea. It takes as its text the angel's announcement to the shepherds at Bethlehem: "Today a Savior is born to you, who is Christ the Lord." Origen first gives the plain moral sense - the shepherds represent the shepherds of the churches, who cannot properly guard their flocks unless Christ, the true shepherd, works alongside them - before moving, as he regularly does, to what he calls the more hidden understanding.
In that hidden reading, the shepherds of the Gospel become angelic governors: spiritual beings assigned to oversee human affairs generally, and specific nations and provinces in particular. Origen names examples - an angel over Egypt, over Macedonia, over Achaia and Ephesus - and argues from Paul's Macedonian vision in Acts that such angels sometimes reach human beings directly. He extends the same scheme to the individual: every person has two angels present to them, one of righteousness and one of iniquity, so that good thoughts signal the first at work and evil thoughts the second. Before Christ's coming, he argues, even the good angels over the nations achieved little - only a scattered proselyte here or there, which he supports by citing the law that Egyptians and Edomites, once excluded, may enter Israel's assembly in the third generation. After the incarnation, those same angels, strengthened by Christ's presence, succeed in bringing whole peoples to the faith, and the homily closes with a call to become, in place of "carnal Israel," a "spiritual Israel."
The homily matters as a compact demonstration of Origen's exegetical method: a plain pastoral sense stated briefly, then set aside for a cosmological one built from cross-references (the Apostle's language of "fellow workers," Ephesians 4's list of church offices, the Macedonian-vision episode, the Torah's rule on Egyptian and Edomite proselytes). It also shows his live picture of the world as administered by contending angelic powers - a scheme he uses elsewhere and that later readers found among his more controversial positions.
“He did not come to Jerusalem, he did not seek out the scribes and Pharisees, he did not enter the synagogue of the Jews, but he found shepherds keeping watch over their flocks”
— Homily on Luke 12 · read this chapter →
“there were certain angels who were shepherds, who governed human affairs, and, since each of them kept his own watch and, keeping vigil day and night, could no longer bear the labor”
— Homily on Luke 12 · read this chapter →
“are in our heart and righteousness springs up in our soul, there is no doubt that the angel of the Lord is speaking to us. But if evil thoughts have been at work in our heart, the angel of the devil speaks to us.”
— Homily on Luke 12 · read this chapter →
“when the angel of the Egyptians was helping the Egyptians, scarcely one proselyte believed in God; and this happened while the angel was administering the Egyptians”
— Homily on Luke 12 · read this chapter →
“let us rise up and praise the Lord, and become, instead of the carnal Israel, the spiritual Israel”
— Homily on Luke 12 · read this chapter →
It is a sermon on the angel's announcement to the shepherds at Bethlehem (Luke 2). Origen reads the shepherds first as church leaders who need Christ's help to guard their flocks, then allegorically as angelic governors set over nations and individuals.
In this homily he argues yes: he names an angel over Egypt, one over Macedonia, one over Achaia, and one over Ephesus, and reasons that good and bad angels both preside over the same provinces depending on the people's response.
He extends the national scheme to individuals, teaching that two angels are present to each person - one of righteousness and one of iniquity - so that good thoughts indicate the first is at work and evil thoughts the second.
He cites Paul's dream-vision (from Acts) of a Macedonian calling him to 'come over into Macedonia and help us' as evidence that the angel governing that province could reach a human being directly, in need of Christ's help.
Origen closes by urging his hearers to become the spiritual Israel in place of the carnal Israel, using Israel as a figure for the church that inherits the promises through faith rather than physical descent.
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