Origen's homily on the angels' announcement at Christ's birth (Luke 2), explaining why the heavenly host proclaims peace only now, and what it means.
This homily is Origen's exposition of the angelic announcement at the nativity in Luke's Gospel: "Glory be to God among the highest, and upon earth, peace to men of good will." Origen asks why the angels sing this only at Christ's birth, and answers with an extended image: angels are like junior physicians who have done everything in their power to heal the sick, but who see that human sickness (sin) exceeds their remedies, so when the chief physician arrives they do not envy him but break into praise. The angels, he says, had labored on humanity's behalf but could not accomplish salvation without the Lord himself.
Origen then works through an apparent contradiction: the angels proclaim peace on earth, yet Jesus elsewhere says he came not to bring peace but a sword, and also promises "my peace I give to you." Origen resolves this by insisting on the qualifying phrase "to men of good will" — the peace withheld is not the same peace given to those of good will; the two sayings describe different peaces for different recipients.
The homily's middle section turns to ecclesiology: each church, Origen argues, has two bishops, one visible (the human bishop) and one invisible (a guardian angel), both of whom are praised or blamed by the Lord for how well they have carried out their stewardship, citing the letters to the churches in Revelation. He extends this to argue that angels and their human counterparts labor together for the salvation of the congregation and will be judged together. The homily closes with the shepherds hurrying to Bethlehem and finding Joseph, Mary, and the child in the manger, which Origen reads through Isaiah's line about the ox and the donkey knowing their master's stall — the unclean donkey (the nations) recognizing the manger while Israel, the prophet says, did not know or understand.
“But the "multitude of the heavenly host" says this because it had already ceased to be able to offer help to human beings, and it saw that it could not accomplish the task entrusted to it without him”
— Homily on Luke 13 · read this chapter →
“let some chief physician arrive, who has the highest knowledge in the art, and let those who previously could not heal, seeing the decay of the wounds cease at the master's hand, not envy him, not be tormented with jealousy, but break out into praises of the chief physician”
— Homily on Luke 13 · read this chapter →
“in each individual church there are two bishops, one visible, the other invisible — the one exposed to the sight of the flesh, the other to perception.”
— Homily on Luke 13 · read this chapter →
“It was not the people of Israel who knew the manger of its lord, but an unclean animal from among the nations”
— Homily on Luke 13 · read this chapter →
It is an exposition of the angels' announcement of peace at Christ's birth in Luke's Gospel. Origen explains why the angels sing this only now, using an analogy of physicians who could not cure a disease until a chief physician arrived, and then addresses an apparent contradiction with other sayings of Jesus about peace and the sword.
He says the angels had labored to help humanity but recognized that their remedy was insufficient for the disease of sin; when the true healer, the Lord, arrived and succeeded where they could not, the angels responded with praise rather than envy, comparing them to junior physicians deferring to a chief physician.
He resolves the tension by pointing to the qualifying phrase 'to men of good will' in the angels' proclamation. The peace Christ withholds from the world in general is not the same peace given specifically to those of good will, so the two sayings are not truly contradictory.
He claims each church has two bishops, one visible (the human bishop) and one invisible (a guardian angel), both of whom are praised or blamed by the Lord depending on how well they have carried out their stewardship of the congregation, citing the letters to the churches in Revelation.
Origen reads Isaiah's image of the ox and donkey knowing their master's stall as a figure for the nations recognizing Christ at the manger, in contrast to Israel, who the prophet says did not know or understand him.
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