Origen's homily allegorizing John the Baptist's Isaiah quotation (Luke 3) as the soul's inner leveling and preparation for baptism and repentance.
This homily belongs to Origen's series of sermons on Luke's Gospel, delivered to a congregation that includes catechumens preparing for baptism. Its text is the quotation of Isaiah applied to John the Baptist in Luke 3: "every valley shall be filled... and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." Rather than treating this as geography, Origen reads each image morally and psychologically: the valley is the soul sunk low before belief, filled by the Holy Spirit's good works; the mountains and hills brought low are the hostile powers, and also Israel's former height now humbled so that the nations might be grafted in; the crooked places made straight are each person's twisted character straightened by Christ's coming not merely 'in the flesh' once in history but into the individual soul now.
The homily then turns to John's harsher preaching to the crowds going out to baptism -- 'brood of vipers' and the warning of coming wrath -- which Origen applies directly to the catechumens in front of him, urging them to produce 'fruits worthy of repentance' before the font. He works through the saying that God can raise up children for Abraham from stones, reading 'stones' as the pagan nations who once worshiped literal idols of stone and wood and so became senseless like them, quoting the psalm 'let those who make them become like them.' He closes with a citation from the Song of Moses (Exodus) about peoples being 'turned to stone' until Israel passes through, understood as the nations' temporary hardness giving way to a human, rational nature in Christ once Israel's history has run its course.
The homily is a compact example of Origen's exegetical method: a prophetic text is first affirmed as historically fulfilled, then immediately re-applied as an ongoing event in the individual believer's moral life, with Paul ("I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me") supplied as proof that the pattern still repeats. It also shows Origen preaching pastorally and polemically at once, addressing baptismal candidates by name as a class while working through a supersessionist reading of Israel and the nations.
“But when the Lord Jesus came and sent his vicar, the Holy Spirit, ‘every valley was filled.’”
— Homily on Luke 22 · read this chapter →
“For what good does it do you that Christ once came in the flesh, unless he has also come to your soul?”
— Homily on Luke 22 · read this chapter →
“So John speaks the words that follow to the crowds who are going out to the washing — not to those who have already gone out, but only to those striving to go out.”
— Homily on Luke 22 · read this chapter →
“A great wrath hangs over this age; the whole world is destined to suffer the wrath of God.”
— Homily on Luke 22 · read this chapter →
“Truly, those who make idols and put their trust in them become like their gods: without sense, turned by no reasoning into stones and wood.”
— Homily on Luke 22 · read this chapter →
It is a sermon on the Isaiah prophecy quoted at John the Baptist's preaching in Luke 3 -- 'every valley shall be filled, every mountain brought low, the crooked made straight.' Origen reinterprets each image as a description of the individual soul's condition before and after Christ's coming, then applies John's call to repentance directly to the baptismal candidates listening to him.
He reads the valley as a person's low, sunken state before belief, filled by the Holy Spirit with good works and virtues such as charity, peace, and patience, so that the person becomes not just level but a 'mountain' of God.
He identifies the humbled mountains and hills partly with hostile spiritual powers and partly with the people of Israel, who were once elevated but have been 'brought down' so that, through their transgression, salvation was extended to the nations, echoing Paul's language of provoking Israel to jealousy.
Citing the Song of Moses, he says God asks that the nations be turned to stone only temporarily, until Israel has 'passed through'; afterward the stony nations will lose their hardness and receive a human, rational nature in Christ.
Origen addresses catechumens directly -- men and women preparing for baptism -- applying John the Baptist's warnings ('brood of vipers,' 'produce fruits worthy of repentance') to them as people currently going out toward the baptismal washing.
Yes, he cites Galatians' formula 'I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me,' using Paul as proof that Christ's coming into a soul is not a one-time historical event but something each believer can still experience.
Commentary on John, Book 1 · Commentary on John, Book 10 · Commentary on John, Book 2 · Commentary on John, Book 4 · Commentary on John, Book 5 · Commentary on John, Book 6 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 10 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 11 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 12 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 13 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 14 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 15