Origen's homily on Luke 7:24-30 (John the Baptist's austere life and the crowds' excess devotion to him) turns into a warning against loving anyone -- even Christ -- more than the rule of truth allows.
Homily 25 in Origen's series on the Gospel of Luke takes as its starting point the crowds' extravagant admiration for John the Baptist -- his desert life, his diet of locusts and wild honey, his camel-hair tunic and leather belt -- and the fact that some of them wondered whether John himself might be the Christ. Origen uses this as a case study in a problem he thinks is common and dangerous: love, even good and well-founded love, sins when it exceeds its proper measure. Admiration for a genuinely holy person can tip over into claiming more for him than is true.
Origen widens the lens to the apostle Paul, noting that Paul himself feared being credited with more than he actually was, and reports (with visible distaste) that some groups had gone so far as to identify Paul with the seats at Christ's right and left hand, or even with the promised Spirit of truth -- clear examples, for Origen, of love curdling into doctrinal error. He also turns the same charge on his own congregation: people praise his preaching in terms his conscience cannot accept, while others slander his writings by attributing to him views he has never held; both excess of love and excess of hatred, he says, abandon the rule of truth.
From there the homily becomes a meditation on the command to love God 'with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength' (Deut 6:5 / Luke 10:27), and the puzzle of how a Christian can also love Christ without dividing love between Father and Son. Origen's resolution is that Father and Son are not rival objects of love: one loves God in Christ and Christ in God, without splitting the total devotion owed to the one God. He closes by quoting Paul's confidence that nothing in life or death, present or future, height or depth, can separate the believer from God's love in Christ Jesus.
“For if someone exceeds the measure and limit of love, both the one who loves and the one who is loved will be in sin.”
— Homily on Luke 25 · read this chapter →
“he had made himself a tunic 'of camel's hair' and was girded with 'a leather belt.'”
— Homily on Luke 25 · read this chapter →
“for many, while loving us more than we deserve, boast of it and speak, praising our sermons and our teaching in ways our conscience does not accept.”
— Homily on Luke 25 · read this chapter →
“Love the Lord your God in Christ, and do not think you can have a different love for the Father and for the Son.”
— Homily on Luke 25 · read this chapter →
“nor can any force, nor anything high, nor anything deep, nor any other created thing”
— Homily on Luke 25 · read this chapter →
It is a sermon on the passage where crowds marvel at John the Baptist's austere life and wonder whether he might be the Christ. Origen uses this to argue that love, even for a genuinely holy person, sins when it exceeds its proper measure, and extends the point to devotion, criticism, and love of God.
Origen describes John's diet of locusts and wild honey, his camel-hair tunic and leather belt, his lack of purse, servant, or house, and his life in the desert wilderness as the reasons the crowds admired him -- so much so that some wondered if he was the Christ.
Yes. He reports that some had gone so far as to claim Paul sat at Christ's right hand, with Marcion at the left, and that others identified Paul with the promised Spirit of truth -- examples of love for a great teacher curdling into false doctrine.
He teaches that Father and Son are not two separate objects competing for a person's total devotion; rather one loves 'the Father in the Son, the Son in the Father,' loving God and Christ together with all one's heart, soul, and strength.
Yes, briefly. He says some in the church praise his sermons in terms his own conscience cannot accept, while others slander his writings by accusing him of views he has never actually held -- both, he says, abandon the rule of truth.
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