Origen's homily on Luke 4's temptation narrative, reading the devil's stone-to-bread demand as a figure for heretical teaching mistaken for true doctrine.
Homily on Luke 29 is one of Origen's surviving sermons on the Gospel of Luke, delivered to his congregation in Caesarea and preserved only in Jerome's Latin translation. It takes up Luke 4:1-13, the account of Jesus being led into the desert by the Spirit after his baptism and tempted by the devil for forty days, culminating in the devil's demand that he turn a stone into bread.
Origen opens by explaining how Jesus and the apostles can each be described as "full of the Holy Spirit" without being equal, using the image of vessels of different sizes -- a pint, a jar, an amphora -- each filled completely according to its own capacity. He then works through the temptation account clause by clause: why the forty days' temptations were never recorded (they were too great to entrust to writing, just as not everything Jesus did could be written), why the devil points to "this stone" rather than simply asking for bread, and why the reply "man shall not live by bread alone" must belong to Jesus considered as man, since God cannot be tempted. The homily's most memorable turn allegorizes the stone as the false doctrine of named heretics -- Marcion, Valentinus, Basilides -- each of whom, in Origen's telling, got the devil to turn his own stone into bread that his followers now feed on in place of the true word of God.
Origen closes by explaining why John's Gospel omits the temptation narrative (John begins with the eternal Word rather than the man born of Mary, and it is the man who is tempted), and by drawing a pastoral moral: since the Son of God took on temptation as a man for our sake, we should not be indignant when we are tempted, but should imitate his victory, since to become like him is our destiny. The homily matters as an example of Origen's typical method -- close grammatical attention to the Gospel text paired with moral and polemical allegory aimed at contemporary heresies.
“if you wished to say: these vessels are full of wine or oil, you do not thereby indicate that they are full in equal measure -- since one vessel can hold a pint, another a jar, another an amphora”
— Homily on Luke 29 · read this chapter →
“so too the world could not have borne the temptations of those days, by which the Lord was tempted by the devil, had Scripture told of them.”
— Homily on Luke 29 · read this chapter →
“Marcion said it, and the devil's stone became”
— Homily on Luke 29 · read this chapter →
“there is another bread, the word of God, which gives life to man”
— Homily on Luke 29 · read this chapter →
“since God cannot be tempted, and it was of God that he was speaking, he therefore does not introduce him as tempted by the devil”
— Homily on Luke 29 · read this chapter →
It is a sermon on Luke 4:1-13, the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Origen explains the forty days of fasting, the devil's demand to turn a stone into bread, and Jesus' reply that man does not live by bread alone.
He compares believers to vessels of different sizes -- a pint, a jar, an amphora -- each completely full according to its own capacity, so Jesus and the apostles can all be truly 'full' without being equal.
He argues they were too great to be entrusted to writing, comparing this to John's statement that the world could not contain all the books if everything Jesus did had been recorded.
Origen allegorizes it as false doctrine: he names Marcion, Valentinus, and Basilides as heretics who each turned their own 'stone' into a counterfeit bread that their followers mistakenly feed on instead of the true word of God.
Because John begins his Gospel from the eternal Word existing with God, not from the man born of Mary, and it is specifically the man, not God, who is tempted; Matthew, Luke, and Mark tell the story of the man.
Since the Son of God took on temptation as a man for our sake, believers should not resent being tempted themselves but should imitate his victory, with the hope of becoming like him.
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